neomercantilism, trade

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx 08/31/01 07:26PM >>>
Charles wrote:

<<<Yes, but the claim is that with the abolition of private
property it will be possible to abolish poverty and war. There will
always be new forms of struggle for humanity, with costs and risks,
but everyone can be free of material want, at least as compared with
how it is now.>>>

Why would abolishing private property free people from material want?

((((((((

CB: "Private property" is a shorthand expression for exploiting and exploited classes, which is the basis for rich and poor. So, its end would be an end to rich and poor.

))))))))


I can
understand the theoretical argument that abolishing private property would
free people from poverty, but is not material want relative and unrelated to
absolute levels of wealth?  Do not many wealthy people act as if they want
even more material wealth?  And is that not a constant across history,
culture, and economic system?

(((((((

CB: To answer in brief, there is significant anthropological evidence that in hunting and gathering and gardening based societies there is not the distinction between rich and poor we know, for example in indigenous American societies. These societies did not have private property in the sense I mean here. Unlimited acquisativeness is not "human nature" as perhaps implied in one of your questions.

 On the other hand, capitalism especially has increased technological development enormously, such that there is , well, a lot of stuff produced shall we say.

Marx and Engels' idea was that a kind of combination of the old communalism with the new level of technology would mean the "lots of stuff" distributed without classes, without rich and poor, would mean no poverty or material want in the sense that we mean poverty today. Everyone would be guranteed all the material basics of living.

This does not mean that new problems would not emerge, such as global warming or exhaustion of fossil fuels or issues we cannot anticipate now.  These problems would require new efforts, discoveries and solutions, but the old problems of class societies would not be among the new ones.