Thanksgiving: Deliverance from socialism

[Dr.Who]

Squanto should have let them starve.

That is not a very nice sentiment. And that is an understatement.

 

[top gun]

WE LOVE OUR PREZ!

Thank you for being a good person, a good father and a good leader for America.

 

[Bunz]

What do you suppose they used money for?

Well in most cases there wasnt money, the vast majority of thier economy was based on the barter system. Some items held value that were higher than others, much of this was based on useful uses such as tool making materials(ivory, certain bones, metal objects,animal hides, as well as certain types of stones.) Then there were things that possesed spiritual value, feathers, certain stones, metal ores, etc. Then of course food items. As you point out the diversity among the various Native groups vary tremendously. But as a whole, there is little evidence either physical or anecdotal that would suggest that had standard currency. For instance gold and silver were more valued as art media's than coinage.

I suppose they were. So are families. Might it be that each tribe was a whole lot smaller than most cities today and consisted of a lot more people who were inter-related?

There are a few notable exceptions here...while the basis of society for most Natives especially those in North America are matriarical family groups. How big of a group they are depended generally on how many resources were available for consumption and no doubt it changed yearly. Tenochtitlán which is modern day Mexico City was even then a major metropolitan center, it apparently had more people than London or Paris and had a full city plan(some say the first in history) with sanitation systems that were the best in the world at the time. This was centuries before Europeans showed up.

I would agree that the level of technology is not the end-all and be-all of how to measure the worth of a society. That is probably why I added it as an aside.

Fair enough, personally I find it fascinating how advanced many of the societies were despite being isolated from many other societies.
Something important to note, is that the renessaince era in Europe would not have happened without earlier advancements by other non European groups in science and culture.

I see the native Americans as a diverse groups of peoples who had a lot of valuable experiences to offer the world and were given the same rights that God gave everyone else.

If you believe in God given rights, that is fine, I wont disagree. I think it is worthy to note that all to often any of those rights that apparently had were stripped by the various imperialist/capitalist governments, especially including the United States of America. I shouldnt have to point out how on a massive and institutional scale that the US stripped or denied the following rights that are including in our first 8 amendments.

What I don't see is that their experience is strong enough evidence that collectivistic living is right for everyone or even good for everyone.

Well there is little doubt the various societies were successful for quite a long time, but I dont think a true collective society is good for everyone. Just as I dont think a pure capitalist one is either.

Their cultures certainly had many of the ills that other cultures had. I don't even see their limited use of collectivism as evidence that it can work with any type of civilization other than theirs and not even proof that it worked all that well for them or that they were mostly collectivistic rather than a unique mix.

Again, it was not a limited use of collectivism, but instead that was the general practice.

And without a doubt even if their system did work good for them (debatable), those in the US who want to impose collectivism on those who do not want it are destroyers of liberty.

So based on this statement I would assume that you dont think it right to force capitalism on someone who does/didnt want it? Because that is what happened, and in some ways is continuing to happen.

 

[Bunz]

That is not a very nice sentiment. And that is an understatement.

It was more to try and get Gipper to bite, but I think he realizes that he bit off more than he could chew and wont be back to this thread, or at least not with something actually worthy of discussion. Which Doc, I must say even though we are generally of different ideologies, it was a pleasure to debate with you. Thanks.

As for the actual statement I made, I generally dont think those sort of things, but for the last few years I have seen pretty much the same op-ed piece who want to politicize this holiday(which I do participate and enjoy myself). The author denounces a collective effort, when it is highly arguable that thier switch in distribution methods had much less to do with thier increase in output when it was in fact a Native who is commonly known as Squanto who taught them many important skills to survive in the environment the pilgrims found themselves. Without Squanto, the pilgrims were in for another deadly winter regardless of if they were socialist or capitalists.

 

[Dr.Who]

Well in most cases there wasnt money, the vast majority of thier economy was based on the barter system. Some items held value that were higher than others, much of this was based on useful uses such as tool making materials(ivory, certain bones, metal objects,animal hides, as well as certain types of stones.) Then there were things that possesed spiritual value, feathers, certain stones, metal ores, etc. Then of course food items. As you point out the diversity among the various Native groups vary tremendously. But as a whole, there is little evidence either physical or anecdotal that would suggest that had standard currency. For instance gold and silver were more valued as art media's than coinage.

Wampum.

No, for our readers, that's not an insult. You and I both know it is the name of the currency used by indians all across N. America.

But I don't know if it was how most trade was made or of barter was more or less common.

It does not matter since the question we began this with was whether or not they traded for labor. One cannot divorce trade from labor. Whether one trades money (wampum, bucks, etc.) or goods it still takes labor to produce the goods and the money is merely a substitute for the good and labor. As soon as there is widespread trade of goods or money it is hard to make the claim that a culture is communal, after all the whole point of money is to keep track of who owes what to whom.

This means that the indians were more advanced than many give them credit for. Not only did they use money but they even had credit.

One of my hobbies is collecting paper currrency from around the world. I have been in museums and seen the currency (non paper) that the indians used and it was not always shells. I have to admit my faulty memory in that I did not pay a lot of attention and don't remember too many of the details about the form of the currencies. I do remember that there were several different kinds and they even had anti-counterfeiting measures.

 

[top gun]

I saw the word Deliverance and immediately thought... sure Conservatives want to give us Deliverance.