[Markopi]

Originally Posted by stolen

Please expand on this--specifically on what exactly "anarcho-communism" means. If communism is a command economy, then the term is an oxymoron. That is certainly the meaning applied to "communism" when one refers to the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Communitarianism could make sense anarchically. But then what's the difference between anarcho-communitarianism and anarcho-capitalism/individualism? Since neither can be controlled (being anarchic), if one considers oneself an anarcho-communist/communitarian instead of an anarcho-capitalist/individualist, the one is merely asserting an opinion of what one believes would happen in an anarchic state, since two types of anarchy cannot by definition have policy differences.

Furthermore, you write that "originally libertarianism meant opposition to all authority." What exactly does this mean? Is there any difference between public authority ("get off my ****ing land or I'll call the police") and private authority ("get off my ****ing land or I'll shoot you") from this perspective? Would "original libertarians" be opposed to one's defending oneself, since it requires power and any power confers a form of authority?

Edit: To Ktoyou: the test is at http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

Exactly as I said. The word libertarian was invented by the French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque . Anarcho-communism can actually be taken to be repetitive since all forms of communism involve a stateless society, but anarcho-communists usually reject having a long-lasting transition stage. (Anarcho)-communism operates under a gift economy, not a state-controlled economy. There is no state to talk of, nor is there money, nor classes.

Not all power conforms to authority. Anarcho-communists believe that if the matter only pertains to you, you're the only person who has a say in it, and if it pertains to other people, the participants have an equal say. That's why private property and "rights" is an oxymoron when taken in context to mean someone can own the means of production without harming others.


Calling the Soviet Union/China communist is like calling Pinochet's Argentina libertarian capitalist. Maybe in rhetoric.

[azrael777]

Originally Posted by Dopey Gigglz

This is complete speculation. The CATO Institute has run similar stories:



Source



Source

CNN is on to him.

Faux News is on to him.

ABC is on to him.

Granted, he can lie and lie all he wants and the American public will still fawn over him because he is a Baptist preacher. That doesn't mean the sane won't try.

You can trust the media if you like, I for one will trust what my gut and history tells me. You go right along and buy what cato and the media sells you. His record speaks for itself.

Originally Posted by Dopey Gigglz

Yep. Take more money from the people and dump it into those very efficient govt. programs.

It was voted on by the Arkansas people. It is called democracy, check it out it is pretty cool.

Originally Posted by Dopey Gigglz

"Fund state healthcare obligations."
Nuff said there.

So you think that the government has no health care obligations? Do you believe that the government has no role in health care at all?

Originally Posted by Dopey Gigglz

It's called cutting spending. Raising taxes is the Socialist solution.

More than 90% of the state's budget is spent on education, Medicare, prisons, and human services. So which one do you cut?? Was Reagan a socialist?

[Ktoyou]

Edit: To Ktoyou: the test is at http://www.politicalcompass.org/test

I scored between were they placed Margaret Thatcher and George Bush R =6.2 A=4.6, While Thatcher appears R=5, Bush appears out on R approximately a 7. I doubt they would score such without reinterpretation of the meaning of the questions.

I took the test a second time and scored R=6.25 and A=4. I tried to answer the same other than being more accepting of some social issues.

Anyone who takes the test will reinterpret the test to some degree and if you are unaware as to how you reinterpret the test, you will get a false score. The test is reliable yet biased

[stolen]

Originally Posted by Markopi

Exactly as I said. The word libertarian was invented by the French anarcho-communist Joseph Déjacque . Anarcho-communism can actually be taken to be repetitive since all forms of communism involve a stateless society, but anarcho-communists usually reject having a long-lasting transition stage. (Anarcho)-communism operates under a gift economy, not a state-controlled economy. There is no state to talk of, nor is there money, nor classes.

Not all power conforms to authority. Anarcho-communists believe that if the matter only pertains to you, you're the only person who has a say in it, and if it pertains to other people, the participants have an equal say. That's why private property and "rights" is an oxymoron when taken in context to mean someone can own the means of production without harming others.


Calling the Soviet Union/China communist is like calling Pinochet's Argentina libertarian capitalist. Maybe in rhetoric.

The problem with all this political terminology, of course, is that it changes. "Liberalism," in America at least, went from meaning individual rights to corporate rights to communal rights. "Conservatism" has also changed over the years, and today both terms are used so broadly that two people could disagree with each other vehemently and still label themselves as the same term (for example, Rothbardian Libertarians and Neo-Conservatives). Making an argument about the original coinage of the word rather than its contemporary meaning is silly and pointless--I could frustrate an opponent all day by claiming that FDR wasn't "liberal" only to reveal that I'm using a definition of liberal that is 200 year out of date. When I referred to the Soviet Union as "communist," I meant specifically to question your definition of the term, since that is what it has meant in America for the last seventy years.

At any rate, I question the idea of a "gift economy." From the Wikipedia article, the examples it gives strike me as nothing different than a form of the market economy, except that the benefit to the "giver" is not always immediate and material. The first example is blood banks--but, like any charity, the good conscience of helping another is a reward, though it not be physical or monetary. If I give 10 dollars to Salvation Army instead of buying a new watch, I've placed a higher value on my conscience than on a watch. Other examples given, such as sharing research and open-source software, demonstrate even more clear examples of rewards. If I'm developing open-source software/freeware, then there are any number of rewards for my work: The good feeling that comes from rebelling against Microsoft, or that from helping other developers and the general population, and generally the belief that through my actions I am benefiting the community as a whole, which, aside from conscience, benefits me as a member of that community.

From Wikipedia, "in a typical gift economy, gift recipients are expected to give something in return." This implicates that a gift giver expects to receive something in return, although maybe not from the specific recipient.

My point is that I still see no reason why a "gift economy" can't be explained in terms of self-interest, as a market system is--that is to say, why a gift economy is not just a different incarnation of a market. The whole reason barter systems are developed is because we can't trust the other six billion people of the world to not be miserly. In other words, a gift economy carries no inherent security, and thus must either be enforced (which is then not anarchy) or require that every member voluntarily subscribe to a particular philosophy (which is not realistic).

As economists say, individual markets will find the most efficient way to work. In the case of research (or information generally), a barter system would be ridiculous and inefficient; a "gift economy" is to the individual benefit of each participant, and is consistent with the self-interest of every researcher. Similarly, private property generally only has reason to exist so long as it is ultimately beneficial. On the one hand, patents give researchers opportunity to be rewarded for their work; on the other hand, file sharing by individuals and work by artists such as Trent Reznor and Courtney Love show that the RIAA's copy write system is inefficient and unwanted in the community of music consumers. The industry appears to be moving toward a gift system, which is perfectly consistent with market ideology.

[Markopi]

With all my respect going into this post, I must point out your first paragraph was frivolous. I never dismissed right-libertarians from using the word libertarian to describe their beliefs. I simply stated the difference between a constitutionalist, who believes in states' rights, and a libertarian, who believes in the people's rights. Ron Paul belongs to the former ideology more than he does the latter.

Indeed in many parts of the country, and world, libertarian is still exclusively used to describe the Left and not socially liberal; economically conservative. To assume that it's an oxymoron to be a communist and libertarian is to not understand either ideology. There is a stark difference between the communist state and the theory put forward by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Karl Marx. It would be like me comparing Pinochet's Argentina to the theory of right-libertarians.

Secondly, to say the gift economy is not much different than a market economy is to make a huge mistake. The noticeable difference is that there is no physical currency of exchange. Anarcho-communists seek to eliminate the very same characteristics attached to work that we have in our head when we hear the word. The belief of communists is that people are not lazy but rather they do not participate in activities outside of their interests and which treat them as subservients to others.

A growing number of economists are espousing beliefs that are quite heterodox to market economics. Partially due to the waning role scarcity plays, partially due to the failures of liberalization (East Europe) in comparison to more moderate approaches (Brazil, China).

The internet is a clear example that gift economy, communism, are viable.

[Wessex Man]

Originally Posted by stolen

Please expand on this--specifically on what exactly "anarcho-communism" means. If communism is a command economy, then the term is an oxymoron. That is certainly the meaning applied to "communism" when one refers to the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. Communitarianism could make sense anarchically. But then what's the difference between anarcho-communitarianism and anarcho-capitalism/individualism? Since neither can be controlled (being anarchic), if one considers oneself an anarcho-communist/communitarian instead of an anarcho-capitalist/individualist, the one is merely asserting an opinion of what one believes would happen in an anarchic state, since two types of anarchy cannot by definition have policy differences.

Pure anarchy is probably impossible, but extreme decentalism and libertarianism might work out.

Communism simply means distribution according to need, it can be authoritarian or libertarian, centralised or decentralised. And the USSR et al called their states socialist btw not communist, in Marxism communism must be stateless and classless(although iy doesn't have to be generically.).

Anarcho-communists simply believe in extremely decentralised and libertarian communual arrangements and also, unlike many Marxists, libertarian and bottom up ways of creating it.

Furthermore, you write that "originally libertarianism meant opposition to all authority." What exactly does this mean? Is there any difference between public authority ("get off my ****ing land or I'll call the police") and private authority ("get off my ****ing land or I'll shoot you") from this perspective? Would "original libertarians" be opposed to one's defending oneself, since it requires power and any power confers a form of authority?

They are against defending property which creates authoritarian and hierarchical relationships, they believe in direct occupancy and use property rights.

[Wessex Man]

The problem with all this political terminology, of course, is that it changes. "Liberalism," in America at least, went from meaning individual rights to corporate rights to communal rights. "Conservatism" has also changed over the years, and today both terms are used so broadly that two people could disagree with each other vehemently and still label themselves as the same term (for example, Rothbardian Libertarians and Neo-Conservatives). Making an argument about the original coinage of the word rather than its contemporary meaning is silly and pointless--I could frustrate an opponent all day by claiming that FDR wasn't "liberal" only to reveal that I'm using a definition of liberal that is 200 year out of date. When I referred to the Soviet Union as "communist," I meant specifically to question your definition of the term, since that is what it has meant in America for the last seventy years.

I'm quite a tolerant libertarian and decentralist and interested in all different traditions, left and right, capitalist and socialist. The problem is not that the American style libertarians use the word but they try and monopolise it in the US despite the fact that globally I'd guess leftwing libertarians still out number the American kind which are generally restricted to the US and those interested in US politics.

I just want to be able to call myself a libertarian on an international message board and people not assume I'm a follower of Mises, Rand or Friedman etc

As economists say, individual markets will find the most efficient way to work.

Yeah but neoclassical microeconomics is so absurd it is a joke. It relies on poor analysis and modelling methods for the subject, absurd assumptions and is internally inconsistent.

"Economics has increasing become an intellectual games played for its own sake and not for its practical consequences. Economists have gradually converted the subject into a sort of social mathematics in which analytical rigor as understood in math departments is everything and empirical relevance (as understood in physics departments) is nothing . . . general equilibrium theory . . . using economic terms like 'prices', 'quantities', 'factors of production,' and so on, but that nevertheless is clearly and even scandalously unrepresentative of any recognisable economic system. . .

"Perfect competition never did exist and never could exist because, even when firms are small, they do not just take the price but strive to make the price. All the current textbooks say as much, but then immediately go on to say that the 'cloud-cuckoo' fantasyland of perfect competition is the benchmark against which we may say something significant about real-world competition . . . But how can an idealised state of perfection be a benchmark when we are never told how to measure the gap between it and real-world competition? It is implied that all real-world competition is 'approximately' like perfect competition, but the degree of the approximation is never specified, even vaguely . . .

"Think of the following typical assumptions: perfectly infallible, utterly omniscient, infinitely long-lived identical consumers; zero transaction costs; complete markets for all time-stated claims for all conceivable events, no trading of any kind at disequilibrium prices; infinitely rapid velocities of prices and quantities; no radical, incalculable uncertainty in real time but only probabilistically calculable risk in logical time; only linearly homogeneous production functions; no technical progress requiring embodied capital investment, and so on, and so on -- all these are not just unrealistic but also unrobust assumptions. And yet they figure critically in leading economic theories." Mark Blaug ["Disturbing Currents in Modern Economics", Challenge!, Vol. 41, No. 3, May-June, 1998]

I think Hayek and his dispersed knowledge and others on the "fringe" are the rightists who are most correct.

[Ktoyou]

NuGnostic,

I was just now thinking about you on this topic. I bet you will have fun with these guys

[ApologeticJedi]

Originally Posted by azrael777

He wants to see a constitutional amendment banning abortion in all forms. How is this bad?

What day of the week is it?

John Hawkins: Switching gears again, do you think we should overturn Roe v. Wade?

Mike Huckabee: It would please me because I think Roe v. Wade is based on a real stretch of Constitutional application -- that somehow there is a greater privacy issue in the abortion concern -- than there is a human life issue -- and that the federal government should be making that decision as opposed to states making that decision.

So, I've never felt that it was a legitimate manner in which to address this and, first of all, it should be left to the states, the 10th Amendment, but secondly, to somehow believe that the taking of an innocent, unborn human life is about privacy and not about that unborn life is ludicrous.

I realize in New Hampshire he has changed tune. Not sure which Mike Huckabee to believe. I mean this quote is from THIS campaign for crying out loud!

Mike Huckabee (1861): I'm an abolitionist, but I feel it should be decided at the state level.

Originally Posted by azrael777

Is there another candidate who has a more pro life record or plan?

There are not a lot of good ones out there, but if you are going to go with someone who says it should be left up to the states to decide, why not go with someone who is at least conservative (ie. isn't a crackpot that wants to regulate things like FOOD for goodness sakes).

As far as who IS out there that is better; Alan Keyes is a better choice as far as the pro-life stance go (actually better in most categories). Tancredo was better too, although I think he is out of the race now (please correct me if I'm wrong).

[stolen]

Originally Posted by NuGnostic

Communism simply means distribution according to need, it can be authoritarian or libertarian, centralised or decentralised. And the USSR et al called their states socialist btw not communist, in Marxism communism must be stateless and classless(although iy doesn't have to be generically.).

Anarcho-communists simply believe in extremely decentralised and libertarian communual arrangements and also, unlike many Marxists, libertarian and bottom up ways of creating it.

But how is "distribution according to need" determined? If a man determines his own need, then the greedy and miserly take all and the kind are left to starve. Then there must be an enforcement mechanism to ensure fairness--but such a mechanism would be just another name for the state, and "communism" becomes another name for "command economy."

And how does this work with inter-communal relationships? What if one community decides that its members "need" something that another community has?

The only other possible enforcement mechanism is a totally shared ideology. However, for this to occur naturally is impossible in any grand way. I am always reminded of a utopian communal community in Virginia called Twin Oaks (modelled on B. F. Skinner's book Walden Two, which I once visited. It is the longest surviving such community in America--but has always had about 100 members and a turnover that averages a couple years (if I remember correctly). When people are given the choice to live communism, few do, and rarely for long.

They are against defending property which creates authoritarian and hierarchical relationships, they believe in direct occupancy and use property rights.

I don't understand this. If I own anything then that prevents others from using it; with ownership is my authoritarian power over its use and my elevated status with regards thereto. Any property can be considered authoritarian and hierarchical. If property is to exist, then there must be some objective or external mechanism to control it, which leads to the problems I've stated above. And how would non- or communal-property work? If the community owns a loaf of bread, then by eating it I have monopolized its use and prevented others from reaping its benefits. Then how should it be determined who eats the bread? To do it legally would be constitutionalism (in which case someone would have to enforce the constitution), by fiat requires authority, whether through some authority figure or democracy.

Perhaps I would do better to state this as a question: how are "direct property" and "use property rights" different from any other property rights which create authority or hierarchy? (Realistically, not theoretically.)

[The assumptions] are not just unrealistic but also unrobust assumptions. And yet they figure critically in leading economic theories.

That is a good point. (Although there is also the saying: "All models are wrong; some models are useful." Economists, like physicists, work with models because reality is either too complex or too difficult to ascertain.)

But I fail to see how that relates to what I've said. I have asserted that all economic decisions are value judgments, even though "value" is not necessarily monetary- or commodity-based, and that the "gift economy" is therefore still one in which every transaction is a value-exchange; and that a barter system is a natural consequence of economic relationships in large societies because we are unable to trust large groups of people--something that is clearly true.

Furthermore it strikes me as bizarre to point out that classical economics is unrealistic as some defense of communism/libertarianism. Such anarchic communitarianism is logically unrealistic and historically unfounded, at least on a large scale and operating on an entire economy. How does the statement "But how can an idealised state of perfection be a benchmark when we are never told how to measure the gap between it and real-world competition?" not apply to communism as well? (Except substituting "competition" for something more appropriate--"society" perhaps.)

[Markopi]

But how is "distribution according to need" determined? If a man determines his own need, then the greedy and miserly take all and the kind are left to starve. Then there must be an enforcement mechanism to ensure fairness--but such a mechanism would be just another name for the state, and "communism" becomes another name for "command economy."

Marx addressed need as being directly correlated with the environment. The needs of someone living in feudal Japan and (post?)-industrial America are completely separate; they are based on 1.) what the individual wants for himself and 2.) what the community is able to provide.

Market economies require external enforcement, either from a state or a "protection agency" which acts in the same manner of a state. Communism does not. Nobody will deny you from taking from the commonly owned stores food, ipods, computers, decorations, and clothing. However, unless radical technological development occurs, the workers and communities will deny someone ownership of a spacecraft.

And how does this work with inter-communal relationships? What if one community decides that its members "need" something that another community has?

"Hello, [insert worker council's delegate]. I'm [insert worker council number two's delegate]. We're greatly interested in the shoes you make. We'll give you our special food since we're an agricultural community."

Or, since there is no intellectual property, the workers at the original community can just replicate the shoe design.

I don't understand this. If I own anything then that prevents others from using it; with ownership is my authoritarian power over its use and my elevated status with regards thereto. Any property can be considered authoritarian and hierarchical. If property is to exist, then there must be some objective or external mechanism to control it, which leads to the problems I've stated above. And how would non- or communal-property work? If the community owns a loaf of bread, then by eating it I have monopolized its use and prevented others from reaping its benefits. Then how should it be determined who eats the bread? To do it legally would be constitutionalism (in which case someone would have to enforce the constitution), by fiat requires authority, whether through some authority figure or democracy.

Property rights are distinctively different on the Left than they are on the Right. Televisions, socks, and other items for personal use are viewed as possessions since their being owned and used doesn't intrude on other's liberty negatively. A school, factory, farm, or distribution center (store) directly affect others livelihood -- be it your wage, time, property value, or the general economy. The community can consent to giving away possessions to anyone who wants them, but they can't formulate "private property" because property is used to exploit others.

However, once possessions do affect other individuals (using a key to scratch someone's car), that item is now exploitative and the community's job is to take care of both the offender and the item.

"But how can an idealised state of perfection be a benchmark when we are never told how to measure the gap between it and real-world competition?"

Communism doesn't strike down competition. There will still be football games and workers trying to "beat" the other person's design. Instead communism opposes all forms of exploitative competition.

In fact communism is being realized right now. I already stated the internet is a prime example of P2P and freeware beating out the market. Since the 60s workers' co-ops have become increasingly popular. As technology advances the restraints a market system has on growth will become increasingly obvious. Private ownership over television is going into the history books. Building within the shell of the old world.

Communes set-aside from the real world often don't last because they still rely on the outside world, and how is a moneyless society supposed to import goods from a class/wage system? It's like a sovereign country with limited resources trying to stay economically isolationist. Instead they're forced to go the way of the Amish and unlike popular misconceptions communists strive for an economy that is evermore productive than even capitalism.

And given the numbers, communism should theoretically be ever more productive than any capitalist system could imagine -- and not wastefully so.

[yankeedoodled]

Political compass....
The test asks many of the social issues/conflicts of the day. I scored close to Pope Benedit XVI, who'd a thought, me a border line liberal ? ? ?

As for Huckabee, he makes me uncomfortable so far appearing to have his feet planted firmly on both sides/extremes of political issues of our day. Releasing the attack ads while declaring he wouldn't exascerbated my doubts about Huck. I have a somewhat liking of the guy, but serious doubts that even his being a preacher doesn't dispell thus far.

[Varangian]

Huckabee is something of enigma in this regard. In terms of how he actually governed in Arkansas, he would likely be best classifed as Center-Right being closer to the center on economic issues and closer to the right on social ones.

Now, in terms of what his actual beliefs are it gets a bit a trickier as despite his sometimes centrist governing and rhetoric he has ties to some extremely far right groups (such as Christian Reconstructionists) who have been very active in his campaign and were largely responsible for his victory in Iowa.

[azrael777]

Originally Posted by ApologeticJedi

What day of the week is it?

John Hawkins: Switching gears again, do you think we should overturn Roe v. Wade?

Mike Huckabee: It would please me because I think Roe v. Wade is based on a real stretch of Constitutional application -- that somehow there is a greater privacy issue in the abortion concern -- than there is a human life issue -- and that the federal government should be making that decision as opposed to states making that decision.

So, I've never felt that it was a legitimate manner in which to address this and, first of all, it should be left to the states, the 10th Amendment, but secondly, to somehow believe that the taking of an innocent, unborn human life is about privacy and not about that unborn life is ludicrous.

I realize in New Hampshire he has changed tune. Not sure which Mike Huckabee to believe. I mean this quote is from THIS campaign for crying out loud!

Mike Huckabee (1861): I'm an abolitionist, but I feel it should be decided at the state level.

There are not a lot of good ones out there, but if you are going to go with someone who says it should be left up to the states to decide, why not go with someone who is at least conservative (ie. isn't a crackpot that wants to regulate things like FOOD for goodness sakes).

As far as who IS out there that is better; Alan Keyes is a better choice as far as the pro-life stance go (actually better in most categories). Tancredo was better too, although I think he is out of the race now (please correct me if I'm wrong).

I think this sums up Huck's view on abortion.

Well, it's the logic of the Civil War. If morality is the point here, and if it's right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can't have 50 different versions of what's right and what's wrong. Again, that's what the whole Civil War was about. Can you have states saying slavery is OK, other states saying it's not? If abortion is a moral issue--and for many of us it is, and I know for others it's not. So if you decide that it's just a political issue, then that's a perfectly acceptable, logical conclusion. But for those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can't simply have 50 different versions of what's right. Source: Fox News Sunday: 2007 "Choosing the President" interviews Nov 18, 2007

While governor it would make since to be for state's rights on the issue. Knowing that the current administration would do nothing for the case of abortion and also knowing he could stop it in his state he would be compelled as a pro life governor to push for a state bill, he did and passed it.

[stolen]

Originally Posted by Markopi

Marx addressed need as being directly correlated with the environment. The needs of someone living in feudal Japan and (post?)-industrial America are completely separate; they are based on 1.) what the individual wants for himself and 2.) what the community is able to provide.

This doesn't address the problems I mentioned. See below:

Market economies require external enforcement, either from a state or a "protection agency" which acts in the same manner of a state. Communism does not. Nobody will deny you from taking from the commonly owned stores food, ipods, computers, decorations, and clothing. However, unless radical technological development occurs, the workers and communities will deny someone ownership of a spacecraft.

Let's consider a hypothetical communist society. There are 10 people living in it. There is a communal "store" that contains all of the society's food; specifically, it contains 10 loaves of bread. I decide that I want all 10 of them. Whoops, everyone else starves.

"Hello, [insert worker council's delegate]. I'm [insert worker council number two's delegate]. We're greatly interested in the shoes you make. We'll give you our special food since we're an agricultural community."

Isn't that precisely the definition of a barter economy? Switching the food first for gold and then for shoes is effectively the same thing.

Or, since there is no intellectual property, the workers at the original community can just replicate the shoe design.

And if they don't have the skills or the materials? What if the one community, proud of its shoes, jealously guards the secrets to their creation? But then that's not communism. So explain to me how communism is supposed to function unless everyone universally agrees to abide by it.

Property rights are distinctively different on the Left than they are on the Right. Televisions, socks, and other items for personal use are viewed as possessions since their being owned and used doesn't intrude on other's liberty negatively. A school, factory, farm, or distribution center (store) directly affect others livelihood -- be it your wage, time, property value, or the general economy. The community can consent to giving away possessions to anyone who wants them, but they can't formulate "private property" because property is used to exploit others.

However, once possessions do affect other individuals (using a key to scratch someone's car), that item is now exploitative and the community's job is to take care of both the offender and the item.

My point was that any possession, by nature of belonging to one person instead of another, affects other individuals. It all depends on how you choose to look at it. Let's say that both of us live in such a community; I have a house and you don't. I could argue that there is plenty of space and plenty of material for you to build your own house--therefore, I am not infringing on you. But you could say that you want your house where my house is, because it has a better view or nearer to the well or whatever, and therefore I am infringing on you, since I have no more right to that particular location or house than you do, regardless of how long I lived there or how much work I put into developing it. In an alternative scenario, all houses are communal, and anyone may come or go as they please; but physical space is still limited, and thus the same situation arises if I have decided to live somewhere, and necessitate a certain amount of space that you also want to use.

Furthermore, you have asserted that the community can act. But how does it do so? Say I key your car. You said that it is the community's job to remedy the situation. But that requires (A) some authoritative legal system, whether it be codified laws, a democratic institution, an oligarchy, a monarchy, or some other manner by which the community has a voice and can make decisions, or (B) a universally shared moral philosophy; in this case, every member of the community must be in agreement that to key someone else's car is "wrong" and every member must place a similar value on its "wrongness"--that is, any reprisal against me must be something which all members agree upon (because otherwise there would have to be some method by which to determine whose proposal for reprimand/repayment is, in which case we've returned to (A)). But in the latter situation, I must also agree to this system, and thus would not have committed the act in the first place, and thus (B) would imply some kind of perfect utopia or hive-mind communitarianism.

Communism doesn't strike down competition. There will still be football games and workers trying to "beat" the other person's design. Instead communism opposes all forms of exploitative competition.

Why would workers try to "beat" each others' designs? Why should I work harder than you if our situations are ultimately the same? If you are making shoes, and they function as shoes, why should I try to make "better" ones? In fact, wouldn't the community frown on that, since I'd be wasting time and resources simply making more of a product that already exists and is adequate?

I don't mean to say that such communism could never work in any market or any situation, or that nobody would ever try to improve a design or work harder simply for the sake of working harder. But assume that it could function just as well as barter-commodity-market-capitalism in every industry seems naive and unrealistic. (See below.)

In fact communism is being realized right now. I already stated the internet is a prime example of P2P and freeware beating out the market. Since the 60s workers' co-ops have become increasingly popular. As technology advances the restraints a market system has on growth will become increasingly obvious. Private ownership over television is going into the history books. Building within the shell of the old world.

As I said before, I recognize that sometimes it does work better. Just because people pay for something at one point in time doesn't mean that that system is the most efficient or that it will continue indefinitely. I even brought up the example of the music recording industry. Clearly I don't see such examples as inconsistent with anything I've said.

My point is that if a communist system works better for a certain industry, then that industry will use a communist system. This drive toward efficiency is perfectly consistent with the ideas of a free market, so long as one is willing to be open to the possibility that prices and rewards can be measured in ways other than money and commodities.

Communes set-aside from the real world often don't last because they still rely on the outside world, and how is a moneyless society supposed to import goods from a class/wage system? It's like a sovereign country with limited resources trying to stay economically isolationist. Instead they're forced to go the way of the Amish and unlike popular misconceptions communists strive for an economy that is evermore productive than even capitalism.

One of my greatest oppositions to communism has been that it requires everyone universally to adopt the same philosophy, and that this philosophy is not a natural one to adopt (or else it would exist in the broad sense that you idealize). Just as Twin Oaks has difficulty surviving as a communist society in capitalist America, Japan would have difficulty surviving as a communist society being so reliant on capitalist China and America.

To be perfectly honest, communism sounds great. But it has to (A) work theoretically and (B) work realistically. If everyone cooperated, if everyone were willing to work for the sake of working and be productive for the sake of production, then we would probably be much better off. But to this assertion, I require more convincing to believe that a communist system (on a large scale, meaning national or trans-national) could better respond to peoples' needs than the market. To (B), I fail to understand how communism could function without being either too easy to take advantage of or requiring a totalitarian enforcement mechanism (or the spectacular coincidence that everyone agrees on everything).

And given the numbers, communism should theoretically be ever more productive than any capitalist system could imagine -- and not wastefully so.

What numbers? (I don't mean that to be argumentative, but this is your first mention of "numbers," so I can't very well accept a conclusion you've drawn from a source I haven't seen.)