Will communism have prisons?

incidentally for jargon fans, this kind of thing is biopolitics as opposed to nuclear missiles and the like - making the biological life of the population the object of power at a statisitical/aggregated level

Like Norway. Leading the way to communism.

meh ok, not heard that. definitely on A roads and it makes sense you're more likely to lose control at higher speeds i guess

I think there are better ways of dealing with problems of speed in built up areas - street furniture etc. Also I really would expect there to be far fewer cars etc in built-up areas in a communist society because I would expect there to be much, much better public transport. And different kinds of vehicle have different kinds of safety/speed issues. I think you're right about different mortality rates at different speeds - although the placing of speed limits sometimes seems insane. I've ridden along country roads that have a 40 limit and I've ridden along residential (though main) roads that have a 60 limit. But it's still dangerous driving - people just driving like twats, people on mobile phones, people just not looking where they're fucking going - that cause most accidents, not people driving quickly but staying alert, paying attention and being responsible.

But away from speed (I don't want to derail the thread with my own irritations), I suppose I think the principle should be 'do no harm should be the whole of the law' - except that it wouldn't be the whole of the law, it would need to be fleshed out so that, for example, people knew how to drive before they got into a car or onto a motorbike. As for prisons - I would see them as more like secure psychiatric hospitals where attempts are made to understand and treat dangerous and severely anti-social behaviours in a safe and humane environment away from the possibility of harm to the general public.

I'm not interested in punishment or revenge, I don't see the point and I think if anything they're positively harmful, but restorative justice would almost certainly be a good thing.

ok, like i say i'm not sure the medicalisation of crime is a step forward, but i'm all for rehabilitation and that

Agree, the whole notion of having personal cars, with all the externalities that comes with it, is just ridiculous.

I know what you mean, but apart from crimes of passion, there must be some reason why people who are fucked up are fucked up. I would think there'd be much less of that in a communist society, so when it did crop I'd think we'd want to know why, at least. Think of it as research, amongst other things.

There's also stacks of evidence that speed is relatively rarely a factor in why accidents happen in the first place. These things are often clouded by issues about how the evidence is collected and how it is interpreted of course. But on German autobahns they have no speed limits at all and, iirc, they have fewer accidents. Would communism be more authoritarian than present-day Germany?

I'd still rely on my own judgement and fuck the law (while trying not to get caught of course). I also ride for fun as much as need - so, leaving environmental and oil supply questions out for the moment at least, I'd still have a bike. It strikes me that this world of more stringent road safety is just what YOU want - what makes you think it WOULD be like that?

I don't know. Most people are happier to increase the chances of road deaths than forego the thrill of risky driving. Just like they’re happier with poverty than giving up the white knuckle ride of market relations.

it's even riskier if you might get caught and have to face the wrath of the workers councils, so your point is moot

In which case the councils would be expressing different values than those of their members. How the counter-intuitive logic of collective action unfolds. Given a straight choice between socialism and barbarism, barbarism wins every time.

yeah, but you're a sociopath, barbarism is your cockaygne

Before you know it, we’re back in the quagmire of consciousness raising as the only worthwhile activity for communists to undertake, and all because they set their particular spin on “justice” up as some kind of objective truth that should be naturally shared between all non-brain-damaged humans.

yes but if you are to maintain your enfant terrible status, your sociopathic ubberman ambitions you need the majority of us last men to validate you.

*ahem* - and all non-brain-damaged capuchin monkeys. won't somebody please think of the animals!

not really i'm quite happy to let people take responsibility for their rejection of societal norms, i've really no interest in consciousness raising or medicalising anti social cunts, i'm quite happy to accept the subjectivity of a serial rapist and to honour it with a bullet to the head.

"Researchers taught brown capuchin monkeys to swap tokens for food. Usually they were happy to exchange this "money" for cucumber. But if they saw another monkey getting a grape - a more-liked food - they took offence. Some refused to work, others took the food and refused to eat it."

Monkeys that go on strike?! Alriiight, another victory for the animal liberationists.

Drink driving's different. People aren't very likely to drink drive without consequences for very long, not unless they're hermits living in the middle of nowhere, it's too dangerous. They can drive (sober) at ninety on the motorway for an entire adult lifetime, though, without causing any harm at all. Many, many people do. And Lazy Riser's right about one thing - people don't drive fast just because they're in a hurry, they drive fast because they enjoy driving fast.

If all cars were made into death-traps, like those crappy electric G-Wiz things, then everyone would be a lot more fucking careful. Certain death always helps focus the mind

There's quite a lot of milage in ideas of "restorative justice", which involve forms of reconciliation between victim and offender, and ways in which the offender can make up for the damage they have done. Of course, this needs the offender to be willing.

Obviously, those who are dangerous need to be prevented from hurting people. But could some technique other than prison be used? What about house arrest, or some sort of electronic tagging? Obviously, these are dubious in the current society, but might aquire a new role in a libertarian communist context?

Far too many fucking retards are given licences far too easily. I'm amazed there aren't a lot more crashes actually. I rarely have any trouble making my self-imposed performance criteria of one use of the bus horn per day.

i'm not sure if this point has been made but i think the idea of communism being an end of history is a major mistake. marx called it the beginning of human history. therefore surely we can all agree that prisons will at some point be abolished, as will be all mental illnesses.

i think its a matter of time, i actually think abolishing prisons will not take too long, but that is only an opinion as it can only be

How in fucking earth does one follow the other?

On the contrary by communism becoming the beginning of human history it would imply no static society but a dynamic one and alas one which still contain conflicts.
As for the idea of wiping out all mental illnesses, what utter utter utter retarded shit!

Maybe, but communism is practically founded on such values. It's what attracts all the turboislanders etc to the ideology.

no it just seems to be dominated by such losers in times of low class militancy.

Comrade, it causes low class militancy. It provides yet more incentives for “normal working class people” to hand responsibility for the world over to their social superiors.

why do continue to resist the seductive charm of the dialectic?

It's not either/or.

Revol wrote: "As for the idea of wiping out all mental illnesses, what utter utter utter retarded shit!"

It's certainly true that Freud argued that people cling desperately to their mental illness, but he would certainly have been impressed by the militant way you do your own clinging.

subjectivity is a mental illness!