In theory, what is wrong with Communism?

Human nature seems to corrupt all forms of Government. Why is it that Communism equates evil? and Capitalism good?

I understand Cold War Propaganda has a great deal to do with our perception but both have flaws.

If Sloth is a factor in the failure of Communism couldn't Greed in turn contribute to the failure of our Capitalist Society?

It appears to "work" for a short period time, but almost always ends up in economic disaster. Some communist states allowed various forms of capitalism to avoid the disaster, but in then thats not communism.

Communism can start great with free education, healthcare, and retirement for everybody.

These things are not incompatible with capitalism. The government in a capitalist economic system can develop a series of taxes either direct or indirect to porvide education, healthcare, and retirement. In the US, we have an excellent system to provide for free education from K-12 supported by taxes. We have a free retirment system supported by social security. We can have a free medical care system just by voting for it and developing a tax structure to support it. You could have free university education as well. Any state can crank up their income or sales taxes a couple of notches and say that state universities and Jucos are free of tuition for all state residents.

In a pure capitalistic society, nothing is free. When you have the government implement taxes to provide for those things, you begin to bridge the gap between capitalism and socialism. The more the government pays for, the more socialistic the society becomes. I'm not saying its bad per say. I'm just saying its not pure capitalism.

All governments provide benefits in one form or another paid by taxes in one form or another. In a capitalist economic system, the voters vote on how much they want to be taxed to provide a certain level of government services. Government is a parasite on the economy. How much can government consume without causing a deterioration in the health of the economy. A successful parasite draws maximum advantage from the host while not affecting the health of the host. Unsuccesful parasites draw too much and kill the host.

The goal of governments is to work to deal with issues where capitalism is inefficient or unfair. In terms of inefficiency there are a number of things that the government can do to make the system more efficient then if there was no government; Education (human capital development), infrastructure, environmental laws, standards, enforcement of property rights, providing information.

the people. That has been the primary problem with Communist governments. In order to provide free things for people, they necessarily have to take away something from other people. It is a delicate balance and requires that all citizens be willing to give a little without the necessity for the government to start killing or those who are uncooperative ala Stalin.

Even under simple analysis there are issues with power, allocation of resources, and motivation/free riding.

What, in your view, constitutes "failure"?

the Soviet Union for one. Then there's Castro's tropical paradise, Cuba. And of course, that peace-loving nation, North Korea.

Anymore guesses?

definition of communist, aren't the same.

Because communism became a global propaganda word for communists and anti-communists alike.

Fascinating perspective.

You are just trying to spin my words to smear me.

And by the way arguing that you are right because masses of people agree with you is completely fallacious.

they have received inaccurate information is delusional.

On this thread you have posted that:
Jesus was communist.
That there is private property in communism.
That there is no powerful central government in communism.
That no country has tried communism.

All of which are false.

Jesus wasn't communist.
There is no private property in communism.
There IS a powerful central government in communism. (Anarchism has no powerful central government.)
Communism has been tried repeatedly and failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Communism_and_an...

http://www.studylight.org/desk/?query=mt+5:17&translati...

You are lying about what ive said.

You made a completely silly argument that because masses of people agree with you you were right. I pointed out the obvious stupidity of this argument in that the masses arent neccessarily right, and in this case almost certainly arent because communism is a topic that is rarely discussed honestly because it has bee politicsized for so long and with such intensity by everyone involved. You are the one who argued from common knowledge, dont try to swing this around on me.

Jesus advocated communal living whether you want to admit it or not. Anyway, you cant call that false, it is obviously a matter of opinion, we cant go ask Jesus if he is a communist.

I never said there was absolute private property in communism. I said that some concept of private property needs to exist in communism, one that recognizes absolute communal ownership, but also recognizes the neccessity of identifying which things should be used by which person at which times etc.

There is no powerful central government in communism thats the whole damn point of communism. You are confusing communism and socialism.

No country has tried communism, some countries have lied about trying commmunism.

Why you choose to take Stalin and Mao at thier words I do not understand.

of a term. When you argue the definition of communism, the common understanding of it is right, and all other definitions are wrong.

Give me one passage where Jesus said to live "communally" or on a commune.

There is no private property in communism. Saying now that private property is "which things should be used by which person at which times" is NOT private property...and you know it.

By the standards established in Marxist and Communist theory, the statement that "Communism" did not exist in the Soviet Union, or any other place, is correct. The Bolshevik and Communist Party was, by its own lights, striving towards that state, but had not achieved it, even according to its own lights. Communist factions and parties delight in proclaiming they are the nearest to true Communism, and their rivals the farthest things conceivable from it; slanging matches along these lines between, say, Khrushchev and Mao towards the end of the fifties, provide a good deal of entertainment.

As a practical matter, what existed in the Soviet Union was simply the highest form of monopoly capitalism, with the consolidations taking place at pistol-point rather than by financial legerdemain, and the consolidating entrepenuers acquiring the state for themselves into the bargain. The state, being the monopolist, was able to make the same attempt to dictate the market that any monopolist would attempt, and as the sole employer, had complete control over labor, and could sweat it as desired. It remained a money economy in all essentials, and the formulation that state ownership meant people's ownership, since the state was in the hands of the people via the vanguard party representing the people was a mere sophistry.

Marx's theory was the Communism would occur ineluctably in the most industrially advanced states, where there existed a surfiet of economic resources. He held it to be impossible where those conditions did not exist, and particularly impossible where pre-capitalist feudal economic and social structures were the order of the day. In such places, the social revolution, the sea change that overtook western Europe roughly between the Rennaisance and the French Revolution, would have to take place first, and then be followed by an interval of capitalist society, from the contradictions of which would eventually emerge Communism.

The great revolutions of the twentieth century in Russia and China were, regardless of what they may have called themselves, not Communist revolutions or the establishment of Communism, but actually social revolutions against feudalism, leading to the establishment of a state capitalism, and the creation of a modern industrial infrastructure. In both cases the authors felt they had reasoned some loophole through Marx's presecriptions by which they could force the process in a few years, but this was a delusion, in both Marxist and ordinary terms. They bear every pug-mark of the garden variety peasant revolt that has periodically shaken the ancient order since the record of history began, being distinguished only by their colossal scale, and success in actually expropriating the old land-owning governing elites. Both can be readily seen, today, to be sorting the resultant structure out into new ownership elites as the initial egalitarian thrust dissipates in the sustaining of a new order and governing class. This, too, is most typical: Chinese history in the current era is marked by at least a half dozen such episodes, the most recent prior to Mao being the establishment of the Ming dynasty.

"Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is the exact opposite."

Marx's theory was the Communism would occur ineluctably in the most industrially advanced states, where there existed a surfiet of economic resources. He held it to be impossible where those conditions did not exist, and particularly impossible where pre-capitalist feudal economic and social structures were the order of the day. ???

In the United States, surely, there are enough resources for communism to occur? It hasn't, in fact, it is totally discredited and laughed at by anyone of any intellectual capacity, except college professors, but I repeat myself.

It does not work, it cannot work, hence the theory is wrong. By the way, capitalism is not done at the point of a gun. That is thuggery.

Capitalism IS thuggery.

ya know, the guys who would KILL and BEAT and BLACKLIST the people who tried to unionize big business...(the meat packing plants, the steel workers, etc)

incidentally, the people who tried to unionize were socialists.

I did mention that capitalism was not done at the point of a pistol. However, the unions (socialists) were also very violent.

That being said, the companies would be practicing capitalism if they busted the unions by non-violent means. Economic, for example. Lock-outs. Etc.

any of them thugs. which would be a lie, technically speaking.

would, of itself, wither away.

There would be no state. There would be no poverty. There would be no riches. All would voluntarily work as hard as they could for as much as they needed, and no more; none would shirk work.

If communism has not occurred in the US, the immediate conclusion is that the US is not sufficiently industrially advanced. (This quickly becomes unfalsifiable, and, as far as I am concerned, moves it from "theory" with consequence hypotheses subject to disconfirmation to "belief", which is not susceptible for being disconfirmed.)

IIRC the standard theory predicts that capitalism will have to reach it's inherent limit of growth of profit, before collapse and revolution can occur. The development of theories certainly didn't end with Marx, and central role of imperialism (new markets and resources to capitalize) to capilism have been given quite a lot of thought.

So capitalist globalization and capitalization of new areas ("intellectual property", patenting genes etc.) and corporate monopolism that we see are in full accorcance with the standard theory. Which would thus predict that capitalism will come to end only after it has used all expansion room available, full globalization.

The main line of thought amont the new global anti-capitalist movement (World Social Forums etc.) seems to support a constant revolution that would not repress fullest potential of human creativity, so not much effort has been put to thearizing about communist utopia, as common opinion is that formulating overall strategic goals would just confine flexibility and creativity. Tactical goals or "projects" are a different matter...

That is simply my explaination of what this particular argument is really about. Marx was an acute and valuable historian, but a poor eschatologist.

It remains to be seen whther some of the inherent contradictions of our current economic system play out as he predicted, or restore something analogous to a feudal order. The capitalist experiment is only several centuries old....

expand as human creativity blossoms and makes more resources, and yes, even markets, available. Or something else that neither of us has yet thought of.

but I stand corrected. Thank you for the explanation.

Our current industrial/post-industrial economy is in its relative infancy, if you consider the entire course of human history. It's still quite possible that a communist-esque society will emerge some time in the future.

But since I'm not a gambling man, I wouldn't bet on it.

Mr. Magistrate, though some of your points are accurate, the conclusion that what the Soviet Union had, was any form of capitalism is, well, wrong.

That is not the case. Ownership by the state, which in practice, save perhaps in the case of a genuinely democratic order, translates to ownership by a small clique, differs in no particular from "private" ownership by magnates. It is true there generally are competing magnates, but there are competing factions in state organizations, and there were competing factions even in Stalin's party. It is also the case that all magnates seek to put rivals out of business and establish themselves as monopolists, and generally seek some assistance from the state in doing so: mush of Mr. Smith's "Wealth of Nations" consists of describing and denouncing this tendency and practice. The Bolsheviks, and the order of the Soviet Union, can be viewed as simply pushing the tendency to its ultmate expression: from certyain angles, it ,akes little difference whether you dtive a fellow down by use of economic power to set prices he acnnot profit at, or by pointing a gun at him, with or without a kind word....

"Some men rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."

There was no "C" in USSR there was an "S".

KL

North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Cuba have never really been communist countries, just totalitarian. The people who set up these totalitarian regimes dressed themselves in left-wing "communist" robes in order to get popular support for their revolutions. They promised pie in the sky, better living conditions -- in short, all the good things communism can bring to a populace -- and the populace were enthralled at the prospect of not having to live like rats anymore. After all, one certainly wouldn't expect a revolutionary to get very far with: "Hello, Mr Serf. I am a greedy dictator who wants to take things over and make your life a living hell." It was more like "Hello, Mr Serf. I notice you're eating rotten potato skins and making bread out of the dust you shake from flour bags. Here, follow me and you'll have plenty to eat, a warm place to live, and dignity."

It didn't turn out that way, of course. Castro, Kim, and any number of the Soviet leadership have lived high on the hog while their citizens have much less to show for their trouble. OK, maybe in Cuba they're a little better off than under Batista, but basically the people in these supposed communist countries, not knowing any different, just traded one form of serfdom for another.

Well, quelle surprise! Marx's big mistake wasn't the even now untried political system he advocated, but that he hadn't counted on the nasty, moderating effects of human nature to screw it all up. He didn't realize that a bunch of evil, rapacious dictators would call themselves communist and get his concept all dirty. Now communism is incorrectly termed a totalitarian system -- a case of guilt by association -- and the positive aspects of communism are completely discounted as a result (mainly by the ill-informed, who unfortunately number in the majority because that's how powerful capitalist propaganda can be).

Greed is bad, period. People are greedy, period. Until people can be improved, there's not much hope for communism, though it would be nice to take an objective look at it for a change.

their problem is that the US is sanctioning them, for reasons i can't fathom...they could be an incredibly rich country, with their climate (can anyone say tourist attraction?)...and if they were truly communist/socialist, the wealth would be spread around a bit better than in most countries (even in the us)...

most countries around the world can't figure out why we still sanction them. they smoke their cigars and think "those americans are fucking crazy"...i think we must be...

The U.S. cannot allow a communist country to succeed. We need not put crazy ideas into the people's dirty little minds. Question the sanctity of capitalism? Away with you, miscreant!

Personally, I think communism could only conceivably succeed in a very small nation-state. As someone pointed out up-thread, greed will exist no matter what, and the larger the nation-state, the more corrupt it will be. There's no getting around that, and it's doomed to fail from the start in such a case. And it seems an island like Cuba would probably be an ideal place for pure communism to blossom.

the US has a vested interest in keeping Communism seem an evil thing...despite the fact that most of the EU is socialist, to some degree. if it's "evil", people won't ever learn that they could have better than the scraps they're getting from the corporations.

Anybody wants some photos from Guantanamo?


***Spelling corectet***

not my idea of a vacation, thanks. i want to go surfing, not water boarding.

my point is that cuba is undeveloped and really unappreciated. it's in a very temperate climate, it could do well. and i think that if the distribution of wealth was fair, it'd be a fantastic place to see. i wouldn't want to see hotels cluttering up coastlines, but that's a fair price to pay for a country that ISN'T in poverty.

They all did. The real communism, not the fairy tale that Marx wwrote about.

Facts, sir, not opinion is what is needed. Name the place where communism has been practiced, then. You cannot, because it cannot exist.

You arent even trying to be rational here.

It cannot exist? I guess we will just have to take your word on it because you are some kind of magical psychic wizard who can know what is an is not possible in human culture.

people are near perfect, however when people are near perfect every system would look pretty much the same.

Hey, I dont think communism would ever work. But I think that using a communal approach to societies problems might give us some useful and novel ideas to integrate into a rational plan.

I think a good example of working models of "socialism" or "communism" would be the Open Source Software movement - Linux being the most prominent result of that model, as well as Peer-2-Peer networking.

They work on the basic principles of information and work sharing. P2P networking is especially interesting because at its basis it utilizes a reward-system that rewards people who share versus people who horde and leech only. The same I guess with concepts like community moderation and karma systems. I think the Internet and Online games, etc. might just well be the precursor to economic and social models for governments of the future.

in that most "real live" P2Ps do indeed reward people who "share." Unfortunately, in most cases, these "sharing people" are sharing things they did not produce. In fact, P2P penalizes those people who actually produced the items.

Yep, a perfect example of communism. (no sarcasm intended)

...are you fighting so strongly for it?

then, answer this: Why hasn't it been tried yet. Real communism, I mean? I say it has been, nobody hopped on board the train, so then the ideologues went to using force to "persuade" people.

Rationality? What do you know about it?

you are unable to name a place where communism has been successfully tried.

I just gotta ask: how many times does reality have to hit youover the head with a 2 x 4 before you buy a clue?

If by communism you mean Marx' notion of communism, it is not something you "try." It is something that society evolves toward as resources to drive capitalism become more scarce. Under our current economic system growth is a necessity. Without growth over the long-term, the American economy would collapse. That growth will become impossible at some point as the competition for resources increases. Ultimately economics is a zero-sum game. The time table for reaching the point of unsustainable growth has been extended by the discocery of the hydro-carbon economy, causing some to forget the zero-sum nature of economics. At some point the continuing growth will become unsustainable and then we will see if communism works. I fear what will happen if it does not. As the Magistrate says, the alternative at that point is a feudal economy. In the 20th century some thought that they could force a society into a communist revolution and found out that this will not work.

This is where you are making your mistake. This is an assumption, only an assumption, and I do not think a valid one. The discovery of the hydro-carbon economy was not just an accident of nature, but a triump of human creativity. There will be others, but not under a communist government or system.

But there is another assumption. That society will "evolve" towards communism. That, too, has not been demostrated. Every society that has been in a society that it, and others, called "communist" got there, not by evolution, but by having it imposed upon them by vile men who sought power for themselves.

The hydro-carbon economy is also in the throws of turmoil because of an impending scarcity of resources. All one needs do is look at Iraq. We shall see if human ingenuity can deliver another way to power continuing growth and survive in an increasingly polluted environment.

economic problems...

the oil companies don't want alternative fuel research to go on, bc that'd cut into their piece of the pie. they've run interference before. in a more socialist world/society, this problem would probably have been licked by now. as soon as they realized the shortcomings of hydro-carbon use, they could start researching new technology.

communism, not what its first proponents considered communism?

So, by that logic, because Athens called itself a democracy, real democracy involves no suffrage for women and slavery?

Actually, the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba are socialist in the final transitional stage to communism based upon their own public statements (note that the Soviet Union has now reverted to to another model and calls itself Russia again). I kind of trust their evaluation in this.

Korea says it is communist, and it fits most definitions of communism as outlined by Marx and Engels. At the very least it is in the final stage of socialims and need only the leader to relinquish control to become communist (which he won't do)

Either way it doesn't matter much. It does not matter if "Communism" would work if you cannot navigate successfully to reach that state of Utopia. So far, no one has managed to get through socialism and have a successful communist state.

communism = mass suicide

in every instance to establish a viable and equitable form of government should be all the proof necessary to discredit any further attempts to ressurrect it.

Whether these past attempt are examples of "pure" communism is totally irrlelevant-- we have no examples of pure anything, be it communism, capitalism or socialism. Pureness of theory is critical only to academics who know nothing of real-world stresses.

Adaptation to new data, new stresses, new variables is the key to the survival and thriving of ANY order-- be it an ecosystem, a human being or a system of governance.

Take away that fluidity and it will certainly die. That is one reason why capitalism is so successful-- it lacks central planning favoring distributed planning.

And that is why "pure" dogmatic communism is even more apt to fail than the hybridized examples we've seen in the past and (unfortunately) the present.

now, out of curiosity, please specify how those regimes were "communist." Or even better, define "communism."

I am assuming, of course, that you are relying on more than the rhetoric of their leaders.

Communism is kind of like levitation. No one has actually practiced it correctly, so that's why it is unsuccessful. If it was just done correctly, why we could all levitate. Think how much energy that would save!

And dripping with sincerity.

When I say that it has been a failure in practice, I'm referring to those regimes that are commonly referred to as 'communist'.

Similarly, I'm willing to accept the commonly understood meaning of the word failure.

its like arguing that Germany tried to create a utopia and failed. Just beacuse they claimed they were building to a communism doesnt make it so.

Like cold fusion, some claim it was more than a theory, others scoff, but the only thing definitive that can be said is that in the end, no good has come of it.

because Cuba claims to be a democracy?

What are you talking about?

Regimes claiming to be communist do not, in claiming that, prove that communism is in fact evil.

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to argue against something you claim could only exist in theory by saying that "no good has come of it." How can no good come of something that doesn't exist?

I never claimed communism is evil. I only said the things I said. And I was trying to echo the other poster with my rhetorical comment. I was not claiming that communism can only exist in theory, I was stating what I saw as the logical conclusion of the other posters argument. If in all the attempts in history to practice communism, it has never been practiced (that's not my point, it is the other posters point), it begins to beg the question if it is possible in practice.

I just think it is silly, just at it is silly to say, as I heard Norman Mailer say recently, that democracy has only been tried once, in ancient Athens. OK, fine, according to the narrow definition he's using. I prefer common parlance unless it is an academic setting. Otherwise it all just becomes a matter of definitions and semantics and it is a fruitless type of discussion, imho.

"unworkable," whatever.

My point still remains.

The rhetoric used by totalitarian regimes to justify their actions is very often devoid of much truth, so associating Stalinism with communism is somewhat inaccurate. The same principle applies in regard to Cuba: Castro says that it is democratic, which does not mean it actually is; his actions cannot, without demonstrating that Cuba is a democracy, be associated with democratic governments.

I am not a communist. Serious application would either require a large-scale bureaucracy, which inherently would be unaccountable, or a vast number of small-scale interacting communes, which just seems such a step from current society to be completely unfeasible. But both of those are theoretical arguments, not empirical ones; there simply is not enough information on the subject to come to a conclusion, because the times when it has been practiced have been few and in small-scale communities within larger nations, not a very good model for the national level.

I think there is a reason that communism and its close variants have never been tried beyond its ineffectiveness - it would mean that those in power would be devastated, and for that reason they have fought furiously against it. In order to combat this revolutionaries have often turned to strong leaders who, once taking power, have not quite been paragons of benevolence.

It's in practice that it has been such a failure.

What exactly did you mean by that, then? Did you intend to insert a negative in there somewhere?

It isn't rocket science, you know. It's a simple concept. I'm responsible for what I say. I'm not responsible for the words you choose to put in my mouth in place of what I say.

What, then, did you mean?

So you can either argue it's never been practiced, a discussion that I would say is as pointless as it is theoretical, or point to some successes.

Well, perhaps that could be rephrased to mean that the current US version of democracy has set a fine example in Cuba of torturing dissents in Gitmo/Guantanamo.

Gonzales, Rumsfeld and the rest of the gang of criminals. They are responible for the criminal acts they committed, ordered, and allowed. It does perhaps point to flaws in the system, but it is wrong to hold a system responsible for a problem that does not appear to be systemic.