[!@#$%!]

@ jonathan - thanks a lot for the well-thought answer; i've read the article you posted, and while i consider the paleolithic a sort of golden age of humankind, i doubt it was a paradise-- neanderthals got a raw deal out of that era, for example.

i do appreciate that economic activity is culturally relative, yes, but ultimately everyone has to deal with the problem of how to provide for the group/tribe/family/self. when food is abundant, everyone is friends, when there isn't enough to go around, cannibalism just might ensue.

solutions to the problem of providing for life vary a lot-- amazon tribes untouched by western civilization go from sharing everything with everyone to killing people for trespassing one's plot. from the look of it it would seem that private property begins with agriculture (in other places, it's herding that does it-- there is no cattle in the amazon though).

anyway, speaking of property, i purposefully did not mention beachfront property-- i said beachfront housing if i recall. it was my intention to bring up something that is of limited availability but of widespread desirability. if everyone who wanted to stay at the beach could simply show up, we'd have some sort of refugee camps in all coastal areas, and it would probably cease to be desirable, or violence would erupt.

it could be anything else-- say, cars? everyone could get a car in the old east germany, but it would take years and years on a waitlist.

i understand that part of the refutation of capitalism has to do with debunking the notion of scarcity, which the article linked claimed it's inexistent among the !kung, and porky claims would not exist under communism. but scarcity can be very real even in non-human systems-- biological ecosystems go through boom and bust cycles-- humans didn't invent famines, plagues, and natural disasters. we can't just wish that shit away.

even in the case of the noble peasant you propose-- plagues, droughts, floods, frosts, hail and other natural phenomena can kill a local agriculture very fast. trade, which allows goods to move quickly, keep people alive even when crops fail. an economy such as you propose would necessitate trade, and even if it was banned sure a black market would appear somehow. with trade you'd get division of labor-- suddenly i can get a more secure and varied food supply by making pottery than by being a peasant, trading with multiple peasants instead of eating just the local crops. maybe i work in a clay quarry that supplies potters so i can work all year without worrying about local crop failures. and everything begins again, including money when barter doesn't cut it.

we can't really put the cat back in the bag and abolish global trade. i'm looking for viable future models rather than past utopias. when hippie communes sprouted in the 60s, they sought a return to nature, to living off the land, to self-sufficiency, but that life is hard and suddenly walking to the store and buying a twinky seems more desirable than waiting 8 months for your crops to be ready for the harvest (and fingers crossed, and damn those insects).

@fugazifan - thanks for the book link, i'll check it out when i finish this one (which i'm reading very slowly).

@ porks - it IZZZ. waiting!

@ suchfriends: no soy mexicano! i'm not too familiar with the ejidos, but i've spent months in an israeli kibbutz though, and the funny thing is that the socialist ethos has been replaced by a bourgeois one-- nowadays the successful kibbutz will hire "guest workers" from thailand to work the crops while the "communist" owners have it easy.

@ schunk - yea, coops don't count, they still compete in the market.

@ GMKU - no, it's not about "control", the cooperative model is a genuinely successful one, but still, they operate in a market economy where they live or perish by their deeds.

did i forget anyone? sorry.

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oh yeah, flotto: THE GEORGETOWN ICE EMPORIUM RULES ALL.