Communism... opinions?

No, I'm predicting a future with no read territory. North Korea and Cuba are the most likely to vanish from the red map.

China's "communism" is almost In Name Only at this point.

—R.J.

Yeah, it's definitely evident that Communism just has some fundamentally unsound "Practical" problems.

Not that that means it's a good excuse to say any kind of socialism is bad, as some people do. You know, the whole "The freer the market the freer the people" types!

China's become way more capitalistic, but you still see human rights violations out there, after all.

Communism and Socialism aren't even the same thing, despite the attempts by some folks to equate them — usually by lumping Communism, Fasism, Totalitarianism, Socialism, and any other -ism they don't know about into One Big Icky Pile Of Someone Else's Government.

—R.J.

The only reason why a communist state even survives is because it was backed by brute force. In which case this involves both NK and Cuba, who both use intimidation, and flexing of military force to stay in power.

Communism as an economic system has major problems. It should be noted that Marx wrote nothing about how it would work in a practical sense, and he envisioned a transition from capitalism to communism over centuries.

In contrast, Lenin et al ttried to do it in about ten years. How well did that work?

This thread has convinced me the only thing you need for a comunist state of awesome is suficiently advanced robot slaves.

Of course, with sufficiently advance robot slaves, you don't need any kind of economics.

But under capitalism the burgeoisie will have more robot slaves than me, I can't have that.

Well you have your robot slaves make more robot slaves and then you're the bourgeois! And then the former bourgeois get jealous and make robot war slaves! And then, well, long story short, Screamers.

Communism works just as nay political ideology, it stops working when it runs out of money. The only difference is if theirs no money for it to run on, then it settles for human blood.

Im all for it, honestly. With modern communication technology, I could even advise that a state/government not be established to maintain such a society. Otherwise, you still have the issue of putting too much power into the hands of the few. As for the economic issues, getting rid of currency overall would be a viable solution. Distribute goods to meet human needs, and then for certain luxuries, and not the the purpose of profit. If theres no money to begin with, theres no economic issues.

Oh, wow. Thread necro.

^^

Good luck getting any advanced research or projects done. Or for that matter, good luck at getting most anything done besides being able to survive off the food you grow.

There's currency even in a society with no official "currency" as things you make can be currency, powers and responsibilities you have can be currency, even if I'm a police officer and make the same amount of money with the same possessions as any other member of my group, I have extra currency because I have authority that I can abuse, and every society has some form of authority, even an anarchist society.

Someone is always in charge, someone always runs the show, and Communism never takes into account how much that fucks things up for them.

I believe in some things about communism. Certainly capitalism is a model that humanity has to overcome.

The future would look something like social democratic where there would be a lot of open source projects, more recycling and efficiency, where middle men will be reduced in size, not completely, but significantly, like banks and money, thanks to information technology, and will be replaced by direct exchange.

I think of it more as cultural revolution than an economic or a political one.

When people look back they will call this the capitalistic era.

edited 25th Jul '11 6:53:21 PM by Baff

That's the ideal scenario. Hopefully it will happen like you say, but.. well, no one can predict the future.

Well, communism... I'm all down with the idiological stuff but most applications were corrupted and sucked. Maybe humans are too big bastards to ever work out the kinks. Unless you present me a successful experiment I'm sticking with social market economy or variatins thereof.

Now, communism has never worked because apparently we're too big a bunch of bastards for it to be anything other than a pipe dream. Are we though? I mean, a big tennant of communism, and socialism in general is the emphasis on the community. Humans ARE pack animals. We like being around others, and we do utilise teamwork all the time to overcome our problems. I don't see how it's impossible for us to work as a completely equal conglomerate. People aren't as bad as we're made out to be, at least not all the time.

But on the downside we're greedy. Nobody really needs a car that can go over say 150m/ph because you can't use it almost nowhere. People don't really need more than one house. If people in the Western world would cut back a bit on how much food they consume we could give that to people who are starving. These things still exist. I don't know if we're bastards what we're probably not good enough on the whole for communism. Someone will want something better than everybody else and the competition starts again.

My personal opinion is that most people are generally good or at least not bastards, but unfortunately there are enough bastards around that they spoil the system for everyone. For example, most people would not commit burglary even if a risk-free opportunity presents itself, but there ARE enough people who will do so that leaving your door unlocked at night is still a very bad idea.

Same for communism. If everyone could be trusted to be unselfish people who are willing to devote themselves to the greater good of humanity, then it would be the perfect system. Unfortunately, since there are people who will seek to exploit and game the system for their own benefit, it simply does not work in practice, and so capitalism is the way to go for now, since it at least tries to provide a level playing field for everyone.

this has probably been said, but... humans are greedy and/or powerhungry assholes, witch is both the reason the communist regimes in russia and china were so authoritarian AND the reason "Corrupt Corporate Executive" exists at all.

Communisam was created to solve human greed causing the 'corrupt industrialist' issue, and ended up with hu,an greed causing authoritarien regimes. So yeah, human greed makes sustaining a NON OPRESSIVE communist economy extreamly difficult.

that said, I think it is still possible to run a non oppressive communist economy, and I am a strong believer in the idea that democracy and communism can co-exist sucessfuly.

That's probably true. The select few assholes in the world spoil it for everyone else. I just wish we'd find a way to restrict how rich people are capable of getting so they couldn't exploit anyone.

Capitalism just bugs me sometimes

Not all of us surely. I refuse to believe that humans are incapable of being selflessly good

edited 26th Jul '11 10:45:28 AM by gingerninja666

I would like to write a pro-Communist rant, but I will just get thumped again as soon as I mention the Bankers causing the crisis and getting paid for it.

I don't see anything wrong with that statement. Maybe I would lay the blame more on the system side of things but other than that...

FYI: you're more likely to get thumped for writing an angry rant, than taking shots at bankers.