[ThePublicOpinions]

I am sure this has been discussed to death but I am interested in hearing socialist perspective on this question.

[Rei Murasame]

Which type of family? You have to be specific about that, otherwise they won't know how to answer.

[QatzelOk]

Extended families of hunter-gatherers count as socialist, because their groups are made up of non-family members as well, and so can be considered "a society."

Likewise, if a society is sub-divided into small socialist cooperatives no bigger than these pre-neolithic groups, this can be considered a socialist society.

The difference between the neolithic socialist groups and a new version of them today, is that today's neolithic tribes would still need to be united in some kind of collective governance in order to control the abuses of technology.

Or... modern technology can be eliminated, in which case, collective intergroup governance wouldn't be necessary.

[The Immortal Goon]

What is being described is, "Primitive Communism," which isn't really socialism as we understand it.

In the short, the means of production is in the hands of everybody - making this a communist system of sorts. However, the concept of a family is fluid.

The family [says Morgan] represents an active principle. It is never stationary, but advances from a lower to a higher form as society advances from a lower to a higher condition.... Systems of consanguinity, on the contrary, are passive; recording the progress made by the family at long intervals apart, and only changing radically when the family has radically changed.

So it's wrong to say that a family in general is socialist as the family's structure and relationship to the means of production can't really be tacked down in a general sense.

[Suska]

I'd say socialism is an extension of the family model.

[Potemkin]

Which family model, Suska?

[Suska]

You ask that like its incumbent upon me to parse the word family. If you don't know who is family and who isn't that's your problem.

[Potemkin]

If you go back far enough, then everyone is related to everyone else, Suska. Who counts as 'family' is culturally determined as well as genetically determined, and has changed over historical time.

[Suska]

You are just saying this to be a pest as usual. Who do you call part of your family? If we're calling the entire human race family the word is meaningless and the revolution is over. What consists of family recedes and advances, that doesn't change the essential meaning of it. Expand it if you want to, contract it if you want to. It is what it is. For you I'm always stating the obvious. It's a disease of the mind believe it or not, to not be capable of understanding words.

[QatzelOk]

I'd say socialism is an extension of the family model.

Mussolini thought fascism was a brilliant extension of the family model. But modernized.
The government is the father, and all the corporations are the well built sons.

Because all forms of governance require some kind of consensus - even it it's a limited one, as in the case of dictatorships: consensus among the tyrant's associates - all governance can be compared to the family. But this is only because families with kids require some form of governance to live harmoniously.

What is being described is, "Primitive Communism," which isn't really socialism as we understand it.

The context of this thread points to a very broad definition of socialism. We are not being asked to debate whether nuclear families have five-year-plans and massive steel plants.

[Chill]

Which type of family? You have to be specific about that, otherwise they won't know how to answer.

People usually don't define something consisted of only women and daughters as family.

[The Immortal Goon]

The context of this thread points to a very broad definition of socialism. We are not being asked to debate whether nuclear families have five-year-plans and massive steel plants.

I think it's pretty clear you don't know what socialism is any better than a slack-jawed tea-bagger plugged in to FOX News.

[QatzelOk]

I think it's pretty clear you don't know what socialism is any better than a slack-jawed tea-bagger plugged in to FOX News.

Born-again Christians don't think I know what Jesus means, and you don't seem to think I know what Socialism means.

But in the case of born-again zealots, this is because their self-esteem is built on having a monopoly on the "right" definition. This is an ideological stance, and not an intellectually honest one.

And this greedy monopoly on meaning also makes it impossible to debate religion with most born-again Christians.

Is Socialism your religion? Are we hurting your God by using the word too generally because this thread is built on metaphor?

[philipsteele]

honestly in my concept its true..a better family is the basic creation of a great society..if every families are good then the societies also good and it will get the best result for the nations..otherwise how it can say its a best socialism?

[Julian]

I'm sure some families are models of cooperation.

but if we look at some UK Statistics

[*]in 4 women will be a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime – many of these on a number of occasions.

[*]One incident of domestic violence is reported to the police every minute.

[*]On average, 2 women a week are killed by a current or former male partner.

I think that tells us that families need to be part of a broader network of social relationships which aim to support family members at times of crisis.

whereas the concept of socialism suggests a society which by its definition includes 'everyone'. of course, it may not function as well as the best families but we might hope its better than many of the poorer examples of family life.

[USB]

Yes, they live in crammed spaces. Yes, they sometimes share kitchens and washrooms. But you cannot find a single case of an incestuous relationship which was just like what I witnessed between a brother and a sister of a capitalist clan, between a father and a daughter of a capitalist clan. Give me a case. Not even an isolated case. Money is the root of all evil. Capitalism breeds more evil.

[daft punk]

Hey, guess what? The family is an extension of capitalism, not socialism. The family as we know it that is, the bourgeois nuclear family. It was invented by the bourgeois to suit their life style (men shag around, women stay faithful, inheritance etc) and in the 1800s they pushed it onto the working class. This was one of the occasions when homophobia was promoted as well. Basically the capitalists wanted the women and children out of the factories. They wanted the family to be hierarchical and isolated, reflecting capitalism and bourgeois ideology.

[Kok_Turuk]

Families can be related with any kind of ideology.If the father figure sees himself as the only and unquestionable law maker and ruler of the family that family can be a dictatorship.

If family members help eachother and gives importance to the equalty and listen what everybody has to say about a problem that family can be considered as a socialism or democracy.So the examples can increase.

[Daktoria]

Hey, guess what? The family is an extension of capitalism, not socialism. The family as we know it that is, the bourgeois nuclear family. It was invented by the bourgeois to suit their life style (men shag around, women stay faithful, inheritance etc) and in the 1800s they pushed it onto the working class. This was one of the occasions when homophobia was promoted as well. Basically the capitalists wanted the women and children out of the factories. They wanted the family to be hierarchical and isolated, reflecting capitalism and bourgeois ideology.

daft, give it a break. Families have existed since caveman times.

The issue regarding capitalism is how the family unit's enclosure has been reinforced in order to yield isolation and suspicion among people. This imbues two things: hierarchy and sexual stress. Hierarchy encourages suffering and work ethic which can be used as principles for the labor supply, and sexual stress encourages not only reproduction for emotional release, but also successive generation tension which reinforces demand for intermediated socializing.

However, the question you have to really ask yourself is "Who reinforced this enclosure?" Blaming (merchant) capitalism for this is insufficient because isolation, suspicion, hierarchy, and sexual stress go back before the 14th century. Heck, even if we look at say paleolithic marriage as a distribution of property rights before the advent of neolithic religion, that's still insufficient because while property rights explicitly demonstrate relationships, they don't isolate. Property rights merely symbolize. Heck, you could have polyamory with property rights if you wanted to.

This leaves only one remaining possibility - that the isolation and separation factors are primitivist notions of sexual competition itself. You can observe this even among packs of animals where alphas take pride in controlling the group whereas betas are pretty much dismissed. Contrast this to civilization if you will where betas are actually treated with respect because might makes right isn't an issue. Instead, people are free to intermingle at their leisure.

What this means is that the real increasing isolation we're experiencing today is not a matter of capitalism, but a matter of force. By becoming increasingly pragmatic, people are becoming increasingly divisive.

[Suska]

Interesting how you place the blame square on pragmatism. Probably the first time I've heard you say something useful, clear and direct. I can only sort of agree though. As I see it the problem of pragmatism is that it suggests we can quantify and communicate all the factors as though nothing can be unprecedented or too subtle or interdependent to explain. It consists of the externalization of thinking processes and therefore the bureaucraticization and socialization of personal factors of life. Rather than assume there's more going on than we can bring out into the light - in days of yore the assumption was that only the greatest writers could even get close to a relatively complete description of things. It seems to me there is a connection here with coercion, yes. But I just call it all ignorance or assumption. To call it pragmatism makes it seem like one of several possibly valid choices.