New Mars Forums

Agreed that communism has only really been demonstrated to work in small groups.   

However, to me, one of the most different (and promising) aspect of creating a human settlement on Mars is that the numbers of a colony could be very limited.  Advances in AI and robotics will likely eliminate many normal "human" tasks and thus a self-sustaining colony, also pursuing scientific progress such as terraforming, could feasibly exist on Mars with 50 or so people.  Explain to me why that number would  have to increase.

Not only could communistic ownership of property exist (and perhaps flourish) in a Martian settlement of a limited number of people, but I think a consensus-based governing process could really succeed as well.  While collective ownership provides a foundation for a settlement, a process by which decisions are made - from which scientific areas to explore to what to eat for dinner - is going to be necessary. 

Consensus based decision making - where a group collaborates to make decisions that everyone in the group can agree to and support - has proven to be very powerful and successful in small to medium sized groups (up to 200 or so) in community groups, organizations, and businesses.  Consensus-based decisions are often much more accepted and implementable - and rarely lead to group splintering.  A group as small as 50 could use consensus decision making for many decisions, and create a committee system to handle smaller decisions (committees would use consensus methods as well).  Meetings could be facilitated by AI or rotating facilitators from the settler population as well. 

As consensus decision making has proven to be the most solid, sustainable and successful method of making group decisions, I think the small settlement size of Martian colonies could really be a great chance to leverage this new form of self-governance.