Abolishing names and official family ties under socialism/communism

In my opinion, we need to abolish family names or official family relations

I don't want to end the family, I want to create infinite ways of family, why the biological parents should have the monopoly over the child, is the child a property?

I don't want to end the nucleous family, in fact, I believe it will continue naturally, but I think in a socialist society, where houses a free, we can no more have power over children, people should be totally free and voluntary with their friends or parents

I think we should have a register office, but just to people have an number identity or a name of their choice like "I love nature" or "George Thomson", it all depends on the mood of the person, if the person wants a totally weird name or if they want to keep the tradition they learn from their parents

I do not believe everyone belongs to everyone
I believe no one belongs to no one

RedBrasil wrote:In my opinion, we need to abolish family names or official family relations

I don't want to end the family, I want to create infinite ways of family, why the biological parents should have the monopoly over the child, is the child a property?

How do you propose children are raised without biological parents? Foster parents who will do the exact same job? Children are not (or at least should not) be anyone's property, but raising a child is not claiming the child to be property. If I look after my mother when she is sick and elderly, that doesn't mean I claim her as my property, it means that I care for her as someone who is important to me. The love a parent feels for his or her child (with exceptions, of course) is often clearly developed long before the child is even born. Children aren't robots or livestock to be passed around.

I don't want to end the nucleous family, in fact, I believe it will continue naturally, but I think in a socialist society, where houses a free, we can no more have power over children, people should be totally free and voluntary with their friends or parents

This is only really a problem where children are being abused by their parents or controlled beyond reason. Hopefully in a society where parents' authority isn't driven by unreasonable principles or ideas (religion, for example), this won't be a huge issue.

I think we should have a register office, but just to people have an number identity or a name of their choice like "I love nature" or "George Thomson", it all depends on the mood of the person, if the person wants a totally weird name or if they want to keep the tradition they learn from their parents

Well, there's a point when we question how ridiculous things should be allowed to become. I don't know anyone who would want a number or a statement for a name unless they were trying to be overly rebellious anyway. I'm all for personal freedoms, but I'd certainly lose faith in humanity when it gets to the point of allowing individuals to be named 'Cody 500 Blibbyblobbyblab' and 'I like rice pudding'. People have the freedom to assign themselves nicknames like this anyway, so I don't see why it matters.

I think it's good children being cared by their biological parents, but I don't think this should be the only way. I too love my parents and I believe in mother's love, but I think it should voluntary, and the community should have the same rights. They are not robots, DSN, that's why they should be free to choose.

Yes, I do recognize allowing any names is not so nice. But what rules should exist in socialism? If you pass the surnames of the parents, isn't it a sense of property? What about group marriages? Polyandry? We need to understand they have their rights too. That's why I think we shoud end marriages at all ( in an official way), maybe the child can have the names of the parents as surnames, there are lots of alternatives, we need to think about it. I think family is a very important subject to socialists.

Well, unless we get into the deep, full-on hippie anarchist aspect of things, socialism is only concerned with economic private property. I don't know how a name would be considered property. Plus, people are free to change their names in our current society if they don't like them.

As for polygamy, I see nothing wrong with it (although it's not something I would be interested in), but the determining factor, even in a socialist society, is going to be the cultural practices of that nation. There are always going to be people who aren't suited to culture they were raised in, in which case they should be free to leave. I'm sure that a number of independent subcultural communities would spring up around the world if they were recognised as such and granted some degree of autonomy.

I think we shouldn't concern ourselves with names. Perhaps there would be a tendency toward more collective nurturing of children under communism. Perhaps naming conventions will lose much of their their traditional character, and to a great extent, this is already the case. It certainly is not out of the realm of possibility, and I find many of the utopian elements of hypothetical communal life appealing (incidentally, a great book for anybody interested in the social experiments following the Bolshevik Revolution and prior to Stalinism is Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution by Richard Stites), but to attempt to impose such structures is undesirable in my opinion. Individuals would always possess the option to alter their names, as they do now. Perhaps cultural shifts would even encourage such behavior. I certainly find the notion of naming oneself attractive, but this cannot and should not be accomplished by fiat.

Of course, there would be much greater individual autonomy under socialism. Children who were orphaned would always possess the option to be raised in a collectively funded orphanage with expert care and all of the necessities to develop their full potential, and housing, education, medicine, food, and everything else revolutions in productivity could offer would be available to all. Economic dependency upon other people would be greatly diminished, as production for need would transcend production for exchange.

RedBrasil wrote:I think it's good children being cared by their biological parents, but I don't think this should be the only way. I too love my parents and I believe in mother's love, but I think it should voluntary, and the community should have the same rights. They are not robots, DSN, that's why they should be free to choose.

Yes, I do recognize allowing any names is not so nice. But what rules should exist in socialism? If you pass the surnames of the parents, isn't it a sense of property? What about group marriages? Polyandry? We need to understand they have their rights too. That's why I think we shoud end marriages at all ( in an official way), maybe the child can have the names of the parents as surnames, there are lots of alternatives, we need to think about it. I think family is a very important subject to socialists.

It's people like you who ruin it for the rest of us you know that don't you!! End Marriage!Abolish Family!.Did you have a bowl of Rev Left for breakfast or are you one of the people who believe in shit like people should be gender and sexuality neutral in the interest of equality.Fuck me you do know that most people see marriage as making a commitment to one another and all the legal and or religious parts of it as mere formalities.When it comes to the upbringing of their offspring they do it along side friends,family and various qualified individuals normally as part of a community.

When is a child considered responsible enough to decide what if any family they should be part of?.In my opinion a child isn't in a position to decide what a family is and what dynamic they play in it is,once an individual is legally an adult they can do as they please and raise a family in whatever way they so choose.

Family is an important subject to the human race.

I'm glad I'm a Folkish Socialist.

TheocWulf wrote:I'm glad I'm a Folkish Socialist.

One needn't espouse 'folkish socialism' to appreciate marriage and the family. Just as many Marxian socialists have believed that socialism would serve to perfect those institutions as there have been those who believed it would abolish them, and I count myself among the former category. The notion that socialism will completely upend life as we know it originates with the more quixotic currents of Utopian socialism, but it continues to be propounded by significant segments of the New Left today.

We cannot predict what the outcome of the dialectical processes of history will be, so these discussions are inherently speculative, which is why I generally avoid them. I will say, however, that no matter what one's opinion happens to be on the matter, it isn't advisable for radical organizations to utilize rhetoric which is antagonistic towards marriage and the family.

I never said family isn't importat

I just think it's very pretentious to think one model is better than other
Let's end official bonds between people, so we can see a infinite number of possiblities.

Don't get me wrong Folk Socialist, I never said I want to forbid monogamic relations or abolish religious marriage

TheocWulf wrote:Did you have a bowl of Rev Left for breakfast

Oh, you do crack me up.

Celtiberian is right, we shouldn't bring these topics in political activies

But this is a forum isn't it? Can I ask the opinions of fellow socialists, or should I care if my topic is too "RevLeft" for you?

RedBrasil wrote:Celtiberian is right, we shouldn't bring these topics in political activies

But this is a forum isn't it? Can I ask the opinions of fellow socialists, or should I care if my topic is too "RevLeft" for you?

It's perfectly fine to raise such questions here, I just mentioned tactical considerations as an aside.

RedBrasil wrote:In my opinion, we need to abolish family names or official family relations

I don't want to end the family, I want to create infinite ways of family, why the biological parents should have the monopoly over the child, is the child a property?

I don't want to end the nucleous family, in fact, I believe it will continue naturally, but I think in a socialist society, where houses a free, we can no more have power over children, people should be totally free and voluntary with their friends or parents

I think we should have a register office, but just to people have an number identity or a name of their choice like "I love nature" or "George Thomson", it all depends on the mood of the person, if the person wants a totally weird name or if they want to keep the tradition they learn from their parents

I do not believe everyone belongs to everyone
I believe no one belongs to no one

I agree with you. From what I've heard it was similar to this in past generations where the parents of children would help each other out in the community. It wasn't uncommon for kids to just wander into a neighbor's house and eat lunch.

Anthropologist L.H. Morgan identified five types of familial organisation, so it really depends on what you mean by "family". Morgan wrote in his most well renowned work, Ancient Society:

In its primary meaning the word family, had no relation to the married pair or their children, but to the body of slaves and servants who labored for its maintenance, and were under the power of the pater familias. Familia in some testamentary dispositions is used as equivalent to patrimonium, the inheritance which passed to the heir.

Engels wrote Origins of the Family inspired largely by Ancient Society and argued that the development of private property brought the monogamous family into development for men to ensure their property would be inherited by their biological descendants.

The problem with Engels' argument is that it doesn't account for the development of the monogamous family among poorer people who possess very little property to be inherited.

Morgan notes that the monogamous family has been a positive and progressive social evolution, but he also sees a potential for future development:

When the fact is accepted that the family has passed through four successive forms, and is now in a fifth, the question at once arises whether this form can be permanent in the future. The only answer that can be given is, that it must advance as society advances, and change as society changes, even as it has done in the past. It is the culture of the social system, and will reflect its culture. As the monogamian family has improved greatly since the commencement of civilization, and very sensibly in modern times, it is at least supposable that it is capable of still further improvement until the equality of the sexes is attained. Should the monogamian family in the distant future fail to answer the requirements of society, assuming the continuous progress of civilization, it is impossible to predict the nature of its successor.

Relying on Morgan's observations, Engels exclaims the constitution of the Iroqoius is "wonderful" and says:

All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe, or by the gentes among themselves; only as an extreme and exceptional measure is blood revenge threatened-and our capital punishment is nothing but blood revenge in a civilized form, with all the advantages and drawbacks of civilization. Although there were many more matters to be settled in common than today - the household is maintained by a number of families in common, and is communistic, the land belongs to the tribe, only the small gardens are allotted provisionally to the households - yet there is no need for even a trace of our complicated administrative apparatus with all its ramifications. The decisions are taken by those concerned, and in most cases everything has been already settled by the custom of centuries. There cannot be any poor or needy - the communal household and the gens know their responsibilities towards the old, the sick, and those disabled in war. All are equal and free - the women included. There is no place yet for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes.

Now, Morgan and Engels wrote their theories over 100 years ago, and Engels himself was not a anthropologist so we need to revisit his arguments in light of the abundance of scientific research that has been observed in the last century. The main core of Engels' work is still relevant though, but to what extent the family will develop under communism is yet to be seen. Any attempts to forcible "abolish" the family will be met with derision and ridicule, not just from the bourgeoisie but from the proletariat since the vast majority regard the family as near sacrosanct.