: The proponents of socialism go on and on about the fact that there has never been a system like the one you invision. The fact is none of us know this for sure. I'll grant you that maybe none exist in our history books, but it shows the arrogance of our generation when we act like we are the only humans who have ever been able to imagine a more congruous way of life.Marx envisioned socialism as a world-society made possible by technical and cultural progress. Past societies are regressive in this regard -- trying to emulate the models of the past dredges up the tribalism, the chauvinism, the obsessions with status and insecurities about material well-being of past societies.
: Maybe the theories of Social Darwism are correct. Maybe these societies have existed but the stronger and more perfectly evolved systems won out. Maybe ideally these systems seem better, but when put into pratice, human nature (for better or worse) defeated them.
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More likely is the proposition that the "arrogance of our generation" shows itself in its full nakedness when we assume that we know what "human nature" is (according to some Social Darwinist ideological line, or whatever ideology you want to impose on people), that we can isolate "human nature" as some existing thing completely separate from human enculturation, socialization, upbringing. The anthropological record, on the other hand, shows people to be pretty malleable.
If you want to read about how people are malleable in a very negative way, read about the experiments of Stanley Milgram, who took otherwise well-meaning and innocuous people and turned them, momentarily, into Nazis.
