This graph is important

It’s based on the writings of professor Cheng Enfu, President of the Academy of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and Director of the Academic Division of Marxist Studies of CASS.

Socialism and communism are not one and done processes. They are gradual changes, both Marx and Lenin have addressed this extensively. We can’t just instantly press the big communism button unfortunately.

Here’s a paper that goes way more in depth on the professor’s definitions: https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/pdf/10.1521/siso.2022.86.2.159

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  • davelA
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    1 day ago

    The “boom-bust cycle” instability is inherent to capitalism, not to a socialist economy, planned or otherwise.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle

    Periodic crises in capitalism formed the basis of the theory of Karl Marx, who further claimed that these crises were increasing in severity and, on the basis of which, he predicted a communist revolution.

    Marxian view, profit is the major engine of the market economy, but business (capital) profitability has a tendency to fall that recurrently creates crises in which mass unemployment occurs, businesses fail, remaining capital is centralized and concentrated and profitability is recovered. In the long run, these crises tend to be more severe and the system will eventually fail.

    In contrast, profit is not the engine of a socialist economy: meeting people’s needs is.

    • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      its inherent in any system with a monoculture / top down approach to planning. its not a problem that’s unique to capitalism.

      think of it in terms of decision making: who is making the decisions? are there methods for unique approaches to be tried without consent from said leadership? if not then you’ll have boom/bust cycles due to errors in decision making by the leadership group because there isnt a way to allow alternate approaches that would amortize out the errors.

      any system with ‘centrally planned’ is no different ‘ceo runs company’ and will have the same behavioral outcomes for the system.

      it has nothing to do with profit motives. its about the motives of the individual making the decisions. just ‘removing profit’ from the list of motives (which profit is never the motivation, its power/ability to do whatever you wish) doesnt in any way impact the behavior of the individuals it just changes the justification used. but the system will still see the same behaviors / outcomes because you havent fundamentally changed the system

      • davelA
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        18 hours ago

        A democratic centralist government is fundamentally different from ‘ceo runs company/state’. And a CEO can’t just do whatever they want: they have to make a profit, or else their investors will have them removed or the company will be liquidated from insolvency.

        • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          15 hours ago

          Disagree. On all counts. Ceos dont have to make a profit. A business needs to make a profit (otherwise it isnt a business.) you fundamentally misunderstand the role of a ceo.

          You’re too focused on the monetary policy you dont understand the power dynamics at play. If you have a centralized authority over the economy then you’ll have a monoculture. Just tossing ‘democratic’ in the name doesnt change this fact. Having elected officials doesn’t change this fact. Claiming not profit oriented doesnt change this fact.

          The fact is you do not need a centrally planned anything and having one actually prevents improvements.

          • davelA
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            15 hours ago

            Ceos dont have to make a profit. A business needs to make a profit

            This is just wordplay. If the business doesn’t make a profit, the CEO gets the boot, so the CEO makes decisions with an eye on profitability.

            you fundamentally misunderstand the role of a ceo.

            Why don’t you tell us what the role of the CEO is then?

            If you have a centralized authority over the economy then you’ll have a monoculture.

            By some meanings of “monoculture,” that is definitionally true. But that doesn’t mean the entire country is necessarily run as a monolith, because that centralized “monoculture” may set up any of a variety of power decentralization/federation/power sharing schemes.

            The fact is you do not need a centrally planned anything and having one actually prevents improvements.

            That’s a very strong assertion of a “fact” without evidence, and frankly sounds like something von Mises or Hayek or Rothbart or Greenspan would say.

            • jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 hours ago

              Its not just wordplay. A business requires profit or it crumbles because it cant pay labor. A CEO is just a final arbiter of decisions for the business at the end of the day.

              You dont need a central authority to setup that infrastructure you described.

              And centrally planned economies are the rarity rather than the norm most economies are not centrally managed. The fact you think my statement about them existing without central planning requires evidence implies you have a lack of understanding about the basics of these systems.

              As for your name drops who cares? I Hardly give a shit about Liberal economic policies nor am i advocating for them. Fun fact the US is a centrally planned economy for the most part.

              You have yet to demonstrate why you need your centrally planned economy/government or why its something we should ever be looking to do. But honestly i dont particularly care to hear more lenin/marx regurgitated without critical thought on why its even relevant in this day and age when we know we can do the same things without the centralized government they advocated for.

              Honestly itd be wonderful if communists moved on to the more modern approaches to socialism and stopped wallowing in the past.