That we should be striving for it even though it may take a while
Why
just wait. it will work. we promise.
no, don’t be critical of us not being able to give you any details. that’s mean. just trust us. we know better than you.
I have never seen it functioning outside of theory and doubt that it can. I like social democracy with a lot of regulation.
Where have you seen capitalism work? Or what are your metrics for “it works”? And which states do you consider being failed communist states? And why did they fail in your opinion?
Capitalism works pretty well for me…
Ok. and surely there’s nobody that could say the same about communism?
Well, everyone seems to think communism hasn’t been effectively enforced in any country. So, no, nobody could say that and keep that argument valid.
If you look at countries like Cuba, I’d argue that it’s working pretty well considering the circumstances.
Cuba has the highest ratio of doctors per 10k capita (95), their life expectancy was constantly rising until covid happened.
The biggest issue they have is being isolated by the USA, which also enforce that isolation across the northern hemisphere.
Its ironic you bring that up considering Cuba is one of the worst developed nations to be a doctor.Yeah and those doctors make 60 bucks a MONTH. They have to work abroad, or hold second jobs. Even when they work abroad a huge percentage of the money is funneled back to the government. They have a tremendous problem with corruption. Electricity is out constantly. They also have a horrific track record with political prisoners and massive human rights abuses in said prisons. They have zero freedom of speech and can be put in prison for even participating in threads like this one. I’d say thats a poor example.
Well, in the US you can easily get into ICE camps if you look like you could be not white enough, if you study medicine you’ll start your life with hundreds of thousands in student debt (that you won’t get rid of, even with a bankruptcy), and I’d argue that the current US administration is as corrupt (or worse), so I am not sure what you’d be looking for in a Country to consider it better or as good as a capitalist country?
it’s worked effectively in small socially isolated religious communities with rigid social codes. Amish, Kibbitz, etc.
Ah, but all those states aren’t TRUE capitalist states. That’s why we can’t point to a successful example.
That’s funny, because Capitalism doesn’t even work when you try to make it less agressive by implementing rail guards.
But sure, looking at states like the USA makes me believe that Capitalism is doing good!
Works great until people become involved.
That being said, you can say the exact same about capitalism.
Only takes one person pissing in the punch bowl to make it a piss bowl.
Greedy people are going to fuck everyone out of power and resources no matter what.
In any system of government, historically at least.
i live in a “communist country” and communism does not exist
How do you mean?
there’s nothing communist about it. it’s as capitalist as anywhere else, with even less regulation than somewhere like the united states. communism is just a brand, like “democracy”. no government that im aware of is actually trying to create it or wants it to happen. the hammer and scythe is a symbol of heritage and that’s all.
Communism is old, and young. The principals of communal living are the oldest form of human organization. It’s also the most common form today if you count small groups like family.
But as an organizing principal for government, it’s a baby. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. The Bolshevik revolution was in 1917. So the whole idea of communism is < 150-200yo. Compare to capitalism at this age and it’s all slavery and settler colonialism; the most massive redistribution of wealth through theft in history.
The logic that communism is a bad system because the Soviet Union should also condemn capitalism because the Dutch East India Company.
I would say the Soviet Union and the Dutch VOC were both bad for the same core reason: they were an ideological extreme. Capitalism is only a good system, if it is localized and regulated. Otherwise a small group of people will come out on top and exploit everyone else. But the same holds for communism, as clearly seen in any nation attempting communism, you inevitably get a dictator who will exploit the people for his or her own good. The difference is that when you weaken communism by implementing only parts of it, like universal healthcare, or unemployment benefits, then we call it socialism.
we call it liberal social democracy
While they share the common problem of dogmatism, I think that interpreting this as an issue of ideological “extremes” misses the point that moderatism is also an “extreme” - it dogmatically seeks stability of the status quo over conflict resolution, it “regulates” with an iron fist. Anything that becomes “ideological”, that holds something sacred, valued above oneself, can be hijacked by other people pursuing their own interests (or other ideological interests), and/or lead to contradictions between values and needs and desires.
It needs guardrails similar to capitalism in terms of checks and balances and protections against abuses of power. And it needs to be an economic framework, with direct-participation democracy doing the political work.
We are at the technological threshold where a Republic is no longer needed as the primary interface of democracy, but such a direct-participation democracy needs to be paired with an electorate which is highly educated, places said education on a higher pedestal than wealth or power, and focuses on experience and meritocracy above all else. Most importantly, said population must have virtually no economically vulnerable people, as poverty nerfs intelligence by up to 15 points and dramatically reduces a person’s ability to think critically beyond their immediate day-to-day needs. Having a population that can see near-100% attention to national questions makes for an effective direct-participation democracy.
Essentially, the people vote directly on everything, and about the only “political apparatus” that exists would be those structures meant to carry out the will of the people and diplomats that interact with other countries. There would be no leaders or politicians, only people being the gears of government.
If a person is particularly passionate about a cause, they can champion it in public forums, going up against other debaters, but are not allowed to monopolize the forum in a career-like manner.
Plus, such a democracy would be reflected down into the worker’s collectives which would operate on virtually identical principles, only with scopes restricted to that collective.
There are other parts of the societal structure that could enhance said communism.
The legal system will need to be 100% apolitical and utterly divorced from the political structures or economic incentives. Lawyers become judges by courts of their peers, who examine their body of work and determine if the expertise is sufficient for the judgeship. Ideally they wouldn’t even be told who they are evaluating, their only opportunity is to recognize the work done through any anonymization done to it. Judges that misbehave can be removed either internally or by an external vote by the population at large. Laws can be implemented in either direction - from the population or from judgements - but must be approved by the people.
The police system needs to be a national system that cannot allow bad apples to just jump from precinct to precinct to avoid discipline (as per America), but must also be unarmed as a base unit. Only SWAT has the ability to carry more than restraints. Police are assigned to neighbourhoods to learn and integrate with the residents, as per Japan’s system. Trust is built by literally walking the beat and being an integral part of the community.
Any wider security forces (NSA/CIA/FBI) or military would be focused only on external and internal threats, and are highly constrained to only act in the best interests of the society as a whole, but are also under a sort of “prime directive” to not meddle in other countries except to blunt/neuter what they are doing in the first place. Military, in particular, would be primarily self-defence and international peacekeeping.
Both the military and the police and any other security forces would have a shadow council of randomly-chosen civilians whose entire purpose would be to criticize and constrain overreach, along with dedicated lawyers whose entire purpose is to advise on laws. All police and military members would have the ability to access JAG-style lawyers and would be protected when refusing to carry out illegal orders.
There is a lot more I could add, but imma gonna stop here.
Good in theory, problematic in practice. A goal to strive towards but not achieve.
The main problem is that the dictatorship of the proletariat is so easily corrupted into a regular ol dictatorship. It’s supposed to be a transitional period, but when that much power is in play, it’s hard for people to give it up - and even when they’re willing, they can just get ousted by less scrupulous people.
Making it safely through that passage is like a Great Filter of socio-economics
It’s never existed. Not in it’s pure form anyway. But neither has capitalism, or socialism either for that matter.
A theoretical system is always in some way perverted and coopted by the people implementing it. Humans are the weak part of the equation because humans are greedy and focused only on themselves and their own small group of friends/family. So scaling any political system up from theoretical to an actual national policy always ends up with a perverted form where one group ends up over another group despite the original theoretical intent of the system in question. That goes for Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, as well as religion too.
Humans suck and can’t have nice things without fucking them up.
yep. but every ‘true believer’ believes they are different and they totally wouldn’t be like that…
The truest truism that ever did truism is that “power inevitably corrupts”
I think it’s susceptible to the same problems we have now. Elites gonna form and do their thing. Whether they’re in the party or on the board of directors, the effect is the same.
I think we’re just way too naive about systems. We expect them to work for us without putting in any effort. We should stop focusing so much on systems and start focusing on communities and cultures.
The best societies have tight-knit communities and a culture of cooperation. You can’t achieve that by passing laws or writing a new constitution or whatever. You have to get buy-in from everyone.
The best societies have tight-knit communities and a culture of cooperation.
You’re describing high trust societies I think. (1).
if people actually studied it in college, you wouldnt be so quick to supporting it without knowing the ins and outs of the system. people/tankies fantasizes it alot, without actually reading the whole meaning behind it. thats why fall very easily for the extremes of politics.
The reason lots of manifestos, communism, bell hooks, whatever, are these 50 page outlines is because… well fleshing out the details would quickly make the idealism of the utopia collapse.
Notice how they never talk about enforcement mechanisms? yeah… they just make this weird assumption that everyone will be happy and free by following the ideals and nothing bad will ever happen or there will be any disagreement about those ideals.
Good on paper, never works in practice.
The classic line
Are we talking actual idiologie communism, the Red-Scare Version, or what some people say they are but are actually totalitarianists or stalinists aka dictators with red paint?
Whatever you see it as.
No no to have a discussion about a topic we all need to know what exactly it is we are talking about
A power vacuum, which immediately gets filled in by whoever can gain the most power the fastest, while keeping the communist title. Thus the “no true communist” arguing.
My opinion is that it works kind of okay in smaller groups where everyone knows everyone, but on a larger scale it always falls apart
Like many other systems, works well unless some people are assholes whoops
People that fund resistance, blockade and embargo people instituting it, in order to “prove” it doesn’t work, for example. People who tear down the few institutions and restraints in their own states to prove government doesn’t work, for example.
Hmm… What about… decentralized communism
I mean, what’s stopping a power vacuum in that case either?
It sounds problematic, but I’d be intrigued to hear your take, if it’s a fleshed-out idea you have.
Humans aren’t mature enough to handle it.
What do you mean
I mean, that the larger the group, the more assholes you will find in that group. Communism works great for families, and households. They look out for and support each other without keeping financial logs of who owes what.
Try to do that on a country wide scale, and there will be people whining that they don’t have enough, or they do too much, or that others deserve less, and they will lie and cheat and manipulate their way into getting more and more and more.
It’s a great system, far too good for us stupid, selfish humans to ever accomplish.
The easiest bullshit answer to why anyone doesn’t like a thing:
tHeY jUsT dOn’T uNdErStAnD it!”
I don’t see what this has to do with my comment.
Speaking of maturity, when we were kids, my mother told me and my brother to share stuff, like split food in equal proprotions, because like… we’re supposed to be equal to each other. Guess why we have fights every fucking day lol. He always say its not fair or some shit.
