Communism vs Capitalism does anyone actually think we'd be better off in a Communist society?

[Gorn]

5 hours ago, James Arryn said:

In addition to many points made, I’d point out that a lot of the evils many westerners associate with communism/socialism via the USSR...police state, informer society, waves of condemnation for political thought-crime, etc....are not actually inherent to ~ communism at all. They are instead very typical of revolutionary societies of any ilk which are immediately treated as existential threats by their surrounding states which then proceed to relentlessly attack them from within and without, bent on their destruction. That either succeeds in destroying the society or prompts a hyper-autocratic police state necessary to stay afloat, often followed by some kind of strong man who eschews much of the principals of the revolution itself in the name of surviving and maintaining other principals of said revolution. 

 

I'm currently finishing Montefiore's The Romanovs, and I was struck by the realization that Stalinism didn't really introduce anything new to Russia other than the scale of oppression. Siberian labor camps for political prisoners, tortures, secret police (Okhrana), show trials, death squads (Black Hundreds), brutal oppression of minorities, state propaganda, oppression of speech, suppression of political dissent, famines caused by political mismanagement... all existed under the last couple of Romanov tsars. Nicholas II has a six-digit bodycount, and yet today he's a saint of the Orthodox church.

[JoannaL]

15 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

In the United States, concentrated wealth is turned in to politcal power. This a pretty common feature of democracy, but here it has been professionalized. Various forms of white collar crime and corruption are becoming legal, with Supreme Court backing. It's possibly a death spiral as there seems no end in sight. It leads to greater inequality, which then creates more concentrated wealth that can be turned in to political power.

This may be true, and if it is so, then this will lead to the failure of the country, to public unrest and disturbances. I hope you are not right, it would be terrible for the world if the US stops working decently. But even if it were so, it does not prove that a (caring, social) capitalist system is wrong and we all have to turn to mind-controlling, freedom-destroying communism.

[felice]

15 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

a (caring, social) capitalist system

That's an oxymoron. The only parts of the current system that are at all caring are the non-capitalist aspects of a hybrid system. And if you like the non-capitalist parts of the current system, why not expand them?

[JoannaL]

15 hours ago, sologdin said:

Communism and  socialism were tried and proved to be terrible. On the other hand there are a lot of capitalistic systems which work just fine and do not have people dying on the streets: for example Sweden or Austria or - well actually - all over Europe. So the problem is not capitalism as such, but the way it is implemented.

there's quite a bit of blinkered special pleading in this--as though an allegedly negative instance of socialism/communism proves it terrible, whereas we excuse terrible instances of capitalism as the way it is implemented.  

 

No, its is the other way around.  While we have a lot of (live) examples that capitalism work, we never had one good example of communism though it was tried exeedingly.

 

Also about your question what does it means that a system works? I think a system works if all the needs of the population are met. IMO these are

- safety, rule of law

- enough to eat, a place to sleep even if you are poor and have nothing (a safety net)

- healthcare for everyone

- education for everyone

- possibilty to influence who is ruling you, and details of laws, taxation  (democracy)

- freedom (of mind and of choices)

 

 

 

[JoannaL]

17 minutes ago, felice said:

That's an oxymoron. The only parts of the current system that are at all caring are the non-capitalist aspects of a hybrid system. And if you like the non-capitalist parts of the current system, why not expand them?

Socialsm and communism means the social ownership of the means of production. It is possible to keep private ownership of the means of production and have a social system (purely capitalistic, if you will ) just by having a fair way of taxation and redistribution.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, JoannaL said:

Socialsm and communism means the social ownership of the means of production.

2 hours ago, JoannaL said:

 we never had one good example of communism though it was tried exeedingly.

Even using the narrowest possible definition there are many "good" examples of communist societies in human history. Broaden the definition a bit and you have hundreds today. And as I said earlier, anthropology suggests communism is the "default" human society.

Again, the problem is scale. Socialist/communist societies tend to break down above around 2,000 individuals. It's easy to understand why: common ownership requires high levels of trust and communication which are difficult with too many people.

Now we could discuss the finer semantical points, like the respective places of personal property and real estate, the decision-making process... etc. But the point is that the oft-repeated argument that "communism has often been tried and cannot work" is just another element of propaganda. If one understands what the idea of communism is for human societies (to paraphrase philosopher Alain Badiou) the question becomes about conceiving socio-economic structures preserving its essence while being flexible enough to adapt to different large-scale organisations.

Which leads me, to be clear, to cooperativism and codetermination, which are undeniably great. Also, unionism, strict labor laws and regulations... etc. Not to mention UHC, government pension plans... etc. Policies and principles that not only have been tried but which arguably are responsible for the shared prosperity of our Western nations to this day.

All this to say that the false dichotomy "capitalism v. communism," with all its usual soundbites "body counts of the Soviet Union," "communism has never worked" ... etc, prevents discussion and leads to unimaginable human tragedy.

[sologdin]

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While we have a lot of (live) examples that capitalism work, we never had one good example of communism though it was tried exeedingly.

am curious which live examples are to be noted; am curious also about the list of attempts at communism.

Quote

Also about your question what does it means that a system works? I think a system works if all the needs of the population are met. IMO these are

- safety, rule of law

- enough to eat, a place to sleep even if you are poor and have nothing (a safety net)

- healthcare for everyone

- education for everyone

- possibilty to influence who is ruling you, and details of laws, taxation  (democracy)

- freedom (of mind and of choices)

some of these make the category mistake of conflating the oikos with the polis--i.e., economic systems are not the same as governance.  this is the same mistake made in the black book of communism, which has almost nothing to say about economics, and is more concerned with aberrations in the political decisions, such as with carceral subsystems, cults of personality, failure of ICCPR norms, and so on. (by contrast, the several black books of capitalism primarily concern economic effects--however neither schwarzbuch kapitalismus nor le livre noir du capitalisme have been translated into english--are we surprised?) critique of the prison camps and stalinist repressions of dissidents and so on is of course very important--though i am much more interested in internal critiques by persons such as solzhenitsyn or roy medvedev or bakhtin than in those written by numbnuts like hoover or conquest or pipes--though of course those external critiques must also be read.

i fear that capitalism will not deliver everything on your list; that said, it promises quite a bit less than that; socialism is much more ambitious and must also be held to a higher standard, all things considered.  we handicap the ratings for capitalism in several ways, which is appropriate, considering its much more restrictive ambitions and conceptual limitations.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Most “pure” economic theories are founded in utopianism.  Utopia doesn’t exist.  

We should, pragmaticly, adopt the portions of various economic systems as needed for the times.

[Liffguard]

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Most “pure” economic theories are founded in utopianism.  Utopia doesn’t exist.  

We should, pragmaticly, adopt the portions of various economic systems as needed for the times.

If you don't have an ideal to aim at, how do you decide what policies to pragmatically adopt and which to reject?

Edit: this is timely as I'm currently reading Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman which is entirely about exploring the utility of utopian visions.

[Darzin]

I think with everyone referencing mixed economies. Yes most economies are mixed but there is a big difference between the government providing services, healthcare, education, electricity and food and housing for the needy versus producing things. I want the government to provide social services  and a safety net for society, I don't want them to make my pencils. And I don't think a self governing anarchist co op is capable of  making pencils at least not on an industrial scale. I understand hunter gatherers live in what is essentially a communist society, but modern society is built on industrialization, globalization, and specialization. I don't think autonomous co ops and communes are capable of maintaining this and maintaining our current standard of living which I very much enjoy. 

20 hours ago, sologdin said:

no one wants to live in the soviet union because that requires turning the clock back at least 30 years--though most people think of 100 years ago when they say these things.  i don't wanna live in any country 100 years ago in general; i wouldn't want to live in the soviet union in particular because it was invaded twice by the rightwing and destroyed twice--and then a different part of the rightwing, beneficiary of the invaders, acts like OH NO IT CANT NOT WORKS! or: drop more bombs on vietnam than all bombs dropped in world war two by all belligerents: LOKE NOW VITENAME COMMARNISMS DOESNT WERK TOLD U SO111! fairly easy to see the interference in each alleged socialist state, coming out of colonialism, during independence.  this is why we draw the distinction between actually existing, or siege socialism, and something less crazed, had allegedly liberal societies left them to develop on their own.  (nevermind also that the stalinists likely would've shot me as too far to their left after their rightward turn.)

The Vietnamese won that war, and then the Vietnamese communist party introduced capitalism ten years later when the eastern block was still going strong. Their legitimacy was based on nationalism and it turns out that the system itself wasn't that popular and wasn't working that well and the government reformed it with Doi Moi reforms. 

Basically every country in Europe got invaded by the Nazis not jut the Soviets, and int the 1950s the majority of the world's populations  was under Communist or socialist governments. The idea that the collapse of the eastern block and the Soviet Union was because of the Nazis and hostile scheming capitalists holds not water. These were internal collapses with essentially no outside interference and many of these countries became democratic they could have voted to keep their economic system, just with democratic  rule instead of a one party state, but they ALL reformed their economies dictatorships and democracies alike. 

 

[JoannaL]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Even using the narrowest possible definition there are many "good" examples of communist societies in human history. Broaden the definition a bit and you have hundreds today. And as I said earlier, anthropology suggests communism is the "default" human society.

Again, the problem is scale. Socialist/communist societies tend to break down above around 2,000 individuals. It's easy to understand why: common ownership requires high levels of trust and communication which are difficult with too many people.

 

I understand the general idea of communism and it sounds great. Also there are certainly successful  examples of groups working together sharing their means of production, just not on state level. The difference being that these people choose to work together, while on a state level all are forced to which leads to dictatorship.

Also, I agree, that  some movements out of socialists partys are certainly helpful in shaping a social capitalistic system, e.g. it is important to have labor unions to keep the system in balance (perhaps this is one of the problems in the US?).

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

If you don't have an ideal to aim at, how do you decide what policies to pragmatically adopt and which to reject?

Edit: this is timely as I'm currently reading Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman which is entirely about exploring the utility of utopian visions.

That’s fine but recognize that Utopia is purely aspirational.  In reality “Utopias” are scary places.

[JoannaL]

53 minutes ago, sologdin said:

am curious which live examples are to be noted; am curious also about the list of attempts at communism.

Well this is easy, the old "eastern block states" were all in some way trying for a socialist or communist ideal. Nothing worked. As for examples of working capitalistic democracies  I will refer again to the European countries.

As I am German, an easy more detailed example for me to describe is the difference between East and West (or now united) Germany.

West Germany had all the needs I defined for a working system met (so: safety, rule of law,enough to eat, a place to sleep even if you are poor and have nothing (a safety net),healthcare for everyone, education for everyone, possibilty to influence who is ruling you, and details of laws, taxation  (democracy), freedom (of mind and of choices)). Additionally it had (still has ) a high standard of living (more consumables, travel, cars  and so on for everyone).

East Germany, the poster child of communism, the country of the- real-existing-socialsm, had also a social safety net and passable healthcare (better protecting the poor than the US at the moment, I admit), but was a dictatorship (one party rule), had in parts no rule of law (a very powerful secret service which made people vanish), no freedom of thought and choice and a much lower standard of living (resposible for that was the plan economy in opposition to the free market economy)

 

 

[sologdin]

Quote

The Vietnamese won that war, and then the Vietnamese communist party introduced capitalism ten years later when the eastern block was still going strong. Their legitimacy was based on nationalism and it turns out that the system itself wasn't that popular and wasn't working that well and the government reformed it with Doi Moi reforms. 

if 'winning' means losing several million people as against 50,000 of your adversary's losses and having one's society destroyed, as against the adversary having no disruptions other than some student protests, sure.  but otherwise, no doubt.  of course a peasant society jumping into socialism is not going to fare well. but my point was that the US bombed the fuck out of a small state attempting to come out of colonialism and then acted as though 'communism' can't work--it's a bit beyond stacking the deck to draw that overbroad inference from a bombed-out neocolonial agricultural economy, a fortiori cambodia.

 

Quote

Basically every country in Europe got invaded by the Nazis not jut the Soviets, and int the 1950s the majority of the world's populations  was under Communist or socialist governments. The idea that the collapse of the eastern block and the Soviet Union was because of the Nazis and hostile scheming capitalists holds not water. These were internal collapses with essentially no outside interference and many of these countries became democratic they could have voted to keep their economic system, just with democratic  rule instead of a one party state, but they ALL reformed their economies dictatorships and democracies alike. 

we weren't discussing the 'collapse,' which is the metaphor preferred by the capitalist press. i tend to think of the soviet union letting go of its empire and democratically ending the cold war as a consensus process--it was all the right thing to do, and it was calculated.  some crypto-stalinists still resent gorbachev for his policies. fairly sure that all of the eastern bloc states had differing measures of democratic governance--just not the same sort that one expects in the capitalist states.  (i'm not sure what the point is in saying that they could have voted to keep the old systems--it is something of an intrusion in the colloquy.)

the point under examination was the glib thesis that communism doesn't work but capitalism does.  there's much abstraction in the term work, packing in preceding political decisions that are left unstated--'functions for the specific benefit of certain persons' first among them as the key factor in deciding whether a system works vel non. that's a conceptual objection to the question; the factual rejoinder was my point that these allegedly socialist states were subject to enough interference to derange them; the suggestion that there was no outside interference is simply not serious. we see a pattern of interference (detailed in some of the texts i cited to mgbig in the US politics thread--blum's killing hope is first among them).  regarding WW2, france lost 600K people (~1.5% of pre-war population), under occupation longer than the USSR, which by contrast lost 27M (~15% of its pre-war population). that order of magnitude in losses matters; the differential in property damage will bear out the same tendency.  this is not to say that the soviet union did not fuck up; fairly sure that it did. the fascists however were not trying to end french civilization; they were trying to end bolshevism and slavs as a group.  

i'm certainly seeing a differential explained by the discriminatory effect of the marshall plan, funds gifted to the US imperial sphere, a donation from the a relatively undamaged industrial zone to other cappy states. the socialist states did not have this boon. it's a good example of how pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps doesn't compare favorably with having someone else hoist you up, at any level.

ETA--

Well this is easy, the old "eastern block states" were all in some way trying for a socialist or communist ideal. Nothing worked.

as i said, glib.  nothing 'worked'? nothing at all?  the USSR persisted over 70 years while encircled by hostility, but nothing worked? it launched the first ICBMs, lifted millions out of rural ignorance and poverty, defeated the NSDAP, but nothing worked? these comments are far too facile. 

higher standard of living in FRG than in GDR--based on what, the mean citizen, or the bourgeois class, what? FRG had plenty of poverty, and still does.  i think your comparison does not evade my comments in the slightest. you are assessing the lottery by examining the experience of the winners alone.  also, again, your comments conflate economic questions with political ones about democratic governance, freedom of conscience, and so on.  we know that the eastern bloc fucked up on ICCPR issues; the question rather concerns ICESCR.  capitalists love beating up the old eastern bloc with its deviations from ICCPR--i join the objection; but the capitalists ignore ICESCR. that's fine--but it's hard to ignore economic rights and focus instead on political rights when the discussion is very plainly about economics.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

21 minutes ago, sologdin said:

if 'winning' means losing several million people as against 50,000 of your adversary's losses and having one's society destroyed, as against the adversary having no disruptions other than some student protests, sure.  but otherwise, no doubt.  of course a peasant society jumping into socialism is not going to fare well. but my point was that the US bombed the fuck out of a small state attempting to come out of colonialism and then acted as though 'communism' can't work--it's a bit beyond stacking the deck to draw that overbroad inference from a bombed-out neocolonial agricultural economy, a fortiori cambodia.

 

we weren't discussing the 'collapse,' which is the metaphor preferred by the capitalist press. i tend to think of the soviet union letting go of its empire and democratically ending the cold war as a consensus process--it was all the right thing to do, and it was calculated.  some crypto-stalinists still resent gorbachev for his policies. fairly sure that all of the eastern bloc states had differing measures of democratic governance--just not the same sort that one expects in the capitalist states.  (i'm not sure what the point is in saying that they could have voted to keep the old systems--it is something of an intrusion in the colloquy.)

the point under examination was the glib thesis that communism doesn't work but capitalism does.  there's much abstraction in the term work, packing in preceding political decisions that are left unstated--'functions for the specific benefit of certain persons' first among them as the key factor in deciding whether a system works vel non. that's a conceptual objection to the question; the factual rejoinder was my point that these allegedly socialist states were subject to enough interference to derange them; the suggestion that there was no outside interference is simply not serious. we see a pattern of interference (detailed in some of the texts i cited to mgbig in the US politics thread--blum's killing hope is first among them).  regarding WW2, france lost 600K people (~1.5% of pre-war population), under occupation longer than the USSR, which by contrast lost 27M (~15% of its pre-war population). that order of magnitude in losses matters; the differential in property damage will bear out the same tendency.  this is not to say that the soviet union did not fuck up; fairly sure that it did. the fascists however were not trying to end french civilization; they were trying to end bolshevism and slavs as a group.  

ETA--

Well this is easy, the old "eastern block states" were all in some way trying for a socialist or communist ideal. Nothing worked.

as i said, glib.  nothing 'worked'? nothing at all?  the USSR persisted over 70 years while encircled by hostility, but nothing worked? it launched the first ICBMs, lifted millions out of rural ignorance and poverty, defeated the NSDAP, but nothing worked? these comments are far too facile. 

higher standard of living in FRG than in GDR--based on what, the mean citizen, or the bourgeois class, what? FRG had plenty of poverty, and still does.  i think your comparison does not evade my comments in the slightest. you are assessing the lottery by examining the experience of the winners alone.  also, again, your comments conflate economic questions with political ones about democratic governance, freedom of conscience, and so on.  we know that the eastern bloc fucked up on ICCPR issues; the question rather concerns ICESCR.  capitalists love beating up the old eastern bloc with its deviations from ICCPR--i join the objection; but the capitalists ignore ICESCR. that's fine--but it's hard to ignore economic rights and focus instead on political rights when the discussion is very plainly about economics.

If you are going to attack underlying definitions to prove your point aren't you simply saying abstractions like "Standard of Living" are inherently subjective.=?  If they are inherently subjective how can any system be measured against any other system?  In other words you're simply making "Standard of Living" something that cannot be defined and measured.

[Martell Spy]

Never mind. I misread something, so I'm withdrawing this.

[JoannaL]

15 minutes ago, sologdin said:

higher standard of living in FRG than in GDR--based on what, the mean citizen, or the bourgeois class, what? FRG had plenty of poverty, and still does.  i think your comparison does not evade my comments in the slightest. ...

--but it's hard to ignore economic rights and focus instead on political rights when the discussion is very plainly about economics.

Ok, so purely about economy (though I am firmly of the believe that people need more to live well not only  economy, but e.g. freedom):

The higher standard of living in West Germany for the normal people was real. I could try to google some statistics and I am sure that they would prove me right, but I will go just with my personal anecdotical knowledge (because I lived in West Germany and visited East Germany).

In the 1980ies an avarage West German family had  a modern car, they could just go to a shop and buy one out of a sortiment of many different car manufacturers all over the world. In East Germany , you could only buy the two different models manufactured in this country. To get them, you not only needed the money but also were put on a waiting list (waiting for a car took normally about 8-10 years, while you waited it was also checked if you had problems with the ruling party, in that case you could never purchase a car). If you got a car, you only could drive it on the really bad , not renovated streets, infrastructure in the GDR was also awful and a real problem. You could then go on and admire all the grey unrenovated buildings but only in your own country because you were not allowed to leave it. Also on the streets in west Germany were many more cars than on the streets in East Germany proving that  more people could afford a car in the West.

If you went to a shop to buy groceries you had to stand in line, and you could by far not buy a large variety of things (sometimes they had only flour, then only potatoes and almost never fruits of different countries and such). I do not mean to say  that people went hungry (this is not modern Venezuela), but the standard was really much lower than in the West.

[Rippounet]

3 minutes ago, Darzin said:

I think with everyone referencing mixed economies. Yes most economies are mixed but there is a big difference between the government providing services, healthcare, education, electricity and food and housing for the needy versus producing things. I want the government to provide social services  and a safety net for society, I don't want them to make my pencils. And I don't think a self governing anarchist co op is capable of  making pencils at least not on an industrial scale.

My grandparents' kibbutz has a factory producing goods for the entire country of Israel. It was originally a self-sufficient communist society that gradually turned to socialism. Strictly speaking the profits from the factory were never indispensable, they just allowed the community to afford all the "modern" goods that it couldn't produce by itself.
To be fair, the kibbutz has changed now, far from its original principles and values (it's now much closer to socialist/cooperativist instead of purely communist). But it remains that this small communist society reached standards of living higher than the society at large within a single generation. It took considerable effort and sacrifices of course, but then they started from scratch. When that community started there were no houses, no fields, no energy, nothing. Within a single generation they built everything and their children enjoyed better standards of living than the rest of the nation.

Some might say that this is an exceptional story in exceptional circumstances...
It is most certainly not.

Such success stories can be found throughout the world and throughout history. Once you know what you're looking for (i.e. what the thesis is) you realize that you are really surrounded by this kind of organisation. That contrary to what you have been told all your life, collectivist cooperation is the spontaneous basic structure of any human organisation. It is not just a skill possessed by humans, it seems likely that is both essential and primordial to our species.
Conversely, the narrative of the self-interested individual or the innovative entrepreneur can only make sense within the framework of a society that is already cooperative at its core.
In other words "capitalism" only works once a human society has already developed beyond the requirements of survival, once it is certain that the workers that the capitalist needs to employ can be fed, housed, and clothed, and once his profits can be protected by a general acceptance of the rule of law and the idea of private property... etc, etc.
To put it in simple terms: the capitalist is the free-rider of society. Modern capitalism requires among other things the tragedy of the commons and the commodification of public goods, an inherent violence to "natural" human thought and community that can only be maintained through violence and the threat of violence, relentless brainwashing, the myth of the "dangerous Other," media violence... etc, etc.
These are such simple, obvious truths that an insane amount of propaganda is necessary to hide the fact, to obliterate our collective memory and continuously rewrite history.

And yet, the environmental crisis threatens this artifical order with cognitive dissonance. If the capitalist is to thanks for prosperity, is he not also to blame for the crisis? And conversely if everyone is responsible, then isn't prosperity also our collective accomplishment?
And what of ownership? Surely we all have a right to survive, to clean air, to water, perhaps even to build a home and find simple ways to feed and clothe ourselves? Why would rule of law protect a few select individuals' concentration of wealth then?
If everyone owns everything, then why do some people claim to deserve more than others? Where does this extra value come from? Is it really entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership? Or is it cooperation, culture, civilisation itself that we have to thank for modernity?

Once you go down the rabbit-hole, it's hard to stop. Small discrepancies in the dominant narrative easily threaten to unravel it entirely.
That is not to say that we should all turn communist.
But perhaps starting to question all the usual conservative soundbites we are bombarded with would be a nice start.

[sologdin]

Quote

If you are going to attack underlying definitions to prove your point aren't you simply saying abstractions like "Standard of Living" are inherently subjective.=?  If they are inherently subjective how can any system be measured against any other system?  In other words you're simply making "Standard of Living" something that cannot be defined and measured.

scot--

not more inherently subjective than anything else (am sufficiently post-structuralist to think that we have lotsa failure to communicate because of an other minds problem as applied to semiotics, though--a different discussion).  the point is more about what is the quantitative basis for an abstraction such as capitalism works but communism doesn't?  the terms works is laden with unstated qualitative assumptions. i suspect that most usages build the assumption into the conclusion and therefore beg the question through their unexamined tautology.  if all the unstated definition is looking for the fruits of capitalist exploitation, say, then those systems that have abolished the exploitation and therefore the fruits will not be consistent with the definition.

 

joanna--

thank you kindly.  i appreciate the detailed response; i doubt i would disagree about any of the economic comparisons between the FRG and GDR as you have stated them, though if you want to provide statistics, that provision will be enlightening.  the first question is the causation of the motor vehicle differentials that you have highlighted (underlying economic incentives, specific political decisions, historical processes, some combination?); the second is the overall significance to the general point (what inference are we drawing this constellation of facts about comparative political economy?); the third is a trolley question (does the GDR provide something to its citizens in place of motor vehicles that FRG sacrificed?)  i have my suspicions as to each answer.

[maarsen]

The differences between states are more explainable by the style of government than by the left or rightward tilt of such government. States that relied on top down governance did not do well and that those that had a more democratic form did better. Yes the GDR and the old Soviet Union did not do as well, but neither did Spain and Portugal until they managed to rid themselves of their Fascist leaders.