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
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.
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.
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
Impossible economic goal for anything larger than a township and unbelievable susceptible to corruption as a one-party form of government. No nation has ever implemented it without a violent revolution and government that quickly turns into a dictatorship.
In short, a nice dream, but a shit idea.
That’s my opinion on it for the most part.
Everyone I’ve ever met who lived under it says it’s was fucking awful. Not a single endorsement. That’s significant because even capitalism has boosters. Not communism.
Definitely one of the fastest way to start arguments, especially among people left-of-center.
No, it’s not!
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”
In theory it could work if everyone living under it are selfless and 100% in on it, but that’s simply against human nature. Also, a resource distribution system based on “trust me, bro” will at best be inefficient or corrupt, in most cases both.
We’re currently living through an era where liberalism+capitalism is really showing its asscracks, but I’d take that over communism. But I can understand why communism may appeal to some who have never managed to get ahead in our current system.
Plenty of people here have talked about potential success or failure, and the economic side, but here’s my take. Despite Marx equating religion to an opiate, and especially despite the “no religion” stance of the USSR, Christianity (probably the other Abrahamic religions as well and maybe Hinduism and its offshoots, I’m not exactly sure please correct me if I’m wrong) should be massively in favor of communism over capitalism. In Christianity, we are called to be stewards of creation for God, we run it and manage it but it’s not ours. This doesn’t work with capitalism, which is focused on the concept of ownership. That’s not to mention the equality side of things, which is very much a Christian concept.
I’ve brought this up with some of my Christian friends, and it’s unfortunately not a popular idea. Probably because of lingering cold war attitudes of “communism is atheist”.
Also to be clear: yes I’m Christian, no I’m not pro theocracy, yes this is based on my knowledge of the Bible and on communist philosophy.
Acts 4:32-35 makes it pretty clear that one of the most Christlike things early believers were doing was pretty communal, even if they didn’t have any Marx to read yet
Communism sounds amazing on paper, but immediately falls apart once people try to implement it, because it inevitably just becomes a dictatorship with even more hunger than fascism. Human nature undermines a perfect world where Communism is possible. C’est la vie.
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
Most “communist” countries operates under the idea of Vanguardism, and Vanguardism is not gonna work. Giving too much power to a small circle of leadership, or worse, just one leader, is gonna fail, because humans cannot be trusted with that much power.
As for the anarchist variant… no opinion, but can’t think of any that worked on the top of my head.
But I think anarchist communisties are gonna struggle. I fear that a neighboring state will literally consume it. I think anarchist communities are too small to protect themselves. (I’m not against anarchism, just skeptical of how it works in practice.)
So I think the best compromise is a decentralized state, direct democracy, ideally, we should have people enforce their own rules, via well-regulated militias. But if there’s a foreign invasion, then form into one united command. Something like Social Democracy / Democratic Socialism
spoiler
I was born in mainland China, not a good place to live. I heard stories about the stuggles of my parents and its why they have this very frugal mindset even now when they have a bit more money to spend. Whatever happened with the “communism” stuff, that failed, now its “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, aka: State Capitalism. China basically has many of the flaws of America, but worse. Even for all the flaws of the US, my parents still decided to bring the family into the US… so there’s that. My mother tells me to not criticize the government (neither the US or China) because “it could bring trouble”, she shuts down conversations whenever I criticize the CCP, but deep down, she knows the US is better. She casually mentions the air is better, more greenery in the city (NYC), beautiful parks, better pay, etc… its not perfect, but my parents think its better, I mean, I personally also prefer the cleaner air.
The only thing Guangzhou was better was the subway, when I was in NYC, the subway looks kinda dirty and old not gonna lie, and there’s also the racism, obviously… but for like everything else, I generally disliked China.
(For context, we moved around 2010)
Also, my grandmother just did the oath ceremony and got US Citizenship this week, +1 US Citizen to the family, yes very ironic considering current events, but like… clearly she prefers the US to China.
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.
Worse than capitalism despite being more well intentioned.
Cs Lewis nailed it while talking about religion:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Ask yourself, do you really want the people of .ml holding power over every facet of your life?
I don’t think communism = oppressive morality.
Show me an implementation that doesn’t end up like that.
I don’t care about some great pie in the sky ideals, show me a real tangible example of a communist government that doesn’t violate its citizens for “their own good.”
In theory? Pretty good. In the Marx-written demands of the Communist Party, it emphasizes democracy, education, and equality.
I would gladly vote for a communist with similar policies.
