Communism

[Csargo]

I just wanted to hear some people thoughts on the whole idea of communism.

~:cheers: :laugh4:

[Kagemusha]

Well everytime when this comes up.I have the same answer:If today we would equally share all the money and wealth among us by tomorrow morning that wouldnt be the case anymore.The communism is a damn fine idea,but thats about it is an idea.It will never work in the real world.Becouse people are individuals and have their invidual talents and weaknesses by sharing everything equally among everyone ,everyone should also contribute the same amount to the society which is impossible:bow:

[Watchman]

Milleniarian "new better world" ideas rarely work too well in practice. Marx was a damn fine analyst and critic of capitalism, but as often is the case with good analysts and critics his attempts to come up with alternative systems ... left something to be desired.

Not to mention that *anything* that basically relies on consciously rebuilding society to certain exacting specifications is most likely doomed to go wrong out of sheer overoptimism. Human societies aren't that simple and easy to manipulate.

[Franconicus]

Russianscar, this question is hard to answer, because there are so many different versions of C. And there is not much experience.


...If today we would equally share all the money and wealth among us by tomorrow morning that wouldnt be the case anymore. ...
Communism does not have to mean that everybody is the identical and gets the same (although some understood it like that.) Communism means that each individual has its own needs and properties. Everyone should get what he needs and contribute the best he can. So the fundmental idea is much more noble than the idea of fascism or capitalism.
The problems begin if you start to practice. How do you decide what someone needs. How to you insure that everyone does his share?

If you want to know the best case scenario, read William Morris. News from Nowhere; if you want to take the worst case, read George Orwell: 1984;
So C could be a dream or a nightmare.

One more note: Do not think that Communism = Marxism = Stalinism;
There is much more in it.

[Watchman]

Or that Communism = Socialism = Social Democracy, as seems to be a common assumed equivalency chain in certain circles. :eyebrows:

[cegorach]

Communism

A very dangerous idea - making everyone equal in everything is not possible, unless it means making everyone equally poor, opressed and terrified.

Giving everyone equal opportunities is enough, I wouldn't risk giving enyone a chance to try implementing communism once again - much more than 95 000 000 paid for this with their lives, few willingly. :book:

[Franconicus]

What is 'equal opportunities'? Isn't it as impossible as the communistic ideals? The rich ones have always more opportunities. The smarter ones too.

It always end in the French revolution slogan: 'LIBERTE; EGALITE; FRATERNITE'. Every nations has to decide what the balance is between the three and how much it can stand of each one.

[Watchman]

'Course, thus far the practical applications of revolutionary Communism have been pretty bad at providing any of the three. Some have done a decent job at feeding and educating their populace though.

[cegorach]

Some have done a decent job at feeding and educating their populace though.

Which ones ? Especially this feeding thing is interesting considering food shortages ( and other shortages ) in all communist states. Education was achieved in many countries without the need of killing people anyway, so I don't think so it was something worth mentioning at all. :no:

[Franconicus]

Which ones ? Especially this feeding thing is interesting considering food shortages ( and other shortages ) in all communist states.
I do not think that there have been many COMMUNIST states before. The first Christian communities? Maybe!


Education was achieved in many countries without the need of killing people anyway, so I don't think so it was something worth mentioning at all. :no:
I do! Education is very important for communism. Because Marx was a philosopher and he thought his theory was the trueth. He also thought that people only had to be educated to understand and follow communism. Therefor in some socalled communist states people who were against C were send into 'education' camps (and I do not talk about torture!). And if they were not able to understand, they had to be insane.
But it is a fact (or at least what I read somewhere) that the US has a higher percentage of people who cannot read or write than Cuba.:no:

[Kraxis]

Communism really hasn't got much place left in the world anymore.

It was a thought brought by by the special social, economical and industrial situation of the middle to late 1800s. For a worker of those days it would not only be possible it would be perfect, if of course the leaders would be true to their ideals. But now even China sees that stingent communism can't live, but it has yet to leave the authoritarian regime behind.

I do however know a single place where communism is working to this day, and is working very well. Tristan da Cunha.
Until quite recently their money were potatoes. Until equally recent each man was allowed to have a set number of cattle and sheep (maybe it was goats), and while that has since been opened up it hasn't changed the situation, it is still as before. Whenever somebody grows up they are given a range of jobs to chose from and do it. Whenever somebody suffers something bad the entire island helps him/her/them.
While financially stable and selfsuficient there is no obvious differences in fortunes.

While I would never go there due to the remoteness I think it is interesting that they are able to keep it running.

[Watchman]

Most Communist states AFAIK did, and do, a pretty decent job feeding their citizens when they weren't being total idiots for some reason (think Stalin and Mao...). North Korea, as I think is readily obvious, is Stuck On Stupid but for comparision the two nearby nominally communist countries - China and Vietnam - seem to be getting along reasonably well.

This probably has something to do with the way acute long-term starvation isn't terribly conductive for regime longevity in normal conditions, and the detail all but the worst-run Communist systems seem to be capable of managing at least base resource production passably.

It's not like the capitalist economy was exactly immune to food shortages either, after all. The better part of the Third World is these days running that one, and kids still starve in fairly appalling numbers.

Communist systems tend to kinda fall short on everything more demanding though, and it is rather debatable if they don't more often than not climb up the tree butt first and trample a fair few peopole underfoot in the process.

This probably has somehting to do with the way the very nature of their command economy requires truly extensive micromanagement, which they just plain categorically don't have the competence or resources to do properly. The sort of technocratical skill that stuff would require is way beyond the ability of even systems rather better equipped to develop it to begin with.

[Kralizec]

In another forum I have been in some discussions about communism/socialism, and the proponent had argued that the chiefest faillure of all attempts at the system was the lack of democracy.
He argued that a socialist state (a necessary prequel for a communist society) must be democratic so that all means of production (wich are under control of the state) are under scrutiny of the public. There was no real acountability in the Soviet Union because officials were generally in no real danger of losing their jobs if they didn't do their job correctly (efficiently allocating recources)

That's the condensed version, and I thought it was an excellent argument. I still don't think a truly socialist or communist society is feasonable (or even desirable) for a host of other reasons though. I'll write down a summary of my con arguments when I have a little more time.

[Vladimir]

Communism is much like making everyone equal in height thru amputation. Communism and capitalism are two different ways to deal with the problem of scarcity. Ironically an advanced, capitalistic society would very much represent a communist society. Once the issues of scarcity and rarity are eliminated through technology there would not be a shortage of everything. It would then be up to the individual to decide how much of whatever they desire. Communism was developed by an elitist and is the religion of elitists. It makes mediocrity the norm and discourages individual initiative and progress. It would work fine if humans were collectivists by nature but we're not. Perhaps the greatest irony about modern communism is that it has Christian roots while it seeks to abolish religion.

[econ21]

Most Communist states AFAIK did, and do, a pretty decent job feeding their citizens when they weren't being total idiots for some reason (think Stalin and Mao...). North Korea, as I think is readily obvious, is Stuck On Stupid but for comparision the two nearby nominally communist countries - China and Vietnam - seem to be getting along reasonably well.

I don't think this is right - assessing the record of Communist countries while taking out Stalin and Mao is rather like assessing the safety of the space shuttle programme while taking out the disasters.

Communism will tend to feed its people less well than the alternative system because of the classical problem of incentives. Collective farming under-performs household-based production, as the Chinese reforms in 1978 dramatically showed. Yes, you may meet some grain quotas, but people will have less incentive to produce what is not forced out of them if they know they will only get a small proportion of the fruits of their efforts.

The problem of famines under Communism is more serious and I think political rather than economic. The economics Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has claimed that no democracy with a free press has had a famine because the people won't stand for it (this goes along with his theory that there is always enough food even in a famine - the problem is (re)distribution). Totalitarian Communist states (which let's face it is all of them in the Soviet mold) can more easily suppress discontent and even information so that people can starve in their millions but the rulers still stay in power. In the case of the famine in China, it's been argued that Mao did not even know of the famine, because local officials were afraid to reveal the bad news. That's hard to believe - part of me suspects that the problem with famines is that the rulers just don't care.

BTW: It is very hard to claim China and Vietnam as contemporary Communist success stories. They sputter along under a Soviet style command economy and only take off when they liberalise and allow private incentives to work.

[Kraxis]

China might call itself communist, but it is not anymore.

The equality of the communist state has longe since been removed and there is huge difference between poor and rich in China. A farmer in Tibet compared to a stocktrader in Shanghai is significantly more different than a lowincome Western European compared to an educated and quite wellemployed midlevel boss.
China has it's own system now, and it is hard to give it any real name. But I would go so far to call it authoritarian oligarchic planned commercialism.

[Franconicus]

Communism really hasn't got much place left in the world anymore.
I do not know. Things are changing.
20 years ago the so called communist block influenced the western society. There was a social market with strong rights for the workers. After the fall of the social market changed more and more into a free market. Globalization was the next step. Social security is fading away, million of jobs are gone, salary is decreasing ... . The richer are getting richer while the normal workers are getting poorer. Middle class is eroding.
On the other side you have China with extreme differences in wealth and access to goods. Isn't the suituation similar to the one that brought Mao to power?:skull:
Economic is changing so far, some countries will lose and some will win, some companies win, some bosses and owners win. There is a increase in nationalism and religious fundamentalism. And there is still a increase in population.
I tell you, there will be some fundamental changes in society to bring the structure of society and the economy together. I think it is likely that we will see new forms of communism. :sweatdrop: Because cap is not able to solve the problems.

[Watchman]

I tend to leave out the likes of Mao and Stalin - and, God forbid, Pol Pot - because they're not really useful as illustrations of what's wrong with Communist regimes; they're brilliant cases-in-point of what can (and tends to) go wrong with totalitarian autocracies where absolute and unquestioned power is vested in the hands of a single wonk, which sort of setup is by no means a Communist monopoly.

Ditto for North Korea really.

Besides, Communist states have done a brilliant enough track record at not meeting even a fraction of their lofty promises (well, can't vouch for Cuba - partly as I've not a clue what Fidel et Co. originally promised, beyond replacing the universally hated assholes who ruled before them) even if you leave the genuinely bad god-emperors out of the equation to make the point somewhat moot.


In the case of the famine in China, it's been argued that Mao did not even know of the famine, because local officials were afraid to reveal the bad news. That's hard to believe - part of me suspects that the problem with famines is that the rulers just don't care.It actually sounds quite likely they didn't dare to tell him. It's also entirely possible they did, and Mao simply refused to believe it - some of the stuff you hear about him, and similar virtual god-emperors, strongly suggests their grasp of reality tends to be a bit shaky. I understand he was a big believer in the excessively positivist idea at the heart of Communism which basically claims enough human faith and effort really will move mountains (or completely change societies; about the same thing really). Assuming that certainly makes such strokes of genius as the Great Leap Forward more comprehensible.

Mind you, the Great Leader has also been quoted telling a visiting Italian Communist party chief that a worldwide nuclear war was desirable, because about three million or so Chinese ought to survive and they'd then repopulate the globe into a Communist utopia...
I understand the Italian did not find the idea quite as appealing. Wonder why ?

[econ21]

I tend to leave out the likes of Mao and Stalin - and, God forbid, Pol Pot - because they're not really useful as illustrations of what's wrong with Communist regimes...

But the thing is that Mao's China and Stalin's Russia WERE the Communist regimes, not just examples of what could go wrong with them.

Mao created Communist China (in part in the image of Soviet Russia) and ruled it, more or less, for a quarter of a century.

Stalin was preceded by Lenin who ruled for a few years, but again it was Stalin who led the USSR for most of its formative years and had the biggest hand in making it what it was. And to be honest it is rather hard to put a piece of paper between Stalin and Lenin in many regards - yes, Stalin was a more murderous person (the revolution devouring its children) - but he was largely working the system Lenin created and arguably rather faithful to Lenin's ruthless approach to constructing a Communist state.

When we look at Communist regimes in reality - as opposed to the ideals in the textbooks - then those fashioned by Stalin and Mao are the dominant paradigms. Every other one was either created in their image or a revision of their constructs.

[Watchman]

Well, both of the two also became rather more tolerable once the local retake of Ivan the Terrible was away. Not that the Soviet bosses after Stalin were exactly a nice and concerned bunch, it's just that compared to the sheer murderous paranoia of the Great Terror and Uncle Joe's other crowning achievements they start looking pretty palatable.

China also seems to have had a marked shortage of outright disasters once Mao was gone. Or at least I've never heard of them trying to pull the sorts of basically well-intentioned but totally and dangerously cracked stunts the Great Leader seemed to specialize in.

[Kraxis]

There is always Pol Pot and his agricultural... hmmm... revolution.

Sure a lot of people were tortured and killed outright, but how many weren't directly tied to the work done in the fields? I mean people were worked to death in those evil 11 day weeks (10 days of work 1 day of rest).

[Cronos Impera]

1.0More people died in Russian gulags than the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. The start of World War Two allowad many political prisoners to be released from the gulags and sent to the Eastern Front where they stood a chance to survive. Ironicly speaking, Nazism saved 4-5 million russians from the gulag system.
1.1Communism is responisble for more deaths than Nazism. In fact Joseph Stalin was planning a holocaust of his own by the time of his death.
Communism was a doctrine born from rational concerns that turned badly.
1.2The western capitalists ware responsable for the rise of communism. Communism appaeared in poor, industrialized countries such as Russia and expanded to simmilar countries.

[Watchman]

In absolute terms Communist system indeed has produced more corpses than the Nazi one. However, if you calculate it as a ratio of death toll to years in power, I suspect the Nazis start looking much worse.

Plus Communist massacres and plain criminal neglect never had the total, all-consuming, racist, and chillingly technical form of the Nazi mass murders. Their killing methods never progressed beyond crude hand-work. The Nazis turned it into an industry and approached it with all the technical and organisational ingenuity they could spare from other pursuits.

The Communists, even at their worst, never made it beyond primitive barbaric butchery. The Nazis were... scientific and disturbingly particular about it.

As for Pol Pot, he was plain nuts and got deposed by the Communist Vietnamese. Against the protestations of both the USA and China too, if I recall correctly, and China even waged a brief punitive border war on Vietnam over the matter.

[Kraxis]

and China even waged a brief punitive border war on Vietnam over the matter.
And lost horribly if I remember correctly.

But remember that under communism, especially in Stalinism had the problem of quotas for executions and deportations of 'state enemies'.
That is neither neglect nor crude. It was very refined and highly coordinated.

[Watchman]

*snort* You're talking about the Great Terror now. It only lasted some three years, and had to be called off because it had started disintegrating not only the entire Soviet system but the terror machinery itself.

And there was nothing "refined" nor "coordinated" about it. Only Stalin's overwhelming desire to destroy anything and everything that might threaten his position. A police state suddenly turned into hysterical, suicidal paranoia.

I've read a few in-depth descriptions of the thing. Even when I full well know it happened it is slightly difficult to believe a state truly can suddenly throw itself into that sort of sheer self-destructive lunacy. The more I know of it the more surreal it starts looking.

[econ21]

1.2The western capitalists ware responsable for the rise of communism. Communism appaeared in poor, industrialized countries such as Russia and expanded to simmilar countries.

With respect, I beg to differ. Personally, I would say WW1 was responsible for the rise of communism. I can't see the Bolsheviks coming to power without Russia's trauma in WW1. And I can't see Mao coming to power in China without the Bolsheviks providing the ideas and some resources.

What caused WW1? Well, that's a big issue but I suspect only Communists would say it was Western capitalism. I attribute it to rivalries and stupidity of politicians (often traditionalist autocrats) - not the conniving of bankers and industrialists.

And I don't think you can describe Russia - let alone China - as "industrialised" at the time of the revolution. Indeed the relative backwardness of those countries is often used by theoretical Marxists to explain the failure of Communism in practice - Marx always said Communism would come about in the most advanced industrialised countries.

[Kraxis]

The Russian Revolution was done by a mere 300,000 people. The communists...

Hardly a 'people's revolution'.

[Watchman]

Marx, although a good analyst and critic of capitalism, wasn't very good at predictions. He failed to account for the willingness of the capitalists to share some of the loot with the workers specifically to reduce militancy, or at least the willingness of far-sighted statesmen to force the capitalists into that in the interests of national stability.

Some of the first "welfare state" type policies were implemented by Bismarck, after all.

Russia and few other places lagged far behind not only in general developement but also in much needed social reforms, which resulted in there being a sufficiantly large and irate pool of "agrarian proletariat" to catch the sparks set off by the Great War.

[Watchman]

The Russian Revolution was done by a mere 300,000 people. The communists...

Hardly a 'people's revolution'.Oh, it was popular enough an uprising. The Bolsheviks, not terribly numerous, just managed to hijack it about halfway through. Better organisation and some lucky political gambling in the chaos after the old regime collapsed was the key, I understand.

Often the final watershed in the direction the Revolution was going to take is considered to be the mutiny of the marines at Sevastopol (which was bloodily crushed, but anyway). Those guys had been at the vanguard of throwing off the Ancién Regime, and seriously didn't like the direction the Bolsheviks were steering the whole thing.

[ajaxfetish]

There were several communities formed here in Utah during the early Mormon settlement that were basically communist. Most failed miserably, and the one that performed best was made up of people who had lived through the worst failures together and had a sense of community about as strong as the traditional family. (eventually it was disbanded after a change of leadership, much to the chagrin of its members)

I think communism requires a level of philanthropy and selfless fraternal concern beyond what the average human community is capable of in order to succeed. A thread in I think the tavern not long ago included the assertion that people tend to be less friendly and community-minded the more urban or advanced their society is, and between living in small towns and cities I am of a mind to agree. If this is the case, communism would only have a chance of success in small, primitive societies (where we could probably find some compelling examples), and even then only infrequently.

Human nature and the advanced world we live in undermine the possibility of a successful communist state.

Ajax

[Watchman]

You know, I think the village- and city-part- level autonomous cooperative communities that sprang up during the Revolution (the original soviets, "councils", whose name the Bolsheviks misappropriated), and which also popped up like fungi after rain on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, actually worked pretty well for local governance. They weren't terribly good at stuff like fighting a war - as is painfully evident from the Spanish case - but I understand they could manage the day-to-day running of their locality quite well.

'Course, in both cases they all perished or were absorbed before any conclusions can be drawn of how well the system would've functioned in the long run and if they'd eventually started playing the classic state-building dominance games with each other.

[Vladimir]

There were several communities formed here in Utah during the early Mormon settlement that were basically communist
Ajax

Indeed many of the more idealistic followers of Christianity formed communes. "The Pilgrims" are a good example as they started off as a communal society and nearly perished because of it.

I don't think that a "primitive" society would benefit from this form of government. My understanding of the post-classical Incas is that they had a communistic redistributive economy which continued to stagnate and decline.

[Watchman]

You sure it wasn't just the classic "dividing the spoils" scheme where the rulers distributed by various means their accumulated valuables to followers and underlings in return of loyalty and service ? I don't recall the exact term that sort of system is known as, but it was extremely common in comparatively limited and undeveloped economies. And, yes, it tended to hit its limits fairly soon too. Sooner or later you're simply going to run out of stuff to redistribute as rewards. That's really more an issue of production of wealth though.

Anyway, true Communism is an idea of the industrialized world. Antyhing pre-industrialized is "proto-communism" at best, although "every man an equal" has been an extraordinarily common rallying cry among millenial revolutionary movements over the course of history. A few I can name right off the bat are some of the ciliastic peasant rebellions that followed Luther's theses, and some of the Sengoku period Japanese Ikkis (what was the slogan of that one bunch ? "Cast Away Your Sins and Reach the Pure Land" or something ? Same old Paradise Now idea anyway). Assorted secluded puritanical sects have tended to be big on the idea too.

Which, of course, suggests an established income distribution scheme their followers found intolerable. Not too different from what triggered the Revolutions in Russia and China.

[Vladimir]

You sure it wasn't just the classic "dividing the spoils" scheme where the rulers distributed by various means their accumulated valuables to followers and underlings in return of loyalty and service ? I don't recall the exact term that sort of system is known as, but it was extremely common in comparatively limited and undeveloped economies. And, yes, it tended to hit its limits fairly soon too. Sooner or later you're simply going to run out of stuff to redistribute as rewards. That's really more an issue of production of wealth though.


Which is a good question. Pre-Columbian South and Central American history is perhaps the most dynamic field in history with new, fascinating discoveries being made all the time. I do know that just before the arrival of the Spanish the Incans had defeated their northern rivals (Chimu?). What the records of the time may show that indeed, that evidence was influenced by the recent conquest (as the Spanish invaded from the Northern, recently conquered areas).

[Harald Den BlåToth]

Indeed many of the more idealistic followers of Christianity formed communes. "The Pilgrims" are a good example as they started off as a communal society and nearly perished because of it.

I don't think that a "primitive" society would benefit from this form of government. My understanding of the post-classical Incas is that they had a communistic redistributive economy which continued to stagnate and decline.

One of the ten commandments is "love your neighbour". Assuming that you and your neighbour nurture the same extent of love for eachother that makes you both "equal"...Not quite much I'd say, but it appears it offers somekind of relief and appeasement to those not so clever, independent or resourceful enough to picture their lives out of the flock...(see quakers, amish and neoprotestant sects)

Actually, in certain harsh situations, communism may provide the only means to survive (see jewish kibbutz)...Unfortunately, it has been proven safe only when used in small communities so far. :2thumbsup: