Successful Communism
- Thread starter GhostWriter16
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innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Actually I must praise the authors for being honest about what they believed building and maintaining the USSR required. My issue with the book were the contradictions (blaming Khrushchev for allowing private business, then saying that he cracked down hard on it and corruption associated; praising Brezhnev for "correcting" Khrushchev "rightist deviations", then admitting that Brezhnev just allowed things to remain as they were and didn't end the "second economy", etc); the cheap potshots at some favorite targets of "orthodox communists" (the alleged social-democratic deviations of the italian communist party and its hypothetical influence on Gorbachev, the complains about Hungary's openings to capitalism - "market socialism" was the contemporary term, etc), and the fact that they provided no credible alternative to Gorbachev's changes, which they criticized. Afaik Andropov wasn't really trying to change anything or resolve the "second economy" problem through improved central planning, he was just another Brezhnev.
Ah, and their list of Remaining "socialist states", where they insist in including North Korea and China - they're clearly still in denial!
The soviet model of central planning for all the economic activity in a country failed. Beyond a certain level of material development it cannot accommodate the complexity of the economic system. The one alternative which was tried and was successful, if we measure success as "retaining power and control over the country", was China's advance towards "economic" capitalism without apparent ideological/political changes. And I don't think I like it. It's odd, because I believe that far less Chinese died as a result of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and related convulsions that soviets during the political collapse of the union between 1989-91 and the subsequent wars and deep economic depression. Gorbachev's results were worse for it's own citizens, but he still gets sympathy for, basically, having lost without putting up a fight!
Yes, but... do they know that? DO they see where their won best interest lies, and defend their class, or do they defend other classes in the (usually vain) hope that they'll make it into those classes?
Didn't some american writer publish a book about how George Bush (the man who unambiguously stated in a fund raising dinner, to a group of very wealthy guys "you are my constituency") got most of the votes cast by low-income voters?
FUD...i
The attempts of communism so far has taken places in existing countries, with common ethnicity, language and history to constantly undermine the socialist values. Perhaps it would work better if a state was created from scratch with this purpose (good luck finding a territory for this) and then call out for all commies in the world to emigrate there. A country of immigrants who only share values. It would be interesting to watch a fresh attempt from a safe spot, I'd say.
Existing attempts also kept a lot of individualism. A worker's hero is still a hero. There were statues of Lenin raised and enormous pictures of Mao. All organization of society must be done in a collectivist fashion. Important roles such as chairman should be rotated so often that everyone has been or will be chairman (in principle).
The society would have to be designed to deal with brain drain. Any successful individual who begin to feel that she deserved better should actually be encouraged to leave. The education system and management of knowledge/skills in organizations must be shaped to not concentrate ability to a few individuals. If anyone from this communist state received a Nobel prize it would have to be considered a failure. Progress should of course be welcomed but it would be dangerous for a commie society if it was a result of few individual's work. Let it be said that nothing will stop someone from gaining excellence in an area if she's hungry enough, therefore a generous "retirement package" (youwantmoneywellhere'smoneynowgtfo) is needed to avoid corruption (of values).
So commies, how's that for a start?
There's still a lot of stuff to work out.
Existing attempts also kept a lot of individualism. A worker's hero is still a hero. There were statues of Lenin raised and enormous pictures of Mao. All organization of society must be done in a collectivist fashion. Important roles such as chairman should be rotated so often that everyone has been or will be chairman (in principle).
The society would have to be designed to deal with brain drain. Any successful individual who begin to feel that she deserved better should actually be encouraged to leave. The education system and management of knowledge/skills in organizations must be shaped to not concentrate ability to a few individuals. If anyone from this communist state received a Nobel prize it would have to be considered a failure. Progress should of course be welcomed but it would be dangerous for a commie society if it was a result of few individual's work. Let it be said that nothing will stop someone from gaining excellence in an area if she's hungry enough, therefore a generous "retirement package" (youwantmoneywellhere'smoneynowgtfo) is needed to avoid corruption (of values).
So commies, how's that for a start?
There's still a lot of stuff to work out.
willemvanoranje
Curitibano
I know you weren't suggesting to vote for populists. What I meant was that the class that is supposed to bring about change in a leftist way, in practice goes the almost opposite direction.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
Singapore didn't try to prime the pump in the 1997 financial crisis and came out of it just fine. Besides, you still didn't comment on my statement of how low Communist Party membership was in the country. The GOP and the Democrats had millions of voters registered, the Communist Party never breached 60,000 (its highest number, at its founding... since then, a rapid and steady decline.)
Okay, so socialism will work after the technological singularity.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
So tell me, then: how does a corporation even functionally exist if economic planning is impossible?
A corporation can only plan because it receives plenty of information from the market, though, including from the price mechanism.
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
And even then it is never able to perfectly calculate demand.
Actually as long as those geniuses work for the good of the people everything is okay, nothing prevents a socialist country from being a technocracy, I await the singularityThe attempts of communism so far has taken places in existing countries, with common ethnicity, language and history to constantly undermine the socialist values. Perhaps it would work better if a state was created from scratch with this purpose (good luck finding a territory for this) and then call out for all commies in the world to emigrate there. A country of immigrants who only share values. It would be interesting to watch a fresh attempt from a safe spot, I'd say.
Existing attempts also kept a lot of individualism. A worker's hero is still a hero. There were statues of Lenin raised and enormous pictures of Mao. All organization of society must be done in a collectivist fashion. Important roles such as chairman should be rotated so often that everyone has been or will be chairman (in principle).
The society would have to be designed to deal with brain drain. Any successful individual who begin to feel that she deserved better should actually be encouraged to leave. The education system and management of knowledge/skills in organizations must be shaped to not concentrate ability to a few individuals. If anyone from this communist state received a Nobel prize it would have to be considered a failure. Progress should of course be welcomed but it would be dangerous for a commie society if it was a result of few individual's work. Let it be said that nothing will stop someone from gaining excellence in an area if she's hungry enough, therefore a generous "retirement package" (youwantmoneywellhere'smoneynowgtfo) is needed to avoid corruption (of values).
So commies, how's that for a start?
yup yup yup
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
What if I suggested that large corporations are able to influence their prices externally?
That it would suck for the consumers.
So they haven't been pushed there yet. Big deal. You found an exception.
Even the biggest corporation is tiny compared to the world market, and it receives all sorts of information from it.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
It would be doing so outside the market proper. Market share means little in this context, though it is also true that a great many of the large corporations hold significantly strong parts of their respective markets to be able to influence them. Perfect competition only exists today for small businesses.
That's all true, but a corporation does not interact only with it's market segment. It needs to deal with suppliers, consumers, etc. It faces competition from corporations from other segments searching for the best employees, and so on and so forth. A corporation could never function efficiently without receiving all sorts of input from the market.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Well yes, but they often do a great deal to manipulate those things that contribute to the input they receive. Like marketing, for example. And of course the state plays a role, as taxes have developed the double-function of influencing aggregate demand. But the ability to exercise THAT kind of control is generally reserved for the largest of corporations that deal in markets.
To be clear, there is a difference between the planning system and a command economy (which would be formal economic planning), though there is a tendency to use the two as synonyms. The type that we are talking about, the corporations normally engage in is the former; the type historically associated with socialist states is the latter.
Merkinball
Deity
What? You do realize that the USSR cut across 11 time zones, with dozens of ethnicities, and dozens of cultures and languages right?
What do you mean? I think it's kind of foolish to think that corporate planning is like communal planning. They're not one in the same. A corporation defines it's own needs, it's own goals, and it's own desires. It determines what products or services it will produce gauged on consumer demand or manufacturing consumer demand. Communal planning, at least on a national level, can't function like that. A corporation can say, "We're going to make this product and try to sell it." But a communist government will not. A corporation will try to fit into the needs and desires of the people. A communist government will not. Corporations function from the bottom up and exist to fit into niches that can accommodate everyone. Communism functions in an opposite fashion, by the top determining what the people will get.
And just to be sure, a lot of economic planning in a corporation is just winging it and making as good of an assumption as you can about inflation, present worth, future sales, and future overhead, maintenance, and production costs. Crap like that.
Indeed, but they still receive far more input than they are capable of generating. Even the largest corporations in the world - Exxon, WalMart, etc - still depend enormously on information received from the outside to function.
There is a price mechanism that will tell how much Exxon should refine or transport, and up to what point it is profitable to do so. A corporation working in a command economy would not have this sort of luxury.
An important distinction.
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