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Originally Posted by chezlaw
Interesting post. It may also be that capitalism relied on factors such as advances in communication and technology making possible political systems that previously weren't viable.
The same sort of thing may be true of forms of socialism. Maybe the necessary step to make it viable is technology rendering human labour largely valueless - then it can't be exploited. If that's combined with plenty of wealth creation then it's not hard to imagine that capitalism failing and the options becoming a few very rich lords or some form of socialism.
If you subscribe to the idea that humans existed before the class system existed, then you will be open to the idea of "primitive communism", a system that pre-dates class. The fundamental difference between class and primitive communism is that there is no surplus production. Humans lived according to immediate need, hunting and gathering for supplies for shelter and food. There is no need for classes under this system because there is no ownership, no need for protection of property, no theft, no need for the means to raid others' supplies and so on. Shelter would be built according to need and only the necessary food would be hunted/gathered. So there is no authority needed to control the surplus, so there is no financial exchange, or even bartering for supplies because there is no hoarding. I can only guess that because of changing seasons, we evolved a system of hoarding supplies to live through the winter months. This creates a need for administration, and eventually for ownership. Perhaps different tribes would barter with others for their surpluses depending on what was required, hence more complex languages would develop. Then you get educational inequality as well as inequality of ownership.
A modern communism would produce according to need, but there would still be be need to produce a surplus to avoid famine and natural disasters. So ownership has to be collective, control systems have to be democratic, there can be no overall leader, leaders being necessary only when competing tribes/countries exist, hence it has to be a global system with no centralised power, no capital, no Borders, no law except a common moral code for how people treat each other, the land and resources.
Technology certainly helps this process, removing the need for back breaking labour. Though under communism such tasks would be shared, many tasks are unnecessary such as mining for expensive but useless minerals etc.