Thread: Can Communism ever work? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
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I was watching Simon Reeves program on Cuba last night, and his insights indicating that the Communist experiment there is failing. The Soviet experiment also failed at various times.
Of course the reasons are complicated, and include corruption and laziness - there are no simple reasons and solving these might then find other issues.
But the question is, can it ever work on a country scale? Is there anything fundamentally broken in is, or could it actually work, on this scale, if it was properly done?
And FWIW, I don't think Capitalism works either. I am not on a downer about communism. In truth, I think only a far more radical approach would work. But I would like to hope that the Communist ideas might not be entirely lost.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
Schroedinger's cat: Of course the reasons are complicated, and include corruption and laziness
And the trade embargo?
Posted by Liopleurodon (# 4836) on
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Communism seems to be one of those topics which is particularly susceptible to the No True Scotsman fallacy. I studied Politics at a rather pinko-leaning uni, and I heard over and over again that the only reason why communism had failed to work was because it hadn't been done properly. And we know it wasn't done properly because it didn't work.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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I think one of its problems is that it becomes top-down. So if people get fed up with it, they are told to get on with it, or put in a gulag.
You can see this in the Russian Revolution - no doubt at first, there is a genuine popular element to it, but then when people get dissatisfied, they must be forced.
See for example, the Kronstadt rebellion - crushed mercilessly, with many sailors executed.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think one of its problems is that it becomes top-down. So if people get fed up with it, they are told to get on with it, or put in a gulag.
This is pretty much the problem with every geographically-based political system - that those who don't like it don't have a choice in participating, I mean, I'd like to live in a place where corporations paid tax on their profits and public services were properly funded, but it looks like I can't even vote for that any more.
In the future, there'll be virtual micro-nations, overlain on top of each other. If you want to be a communist, you can be part of the workers' council, own the means of production and share in the benefits (as well as suffer the problems). If you want to be a anarcho-capitalist reliant on no one, you can. Leaving one group and joining another won't involve all that pesky repression and becoming a refugee.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
quetzalcoatl: I think one of its problems is that it becomes top-down.
That's my main problem with it too, although I sympathize with many of its tenets.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Liopleurodon:
Communism seems to be one of those topics which is particularly susceptible to the No True Scotsman fallacy. I studied Politics at a rather pinko-leaning uni, and I heard over and over again that the only reason why communism had failed to work was because it hadn't been done properly. And we know it wasn't done properly because it didn't work.
It hasn't been done sustainably for any length of time - which is the problem. It's been tried a number of times but always in the middle of revolution and civil war, and all attempts have been quickly and brutally crushed by dictator regimes.
In Spain in the 30's the local communist and socialist parties were relatively successful for about 6-12 months before the war turned against them. They were also betrayed by the Russian-backed communist party for realpolitik reasons rather than ideological. Then the fascists and the infighting inherent in small, new revolutionary groups tore the country apart and wrecked the experiment.
Similarly in 1917-1921, during the Russian Civil War it wasn't a straight fight between the Bolsheviks against the Tsarists, but the Boslheviks fighting innumurable small groups, some of whom managed to set up small but workable independent communist communities and mini-republics, before the Bolsheviks shut them down with extreme prejudice in favour of Bolshevism (which wasn't communist so much as it was Leninist - basically 'do what Lenin says or you get shot'). This was largely due to the bolsheviks controlling the symbols of revolution in Moscow and St Petersburg and having better propaganda to recruit more soldiers, rather than the comparative ideologies of the communist groups.
The problem has always been how to start a communist society. The only way other than patiently waiting for history's slow and cruel gears to work, is through sudden, violent revolution. Unfortunatley this has the side effect of creating a situation of anarchic war which is the easiest situation for a dictator to take control of for their own ends.
Posted by justlooking (# 12079) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
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quetzalcoatl: I think one of its problems is that it becomes top-down.
That's my main problem with it too, although I sympathize with many of its tenets.
Me too.
It's how power works that makes it not work in practice.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is brilliant. The problems start around ideas of freedom and power. Suppose someone just doesn't want to give in accordance with their ability? Who decides someone's abilities and needs anyway? And how is it put into effect?
Posted by CL (# 16145) on
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Can Communism ever work?
Only in the fevered dreams of a middle-class undergraduate.
Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on
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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think one of its problems is that it becomes top-down. So if people get fed up with it, they are told to get on with it, or put in a gulag.
You can see this in the Russian Revolution - no doubt at first, there is a genuine popular element to it, but then when people get dissatisfied, they must be forced.
You're confusing Communism with Bolshevism. The people never supported the Bolsheviks themselves, which was a St Petersburg intellectual circle, they supported the Soviets (basically local and national peoples' committees elected directly by the people on a communal basis). At first the Bolsheviks were one faction among many in the Soviets. Then they became more powerful because they argued they were the best supporters of the Soviets, and would protect them against their enemies (Tsarists and Germans).
Steadily though the Soviets became a subordinate power to Bolshevik party rule, and then rubber-stampers of Bolshevik central committe rule, and then stopped meeting and became just a name used to support the Bolshevik party leader's personal rule.
The Bolsheviks engineered this process of hijacking and taking control of the Soviets through the exploitation of the Civil War, and through vicious massacres and purges to force their authority over the country - often by destroying local soviets that had popular support and replacing them with their own people at the point of a gun.
But most people suppprted the Bolsheviks by voting and fighting for them not because the people supported Bolshevik-brand communism (most people had no idea what this even was), but because they saw the Bolsheviks (due to excellent propaganda) as the defenders of the soviets and the revolution. It was these they supported, which gave the peasants more land and more freedom to manage their own affairs. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks lied - they weren't fighting for the soviets but for themselves.
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on
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The other thing to remember is that Communism is not simply an economic or even political system - it buys into a whole lot of sort-of-Hegelian ideas about the nature of history and truth that I find essentially malign. You could adopt (as far as I can see) Communist economic policies and still be nothing like an actual Communist - that is really just democratic socialism.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The other thing to remember is that Communism is not simply an economic or even political system - it buys into a whole lot of sort-of-Hegelian ideas about the nature of history and truth that I find essentially malign. You could adopt (as far as I can see) Communist economic policies and still be nothing like an actual Communist - that is really just democratic socialism.
So in what sense is "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" not true, even (or especially) today?
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Hawk
Yes, you are right that that was the trajectory of Bolshevism, but hasn't it been repeated in different revolutions? I know the French Revolution was not communist, but it began to devour itself by the end, and had a period of dictatorship.
As Saint-Just said, 'that which produces the general good is always terrible'; or Robespierre, 'terror is an emanation of virtue'.
But the revolutionaries often claim a monopoly of virtue!
Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on
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quote:
originally posted by Doc Tor:
In the future, there'll be virtual micro-nations, overlain on top of each other. If you want to be a communist, you can be part of the workers' council, own the means of production and share in the benefits (as well as suffer the problems). If you want to be a anarcho-capitalist reliant on no one, you can. Leaving one group and joining another won't involve all that pesky repression and becoming a refugee.
From your keyboard to God's eyes.
However, you don't live in a country forcing you to stay and you can move almost anywhere in Europe you like.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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I think it important to separate Marxism, which claims to be a "scientific" theory about historical development, and "Communism", which is a political movement based on Marxist ideas. The distinction is important because the theory predicted that communism would emerge in the most advanced bourgeois societies, like the United States, Germany, France and Britain, as the contradictions of advanced capitalism destroyed their socio-economic foundations. Thus far, advanced capitalist societies have shown no signs of morphing into communism, and Communist states have been less the product of historical inevitability than political intervention by Communist Parties, frequently in underdeveloped economies. For Marxists, the failure of Communism lies in its attempt to short-circuit historical development by political means. Djilas, a Yugoslavian Communist and Marxist, pointed out the contradictions of existing Communist societies in that the party constituted a "class" because it owned the means of production, as against the hoi polloi, who did not. Furthermore, because Marxism held that the purpose of the state was to be the instrument by which one class suppressed the others, it followed that the Party suppressed the masses in pursuit of its peculiar class interests. Thus, from a Marxist perspective, there was a natural class conflict between the Communist Party and the rest, and explains why the state, which theory suggested would cease to exist once there was only one class, the proletariat, failed to wither away.
It would seem for Marx the theorist that Communism would be realised once there was an end to economic scarcity. The state would cease to exist and be replaced by "the administration of things", ensuring that individuals had their wants satisfied in the most efficient way. The ending of economic scarcity, where wants equal supply, is a truly revolutionary concept because it denies economics as concerned with the distribution of scarce resources. It is, indeed, the end of history: the world as hitherto experience by humanity. Futhermore, not only is it difficult to conceive of supply ever equalling demand, but before it can approach such a point the degree of global warming involved, one suspects, would already have destroyed the planet.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
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I think one reason that Communism has failed everywhere it has been tried is that it involved central planning. It might be possible for central planners to gather all the information they need to plan wisely, but it has never happened.
One area where central planning has proved particularly disastrous is agriculture. Before the revolution Russia exported grain; they have been importing it ever since.
Agriculture depends almost entirely on local conditions, which can vary in a very small area. Capable farmers know their own soil, climate, etc. and can use their knowledge to produce good crops if they are free to make their own decisions. Production is far higher on private plots than on land where the decision about what to plant are made elsewhere.
Moo
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
The other thing to remember is that Communism is not simply an economic or even political system - it buys into a whole lot of sort-of-Hegelian ideas about the nature of history and truth that I find essentially malign. You could adopt (as far as I can see) Communist economic policies and still be nothing like an actual Communist - that is really just democratic socialism.
So in what sense is "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles" not true, even (or especially) today?
Well... in nearly every sense, I'd say. I might as well say "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of technological development" or "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of developing national identity" or "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of God manifesting his pleasure and displeasure on the peoples of the world" without being any more off-beam. Why should "class struggle" ( "is that even a 'thing'?", as they say?) - be considered the dominant factor in the history of society?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Doc Tor:
In the future, there'll be virtual micro-nations, overlain on top of each other. If you want to be a communist, you can be part of the workers' council, own the means of production and share in the benefits (as well as suffer the problems). If you want to be a anarcho-capitalist reliant on no one, you can. Leaving one group and joining another won't involve all that pesky repression and becoming a refugee.
From your keyboard to God's eyes.
However, you don't live in a country forcing you to stay and you can move almost anywhere in Europe you like.
While this is theoretically true, the main wage-earner in our household is an expert in English criminal law... also moving to another part of the EU does rather entail upping sticks. Why can't we stay at home and practice social democracy?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
Why should "class struggle" ( "is that even a 'thing'?", as they say?) - be considered the dominant factor in the history of society?
Because history is marked out by a series of conflicts between the privileged few and the disenfranchised many?
I could simply turn your argument around and suggest that while all those other things you mention are factors, class struggle is, and remains, the dominant social dynamic.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
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Doc Tor quote:
I could simply turn your argument around and suggest that while all those other things you mention are factors, class struggle is, and remains, the dominant social dynamic.
I suspect you may well be right. Do you, however, agree with the Marxist that this dynamic will at some point come to an end when there is only one class left? And what does it tell us about the success or failure of Communist societies?
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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The local university here renamed the "political science" department "political studies", I thought, when it was brought to their attention that there is nothing scientific about it. It was renamed "political economy" a few years later, completing the circle that has always existed. Control the money, control the people.
In my experience as a young person, I felt communism worked at summer camp. For periods of up to 2 weeks. After that, it breaks down. The boy scout group living model works a little better and can survive for probably up to a month of simple living together.
I think it is probably well accepted that the Middle Way is the only reasonable course for social and political relations, which befits Anglicans and the well-tempered mixed economy. Too much of anything being bad for health, happiness and proper tea making.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Doc Tor quote:
I could simply turn your argument around and suggest that while all those other things you mention are factors, class struggle is, and remains, the dominant social dynamic.
I suspect you may well be right. Do you, however, agree with the Marxist that this dynamic will at some point come to an end when there is only one class left? And what does it tell us about the success or failure of Communist societies?
It's something I actively explore in my books, positing that a communist revolution will only have a chance of success if two factors are present.
The first is some level of distance from the dominant capitalist economy: initially land and energy, and thereafter, capital itself. In the books, this is done by political shenanigans and technological wizardry.
The second is some level of distance from human nature, which as is always noted in discussions on communism, seems to fuck things up quite royally no matter how good the intentions are. I achieve that by having a 'machine of loving grace' helping the people make good, long-term decisions.
So until we reach the point where a post-scarcity, AI-enabled society is doable, social democracy is the best we can hope for: it will, at least, make the transition easier.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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Kwesi: Do you, however, agree with the Marxist that this dynamic will at some point come to an end when there is only one class left?
I'm not sure about this one class, but I do believe that capitalism is heading towards a crisis that will mean its end.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Kwesi: Do you, however, agree with the Marxist that this dynamic will at some point come to an end when there is only one class left?
I'm not sure about this one class, but I do believe that capitalism is heading towards a crisis that will mean its end.
I remember hearing that stuff in the 70s, and I thought it was pie in the sky, but now, I'm not so sure. How can the problems of falling profits, declining wages, which produce low growth - be solved? Perhaps by means of endless stagnation?
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quetzalcoatl: I remember hearing that stuff in the 70s, and I thought it was pie in the sky, but now, I'm not so sure.
I'm not sure if the crisis that will be the end of capitalism is the pie in the sky. Communists believe that after this crisis the Workers' Utopia will ensue. I'm not that convinced that this will be the outcome.
[ 02. December 2013, 15:22: Message edited by: LeRoc ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Why can't we stay at home and practice social democracy?
So if a social democrat, a capitalist and a communist are neighbours, who pays the wage of the local policeman?
Are there parallel legal systems for each of your overlaid virtual nations? If so, which legal system has jurisdiction? The one that the criminal subscribes to? The one that the victim subscribes to? The one that happened to grab the "criminal" off the street?
When libertarian nation A permits public nudity, and prudish B insists on modest clothing, who prevents the civil war? There must be some overarching framework that governs how your virtual nations interact - doesn't that overarching framework end up being the true nation, and all your little virtual things end up as a combination of window-dressing and an insurance plan?
Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on
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NO just look at Russia & eastern Rurope
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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If Communism ever works it'll mean we're all a lot more equal, but also for the most part a lot poorer. I for one prefer the option in which I have more, even if the loss of equality means other people have considerably more than me - and I don't have to be in the top 1% for that to be the case, I just have to be in the top 50%.
The fact that I'm not alone in that opinion is why Communism will never work. There may well be a major economic crisis leading to the end of capitalism as we know it lurking somewhere in the future, but it won't result in some kind of Communist paradise - it'll just result in a new system where some people have lots and others have little. All that will change is which people are which.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In the future, there'll be virtual micro-nations, overlain on top of each other. If you want to be a communist, you can be part of the workers' council, own the means of production and share in the benefits (as well as suffer the problems). If you want to be a anarcho-capitalist reliant on no one, you can. Leaving one group and joining another won't involve all that pesky repression and becoming a refugee.
How small would your 'virtual micro-nations' be? Would they be as small as, say, a house in Lambeth?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When libertarian nation A permits public nudity, and prudish B insists on modest clothing, who prevents the civil war?
I'm reasonably certain that no one is going to go to war over this.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
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I think all the main reasons have been stated already. I will list them below, but will first add some of my own:
-Scarcity will never cease to exist. Even without advertising shoving consumerism down people's throats, people can never be fully satisfied with what they have in life (more is always better). The only people who seem to accept what they have in life as enough are the people who are beaten into fatalism by poverty and violence. If people have the basics of security in terms of food, shelter, and safety, they paradoxically become insatiable by whatever other benefits life (or the state or utopian stateless communist society) may bring them. I think this is enough a part of human nature that no complete transformation of society can fully change it.
-Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you have the power to kill, imprison, torture, etc., no matter how much you believe you will never use them, you (or someone else who takes that power from you) will eventually use it to protect yourself or what matters to you. The same is true in capitalist countries, but at least there is some decentralization of political and economic power to offset it.
-Competition is also a part of human nature and the geopolitical system. Socialist countries only cooperate if it is mutually beneficial - and the lack of any global government with teeth means that even if cooperation is mutually beneficial, it often will not work (the prisoner's dilemma). So socialist countries have all kinds of incentives to betray their socialist allies, ally with captialist countries, and even to adopt capitalism if need be in order to achieve domestic and geopolitical goals.
Note that I am a leftist of sorts. I really want the world to become a communal ecotopia of federated non-sovereign voluntary communities. I just don't know how to get there, and for now I think that a mixed market economy with a sustainable welfare state, comprehensive safety net, and openness to the global economy is the best we can do. Even that seems unachievable because of human nature, but my Christian delusions make me want to try anyway ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
. I do want my ecotopia still though - and if anyone has a good idea of how to get there that takes the lessons of history into account, please let me know.
Here is my take on what has already been said:
A. central planning (ie, micromanaging) of a vast and complicated economy does not work because:
1. Even with modern technology no central decision making authority can collect and process enough data quickly enough to be anywhere near as efficient as independent people with immediate proximity to the consequences of their decisions. Collecting and processing this data for a central authority also takes a huge amount of expense and labor that is not needed when independent decision makers already know this information.
2. A central authority not only has to collect huge amounts of data, but also lacks "working knowledge" - ie, a familiarity gained from trial and error of how to deal with local conditions. This working knowledge also consists of relationships built with local actors that are based on trust, which in an envrionment of peace, law, and order often function better than relationships of force with the central planning authority.
3. The profit incentive. Central planners have the incentive to earn promotion and prestige, so they try to make the numbers look good and do other things to get on the good side of their superiors that do not necessarily benefit the economy as a whole - let alone your average worker/farmer/student. Independent owners of land or capital (ie, machines and things that take natural resources and human labor to produce other things) have much more incentive to operate efficiently because they get to keep the fruits of their effort.
--The reason that large firms employing many workers who are not owners of land or capital develop is because contrary to what some degree of centralization actually increases efficiency. This is because the transaction costs of building say, a car with the combined efforts of different people all of which are essentially independent companies are prohibitive and cut deeply into whatever profit could be made by selling the car. Having one company own the factory making the car and employ people as employees rather than independent contractors makes much more economic sense, but increasing the scale of this centralization to the entire state goes way past the point where the returns to scale and scope stop increasing significantly and reach the point where they become negative (and the cost increases with increases in scale and scope of the centralized organization become exponential). Modern technology allows for a greater role for freelance contractors, but the firm still is an important part of the modern economy.
B. There is no scientific evidence to prove that any of Marx's theories were correct. His historical predicitons about the transformation of advanced capitalist societies into socialist fully state-planned economies and then into stateless communist utopias seem to have been wrong, because the modern welfare state, labor union strength, and the decline of manufacturing and the rise of service industries (ie, the ranks of the proletariat have shrunk and the ranks of the petite bourgeoisie have exploded) all help to explain this. He also failed to predict the emergence of mass multimedia communication (which although at first seemed ideal for control of the masses by the state, later seemed even more powerful through private and political advertising in capitalist economies as a means of promoting the interests of private business, even by undermining the control of socialist states). Also, the democratization of communication via the internet has made the world Marx wrote about even more inapplicable to today. Economists are just beginning to construct controlled experiments for the basic theories that underlie their understanding of the market economy, but those theries, a priori as they may seem, are much more investigatible by experiment (ie, falsifiable) than Marx's, which bear much more resemblance to a type of secular religion.
C. "Communism" as most people use the word only applied to Marxist-Leninist dictatorships in the developing (or partially-industrialized) world (biggest exception: East Germany, which was still constrained by its political, economic, and military ties to the Soviet Empire). Not only were these societies largely not ripe for the type of revolution Marx was imagining, but the continued existence of capitalism, strengthened by the social stability offered by the welfare state, in most of the advanced economies of the world meant that Marxist-Leninist/Maoist "Communism" both faced an overwhelmingly powerful enemy in the business interests (and their political representatives) of the capitalist world and also eventually had to survive by trading in the world market and therefore obeying its rules to a certain extent. Almost all "Communist" states, although they may have tried to achieve autarky (complete economic self-sufficiency) in their early days, later became state capitalist societies (where the state acts like one big conglomerate firm on the world market).
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If Communism ever works it'll mean we're all a lot more equal, but also for the most part a lot poorer.
The best figure I can come up with is that the top 1% own between 40-50% of all global wealth.
I would therefore question your maths.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If Communism ever works it'll mean we're all a lot more equal, but also for the most part a lot poorer.
The best figure I can come up with is that the top 1% own between 40-50% of all global wealth.
I would therefore question your maths.
I cannot think of a single Communist state throughout history that has resulted in greater personal wealth for its citizens. More wealth in the hands of the State, yes - but that's not even close to the same thing.
I could put it another way, if you like. The basic principle of Communism is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Therefore anyone who currently has more than he needs (or more accurately, more than a Communist State would declare that he needs) would be worse off under such a system.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When libertarian nation A permits public nudity, and prudish B insists on modest clothing, who prevents the civil war?
I'm reasonably certain that no one is going to go to war over this.
So when Islamic terrorists complain about the 'decadent West', are they lying?
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
Marvin the Martian: There may well be a major economic crisis leading to the end of capitalism as we know it lurking somewhere in the future, but it won't result in some kind of Communist paradise - it'll just result in a new system where some people have lots and others have little. All that will change is which people are which.
That may be true. I believe that capitalism will come to an end, just like former systems of slavery, feodalism, mercantilism... have in the past. I don't think that Utopia will come after it, but at least we have some precedent that after a system's demise, a new system arose that was better in some way.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If Communism ever works it'll mean we're all a lot more equal, but also for the most part a lot poorer.
The best figure I can come up with is that the top 1% own between 40-50% of all global wealth.
I would therefore question your maths.
I cannot think of a single Communist state throughout history that has resulted in greater personal wealth for its citizens. More wealth in the hands of the State, yes - but that's not even close to the same thing.
I could put it another way, if you like. The basic principle of Communism is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Therefore anyone who currently has more than he needs (or more accurately, more than a Communist State would declare that he needs) would be worse off under such a system.
That is not the scenario you suggested. A more equitable distribution of resources means a very few people will be very much poorer, because they have all the resources. The great unwashed will be richer in resources.
Whether or not communism can deliver is a different question. I don't think it can, this side of the eschaton.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When libertarian nation A permits public nudity, and prudish B insists on modest clothing, who prevents the civil war?
I'm reasonably certain that no one is going to go to war over this.
We have an existence proof of a particular group in the UK (conservative Muslims in Muslim-dominated areas) attacking women in the street because they consider them improperly-dressed. We have an existence proof of another group (EDL racists) attacking Muslims with at least the pretext of defending "white" women and culture.
Take away the UK, and replace it with overlapping virtual nations including a white power nation and a sharia nation, and what do you think will happen?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
When libertarian nation A permits public nudity, and prudish B insists on modest clothing, who prevents the civil war?
I'm reasonably certain that no one is going to go to war over this.
So when Islamic terrorists complain about the 'decadent West', are they lying?
In the brave new world of virtual nations, their neighbours will be the ones joining more moderate Islamic states, the ones that permit women's education, the occasional bottle of beer or glass of wine, and will completely undermine the concept of state Sharia - if you want it, you can accept it. If you don't, no one can force you to do so.
I'm not suggesting that there won't be problems. But you seem to be suggesting because there will be, we may as well stick with the problems we have.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Take away the UK, and replace it with overlapping virtual nations including a white power nation and a sharia nation, and what do you think will happen?
Perhaps they will have tea and biscuits and sort it out.
Again, all you seem to be saying "look at this existing problem!" Yes, I can see the existing problem. By allowing people to live under the system they espouse, that might solve some of the existing problem. Which is not to say there won't be additional, different problems.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That is not the scenario you suggested. A more equitable distribution of resources means a very few people will be very much poorer, because they have all the resources. The great unwashed will be richer in resources.
It's exactly the scenario I suggested. It's the scenario that has played out every single time Communism has become the dominant political system in a country.
But even without the history, I'm not convinced that a more equitable distribution of resources is even possible in the long term, because how many of those resources are generated by the actions and purchasing decisions of rich(er) people? If all the wealth was somehow divided equally between everyone, would any of us have enough to buy, say, an Aston Martin or Rolls Royce? If not, then those companies would go out of business, their workers would become unemployed, and the sum total of resources in the country would decrease.
And there are any number of other industries that exist purely by selling luxuries to those who can afford them. Foreign holidays? Jewellery? Designer clothing? They'd all have to either drastically reduce their prices or suffer a potentially fatal drop in business, and either option results in a reduction of the overall resources in the nation.
Of course, eventually you'd reach a position where the total resources can't drop any more - food, water, land, etc. will always have an inherent value - but by that point there will be so little to share around that a great many of us will be worse off than we are now.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
By allowing people to live under the system they espouse, that might solve some of the existing problem. Which is not to say there won't be additional, different problems.
The biggest problem with that position (and as a libertarian I have much sympathy with it) is the amount of people who want everyone to live according to their preferred system. Communists being one such group.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Marvin the Martian: The biggest problem with that position (and as a libertarian I have much sympathy with it) is the amount of people who want everyone to live according to their preferred system. Communists being one such group.
Aren't capitalists another one?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
By allowing people to live under the system they espouse, that might solve some of the existing problem. Which is not to say there won't be additional, different problems.
The biggest problem with that position (and as a libertarian I have much sympathy with it) is the amount of people who want everyone to live according to their preferred system. Communists being one such group.
Then, like the social democrats and the libertarians and the hard-line Sharia-law statelets and the conservative Christians, they're going to have to be attractive to new joiners.
If they act all ugly, their support base (and thus the resources they can call on) will be minimal.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But even without the history, I'm not convinced that a more equitable distribution of resources is even possible in the long term, because how many of those resources are generated by the actions and purchasing decisions of rich(er) people? If all the wealth was somehow divided equally between everyone, would any of us have enough to buy, say, an Aston Martin or Rolls Royce? If not, then those companies would go out of business, their workers would become unemployed, and the sum total of resources in the country would decrease.
Can I suggest you go back and read what you've written? You're saying "what if economics in the future is exactly the same as economics now, just that there were no hyper-rich people?"
Economics won't be the same. Aston Martins and Rolls Royces are rich men's toys, signs of conspicuous wealth and consumption. There won't be the need for them: but to suggest that there won't be the need for engineers because of that is, well, frankly more fanciful than anything I'm positing.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
For Marxists, the failure of Communism lies in its attempt to short-circuit historical development by political means.
Exactly. Communism simply has not been tried, if we consider it according to its original intentions: "According to Marxist theory, higher-phase communism is a specific stage of historical development that inevitably emerges from the development of the productive forces that leads to excess abundance of final goods, allowing for distribution based on need and social relations based on freely associated individuals." (Wikipedia)
Communism is basically an answer to an universal millionaire's problem: what will we do as society when we all can have whatever we need, and largely whatever we want, with little to no work required from any of us? Obviously there never has been a part of the world where this question could be meaningfully asked, and certainly early 20thC Russia was not the place to ask it!
Also as Kwesi points out, these days we see much more clearly the natural limits to this "destiny of history" than Marx could have. However, if we were to develop an essentially "infinite energy source", then I reckon we could get close enough to this scenario (in particular, we could refill any missing raw materials from outer space). I hence do not consider it impossible that the question of Communism one day may become a reasonable one.
The alternative to Communism in a world of utter abundance is presumably that we kill each other and ourselves out of unbearable ennui...
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Marvin the Martian: The biggest problem with that position (and as a libertarian I have much sympathy with it) is the amount of people who want everyone to live according to their preferred system. Communists being one such group.
Aren't capitalists another one?
As far as I can see, there's nothing inherent to capitalism that prevents a group of people from setting up a commune with everything they own shared equally between all members should they so desire.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Economics won't be the same. Aston Martins and Rolls Royces are rich men's toys, signs of conspicuous wealth and consumption. There won't be the need for them: but to suggest that there won't be the need for engineers because of that is, well, frankly more fanciful than anything I'm positing.
Perhaps I didn't make my point very clearly. Yes, there will still be a need for engineers - but they won't be able to get paid as much because there won't be any rich men who are willing to pay ludicrous amounts for the cars they build. Which in turn means there won't be as much wealth to distribute.
You look at the CEO of Aston Martin and you see a massive salary that can be distributed between about a hundred poor people to make them better off. But once that's done, who is going to make the purchases that generate the income to provide that salary again next year? Nobody. And if that income is no longer being generated, it cannot be redistributed. Hence my argument that the total amount of wealth in the country would inevitably fall.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Marvin the Martian: As far as I can see, there's nothing inherent to capitalism that prevents a group of people from setting up a commune with everything they own shared equally between all members should they so desire.
Perhaps that's true, but it isn't easy. Try to look at this group along a couple of years and see if someone tried to sell them something.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
As far as I can see, there's nothing inherent to capitalism that prevents a group of people from setting up a commune with everything they own shared equally between all members should they so desire.
Are you adding democracy to the discussion? I don't think it can be asserted that either communism or capitalism are inherently democratic. I would suggest that Social Democracy, the middle way, where the rich are taxed more heavily, and the proceeds going into social programs sponsored government (specifically not by corporations) provides far more social freedom than unrestrained capitalism. It also makes people happier.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Aston Martins and Rolls Royces are rich men's toys, signs of conspicuous wealth and consumption. There won't be the need for them.
A world without Aston Martins, Rolls Royces and Bentleys? My God, what a grim, dystopian life you want us all to lead.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Yes, I can see the existing problem. By allowing people to live under the system they espouse, that might solve some of the existing problem. Which is not to say there won't be additional, different problems.
But my point is that the man next door can't live in Saudi Arabia (North) when his neighbour is a leading light in the "Naked is Natural" Association.
You can allow people to contract for how much social welfare they want, so they would be free to join the Communists, the radical economic Darwinists or whoever, and that might work to a degree (although I'm skeptical...) but there's only one street. Who controls that?
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In the brave new world of virtual nations, their neighbours will be the ones joining more moderate Islamic states, the ones that permit women's education, the occasional bottle of beer or glass of wine, and will completely undermine the concept of state Sharia - if you want it, you can accept it. If you don't, no one can force you to do so.
And how, exactly, do we stop Sharia being forced on people in this brave new world?
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Aston Martins and Rolls Royces are rich men's toys, signs of conspicuous wealth and consumption. There won't be the need for them.
A world without Aston Martins, Rolls Royces and Bentleys? My God, what a grim, dystopian life you want us all to lead.
A world without hunger or homelessness? Someone think of the children!
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
I think one of the appeals of Communism (or of the Socialist Planned Economy that is allegedly supposed to get us to stateless communism), is that it is supposed to liberate people from the desire to accumulate wealth, to consume conspicuously, to bequeath large amounts of property to children, etc. The changed economics are supposed to change to culture. Obviously, that did not happen in Soviet Russia or in China - just look at how party elites acted just like the elites in captialist countries. I argued earlier that people are inherently insatiable when it comes to what brings them utility. This insatiability can be mediated by culture and the social system, but not eliminated entirely.
Although we can never be completely satisfied, though, I think we can definitely live in a society with less consumerism and elitism than the one today. Just redistributing wealth isn't enough to get us there - the UK remained a highly classist society, much more classist culturally than the US, even in the height of the mid-20th century welfare state. But highly unequal distribution of wealth does inevitably lead to social and political polarization (just look at the US today - our entertainment almost exclusively shows affluent people and even the "reality" portrayals of "common people" like Duck Dynasty and Honey Boo Boo are about how backwater types become rich). You might say this shows the economic mobility of the US and not any hereditary caste system. I am not disputing that we are a relatively economically mobile society (but not as much as before when income was more evenly distributed), but I am asserting that income inequality results in lower social solidarity.
You can't make everyone equal in terms of economic outcome. Even if you get rid of money and property some people will have more things that they use and benefit from than others - whether or not they "possess" them. I don't think many people want to make everyone equal in terms of outcome. I think the goal of the social democracy as practiced in the West has been to redistribute wealth not so as to eliminate the wealthy entirely but rather to bring up the "floor" of income distribution above the level of poverty to one where life can lived fulfillingly and to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity as success that includes high-quality and affordable or free healthcare, education, vocational training, etc. Does redistribution have a "leaky bucket" that results in a smaller pie overall to share? Somewhat - but extreme income inequality also causes problems in the market that makes the pie smaller. I think that a society with enough inequality to drive the economy and the give people incentive to apply themselves (meaning that the income floor cannot be too high and should be conditional on working or studying) but that also fulfills these social democratic goals is what we should work for in the short term.
But I'm also a pie-in-the-sky leftist thinker (not a very smart one). I think that the financial industry, multinational corporations, and consumer culture frame the questions we ask and the answers we look for too much. I think that a world where people work for fulfillment rather than money, where relationships govern human interactions rather than transactions, where everyone gets to enjoy the freedom of time, and recreation, and exploration of hobbies that now only the wealthy do - is possible. Capitalism (through the welfare state and by enabling technologies like modern medicine and the internet) has made some of that possible - arguably more so than any communist dictatorship has. So I am totally against violent revolution, one-party rule, etc. Not only because it is totally unjust and evil, but because it stifles innovation and human expression. But that said, I think that we definitely need more social democracy and that we need to start defining the world we are working for not just in terms of how well off people are economically but in terms of how success and flourishing are defined in people's lives. This probably requires a nonviolent revolution of sorts.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Marvin the Martian quote:
If all the wealth was somehow divided equally between everyone, would any of us have enough to buy, say, an Aston Martin or Rolls Royce? If not, then those companies would go out of business, their workers would become unemployed, and the sum total of resources in the country would decrease.
Isn't the point, Marvin, that with the realisation of Communism all with have access to the levels of consumption now only experienced by the super rich? There will be no need to determine how limited resources are to be distributed. There will be no struggle for a share of the cake. It is, of course, a fantastic scenario: a utopia.
But how are these goods and services to be created? What incentive is there for anyone to train hard and work hard? Why should anyone wish to undertake difficult or unpleasant tasks? Will there be enough doctors to make requests for home calls? How will concentrated demands for taxis at certain times be addressed? And what about servicing those wanting to be on permanent vacation in the Bahamas?
Communist countries gave a clue: they were characterised by low incentives and low production. They gave no hint of being able to create an economic system in which the conditions for true communism could be remotely approximated. Instead their most ambitious, hard-working, and bravest sought refuge in West Germany (East Germans), USA (Cubans), and South Korea (North Koreans). China simply threw in the sponge.......
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
People do have motivations other than money. Some of them anyway. LCD thinking gets you the LCD. (lowest common denominator) It is hard to see differently when everything is "monetized" these days isn't it? -- and the USSR wasn't communist, it was totalitarian.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
No Prophet quote:
People do have motivations other than money.
True: Power and Esteem come to mind. The problems of the former hardly need to be discussed, and I sincerely doubt whether virtue is sufficiently distributed and sustained and free from hypocrisy to secure a social system.
You may be right that Soviet Communism was not the real thing; but whatever its system of rewards it was not very impressive at delivering goods and services, was it? In making our choices regarding the future we can only work on what's before us, and South Korea looks more hopeful to me than the North. What evidence is there that one should hope for a Communist future? It's remarkable, isn't it, that the severe crisis in capitalism post 2008 hasn't produced demands for a non-capitalist economic system?
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Kwesi: It's remarkable, isn't it, that the severe crisis in capitalism post 2008 hasn't produced demands for a non-capitalist economic system?
But it has. Multiple times.
Maybe I'm on different mailing lists than you, but I've read multiple calls to replace capitalism with something else.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Maybe I'm on different mailing lists than you, but I've read multiple calls to replace capitalism with something else.
I still think Distributism should be given a go. I just have no idea how this could be brought about at a global scale. It apparently works on sub-national scales though, from here:
quote:
Isn’t this all very Utopian?
No, Distributism is a practical system, which is validated by the many examples of functioning Distributist firms; on the small scale, there are thousands of home-based and employee-owned companies, micro-lending banks, credit unions, and insurance companies; on the large scale, there is the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation of Spain, one of the most successful cooperatives in Europe, and the Distributist economy of Emilia-Romagna (Bologna) in Italy, where over 45% of the GDP comes from cooperatives, and which boasts a living standard twice the rest of Italy and among the highest in Europe. Distributist economies and firms have a built-in competitive advantage over their Capitalist and Socialist counterparts, as well as social and community advantages that Capitalism and Socialism cannot begin to match.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
IngoB: I still think Distributism should be given a go.
You've linked to this before, and I find it interesting. I guess the description you gave has similarities with things like Solidarity Economy, something I'm working on in Latin America and in Africa (often together with the Catholic Church). I completely agree with you that upscaling is a problem for which there is no answer yet.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
LeRoc quote:
Maybe I'm on different mailing lists than you, but I've read multiple calls to replace capitalism with something else.
What else? It seems to me that the examples you and IngoB give are operating within the orbit of a capitalist macro-economic system. From the examples you give I can only wish them well, but they do not constitute a fundamental alternative to Wall St and the City of London.
Regarding "mailing lists", I'm not on any!
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
It is interesting that no-one has actually given a clear definition of communism - at least in that most of the large-scale examples have been something else. Maybe based on communist economic ideologies, but actually representing a different form of rule.
I think the problem is, there needs to be incentives to work harder. These are achieved in capitalist economies by paying more. Within a communist ideal, this doesn't work, because the state provides all basic needs, and therefore has to manage costs.
One thing I liked from the Cuba program was that "high art" was provided cheaply, to the masses. Education was provided free, meaning that it was a right, not a privilege. That is crucial to a quality society.
The downside of the capitalist system gone riot is that the inequalities are rampant - 1% owning the top 50% of stuff is wrong when there are people going hungry. So can we reduce these extremes, while still accepting that people will be incentivised by money, at least to an extent? Is there not a communist approach that does not mean total equality for all, but means that no-one is super-rich? That this money is spread wider?
So, to take an example from higher up the thread, the CEO of Ferrari earns his 500K in the first year, and the other 2M (or whatever) goes back to the company. However he - and others - are still earning enough to buy the cars, meaning that his salary can be maintained, even if there is less money going back. But the money must still be there in the system - people lower down may be able to rise up and buy Ferraris, or at least Mercs, because they have more money.
I don't know, but I want to believe that there is an alternative to a Capitalist approach, and I hope that something more communist in its ideals could work. But I don't want the totalitarianism that the USSR showed, or the chaos that Cuba is showing - accepting that sanctions have also been a significant factor on holding them back.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
My family and I are members of 4 different co-ops. These are managed for the benefits of the members. One is a grocery store, another is a credit union (bank, but a co-op one), another is for clothes and related things, and another is for insurance. They exist within the capitalist system, but their set of responsibilities is combined: responsible profitability, responsibility to members, responsibility to employees, various ethical standards that membership has imposed.
I'm also heavily supportive of gov't owned Crown Corporations which run basic utilities such as water, telecommunications, fuel, etc. The profit is put back into the locality. Versus the profit going into some shareholders from anywhere.
I'm talking social democracy. For interest, here is the Regina Manifesto of the CCF which has run provincial gov'ts and is the official opposition of Canada - now named the NDP. They've tempered their language and practice since 1933.
quote:
http://ndp.wikia.com/wiki/Regina_Manifesto
We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity.
....
We believe that these evils can be
removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.
So I'd say a mixed model with aspects of real socialism works. Or at least it has in some pinko places in Canada.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
One economic sector that Marxism appears to have completely overlooked is agriculture.
Given the fact that if there were no farmers, a high percentage of the population would starve to death, I see this as a serious oversight.
Moo
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One economic sector that Marxism appears to have completely overlooked is agriculture.
Given the fact that if there were no farmers, a high percentage of the population would starve to death, I see this as a serious oversight.
Moo
Er, no.
The collective farm came straight out of the Marxist playbook.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
I should have said there was a complete ignorance of how agriculture works.
Moo
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I should have said there was a complete ignorance of how agriculture works.
Moo
That is a more accurate criticism. Though they did get the idea that a large, industrialised farm was more productive than a series of smallholdings. They made plenty of other mistakes, though, about the differences between large-scale commercial farming and small-scale subsistence farming.
And when I say mistakes, I mean catastrophic, fatal ones.
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
One of their worst mistakes was assuming that all farmers are stupid and need detailed instructions from 'experts' thousands of miles away who have no knowledge of local conditions.
Moo
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Kwesi: It seems to me that the examples you and IngoB give are operating within the orbit of a capitalist macro-economic system. From the examples you give I can only wish them well, but they do not constitute a fundamental alternative to Wall St and the City of London.
You're right, and I don't pretend that they do. The way I see it, things like Solidarity Economy are attempts to at least try something else, to build things from the bottom up, to create new democratical processes, to learn from the process... It has many faults, but at least we're trying, and hopefully it might be a step along the way to something better.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
One of their worst mistakes was assuming that all farmers are stupid and need detailed instructions from 'experts' thousands of miles away who have no knowledge of local conditions.
Moo
Whenever I come across the juxtaposition of agriculture and communism, I think first of Marx's reference to the "idiocy of rural life", and then of the great famines in Ukraine (1933), China (1958-62) and Ethiopia (1982-5).
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I should have said there was a complete ignorance of how agriculture works.
Moo
I think one of the core failures in Marxist application is building it based on (comparatively simple) factory production, and then attempting to apply these same principles globally. They don't work for other environments - agriculture for one, because local conditions are critical to success; artisanal or creative work for another.
An approach that genuinely sought to understand the importance of individuals, and their skills and abilities, alongside concepts of equality would work better. In most cases, these people have learned their skills and knowledge over a lot of time, so it is not that they are "better" than others, just that they have had the decades of experience - generations sometimes - that they draw on.
So much of the implementation tries to centralise knowledge, where certain areas of knowledge are actually local. My own profession (IT) is one I would consider "artisanal", because I am creating stuff new and for a particular client. Applying factory approaches (as the early stages of the dreaded ISO 9000 quality standards did) doesn't work, because I need to use my knowledge and skills to make This work in This environment, using This language. Change any of these, and a different solution may be indicated.
Posted by Kwesi (# 10274) on
:
Moo quote:
I should have said there was a complete ignorance of how agriculture works.
Not quite. As I understand it The New Economic Policy of the 1920s recognised the realities of peasant-based agricultural production, and stimulated expansion through market incentives. The problem for Stalin was that resources shifted towards agriculture at the expense of industrial expansion. Post-1929 Collectivisation was to designed to ensure the peasants continued to provide food to the urban areas despite reduced investment and reward as resources were concentrated on the heavy industrial sector. In other words the policy was designed to enforce rather than incentivise. Predictably, there was a sharp drop in agricultural production, mass starvation, and a virtual war between the Party and the peasants. Stalinists would claim the policy worked because industrial production expanded to the level where the Soviet Union could win a war against Germany. I pass no comment.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I think one of the appeals of Communism (or of the Socialist Planned Economy that is allegedly supposed to get us to stateless communism), is that it is supposed to liberate people from the desire to accumulate wealth, to consume conspicuously, to bequeath large amounts of property to children, etc.
Or to put it another way, to keep us all poor so effectively that we stop even dreaming of a way out of that poverty.
quote:
I think that a world where people work for fulfillment rather than money,
That will never happen. There are too many inherently unfulfilling jobs that still need to be done, and there are too many people who find fulfillment in things that aren't socially useful.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kwesi:
Marvin the Martian quote:
If all the wealth was somehow divided equally between everyone, would any of us have enough to buy, say, an Aston Martin or Rolls Royce? If not, then those companies would go out of business, their workers would become unemployed, and the sum total of resources in the country would decrease.
Isn't the point, Marvin, that with the realisation of Communism all with have access to the levels of consumption now only experienced by the super rich?
That is utterly impossible, even if the total amount of resources stays the same. By definition, if the same pie is shared more equally between everyone it will result in smaller slices than are currently enjoyed by those who have the biggest ones.
quote:
There will be no need to determine how limited resources are to be distributed. There will be no struggle for a share of the cake. It is, of course, a fantastic scenario: a utopia.
Communism cannot possibly result in unlimited resources, therefore the first sentence is false.
quote:
But how are these goods and services to be created? What incentive is there for anyone to train hard and work hard? Why should anyone wish to undertake difficult or unpleasant tasks? Will there be enough doctors to make requests for home calls? How will concentrated demands for taxis at certain times be addressed? And what about servicing those wanting to be on permanent vacation in the Bahamas?
All good questions.
quote:
Communist countries gave a clue: they were characterised by low incentives and low production. They gave no hint of being able to create an economic system in which the conditions for true communism could be remotely approximated. Instead their most ambitious, hard-working, and bravest sought refuge in West Germany (East Germans), USA (Cubans), and South Korea (North Koreans). China simply threw in the sponge.......
And that, right there, is why Communism cannot ever work.
Posted by stonespring (# 15530) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
I think one of the appeals of Communism (or of the Socialist Planned Economy that is allegedly supposed to get us to stateless communism), is that it is supposed to liberate people from the desire to accumulate wealth, to consume conspicuously, to bequeath large amounts of property to children, etc.
Or to put it another way, to keep us all poor so effectively that we stop even dreaming of a way out of that poverty.
Well I did say that the "more is better" part of human nature, which only seems to be offset by a fatalism acquired by exposure to deprivation and violence, is one reason why people who have their basic necessities met will always operate as if in conditions of scarcity no matter what utopia they live in.
But an alternative to capitalism (to avoid using the term communism) does not have to involve everyone sharing everything equally. Rather, it might involve a way of defining the community's "rights" to use of resources in a way other than property. Remember this is utopian thinking! A few centuries most people probably would have thought that a society with universal suffrage, equality under the law for all sexes, races, religions, and sexual orientations (although we still need to work on that in some places), universal healthcare and education (where it exists), etc. - all of these things would have seemed impossible because of some belief they had about human nature.
quote:
quote:
I think that a world where people work for fulfillment rather than money,
That will never happen. There are too many inherently unfulfilling jobs that still need to be done, and there are too many people who find fulfillment in things that aren't socially useful.
I agree with a lot of what you say here. That's why I probably won't be voting for a Communist Party or other far-left party in my lifetime. But outside of voting I hope to lay the groundwork in some small peaceful way for a complete transformation of society. For most of human history, most people had no experience of wage earning, and although anthropologists are in disagreement over this, a convincing argument can be made that before agriculture, large settlements, and the separation of labor, life was not nasty, brutish, and short at all. I don't want to go back to being hunter gatherers, but I'm just saying that outside the box thinking, as long as you don't think it justifies violence or other violations of people's rights, is perfectly healthy.
[ 03. December 2013, 14:31: Message edited by: stonespring ]
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