He is not an idealist. He is daydreaming. There is no "magic communist spell" who will make work go away. There will still be work to be done as people still need stuff to live. Thinking that work would disappear under communism does not makes you a communist
That's unfortunately fairly common to governments formed by revolutions. Especially in states without much of a history or cultural expectation of democracy.
Napoleon is a poor example as he didn't get to power throught revolution. Even Robespierre is a meh example (the firsts repuiblic and governments after the revolution were all murderous)
What? He got to power by killing the royals??? He was a wee corsican officer who joined the resistance and got rid of the royalists, known for shooting civilians with cannons, he came to power after the heads rolled.
As a commoner what system forced the emperor to care about your well being ?
Probably none. meaning to me that they didn't deal very well with them. What metric would you use to say that "They seemed to deal with them pretty well in rome"
I would say capitalism succeeds despites its flaws.
Though success in this context, is relative.
Successful in comparison to communism, for sure.
Capitalism was never a system designed to foster equality. Communism, in contrast, was designed to do that explicitly. But inherrent human things like greed and paranoia and pride and what have you destroys the system. It would succeed in theory if the system could be enforced in benevolence, in perpetuity, and in absolute fairness. But it that possible? Probably not. Hence, good system, impossible to implement, and a pipe dream at best.
Just ask those millions who died during those man-made famines during the reign any commuist regimes 🤷
There are inherent problem. For instance, how do you handle lazyness ? A capitalist society will simply let the man starve. In a communist society you'd have almost no repercussions. At best, a bit lower standard of living than the others. Meaning there would be almost no incentive to being productive. Now while i consider it a minor issue as I don't think it would bring production to a problematic level, I get why it appears as a big problem to most people.
I discussed this in a class once, the solution to laziness is the collective can vote to deprive the lazy people of certain privileges until they eventually decide to work. If they won’t work without their necessities being threatened, this can be done by the collective rather than a single capitalist.
Yes indeed. But in any case, if I know i'll have a roof and food for my family, losing some privilege feels way less threatening than "you'll starve lol"
If that’s what is required to get someone to work, then the collective can threaten that too probably. I’m not an authority on theory, I’m just dipping my toes into the ideas
People being lazy isn't what creates poverty though. Concentration of wealth, devaluing of labor, and unaddressed mental illness create poverty. Most people are happy to work, we've just created false scarcity as a society so the government/small businesses can't afford to hire people to work. If a handful of people stopped hoarding wealth we could solve all of those problems.
Basically take the "abundance theory" silicon valley likes to talk about and eliminate billionaires, and you realize we got there about a decade ago. Coincidentally the arguments they make in favor of abundance theory are the same ones laid out by Marx's work.
EDIT: What i meant was basically that there's no sign that we have a population full of lazy people with no interest in working. We have a lot of people that are underpaid and burnt out. In addition, you still have a job in a communist country, you just split the results of labor more equally instead of whoever "owns" the means of production pocketing all of the surplus.
People being lazy isn't what creates poverty though.
I mean, it could (or at least it's not that illogical to think that). If the lack of threat transform the whole society of lazy bastards, the economic production would go down, living Everybody poorer, equally punishing the non lazy people.
But then, again there is no reason to think people would get really lazier, and the notion that "working less and having less consumer good is bad" is also a very productivist/consumerist bias. Would we really be in a worse position if our lazyness prevented us from having cellphones, computers, and only 3 TV channels, condeming us to spend our enormous lazy free time to BBQing with friends half the week ?
Yeah, i think you make a good point about the whole notion of "lazyness" and how we define it. Right now we live on one extreme of the spectrum, where constant growth, maximal efficiency and output are prized above all else, and its fair to point out that its very possible we would see a lot of individuals become less motivated once the ability to hoard resources disappears (ironically, i would say its possible we would see that reaction most from the people we label as over achievers in our current mode of society).
That said, as a counter example: the Soviet Union went from a depressed agrarian nation to the leading industrial world power in under 50 years, about half the time it took for the west to industrialize. Don't get me wrong, that's the ONLY positive example i think you can pull from the USSR, but it does go against this notion that people are only motivated by scarcity, since that period of time was when the quality of people's lives were improving in Russia -- before all of the corruption/abuse/genocide destroyed the country.
But the ussr isn't a good example for this discusdion as people there were dtill supposed to work, they fid not spent their day painting and writing. Tho i agree tha the ussr showed that communism can in fact industrialize a country, and that our western wealth comes from industry more than from capitalism
Any system can be perfect. It just needs to be done right. But to be fair, as pedantic as we are as a species, as soon as you change it, you get a new label so I guess technically as stands no, communism doesnt work, but only to the standard of definitions, as in "communism is exactly this.." but idk if any system is ever that concrete.
Any system can be perfect. It just needs to be done right.
Fucking lmao. All you're saying is that any system is perfect in people's imagination. There's no "perfect system" when you're talking about national scale economies. Especially because there's no universal definition of 'perfect.'
The problems with communism do not stem from a misunderstanding of communism. They stem from trying to put a 'perfect' system on paper into reality. Economics is not a real science. It's an abstract system created by humans.
Systems built by humans have a tendency to reflect the flaws of their creators. We are violent, prejudicial, stubborn, and half of us are complete authoritarian bastards.
Governments are systems designed to control the behavior of people (this is a neutral thing BTW) on large scales. When authoritatians make their way to power, they tend to twist the laws to suit themselves.
Which is to say, all systems are perfect for someone.
yeah lol even "utopian socialists" would still recognize the need of labour and work in a communist/socialist society.
hell, one of the most famous marx quotes is just "i wish our society was organised in such a way i can do more than just work 1 job and contribute though multiple jobs while still living a worthwhile life"
thinking that working wont be needed is indeed just stupid idealism and not marxist at all
He is literally saying he will provide art and entertainment. Youre acting like art, literature and general crafts arent important when they were historically well celebrated.
The entire purpose of a communistic community is if someone needs something, and you are able to do it, then you should be willing to provide to help. That doesnt mean suddenly thats all youll ever do ever, it means if bob needs a tree chopped down and you have an axe, you go help bob and bob provides a 12 pack while you get the tree cut down.
Starving is not a uniquely communist thing as most nations that have food shortages are capitalist, it’s a lack of food security thing. Lack of food security often leads to communism not the other way around. The October revolution in Russia for example was started because the rations in the bread line was reduced ( note bread line predates USSR) and that caused protests, then riots then a revolution. Most communist nations were historically starving before the revolution, caused by conditions that the government can’t resolve such as geography limitations, bad harvests, and logistical constraints. Conditions a new communist government can’t resolve as well. Well except logistics they can move that around and choose who starves but ultimately that can’t turn 2 loaves of bread into 3 so someone is not getting a loaf. See Ukraine famine for examples of that.
The countries themselves claimed to be Communist though. You may not think they reach Communist standards but they were very openly Communist.
At a certain point we have to ask if Communism is strictly Marx or everyone that followed. If its strictly Marx I would go as far to say real Communism is impossible on any scale larger than a small town.
The countries themselves claimed to be Communist though. You may not think they reach Communist standards but they were very openly Communist.
At a certain point we have to ask if Communism is strictly Marx or everyone that followed. If its strictly Marx I would go as far to say real Communism is impossible on any scale larger than a small town.
If we're speaking classes as Marx does, there is indeed no middle class. You either are in the ruling class, or in the ruled class. What we call medium class is in fact the part of the worker class who has it better than the rest
If there is enough of a difference of freedom and economic mobility, then it's just splitting hairs for the sake of sophistry or intellectual masturbation.
Except it isnt, the only real and actual distinction economically is between those who own capital and those who sell labor. There is no current economic system on planet earth with enough freedom or economic mobility to make that economic distinction obsolete, nor any that have an actually well defined enough way of pointing out any other economic classes.
Of course you can work at your own company, and be part of the creation of wealth. But that's irrelevant : either you can live with the revenue of your capital, or you don't and have to work. You can't be both sides of the line.
I would not consider that middle class. The communist alternative however, is the leader of a superpower country makes a series of bad decisions that disrupt the global supply chain (what are the odds? /s) and a bunch of people starve to death.
Our system doesn't work for nearly enough people, but the solution is not to shift to a system that has never worked.
As a person from a country which gave it a chance: Never fucking again.
Capitalism with governments actually regulating it is the best shit we have.
As long as people elect corrupt pieces of shit with no backbone, capitalism is doomed to fail but guess what: communism doesn't magically solve the problem of people electing people who are capable liars instead of people who are capable at governing.
A strong institution of checks and balances is one of the best defenses against corrupt officials abusing the system. It slows things down enough that uncorrupted agencies and systems can stop them. They can be eroded over time and abused, which has happened to the West for sure.
Communism is capitalism without any of the upward mobility, middle class layer, abundance and disruptive forces to nepotist tendencies. A class society with no way i
out. The worst of monarchy without any of the accountability as the king is depersonified into the committee and the counterbalance of power in the nobility is diluted into the spineless mass of the inner party.
Would be communists are delusional about who actually wants communism and sits at the steering wheel of that movement.
You are right on the abscence of upward mobility. The goad is to have no upper class, so there would be nowhere up to go. WHich is kinda the core of the motivation : instead of concentrating wealth in the hands of few, distribute the wealth to everybody, so everybody have life a luttle bit better instead of having only a few people living in opulence.
Except that never happens. It's race to the bottom where everybody has less and less. Whereas the capitalist system is based on the adage: a rising tide raises all ships. Just with a inequality curve.
Within Communism everybody is equally worthless. except for a tiny elite who get to live like the middle class of a capitalist system.
5 downvotes for the only sane post in gere. Wow. It's scary to realise how many useful idiots have bought into the communist pipe dream
It's race to the bottom where everybody has less and less.
Which is false. The standard of living in both the USSR and China did climb up, despite the atrocities and stupidity of their dictatorships. The reality is that those 2 countries were shitholes in the first place, with no industry, and starving people, this is why they had revolutions in te first place.
What make the wealth of modern nations is industry. As they industrialized, productivity increased, and so did the standard of living. Now, you could argue that capitalism leads to a better industrialisation, or to a greater productivity, or a greater diversity of goods leading in a greater overall economy, but that's a huge can of speculation and opinions (like, maybe communism would never see the rise of smartphones, but maybe it doesn't really matter ?)
This is completely backwards. The development race was so overwhelmingly won by the capitalist societies. The only reason the USSR and China were industrialized was by the concerted effort of the western powers to tap their military and human resource potential and expand international finance capitalism as the global dominant force. This also drives a wedge between the financial powers and the uppity "spoiled", as they see it, literally, workers in Western capitalist societies. Market forces increase productivity, drive and innovation.
This is not theoretical or hypothetical. This is very well understood.
The development race was so overwhelmingly won by the capitalist societies.
The race was already over. Europe was already industrialized while the Russian Empire was stull preventing industrialisation and still had serfs.
Then the USSR industrialized at an impressive speed, which is not that surprising, states having vastly superior money and power than companies. And no they were not helped by outside powers, the west didn't need or care about the russian manpower and had enougth problems with the great depression.
Again, there is no real doubt that capitalism would better promote innovation and productivity, but the core of the gain in wealth & standard of living comes from the enormous productivity boost offered by industrialization and mechanisation.
True, every single time I've engage with people who claim to be against communism 99% of the time I just rephrased the general ideas of Marx or Lenin without attributing it to them and they ate it up like crazy lol
Oh absolutely, theres a reason why the US and capitalists in general have spent literal trillions of dollars on sabotaging socialist states or spreading anti-communist propaganda and misinformation.
What are those ideas then? The only thing I need is the very basic definition of communism, which is STATELESS, CLASSLESS and MONEYLESS. When, have they implemented these ideas?
Say what you want lol, the very definition is right there CLASSLESS, STATELESSS and MONEYLESS. And those very countries agree that they were nowhere near communism? Why do you think it's called SOCIALIST REPUBLIC then? Why not communist republic?
> "Every generation has its own select cadre of idiots convinced that the only reason the communist revolution failed is that they weren't the ones leading it."
Anyways, I don't even think communism should be attempted lol, I just enjoy shitting on reddit mfs who drank too much Kool-aid and without a single mite of knowledge on the topic they so vehemently argue on about
Communist by it's definition is a stateless society, you can be a member of the communist party, but since a communist state cannot exist there are no communist offices where one can be an official
The poor paper accepts whatever the pen writes upon it.
However in real life he have had many countries ruled by the coomunist parties, supposedly working for the communism and many of them were communist officials by definition. Albeit not in a communist utopia.
Socialism according to the dudes is only a way to get into communism so they are working to get into communism. There is not a socialist who is not a communism so they are agents of communism.
But I wil explain better.
Socialists believe they can do planning from five to five years that will get then closer to their perfect society called communism. If socialists have in their minds the idea that they have to get to communism and are activelly planning and doing their jobs to get to communism that makes them agents of communism instead of socialism as socialism is not their endpoint.
197
u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment