What do you mean? Communist podcasts I listened to consider them Communist, Internet search says the BBC says they are Communist.
Edit: you all like to downvote instead of having a conversation. Everybody hasn’t studied every subject, try sharing a little of what you know instead of discouraging discussion
You make some good points. They most definitely have currency and a lower working class with an upper government official class. I would not consider them communist at all. North Korea is just an authoritarian capitalistic hellhole, that tries to sprinkle in one or two socialist policies to maintain the illusion of pursuing communism.
I see in reading more that NK is pretty far from communist. But I think people have imagined communism to be something that it never could be. I don’t see how society could exist without money. I see that Soviets thought that eventually they wouldn’t need money but I think this is unrealistic and I don’t see that existence of money in a society could be used to determine if it’s communist or not. .
Marx said that socialism is the gateway for communism. Bring the means of prouction to the working class, then youd be able to make the next transition to communism.
In any case, there are no societies currently that meet the primary criteria for being called socialist OR communist.
Exactly, satisfying the highest standard is not a criteria for categorisation. It’s the same as saying USA isn’t capitalistic because governament regulations are still a thing
This is the problem with people promoting socialism. They tend to compare idealized version of socialism with real version of capitalism. And such comparison inevitably leads to unrealistic conclusions.
The problem is that real version of socialism is what you see in China or Cuba or former USSR. The argument with “we haven’t done socialism right” is the same as “we haven’t done capitalism right”.
I have been born in socialist country and to this day I can see negative consequences of that era. And the obvious reason why ideal socialism can’t exist - people. Same reason why capitalism sucks.
Edit: To people downvoting me: Your fake internet points have no meaning, but I love the irony of it. You can’t even keep the illusion of classlessness and equality in an internet thread, yet you are somehow convinced you could run a country like that. You’d be locking people for life in your communist paradise just for having different opinion and you know it.
I was born in country where intellectuals were in jail and uneducated workers were put to management positions, because they should own the means of production or some bullshit like that. You can imagine the end result of that.
And again, this is the same “that wasn’t true socialism” argument. Obviously it wasn’t. The socialism as per your definition can’t exist on a country level. You can see it being implemented on a small company level (think family owned businesses) but the bigger it gets the more the cracks show and it just does not scale.
You don’t need money going to shareholders in order to scale. You need management structure. Even anarchists would say they’re against unnecessary hierarchy, and at least a little structure is generally necessary. Top management does not need to be paid 300-to-1 over the average worker. Nor do they need to specifically represent shareholders, which is what a CEO is.
No we’d say we’re against hierarchy because hierarchy is evil and organisation doesn’t imply it. It’s an important corner stone to look out for as hierarchical realism (the notion that organisation just doesn’t work between equals) is the fundamental opponent. On the contrary, if you look at systems, complexity and chaos theory it becomes clear that it’s hierarchical systems which are fundamentally flawed, can, by their very structure, not process information nearly as well. SNAFU.
Right but as soon as you have hierarchy, you have classes. You can have hierarchy in family owned business and it can work with everyone doing their best for the good of the business/family. But these social structures fall apart as the hierarchy grows bigger. And very soon what’s good for your family is not necessary good for the business - including non-monetary stuff like how much time you spend working or how hard your job is. Notice how there’s not a single CEO or shareholder in the picture and the system is already falling apart.
There is this famous saying from communist times: “If you’re not stealing, you’re stealing from your family” That pretty much sums it up.
You can’t have working socialism with humans, because the system is inhuman by its very nature. (and I don’t mean it in bad way even if the consequences end up being really nasty for many human beings)
Lenin himself called the system he instituted state capitalism, it was supposed to be a transitory state as Marx said (and the Bolsheviks were very big on historical materialism) that first you have capitalism, develop productivity, then communism would follow naturally as a consequence of resolving capitalism’s inherent contradictions.
The gaslighting started with Stalin, who invented the term “really existing socialism” to make it doubly clear that it was neither real, existed, or was socialism.
The closest any society ever got to communism isn’t via the Bolshevik “dictatorship of the proletariat” (aka dictatorship of the state bureaucracy), but via Anarchism. Horizontal organisation, abolish hierarchies. Very early revolutionary Russia qualifies until the Bolsheviks abolished councils in practice, Rojava qualifies, Chiapas qualifies, revolutionary Spain (until Bolsheviks teamed up with fascists to kill it off), revolutionary Ukraine (until the Bolsheviks – I think you see the pattern).
Interesting tidbit I picked up on an Andrewisim video recently: organizations from the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist branch of the left are particularly vulnerable to falling into cult behavior. It’s a reason to consider the whole branch to be bad and cut it right off. If not that far, then at least view organizations from that branch with a lot of criticism.
Yes, exactly it always fails, because it just does not scale. It’s an idea, that can’t exist in reality on a country level. You can point to Freetown Christiania as an example - a small anarchist commune, that already shows some major cracks in its structure. I mean, just grow family business a bit and you can already see structures and hierarchy emerging.
It’s rather anti communist to be ruled by a dictator, and certainly a hereditary one. That’s as close as you get to monarchy, which is the antithesis of communism.
The irony is that the people are good that they live in an communist utopia, and while everyone shares the same circumstances that can hold. It’s only when living abroad when they see they are being exploited, like the rioters in this case.
It’s because they haven’t winnowed the State as Marx described. The problem is that once certain members of the Proletariat get their hands upon the levers of power, they find they rather like it and don’t want to let go.
They should consider Communism.
I wonder if they think they actually DO live under communism?
deleted by creator
What do you mean? Communist podcasts I listened to consider them Communist, Internet search says the BBC says they are Communist.
Edit: you all like to downvote instead of having a conversation. Everybody hasn’t studied every subject, try sharing a little of what you know instead of discouraging discussion
Theyre a classless society with no currency?
You sure they arent a capitalist dictatorship disguised as Communist?
You make some good points. They most definitely have currency and a lower working class with an upper government official class. I would not consider them communist at all. North Korea is just an authoritarian capitalistic hellhole, that tries to sprinkle in one or two socialist policies to maintain the illusion of pursuing communism.
Just slap a coat of red paint and a gold star on it and call it communist.
I see in reading more that NK is pretty far from communist. But I think people have imagined communism to be something that it never could be. I don’t see how society could exist without money. I see that Soviets thought that eventually they wouldn’t need money but I think this is unrealistic and I don’t see that existence of money in a society could be used to determine if it’s communist or not. .
Marx said that socialism is the gateway for communism. Bring the means of prouction to the working class, then youd be able to make the next transition to communism.
In any case, there are no societies currently that meet the primary criteria for being called socialist OR communist.
I think the Zapatistas are doing pretty good at being socialists. They’re not that far off from pure communism, either.
The fact you are incapable of understanding something doesn’t change truth.
Exactly, satisfying the highest standard is not a criteria for categorisation. It’s the same as saying USA isn’t capitalistic because governament regulations are still a thing
This is the problem with people promoting socialism. They tend to compare idealized version of socialism with real version of capitalism. And such comparison inevitably leads to unrealistic conclusions.
The problem is that real version of socialism is what you see in China or Cuba or former USSR. The argument with “we haven’t done socialism right” is the same as “we haven’t done capitalism right”.
I have been born in socialist country and to this day I can see negative consequences of that era. And the obvious reason why ideal socialism can’t exist - people. Same reason why capitalism sucks.
Edit: To people downvoting me: Your fake internet points have no meaning, but I love the irony of it. You can’t even keep the illusion of classlessness and equality in an internet thread, yet you are somehow convinced you could run a country like that. You’d be locking people for life in your communist paradise just for having different opinion and you know it.
Definition of Socialism: the workers own the means of production.
Which country were you born in where you owned the means of production?
I was born in country where intellectuals were in jail and uneducated workers were put to management positions, because they should own the means of production or some bullshit like that. You can imagine the end result of that.
And again, this is the same “that wasn’t true socialism” argument. Obviously it wasn’t. The socialism as per your definition can’t exist on a country level. You can see it being implemented on a small company level (think family owned businesses) but the bigger it gets the more the cracks show and it just does not scale.
You don’t need money going to shareholders in order to scale. You need management structure. Even anarchists would say they’re against unnecessary hierarchy, and at least a little structure is generally necessary. Top management does not need to be paid 300-to-1 over the average worker. Nor do they need to specifically represent shareholders, which is what a CEO is.
No we’d say we’re against hierarchy because hierarchy is evil and organisation doesn’t imply it. It’s an important corner stone to look out for as hierarchical realism (the notion that organisation just doesn’t work between equals) is the fundamental opponent. On the contrary, if you look at systems, complexity and chaos theory it becomes clear that it’s hierarchical systems which are fundamentally flawed, can, by their very structure, not process information nearly as well. SNAFU.
Right but as soon as you have hierarchy, you have classes. You can have hierarchy in family owned business and it can work with everyone doing their best for the good of the business/family. But these social structures fall apart as the hierarchy grows bigger. And very soon what’s good for your family is not necessary good for the business - including non-monetary stuff like how much time you spend working or how hard your job is. Notice how there’s not a single CEO or shareholder in the picture and the system is already falling apart.
There is this famous saying from communist times: “If you’re not stealing, you’re stealing from your family” That pretty much sums it up.
You can’t have working socialism with humans, because the system is inhuman by its very nature. (and I don’t mean it in bad way even if the consequences end up being really nasty for many human beings)
Lenin himself called the system he instituted state capitalism, it was supposed to be a transitory state as Marx said (and the Bolsheviks were very big on historical materialism) that first you have capitalism, develop productivity, then communism would follow naturally as a consequence of resolving capitalism’s inherent contradictions.
The gaslighting started with Stalin, who invented the term “really existing socialism” to make it doubly clear that it was neither real, existed, or was socialism.
The closest any society ever got to communism isn’t via the Bolshevik “dictatorship of the proletariat” (aka dictatorship of the state bureaucracy), but via Anarchism. Horizontal organisation, abolish hierarchies. Very early revolutionary Russia qualifies until the Bolsheviks abolished councils in practice, Rojava qualifies, Chiapas qualifies, revolutionary Spain (until Bolsheviks teamed up with fascists to kill it off), revolutionary Ukraine (until the Bolsheviks – I think you see the pattern).
Interesting tidbit I picked up on an Andrewisim video recently: organizations from the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist branch of the left are particularly vulnerable to falling into cult behavior. It’s a reason to consider the whole branch to be bad and cut it right off. If not that far, then at least view organizations from that branch with a lot of criticism.
Yes, exactly it always fails, because it just does not scale. It’s an idea, that can’t exist in reality on a country level. You can point to Freetown Christiania as an example - a small anarchist commune, that already shows some major cracks in its structure. I mean, just grow family business a bit and you can already see structures and hierarchy emerging.
Rojava is about 4.6 million people, about as many as Kuwait. About 11 Icelands worth of population.
Yeah that one is probably closest. Still pretty far from socialism and held together by military with child soldiers.
Removed by mod
Ironic
Well at least they have the right to (down)vote then. That isn’t that common in the socialist paradise last time I’ve checked. 🤣
It’s rather anti communist to be ruled by a dictator, and certainly a hereditary one. That’s as close as you get to monarchy, which is the antithesis of communism.
The irony is that the people are good that they live in an communist utopia, and while everyone shares the same circumstances that can hold. It’s only when living abroad when they see they are being exploited, like the rioters in this case.
It’s because they haven’t winnowed the State as Marx described. The problem is that once certain members of the Proletariat get their hands upon the levers of power, they find they rather like it and don’t want to let go.
It seems like with that level of militancy they’ve got some pretty powerful class consciousness.