Fine, Ev; but how about just a brief one or two liner on a couple ideas of communism you like?

Meanwhile, Luny: "Isn't it better then to take the idea and add or take away as needed to change it into something acceptably close to the idea and yet much more reasonably implementable?"

First we should differentiate between physical law systems (like all tech), and human organization systems. So far as we know, once physical laws are known, they don't change -- though better measurement may indicate that the "knowledge", like Newtonian physics, is a simplification of a more complex relativistic physics.

"Ideas" about human organizations are fundamentally different, because human will can, and does, change behavior. Take slavery. From before history through around 1800, there had always been slavery. There was little reason to think there wouldn't always be slavery -- but human society changed and this terrible idea, accepted in the Bible among other places, has been almost eradicated. (Except for sex slaves, voluntary or criminally not.)

Besides ideas, there are �ideals� � noble standards that are goals to strive for. The America I�m proud of is based on both the Declaration (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness) and the Constitution (establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity). There are different ideas about what the Ideals mean, and even more different ideas/opinions on how best to organize society towards them.

And there is the Machiavelli issue: do the ends justify the means? Or, if you agree with the means, do you accept the ends?

It occurred to me that one of the big criticisms of capitalism is that of �income inequality�, a popular measure of which is the Gini coefficient; another one the Robin Hood Index. (BTW, Robin Hood stole from the rich tax collectors to return the collected goods back to the poor tax payers ). Another important index is the unemployment index.

Commie systems, where unemployment is illegal, do better than capitalistic ones on both of these measures. I think there are a lot of ways of reducing unemployment in virtually all �capitalistic� countries � by reducing gov�t red tape and requirements on business. Capitalism is also better on absolute poverty.

Here�s a mid article quote: �Unfortunately, Marx was correct on one point at least; in large part, people judge their welfare in relative terms. This is why political envy is such a powerful weapon for politicians. So, no matter how wealthy we become, manipulative people will continue to tap into this dark well of the human psychology. Of course, it is illogical, but emotions often override logic and rationality.�

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ausapec/duncan.PDF

And eliminating income taxes for minimum wage earners and all who make less, by allowing a $10 000 individual deduction, would be a step towards that. But arguing about alternative tweaks to an existing system is exactly what �realpolitik� is mostly about.