(urth) from each according to his abilities (was: Gollancz list (was: Re: Book of the New Sun won!)

[Marc Aramini]

--- On Sun, 8/7/11, David Duffy <davidD at qimr.edu.au> wrote:

> On Sat, 6 Aug 2011, Marc Aramini
> wrote:
> 
> > When I worked for my wife's family circus I saw the
> evils of socialism: from each according to his abilities
> (mostly mine), to each according to his needs (mostly not
>> mine)  and when times are tough, nothing.
> 
> You knew someone would not resist :)
> 
> And all that believed were together, and had all things
> common. And sold their possessions and goods, and parted
> them to all men, as every man had need.
> 
> Cheers, David Duffy.

Thanks all for the interesting responses.  I wanted to elaborate on this really quickly, because something like this happened.  I will reply off list in the future since this is extremely un-Wolfe related but I thought this was interesting.  This is the only post I will make about it, skip it if you find it too far from the lists concerns.  There is Wolfe's response to the situation at the end of it, though.

After a near lethal car accident going back and forth to visit my circus girlfriend, in order that we could be together she convinced me to ask her father for job since she did not want to leave that lifestyle, and he said, okay, but you have to get married.  They are mostly Spanish speaking Mexican Catholics and have been in that travelling performing lifestyle for 5 generations, and travelling there was only so much room, so while they were in Vegas I pretty much sold EVERYTHING I had collected over the years that didn't fit in my new RV at a garage sale tey held, and they kept the proceeds for the one house that served like 25 people. (that was fine with me then, I needed to get rid of stuff!) 

The problem was that it turned out I was the best equipped to deal with permits (planning, building and safety, fire, health, animal control, business license, etc) with instituting and running an ATM and credit card machine, with stocking and running the concession, with making deals with the property owners and scheduling the route, and since I was fit they also expected me to perform (learned a handstand act), and for the first two years I also did the heavy manual labor of tearing down and setting up the tent and bleachers that all men were expected to do.  They would throw visa problems to me, throw tax problems to me, and when it was pay day every week my wife and I would get our 500 dollars before taxes total (250/person) or less if business was bad, (usually individual artists made that or closer to 400) but no one else had those extra responsibilities that I was uniquely qualified for.  The second year I managed to gain a percentage of the
 concession sales, but he cut it again the third year, while my responsibilities continued to grow, facing the hostile and unfriendly inspectors and city governments and councils on my own and the increasing laziness of everyone else in the business, hiding behind a mask of incompetence.  When someone els did anything it just wasn't done right and I would have to go fix it anyway (I think this was on purpose)

They would always ask me to share my good credit score so they could buy new RVs, etc, but I always refused. (very few of them were even on the vehicle loans in name, its just how they operated)

I would often complain to my wife, but she never went against her father, for though the system was socialist it also seemed definitely non-benignly tyrannical at the top distribution level.  She was not prepared to leave her family, so eventually I left by myself, for those reasons and others.

My friend Gene Wolfe told me in correspondence during this time, to paraphrase, "I'm not going to tell you that you love her more than she loves you, but then you knew that already."

Anyway, I found a purely secular sharing of goods and resources and responsibilities like that sucks in practice and parasitizes the most able.