Whats the basis for saying it doesn’t?
Let’s say I’m living in a communist state. So long as I do the work, the state will provide me with food, a place to live, and health care. Let’s say I’m “employed” as an electrician. What’s my incentive to do the job well? If my standard of living is assured by the state and unaffected by the quality of the work I do, where’s my incentive to do anything other than the bare minimum to keep the state from shipping me off to the re-education camps?
For the long-term large-scale effect of this kind of thinking, see the sovient union.
Let me acquaint you with a concept known as “burden of proof.” If you make an assertion, it is incumbent on you to prove it. It is not the duty of your audience to prove it is not true.
You make an assertion that communism works. You then go on to say (and I agree) that it has never been successfully implemented. Which leads me to ask…what makes you think it works, if it has never been shown to work?
Mind you, I don’t necessarily disagree. I like certain aspects of communist philosophy. But as far as I know, it’s little more than a nice utopian theory. You state as fact that it works in the real world. So I ask again…what makes you think so?
I’m kind of curious about the OP’s assertion, myself. If a person declares “A is true” but is then contronted by counterexamples where A was not true, how is the argument helped by claiming that the counterexamples are not good examples of A, and that “true” A has never existed?
Maybe I can distill this down.
Communism, as Marx described it, is an incredibly attractive proposition. Everybody is happy working for the common good, and nothing nasty ever happens. It won’t work. Ever.
We can leave aside the “human nature” argument for now, because I believe that there are some intelligent altruists out there who would go the extra mile and become doctors or engineers or what have you. I’ve actually met people like that.
The problem is that “pure” communism requires a command economy. Somebody has to decide what we’re going to do, and how much. This requires some sort of governmental structure that almost has to be completely totalitarian. And if the people in charge screw up in their predictions (which always happens) you end up with an endless round of surpluses and shortages.
The only way to fix it is to allow each and every individual to decide for him- or herself what he or she needs or wants.
Bang. You’re right back to a market economy.
I’m amazed that the Soviets held it together as long as they did.
Communism is unworkable. Period.
Sounds great!
…so, who’s paying for this?
Hang on. A majority stockholder fronted the resources to get the corporation started. His production was a major expenditure well before actual production began.
Right. My understanding of perfect communism is that 260,000,000 people decide what I am having for dinner tonight.
OR it happens when there is no more need for production. If resources are essentially limitless, and freely available to all, everyone is truly, fundamentally equal. Your basic Star Trek scenario.
A seventy-year demonstration of the persuasive power of mass murder. <Daffy Duck> It just goes to show, you don’t know WHAT you can do, 'til you got a gun to your head! </DD>
I would also like to point to this
Communism is NOT a form of government. It’s an economic system. How can we even begin to discuss this with you if you don’t grasp the basics?
Whatsamatter, nobody liked my post?
::kicks wall::
::storms off::
Schnitte:
There was democracy of a sorts in the British Colonies in North America. You may recall that the colonies had their own legislatures. Of course, the Crown screwed around with them and thus the complaints about shabby treatment in the Declaration of Independence. But the fact remains that there was democracy in those colonies prior to 1776.
Ok, now I’m getting annoyed, and I was trying to moderate the tone and clarify misconceptions in those other threads. At this point, though, I fail to see the point in even discussing the subject in these threads, considering they’re largely identical, contain no new information, and feature an OP who either can’t or won’t defend his beliefs.
And I’m tired of doing it for him.
However, because I’m still somewhat interested:
Ahunter: a fairly good summary, IMO. A classless society would be nice, but Marx did a poor job of saying how we’d get from here to there. His solution just seems to put the power in the hands of the bureaucracy.
(Which is why Rousseau, from whom Marx arguably borrowed, made a point of saying that this would work in small communities only).
Tygr: why does the capitalist have the resources? Why should he make that decision?
It’s funny, though, because Marx said that Communism wouldn’t happen until we had basically reached the point that you described… where scarcity is basically eliminated, at least to the point where the frenetic growth of capitalism becomes unnecessary. (We haven’t reached it, of course). Until that point happened, you’d have Socialism, which is that “dictatorship of the proletariat” that keeps on failing miserably. Of course, it doesn’t help that it keeps on popping up in the same kind of agrarian countries that Marx would have thought totally unsuitable (including Russia), but his confident projections of the elimination of wants and needs misses the fundamentally subjective definition of what a “want” and a “need” actually are. Not overly surprising, considering the Rand-like lengths he went to in insisting on utter objectivity.
Yes, Comrad, I hear and I obey the will of the people. Please send me to reeducation camp because I had an independent thought yesterday and it really scared me.
I nominate you as our newest one trick pony.
Marc
[Quote]
Tygr: why does the capitalist have the resources? Why should he make that decision? [\Quote]
Usually it’s because the capitalist is the entrepeneur. He is the one who has decided to take a risk and try to do something. Many big businesses were actually small businesses that took off. If you take the risks then you get the rewards.
One of the failures of communism at least as it was implemented is that it fails to take the need for incentives into account. Why do most people go to work? Because they are paid to. Without an incentive to do something, you won’t do it.
I’m a factory worker and I get paid and get benefits either way, then why should I care whether the job gets done or not? Under this system, I have no real incentive to do anything. Some people might really care for their jobs, but for the vast majority of them, they won’t care.
Well, let me see if I understand your arguement. For Communism to work Capitalism must first create the wealth for Communism to work. Is that a correct view of your arguement?
If that is what you believe what happens when the Communist run out of wealth that was created by the Capitalists? Does the ‘fairy Communist’ come down and create the wealth that is needed to sustain an economy? Does the food and goods come from the ‘Fairy Commie’?
The problem with Communism is that it ignores a real fact. The fact is simple, some people contribute more to the world than others. A scientist is more valuable in the long run than a factory worker. Communism tries to lower everyone to the same level. If everyone agrees then it would work. The problem is that smart people realize their place in the world. If you work hard and devote your life to your work and you are treated like a drunk on the streat, why bother? If the idiot on the corner has the same value as a PHD, why bother?
Slee
Guys, I think Komsomol is a troll. He’s been starting thread after thread on basically the same subject, and then he doesn’t enter the debate. He just sits back while a hundred messages or so goes by, then he says, “Well, you’ve all made some good points. I’ll have to re-think my position.”
Then he starts the same thread again, with the same OP, with only slight variations.
Gotta be a troll.
Communism may not, strictly speaking, be a political system, but it does require a certain type of political system to function: totalitarianism. Without a totalitarian regime, the Command Economy cannot be implemented.
Personally, as vulgar as I find the idea of a garbageman being given all the same things as someone who works their ass off to become a doctor, I find totalitarianism far more repugnant. Communism, to function properly, needs people to be cogs who follow the Command Economy plan to a T. No independent thought, no independent initiative, no criticism. The end result of this is Stalinism.
While it may be true, as some have said, that all democracies devolve into a dictatorships (Hail Ceasar!), I’d rather be in a democracy that becomes a dictatorship, but I still get to own my land and decide my occupation, then some groupthink commie state where some bureaucrat gets to decide what I produce, what I buy, where I live and what I do.
Kirk
First things first, F*ck you! Second thing I share this computer with my family, thats why I ask so many questions, because I am curious and don’t have time to answer back, two , you are at every turn showing your disgust at me likeing communism, I am a young communist, and I have made it my duty to learn all about it to get a balanced opinion.
Everytime we see you on the boards you critizise the economic system I like, but praise capitalism? Why?
Komsomol, before you go around expecting people to answer your new questions, you should provide evidence in favor of your argument. You made an argument: That communism is good. Okay. Prove it.
ok, at the beginning of the revolution, most people of russia were illiterate and with party help they began a mass education program where everyone could read and write at a generally good level, in communism, no one was poor. Everyone had a home at whatever level they were before the revolution, people had to pay money to see a doctor, but in the communist system, it was free charge. The communist system generally gave the poor people the leg up they needed and clipped the wings of big business from influencing government decisions. I think the Party wanted to have some sort of basic foodstuffs and make sure there was never any famine and so implemented collectivisation, but it has proved to be a terrible failure, as it was not implemented properly by the state and so the workers became lazy and unproductive. I would of put experienced farmers in charge instead of industrial bureaucrats.
We criticize communism and praise capitalism because one has been demonstrated in the real world to be superior. It’s like saying, “Yugo’s are the word’s best cars!” and then being surprised when most of us criticize your assertion. In the real world it happened like this:
Many countries adopted communist systems.
Many other countries adopted capitalist systems.
The communist countries eventually failed, or were surpassed by the capitalist countries.
The world is now dominated by a capitalist superpower.
That’s the whole story to date. Your system has been demonstrated to NOT WORK.
You can debate the ideological benefits of the Yugo all day; it’s still a piece of crap.
The problem in pre-Communist Russia was not big business, but the totalitarian czars. The Russian peasants were hardly peasants, they were all but serfs. The Russians didn’t rebel against capitalism, but totalitarian czarism. Having no experience with democracy, their pseudo-republic faltered quickly and fell for Lenin’s
The Communists in Russia industrialized the nation. That’s what led to longer life spans, better education and literacy. Not communism. Had capitalists been the ones to industrialize Russia, these same benefits would have accrued.
A serfdom society does not need educated, literate workers. And industrialized society does. You are ignoring this confounding factor, and attributing literacy to Communism, when it is merely a by product of industrialization, which Communists happened to be the ones to implement.
In the end, Communism had a negative impact on industrialization and progress in the Soviet Union. A Command Economy can work on a small scale, such as the early Communist period when there were only a few industries. However, as the number of industries expands, and the ways in which they interconnect exploded geometrically, it becomes impossible for anyone one person or small group of people to manage. By the late 1960s the Soviet economy was unable to coordinate its industries. In politicalspeak, it couldn’t handle both “guns and butter” anymore – they bureacrats had to let consumer goods fall by the wayside in order to continue military construction.
This led to the collapse of the Soviet market, and the gutting of their internal economy. Capital outflow from the Soviet Union from 1970 to 1990 was staggering. Consumer goods became scarce, and those that were available were either second rate, or of limited options (yes, we have dresses, but only in black… and only if you’re a size 3). In the end, the renewed military build up of the 1980s reached a point where “butter” was ignored completely, leading to civil unrest, and even the production of “guns” was too complicated to manage through a Command system, and the entire system collapsed.
Is Russia better off today than they were under the Czars? Yes, due to industrialization. However, had they never fallen into Communism, they would be far further along than they are. In fact, the entire world would likely be far better off than we are today. Aggressive Soviet Communism led to the wasting of trillions of dollars over the course of 50 years on military preparedness that would never have been required had there been no Cold War. Think of where we could be in terms of space exploration, education, medicine or other fields if all those dollars hadn’t been spent protecting the world from the Politburo. And think where the Russians would be today if they hadn’t lived under 50 years of totalitarianism that crushed individuality, slaughtered countless millions, starved others, and generally oppressed three generations of Russians.
And don’t say for a moment that there were no “poor” under Communism. Russia’s standard of living remained bifurcated throughout the Communist people. You think Stalin’s lifestyle was at all like that of a worker in the Soviet Far East?