While discussing Marx's idea of of the idea of getting rid of private property an number of us, if not all, were not comfortable with the idea. Why is that? Not having private property would put us on a more equal level. No one would have better stuff than the next person because we all have to share the same things. I think this need for having something to call our own is something we are born with. As children we go through a phase were we think everything is ours. It just part of our greedy nature of humans. We do not want to share what we think is ours.
Even if it is not specifically ours but if we still feel as though we have a special connection with that item we may still think that item is still ours personally. Take for instance chairs in a classroom. On the first day of class when you pick a seat it is hard, well for me, to have to choose a different seat the next class period because I had already designated the first day seat as MY seat. So I know I would have an especially hard time with this aspect of communism. I, greedily, feel like what's mine is mine. I do not mind sharing but I like having something to call my own. But I do feel like this is a common sentiment among most if not everyone.
We would also not have anything to strive for if we all shared everything. Why should I work I work for something if I could just wait for someone else to get it so we can share. It would limit some peoples ability to better themselves. This is one of my main reasons against communism as a whole.
Another reason I feel that having everything as public property is not a good idea is because lots of things will start to become worn down because no one will feel responsibility for the well-being of any items. It's known that people tend to take care of things that are theirs and feel less responsibility for things that are not. We discussed this in class. We used the example of our classroom. No matter how dirty that classroom became none of us would ever come in with a vacuum to clean up. Why? Because it's not ours and not our responsibility. But if the property was shared between all of us many of us would not do anything to clean it up either because we would expect someone else to do it. So if we all have that same mindset the room would still not get cleaned.
These are just a few of the reasons why I do not feel the idea of not having personal property is a good reason. Of course this is not for every situation and for every person (there are exceptions for everything). Or I could just have a negative perception of human personalities.
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ReplyDeleteWhenever I entertain Marx’s idea of getting rid of private property, the first thing that comes to mind is public restrooms versus personal restrooms. If America gets rid of private property, our country will began to resemble a Wal-Mart restroom. I do not mean to come off as pessimistic but I believe most individuals do not respect things that do not belong to them. In class last week someone bought up the example that no one in our class has ever generously decided to vacuum the carpet in our classroom but that they probably vacuum the carpet at home. Another example of people not respecting things that they do not own would be the common rooms in resident halls. Common rooms are disgusting because no one has ownership of them. Any and every one is allowed in the common rooms. They only reason why common rooms do not look and smell worse than they already do is because of the housekeeping staff. Perhaps not having private property would work in America if the government hires a large housekeeping staff.
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