Communism Is Not Bad
Sirus
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8466Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8466Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Really</div> Well, I've been gone for a while, blame the IRC guys on EC for that, now I'm playing Freelancer, but thats a different story.
But lately, I've been hearing more, Communism and Socialistic rants about how bad it is, this is more of a school thing then forum thing.
However, Communism isn't bad, its really not, its actually a good thing. But, it doesn't work, thats the problem. In concept, Communism would be a utopian society and in short, a <i>perfect</i> society. Unfortuneatly, people are <i>NOT</i> perfect. This means that theoretical communism is not achieved, and what happens ? In turns into a evil thing, and fails and society falls on to the shoulders of a dictator.
So, in short, capitalism and democracy actually work best. Why ? Get two jealous people and you end up with a middle of the road, moderate, compromise. That really is what happens.
Sorry guys, Humanity sucks, we're working with some pretty bad stuff. I'm not saying everyone is a murderer, but were just as bad in the other things we do.
So, in short, all of you should know now that communism isn't bad, but you should now that it doesn't work, but it doesn't work because of people.
[/Rant]
/me hangs up "Gone Freelancing" sign and scurries off
And BTW, I have not given up on NS, I'll be around here forever <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> So get used to it. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
But lately, I've been hearing more, Communism and Socialistic rants about how bad it is, this is more of a school thing then forum thing.
However, Communism isn't bad, its really not, its actually a good thing. But, it doesn't work, thats the problem. In concept, Communism would be a utopian society and in short, a <i>perfect</i> society. Unfortuneatly, people are <i>NOT</i> perfect. This means that theoretical communism is not achieved, and what happens ? In turns into a evil thing, and fails and society falls on to the shoulders of a dictator.
So, in short, capitalism and democracy actually work best. Why ? Get two jealous people and you end up with a middle of the road, moderate, compromise. That really is what happens.
Sorry guys, Humanity sucks, we're working with some pretty bad stuff. I'm not saying everyone is a murderer, but were just as bad in the other things we do.
So, in short, all of you should know now that communism isn't bad, but you should now that it doesn't work, but it doesn't work because of people.
[/Rant]
/me hangs up "Gone Freelancing" sign and scurries off
And BTW, I have not given up on NS, I'll be around here forever <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> So get used to it. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
This can work but not on a large national scale. tribal and clan societies practice this. The goverment being the leader distributes things equally (well pretty close but a guy that kills a giraffe aint getting last picks <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> )
Now you get to a national level you wouldnt get to see your leaders not working at all. You would not beable to get everybody motivated so you can have a better standard of living.
Now I personally think that communism falls hopelessly short in basic theory, although it may of had a highly positive effect on the world had it been embraced in nations with a democratic tradition. Anarchism is superior in that aspect, it maintains a purity of vision that cannot be compromised by selfish "revolutionaries".
Here here!
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Anarchism won't work, a single person or group could force their way to the top, but then it really wouldn't be anarchism. And society in general goes to hell with almost no technological or cultural advancements.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The assumption in functioning anarchy is that people refuse to be ruled by any form of authority. With that idea deeply ingrained in the population, any forcible coup would fail miserably.
Also, technologic advancements tend to be made by people who aren't interested in money or profit. I would wager that there isn't a significant scientist in the world that would give up their art if they weren't being paid.
My Uncle, PHD in nuclear engineering, designs the mechanics of a nuclear reactor. He lost all his job because hippies made all the nuclear powerplants closed. He could have gotten a job with the military for less pay but instead he now works for ingersawran.
Anarchy is a bigger fairy tale then communism.
Anarchy is a bigger fairy tale then communism. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not really getting your point here, probably because google doesn't seem to know what ingersawran is.
<a href='http://www.irtools.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.irtools.com/</a>
Anarchy = lack of governmental input. Anarchy is what happens when governments die... it's not a pretty thing.
I don't believe in anarchy, its not human nature, there will always be some charismatic leader who lead the stupid masses...or so it goes.
A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
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That isn't communism salty. Communism is when society have transcended beyond the likes of "state" and "control".
There are alone three major schools of thought that claim themselves communist (the Marxists, the Leninists, and the Stalinists), and the anarchistic scene is, true to its ideal, a big can of worms. Each member in here could follow diametrally different definitions of the terms and we wouldn't even notice.
It'd be best to define first what you mean by 'communism' and 'anarchy' before ranting about it.
<a href='http://www.theonion.com/onion3842/marxists_apartment.html' target='_blank'>http://www.theonion.com/onion3842/marxists..._apartment.html</a>
a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups
(Everybody thank Webster)
Anarchism isn't just a political ideal either, it's a philosophical one. To wish neither to govern or be governed. It's a lofty goal, sure, but what's great about it is doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to human weakness. It's a philosophy of self-improvement, and one who prescribes to anarchistic theory finds themselves constantly asking, am I strong enough to govern myself?
Thats why most communist states are rather poor because of the poor management and production problems...
Capitalist PIG dog american...feel the might of the mighty hammer and sickle!!!
A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
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That isn't communism salty. Communism is when society have transcended beyond the likes of "state" and "control". <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bleh? so no goverment? Anarchy? I gotta go with Nemesis on this.
That's my definition of Communism...
<b>Marxism:</b>
Named after the father of the communistic idea, Karl Marx (1818 - 1883, I think), who observed industrialization at its first peak and drew some rather interesting conclusions.
Many people instantly get confused by Marx' teachings because they don't realize that to him, economic power and political power are the same. The group of people - called 'class' - in possession of the means of production is always also in possession of the political power, and will use it to create a system that defends its claim on the economic power.
This was in Marx' perception the case in the feudal system of the Dark Age, the merkantilistic systems of Absolutism, and the capitalistic Democracies and constitutional Monarchies of his time.
The possession of the means of production will however not remain in one classes hands forever. The social system that's the consequence of the economic and political situation will always be tailored after the needs of the ruling class, and thus be unjust for the other classes, which will thus sooner or later revolt and take the ownership into their own hands to begin the circle anew.
Marx saw himself at the beginning of the end of the capitalistic reign: The workers, the opressed class of his time, had fallen into incredible social misery only comparable to that seen in todays poorest Third World countries. At the same time, more and more wealth accumulated in less and less hands of monopolizing industrials and the middle class of craftsmen and small merchants was wearing thin and thinner.
To Marx, this development would end in a world with an incredibly small and incredibly wealthy elite, contrasted by the vast masses of poor labourers, which then would, you guessed it, revolt. This revolution wasn't really sharply layed out by Marx, on the contrary, he assumed it to be spontaneous - the load would just become to heavy to bear, people would air their anger, the uprising would begin - and, and this is an important point, global. In his opinion, the whole world would polarize into workers and owners, and once some workers would've done the revolutionary step, the world would follow.
The inevitably following state of an ownership of the means of production by the workers was called 'Socialism'. Marx did however believe that the revolution wouldn't end here. The relatively low number of future opressed - the old elite - and the vast numbers of new owners would make something that can be described as an evolutionary leap possible: The generalization of all means of production. Keep in mind that in Marx' opinion, all power originates from economic ownership.
The fact that virtually <i>anyone</i> would have access to anything he or she needed would thus mean that political, social, and any other kind of power would be, for the first time, distributed evenly amongst the whole of humanity. This state of constant self-government, which would effectively neglect the neccessity of a governing class in the traditional sense, was called 'Communism'.
"Ah, but...", you're screaming, and you can surely come up with some good counter-thesises to this shortened up version of marxist thinking, but in its whole, its pretty logical and features at very least some very interesting historical insights - although I personally just can't agree with the possibilty of communism, because to me, the whole thing would inevitably fail during the socialist stage.
The whole thing was however developed further:
<b>Leninism:</b>
Vladimir Lenin was Russian and lived betweeen 1870 and 1924.
Following Marx' original theory, this phrase is impossibly true, because by that time, the communistic revolution was already expected, and Russia would thus have ceased to exist. History took a little different path, and thus, Russia was still governed by an absolutistic monarch, who reigned over a lot of devastatingly poor farmers, a few devastatingly poor industrial workers, and even fewer incredibly rich aristocrats.
The land was pretty much in the hands of foreign investors (the majority of them American and British, with France and Germany on a close third and fourth spot), but far from being industrialized.
This means that after the Marxian theory, a communitic revolution was impossible in this country (and thus in consequence also in the world): Not only were the means of production not in the hands of the Burgeois, the capitalists, but still owned by aristorats, the vast majority of the people was still working in farming, and such rural workers couldn't lead a communistic revolution because the population density would be just too low - the revolution would've already been ended forecefully before it had gained much momentum within the opressed class.
Lenin, however, believed that these issues weren't obstacles, and thus modified Marx' theory.
First, he broke with the idea of an uniformily industrialized world as the basis of a revolution, by adding Imperialism and Colonialism to the equation:
The first countries to develop capitalism would in this model become expansive to obtain new sources of resources and new markets and thus invade not yet industrialized regions of the world (either econominically or militarily) to make them dependent of the own economy and profit off their resources and markets.
The maybe best example for this would be what Great Britain did to India.
The wealth earned by this 'international opression' would then not only be used to increase ones own property, but also to enhance the local workers lifestyle to levels so acceptable that a revolution couldn't break out amongst them. The workers of the highly industrialized countries would thus be 'bought' by the Burgeois.
Between the industrialized countries and the opressed colonies, Lenin saw the 'half-industrialized' countries, countries that had strong enough economies to defy a total foreign takeover, but weren't industralized far enough to start being imperialistic themselves. There, the downsides of the capitalistic system would be obvious enough to a sufficiently dense opressed class to spark a revolution that could then carry on into other countries and lead to a global movement.
Second, he did not believe the revolution to be neccesarily spontaneous anymore. In his opinion, the 'uneducated masses' wouldn't be able to become radical enough to lead a true revolution - he saw them resorting to mildering and modifying actions such as trade-unionism.
Thus, to carry a true revolution out, he postulated the neccessity of 'proffesional revolutionaries' which would be a kind of 'elite of the opressed' that would educate and lead the masses into communism and socialism. Needless to say, he regarded himself a part of this elite.
Ironically, Russia witnessed something that came quite close to a marxian revolution: The February Revolution. In this, a spontaneous miner strike gained momentum and lead to the end of the Zars regime and the institution of two parallel governments: The Kreml-parliament held by the moderate left, which aimed at the formation of a democratic Russia, and the Soviets, base-democratic systems of deputees and constant popular descision making, which were first reigned by the marxist Menschewiki and then later taken over by Lenins radical Bolschewiki. They then staged the coup d'état that was later called the 'October Revolution', although it was clearly a planned overthrow by Bolschewiki forces and happened in November.
These are two of the three schools of thought, I'm too tired and uneducated to write about the third, Stalinism.
Ok, Intro to Political Theory dont fail me now. (This is without breaking out my copy of "selected political writings" by Marx)
The type of communism that i am talking about here is pure Marxism, as utopian as it is. Leninism is a much more practical application of Marxism. Stalinism borders more towards dictatorship/tyranny.
Basically marx said that communism should use the advanced production methods developed in capitalism to its own ends, just like capitalism built off of feudal economic systems. "Each revolution carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction" -Herbert.
The main problem with the communistic societies that the world has seen has had much to do with the quote from Ghandi stated previously. It is darn near impossible for a communistic nation to do buisness with a capitalistic society. One values fairness, and the other values screwing others over for personal profit.
Another problem was that most of the nations that became communist in the past have not been totally industrialized. Marx stated that areas would need to have the means of production far in advance of what they were in the early 1900 Russia. This caused massive economic shortcomings.
Darn, Nemesis has said most of this. Guess i should read other posts before writing my own.
[rant]
As my US history teacher in higs school said, "A communist is a socialist with an atitude".
I firmly believe that the coming of nanotech, socialism will have another opportunity. Think Hostile Waters: Anteus Rising. With the ablility to produce anything from anything using machines on the atomic scale, this would be the ultimate production machine. Why would anyone need to pay for the produciton of any food, when it could be made from sand (mostly carbon and some phosphates) and air (oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen) (seeing as almost organic compounds contain H, C, O, N, and P almost exclusively). Why bother producing sheet metal, when it can be grown. Money could literally grow, although what use would money have then. Diseases would be a thing of the past, with micro machines roaming throught your body, repairing cells and removing foreign materials.
The biggest thing that will be hampering the progress to this society is the greed of those that control the methods of production. Think record companies vs media sharing. Classic (neo?) communism vs. capitalism.
I personally dont like capitalism and the values it stands for. When teachers need to force pay raises from higher up, there is something wrong. These are the people that are giving children a future, and ploliticians/school boards/etc. are screwing them. In the area that i live (Puget Sound, Washington) teachers are payed some of the lowest wages in the nation, while having one of the highest costs of living. My former math teacher, who had a PhD and 20+ years experience, was making about 40k a year. And people wonder why they go on strike asking for more money.
[/rant]
<a href='http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html' target='_blank'>A link to the communist manifesto for all those interested</a>
There are alone three major schools of thought that claim themselves communist (the Marxists, the Leninists, and the Stalinists), and the anarchistic scene is, true to its ideal, a big can of worms. Each member in here could follow diametrally different definitions of the terms and we wouldn't even notice.
It'd be best to define first what you mean by 'communism' and 'anarchy' before ranting about it.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think your regular high school graduate defines communism as the process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle resulting in the victory of the proletariat (sp?) and the establishment of a classless, socialist society in which private ownership is abolished and the means of production and subsistance belongs to the community.
I was refering to Marxism in particular the concepts theorized by Karl Marx and Friedrish Engels.*
I <i>personally</i> do not believe it is realistic to think that the fall of capitalist society will bring about a revolutionary crisis which would bring about a social transition that leads to full communism. I agree that it important to analyze economic processes and structures because in these 'material' factors do shape social structure, class relations, and the state and distribution of political power. I agree that the fall of capitalist society will bring about a revolutionary crisis, but whether or not it will lead to full communism I cannot say.
*Marxism is interpreted by many 20th century Marxists, I think people are most familair with the school of Marxist thought known as Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism has sought to anaylze and explain the actual process of revolution (starting form the Russian Revolution) but much of Marxism-Leninism has been entangled in debate about the importance of political leadership and the use of revolutionary state powers to create a socialist (communist) society. Marx and Engels did not provide any detailed analysis of these issues so that is why Marxists such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro has been able to put their own distinct perspective to Marxist revolutionary strategy.
I think your regular high school graduate defines communism as the process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle resulting in the victory of the proletariat (sp?) and the establishment of a classless, socialist society in which private ownership is abolished and the means of production and subsistance belongs to the community.
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Hmm. How does control by private individuals and control by the community differ? Either would be an uneven control. My objection to most political groups leaning to the "left" is that they propose that government in one form or another have centralised control of trade, ie the exchange of stuff by people. I argue that there can't be enough computational power to do this.
Here's my thought: all organisms exist in systems. These systems effectively network by various means (trees for instance communicate the "news" of an insect infestation to other trees, which then produce chemicals to ward off further attacks, bacteria co-operate to create stromatalites, and so on. Soil ecology is even more complex and involved). Human beings are in possession of the most adaptive and coping computer system eso far built (our NN brains, right?) and network effectively via social and economic interactions. The computational power of this distributed network must be <b>VAST</b> if subject to significant lag, and its information input is arguably pretty close to the total sense input of every human being participating, which is in short a staggering amount of raw data.
How is a system of government going to equal or even approach that? Wouldn't it be better to set in place useful and enforcable laws to protect the various elements from each other and then let the whole massive system find its own level? What I'm saying here is that even in an idealised situation, a "free market", which I define as a society where people may trade, work, pay and be paid without a government trying to force the whole process one way or another except as is necessary to halt predation and information distortion, should theoretically work better than a system wherein councils and unions of one kind or another attempt to steer the economy.
Forgive me if this is a little hazy, it's stupid-AM here, but what I propose is that although communism may not be bad, a perfectly nice free-trade should beat a perfectly nice communism on the basis of a more responsive and powerful distributed network. Just an idea.
Communism=Star Trek.. Or pretty much atleast.
So, that should make things clear enough (I can hear all the trekkies scream in horror)
Thanatos.
PS. Great posts btw.
Forgive me if this is a little hazy, it's stupid-AM here, but what I propose is that although communism may not be bad, a perfectly nice free-trade should beat a perfectly nice communism on the basis of a more responsive and powerful distributed network. Just an idea. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You seem to assume here that in a system specifically designed to promote selfishness, somehow people will inherently act in the socially optimal manner. In computer science this would be known as a "greedy algorithm", an attempt to derive the generally optimal solution by making locally optimal choices. Greedy algorithms don't even work for counting change. How can you expect them to work for all of the problems of society? If everyone just tries to make the best choices locally for themselves there isn't a shread of a guarantee that the aggregate result will be generally optimal.
Whats needed is a middle ground, an in betweener. I think the commonwealth comes close to this. Basically, if you earn more money, you get taxed a little more. Individuals and families below a certain income are exempt from tax, people without jobs or are retired get a benefit (the dole, pension, etc). The only thing the system seems to fail in is that it does not redistribute the wealth to the poor efficiently enough and that it suffers from mismanagement from time to time.