Dingo the Dissident

THE BLOG OF DISQUIET : Qweir Notions, an uncommonplace-book from the Armpit of Diogenes, binge-thinker jottings since 2008 .

Monday 26 October 2015

The main - if not the only - problem with socialism

is its historical attraction to centralisation
- which, sooner or later, destroys it.

4 comments:

Marcus Billson said...

What's your take on the hippie communes of the US in the 60's and 70's? They weren't centralized, they sought after a pure democratic socialism, but they failed. At some point socialism tends toward the autocratic, not quite the same thing as toward centralization.

Wofl said...

Each hippie commune quickly became centralised - someone always became boss, because the others had not the wit to realise that true community depends on bosslessness. The same is true of the Israeli Kibbutz pseudo-communes, which were/are hierarchical and very controlled. No commune works unless - for a start - paternity is not an issue and monogamy is viewed as merely a life-choice and no more. Property and hierarchy begin with the owning of children.

Marcus Billson said...

I guess you're right that bossism is the same as larger societal administrative centralization. Bosses did emerge in communes, true, the passive accepting meekly the tyranny of the egotistical, until silently they slipped away in the night leaving the egotists to rant on their own. Too bad--really.

Wofl said...

Some communes did survive and still do so. I know of two or three. The word 'commune' is not helpful, of course. 'Co-operative' is better.