The Amish Achieved Communism - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14959112
The Amish Achieved Communism Before Marx & Engels Critiqued Capitalism



They resist technological accelerationism or the trap of technosocial progress.
The Amish are considered excellent farmers, growing and storing the majority of their food and purchasing in stores only staples such as flour and sugar. The Old Order Amish refuse to use most modern farm machinery, preferring the sweat of their brow over the ease of modern conveniences.

All property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs
The Amish are not involved in state or national politics, and, as pacifists, they do not serve in the military. They also disavow social security and most types of insurance, often pooling their resources to help Amish families in need. Their settlements are divided into church districts, autonomous congregations of about 75 baptized members. If the district becomes much larger, it is again divided, because members meet in each other’s homes. There are no church buildings. Each district has a bishop, two to four preachers, and an elder; but there are no general conferences, mission groups, or cooperative agencies.

The peaceful communist uniform
The Amish are best known for their plain clothing, most of it self-made, and nonconformist lifestyle.

Advertising is forbidden
The Amish typically accept the photographing of their way of life, but they forbid photos of themselves, believing such things are graven images in violation of the Second Commandment.

Communism in action
The Amish are famous for their barn raisings. These cooperative efforts often involve hundreds of men, as well as scores of women who feed the workers.

Amish children typically attend one-room schools run by the community.

The quiet, reserved manner that the Amish try to maintain does not prevent them from partaking of common pastimes and games. Volleyball and softball are popular with many Amish families, but they are played strictly for enjoyment and not in a spirit of competition. Flower gardens, if kept simple, are also permissible. Once the daily chores are finished and the children’s schoolwork completed, Amish families will often read or sing together in the evenings, before going to bed early in preparation for their next day’s chores.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amish

Dialectical materialism will never produce communism, because it favors matter over mind. The Amish favor mind over matter and prove that faith in God family and community lead to a communistic society.

Dialectical materialism has led to more Capitalism. Modernity is mutually assured destruction, because globalism and accelerationism emphasize technological progress or a philosophy of matter over mind.



Comic book communists could learn a thing or two from a Mennonite or Amish community.
#14959128
Great. Don’t give a bit of credit to local autonomy, just slide past it. :)
It only works as long as everyone can relate directly to their part in it. Limited size is a major factor.
#14959129
I agree, I have always thought as the Amish as Communists - but their own brand of Communism as it is based on Religion and segregation. But they do prove the system could work if you could rely on there never being corruption.

Perhaps the revolution has hope?
#14959137
B0ycey wrote:I agree, I have always thought as the Amish as Communists - but their own brand of Communism as it is based on Religion and segregation. But they do prove the system could work if you could rely on there never being corruption.

Perhaps the revolution has hope?


It may well be that the true ''revolution'' begins as a change in spiritual consciousness anyway, and that nothing can be built upon without this religious and spiritual dimension. I have always felt that this was what was lacking with the secular socialist/communist experience, that in my opinion doomed it.

The Amish are internally ''communist'' (some may balk at that; call them ''Communalists'' instead, lol) but have businesslike relations with the rest of the world. Perhaps other Christian religious bodies are similar, like Mennonites and Old Believer Orthodox Christians.
#14959139
The amish are not communists. They hold to private property and income generation relative to separate nuclear families.

Communalism and Opposition to Individualism are not the same as communism.

This is besides the notion that these descriptions are anachronistic.

I work with a lot of Amish and have family that live next to them as neighbors.

Where some places in the U.S. see a lot of hispanic laborers, in my area you see a lot of Amish.

Pennsylvania is Amishistan after all.

They are pretty normal in all honesty.
#14959148
We should also not fool ourselves that we have left them alone. They have been forced to comply with many things they did not want to.
#14959149
Albert wrote:Who would have thought? Christianity was what Communist needed all along to accomplish their goal.


Well.... ''I thought'', lol :lol: I'm fairly satisfied that my Christian Communism was the right choice under the circumstances.

Not that this changes the nature of the fallen world within us all, but the good and devoted Christian has always been the best citizen, the best neighbor, the best defender of the public good, thrifty, industrious, sober and reliant.

This cannot but help be a boon to those interested in a more just and equitable system, that requires morality and hard work to succeed at all.
#14959150
Christians do make great neighbors as long as they understand proselytizing is extremely annoying. :)
But so is liberal proselytizing.
#14959153
One Degree wrote:Christians do make great neighbors as long as they understand proselytizing is extremely annoying. :)
But so is liberal proselytizing.


Nobody likes being out of their comfort zone, and telling anyone anything perceived to be for their own good takes them out of that comfort zone. Be annoyed, you might thank someone later ;) :D
#14959160
annatar1914 wrote:Well.... ''I thought'', lol :lol: I'm fairly satisfied that my Christian Communism was the right choice under the circumstances.

Not that this changes the nature of the fallen world within us all, but the good and devoted Christian has always been the best citizen, the best neighbor, the best defender of the public good, thrifty, industrious, sober and reliant.

This cannot but help be a boon to those interested in a more just and equitable system, that requires morality and hard work to succeed at all.
Yea I guess come to think of it, it is funny how it works out.

Christianity recently has been subverted by economic liberal thought. Where now you have conservatives like Republicans who promote libertarian economic policies in the name of Christianity. This is not Christianity, a Christian will never deny healthcare to anyone.
#14959166
Albert wrote:Yea I guess come to think of it, it is funny how it works out.

Christianity recently has been subverted by economic liberal thought. Where now you have conservatives like Republicans who promote libertarian economic policies in the name of Christianity. This is not Christianity, a Christian will never deny healthcare to anyone.


For me, life is hard enough and perilous enough for the individual person, sinners that we are, that knowing that one need not have to deal with health care, housing, education, food, family care and employment, would be a huge relief of some terrible burdens in life. It may not necessarily make one a better person even, but it might be still rather just to do it, institute Socialism because it's simply the right thing to do.
#14959177
Albert wrote:Christianity recently has been subverted by economic liberal thought. Where now you have conservatives like Republicans who promote libertarian economic policies in the name of Christianity. This is not Christianity, a Christian will never deny healthcare to anyone.


A Christian will not deny voluntarily helping someone who is hurt or sick.

HOWEVER,

Do you really think Christ taught that people should be forced against their will to help others under threat of being shot or imprisoned?

Thats the difference.

Libertarianism teaches voluntary actions, Christ required us to voluntarily help the poor. Forcing people to give money to the poor by an all-powerful state is not in the Gospel or anywhere in Scripture whatsoever. In fact, its quite contrary to it.

annatar1914 wrote:institute Socialism because it's simply the right thing to do.


:lol:

"Give US All of Your Wealth for Public Redistribution or Die in the Gulags!!!"

- Jesus.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Advancing the point to the Amish, lets keep in mind that the Amish are given the choice to join the communal whole or leave. They get a night to go out in the world and choose whether to leave or remain.

You get no choice in the march of international socialism.

The very idea of "confirmation" in the Christian community for Holy Eucharist is at odds with communist states.

As is the notion of Amish Pacifism in point of fact.
#14959185
A Christian will not deny voluntarily helping someone who is hurt or sick.

HOWEVER,

Do you really think Christ taught that people should be forced against their will to help others under threat of being shot or imprisoned?

Thats the difference.

Libertarianism teaches voluntary actions, Christ required us to voluntarily help the poor. Forcing people to give money to the poor by an all-powerful state is not in the Gospel or anywhere in Scripture whatsoever. In fact, its quite contrary to it.
So have one government healthcare system, if people do not want to pay into it they can go to private healthcare.

Also, Christ never taught about not paying taxes. People payed taxes back in his day that supported kings, military, maintenance of roads, construction of waters sources to their cities and the city walls that protected their nations against invaders. There was duty even back then to pay into things that all benefited from.
#14959189
Albert wrote:So have one government healthcare system, if people do not want to pay into it they can go to private healthcare.


Yeah, but if too many people op out then there is not enough money for the system to work. Thus, would you say that people who don't want to use it must be forced to pay for it?

Thats the same problem with all welfare and is also why ObamaCare had an individual mandate, because he knew that younger people in good health would not want to pay into a system they didn't use. Thus, why he had to force people to pay into obamacare under threat of penalty.

Albert wrote:Also, Christ never taught about not paying taxes. People payed taxes back in his day that supported kings, military, maintenance of roads, construction of waters sources to their cities and the city walls that protected their nations against invaders. There was duty even back then to pay into things that all benefited from.


Do you not understand Christ's parable regarding the payment of taxes?

Why do you think he held up a coin of Caesar in front of the Pharisees?

The Pharisees were trying to trap Christ between the unorthodox saducees who had capitulated to hellensitic thought and Roman life and the Zealots who were in open rebellion against Rome.

If He had said that Jews should not pay taxes, the Roman authorities would have tagged him a rebel and had him punished, had he openly avowed taxation he would have been viewed as a supporter of unbiblical heresy and treachery against the Jewish people who were under occupation and as in league with the Romans.

The reason he has the coin brought to him was to embarrass the Pharisees who, in spite of claiming a "tacit" support of the Zealots, were actually using and trading in the minted currency of Rome.

Christ was pointing out their Hypocrisy.

They themselves were using Roman coinage, the currency of their occupiers. Thus, he confounded all by saying, in essence, "give to Caesar what belongs to him, if you use his coins, give them back as he requires, i.e.; taxes."

His answer amazed the masses for a reason, it was brilliant.

However, Christ also upheld the Law and the Prophets as binding (Matthew 5:17-19), and the Prophet Samuel clearly stated that Taxes were a negative development when the people embraced a government like the nations (1 Samuel 8:10-22)
Last edited by Victoribus Spolia on 01 Nov 2018 19:37, edited 2 times in total.
#14959191
The whole system of Communalism is more Communist than the so-called Communist states that people claim is Communism. There is a number of reasons why Marxism is different to how the Amish live, but fundamentally there is no difference in the way each society in meant to function. Claiming otherwise is wishful thinking. I have read many papers on this very topic actually and ultimately when you look into both systems they are the same. Only Marx's vision is more of utopian global dream and the Amish are more than happy to keep their method communal.
#14959198
@Victoribus Spolia


I think that i'm going to have to lay out a distinction here, that while I consider myself a ''Statist'', I am so in the sense that ''Soviet Democracy'' constitutes a State, a Republic of elected Councils that range from the local level to the national.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy

Voluntarism is great, and this is the way society should organically develop from the ground up, but people being the way they are, a certain level of minimal coercion is in my opinion quite necessary.
A Christian will not deny voluntarily helping someone who is hurt or sick.

HOWEVER,

Do you really think Christ taught that people should be forced against their will to help others under threat of being shot or imprisoned?

Thats the difference.


I think that this is the wrong way of looking at it, because in a Socialist society where the means of production are owned collectively, one contributes to the whole by one's work, and is rewarded from the whole too. One is helping oneself too, by being part of the collective labor.

As part of our planned larger discussion, I'd be happy to outline what I think Christ intends concerning the issue of coercion.

Libertarianism teaches voluntary actions, Christ required us to voluntarily help the poor. Forcing people to give money to the poor by an all-powerful state is not in the Gospel or anywhere in Scripture whatsoever. In fact, its quite contrary to it.


I would aver, rather, that the story of the patriarch Joseph and how he managed to save his family and the whole of Egypt from famine is most enlightening on this issue...



:lol:

"Give US All of Your Wealth for Public Redistribution or Die in the Gulags!!!"

- Jesus.


When the Master returns, I believe He will compel, and all those who He does not wish to be with Him, will be cast into the Outer Darkness. But again, a bigger issue. Voluntarism is fine, and should develop from the local grassroots level, but as a principle of organizing all of a national society is somewhat deficient.
#14959228
As Victoribus Spolia alluded to , even though the Amish share similar anabaptist roots with the Hutterites https://socialistworker.org/2017/11/02/the-hammer-blows-heard-around-the-world , https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-03-22-8903280645-story.html , they themselves do not have a communal way of life . Plus , on top of that , those who do vote tend to be Republican https://lancasteronline.com/news/politics/amish-pac-returns-for-election-as-new-study-reveals-its/article_66819bc4-bddd-11e8-948f-077373a4c8f4.html , http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5613947/ns/politics/t/gop-courts-amish-votes-swing-states/ . On a personal note , I have a Facebook friend whom is of an Amish -Mennonite background , not exactly sure where she currently attends church though , and even though she doesn't really push her political views much if at all , and is amiable to all , even to an outspoken leftist like me :) , I have found out that she , like much of Geauga County , Ohio , is a registered Republican . So the Amish certainly are not ideological Communists .
#14959263
Amish make me think of other sttempts at communes they inevitably fall under the influence of market forces. Too much romanticism about ‘em.

[url]amishamerica.com/do-the-amish-use-money/[/url]

And not so apparent what this conception of communism they’re said to have achieved. Especially when one looks to a small community as an exemplar.
#14959316
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Yeah, but if too many people op out then there is not enough money for the system to work. Thus, would you say that people who don't want to use it must be forced to pay for it?

Thats the same problem with all welfare and is also why ObamaCare had an individual mandate, because he knew that younger people in good health would not want to pay into a system they didn't use. Thus, why he had to force people to pay into obamacare under threat of penalty.
VS, you would not willingly pay into universal healthcare knowing that everyone because of it will receive healthcare? You do not think this is a wonderful thing?

Ideally I think it would had been better not to force people into single payer system and let people who had doubts overtime to see the benefits of universal healthcare coverage for themselves, even if it means running a deficit for some years. As eventually I believe most people will arrive to the conclusion that such system is much better then private run healthcare. Yet you must understand in current political environment opponents will use the ignorance of the public to claim how universal healthcare is more expensive and runs a huge deficit during that time.


Do you not understand Christ's parable regarding the payment of taxes?

Why do you think he held up a coin of Caesar in front of the Pharisees?

The Pharisees were trying to trap Christ between the unorthodox saducees who had capitulated to hellensitic thought and Roman life and the Zealots who were in open rebellion against Rome.

If He had said that Jews should not pay taxes, the Roman authorities would have tagged him a rebel and had him punished, had he openly avowed taxation he would have been viewed as a supporter of unbiblical heresy and treachery against the Jewish people who were under occupation and as in league with the Romans.

The reason he has the coin brought to him was to embarrass the Pharisees who, in spite of claiming a "tacit" support of the Zealots, were actually using and trading in the minted currency of Rome.

Christ was pointing out their Hypocrisy.

They themselves were using Roman coinage, the currency of their occupiers. Thus, he confounded all by saying, in essence, "give to Caesar what belongs to him, if you use his coins, give them back as he requires, i.e.; taxes."

His answer amazed the masses for a reason, it was brilliant.

However, Christ also upheld the Law and the Prophets as binding (Matthew 5:17-19), and the Prophet Samuel clearly stated that Taxes were a negative development when the people embraced a government like the nations (1 Samuel 8:10-22)
You are missing the whole event after Jesus' death, where his disciples and many people had received the holy spirit during Pentecost. After which they went to form their own community where one had no possession of his own and received everything according to one's need from everyone. If one needed food he received it, if one need a place to stay the community helped him get it, if one need healthcare I imagine they go it without pay.

As far as I understand that was a glimpse of Kingdom of Heaven that eventually will arrive for all humanity.

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