>Engels' reasoning seems less than sound here - why isn't it likely
>that the irrational religious beliefs are what keep the community
>together, and make their collectivism possible? Similarly, it's
>likely that the hunter-gatherers, so revered by many, were able to
>live their peaceful collective lives precisely because they didn't
>engage in production on anything but the smallest scale. Pointing to
>these models doesn't really offer much to the present and future,
>unless we all want to become millennarians and/or don skins.
Isn't possible that the Shakers' religious basis was responsible for *both* their medium-term success *and* their long-term decline.
The first because their religion provided the personal and ideological solidarity that allowed their communities to be economically competitive in the rural US of the 19th century; the second because it prevented them from evolving either into capitalist corporations or into a general movement for general social change?
Julian