Could Communism have worked?

[Thadlerian]

Originally posted by Chairman Yang



I would also like to ask you if one would hypothetically be allowed to call you "comrade"

Of course, Comrade!


Meldor also has some good points in his post, remember that every matter has at least two sides!
However, many of your points is based on an understanding that has risen out of the Industrial Revolution. The Human is gregarious by nature, and if we observe world history, it stayed so for a very long time. Of course, if the resources are very restricted, most of us would compete. But one of the prime goals of communism is having every man able to produce enough food to sustain himself and his family. With efficent agriculture and industry, that goal can be reached, and still not require more than 4-5 hours of work every day, which would leave large amounts of time for research and creation of culture. The western culture is in no way representative of the majority of the people, as it is occupied in hard work most of its life. Technology will not kill communism, only improve it, giving people more spare time.

Look for this constant competition anyplace else than in the capitalist west, and I might assure you that though they do not disappear, the distance between each expands greatly. Competition is a result of capitalism, at least that's my opinion. In communism, everyone would work the same amount of time, without getting monetarily rich.

However, I don't usually use the term 'communism'. That word is destroyed by Josef Stalin and Joseph McCarthy, by the modern China, and by generally being an accepted term for everything that's oppressive. Communism is the opposite of oppression, if done the right way that is, as it gives the worker integrity and more spare time.
The modern term, however, is Socialism. I like the word better; more syllables makes it more nuanced and sophisticated. Perfect for 2003. Yeah, and it's not based on revolution.

 

[meldor]

Originally posted by Thadlerian
......... The Human is gregarious by nature, and if we observe world history, it stayed so for a very long time. Of course, if the resources are very restricted, most of us would compete. But one of the prime goals of communism is having every man able to produce enough food to sustain himself and his family. With efficent agriculture and industry, that goal can be reached, and still not require more than 4-5 hours of work every day, which would leave large amounts of time for research and creation of culture. The western culture is in no way representative of the majority of the people, as it is occupied in hard work most of its life. Technology will not kill communism, only improve it, giving people more spare time.

Sorry, you under estamate the time you must spend if you are going to be self sustaining. To even come close to it would require more like 8-12 hours a day. You are assuming that I can grow crops all year long. That is not the case for the majority of the crops nor the majority of the landmasses. In order to be self sustaining you have to produce not only the crops you need today but enough to sustain you during the off season. Sustenance farmer leaves little time for anything else. On top of that each person would have to have somewhere in the neighbor hood of 80-100 acres of land each (assuming you aren't going to force us meat eaters to go vegan. Vegatables don't take as much room, but remember you have to grow enough wheat, apples, plums, corn, and other crops to last all year for you and your family.

You also assume that if we had 3-4 hours a day we could just do research. However, that requires two things, devoted time and capital equipment. If I work on my farm for 4-5 hours a day, do you think I am going to be interested in chipping in to build that atom smasher? Not going to happen. Who builds the tools to build the tools?

We would all spend our free time playing Civ3 and sipping our cornsqueezings. Exually, I would spend the time making extra food, as there may be a draught coming up and I would need to be prepared.

Originally posted by Thadlerian
Look for this constant competition anyplace else than in the capitalist west, and I might assure you that though they do not disappear, the distance between each expands greatly. Competition is a result of capitalism, at least that's my opinion. In communism, everyone would work the same amount of time, without getting monetarily rich.

We have been competing since two folks picked up stones and tried to throw them. It is our nature. You can not change the beast and that is the basic problem. Competition is a result of humanity. It is the desire to survive, to better one's self, to make things better for your offspring. It doesn't have to do with Eastern, Western, capitalist, socialist, or communist. It is an undeniable himan trait. Put two children together and they will find a way to compete. Admittedly this is a strong trait in males than in females (sorry, not a sexist comment, but study finding). but females tend to pick more agressive males. Nature not philosophy.

Originally posted by Thadlerian
However, I don't usually use the term 'communism'. That word is destroyed by Josef Stalin and Joseph McCarthy, by the modern China, and by generally being an accepted term for everything that's oppressive. Communism is the opposite of oppression, if done the right way that is, as it gives the worker integrity and more spare time.
The modern term, however, is Socialism. I like the word better; more syllables makes it more nuanced and sophisticated. Perfect for 2003. Yeah, and it's not based on revolution.

No socialism is not communism. Communism is a long way from that. I will admit that socialism is on the road to communism, but it is far enough down the road to be totally different. Socialism implies that their will always be a government to balance the ills. Communism relies on human nature to be vastly improved. Also, socialism doesn't deny me some fruits of bettering my standing, they just deny me the right to pass that on to my offspring. The attempt is to have everyone start equally and then dijverge from that point. The better you do, the more you pay, but you are allowed to do better than the next guy as long as you can overcome the penalties. Socialism even depends on some people doing better to support those who can not do as well.

Every try for communism has failed. In a utopic world it would be the ideal, but we are flawed and therefore must construct govenments to compensate for those flaws.

 

[meldor]

Double post

 

[klazlo]

Originally posted by meldor
No socialism is not communism. Communism is a long way from that. I will admit that socialism is on the road to communism, but it is far enough down the road to be totally different. Socialism implies that their will always be a government to balance the ills. Communism relies on human nature to be vastly improved. Also, socialism doesn't deny me some fruits of bettering my standing, they just deny me the right to pass that on to my offspring. The attempt is to have everyone start equally and then dijverge from that point. The better you do, the more you pay, but you are allowed to do better than the next guy as long as you can overcome the penalties. Socialism even depends on some people doing better to support those who can not do as well.

Every try for communism has failed. In a utopic world it would be the ideal, but we are flawed and therefore must construct govenments to compensate for those flaws.

Yes, these terms are different. This is my favorite part, I guess I have some mini-jubileum around these threads to tell that there was no achieved state-level communism by the original Marxist terms. Not even the SU achieved communism ever, they were building it, and existed in the temporary position of socialism.
So I agree with you.

 

[Thadlerian]

I guess I should have expressed myself different, what I meant was collectives. By adding workforce to a collective, this society can produce enough food to sustain all its members, making a surplus to sustain industry workers.

Again we come to workforce as a main argument for why C. will fail. But a fact is that this will kill capitalism in the end: There will be noone to do the physical work, if everybody's gonna be rich and prosperous and creative in the sense of the modern society.

Of course that problem can be solved half-way by moving industry to poor countries in the Third World, which is already happening today. Keeping prices low ultimately makes sure 3/4 of the world population can never have any part of the capitalism cake, that is, living in the society it creates. But you still have buses and trailers to be droven, patients in bed to be tended, children to be teached, etc. All these sectors are being downpriorized in the Western society.

Every try for communism has failed. In a utopic world it would be the ideal, but we are flawed and therefore must construct govenments to compensate for those flaws.

Good luck with that (I'm serious. My goal is not maintaining my arguments at all cost, I'd rather see people being treated fair). Seems like noone's been successful yet, however.

 

[meldor]

Even if we have a collective, we still have the fact that we have to work that 4-5 hours a day to sustain our life. On a lot of days this will not be trival labor. Will we then take a breif rest and start research and manufacturing jobs?

How would we be able to handle large jobs? Say building a factory? Who would decide that it needed building? How would our collective go about getting the materials for it that we ourselves couldn't produce?

Would we be willing as a collective to sacrafice many, many years to build a atom smasher? A space program?

Would we not need a central government to do these tasks?

 

[Thadlerian]

Ah, had only the process of making answers been as quick as the one of making problems... oh well, I'm losing this discussion by lack of arguments.

All I have is good faith in humans as good by nature. Hopefully that will gain me some time.

 

[Souron]

Let us look at anciant china. It succsesfuly fed its entiere population and prosspered. true it did have a central gov't however - a dictatorship led by confutian ideals. Communism is like an oligarcy that leads its people with simular ideals.

Enlighten me if I am wrong about the success of china, my knolage is limmited.

Also campare communism with civ2 fundementlism would a commbination work? after all in fundementalism every one is happy. I don't know how realistic this is.

The idea is "religon can overpower human nature." for my self im not sertain. that's why i didn't vote.

I use "communism" and "socialism" interchangebly. Sorry picky english scollers.

 

[meldor]

Originally posted by Thadlerian
Ah, had only the process of making answers been as quick as the one of making problems... oh well, I'm losing this discussion by lack of arguments.

All I have is good faith in humans as good by nature. Hopefully that will gain me some time.

It is not an arguement. It is an exchange of ideas. Feel free to take your time in answering the questions if you like.

@Souron - The ultimate goal of communism is the elimination of the government. Once we are all re-educated into the communist system, the government becomes useless and fades away.

 

[Souron]

Originally posted by Thadlerian
Ah, had only the process of making answers been as quick as the one of making problems... oh well, I'm losing this discussion by lack of arguments.

All I have is good faith in humans as good by nature. Hopefully that will gain me some time.

do not think of it this way. If you fail to defend the "argument", then the "argumet" is not valid. Thereby you should be open minded and dismis your "argument". However an argument is often thought of a a competion and thereby you are sadend when you fail, not happy to have learned somthing new.

 

[Thadlerian]

Argh, my retreat is blocked...
oh well

Originally posted by a lot
Communism won't work.

Define work.
Of course it wouldn't work with the capitalist/libertarian defintion of 'work'. Capitalism is based on constant increase of prosperity, which already is mathematically impossible, a thought which is inconsistent with communism/socialism. A lot of aspects from today's society would disappear in a communist society, but new aspects would arise. Communism decreases freedom for those whose freedom is at the sacrifice of others', but it introduces freedom to those who have none.

The modern world is at the brink of stagnation. You can't reduce size of microchips forever, and new medical development is blocked by pharmaceutical corporations whose prosper is greater by alleviating than healing. The lack of globalization control makes sure developing countries are stuck in poverty forever. New myths, which were inexistent just 30 years ago, about Western psycic superiority to the Eastern, are being greeted happily by politicans as well as normal people, increasing the crevice between NA/Europe and The Others.

I will not deny the possibility that there is no perfect government form. But as long as noone can offer anything more plausible that Karl Marx's solution, I will believe in his.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Communism, or the marxist-leninist concept of it, could have worked so long as it's leaders continued to crack the whip as Stalin and Mao did. Not exactly a cherished way of life but, objectively, it would.

 

[klazlo]

Originally posted by dannyevilcat
Communism, or the marxist-leninist concept of it, could have worked so long as it's leaders continued to crack the whip as Stalin and Mao did. Not exactly a cherished way of life but, objectively, it would.

Exactly this whipping crippled the socialist economies and societies. They had good reasons to change the strategy after Stalin's death, adding about three decades to their rule.

 

[Nobunagatenno]

the communist government must be totalitarian since the government need to force the citizens to follow their drastic reform. this totalitarian nature will hamper the freedom of speech.
this will make the leader difficult in assessing the effectiveness of the policy. lies will be anywhere in the communist state.

actually communism is just a correction of the capitalism, not the opposite. the welfare system in the west has already done the job of reallocating the resource.

the best place for communism is the university, not the government. swipe them back to those scholars!!!

 

[Titan2018]

Communism couldn't have worked out even on a theoretical level beccuase it tries to make people too equal. Don't get me Wrong, I'm very libera but I see this fundimental flaw in Communism. What has to be remembered is that people are not completely equal in terms of abilites. Most people are better at some things but not so good at others. In adition some people just aren't as capible as others. It's important that the system provides a certain amount of incentive and recognition for achievement. What is needed though is for soceity to provide members of society with the opputunity to achieve if they have ability. What I mean by this is that the government needs to provide the poor with the oppurtunity to achieve such as education.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Hmmm, I thought this topic looked familiar...

I just wanted to belatedly respond to this:

Originally posted by klazlo


Exactly this whipping crippled the socialist economies and societies. They had good reasons to change the strategy after Stalin's death, adding about three decades to their rule.

In which way did it cripple these economies? Where along the way did Stalin cripple his economy? Was it cleverly disguised by increasing Russian industrial production seven times above it's 1914 level? Crippled before or after his brutal methods drove his country to surpass Britain as an industrial nation and take 3rd place by 1939?

It was the war, if anything, which "crippled" their economy, not Stalin's policies (although, admittedly, in rebuilding he did cripple the economies of the eastern bloc; maybe that's what you meant?)

It was after he was gone that the economy lost it's focus and started to crumble.
Glastnost and perestroika were trying to fix the mess Brezhnev left, and Brezhnev didn't crack the whip and push anywhere. He paid for his grossly disproportionate military with oil exports while everything else was left to rot.

Stalin was a savvy guy. He knew when to push and when to give, and if he were alive today, I'd be willing to bet he'd still be there.

 

[klazlo]

Originally posted by dannyevilcat

In which way did it cripple these economies? Where along the way did Stalin cripple his economy? Was it cleverly disguised by increasing Russian industrial production seven times above it's 1914 level? Crippled before or after his brutal methods drove his country to surpass Britain as an industrial nation and take 3rd place by 1939?

It was the war, if anything, which "crippled" their economy, not Stalin's policies (although, admittedly, in rebuilding he did cripple the economies of the eastern bloc; maybe that's what you meant?)

It was after he was gone that the economy lost it's focus and started to crumble.
Glastnost and perestroika were trying to fix the mess Brezhnev left, and Brezhnev didn't crack the whip and push anywhere. He paid for his grossly disproportionate military with oil exports while everything else was left to rot.

Stalin was a savvy guy. He knew when to push and when to give, and if he were alive today, I'd be willing to bet he'd still be there.

Couldn't people just wait a couple more days to get the one year anniversary?

By crippling I meant on the long run. The way how Russian/Soviet industrialization was conducted simply reflected the ideas of the industrial revolution from the 19th century, causing a long structural delay compared to the West. It also killed all the innovative potential that would have come handy from the 1970s. The Soviet economy, due to the huge inertia built in it was unable to perform a structural change when it was needed.
They might overproduced the world in steel or something like that, but after a while there was no need for that much steel. And they weren't able to shift gears.

It is a debate about the "socialist modernization" of Eastern Europe. But the SU did not use their resources to rebuild itself after WWII, in fact SU resources were redirected to Eastern Europe, when those countries built up the same type huge heavy industry just to find out that they don't have iron, coal etc. (in general).

 

[Birdjaguar]

In practice, communism has never worked in the real world above the voluntary community level. Economic and political theroists (like Marx and Engels) serve a purpose even when they produce bad theory. When Lenin and Stalin had the chance to implement such a theory, for all to human reasons, they couldn't pull it off even though they had absolute power and huge resources. Instead they produced one of the most brutal and destructive governments of modern times. At the most fundemental level they failed for three reasons:
1) They were bad people, their motives were bad and everyone knew they were bad
2) Marx & Engels were wrong about people and economics
3) They couldn't compete with western culture in the hearts and minds of their own people.

The intellectual appeal of communism is that it treats everyone equally even when they aren't. This has a strong pull for people who are poor, less driven (or unable) to succeed in a competitive environment, feel oppressed, think tribalism is the solution to the world's problems, or think corporations are evil and dehumanizing. The dehumanization of people in the SU was far worse than anything that goes on at IBM, Intel or Citibank (unless you were one of the communist elite).

Communism was one of theose social experiments that we (hopefully) learn from. People have always tried to balance the inherent injustices of capitalism with state sponsored "isms" to help those who cannot or will not succeed in such a competitive society and to keep the wealthy from getting too much power. This tension between individual initiative and state control has been a part of civilizatin since Sumer. The trust busting of 19th Century industrialists is a case in point. When individual initiative is sufficient to gain state control, we get the more colorful and controversial people of history: Hitler, Ghengis khan, Octavian, Lenin, Mao, etc. none of whom were elected.

 

[raven15]

I seem to always come late to threads, I hope Thadlerian is still reading. That was a very informed exchange between he and meldor.

Thadlerian-
I do think that if left to itself the world may eventually adopt something approaching communism/extreme socialism (they are very different things, but have similar effects in theory).

However, it is not left to itself, and I disagree that we are approaching stagnation. We still have the entire solar system to expand into, and the prospects for capitalism when that happens will probably be much greater than the discovery/colonization of the world by European capitalists. We are on the verge of being able to do this, and there is a definite drive to do it before we do stagnate. 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. And if we ever do exploit the moon, Mars, and the rest of the solar system, communism will not get a chance for a long time. (I have always wanted to say this even before Bush's lunatic/good idea)

Personally, I think Marx was crazy and had no idea what he was talking about. His proposal was entirely theoretical (again I'm not an expert). If I try to imagine the communist system working as he described it, I cannot see it ever having a chance. Personally, I couldn't stand to "work" for 4-5 hours then go off and do my own thing. It sounds like a disaster in the making. However, socialism seems possible, likely, and also a good idea.

 

[Archer 007]

Originally posted by napoleon526
Working for the good of the group and abandoning any thought of making money for personal gain goes too far against human nature. Perhaps one day, Communism will prove successful if we as a species evolve beyond the need to aquire wealth.

Ditto.