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Brother Coa wrote:

Dytalus wrote:
The Greater Good is in no way a communist ideology. At all. It is a utilitarian one built on the concept of unification and peaceful coalition. Communism is built on a dictatorship where everyone is equal, has no chance to advance or accrue material wealth and none of those things exist in the Tau Empire. Though they prefer not to, Tau can accrue personal wealth. The Ethereals are more advisors than anything, even if they are heeded more often than not. And within a caste, Tau can go up a rank so long as they're competent. Saying that because a Tau is in a Fire caste means he can't become an Ethereal = slavery, is like saying because I can't become US president = dictatorship.

Tau are utilitarian society with communist ideology.

/thread

You know that putting /thread doesn't actually end it right?

And there isn't really much communism involved. Greater Good =/= Communism.

As many people have so pointed out, the Greater Good is not communism. It's utilitarianism. The Tau have some socialist tendencies, but they're not communist. The Tau are willing to conduct trade with peaceful races, which communists would never do. As I've said before, please don't use this thread to discuss our world's politics and ideologies.

Tadashi wrote:As many people have so pointed out, the Greater Good is not communism. It's utilitarianism. The Tau have some socialist tendencies, but they're not communist.

The Tau are willing to conduct trade with peaceful races, which communists would never do.

The problem with the whole idea of trade in the 40K universe is that they say they do it, without ever explaining how. Which seems a bit fishy considering how xenophobic pretty much all the factions are (which, if you're going to have only war in the grim darkness of the far future, helps things along). I buy that the Tau trade within the systems of their empire (probably for socially beneficial items and technology and not capitalistic intentions), and perhaps with benevolent races they are attempting to subvert.

But, another thing to remember is that the Tau are still and empire, and a rather actively expanding one. Their "greater good" is quite aggressive. The Tau aren't good guys, and their concept of "good" is somewhat twisted. They just look better in the light compared to the more totalitarian and repressive tactics of the Imperium. Of course, it's also important to remember that humans lived in relative happiness and freedom under the living Emperor. But you saw how well that turned out for them. Eventually, GW will need a new race to sell, and like the humans and Eldar before them, some Tau will fall to Chaos, and we'll have Chaos Tau battlesuits with spikes on them.

Laodamia wrote:

BeefCakeSoup wrote:
Labeling them any system on Earth is wrong. I agree. [/b]

Wrong? How else could we label them then if not with economic and social patterns we are familiar with??? Are you suggesting that we should go ahead and invent a brand new shiny economic theory to describe the structure of the tau's economy?
The Tau are a fictional race in a fictional universe written by sci-fi authors that based their script on some of the social systems they saw around them here on the real world.
The entire purpose of this thread is to debate which economic and social system the tau are closer to. Saying that "we can't label them with any system we know of" would end up killing the debate and closing this thread right now.

Labeling them any system on Earth is wrong, to clarify...

What form of human economic structure are they like? None. No human political or economical structure has ever come close to being practiced or yielding the results the Tau have had. Not a single theory created by a man or nation of men has ever even slightly bore resemblance to what the Tau are in 40K. Unless there is a nation or man you know of, who implements elements of physical mind control, who is good with diplomatic inter-galactic sovereignty and how it should be carried out on worlds with different races of creatures.

You don't have a model of inter-galactic politics and how it works, we are akin to cavemen trying to explain modern day democracy to a tribe of cavemen using our tribal settings and references to give labels to the present day world. So while I can agree very basic labels can exist, giving a name like Communism, and applying it to the Tau is silly. They exist on a level so far above a pitiful human political/economical structure it's beyond our comprehension. They have a ideologically impossible form of government to humans. One that propelled them into technological levels we haven't really matched 40,000 years from now in only 6,000 years of total existence.

We have zero models of human structure to place on them accurately. So instead of calling them Space Nazis, Space Commies, or Space Democracy, you could call the fictional GW Tau, The Tau, who practice The Greater Good. Are there present day similarities? Yes, but they can't really be called the same or different.

Apply the most basic similarities for example:

Humans on Earth: Caste System - Born into a Caste for role in society. Leaders: Top of Caste, Nobility, Wealth.

Tau on T'au: Genetic Caste System - Born into a Caste after years of evolution preferences certain species. Leaders: Aun, Nobility, Mental Guides, Absolute control.

Kinda of the same, but also very different different, so how do you describe it? It's the Greater Good! It's methods don't have specific real world counter parts! That's the fun of it! It's all thrown into one huge alien government.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:
You don't have a model of inter-galactic politics and how it works, we are akin to cavemen trying to explain modern day democracy to a tribe of cavemen using our tribal settings and references to give labels to the present day world. So while I can agree very basic labels can exist, giving a name like Communism, and applying it to the Tau is silly. They exist on a level so far above a pitiful human political/economical structure it's beyond our comprehension. They have a ideologically impossible form of government to humans. One that propelled them into technological levels we haven't really matched 40,000 years from now in only 6,000 years of total existence.

We have zero models of human structure to place on them accurately. So instead of calling them Space Nazis, Space Commies, or Space Democracy, you could call the fictional GW Tau, The Tau, who practice The Greater Good. Are there present day similarities? Yes, but they can't really be called the same or different.

Dude, no offense, you put up a very nice point, but let's get back down on the ground, the real ground (at least for a short moment before plunging back into the grim darkness of spess). As I've said in a previous post, the taus are fictional. They're plastic toys with a nice background to make them more a bit more interesting.
What we are debating here is how we could describe their political and social organisation with the info we are given by GW. And their government CAN be described using real-world types of political systems because their history was written by humans, real-life humans who set the basis of the tau culture using their knowledge of the political world around them.

As such, the tau are inspired with some real-life elements.
IMO, socialism is one of them (to some extent), communism too. Capitalism and liberalism? Certainly not.

I'm not saying that the taus are space commies. Nor are they nazis or some evil rogue capitalists. But their economic and social system was written down by real-life humans, it did not evolve from thousands of years of real space-faring history. Thus, the tau government and society is certainly akin to many, many cultures and political systems on Earth.

BeefCakeSoup wrote:They exist on a level so far above a pitiful human political/economical structure it's beyond our comprehension.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, there. Time to put the miniatures down for a while and rejoin the rest of us in the real world, lol. You've left the reservation.

We have zero models of human structure to place on them accurately.

Not true at all. I think they've been pegged pretty accurately. Not by the guys calling them "communists" (communism being one of the least well understood socio-political concepts it seems), I'll agree. But the Earth's history has hundreds, if not thousands, of governmental concepts to look back on. It's a pretty comprehensive list you might enjoy doing some actual research on. But the Tau were modeled by pitiful humans, and their ideals are most certainly based on those same pitifully human constructs. They are a blend of several, but being a blend doesn't make them not valid models. And certainly, the guys at GW have never proven themselves to be biologists, military historians and strategists, physicists, or sociologists. I think it's fair to assume they aren't political scientists either and when they wrote the Tau, there was no pretense of having to create anything that made sense as a whole.

Brother Coa wrote:Tau aren't Grimdark enough, ..., no threat of extinction

That's just incorrect, and outrageously so.

The Tau are so ignorant of the galaxy's nature that they're dangerously on the edge of extinction at all times. For example, they believe they killed Slannesh already. The actual god. They think it's dead, because they have utterly no concept of the reality of the world they live in.

The Tau are a tragic faction because they think they are in a different genre than the one they are in. Ignorance will not protect them.