(November 24, 2017 at 1:06 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(November 23, 2017 at 2:31 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: IMO it never had a chance of working in Cuba. The Leninist model specified by the OP has been the template used by all Marxist revolutions (aside from Spain) and they ALL resulted in totalitarian regimes. I consider myself a Marxist, but NOT ONE SINGLE communist regime established on planet earth is one in which I would chose to live under.

Marx wasn't just a utopian. He had great faith in mankind-- way too much faith if you ask me. The system he envisioned is one where the workers organized a system of production themselves. He did outline a "dictatorship of the proletariat" but this phase was supposed to be temporary AND it was supposed to be a government body of WORKERS not Communist Party leaders. Lenin replaced a capitalistic elite with a bureaucratic elite. It could be argued that right there he departed from Marxism.

To say communism "would have worked" in Cuba if only the US had left them alone is false. I read propaganda that says this sort of stuff all the time. Bullshit. There are problems with Marx's original theory. Leninism should be tossed out the window. The only way I see a Marxist system actually working is if it

1. Guarantees inalienable rights (free speech etc. to all citizens)-- otherwise you get dictators
2. Adopts republican democracy (with a balance of powers) instead of authoritarian bureaucracy 
3. Allows a robust capitalistic enterprise to thrive within its borders (so long as capitalism isn't the most powerful economic influence present) 
4. Ensures the complete education and provides healthcare for all citizens

To the argument that this system doesn't sound "Marxist" but more "Democratic Socialist" I beg to differ, but my reply is lengthy. Short answer is: it has a strong libertarian element which differentiates it. Also, it is based on collective need first; capitalism is there to give people what they want. You also can't pin me to any present day Marxist ideology.

Since I have kinda suggested that I find myself on the libertarian left, I want to say that anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism etc. are all pipe dreams. Even if you could get these societies to work, they would implode within hours-- they are highly unstable and have no central stabilizing force present to ensure they last.

Even my iteration of Marxism might not work today. Perhaps people aren't ready for it. But maybe they will be in, say, 500 years (hopefully sooner). All I'm saying is that, if it can be made to work, it is a better system than capitalism.

Communism was designed to be introduced in a fully  first world country, the ideal at the time he wrote it would have been Germany or England. Unfortunately its only ever been tried in agricultural and struggling nations.

Like trying to cross the sea on a small inflatable giraffe. It may take you some of the way but its not really what it was designed for.

Would the dirt farmers ever get the blessings of a communist state?

(November 24, 2017 at 1:19 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(November 24, 2017 at 1:06 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: Communism was designed to be introduced in a fully  first world country, the ideal at the time he wrote it would have been Germany or England. Unfortunately its only ever been tried in agricultural and struggling nations.

Like trying to cross the sea on a small inflatable giraffe. It may take you some of the way but its not really what it was designed for.

Would the dirt farmers ever get the blessings of a communist state?

The idea was that the workers get the fruits of their labour rather than the factory owners so I suppose you could get some profit from farming to divide but not to the same extent as intended.

It was designed to address the discrepency between the worker on the production line and the fat cat on the golf course.

Dirt farming is probably one of the best applications of a communist model.  In order to feed people while turning a profit..for example, the price of the goods has to be engineered beneath the point of viability for most producers.  This means that we impoverish farmers and -still- fail to feed everyone.

We're just not as serious about feeding people as we are about all the other things handled at the level of the state. Besides, there's always some to exploit somewhere...and so we can export some of our own malnourishment to the 2nd and 3rd world., paper over some remainder with welfare programs primarily geared to filling the coffers of processors...and then bitch about the death of the small farm and all those god-damned takers while we're at it.

The rest we ignore.

(November 24, 2017 at 1:06 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(November 23, 2017 at 2:31 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: IMO it never had a chance of working in Cuba. The Leninist model specified by the OP has been the template used by all Marxist revolutions (aside from Spain) and they ALL resulted in totalitarian regimes. I consider myself a Marxist, but NOT ONE SINGLE communist regime established on planet earth is one in which I would chose to live under.

Marx wasn't just a utopian. He had great faith in mankind-- way too much faith if you ask me. The system he envisioned is one where the workers organized a system of production themselves. He did outline a "dictatorship of the proletariat" but this phase was supposed to be temporary AND it was supposed to be a government body of WORKERS not Communist Party leaders. Lenin replaced a capitalistic elite with a bureaucratic elite. It could be argued that right there he departed from Marxism.

To say communism "would have worked" in Cuba if only the US had left them alone is false. I read propaganda that says this sort of stuff all the time. Bullshit. There are problems with Marx's original theory. Leninism should be tossed out the window. The only way I see a Marxist system actually working is if it

1. Guarantees inalienable rights (free speech etc. to all citizens)-- otherwise you get dictators
2. Adopts republican democracy (with a balance of powers) instead of authoritarian bureaucracy 
3. Allows a robust capitalistic enterprise to thrive within its borders (so long as capitalism isn't the most powerful economic influence present) 
4. Ensures the complete education and provides healthcare for all citizens

To the argument that this system doesn't sound "Marxist" but more "Democratic Socialist" I beg to differ, but my reply is lengthy. Short answer is: it has a strong libertarian element which differentiates it. Also, it is based on collective need first; capitalism is there to give people what they want. You also can't pin me to any present day Marxist ideology.

Since I have kinda suggested that I find myself on the libertarian left, I want to say that anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, anarcho-communism etc. are all pipe dreams. Even if you could get these societies to work, they would implode within hours-- they are highly unstable and have no central stabilizing force present to ensure they last.

Even my iteration of Marxism might not work today. Perhaps people aren't ready for it. But maybe they will be in, say, 500 years (hopefully sooner). All I'm saying is that, if it can be made to work, it is a better system than capitalism.

Communism was designed to be introduced in a fully  first world country, the ideal at the time he wrote it would have been Germany or England. Unfortunately its only ever been tried in agricultural and struggling nations.

Like trying to cross the sea on a small inflatable giraffe. It may take you some of the way but its not really what it was designed for.

The only real difference a first world nation would make is much more infrastructure and capital assets in place to squander. The fundamental reason why doctrinal communism is not as competitive as against some versions of capitalism has nothing to do with how much resource is there. It has everything to do with how efficiently each system can use its own resource.

As a matter of fact, communism had proven to be more competitive when implemented in agrian developing states than amongst advanced developed economies. Take for example Taiwan and China, and north and south Korea. In both cases, the rival systems were implemented in backward agrian states around late 1940s to 1950. In both cases the Communist states initially outpaced their capitalist rivals, and were able to expand the overall size of the economy and improve the average standard of living faster.

Then, after reaching a certain level of development, capitalist states took off and left their Communist rivals in the dust in terms of economic output, basic development, and standard of living.

Mainland China only became competitive again by de facto abandoning communism economics. North Korea is till in the dust.

The reason for this is not hard to find. Communism is very efficient in forcing things on people and drafting people into large scale programs and projects. When a country is poor and underdeveloped, a lot of natural and human capital is lying around unusedvir minimally used. Communism is very effective in dragooning these unused or underused resources into the service if the state, hence the state and economy grows quickly.

However, once a state reaches a certainly level of development, most of unused or underused resources are now in use. The low hanging fruit are all claimed. Now, further growth must come from utilizing resources already in use more efficiently. Here communism is uncompetitive. Capitalism with its capital markets proved much better at allocating available resources to maximize return than communism.

Hence Marx was wrong. He felt communism needs a fully developed economy to thrive. Reality proved a fully developed economy is precisely where the strength of communism can find no application and the weakness of communism is most consequential when compared to capitalism.

Capital markets have emphatically -not- maximized the productive capacity of the land.  It;s important to recognize that efficiency of capital return is not always interchangeable with efficiency of resource allocation or consumption.

(November 24, 2017 at 1:37 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Capital markets have emphatically -not- maximized the productive capacity of the land.  It;s important to recognize that efficiency of capital return is not always interchangeable with efficiency of resource allocation or consumption.

No, but productive capacity of the land is a trivial portion if the total productivity of an advanced economy.  But however many problems it exhibited in hindsight, Capital markets have done far better than any system of central planning in allocating the bulk of capital resource and maximizing the productive potentsdvsnce developed advanced industrial or post industrial economy.

To put it bluntly, communistic central planning is pretty good at forcing a laggard economy into catching up by overwhelming objections to adopting many of the methods and techniques already pioneered and proven by more advanced economy.  

But it is even more ineffective at feeling it's way forward than capitslusm when it is roughly level with advanced capitalistic economies, and both systems needs to find their way forward without the benefit of hindsight.

(November 24, 2017 at 1:46 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: No, but productive capacity of the land is a trivial portion if the total productivity of an advanced economy.  But however many problems it exhibited in hindsight, Capital markets have done far better than any system of central planning in allocating the bulk of capital resource and maximizing the productive potentsdvsnce developed advanced industrial or post industrial economy.

To put it bluntly, communistic central planning is pretty good at forcing a laggard economy into catching up by overwhelming objections to adopting many of the methods and techniques already pioneered and proven by more advanced economy.  

But it is even more ineffective at feeling it's way forward than capitslusm when it is roughly level with advanced capitalistic economies, and both systems needs to find their way forward without the benefit of hindsight.

The beef seems to be with inefficient central planning.  Personally, I think that we may have reached a point where, moving forward, the benefits of capitalism no longer outwiegh the costs...and we might find a use for a return to communist models in at least some form..or a hybrid model, as in your example of china.

The current state of our capitalist market mimics poor central planning so brilliantly that I find it difficult to wholeheartedly buy into the semi-mythical attributes of capitalism and it's generous self appraisal in light of a biased assessment of past and present. The stock objections to communism as practiced seem to apply one for one with capitalism as employed.

-and I know, people say "well, that's not capitalism, they're doing it wrong"....to which I respond...wait, are we talking communism again?

(November 24, 2017 at 2:17 pm)Khemikal Wrote: -and I know, people say "well, that's not capitalism, they're doing it wrong"....to which I respond...wait, are we talking communism again?

The difference is of course communism is an artificially constructed and defined ideology called Marxism first, around which various practices claiming fealty to or inspiration from the ideology, and lumped under the catch all term of communism, then arose to take advantage of the appeal of the ideology to segmrnt of the society.   Therefore it is possible to assess how closely each instance of the practice adhered to the original ideology, and also to evaluate whether the ideology itself on the whole have succeeded in inspiring sound and beneficial practices.

Capitalism was a pragmatically and organically evolved and continuously growing set of practice first, before various academics and opinion makers attempted to fit ideologies around different portions of it.  Therefore it is not do meaningful to say whether a actual instance of the practice fit the ideology of capitalism, nor whether the ideology of capitalism inspired sound and beneficial practices.  The practice were there before there was any ideology and arose independentky of the ideology. The practices generally predated and always arose independently of ex post classificatoon.

(November 23, 2017 at 1:54 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(November 23, 2017 at 1:27 pm)Aegon Wrote: Communism is fascism by another name.

Uh, no.  Communist governments often evolve to assume more of the signal attributes of classical fascism, such as extreme nationalism and corporatism, when classical utopian communism loses credibility or legitimacy.  But classic communism and classical fascism are distinct.

(November 23, 2017 at 1:55 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote:

(November 23, 2017 at 1:27 pm)Aegon Wrote: Communism is fascism by another name.

Fascism is by definition a right wing term and directly opposite to communism.
Its like saying a very dry water. It cant be both.

Communism can be tyrannical and dictator but it cannot be fascist.

Yeah guys I'm aware of the political theory. It doesn't matter. What matters to me is what the communist system becomes in practice, most notably the stripping of rights and personal freedoms.

(November 24, 2017 at 3:51 pm)Aegon Wrote: ...
What matters to me is what the communist system becomes in practice, most notably the stripping of rights and personal freedoms.

... which happens in all social systems. Not exclusive to Communism.

So I'm thinking that perhaps what matters more is how those rights and freedoms are stripped or curtailed. Correct?