IMHO Communism works and is the perfect government, all properties should come into the direct control of the state and all farmland should be collectivised and it’s produce be shared by the workers. All people shall have free healthcare and education, full employment and peace for all.
Sure Communism works…In theory. Human nature dictates that people will take the opportunity to raise their social position whenever possible, thus the failure of most communist nations. Communism is like anarchy in that it is an ideal we should attempt to reach but we will never fully make it. That doesnt mean we cant have a great government though. Free education, healthcare, and full employment are great ideas but why do we need communism in order to have them?
ps- maybe this should be in Great Debates?
They’ve tried this in the former Soviet Union. Today, the country is a mess, and is still trying to recoer.
They’ve been trying this in Cuba ever since Castro came into power. Cuba is a mess.
They’ve tried this in North Korea. It’s an unholy mess over there.
They’ve tried this in China. Big problems there, too.
Communism is an interesting idea in theory, but the actual implementation of it has led to results that were decidedly less than successful. As an economic theory (from a global economy standpoint), it deserves its place in the trash heap of history.
In my last post, let the word “recoer” = “recover”.
Sheesh. I even previewed.
Where?
Communism would work except for one thing: Humanity.
does anyone know of any communities of monkeys we can test it out on, then?
Don’t be stupid, people. Komsomol says it works. I’m sure he wouldn’t make such an assertion without strong evidence to back it up. Right, Kommie?
Actually, monkeys are generally anarcho-syndicalists. Except for those fascist baboons. FYI.
Methinks the OP is obsessed.
Ant states look somewhat communist to me, if you ask me.
The problems with communism lie in its structure, same as with capitalism. In capitalism (as you’ll recall from your Marx and Engels) ownership of the means of production is not in the hands of those doing the producing, and it is ownership of the means of production that concentrates the proceeds of production. Therefore, without reference to evil innate human characteristics (which, after all, communism does not claim to fix), capitalism creates an ever-increasing disparity of wealth and (therefore) power, which is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
In communism, the problem lies in the redistribution system, i.e., the state. The unexamined fact of the matter is that declaring the communist state to be Of The Workers does not make it so, and those who constitute the personnel of the state – those who redistribute the goodies to each according to their needs – are not, in fact, doing the producing any more than your traditional bourgeois corporation majority stockholder is. What you’ve got is a “governing class”, if you will, and there it sits, in possession of the results of production as well as the means of production, and again you have all this control and power concentrated in a few hands.
If you want a utopian system, you need to start with an idea for decision-making and planning that is itself fundamentally democratic, and then put the distribution of resources and planning of production under that system.
HINT: The US, Canada, the UK, Germany, and many other electoral representative democracies constitute a good starting point, as there is nothing to prevent the government, duly elected by a majority of the voters, from engaging with the economy and planning production and modifying distribution of the products and proceeds. It could be argued that the highly concentrated wealth of corporate capitalists enable them to control the electoral process, but if you’re going to improve on these systems, you’ll have to start with increasing the extent to which the decision-making processes of these systems is democratic.
No it doesn’t. Most humans simply want to be happy. The few that do want to raise their social position would prefer happiness.
As far as I know all those attempts at communism failed because they missed out capitalism. Communism only works if capitalism comes before it. The capitalism generates the wealth which is needed to make communism work.
We have to say it works “in theory” because it hasn’t worked yet. It hasn’t worked yet because it has been implemented in the wrong way.
Communism is what comes when capitalism fails (the failure of capitalism is predicted as inevitable). It is NOT something you force.
Communism does NOT work. Sure in theory it is all nice and good, but when it comes to reality it is a completely different thing. Communism breeds stagnation, where you have people that see that it doesn’t matter how hard they work or try and contribute, they are getting the same allotment as those that put in as little effort as possible, where then does the encouragement for competiteveness and hard work lie? Nowhere. Human nature dictates that people will want a better lot for themselves, who wants to be happy living in squalor and poverty, where basic needs and services are denied the ordinary citizen because they are doled out by the bureaucracy as they see fit. Corruption eventually takes over and defeats that perfect theory where everyone will get what they need. Bullshit, the people that decide what everyone needs will naturally decide they need more than the common worker. Look at Communist Russia, Cuba… the bureaocrats and top party people live well while the common people have to wait in line for bread??? There’s you communism working well for ya. Go back to Russia, communism worked real well over there, people couldn’t get food, lived in tight quarters since it was decided for them how much space they needed, couldn’t speak out against the government, weren’t allowed to take vacations sicne they may not come back, couldn’t get ahead in their jobs unless they were loyal to the party and thier views. Yea, perfect world.
Now, guys, calm down. I’m sure Komosol realizes that, given the miserable failure of most communist states, the burden of proof is on him to provide some evidence or rationale for why communism could work. And I’m sure he’s coming back to provide that evidence any minute now.
…right, Kommie?
Even though there are glaring imperfections on what your describing, it’s not communism, if they knew that it would fail, then why would they implement it? What the soviets did was enforces a some sort of state capitalism, and glossed this truth over with the name communism, Communism has never been implemented sucessfully by any government.
So if it’s never been implemented successfully, what is your basis for saying it works?
…therefore it does not work
Has the implementation of democracy in the US been impossible because it had never been implemented there before 1776?
I’m sick of hearing communism can’t work because it’s against human nature. One could spend a week writing big list of things that many could say is totally against human nature but we admire and strive to achieve nonetheless… but I won’t. Basically not doing whatever your first impulse tells you to is fighting human nature.
All the really great goals are so because they are hard to see realized.
What buggers me all the more is that this “human nature” argument is what I hear most from conservatives, followed by them telling the communist “why don’t you move to Cuba if you love communism so much” (Hell, like they even could. America is such a free country we can’t even move to a communist nation). These are the same conservatives who say people should wait until marriage to have sex, should only have one partner all their life, should never do annnything wrong. How does any of that jive with human nature?