What is your opinion about Communism?

[pocaracas]

They do peacefully walk out.  

As they say ... "if you can't change the people, change the people."

It happened just this week.  We had a conversation about ethics and she agreed that she wasn't psychologically ready (fit for purpose / use).

The Autonomy-ethics people can go to where they have a "my freedoms are more important than your freedoms" state-of-mind e.g. USA.

It is a dictatorship when it needs to be e.g. Disaster Recovery scenarios.  But it's also multiple overlapping dictatorships as per recognised areas of expertise.

Communism is about policies/procedures/framework and culture/ethics/behaviour not organisational structure.

Ok, there's no way you're being serious

yeah... I'm with you on that.

[DLJ]

...
i've been a Marxist-Lennonist since I was 7 years old.

I dont understand. Thats the party of the Soviet union under Joseph Stalin, where hundreds of thousands of people had their rights stripped away from them and were killed. Am i missing sarcasm?

Not sarcasm. Just spelling.



The first soviets (in the first few months following the revolution) were democratically elected.

Stalinism was Divinity-ethics minus the divine. Just another Pareto distribution.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's kind of amusing that self interest is so effectively subverted that we've got an entire country full of people thinking that the private ownership of the means of production is a good thing....when they'll never own those means themselves.  OTOH, there's a rising trend in common manufacturing spaces, and the argument can be made that these produce innovation and goods that would not be produced under privately held manufacturing space.

[vorlon13]

Bless the Plymouth Rock Pilgrims for their attempt at bringing Biblical blessed communism to America. They lost their taste for it, unfortunately, (I don't think they were praying hard enough) and ended their bold experiment after about a year.

I also note the Conjespresites, a Mormon schism, also tried their version of Bible/Book of Mormon communism too. And again after they gave up on it, we can only conclude they didn't pray hard enough or trust God enough to see it through.

[brewer]

You assume those will peacefully just walk out? or purging means elimination?
If a system is good, then it's applied almost everywhere... where would those "Autonomy-ethics" people go?

That seems to me to be unfeasible without ending up in a dictatorship... so... no, thank you!

They do peacefully walk out.  

As they say ... "if you can't change the people, change the people."

It happened just this week.  We had a conversation about ethics and she agreed that she wasn't psychologically ready (fit for purpose / use).

The Autonomy-ethics people can go to where they have a "my freedoms are more important than your freedoms" state-of-mind e.g. USA.

It is a dictatorship when it needs to be e.g. Disaster Recovery scenarios.  But it's also multiple overlapping dictatorships as per recognised areas of expertise.

Communism is about policies/procedures/framework and culture/ethics/behaviour not organisational structure.

So....... what's your rank/status in the party/commune?

[Anomalocaris]

I've been a Marxist-Lennonist since I was 7 years old.

That would be Groucho Marx and John Lennon?

---

There's a bit of a quandary in communism.  It would work if people played nice and shared stuff, and if they did do that it wouldn't need to be politicized.

A proportion of any population will always have stronger than usual instances of the homo sapien’s instinctive drive to seek out like bloodhounds and exploit any social and economic opportunities to advance the interests of oneself and one’s bloodline at the short term expense of the larger community;   and a proportion of those will also have the intelligence to disguise their motivation or convince the community to overlook this so as to pull this off with little or not consequence or disapprobation despite any professed ethics of the community.

Communism is doctrinally unable to fully come to terms with the above stated fact of human behavior.  Therefore it can never be systematically structured to make the best of this heretical but exceptionally powerful motivation.   Instead it must fight it or see it corrode communism’s dollhouse like ideal of happy selfless clockwork dolls.    This is what happened in the Soviet Union.   The Chinese saw this happening and decided to keep the facade of communism but abandon its underlying doctrines.   The fact that Chinese did this where as the USSR didn’t is the underlying reason China clocked 10% annual growth for 25 years since communism collapsed in the USSR.

Some iteration of Capitalism, on the other hand, is able to accept this behavior.    By establishing a clearing house of ideas through a capital market, Capitalism established an imperfect, but not entirely nonfunctional, way to evaluate the real consequences of inevitable selfish acts, and reward and promote those selfish acts which by happenstance also benefit those who were not originally intended to be the direct beneficiaries.  This is how capitalism is strengthen to a much larger degree by individual initiative and by extension unplanned innovation than ever can communism.    Capitalism can, even if not always do, better exploit the overwhelmingly powerful motivation of instinctive selfishness for greater good of the community than communism.

Incidentally, a little known fact of the history of soviet communism is that,  almost 60 years before Deng Xiaoping in China realized the intrinsic weakness of doctrinal communism stemming from its inability to exploit private enterprise, and reformed China into a quasi-capitalistic fast growing manufacturing giant,  the Vladimir illych Lenin of Leninism fame and the original leader of the Communist revolution in Russia in 1917 came to the very same realization as well.   Before Lenin died he advocated the reintroduction of many components of capitalism, including limited private ownership of means of production and capital market back into the fledgling Soviet Union.   However, Lenin was an invalid at this point, and was unable bring his program forward.  Then he died. Stalin took over and first sidelined and eventually executed lenin’s more pragmatic cronies, and introduced full and bloody full collectivization.  From here was born the 5 year plans, the rigid centrally planned economy, and the Soviet state we came to know and which collapsed in 1990.

So there was a brief window of opportunity between 1921-1924 when the Leninist Soviet Union did not have to go down the path of Stalinism, and was poised to go down a economically more liberal quasi-capitalistic authorian path more similar to what China pursued since 1990.

As Churchill quipped, that Lenin lived was russia’s Greatest misfortune.   But that Lenin died was russia’s Second greatest misfortune.

[DLJ]

...
So....... what's your rank/status in the party/commune?

No rank; no status.

I pay the rent. Subordinate in every other way.

I've been a Marxist-Lennonist since I was 7 years old.

That would be Groucho Marx and John Lennon?

It would.

7 years old, 1971, Imagine no religion. It's easy if you try.

[brewer]

...
So....... what's your rank/status in the party/commune?

No rank; no status.  

I pay the rent.  Subordinate in every other way.

Yeah, sure. Why do I not believe you? Oh, I know, you don't speak like a subordinate.

Where exactly did this female go?

[DLJ]

No rank; no status.  

I pay the rent.  Subordinate in every other way.

Yeah, sure. Why do I not believe you? Oh, I know, you don't speak like a subordinate.

Where exactly did this female go?

Maybe 'subordinate' is not exactly the right word. But I'm not allowed to do anything in 'their' kitchen. Each according to their ability etc.

She moved in with a friend of hers. I gave her few tips on tactical relationship management so she should be OK.

And she's much less muslim than when she arrived... so not a complete waste of time.

[downbeatplumb]

That's like kicking a car door in and saying it was bound to be damaged in a crash anyway.
It never had a chance to prove you wrong.

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.