The argument about communist economics and whether they have been tried or not (I assume they have, and they didn’t really work) isn’t really relevant to my argument. My point is that nations and people are going to want a model that is fair but that also leads to decent economic growth and rising standards of living. In Venezuela under Chavez the standard of living for the poor increased very well. But it was my understanding that several nations abandoned economic communism in the last 30 odd years because they found it didn’t work that well.
Either way, I agree that islamic fundamentalism is (or was) on the rise but that isn’t the same as communism. Communism is a rejection of a wealthy power structure via colonialism, imperialism, poverty, inequality, monarchy, aristocracy, plutocracy, etc. as well as a rejection of oppressive cultural attitudes that keep down various groups (races, genders, ethnicities, etc). Islamic fundamentalism is not really concerned about these issues except for some concern about cultural colonialism. Islamic fundamentalism is more a form of theocratic fascism, which would make it an opponent of communism which tries to support equality.
But the desire to create a fair and just economic and political system still exists. Just because communism has fallen out of favor (there are only 5 governments on earth that are communist, of those maybe Cuba is the only one that is actually communist still. The rest are something else. NK is more fascist, while Laos, Vietnam & China are authoritarian with market economies).
Again, aside from democratic socialism (which has caught on in latin america & western europe) I don’t see anything else that matches the bill of communism. But I haven’t heard democratic socialism catch on in Asia, Africa or the middle east.
Maybe I don’t understand your question… Islamofacism is definitely going to be the “ism” of the next century, and it’s going to be a generational fight the same way Communism took generations to defeat.
I’m confused that it seems to want to identify an “ism” that serves the same social function and espouses the same principles as communism. Which would still be called communism. There isn’t anything that is exactly like communism and yet not communism.
From here:
For a more established definition of Communism. I don’t know if this is what Zero-syde and others have in mind, but it agrees with what I learned about Marxism.
And this is an important point from the same page.
If the Soviet Union was the only aberration, it may be claimed it does not represent the ideals of Marxist Communism, but it was not. It was the norm, mostly because it did represent the reality of Marx’s program. If everyone who follows the ‘blueprints’ for a particular house, and keeps ending up with an entirely different structure, then either the blueprints are fraudulent, or there are serious flaws in the plan. I think it was a bit of both, but mostly the latter.
Marx was a decent economist for his time, but failed at political science, sociology and social psychology. As per the definition above, his views on religion were severely wrong - that organized religions might be used by the powers that be to control the masses is irrelevant. The masses themselves want religion, or at least spirituality or a sense of higher purpose that secularism just cannot provide.
As far as class struggle, he completely misread history. Viewing struggles purely in terms of economics and how that translates into political power overestimates its value, and fatally in my opinion, underestimates more powerful sociological forces such as culture, religion, faith, along with racism, sexism, and patriarchalism that have nothing to do with economics. He also incidentally surrendered the worst argument to the other side, which is that profit derived from production is the most important metric, and so the most important aspect is who controls the means of production.
I argue that why the factory is built is more important that who owns it. And that leads us back to the OP.
I see the 21st century becoming a contest between liberal democracies and social democracies, the primary difference is the former favors liberty even if it leads to great inequality, while the latter is the opposite. It favors greater equality even if it leads to less liberty. It will not be concerned so much with who owns what, but how resources are used, regardless of ownership. That process has been building with the corporate social responsibility movement. Profit is fine, as long as the new improved social/environmental contract is observed, so no more violations of human rights, degradation of the environment, and so forth. The political battles will be over the specifics - what are human rights? The ‘right’ to an abortion? The ‘right’ to bear arms? How much pollution causes irreversible damage, or is prohibitively expensive to clean up? and so forth.
Yet it will not be the ideological battle that the 20th century was. At least I hope not, and do not see it becoming such. Rather than hard left or hard right partisans claiming the entire world must be one or the other, countries will seek a balance according to their constituents, some favoring liberty, others equality. (I prefer the latter, yet live a country that definitely favors liberty, and will continue to do so for at least another generation. So my political goals lie outside the US. But that is a digression.) Something that will help it become less ideological is allowing greater freedom of movement for people, so they can chose which country best represents their views.
Three caveats though: 1) religious fundamentalism (of all stripes, including, sadly, Buddhist) throws wrenches into all of the above, because they do have universal views, and human rights only seem to apply to those who share their views; 2) countries must be actual strong i.e. substantive, not just procedural, democracies - not dictatorships, monarchies or plutocracies or some other non-democratic government, whether formal or not; 3) a major political battle being fought now is how government should govern - through litigation and common law (which is favored by liberal governments), or through regulation and civil law (which is favored by socialist governments)? The TPP is an example of such - should companies be able to sue countries? For what purposes? How binding should rulings be?
How that will play out is what will dominate at least the first half of this century based on the disputes I see being played out currently, such as the TPP. The Arab Spring began as an attempt to achieve strong democracies, but has become a three-way civil war between the ‘democrats’, Islamofascists, and the old guard. Who wins that war? I hope the democrats, but far too soon to tell.
The way I worded my question probably leaves it open to interpretation. What I meant was ‘now that communism has failed, what other ideology is devoted to fighting imperialism, poverty, social repression and a ruling class’. However I think people are interpreting it as ‘what ideology is the new enemy of western nations’. I meant it as the former question.
As far as what is like communism but not like it, the desire to fight imperialism, poverty, a corrupt ruling class, fascism, military-corporate dictatorships, monarchy, social repression, etc. still exists. It has to be channeled into something. If communism doesn’t exist, something else will take up the mantle.
Maybe its a mix of small things rather than one overarching movement. There is no democratic socialism revolution in the middle east like there was in latin america, but there was an arab spring fighting against monarchy and military juntas. There was a color revolution in eastern europe. Some middle income nations are trying to address poverty, pollution, inequality, lack of health services, etc.
Lmao communism is far from dead. It has simply evolved.
If you think China, Vietnam, and even Russia are not communist, you should visit these countries.
The fact is communism has never been about the economic system, but about totalitarianism. Communism is often mistaken for Marxism, which has never been applied in reality.
You might then ask what is difference between USA and West and China/Vietnam/Russia/etc?
“Democracy” vs. Totalitarian regime. (quotation marks next to democracy because really democracies are not democracies especially the electoral system)
Economic Free Market vs. Dirigisme and control of labor.
Let me tell you if the Chinese government says “Lets send 10,000 Chinese workers” to dig holes here and there, they will do it. Chinese government totally controls the population although there is lots of corruption and pretty much the old castes run the show and have freedom.
Not as an ideology but as a system, the Soviet model of state socialism might have some future. From Economics Explained, by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow:
See North and South Korea, the nearest thing possible to a controlled experiment since the two states’ native cultures are identical and their geographic circumstances nearly identical. Up until the 1980s the NKs were actually eating better than the SKs, or so I’ve read; but then NK’s economic growth hit a wall while SK’s kept going. Lesson: Stalinism does work, but only up to a certain point; if you’re going to try it, you need to be prepared later to scrap it or phase it out.
No, it’s a true statement perpetuated by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Especially since, you know, the very phrase “communist state” is a contradiction in terms.
Nope. A specific means of attempting to create a communist society was tried, and the result was horror and madness and death in the specific conditions in which those attempts took place, conditions which, it should be noted, most outside observers agree were very much not the preconditions which the major theoreticians of their particular mode of creating communism, held were necessary for that mode to succeed.
And, once again, this doesn’t even begin to account for the wide variety of non-Marxist (and even explicitly anti-Marxist) schools of communist thought.
Or simply, grassroots power. The self-organized community councils in Venezuela are important now and are not going to go away if Chavez’/Maduro’s party falls from power.
Also bottom-up: Experiments with different forms of business organization – worker-owned cooperatives, factories, etc. – things that can exist within a capitalist system.