Ok, the title is slightly misleading. Obviously the BELIEF in Communism is real. My question that I’d like to throw out to the teeming millions is, is actual communism, as in, how Marx described, possible in real life? I don’t mean the bullshit “communism” that China, USSR, N. Korea, and Cuba use as an excuse for a totalitarian govenrment.
I have to admit that I’m not well versed in Marx’s philosophy beyond the “Social Studies Class” version, so please be sure to explain any references you make.
I doubt that Marx’s vision of how the world will unfold will ever come to occur. (Remember, he was not advocating the overthrow of the established order; he penned a philosophical statement that the world would inevitably follow a specific path toward greater distribution of diminished wealth and the collapse of the governments as he saw them in the nineteenth century.)
Non-Marxist Communism can survive on a very small scale. Most frequently, it has been achieved in relatively small (celibate) religious communities. Children are death on any communist ideal because the vast majority of people who will surrender personal possessions for the good of the group have a much more difficult time when they are asked to set the same course for their children. It almost appears that once people have children, they have a need for property that they can “pass on.”)
I have no idea how Darwin is alleged to fit into this discussion. We are not discussing a biological imperative.
The reality is that a number of communist societies have been attempted (they were rather fashionable among some religious reformers of the 19th century). The only groups to survive more than a few years were those that insisted on celibacy; those that allowed marriage and procreation within the group began to break up just about the time that the the children began to grow up. Some outfits (e.g., the Benedictines) have practiced some form of communism fairly successfully for well over 1,000 years.
It seems to me that communism is a great economic idea when the community is so incredibly small that its very survival requires “from each according to his abilities, to each, according to his needs.”
I prefer the thought exploration of a Survivor scenario. Imagined being marooned on an island with precious few tools and modern resources, save for the people who are there with you. In order that you survive, each would have to make large contributions based on their skills to the benefit of the group. I.e., the strongest should help all build their shelters, those with farming knowledge grow crops to feed everyone… makes sense.
But IMO, once a certain level of autonomy is reached and a monetary standard is put in place, free enterprise would quickly take over. The farmer would begin selling the crops, the builder would be charging for his labor… none of this takes into account the governing body(ies), but simply the economics of the island.
Communism as a form of gorvernment, well… that’s just insane.
Ever since Marx, there have been people in the West who believed in communism. In the 1920s through the 1940s, these people were able to represent Russian communism as working well. After WW2, the truth came out that Russia was a failure, economically and morally.
The fallback position for the believers was that REAL communism hadn’t ever been tried, just Stalin’s fake version. This was a popular position on the left in the 1950s and 1960s.
Since the breakup of the USSR, more bd things about communism have come out. Now it’s uncommon to hear someone say anything positive about any form of communism. In fact, the left’s current position is that communism is dead (despite China, Cuba, North Korea, etc.)
There are still believers who promote some policies that were a part of communism, but they no longer use that word.
In short, yes. Every form of society that’s come before has done one thing - develop the forces of production to meet greater needs. Capitalism has done the most development, pbviously - for example, we’re at the point where we produce enough food, if distributed correctly, to feed the world’s population and have plenty left for later. Same for most of the material goods that are produced.
The problem is the forms society has taken. Without exception, society has been class-based, meaning that a small handful up at the top of society has made the real decisions about production (how much to make, how to make it, where to sell it, how much to sell it for) and who have reaped the majority of the benefits from distributing the products. Wealth gets concentrated up at the top of society, leaving most just getting by, or worse.
Communism is possible. How to get to a global society where communism can take root and fluorish is another question entirely.
Depends on who you ask. Many people will say no, and throw out tired (or not so tired) arguments about innovations, centralization and human nature, and so on.
Many people, myself included, would say yes and throw out tired (and not so tired) arguments about the failures of capitalism, human nature, the freedoms of communism, historical materialism, and so on.
It’s been covered quite a bit before on the board. Do some searches in great debates with the word communism if you want to read some of the old ones.
However, we have had a successful mass socialist revolution in the last 100 years, so that part’s not in question. The question is can it last, and can it happen again.
We might have found a topic which we can discuss without vile contempt for one another.
Have you ever considered a communist economy in the framework of a libertarian political context? Wait! Hear me out, please. Granted, probably 99% of people equate libertarianism with capitalism, but that is a fallacy. Capitalism and communism are both economic philosophies. Libertarianism stands apart from either of them as a political philosophy. I’ve never seen a serious treatment of their integration despite there being no reason why. Basically, it would simply be a matter of a little research into how you might blend the ethic of noncoercion with the mechanism of common production and distribution. Frankly, the hippie-type communes came awfully close. If nothing else, you could become famous as the first person seriously to take on this great (but not formidable) challenge. Go ahead. Be a trail-blazer. Like Marx and Engels.
Pretty much everyone is in favor of socialism in the right context. Our police system is ‘socialized’. Everyone pays for it, and you use it when you need it. Imagine how dangerous and unwieldy privatized ‘police providers’ would be. No one wants to pull out the phone book and comparatively price home invasion services while some freak with a machete is crawling through your cellar window. And most people wouldn’t be comfortable with the idea of 15 or 20 different police companies in their town, all with slightly different methods and training practices, but all heavily armed and licensed to arrest people. So we use socialized systems in cases like the police and fire departments because in those instances it works fairly well. We just don’t call it ‘socialism’ because it’s a dirty word.
Interesting historic fact: In the 18th century in America, there were competing, private fire departments. A homeowner who subscribed to one would receive a kind of metal decal called a “firemark”, which would be placed on the door or the front of the house. It would indicate that his home was entitled to protection from a particular fire department.
