Could Communism have worked?

[Angry_Carp]

I'd like to start out with a nice movie quote "Nine where gifted to the race of men, who above all else, desire power"


One of the reasons the U.S. Governement has lasted so long. (I'm not saying its the best government thats ever been envisioned or that its perfect). Is that when the constitution was written two things where understood.

1) You MUST put a check on people in power, otherwise they will take all the power they can and become dictators. (The true dicators in a capitolist society are the unaccountable corperations but thats an aurgument for a different thread)

2) You must give people the at least the perception of freedom and the perception that they have upward mobility within their society. (People who feel they have no upward mobility have a tendancy to revolt)

Also unless I'm mistaken Communism also means that everyone gets the job they are "Best" at (Ala Futurama Job chips) and it seems both immpossible and ridiculous to presume that you could ever use a system to determine who is "Best" at what.

 

[luiz]

Capitalism Rocks

 

[pkmink]

Originally posted by Cunobelin
I read that book its absolutely excellent although I dont think Orwell ever lived in a communist country and thats why certain Communist officials were amazed at his understanding of the intricacies of the communist system

Orwell stayed in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and witnessed first-hand the de facto communist/marxist/anarchist "government" that was in place one year in Barcelona (1936-1937 or 1937-1938 IIRC). That's where he saw the intricacies of a more or less functioning communist system. Heavily disenchanted with communism-in-practice after that and by stories emanating from Russia, he wrote Animal Farm.

On a more general note, communism failed because it couldn't compete in any respect with capitalism and at the end simply went bankrupt.

 

[luiz]

Originally posted by pkmink


On a more general note, communism failed because it couldn't compete in any respect with capitalism and at the end simply went bankrupt.

That's exactly a very important point that many ignore. When you compare the richest communist country with the richest capitalist country, you'll see that the commies were behind in EVERY standard, even social ones.

 

[sebanaj]

Depends of the circumstances. I voted yes... but, not sure.

If it's the capitalism of the laissez faire or neo-liberalism, then communism would have worked better. If it's social-democracy, or keynesianism, then capitalism is better, because development is extensive and intensive.

Communism couldn't compete in technological terms, Poland started to import technology, and lost in the balance, interests have grown, and Poland sunk. Communism means extensive production, while Capitalism is intensive and dinamical.

Although, Marx theories made Capitalism survive, because when capitalism defenders saw Marx predictions were near completion changed capitalist institutions to neutralize social crisis and possible revolutions.

It's better communism than liberalism dictatorship. Like it happened in Argentina some years ago, or is going to happen in Venezuela if Chavez is kicked out of power.

I think Chavez is good, and the Venezuelan media and middle class are very evil, and for some reason they want to kill all the poor and the proletariat, and lefties. Like it happened here in the 70s. They try to cheat everything to make Chavez fall.

 

[lz14]

Originally posted by luiz

That's exactly a very important point that many ignore. When you compare the richest communist country with the richest capitalist country, you'll see that the commies were behind in EVERY standard, even social ones.

If communists were allowed to loot the rest of the world for a couple of hundred years before hand and don't suffer two WWs on its soil maybe it would be as rich ? Plus why don't you compare the poorest with the poorest ?

Regarding this topic I might agree with you that communism won't work but your reasons don't make sense. Again.

 

[addiv]

I think it depends very much on the culture you're talking about. From the viewpoint of the Western mentality, with its individualism, focus on making personal profit, and calvinistic work ethics, communism seems very unnatural and in any case less profitable than capitalism, and socially unwanted. So for the Western world, communism would not have worked, in the sense that it would have been economically much less successful than capitalism, and caused much greater social discontent.
I'm not so sure it couldn't (or can't) work for other cultures though. When you currently look at some countries of the former Soviet bloc, most importantly of course Russia, the economic situation has hardly improved since the fall of communism, and the social situation is less stable. In many African nations, and other nations in the third world, capitalism and democracy (as far as it was ever achieved) have not brought economic prosperity or social stability. On the contrary, it has often resulted in more poverty and civil war. I think the cause is that the cultures of those countries are much less focused on the individual, but more on the collective. Also, the economic mentality is much less directed at competition and making profit. Neither is there a democratic tradition of any kind.
Since you can't just change the culture and the mentality of a people by implementing a certain institutional and/or economic system, I think all countries are better off with a system that's best adapted to their mentality. For some countries, that system may be communism, or at least something a lot more like it than what we're used to in the Western world.

 

[jroa99]

Communism could certainly work much better in very small societies, at least for sometime, as has been already (repeatedly)mentioned in the thread....

Still, a version Communism that would be both efficient, desirable, durable, and that can bei implemented at large scales is another matter...but, IMHO, still not really applicable.

Most of the masses in the first world do not seem to believe that Communism is the answer to their problems, and thus probably couldn't really support a new attempt at it...and the third world looks to be more anti-capitalist than specifically pro-communism right now. So desirability's off the list. It would have to be forced upon them, through a proletarian dictatorship, as usual....and that's not been shown to be a good thing.

Plain effiency (or perhaps "economic sustainability" is a better term?) is probably the most important factor for materialists and economists, but has been dealt with in much better ways in other posts, both pro- and con-. Also seems to be quite hard to achieve though....so it's probably a "cointoss" of sorts.

Perhaps Communism, as originally envisioned, has really become a thing of the past, and the future lies with some unknown variant of it that manages to emerge victorious both from the preceding and plenty of other challenges (but then, that wouln't be exactly Communism, would it? a better term would have to be employed to describe it)...still, nothing is certain, nobody knows what the future will bring.

Speaking of which...

Originally posted by sebanaj
Although, Marx theories made Capitalism survive, because when capitalism defenders saw Marx predictions were near completion changed capitalist institutions to neutralize social crisis and possible revolutions.

First off, Marx and Engels were not prophets with infallible predictions. They themselves admitted that much of their labor was just a "work-in-progress" and that much more collective effort would be needed before all the details could be ironed out, even if a lot of valuable work was already done. Therefore, such an analysis, even if possible, has a rather weak basis.

It's better communism than liberalism dictatorship. Like it happened in Argentina some years ago, or is going to happen in Venezuela if Chavez is kicked out of power.

Well, that's your own personal preference, but regarding the second part....How can you predict what will happen? History does not necessarily have to follow such linear patterns, not by a longshot. That's a possibility, but there are others too, which you shouldn't dismiss so effortlessly. Venezuela is not Argentina, nor is it Cuba.The situation is not the same.We are not in the 70's.

I think Chavez is good, and the Venezuelan media and iddle class are very evil, and for some reason they want to kill all the poor and the proletariat, and lefties. Like it happened here in the 70s. They try to cheat everything to make Chavez fall.

Curiously, that sounds almost like a certain president of a certain powerful nation speaking before a certain invasion....ironic, no? The simplification and demonization of the opponent is certainly a shared flaw. Still, I'll say no more of that here.

 

[Zukatah]

That's a very interesting thread, too bad I only noticed it tonight!

Here's my answer (sorry for my English, it's not my maiden language):

Communism could work if it is able to incorporate some private property in the equation to stimulate innovation and development.

To all of those that claim that the USSR was a communist State: you're wrong! The bureaucrats took office after the death of Lenin and ruled the State according to their interests and killed what was left of the democracy (the Soviets). You also have to understand that after WW2, there wasn't much people left to resist these changes as most workers were dead on the battlefields or had to go back to the rural zones to be able to feed their family as most factories were closed. The majority of the population were peasants who weren't educated and only feared the return of feudalism and the loss of their land.

Now on the misconception that the USSR was in all points inferior to its capitalist counterparts: They lead every step of the space race until the US did a manned lunar orbit! Also you could get free health care, free education, almost free public transportation, a job etc. The citizens of the USSR were poor by our standards but they were far better off than the poor of the Occident as they had a form of social security that made sure they could at least survive. The population suffered alot from the transition to capitalism and that's why you see old communist parties comming back to power in old USSR republics.

To explain the economic problems of the USSR, you need to understand that a very large part of the budget was spent on the military because they feared a Western invasion. During its presence, the USSR always wanted to be recognized as a legitimate super power and as an equal of the US, something that lead them to follow the US in the arms race in order to achieve military partity to obtain that international recognition. The problem is that the USSR spent way too much on military and not enough on social services and it ended up crippling the economy, accelerating the fall of the USSR.

Now, on more idealistic terms!
The human nature as we see it now with its very competitive nature is something we've grown used to but that doesn't mean it can't change if the right reasons are there to motivate such a change. Capitalism causes massive unemployment, a greater income disparity, a frantic race to develop new products and exploit new markets. When you've worked 65 hours/ week only to get that new car and a new TV set, you can ask yourself if it was all worth it in the end. When more and more people are left in poverty and we're spending our natural ressources at an unsustainable rate that will leave us with absolutely nothing in the end but tons of waste in landfills. The pollution is rampant and the big players aren't willing to do their part to reduce it and stop global warming, we'll face a situation, sooner or later, where we'll have to choose between mass consumption or our survival. When there's no need to produce more than what's necessary, we could allocate our ressources more efficiently and let people benefit from their work instead of giving it all to the CEO and the executives. We also need a more democratic form of governement instead of the "delegative democracy" that is a total joke since our leaders are only taking us into account (sometimes) once every 3-5 years and then run the governement like a big business.

Sorry for the rather long post but I hope you understand my concerns and that the USSR was in no way a communist, even a socialist state. We also have to understand that we live in a world with finite ressources and that our survival can only be achieved with a better management of them.

Thank you

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

Interesting disscusion !! For a moment just one "partial" opinion from myself ...

To all of those that claim that the USSR was a communist State: you're wrong !

This is a point of view of course ...

But, IMHO, the problem is very bad disscused. Let's say that the "socialism" in USSR wasn't a "true socialism" ... but why it evolved this way than ?

The correct problem would be, if the "bureaucratic socialism" is the most possible "terminus point" for a socialism regime or not. The so-called capitalist countries succeded because their regime & society was able to adapt and change itself. Almost any socialist state failed to do the same ... why ?

Here is the main starting point in my opinion ...

Regards,

P.S. : Of course - comparated with the Pol Pot's socialism the "bureaucratic socialism" of Eastern Europe was almost a heaven but that's another problem ...

 

[Ossric]

No, just read some chapters of Francis Fukuyama's book "The End of History and the Last Man"

 

[luiz]

Originally posted by lz14


If communists were allowed to loot the rest of the world for a couple of hundred years before hand and don't suffer two WWs on its soil maybe it would be as rich ? Plus why don't you compare the poorest with the poorest ?

Regarding this topic I might agree with you that communism won't work but your reasons don't make sense. Again.

The richest capitalist nation in the world is an young one, and did not loot the world for "couple hundred years before"
It's a common misconception that exploitation is efficient in capitalism. It isn't. Otherwise Portugal would be better off then, say, Canada.

The reason I don't compare the poorest communist with the purer capitalist is simple: it's hard to tell which is poorest capitalist country. Those miserable african nation are NOT capitalist(or true capitalists). BTW, Zimbabwe is run by communist president, as are many other african nations.

 

[sebanaj]

Jroa99, you're right, i guess i was carried away too much by emotions, but because of the unfair things that may happen.

According to the Capital, by Marx.
In the origin of capitalism, the peasants were thrown away from their lands, even those who owned them, to become proletarians. So the origin might not be legitimate. It's about how the landowners monopolized by force the common lands, the public lands, the lands that were taken from the church in the reform, kicked out all the independent but little peasants who owned small lands, destroyed and transformed it all for sheeps. Because of the new markets. So, the origin of Capitalism contradicts the basics of Liberalism, because property wasn't respected. Those lands were the only mean of subsistance owned by the peasants, when they became proletarians, they had only their labor force left. So, capitalism, it's not so legitimate in its origin, at least in England (England was took as a model for the origin of the capitalism by Marx in "The Capital").

 

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by Zukatah
Communism could work if it is able to incorporate some private property in the equation to stimulate innovation and development.

But it is communism anymore then? Is the China of today communist?

To all of those that claim that the USSR was a communist State: you're wrong! The bureaucrats took office after the death of Lenin and ruled the State according to their interests and killed what was left of the democracy (the Soviets).

The was never any democracy under Lenin. Lenin was a criminal dictator who mass-murdered his own people. Stalin just carried on his work. As soon as the ruthless oppression stopped (finally with Gorbachev's Glasnost), Soviet started to crumble.

raven15's post was very good, especially this sentence: Please inform me if I am mistaken (I'm no expert), but doesn't the capitalist system have to stagnate before communism can begin? In that case, I don't think Marx's required circumstances have ever happened, and thus it would not be fair to say Marx's communism could not exist, because we haven't yet had conditions were it could exist.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Communism could probably of worked, if it was properly implimented. But whenever Communism is used the high government officials are much better off due to the 'extra' things that they get and keep away from everyone else. Am I saying we should try at Communism, no, am I saying it could work, yes.


BTW: If Communism worked like it did in Civ 3, then we should all be communists, lol.

 

[gerryandersson]

I doubt that communism in the form that Marx proposed would have worked, but it could have had a chance. But communism in the Soviet way was doomed from the beginning.

 

[Hayek]

No. Communism could never have worked. It was tried many, many times and killed more than a hundred million people during the 20th century.

Voted Capitalism Rocks.

 

[addiv]

Communism as an economic system didn't kill 100 million people, totalitarianism did.

 

[Benderino]

Originally posted by addiv
Communism as an economic system didn't kill 100 million people, totalitarianism did.

Perhaps, but it is also widely held that the totalitarian leaders were attempting to create communism through their autocratic methods. Stalin's first Five Year Plan is a fine example of this. He took all the food from the peasants to export as well as to feed the workers. It worked in the sense that it propelled the USSR faster than any nation in history into industrialization, but it left millions of dead Russians. The only way to bring about a communist economic system is to kill people, because (surprise surprise) people like their things, and they don't like to be parted with them.

 

[ICBM]

While it's true millions were murdered in the name of Communism, it can also be said that the most of the major wars of the 20th century were fought in defense of the wealth of a few. Thus 100 million died for Capitalism.