It’s never existed. Not in it’s pure form anyway. But neither has capitalism, or socialism either for that matter.
A theoretical system is always in some way perverted and coopted by the people implementing it. Humans are the weak part of the equation because humans are greedy and focused only on themselves and their own small group of friends/family. So scaling any political system up from theoretical to an actual national policy always ends up with a perverted form where one group ends up over another group despite the original theoretical intent of the system in question. That goes for Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, as well as religion too.
Humans suck and can’t have nice things without fucking them up.
Easier to achieve in small communities, such as the ones the human brain originally developed for (a few hundred people)
Private property =/= Personal property (nobody’s coming to take your house or your tv)
Attempts to implement something like it are actively sabotaged by the ruling class to protect their privileges, either through propaganda or through violence
Which part?
The main idea as I understand it, is that the workers produce value and that value will never be fairly distributed back to them unless the workers themselves are in charge. This is an analysis of human nature, the owners are fundamentally selfish and will try to maximize their profits, workers to them are merely a means to that end. Therefore workers will be underpaid for the value they create and in the worst case, horribly exploited. I agree 100% with this analysis, as it can be seen a thousand different cases of in history.
The answer to this according to communism is that the workers, who are the majority, take over, become themselves the owners, and distribute the value they create fairly. As a person who believes in democracy, not just in the political sphere, but also in the economic sphere, this seems a good idea.
Communism then branches into multiple factions on how to achieve that goal, coercion and violence, or use elections and the power of the state. In the former cases, such as the Soviet Union, such situations open up for power grabs and authoritarian leaders, which I dislike.
The latter tactic created the European, and especially the Nordic welfare states, through democratic means. These states are not communist, as they abandoned the goal of workers in charge, and went for regulated capitalism instead. While better than most, these states now struggle, as even regulated capitalism distributes wealth from worker to owner.
In these states the workers are again exploited for the benefit of the owners. This is not explicitly understood, because this understanding and its terminology is considered a failed system, reference the Soviet system. Instead the exploitation is warped into other grievances, such as anti-globalism or anti-immigration, leading to a takeover of power by the political fringes. The fringe supported by the owners will have more funds and therefore better chances. And while that fringe may portray itself as pro worker, it will in fact represent a true capture of the state by the owners, leading to the opposite, based on the analysis of human nature as mentioned above.
Tldr: don’t ask questions if you can’t be bothered to read the answer 😅
There’s a lot of propaganda.
It works well for communes where small groups live together and are capable of holding one another accountable. It does not work when a small number of individuals control the state including power over law enforcement and the military. That concentration of power destroys communism and ok instead become exploitative and fascist.
A communist society never existed. The USSR, China,… they are NOT communist. The closest thing to a communist society is the Star Trek era (TNG). I guess it’s nice to live in such a society.
I thought there were some native American tribes that were communist.
Communism is “work as much as you can, use as much as you need.” Society must be technologically advanced to make this possible. Native American tribes were not technologically advanced.
“work as much as you can, use as much as you need.”
You don’t need technological advancement to be sustainable if your population remains relatively small and static. Hunter Gatherers actually follow pretty much exactly the formula you described above and ended up with far more leisure time than their agriculturally “advanced” counterparts.
It is an economic theory that is a useful critique of capitalism.
It is also used as a justification to create dog shit political systems.
I think it would be good if you offered a definition of communism, bc it can mean different things to different people.
Maybe we shouldn’t have any -isms as totalitarian systems.
Some things should be communistic. Healthcare, infrastructure, basic needs.
Some things should be democratic: Municipality planning, international policies
Some things should have full personal liberty: Arts, religion, relationships.
The guy below said this already but I was about to write it, communism is democratic by essence. That being said I am mostly agreeing with you
Thinking communism is not democratic means capitalist propaganda got to you. Communism is completely community driven (how else would workers own the means of production?) and built on consensus and direct democracy
I’m on Lemmy so
Everyone loses the plot when they think communism should make rich people richer as quickly as possible.
Impossible economic goal for anything larger than a township and unbelievable susceptible to corruption as a one-party form of government. No nation has ever implemented it without a violent revolution and government that quickly turns into a dictatorship.
In short, a nice dream, but a shit idea.
Worse than capitalism despite being more well intentioned.
Cs Lewis nailed it while talking about religion:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Ask yourself, do you really want the people of .ml holding power over every facet of your life?
OP asked about communism, not marxism-leninism specifically
If you’re trying to say true communism hasn’t been tried please let me stop you because that’s a no true Scotsman fallacy.
Everyone who’s ever instituted a flavor of communism would call their preferred flavor “true communism.”
Sure but that’s true of anything. However there is a theory of communism. You can, and should, weigh the various implementations at the scale of this theory
Its a shame that no true no true scottsman fallacy has ever been tried.
Big fan of her work
Communism is old, and young. The principals of communal living are the oldest form of human organization. It’s also the most common form today if you count small groups like family.
But as an organizing principal for government, it’s a baby. The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848. The Bolshevik revolution was in 1917. So the whole idea of communism is < 150-200yo. Compare to capitalism at this age and it’s all slavery and settler colonialism; the most massive redistribution of wealth through theft in history.
The logic that communism is a bad system because the Soviet Union should also condemn capitalism because the Dutch East India Company.
I would say the Soviet Union and the Dutch VOC were both bad for the same core reason: they were an ideological extreme. Capitalism is only a good system, if it is localized and regulated. Otherwise a small group of people will come out on top and exploit everyone else. But the same holds for communism, as clearly seen in any nation attempting communism, you inevitably get a dictator who will exploit the people for his or her own good. The difference is that when you weaken communism by implementing only parts of it, like universal healthcare, or unemployment benefits, then we call it socialism.
we call it liberal social democracy
While they share the common problem of dogmatism, I think that interpreting this as an issue of ideological “extremes” misses the point that moderatism is also an “extreme” - it dogmatically seeks stability of the status quo over conflict resolution, it “regulates” with an iron fist. Anything that becomes “ideological”, that holds something sacred, valued above oneself, can be hijacked by other people pursuing their own interests (or other ideological interests), and/or lead to contradictions between values and needs and desires.
