...so I'm gonna tell you something here instead.
I think a future communist society would have more nomads. For the bulk of humanity's existence, nomadic life was the norm. Property and contractual obligation has made settled life mandatory in most of the imperial core, with a slim handful of exceptions.
Here in the states, the contradiction is mind-boggling. We're told the settlement of America was necessary to the establishment of freedoms, that nobody else enjoys as much liberties as we do today. And yet, for those "liberties", we had to stop people from leading nomadic lives. Corralled and marched people miles, so they could be free. Stole babes from families, so they could be free. Free to do what, exactly?
Centuries ago, nomadic life was a fundamental freedom for millions. Maybe it could be again...
~
...not that I know what that nomadic life would look like, or how it would interplay with settled life... just that it seems like something that should be striven for
Being nomadic as an individual rather than as a community sounds terrible
Honestly I am envious. I wish I had made the choice to live like that when I was still young and able enough for it to be possible.
It gets old pretty fast. It's only viable if you are being held back where you grew up and need to grow. Every time you move, people don't know the old you and you can start fresh with your accumulated coolness and knowledge. But after a few times you've got it down.
For some reason the OP deleted their comment, but as they described, it doesn't have to be a completely new set of people every time you move about. Especially with seasonal migration, you can have a set number of places that you spend your time at, knowing the people there and having a sense of community that you return to. You can also travel with a small group of people, never having to "start fresh" at all in that sense. I've known people who did do something similar for long periods of time and looked back on it as the best eras of their lives (albeit with an understandable sense of nostalgia).
It sucks for those who are forced into it out of economic desperation, obviously. But there are endless ways that it could be (and has been) done without the loss of permanent community, and not out of necessity but out of a very human drive to explore. We have the word wanderlust for a reason.
free dispersed camping is already amazing
more land should be free for shit like that
There are minds ready for the propagandizing, teetering on the brink of communism, over at r/publiclands
There is something in our guts that tells us to travel I think.
This is why so many RPGs and open world games are just you traveling the world and helping people along the way. We love to explore and learn new things.
It's what our hearts secretly desire. Capitalism charges us a pretty sum to reenact this all in a virtual setting. Whether through video games or tourism.
I think a lot of HUMANITY MUST BECOME AN INTERPLANETARY/INTERSTELLAR SPECIES(tm)(r) bazinga marketing is tapping into a distorted and fantastical version of the urge to wander, too.
yeah the notion of space colonies is a cool one. Elon Musk should not be in charge of it and it isn't a magic bullet that will fix our problems.
I don't think it's fantastical for that urge to extend to outer space. People have been progosticating humanity visiting other planets since the 1800s.
It's because RPG protagonists are on The Hero's Journey. The game doesn't show when they get back with The Elixir and settle down with a nice girl and have seven kids. Because that would be boring as hell. That's The Sims, not an RPG.
People are going to turn nomadic again under capitalism because they can't find a stable place to live
in the last four months I've been fucked out of three apartments in two different cities. I'm in a lease now but I doubt the landlord will keep it going after a year is up.
the "Imagine A Communist Future" thread
I also missed this thread, where can I find it?
For the bulk of humanity’s existence, nomadic life was the norm
i don't think this is really true.
yeah it isnt. fishing and limited cultivation + the dangers of entering a new biome, knowing absolutely nothing about it, were huge deterrents
mass migrations were mostly from huge disasters and overpopulation leading to depleted resources, and even then it wasnt a quick migration. the bantu migration for instance took nearly 1000 years, and the germanic migrations took nearly 400 years
even the idea of the mongolian nomadic tribe is mostly incorrect. they had many permanent areas and just used the steppe for grazing and brought the herds back to those areas when it was time for slaughter. and prior to animal husbandry, steppe life was nonexistent. animal husbandry was probably first conceived around 13,000 bc. modern humans have been around since 250,000 years ago
not to say it isnt a valid lifestyle, but the idea of it being the 'natural order' is likely incorrect. the natural order is probably camping out next to lake victoria while eating hallucinogenic berry bushes and fishing all year round
. the natural order is probably camping out next to lake victoria while eating hallucinogenic berry bushes and fishing all year round
This is what they took from us.
And transhumance was pretty much always based around seasonal moves with flocks and herds, so since I don't expect pastoralism to be a major way of life in our communist future, I don't think transhumance is going to be a major way of life either.
not all of them. people in particularly hospitable places never needed to, and nonagricultural peoples who live/d off the water were were/are fairly stationary
and those that did probably rotated about a set range rather than go wherever willy-nilly
Good point. Can argue that people generally moved when compelled by scarcity or duress and settled when they had a good thing going with agriculture and also protection from the elements (improved shelters, clothing, fire, eventually air conditioning) expanding the range of areas that could be permanently settled more so than changing the calculus of nomadic life vs settlement. Also worth noting that from what I've read most people in cultures with limited western contact when asked their favorite hobbies/past times tend to say something along the lines of visiting other villages/areas so I still think there is some innate tendency of people to travel even when they don't necessarily have to.
travelling doesnt necessarily mean a nomadic lifestyle though. its also important to find someone to date because most people in a village are related
They come back home afterwards. Big difference between that and nomads with no home.
They did. Right up until someone figured out instead of gathering plants, you could stick the seeds into the ground and then hang out until they were ready to eat. Boy, that was a game-changer.
Agriculture isn't that old, honestly. Not compared to the millions of years we lived as hunter-gatherers.
the assumption that hunter-gatherers are inherently itinerant is false. moreover all peoples we've studied who migrate (of their own volition) do so in systemic limited ways that'd quite disappoint someone imagining distant travels to diverse locales.
We have several groups of nomadic persons now. After the future it would only get easier. Solar powered wagons, nice tents, free food, and distributed manufacturing would be reducing the importance of societal isomorphism.
The extant groups of migratory people we have now are laborers, entertainers, and travelers. I expect we'd have something similar.
I can see rainbow family like theater troops roaming around doing performances. Larp kingdoms going around finding new places to have their fairs. Regular people just getting bored and wandering for a while. Sea people following weather latterns. It wouldn't be for everyone but I imagine there would be a pretty significant population.
free food would not be an easy thing to organise societally
I mean, in a communist future it would be just so. Food is already cheap and we make more than we can use with only something like 3%of world population farming.
Rainbow family! Wow, I haven't thought of them in forever. I remember once when the Rainbow gathering was in Italy, one of them went mushroom gathering and cooked up some tasty Destroying Angels. A helicopter had to medevac the now liverless person to a hospital for an emergency organ transplant. The Rainbows were not pleased by this loud metal monster landing in their camp.
Oh damn, that makes complete sense that would happen but that is terrible
:volcel-judge: does that building have a foundation?
sorry, couldn't resist
This counts as relitigating a thread and thus needs to be banned by the mods.
Idk but those sound like obligate carnivores and, thus, unable to be real communists
What does this have to do with communism?
Wouldn't nomads be more prone to social parasitism? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitism_(social_offense)
Why do you think a centrally planned economy "would have more nomads"?
I think a communist future would allow for more flexibility in how people can live and interact within it. I'm not saying it should be some "goal" of a centrally planned economy that's in the processes of building communism, but I do think such a system would be better able to adapt to nomadic people if/when it comes up.
That sounds like Utopianism rather than Communism.
In addition to the USSR laws I already, mentioned, there were similar "sedentisation" measures in communist Czechoslovakia (Law no 74), and Romania after 1977
I can see it in a private-enterprise economy. Services for hire. Like traditional tinsmiths and silversmiths, even performers/carneys/acrobats. But I don't see how it'd be possible under communism.
the simple answer is that they just wouldn't be part of the planned economy and would just do what they have always done it's not like their lifestyle hurts anyone
I don't get this thread at all. The claim being made is "I think a future communist society would have more nomads" but there's no support for the claim.
I mean, sure, they could maybe keep doing what they've been doing under some forms of market socialism with private enterprise, but it wouldn't be part of communism.
It seems to me that the opposite is likelier to be true: a future communist society would have fewer nomads, like happened in the USSR
Nomadic life sucks. Humans need a place to call home. We grow into the earth like trees, we need to stay in one place among people like us and live stable lives. There's nothing quite like having friends that you've had for 20 years. Going through shit together, letting your kids play with each other, going to each other's weddings and funerals. This is what is good in life.
Nomads always live on marginal land. They keep moving around because the land is so bad that they can't live in one place for long before exhausting it.
Hisorically people who did move a lot moved their whole culture with them. Sometimes they had a home range with a capital city and people could leave and rejoin the capital or local villages as they pleased. Sometimes the capital moved if climate conditions changed. Some cultures moved entire cities on a relatively frequent basis. It's not like a "all ancient people were vagrants". They formed relationships with people in neighboring tribes and cultures by travelling and intermixing, forming large trail/road and boat networks, and by sharing hunting or herding ranges. Some of these people even shared borders with bronze age city states and feudal kingdoms. More modern itinerant and vagrant people, as a concept, exist explicitly in contrast to the sedentary feudal lifestyle.
