Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Now before you hit that down vote button hear me out. I'm not a communist. Truth be told I don't really have much of a label for my politics (as in I'm not really any kind of -ism). It's left leaning, but it can safely be summed up by this image

Any Ideology which best fulfills that goal is viable to me. I just so happen to believe that left leaning ideas are best suited for this. Though I've generally been against communism because of its historic lack of success I do believe there is a context where it can work, in theory.

Now before I continue I should specify my area of expertise is the Natural Sciences. I really don't know too much about economic theory and I'm more of an amateur Historian so you'll have to excuse any ignorant claims I make in this post and thread.

I think the reason communism failed the way it did was because it was introduced in countries that lacked strong democratic institutions and values. The nations which became communist were already authoritarian to begin with. Stalin was pretty much a Tsar in all but name. The current regime in North Korea is pretty much a monarchy in all but name.

But if it were introduced in a place with a strong democracy that has free and fair elections, and values the peaceful transition of power. Then maybe you won't end up getting the kind of brutal authoritarian communism you saw in the Soviet Union or Mao's China.

So in theory, maybe communism could work in the U.S., maybe not? IDK. As I said, I'm not really a communist, its just been something that's floating around in my head for a while, so my opinion can really go either way on this depending on the arguments brought forth.

I think before we talk about how communism could work, we need to establish first what exactly is communism. Not necessary in every single detail, but basic knowledge about it, what it suggests, and what makes it different from capitalism and other economical strategies. I have something in my mind but I need to be sure first.

Its broadly defined as "a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs." A lot of versions of communism require the absence of money, classes, or the state.

I don't know enough about the specifics to know why it failed so many times. My assertion that it failed due to authoritarianism is more of a surface level observation than anything.

So I'd like to try my hand at this post, but first I need to establish a few things. I figured that after seeing a request to define communism, which I was planning on doing anyway, I may as well respond to it here.

When discussing communism, it is also crucial to bring up socialism. They are so heavily intertwined in communist academia that discussion of one without mentioning the other is nearly impossible. Socialism and communism as an ideology are so intertwined that you can often refer to both under the same umbrella of socialism. While they are different things, it is extremely crucial to discuss one when discussing the other.

Speaking of, we need to separate communism as an ideology, communism as a society and communism as a right-wing strawman. We'll get that final one out of the way.

A meme argument used by people too stupid to understand economics. And obviously Richard Wolff (the man in the video) doesn't actually believe this, he's making fun of right-wingers and their tendency to use this definition of socialism/communism. Apparently his lectures are top-notch too.

Meming aside, there are two serious definitions of socialism/communism.

First, communism the ideology of countries such as Cuba, the USSR, Laos, etc. These nations espouse communism, but are not actually, even by their own admission, communist. At most they are socialist working towards the construction of communism, or developed capitalist nations working towards the development of socialism, and then communism.

Communism as an ideology is based on the fundamental truth that there are two main classes, the proletariat (workers) and bourgeoisie (think factory owners and that shit), there are a few more classes but they're not super relevant to my point, and that the nature of capitalism inherently results in conflict between these two classes, and that the proletariat class will eventually/must overthrow the bourgeoisie in order to establish a communist society. Speaking of!

A communist society is a society where the means of production are collectively owned with free access, it is without class (even proletariat, as it will abolish itself), money and the state. But communism is not easy to achieve, it is generally accepted that it must go through a period of socialism.

As for socialism, well…

But seriously, socialism is in short a system where the proletariat control the means of production. It gets a bit more complicated and I myself am not necessarily claiming to be an expert on the intricacies of it, but it still has a state. This is because under Marxism, the state is defined as a tool. It is a tool where one class suppresses the other. Under capitalism, the bourgeoisie suppress the proletariat, and under socialism, the proletariat suppress the bourgeoisie.

Socialism is regarded as the stepping stone to communism. Because it has been generally accepted that an immediate transition from capitalism to communism would result in the society immediately being destroyed by outside aggression. So a period of authoritarian proletariat controlled state rule (referred to as the dictatorship of the proletariat) is required to defend against outside imperialism. For the entire existence of the USSR, it was attacked constantly and isolated by the west. The idea of the necessity of the state is laid out in Lenin's The State and Revolution (a book I, granted, have not read yet). Under this state, the preparations are made to defend from both inner counter-revolutionary actions and outside imperialism, as well as start the preparation towards communism, this includes things such as nationalising industry (which is absolutely not inherent of socialism only), seizing property from capitalists, collectivising land, that lovely shebang.

The current most generally accepted idea is that communism cannot be achieved while major imperialist powers are active, as disruption of the bourgeois control of states both sets a "bad" example to its own citizens (hence the decades of propaganda) and threatens their capital.

The abolition of property under Communism is something I think is unattainable without a robotic, emotionless manager to oversee it. We have seen time and time again that extremist ideologies support the most ruthless individuals who cement their position with murder, terror, and propaganda. Communism is no different.

Even when property is effectively gone there will still be someone that wants to own the process at which resources are assigned, someone who's gonna want to be at the top and sit at the big chair. Someone is still gonna want to own things when no one owns things. No equality can exist in such a system where a despot like that rules.

I want to believe that in some far-off post-scarcity future a communist (or at least socialist) future is inevitable, but I cannot accept that a change for the better has occurred when we consistently deny our past. Something something doomed to repeat it, y'know? Seeing as we have people praising Mao's genocide, denying Stalin's genocide and other crimes, and glossing over other key Communistic figures' crimes I have my suspicions any future Communist dictators will be just as bad as the last.

Side note: As a conservative who's been alienated over the past 4 years by the administraiton I've wanted to accept more left-leaning ideas but it's hard to do so when the tankies go "yes socialism is actually a slippery slope to communism and that's good". I'm open to the idea of extending the freedoms and privileges of citizens as long as it's actually giving them freedoms and privileges.

>that image

I think the main issue with communism can be summed up in the old saying:

"The thing that belongs to everyone is cared for by no one."

Let's say you have a factory that makes shoes.

Who's going to clean the factory?

I wouldn't clean someone else's house out of my own free will. It's their mess and I don't want to deal with it.

Who's going to run the machines?

I've got better things to be doing than making shoes. I've got a pair, and so do my family, so why bother making more.

Who's going to fix the machines?

I'm not going to fix the machine, someone else can do that. I've got better things to be doing.

Who's going to deliver those shoes?

I'm not going to waste my time delivering shoes to people. I've got more important things to deliver, like food and medicine.

Someone else can deliver those shoes.

People need to have private ownership of places and objects, as it incentivises them to actually look after them.

It's no longer just a shoe factory. It's my shoe factory, my work and my responsibility.

And of course, all of this would need to be organised by someone, so you'd have to have someone in charge to make sure things actually get done and done well.

This would lead to a managerial (Bourgeoise) class and a worker (proletariat) class.

The only way communism could even come into existence would be if humans stopped being humans, which just isn't going to happen.

Perhaps we could say that the our hunter-gatherer ancestors were communists, as there was no civilisation, no organised work which separated the "employer" from the "employee", but I just don't see any modern or future state becoming communist.

We've simply advanced too far now and rely on too much to make it realistically feasible.

So a response to a few of the claims made.

The Cambridge Source is behind a paywall and is inaccessible.

The CIA link is broken.

The Source on the Ukrainian famine is also behind a paywall. I’d argue the fact that China and the USSR suffered such disastrous famines in the first place, regardless of whether they were intentional or not, is cause for alarm. After all, I don’t ever recall the U.S. suffering a famine that left millions dead.

I don’t believe Mao was mostly good. If he was, he would not have been removed from the party and his wife and his closest supporters in said party would not have been marginalized and persecuted as heavily as they were. The positive perception people have of Mao stems from the CCP creating a cult of personality around him so as to help the government retain legitimacy. Much the same way people mythologize Reagan or the founding fathers (and many American presidents) despite a lot of the objectively horrible things they did. Whatever perception the average citizen has of something simply isn’t relevant to the truth of the matter. If that were the case, then the Civil War really wasn’t about slavery and that slavery was actually good for black folks, since that is how the average southerner perceived it for so long (many still do).

But if Mao was really as effective as is claimed, then China would not have abandoned Maoism for Dengism, which is nothing more than state capitalism. Vietnam has also abandoned socialism and remains one of the United States’ closest allies in Southeast Asia despite the atrocities we committed against them. One could make the argument that China’s current growth is in spite of Mao, not because of him

While the elimination of Mother to Child HIV is remarkable, I don’t really think scientific progress can be tied to an economic system. Unless of course you believe pasteurization, the Manhattan project, and The Moon Landing are tied to capitalism. There’s also no reason why socialized healthcare can’t be introduced into the U.S. as it is now. Plenty of western non-socialist nations have public healthcare.

As for the genocide denial @Wisehowl_the_2nd. Technically speaking, a genocide is not just when shit tons of people die. There has to be an intent to wipe out a specific group/demographic out. With that said, does the fact that one didn’t intend to starve tens of millions of people to death really matter? Technically the Irish and Bengali famines weren’t intentional. The millions of deaths caused by the middle passage were not intentional. It still doesn’t make them any less horrific.

They also served to alienate the populations of those countries. It doesn’t matter to the Irish or the Indians that Britain didn’t intend to starve them. It does not matter to the Ukrainians that Russia did not intend to starve them. They still suffered as a result of their actions and their cultures have been shaped by this as a result.

Also the Famine is Kazakhstan was worse than the one which affected Ukraine. And that wasn’t caused by Kulaks.

@Smol_Nozomi
One could make that same argument for Capitalism. In order for it to work properly people have to be willing to play fair. But that’s seldom the case. It seems as though unrestrained capitalism almost always devolves into crony capitalism.

I don’t believe any system in its purest form can really work. They all must be tweaked in order to fit the societies and contexts in which they are applied. Whether it be it be capitalism or communism.

@The Human Element
An excellent video. Thank you.

It can only work if it is given to someone who is aware of himself and knows that it may take Communism to work too long.

Who are you?
Why did you write in a long buried 21 days old forum thread?
Why did you join KYM just to do that?
You can't blame CIA for failure of communism in countries which had it established before CIA's formation.

"Everything i don't like is CIA"
The tankie's guide at blaming all his faults on the boogeyman

Brief disclaimer. English is not my native language and I want to improve it, so expect some errors and feel free to correct them.

After finally finding some time to read the topic, I came to the conclusion that nowadays anything goes when we speak about Communism. Some people believe that Communism is the best idea ever proposed and the only way to lead mankind into a better world (somewhere between Star Trek and the Smurf Village), others believe that it's a great idea in theory but terrible in practice or not practical at all, and others flat out reject it as (at best) just a better version of Capitalism or as (at worst) a terrible vision that can only be compared with Nazism. For this reason I'm focusing on the positive face of Communism, as a way to make our world a better place to live, and what I want to comment is the concept of the communist society.

According to the Glorious Lobster Emperor above, a communist society is a society where the means of production are collectively owned with free access, and it's free from class, money and the state itself. And believe it or not… this is plausible! It's possible to create this kind of society, because for the first time in human history we have the capability, the technology, the resources and the knowledge to build a global society of abundance for everyone, where the need for money and trade will be obsoleted, where people will not be separated at classes anymore, and nobody would tell them what to do and what to think. This is possible, but there is a little catch. It's not Communism! Claiming that archiving this kind of society is possible only by Communism, is like claiming that the only way you can fly is by flapping your hands like a bird. Of course you can fly, but by airplane, not by trying to mimic birds.

In our case, the "airplane" is a vision named "The Venus Project", brain child of the American scientist Jacque Fresco. The Venus Project presents a new social and economic model that utilizes science and technology toward social betterment, to achieve a sustainable civilization of abundance for all, without any exception. The Venus Project suggest the redesign of our culture based on our nowadays abilities and knowledge (kind of what if we could build our civilization from scratch, but today and fully updated this time), and one of its most important key points is the declaration of all natural resources as the common heritage of all people, in a proposed economic system called "Resource Based Economy".

In a Resource Based Economy, all goods and services are available to all people without the need for means of exchange such as money, credits, trade, barter or any other means. For this to be achieved, all resources must be declared as the common heritage of all Earth’s inhabitants. Equipped with the latest scientific and technological marvels, such as hydroponics and industrial robots, humankind could reach extremely high productivity levels and create an abundance of resources for everybody, all with the lowest environmental footprint possible. No more poverty and hunger, no more putting people into "rich" and "poor" categories, no more working to death to earn your right to live, no more abusing humans into a predatory system like capitalism.

"A Resource-Based Economy is in the application of the methods of science with human concern and environmental concern. If we used the scientific method throughout the world, the probability of war drops to zero. The probability of human suffering disappears. Deprivation, poverty, crime – all those things tend to disappear because there’s no basis."
- Jacque Fresco

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
- Dom Helder Camara

But wait a minute! Isn't The Venus Project still Communism, but with more science and a different name? Actually, no. Just because two ideas can share some points doesn't mean that they're both the same thing. This would be like claiming that a dog and a table are the same thing just because both of them have 4 legs. Communism and The Venus Project does share some same points, but they also have plenty of differences. Let's have a look at them.

It's true that Karl Marx contributed much to understanding the limitations of free markets, but The Communist Manifesto called for forcible, violent overthrow and revolution by the working class (proletariat), which is something that The Venus Project doesn't advocate for social changes. In contrast, TVP approaches social change as a process of guided evolution and a problem of engineering to produce a working alternative.

Rather than workers revolt, The Venus Project calls for the coordination of interdisciplinary teams to hypothesize and engineer a design solution for a human social system that renders the present one obsolete. Unlike past visions for Communism, and especially unlike past attempts of putting it into practice in China and Soviet Union, TVP calls for an experimental analysis of the social system implementation. This is unlike any communist revolution, utopian commune, or coup d’état that has always suffered from the fundamental problem of lacking a methodology for evaluating and improving the system’s function via data-driven decisions. The Venus Project calls for iterative prototyping of cities that we take as the unit of analysis in validating or falsifying hypotheses. The full scale blanket application of social policies to a vast geographic area, be it through revolution or legislation, without a means of evaluating their effectiveness, follows from an approach heavy in politics but lacking in scientific method. And as TripleA9000 would said, all systems must be tweaked in order to fit the societies and contexts in which they are applied.

Today the complexity of our global civilization and the resulting problems cannot be managed by the political organization of a working class. Likewise, the compromises offered by variations of socialism represent patchwork solutions involving the tweaking of gears in an already broken machine that requires an entire replacement. The problems today are technical and require the mobilization of scientists and engineers, to provide technical solutions within a systems approach to manage the Earth’s resources with reference to its carrying capacity. This requires a global survey of resources, personnel, and needs.

Karl Marx diagnosed many of the underlying problems of the free market and predicted the collapse of Capitalism by its own mechanisms in his articulation of the “internal contradictions of Capitalism", and he did envision a world free from oppressive structures. But Marx omitted innumerous logistical problems we would face as a planetary system and the systems approach required to manage the Earth and its resources for all inhabitants, both human and otherwise. This is why we need a strategic management methodology for Earth, which is a Global Resource Based Economy.

As exclaimed in The Communist Manifesto, the “history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Knowing what we know now (150 years after the publishing of the book), we might rewrite this statement to state the underlying problem, that the history of civilization has been the history of resource mismanagement under conditions of scarcity. All class struggle has been a symptom of this underlying condition and it is this root cause that The Venus Project addresses. Although Karl Marx did envision a vague picture of a communist society wherein money, private property, and social hierarchy was abolished, he couldn’t begin to imagine how to implement that at a technical level.

In contrast to Communism, The Venus Project calls for the total redesign of cities (transportation, distribution, manufacturing, recycling, infrastructure) to produce abundance of goods and services. This is achieved through automation and optimized infrastructural efficiency. All basic social, personal, and ecological needs are accounted and provided for at the outset according to the latest scientific assessment, and managed as a system via cybernetic feedback loops. Humanity’s scientific knowledge and means of production have evolved well beyond what is needed to make this a reality. But it begins with a test and a prototype, not a wish and a revolution.

So in other words, the visions of the communist society are possible but not under the umbrella of Communism, and Marx's visions can be archived but not as he envisioned them.

But isn't all of this "utopian"? No, because utopia means perfection and perfection is impossible, although a constant state of improvement is both possible and necessary if we want to avoid any problems made by stagnation. I think the right word is "eutopia", which means "something better and still possible". Besides, utopia is not the need of something better, but the believe that you can get different results by doing the same stuff again and again… which is also the definition of insanity.

And what about "human nature"? We're genetically programmed to be evil and greedy and this is something we can't change it, right? Wrong. The concept of human nature is more interesting and complex than just using it as a reason to excuse our worst values. We're not evil and greedy inborn. We become evil and greedy because we live in an environment that perpetuate those terrible behaviors. I'm sure some of you might have notice that many people don't know what forces are involved in shaping human behavior, so they invent their own concepts and project their own values into human behavior and say "that's human nature". Well, if humans are evil, selfies and greedy by nature, how do you explain the numerous acts of kindness and generosity? How do you explain the fact that people like doctors help other people whey want to help, not for money? And if human nature can't be changed, why we don't live in caves anymore? Why we still evolve, both technological and social? Why we don't support slavery anymore? Because we change.

Hopefully I did provided some answers and food for thought and discussions and I didn't go off topic. Before I close, here is a very short video about Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project to learn more.

a context in which communism does work:
Religious communities such as Amish, such as Kibbutz.

In my opinion communism doesn't work in the real world not because of human nature, but because of the scale people attempt to build it on. Communism works best in small communities, where everyone knows everyone else and the public need is obvious to everyone involved. The larger you try and scale communism the worse it gets at retaining any level of ability to not become corrupt. Socialism scales better because it accounts more for larger communities. Capitalism could scale well, but our current capitalist system is far to unregulated and poorly built to properly spread resources.

In my opinion the best system would be a mix of socialism and capitalism, as the greater individual standards of living are still possible to improve further if you properly invest in yourself.

In the current system, people at the bottom of society are incapable of escaping poverty on a decent scale due to how much free time schooling takes balanced with how expensive it is. People are simply unable to earn enough to survive and save for higher education at the same time.

I would also like to see some higher degree of worker control of corporations, rather than shareholders having all of the power. Maybe requiring companies to have some sort of democratic system for decision making.