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woodenbandman
2009-10-15, 09:14 AM
I just had a fantastic idea while responding to one of the many paladin threads:

A communist paladin.

The idea came from this statement:

"There is such thing as a lesser evil. This is huge because most paladins I've heard stories about will beat a peasant for stealing. That is horribly wrong. That peasant needs that bread or coin or whatever he stole. The good thing to do would be to offer reparations to the owner, then try to help the peasant out"

So then I thought: well, what if the paladin gathered the peasants together, gave them jobs, got them to buy land, and start up a farm collective?

It's been demonstrated on countless occasions that communes don't work because the leaders are corrupt. But: if a paladin was the leader, and he trained at least 1 first level commoner in the ways of paladinhood for each of the communes...

Do we have a workable communist government?

Indon
2009-10-15, 09:21 AM
Well, it wouldn't collapse due to internal problems, more than likely. But mind that D&D (and fantasy in general, often) presents a universe in which external problems include things that can incinerate you by breathing aggressively at you.

The small utopian enclave that is ultimately threatened by a greater, external evil is, as such, an entirely workable concept in fantasy, and this is a great way to go about it.

paddyfool
2009-10-15, 09:22 AM
Eh. The problem with communism is that you'll never get the neutrals on board with it. Capitalism, you can get both neutrals and goods on board, because there'll always be a niche for work-because-of-altruism (volunteering etc., or choosing a lower paid, highly ethical job, for job satisfaction) as well as work-for-profit. Under communism, the only option visavis work-for-profit is to be a corrupt apparatchik, so either the neutrals freeload or they wander off.

Incidentally, although this has the potential to be an interesting discussion, I'm rather worried it'll all get locked soon...

EDIT: Actually, one communist society that could work would be if an order of paladins acted as communists internally, freely sharing all their resources towards fighting evil etc. along the lines of "to him who has the greatest need, shall be given the most shiny"... although this could be taken too far, since lending a +3 Holy Vorpal Greatsword to a level 1 paladin would be a sure way to get it stolen.

kamikasei
2009-10-15, 09:23 AM
One man is not a government. Look at any bad government in history and you won't find a perfectly valid system with just one bad apple at the top, which would be fixed if he were replaced by a saint. If "communes don't work because the leaders are corrupt" (and I don't suggest we get in to discussing whether that's true or not), then unless we're talking about a very small setup where the paladin can be the authority and arbiter on every decision, endemic corruption will still infect every part of the hierarchy beneath him.

Now, staying away from questions of government and politics, I know of nothing to suggest that economic co-ops are inevitably corrupt and evil. I imagine a lot of people around the world who are part of such organizations would be surprised to hear that.

edit: Oh, I missed that you have him training subordinates. That... doesn't work, though. Firstly, paladinhood is a call, not something you can just learn in a course. Secondly, paladins aren't supposed to sit around ruling communities; they're holy warriors, they should be out defending the weak and smiting the evil. Even if you have one paladin per commune, he's not going to have time to be a perfect oracle of good government. Thirdly, this would again require each individual commune to be quite small, so that it only requires one perfect arbiter.

Riffington
2009-10-15, 09:25 AM
Even with a superb and incorruptible leader*, you need to be able to motivate people to work even when you take away the standard motivation to work. The examples where this nevertheless functions (families, religious communities, etc) are so small that everyone involved has a tight bond.

So if your Paladin's commune is <100 or so, it could be fine. But once you start talking about government (ie a larger scale) you'll have problems.

*we will assume for the sake of argument that Paladin's are able to play politics without becoming corrupted, or that if they do become corrupted, they will lose access to their miracles and thus be easily-deposed.

Note that if we aren't talking about real-world Communist governments but rather D&D communist governments we should be ok on the "politics".

JeenLeen
2009-10-15, 09:29 AM
Eh. The problem with communism is that you'll never get the neutrals on board with it. Capitalism, you can get both neutrals and goods on board, because there'll always be a niche for work-because-of-altruism (volunteering etc., or choosing a lower paid, highly ethical job, for job satisfaction) as well as work-for-profit. Under communism, the only option visavis work-for-profit is to be a corrupt apparatchik, so either the neutrals freeload or they wander off.


It probably would work for the first couple generations, when they remember how hard things were when they were farmers oppressed by a landlord or peasants who had nothing living off the streets. Even then, true neutral can see how they get out of their old situation and into a new one by joining the commune.

However, after people get use to the relative prosperity, unless they are all lawful and/or good, some would start to take advantage of it.

From what I've heard, small-scale co-ops and communes can work pretty well. It's large-scale that communistic ideas start to fail. Perhaps in the small scale those who "don't work, don't eat" and have to leave the commune, albeit with some basic supplies to survive. Such seems a fair LG mentality.

Dragonmuncher
2009-10-15, 09:30 AM
I could totally see a Paladin leading a small commune. You could throw some neutrals into the mix as well, but if they didn't at least pay lip service to the community, they'd likely be thrown out.

Erom
2009-10-15, 09:35 AM
Yeah, this seems like a government that is both Good and Effective - for small sizes (up to town sized?). It scales if you franchise it - when your commune gets too big, find another sufficiently good and community minded paladin, and sent him off with the more adventurous volunteers.

Of course, now you have little communities, each ruled by a single person (maybe we can call them Lords?) and otherwise full of worker classes (let's call them Serfs, why not, we need a name for them...). Wait, that's not a commune - that's feudalism with the assumption that good aligned paladins would make pretty good, benevolent overlords.

So yeah, the premise works, but I think that has more to do with "a monarchy with assured benevolence on the part of it's ruler works pretty good" than any communist ideals.

hamishspence
2009-10-15, 09:36 AM
Maybe the phrase "collectivist" should be used, since it is very slightly less politically sensitive?

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 09:38 AM
{Scrubbing}

Grey Paladin
2009-10-15, 09:40 AM
{Scrubbed}

Riffington
2009-10-15, 09:43 AM
{Scrubbed}

Let's avoid real-world examples, also, this is almost but not quite correct.

JeenLeen
2009-10-15, 09:45 AM
Yeah, this seems like a government that is both Good and Effective - for small sizes (up to town sized?). It scales if you franchise it - when your commune gets too big, find another sufficiently good and community minded paladin, and sent him off with the more adventurous volunteers.

Of course, now you have little communities, each ruled by a single person (maybe we can call them Lords?) and otherwise full of worker classes (let's call them Serfs, why not, we need a name for them...). Wait, that's not a commune - that's feudalism with the assumption that good aligned paladins would make pretty good, benevolent overlords.

So yeah, the premise works, but I think that has more to do with "a monarchy with assured benevolence on the part of it's ruler works pretty good" than any communist ideals.

To be honest, I see little difference between a commune organized around a Paladin and a benevolent monarchy headed by a Paladin. Especially if the monarchy (or dictatorship or despot, to use the term historically and without its connotations) is handed down by apprenticeships and not bloodline.

EDIT: I realize the person I am quoting was referring to if the system was 'franchised' from one commune to several. That I see a difference to. My post was with respect to a single, small commune.

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 09:48 AM
Let's avoid real-world examples, also, this is almost but not quite correct.
{Scrubbed}

Riffington
2009-10-15, 10:32 AM
{Scrubbed}

Ormur
2009-10-15, 10:50 AM
Communism is a tricky and controversial term so it would be best to do without it when describing what your paladin does for helping the community.

I imagine the idea would be for all the peasants to own things together and everyone being equal. There were a lot of 19th century utopian socialists that had this idea (often with the community under their leadership) and Marx condemned them as reactionary. In fact it's not very dissimilar to the way many medieval communities were organized, you just transfer the ownership from a feudal landlord to the peasant community (you can think of it as a co-op, equal share corporation, whatever) and put it in the village charter. Let the peasants sort out how they want to do stuff together and then the Paladin can enforce the rules if there is trouble. That way it becomes a direct democracy with an incorruptible sheriff.

Innovation and the profit motive weren't high priorities for medieval peasants in real life. However if your setting will go through an industrial/magical revolution in the future pooling their resources might just mean the peasant community could afford the new animated plows or the magical fertilizer.

It might start breaking down if the society gets to big and complicated for direct democracy or without the Paladin enforcer. It could degenerate into your average town with the descendants of the original peasants as the land-owning elite or it could transform itself to a democratic welfare city state.

Riffington
2009-10-15, 10:54 AM
...the profit motive weren't high priorities for medieval peasants in real life.

What do you mean by this?
Surely when they planted barley and expected to get more barley than they planted (or when they traded apples for cheese) this is the profit motive?

Mando Knight
2009-10-15, 11:15 AM
Communism also fails if the workers are corrupt. If you don't work as hard as you can, or take more than your share, you are a detriment to the system. If these detriments exist, then the system is imperfect. If it is imperfect, it will fail. The only question is when the system will fail.

Choco
2009-10-15, 11:18 AM
Yeah.. Communism is a perfect system, but the reason it fails is because there is no such thing as a perfect person, which is required to make this perfect system work. Only way I can see "communism" logically working is a Borg Collective type society :smalltongue:

jmbrown
2009-10-15, 11:20 AM
Innovation and the profit motive weren't high priorities for medieval peasants in real life. However if your setting will go through an industrial/magical revolution in the future pooling their resources might just mean the peasant community could afford the new animated plows or the magical fertilizer.

This is, in itself, the downfall of a commune.

The biggest enemy to a true autonomous commune is human nature. Even if everyone gets an equal share, there will always be someone with aspirations of more. You'd have to bar all travelers from passing through the town because they introduce anemities like gold and magic goods. You have to ban anything that reduces man power because then you over shadow someone's job or it requires someone else to maintain it. You have to ban all outside influences because giving people the idea that life is better outside the commune will ultimately lead to its downfall. What happens when food is scarce and you begin to prioritize? Farmer Joe Brown is pissed because his rations are cut in half in order to feed the widow Mary with three lame bastard children who contribute nothing.

All it takes is a single person to believe that life outside the walls is better and your commune is ruined. You can't force people to work for you or it becomes slavery. A true commune, under free will humans, is simply impossible in anything but a secluded area beyond the influences of the rest of the world.

charl
2009-10-15, 11:24 AM
What do you mean by this?
Surely when they planted barley and expected to get more barley than they planted (or when they traded apples for cheese) this is the profit motive?

Not really. The medieval village wasn't really concerned about making an abundance of resources (or money if you will). After all, having more barley lying around than you can eat or turn into other foodstuffs (like bread, or even trade to gain cheese or whatever) just leads to it rotting away. The foremost concern was to make enough of whatever resources they required to survive, with maybe a small surplus in case of a disaster. This of course included things like tools and weapons and other trade goods so while they did make a surplus it was only so that it could be used to exchange for necessary things.

Commercialism didn't really exist back then, and there was little point for the peasant classes to make money just for money's sake.

Fluffles
2009-10-15, 11:36 AM
Not if it's a Paladin of Tyranny.

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 11:50 AM
I agree.
The one thing is, I'm not sure an Obshchinas were really communes per se. They were a villages where the village councils had a lot of power, and where land was periodically reallocated based on family size. If you were bad at farming, you still starved.

See, the good thing about this is that it solves the 'corrupt worker' problem. People have equal access to the means of production, but if you decide to go all grasshopper instead of ant you perish.

I think that this town may work best under the weird pseudo-communisms like Libertarian Socialism, Anarchist Communism, or Collectivist Anarchism.

My money would be on Collectivist Anarchism where individuals are given goods based on the amount of time they've contributed to labor. Its sorta like an hourly wage type system, and it helps avoid the 'corrupt worker'.

The paladin and whatever he sets up is going to be the biggest problem IMO. For example, if he builds a church (let's say with his own resources) will the priests be part of the collective or not? If they are, how much is their work worth exactly? Is it the same as the farmer or blacksmith? Can its value be quantified?

If only some being or pure Law and Good could act as an arbiter! Oh wait, its D&D, we have access to those.

Calmar
2009-10-15, 11:54 AM
If I'm not mistaken, the idea of virtuous holy men to guide every community to a good and just life is the ideal pursued my medieval church...

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 11:57 AM
If I'm not mistaken, the idea of virtuous holy men to guide every community to a good and just life is the ideal pursued my medieval church...

Yes, but they didn't have access to actual angels and planetars and spells like 'detect alignment' and 'zone of truth'.

woodenbandman
2009-10-15, 11:59 AM
Good points all. I didn't really put as much thought into this idea as some people here have.

So it has been mentioned that paladinhood is a call, not training, and I realized that that is true. So that part doesn't work. However, my idea wasn't based on the traditional "mideval fantasy" town. I was thinking about a town like Eberron, where it's like an actual modern city with magic-as-technology, where there are street bums who were put out of a job by warforged or whatever. If there is a beggar who steals, the paladin would try to convince him to come join his farming collective.

I think it could work if the paladin was retired. If that's even possible. And I was definitely thinking on the small scale, where the paladin is a jesus-figure who solves all disputes fairly.

jiriku
2009-10-15, 11:59 AM
What do you mean by this?
Surely when they planted barley and expected to get more barley than they planted (or when they traded apples for cheese) this is the profit motive?

I think what Ormur's referring to is that the profit motive is usually rooted in the modern idea of "getting ahead", the idea of gradually growing one's wealth through work and perhaps even leaving wealth behind so that your children have life better than you did.

In medieval societies, the typical peasant had no opportunity to amass wealth or rise in society, nor would he ever encounter peasants who had "worked hard to get ahead" and become more prosperous. His expectation was that he would spend his entire life toiling at a subsistence level and that his children would do the same.

Riffington
2009-10-15, 12:08 PM
like an hourly wage type system, and it helps avoid the 'corrupt worker'.
You know how I know you never worked in an office? :smalltongue:



Not really. The medieval village wasn't really concerned about making an abundance of resources (or money if you will). After all, having more barley lying around than you can eat or turn into other foodstuffs (like bread, or even trade to gain cheese or whatever) just leads to it rotting away. The foremost concern was to make enough of whatever resources they required to survive, with maybe a small surplus in case of a disaster. This of course included things like tools and weapons and other trade goods so while they did make a surplus it was only so that it could be used to exchange for necessary things.

Commercialism didn't really exist back then, and there was little point for the peasant classes to make money just for money's sake.


Peasants had actual money (in the form of shiny metal) and had to pay it to their lords. They enjoyed various luxuries ranging from shoes to furniture to exotic foodstuffs to beer/wine, and surpluses could be exchanged for these luxuries. If you made enough money, you could buy your freedom, live in a city, and become a merchant.

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 12:12 PM
You know how I know you never worked in an office? :smalltongue:



Yeah, but farming could be equated to like, actual tangible evidence of time/effort put into working. If I spend X hours tearing weeds out of a field I should have something to show for it, rather than spending X hours shuffling papers.

Mando Knight
2009-10-15, 12:15 PM
My money would be on Collectivist Anarchism where individuals are given goods based on the amount of time they've contributed to labor. Its sorta like an hourly wage type system, and it helps avoid the 'corrupt worker'.

Who decides the amount of goods distributed per time unit spent? Who keeps track of the time? How do you ensure the work rate is equal for all workers? All of those are vectors for corruption entering that system.

subject42
2009-10-15, 12:18 PM
So then I thought: well, what if the paladin gathered the peasants together, gave them jobs, got them to buy land, and start up a farm collective?

There's actually a player in one of my games who is doing this exact same thing right now.

She's playing a paladin of Pelor in a setting where the agricultural aspect of Pelor is more dominant than the "I hate the undead" aspect. The main motivator for the peasants is that working there brings them closer to god.

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 12:38 PM
Who decides the amount of goods distributed per time unit spent? Who keeps track of the time? How do you ensure the work rate is equal for all workers? All of those are vectors for corruption entering that system.

I believe that is all decided via a democratic process.

Indon
2009-10-15, 12:38 PM
Not if it's a Paladin of Tyranny.

The Paladin of Tyranny is too busy trying to expand his corporation into de facto control of the local government, while being opposed by the Thieves' Guild loosely headed by the Paladin of Slaughter.

The Paladin of Freedom is out adventuring. Once he gains a few more levels he'll come back and buy out the whole place with his WBL, kick out the other Paladins, and do whatever he likes.

On a serious note, I don't really see why this thread raises much of a question. Religious communes are essentially the oldest type of commune. A community with a strong faith and a stronger spiritual leader - facilitated in the D&D world by the clear supernatural power of such leaders - overrides any economic factors in the equation.

Riffington
2009-10-15, 12:40 PM
A community with a strong faith and a stronger spiritual leader - facilitated in the D&D world by the clear supernatural power of such leaders - overrides any economic factors in the equation.

Sacrilege! Pelor cannot overpower Bigby's Invisible Hand!

Yora
2009-10-15, 12:42 PM
The main motivator for the peasants is that working there brings them closer to god.
Which also holds some dangers.
If you work hard, you're close to god. And if you're close to god, you'll probably will be rewarded with success and wealth. Which also means that poor people are poor because they did not work hard enough to be close to god and earn their reward. So it's gods will that you are poor, because you don't work hard enough. And of course you don't give charity to those poor people who have offended god. If they want wealth, they just have to work harder.

Which is pretty much how capitalism was created! :smallbiggrin:
(4 semesters of european religious history finally pay off! :smallwink:)

Indon
2009-10-15, 12:43 PM
Sacrilege! Pelor cannot overpower Bigby's Invisible Hand!

Now, a ('cold') war between a secular mages' guild and a religious order promoting communal living, that's a campaign that writes itself.

paddyfool
2009-10-15, 12:46 PM
The Paladin of Freedom is out adventuring. Once he gains a few more levels he'll come back and buy out the whole place with his WBL, kick out the other Paladins, and do whatever he likes.


Good to see I'm not the only one who views Capitalism vs Communism as something of a Chaos vs Law conflict ;)

Indon
2009-10-15, 12:47 PM
Which also holds some dangers.
If you work hard, you're close to god. And if you're close to god, you'll probably will be rewarded with success and wealth. Which also means that poor people are poor because they did not work hard enough to be close to god and earn their reward. So it's gods will that you are poor, because you don't work hard enough. And of course you don't give charity to those poor people who have offended god. If they want wealth, they just have to work harder.
Which is fine logic in a universe in which religious leaders can not spontaneously and obviously lose their divine mandate for straying off the path.

D&D, however, features divine magic that offers consequences for sufficiently convoluted logic that leads an individual off The Path.


Which is pretty much how capitalism was created! :smallbiggrin:
(4 semesters of european religious history finally pay off! :smallwink:)

I had the impression capitalism started as a result of realizing that trade could be used by the middlemen to generate wealth for themselves, ultimately leading to the creation of the first corporations.

Mando Knight
2009-10-15, 12:51 PM
I believe that is all decided via a democratic process.

Then it's not anarchy, is it?

charl
2009-10-15, 12:52 PM
Peasants had actual money (in the form of shiny metal) and had to pay it to their lords. They enjoyed various luxuries ranging from shoes to furniture to exotic foodstuffs to beer/wine, and surpluses could be exchanged for these luxuries. If you made enough money, you could buy your freedom, live in a city, and become a merchant.

Peasants mostly paid their lords in foodstuffs. If you grew barley than you gave him barley as payment. Not shiny coins. Why would a peasant have coins? You can't eat coins, or use coins for anything practical. And bartering was still going strong, so you might as well send the tax collectors packing with a huge sack of barley.

As for luxuries all that stuff you mentioned weren't really luxuries. Shoes are a necessity, as is furniture (even if it is simple benches and stuff like that). Especially not beer and wine, which was the only things people actually drank back then (the water was downright lethal). And furthermore the whole freedom thing depends in large part on what part of Europe and what time period you are talking about, but in most of Dark Age Europe peasants were pretty free anyway. The lords certainly didn't own them to such a degree that they had to buy their own freedom (except in Russia, where they did). As for the becoming a merchant thing that was very very rare and not something everyone could do. You had to get permission from local authorities, and there was a strong "following your ancestors" mindset. Changing professions didn't happen a whole lot.

Indon
2009-10-15, 12:55 PM
Good to see I'm not the only one who views Capitalism vs Communism as something of a Chaos vs Law conflict ;)

Nah, I'm just pointing out how much more of an incentive there is for PC classes to adventure in D&D rather than interact with communities, in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

Note the individuals functioning in the parallel capitalist society (in my tongue-in-cheek commentary, admittedly) were those of Tyranny and Slaughter - the ideal of capitalism of being a 'greater good' that results from every given person acting purely selfishly is basically textbook D&D evil.

Admittedly, it is an exceptionally credible depiction of that evil, as it presents the opportunity to have evil characters who can actually function in a D&D society without necessarily backstabbing everyone, but by RAW, I daresay the concept of 'enlightened self-interest', as the ideological foundation of modern capitalism, is quite evil.

I'll not comment on classical capitalism, though.

Edit: In fact, the Objectivist philosophy provides a marvelous opportunity for conflict in a Paladin-run religious community.

An Objectivist can enter the community and preach about the virtues of selfishness and the evil of collectivism, and what can the Paladin do about it? If the Paladin approaches with the stereotypical Detect+Smite combo, the Objectivist's views are vindicated - the Paladin is cast as the evil collectivist striving to stifle individual freedom, and the faith of the community is damaged heavily.

In order to get rid of their ideological opponent, they must defeat them by showing their true nature, in some innovative fashion.

JeenLeen
2009-10-15, 01:01 PM
On a serious note, I don't really see why this thread raises much of a question. Religious communes are essentially the oldest type of commune. A community with a strong faith and a stronger spiritual leader - facilitated in the D&D world by the clear supernatural power of such leaders - overrides any economic factors in the equation.

Such is likely to be the case when led by a Paladin with a mentality as described by the OP. However, you will still run into some people abusing the system; the simplest method for such is to make them leave the commune and go back to Eberron or wherever. (That how it worked at one monastery I lived at for a couple months; it was basically a communistic lifestyle, people providing what they could and taking what they needed, but if someone was abusing the system, they would eventually be asked to leave by the abbot.)

Given the setting now more-explained by the OP, I could see the commune existing within the big city's framework if it is styled as a sort of rehabitation for the less savory elements of the town. If it is mostly homeless who are joining the commune, you do not have to worry about a Guild getting mad that it is losing all its cheap labour to a happy farmer's life. (Or at least not as much.)
I do say 'styled' -- this is not necessary the view the Paladin has, but the view he could use to get it support from the City Council or King or whatever.

Yora
2009-10-15, 01:04 PM
{Scrubbed}

Asbestos
2009-10-15, 01:04 PM
Then it's not anarchy, is it?

Well, it is in that the state is abolished. It isn't a pure 'take what you will' anarchy, but it is a form of anarchism.

Wikipedia link is here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivist_anarchism)
I'm not sure about the need for a violent revolution, I'm not sure why that should be apparently inherent to anarchism or communism.

An Eberron specific concern might be... what do you do if a Warforged wants in your commune? It doesn't need to eat, and therefor gains no personal benefit from doing the farming, but it doesn't need to rest as much as a normal person either meaning that if it produces something it will outproduce any single normal person.

Really this is a unique Warforged problem. Basically they have no use for the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, all of their basic needs are static and accounted for. So, why would a Warforged get a job beyond the desire to accumulate wealth?

JonestheSpy
2009-10-15, 01:07 PM
One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet - the feudal model arose because of the appearance of the full-time warrior class, as opposed to Roman citizen-soldiers or Celtic farmers who'd go raiding in the summer when the crops were ripening and there wasn't much else to do.

Now in the dangerous world of DnD, there's obviously a justification for full-time soldiers, and that's always going to result in conflict with the farmers and workers who feed, clothe, etc the warriors. The only real away around that is if the members of the commune are highly trained and able to defend themselves from likely threats, as the paladin in question will probably not be around to guard tem all the time.

Oh, and btw, is the paladin going to plow the fields with everyone else, or just administrate?

Yora
2009-10-15, 01:12 PM
Anarchy is a difficult concept. The basic meaning is "ruler-less". But even all citizens (demo-), landowners (timo-) or the most wealthy people (pluto-) can be a ruler.

A possible anarchy could be a small handfull of farms, that are so small that they have no mayor or council. It's just you and your neighbors.

Indon
2009-10-15, 01:15 PM
{Scrubbed}

hamishspence
2009-10-15, 01:26 PM
"easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle"

Now there was a shift away from this- a view that it was right and good to make the most of your skills- but the basic concept is still there.

Mando Knight
2009-10-15, 01:34 PM
(corrupted) Lawful Good was defeated by Chaotic Neutral. :smallbiggrin:

LN with Evil tendencies was defeated by True Neutral, more like. Capitalism vs Communism isn't exactly Law vs Chaos. Many who prefer anarchy also like the ideals of communism, and many people with an extremely solid Lawful streak (like myself) believe that capitalism is the only system that will work in any real world.

It's more of pragmatism vs idealism. Capitalism works assuming that each constituent wants as much gain as possible for as little effort as possible, and that they know what minimums they need to put out to remain alive. Communism works assuming that each constituent will always give maximum effort regardless of gain, and that each constituent will receive at least the minimum gain required to allow for maximum effort, with the remainder divided equally among constituents.

ShneekeyTheLost
2009-10-15, 02:09 PM
I believe that is all decided via a democratic process.

with an elected official weekly, ratified by a bi-weekly meeting?

Seriously, a Commune is when no tangible goods are owned by anyone, but rather they are all owned by the community. So the community owns a plow and two oxen. A farmer who needs to plow his field can borrow that plow and those oxen for that task, then returns it to the keeping of the community.

In a true Democratic Commune, there are no leaders. The entire polity (voting members of the village) must agree on every decision which impacts more than one person. In small villages, this can actually work. For anything larger than a single city, however, it becomes almost impossible.

The other problem is that there are some issues which cannot wait until the next town meeting (llike, say, being invaded by hostile raiders). So you need someone who can take charge during these crisis situations. Who eventually is hailed Caesar, and the whole thing backslides into a totalitarian government.

Roland St. Jude
2009-10-15, 03:04 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: If this could have remained entirely fictional and hypothetical, maybe it had a chance. But people are linking to real world examples and using real world analogues and dragging real world religion into it. Understandable, but not really allowed here.