Can Communism Ever Work?

I agree with Summerhill in that mankind is improving. In fact I would say that we are approaching the next step in human cultural development---which will involve moving away from certain traits that we have carried with us from the time of our planter culture ancestors----namely a dualistic zeitgeist, which will be replaced with a more natural multiplistic one----in other words, instead of living in a black and white world, we will live in one of many shades and colors (One day I foresee television screens that actually have realistic colors on them other than black and white and various greys----and movies too-----truly hard to believe I know, but... ...I'm joking!).

A multiplistic understanding along with the psychological impact of changing gender roles, will eventually allow the overly inflated ego-shadow complex of the Modern human psyche to regress back to a more natural size. It will also defuse the dangers and biases created by reductionist thinking.

But violence is an archetypal drive in human beings, and it is somewhow intricately related to man's sexual drives. The further we go to repress it, the more violent it breaks out. World War I and World War II could almost be seen as a direct reaction to the relatively peaceful, and certainly repressed Victorian period. The level of violence in Modern Society is certainly related to this dynamic, and may very well be one of the roots of why war continues to be a problem.

It can be defused ritually. The very rational Roman culture relieved this drive through the blood sport of the gladiators. The Hunger Games is a fictional story of a government using such ritual through a similar dynamic to control the people. One wonders, however, how the Goddess cults of South Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East were so peaceful. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that fertility and sexuality were so important to the sustenance of the culture that sexuality was even institutionalized in the form of the temple prostitutes, and what may have been a very public sex life of the ruling queen herself and other forms of ritualized sexuality. (Now that might be what utopia is all about!)

Violence is a tricky one though---repressed behaviors and elements of the shadow are defused by facing them, and assimilating them back into the self---acknowledging that they are a part of the self, and understanding why. This is the Jungian concept of healing from, and resolving mental issues. Violence that is caused by the acting out of repressed shadow elements would be defused and cured once those elements have been re-assimilated back into the psyche. But a drive of violence itself may not be defused in that manner.

Anyway-----I also agree with Individual, perhaps for a different reason. Marxist theory is a product of The Enlightenment. It is outdated, just as Capitalism is becoming outdated. Societies are evolving, and we may find something new that has elements of communism and/or capitalism-----bu Marx is of the past.

 

On the history of Communism to date individual I would'nt blame them ! In answer to the question 'could it ever work'? Well, yes-we could make it work ,given that we can learn from the past & that we've evolved a bit from where we are now.

We know that we cannot go on for much longer as we are.

 

Marx never set himself the task,in my eyes,to take on the Human Condition . I believe that some of the answers to the issues that lie before us could include some of his thinking. Further, that there are other philosophies,already well established, that like Marxism, can be adapted and merged to make a more commonsensical way of living within our means and progressing as a species that need not suppres the rights of the individual.
Its a question as much about how we get to the system we propose to live within,as the system itself. Were I to come up with the perfect answer in the next paragraph oe two I daresay I'd get a 'following'-of 'Summerhillists' ! Everyone else would see us as a cult & my followers & I would be ostracised as nuts! But what IF I'd truelly found 'the' workable system ?
My guess is that we have the answers at hand in human history. Like so much else, we have not yet the maturity as a species to recognise & utilise responsibly-yet.

 

Yes.

• Belarus– Communist Party of Belarus– participates in the ruling coalition
• Bolivia– Communist Party of Bolivia– participates in the ruling coalition
• Brazil– Communist Party of Brazil– participates in the ruling coalition
• South Africa– South African Communist Party– participates in the ruling coalition
• Sri Lanka– Communist Party of Sri Lanka– participates in the ruling coalition
• Syria– Syrian Communist Party (Bakdash), Syrian Communist Party (Faisal)– participates in the ruling coalition
• Uruguay– Communist Party of Uruguay– participates in the ruling coalition
• Ukraine

Can this idiotic American conversation end now?

 

Those seeking utopian paradise, here's the list of where it's to be found.

 

Just because a specific party with a general agenda seems to function as part of an overall government does not prove in any sense that Communism works. It is like saying that libertarianism works in America because there are Libertarian politicians in office.

I would say, and I don't mean to be condescending or insulting, that if you think this is an idiotic American conversation, that rather than an overly simplistic answer that proves nothing, you explain to us---in Marxist terms---why communism failed in the Soviet Block, thereby giving a good reason why it could work.

 

Well said M V W.

 

In my opinion, talking about Communism as a form of government over a large and diverse population is nothing more than imposed Socialism.

ANY form of government works well when 100% of the people governed by it accept it as the means by which they agree to be governed.

Communism CAN work, and work well with no need for a government until some members of the society begin to feel their responsibilities are much greater than the rewards they receive for the efforts they expend, and begin to see others becoming content to share equally in what is produced but not in the labors of production.

In my opinion, since it is highly unlikely, actually impossible to achieve 100% agreement of a population of over 300 million persons to agree to exercise communism, a government is required to impose it which in my opinion results in a Socialist form of government and NOT Communism.

 

Knowing human nature....no. I once considered becoming a Communist. I admire their seeming concern for the poor and minorities. I actually applied with the CPUSA but never followed up or paid any dues. Their ideas just really do not seem to take into consideration the baseness of many people.

 

I went to a communist meeting once... I was told not to return.

 

From the last quarter of the 20th century,it seems to me,we saw the beginning of the end of simplistic idealism,in all its forms, and the rise of pragmatism as a political force. No one of the old 'isms' can cope with the complexity of demands & limits ,previously unforseen, we face today,even capitalism.

As other posters rightly,in my view, point out ,human nature could not match the pureist perhaps selfless requirerments of socialism,communism,anarchism,ect. Socialist states have accepted capitalism. Both capitalist and socialist states are having to come to terms with limited world resources & the demand for responsible stewardship of the environment.

From the 1980s the Free Market myth was given its head & was to have been our savior. Look at us now! Like it or not we live in a world of finite resourses & diverse demands within & without our national boundaries. The days of free ,no State intervention/control,capitalism are over,as for all the other aformentioned 'isms'. Its one of many hard lessons the great capitalist states have to learn.

I'd suggest that the new pragmatism,faced with all the challenges,will look back & seek to adapt the best of the 'isms' ,that served our past. That practical need (rather than lofty idealism) will require both Central planning & localised democracy to work in tandem. That Capitalism will be a necessary ingrediant,but controled & accountable with individuality valued & encouraged but not to the extent that it threatens the common good. It seems,to me,this could be the course of our political/economic & social evolution.