Summary

Most well-functioning families are communist. Remember Mark’s founding principle, “From each according to their ability, and to each according to their needs.” Don’t families function that way, with the parents doing all they can to meet the needs of their children?

Links and References

Social Trust

Economic Definitions

Zero Sum Game

Common Goals

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Transcript

Most well-functioning families are communist. Remember Mark’s founding principle, “From each according to their ability, and to each according to their needs.” Don’t families function that way, with the parents doing all they can to meet the needs of their children?

Families are:

Small; hey even with 12 kids, this is still a very small unit.

Homogeneous. Even a mixed-race family is far more homogeneous than any society.

Trusting: Most families enjoy a level of mutual trust. Again, compare this with even the most trusting society.

Aware of responsibilities: Everyone has a role or roles.

The very definition of “Pay it forward”: Parents sacrifice for their children. Those very children will most likely respond to that modeling and those behaviours, and do the same for their children. And so on, and so on. And it is possible that some children will one day need to sacrifice for their parents. N. B. All of this work and sacrifice is done voluntarily, not by government mandate. That’s key.

Is there a useful comparison between how families think and act and how societies with governments think and act? Yes. Let’s look two different ways of applying this:

Remember, we said “well-functioning” families. Societies that resemble the well functioning family are small, homogeneous, trusting, aware of the individual responsibilities, and are OK with being heavily taxed in order to help each other and to “pay it forward.” In these societies, democratic socialism, an adaptation of communism, a adaptation of Family Communism if you will,  has a better chance of working here than elsewhere. Scandinavian countries are a good example. And even there, they are pulling back from that model. As those countries become more diverse, they have become less trusting. The why of that is another discussion.

Societies that are not all of the above, especially trusting, are correctly not OK with being heavily taxed in order to help each other and to pay it forward. Democratic socialism would be stillborn in these societies. The US falls into this category. And it is deeply wrong to cite the success-to-date that Scandinavian countries have experienced with democratic socialism as a means of supporting that philosophy in the US.

The irony here is that the very people who are making the case for creating and deepening divisions in our society, the US, by emphasizing identity groups and pitting some against others are also calling for heavy taxation and redistribution. Worse, they want the identity groups they vilify the most to pay the most. How on earth do they think that will fly?

Hillary Clinton, the Democrat’s standard bearer in the 2016 Presidential election, used “Better together.” as a key campaign slogan. I agree; to that extent, “I’m with her.” At the core, we are one identity group: Americans. There are vitally useful differences between and amongst the different ethnicities and the genders. Different geographies can add some powerfully useful differences as well. We must get it that these differences need to be used to our overall advantage,