Many hunter-gatherer societies practiced communal ownership for thousands of years just fine.
Indeed! Now let's analyze why that is, why does it work in HG societies? They are small groups of, at most, about 100 people. This means that everyone either knows each other or is only one social link removed from someone else. This makes for an intimate group of people that know the circumstances of one another and through mutual work have a bond.
They also have very similar circumstances, they all must work together to survive and so as long as someone is contributing to the survival of the group they are a valued asset of the community.
They also do not live a life of surplus. Working for the continued survival of all is a daily goal. It is not always a society that lives on a knifes edge but they still must always be working to better their situation.
They also do not have a single individual that can control their actions. One of them might be able to direct everyone to their own selfish ends or take all spoils for themselves but in the former if their decisions lead to suffering of all others the those others will depose them and in the latter they may have all the spoils but it will lead to the death of those they need to even have those spoils.
It comes together in a rather nice melding of necessity and camaraderie. The checks and balances of personal and group interests come together closely.
Now why does this not work in modern societies? I would argue that it is a problem of scale. Take the USA as an example; the life of someone in California is different from that of one in Missouri, the rural life is different from the urban, and on it goes. It is a gigantic group of different people who do not really know each other. They lack the emotional bond of knowing each other and the way they each make their livelihood and the history of their life is also very different. In order to have these giant groups of people function towards some common goal you need to find a way to bind them together, this can come through force or through finding some common sentiment among them all.
The binding of America is perhaps very unusual then in that the commonality used is our individualism, united in us all as individuals, or at least, that is what the intention is. The problem and risk is that our individuality, our own self interests, will infringe on each other, which is what our laws are supposed to prevent. The means of force is one we are not strangers to either, which is that of the conqueror, the forcing of unity. It is one group, one tribe, enforcing its rules and perhaps sentiments on another through force.
Forgive me for typing out a stream of consciousness here. I also feel like I'm close to finding the words that I think will articulate what it is that Tstorm is getting at so I'll make a post about that once lunch hits.
