Main Reasons for the collapse of Communism

Timsup2nothin · Jul 17, 2014

Traitorfish said:
That depends on how closely you identify the socioeconomic system associated with twentieth century Communist parties with the communism predicted-slash-proposed by Marx. Given that the only characteristic of a communist society that Marx was clear on was the absence of commodity exchange and the absence of wage-labour, and given that twentieth century Communist regimes dramatically increased the prevalence of both as a matter of policy, any such identification is going to have to be very heavily qualified.

Well, technically it doesn't really depend, since what I'm saying applies equally well to both the proposed communism and the as it really happened communism. Marx said capitalism will not work in the long term. I agree. He said 'this will work'. I disagree. Communists installed a system that shared its name with Marx's plan but wasn't really much like it, and it collapsed. I'm not surprised. Had they actually followed his plan that too would collapse in due time. There is no way of knowing if its 'due time' would have been longer or shorter.

What Marx didn't say that I am saying is that all economic systems share the same fate. He pointed out the problem in terms that showed how it applied specifically to capitalism, as if the problem was unique to capitalism. That was misleading in that it promotes the idea that if we could just find the right economic system (and of course he had one to suggest) all would be well.

brennan · Jul 18, 2014

Timsup2nothin said:
he was targeting a single economic system without acknowledging that his proposed replacement would suffer from the exact same problem

What proposed replacement would that be? Details please.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 18, 2014

brennan said:
What proposed replacement would that be? Details please.

Read Das Kapital. As Traitorfish points out the system as proposed by Marx has little similarity to 'real world' communism, but it is clearly intended as a replacement for capitalism, which was recognized by Marx as terminally flawed. Of course the capitalism he was describing bears little resemblance to modern day real world capitalism either...though the same ultimate flaw is present in both.

Ultimate flaw of all known economic systems: No matter how complex and confusing the system, eventually the people on the short end of it recognize their position and beat up the people on the long end.

Traitorfish · Jul 18, 2014

Marx does not discuss communism in Capital. :huh:

Timsup2nothin · Jul 18, 2014

Traitorfish said:
Marx does not discuss communism in Capital.

Ooops...my bad...that would be The Communist Manifesto. I think the groundwork principles are laid in Das Kapital...though not assembled by name into 'this is communism'.

brennan · Jul 19, 2014

Discussion of the actual characteristics of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' in the Manifesto is vague at best. This is one of the problems that beset the various schools of Marxism - they had a powerful criticism of Capitalism, but nothing except a hint of what would replace it.

There is not so much as a hint of what the utopian communist state would eventually be at all - except for it being post-demand, post-scarcity, post state etc. All pretty useless terms.

Agent327 · Jul 19, 2014

ParkCungHee said:
North Korea's state ideology is "Juche" a Korean word that could be translated as "Autarchy" or better as "Self-Sufficiency." It also used to be a watch word for the South Korean dictatorship. It's essentially an extremely xenophobic breed of nationalism, that seeks to maintain the cultural and genetic purity of the Korean race.

Also known as Nazism. I had no idea this was popular in Korea.

Timsup2nothin said:
Communism failed because everything does.

If resources were sufficiently abundant we wouldn't need systems to regulate their distribution. Since we keep inventing such systems it is obvious that resources are not sufficient.

A bit of a crude summary of economics, but essentially correct. Although the reason resources are scarce is a question of demand, obviously.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 19, 2014

JEELEN said:
A bit of a crude summary of economics, but essentially correct. Although the reason resources are scarce is a question of demand, obviously.

I wasn't addressing why resources are scarce, just providing clear evidence that they are.

Obviously demand is a key component in the definition of a resource, since if there is no demand for something it isn't a resource. The only example I can think of there off the top of my head is houseflies. Nobody wants them, so clearly they cannot be treated as a resource.

The other key component is in fact scarcity. For most of human history there was no consideration of air as a resource since it was considered to be infinitely available. Stupidity falls into this category as well, though it also fails the demand criteria.

@Brennan...yes that is the basic problem. While it is fairly easy to point out how the core flaw affects any existing system, if you go into great detail about a proposed replacement it clearly reveals that your proposal leads to the same basic flaw. No matter how you distribute scarce resources it will inevitably create inequities, and the human response to inequity has always been violent. The longevity of any economic system is directly proportional to how cleverly it disguises the inequities.

brennan · Jul 21, 2014

Given that a key goal of a Marxist state is getting rid of inequalities that makes it hard to see how your criticism of them necessarily applies.

Traitorfish · Jul 21, 2014

Timsup2nothin said:
Ooops...my bad...that would be The Communist Manifesto. I think the groundwork principles are laid in Das Kapital...though not assembled by name into 'this is communism'.

Which parts of Capital are you referring to?

Timsup2nothin · Jul 21, 2014

Traitorfish said:
Which parts of Capital are you referring to?

Historical tendency of Capitalist Accumulation, which speaks of 'negating the existing negation'. The existing negation being the transformation of (true) private property into capitalist private property and the process of negating that being a tenuous path to restoring the means of production to the producers. While it isn't very specific and isn't called 'the process of communism' it does lay out the objective. In my opinion the objective is admirable and thus far every effort towards implementation has unfortunately been pretty much abysmal.

Tahuti · Jul 21, 2014

Timsup2nothin said:
Historical tendency of Capitalist Accumulation, which speaks of 'negating the existing negation'. The existing negation being the transformation of (true) private property into capitalist private property and the process of negating that being a tenuous path to restoring the means of production to the producers. While it isn't very specific and isn't called 'the process of communism' it does lay out the objective. In my opinion the objective is admirable and thus far every effort towards implementation has unfortunately been pretty much abysmal.

You realise you are lecturing a Marxist about Marxism?

(Now, I do it too I admit, though I at least know entirely what I am doing!)

Wrymouth3 · Jul 21, 2014

Kaiserguard said:
You realise you are lecturing a Marxist about Marxism?

(Now, I do it too I admit, though I at least know entirely what I am doing!)

All this time I thought you would be suggesting that things went bad when Vietnam no longer had an emperor :mischief:

.

Timsup2nothin · Jul 21, 2014

Kaiserguard said:
You realise you are lecturing a Marxist about Marxism?

(Now, I do it too I admit, though I at least know entirely what I am doing!)

I'm not lecturing, just answering the question asked. I have no problem with a Marxist taking a different view, if he does, but I think the works of Karl Marx are a consistent body and for Das Kapital to not contain groundwork for the Communist Manifesto would be more than strange. I'm sure I could point out other things, but when people call me a Marxist (I wouldn't say that I am) it's because I agree with his analysis that 'private property' took on a whole new and unsavory meaning with the accumulation of capital, so that's what I presented.

Masada · Jul 21, 2014

Wrymouth3 said:
All this time I thought you would be suggesting that things went bad when Vietnam no longer had an emperor .

rolf bao dai

Luckymoose · Jul 23, 2014

The key cause of the collapse of communism has been capitalism. McDonalds and Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse and Freedom! If you focus your communist economy on heavy industry instead of Coca-Cola and video games, you're gonna have a bad time.

Traitorfish · Jul 23, 2014

That doesn't really explain anything.

Luckymoose · Jul 23, 2014

Traitorfish said:
That doesn't really explain anything.

Only it does, if you know anything about late Soviet economy or the Deng shift in China, or why North Korea is a massive cesspit right now.

Traitorfish · Jul 23, 2014

Perhaps, but we don't know what you think about those topics, either, so we're still left in the dark as to what you're trying to say.

Luckymoose · Jul 23, 2014

Traitorfish said:
Perhaps, but we don't know what you think about those topics, either, so we're still left in the dark as to what you're trying to say.

I said exactly what needed to be said: if you lack a consumer goods based economy, you're going to fail. That's why communism failed.

Main Reasons for the collapse of Communism

Deity

Argumentative Brit

Deity

The Tighnahulish Kid

Deity

Argumentative Brit

Observer

Deity

Argumentative Brit

The Tighnahulish Kid

Deity

Writing Deity

Emperor

Deity

Koi-san!

The World is Mine

The Tighnahulish Kid

The World is Mine

The Tighnahulish Kid

The World is Mine

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