What Exactly Is Wrong With Communism?

I have really been agonizing over this one for years. What exactly is wrong with communism? Everything is communally owned, and everyone shares in the fruits thereof. Makes perfect sense to me. And has there ever been a successful communist state? And if there were, would the corporate-dominated media in the US even tell us?

First off, I am a consummate capitalist and I believe in democracy, always have. But that is because I live in the United States.

But what exactly is wrong with socialism and communism? Because it seems to me, in theory at least, it should work. And it caters to the better part of human nature, cooperation and kindness. Where am I wrong in this?

 

Do you have cody lanes phone number?



nvm wrong thread

 

What's wrong with it is that modern society is structured and controlled by capitalists who don't want to surrender their power and a population that has bought into the values that perpetuate that power. Without direct control over resources we're forced to depend on it and cannot escape exploitation, and the system eventually overwhelms us all and finds ways to render every protest impotent. The prowess of capitalism is hammered into us by the media and our upbringing us renders us unfit for escape. There is also the fact that there are few if any places to escape to and the fact that we will be met with force if we resist.

But there is nothing wrong with socialism or communism-- the fault lies in late stage capitalism and the effort to undermine, devalue, misrepresent and/or suppress other ideologies.

 

Well.....this saved me some typing. Thanks.

 

communism as an economic theory is fine, but I think where the practice differs from the theory is in practice it starts as state ownership and never quite makes its way to collective ownership.

also I think its a very idealistic economic theory and cannot work on a large scale due to corruption and human nature, but can and has worked on a very small scale.

 

In theory it looks good. The actuality of communist states though has not been so great.

One of the problems is that under a totalitarian type communist state as existed in Russia and eastern Europe, the individual is always subordinated to the collective. This means you are not allowed to think for yourself or express an opinion that goes counter to the official line. Hence we had writers like Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents shipped off to the gulags.

In the USSR, holding a dissident view could also get you categorized as mentally ill, and confined to a state psychiatric hospital, from whence you didn't emerge until you'd been so fucked over that you were deemed no longer a threat

I'm not saying that all out individualism whatever the cost for the collective (such as we have under modern capitalism) is good. A balance is needed between individual freedom and obligation to the collective.

None of the old communist states had anything resembling that, and it's probably one of the reasons they fell apart.

Anther big problem is corruption of party or state officials - widespread in the USSR and its satellites, and also in China (how communist is China?).

 

Yes, the very root of the failure of communism is it's absolute failure to specifically address human frailties that lead to corruption. From my perspective the modern corporation is an example of an evolution from the version Marx wrote under the influence of brandy and cocaine. Lenin and Trotsky offered refined views through a haze of absinthe and opium. I think the only way to make a composite model of communism work would be to start from absolute scratch in isolation similar to North Korea but with absolutely zero outside contact. The generation that raises the children will have to act the roles to perfection so that the children become the sort of automatonic thinkers needed to keep harmony.

The unfortunate aspect though is still the problem of dealing with those who can't conform. In the past it was handled with bullets. Which is another problem with forcing communism. After the fall of Saigon the residents of the cities were evacuated to rural farms. In order to hasten the transition they killed all of the educated citizens of South Vietnam. This included anyone wearing glasses.

We're all still trying to live in the modern age using brains made for living in the wild. It could be that we're just not going to be ready for something like utopia or communism until we evolve a notch or so more. The day I come to understand why I, as a grown man, still love breasts. It makes no sense at all. And I like mustard on pizza.

 

I think you nailed it there. But I'm not sure we need to stop liking breasts. Mustard on pizza though........

 

I knew that the whole 'human weakness' argument would come up, but I think that narrative is mostly just a souvenir of Cold War propaganda.

Communism didn't actually occur, so there is no 'theory vs practice' argument to be made.
The USSR, China and the rest were state capitalist societies.

We can get to communism through socialism, and we can get to socialism through capitalism.

There doesn't have to be a literal revolution... all we have to do is re-evaluate our priorities.

 

The re-evaluation of our priorities might imply a kind of psychological evolution for a great many people - away from a purely self-interested view of things for example.

 

Fat chance of that ever happening any time soon though.

 

I don't see it as a weakness really. Darwin was right about selection, but human greed is a less evolved state. Our clever technologies have enabled us to carry greed to the most bizarre heights.

I think the greed dooms the full switch to socialism. Otherwise we're surrounded by it with a government so bloated some efforts counteract other efforts. Because we have allowed greed to run roughshod over civil society, we have been gifted with financial imbalances that will force revolution. We are millennia from taming greed. Christ couldn't do it.

Consider the effect would be of our first asteroid mining success to yield more uranium than humanity could use in a century or two. Semi-instantly the global energy problems are solved. Think of the impact to the array of greed-driven enterprises. I'd say it would be much the same as a massive market crash. Because after all, the greatest example of our overall greed as a race is the fact that the planet is in debt and what it owed is more money than actually exists at all.

Learn how to make soap and toilet paper folks.

 

I'm not saying it's likely, but I agree with what GeorgeJet said, that forcing communism or some other kind of utopian solution from outside isn't going to work. You end up with a 'utopia' with concentration camps.

 

Ya know I hear all the time that communism looks good on paper.. that it's too idealistic. I don't see anything idealistic with suprsessing some ones freedoms. Anarchy is more blind and idealistic. It doesn't just trust a small rulling political elite it trusts that humans will be able to live with no laws. All the masochists who need the promise of instant punishment by the state or a god need to be under a boot to feel like functioning members of society. The reason communism won't ever work for long is because humans are animals. You can think you can control nature but at the end of the day nature will take its course just like how the free market works. it go up and down and up and down yet you can't control it or contrain it or it will kick you back in a bad way. The chinese would probably give the US a run for it's money if they gave the citizens some sort of rights and didn't pour so much into censorship. There is a reason the US has so many success stories and it's not because of "income inequality" or any other weak argument thrown at it. The US has one of the best atmospheres to be a rebelor to be an individual and because of that it works much like nature where the strongest and most adaptable survive. Capitalism isn't perfect but it is easily a better and more freer system then communism.

 

"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." - Frank Zappa

I think someone else said something along the lines of the world not being ready for communism yet. We have to work on ourselves before we will be able to share completely. I don't remember that quote though.

 

One of the biggest issues, or concerns, with communism is that it requires everyone to do their part.

Let's say you have 4 people responsible for mowing a lawn. 3 of the guys are doing their part, but the fourth guy decides to slack a bit. The other guys get pissed that he's not doing his part and decide if Person 4 isn't going to do their part, they won't either. Then nothing gets done.

When people don't have to work for things, they don't have incentive or motivation for doing their part.

 

It has never been practiced in the real sense of the term.

 

Humans are an inherently competitive species. The ideas of communism and the nature competition mix together as well as water and oil. Therefore communism can never work efficiently on any human population.

 

Edit: I didn't realize I'd already posted a lost the same thing here.

 

Communism only works in a small, chosen group of people. A commune. And even then it will almost always eventually fail.
Communism requires selflessness. It requires everyone involved to equally contribute, and - the hard part - therefore equally distribute.
Communism in a small setting usually fails because members either do not carry their own weight, or believe they should get more than their neighbor...and the fight begins.
Communism in a large - central government, will ALWAYS fail because it provides so much temptation to those responsible for the distribution of goods and wealth. In every single example in history communism always results in a large powerful exceedingly wealthy government members who live lives of great wealth that they keep themselves. Always.