ITT people imagining realities. Some people preach about the other without knowing shit about them.
Don’t we all love a strawman
Boring meme
Boring comment. It’s doing its job, which is garnering response and sparking discussion.
Not even really a meme… Or at least the template isn’t used properly - the guys should be saying the same thing.
Pure comunism sounds nice at first glance, but it also has major issues. Under comunism every one is equal, however inherently people are not equal and should be rewarded accordingly. What this leads to is that high performers are rewarded as much as lazy bums. This causes stagnation in production output as why try hard when you can chill. And as history tells us with Soviet Union, can lead to massive famines. It also creates parallel economies of bribes and favours because well connected and productive people still want to be above every one else, this gives unfair advantage mafias and criminals. As they have no moral problem abusing these parallel economies.
In my opinion, no pure system is good if it’s comunusim or capitalism. You have to have a bit of everything like in Scandinavian countries or some Western european countries. You need to reward high performers but not too much. You need to take care of the weak and sick but do not make it that it’s not worth working. You have to allow equal access to education no matter your background so everyone has the same starting point.
You evidently haven’t read the paper, so why do you think you know what Communism even is? Marx railed against “equalitarians.” From Critique of the Gotha Programme:
But one man is superior to another physically or mentally and so supplies more labour in the same time, or can work for a longer time; and labour, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labour. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment and thus productive capacity of the worker as natural privileges. It is, therefore, a right ot inequality, in its content, like every right. Right by its very nature can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by the same standard in so far as they are brought under the same point of view, are taken from one definite side only, for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers, and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labour, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right instead of being equal would have to be unequal.
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but itself life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
Moreover, famines were ended by the Soviet Union, when they were common under the Tsarist regime. Industrializing and collectivizing improved crop yields and solved the issues of famine that plagued the Tsarist Russia.
Please, if you’re going to have an opinion on something, at least do the barest research of the subject rather than imagining a narrative. You can start with my introductory Marxist reading list.
Famines were not ended by soviets take a look at this
The Soviet Union was disbanded in 1991. No, the Soviet system was not magical and thus immediately fixed everything overnight, but took decades of work and industrialization.
I simply replied to your comment with highlighted word ‘ended’ to prove it did not end it. Now you shift the narrative. Not cool, not cool.
Edit: to add, this famine was not caused by some remnant of problems from previous rulers. It was a direct effect of Soviet policy.
The Soviets did end famine, just not with a wave of a magic wand. Outside of WWII, the 1930s famine was the last famine in Russia, because collectivization and industrialization at the hands of the Communists improved farming methods. The 1930s famine in particular was a mixture of natural causes and mismanagement, but the long term effects were it being the final major famine outside of when Nazi Germany took Ukraine, the USSR’s breadbasket.
This wish-washy anticommunism ignores the fact that famines were regular and common under the Tsars for centuries until the Communists stopped it. It isn’t “shifting the narrative,” you were wrong when you said everyone was paid the same and were wrong when you said this led to famine. You were wrong on your understanding of history and theory at several points each, why speak when you haven’t investigated.
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“Under comunism every one is equal” No. It follows the “from each according to their capabilities, to each according to their needs” idea
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The “phenomenon” you describe is not the cause nor related to the causes of famines within the Soviet Union or China.
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Compare “production output” from pre-soviet to Soviet Russia. It was one of the most rapid and dramatic increase in productive output in known history. The first 5 year plan saw gross industrial output increase by 118%.
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“It also creates parallel economies of bribes and favours because well connected and productive people still want to be above every one else, this gives unfair advantage mafias and criminals.” That very accurately describes the post soviet kleptocracy and modern Russian capitalist state.
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“In my opinion, no pure system is good if it’s comunusim or capitalism. You have to have a bit of everything” then it stops being communist or capitalist at that point but something else entirely like socialist, syndicalist, communalist, etc. putting every possible form of socioeconomic organization on a capitalist-communist spectrum is extremely reductionist.
Overall wildly inaccurate, uninformed and heavily biased take. Second paragraph shows you have good opinions and solid instincts, you should work on making them a bit more informed.
Excellent comment.
First of all, thanks for a constructive comment. Rare find when discussed politics online.
- In theory, yes, but in practice, it was not like that. A director of a company would earn max 30% more than the low level employees. If you would perform exceptionally, no one would care. And then you would stand in line for 7h to buy a banana because everyone had almost equal amount of money. Don’t get me started. How many years would you have to wait to get a car.
- On second thought, I agree with you on this one. It’s more a central control and inability for private people to own business and means of production that caused famines.
- 5 year plan is a horrible example. As it caused a famine that killed 5.7 to 8.7 million people. It’s huge sacrifice for a 118% production growth. Take a look at this article on wikipedia It’s like Russian land conquests through history, yeah great you now have lots of land but at what costs. Blood and bones of your brothers and sisters and all your neighbors.
- Absolutely, this was happening under Soviet rule. There was a massive trade of favors and bribes. It was not monetary, however. Perhaps someone got some nice cheese from france, so now you can skip line at a hospital. Or perhaps you know a guy in crimea that could host your friend in a beachhouse, and your friend happens to be in charge of allocating appartments so you get one a bit nicer than the other people. Source: geneactions of stories of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and great grandparents. I’m from a country that was a former Soviet state.
- Fair point.
- Get started. Don’t waste both our time with numbers pulled out of your ass and wild speculation. So long as the Soviet Union is our example, how many hours of work did it take to purchase a vehicle? How many hours would you actually need to stand in the “banana line”? Was that even a thing?
- 5 year plan was a perfect example because it highlights that maybe “productive output” isn’t the best/only metric to judge by ;)
- Sure, I’d argue that’s a bit different but fair enough. However, you should look into if it was better or worse under communism and whether that was a causative effect or correlative with other events going on at the same time?
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As a libertarian I have no problem with communism as Marx envisioned it: people spontaneously sharing because they feel like it.
That kind of communism is free.
The problem is when people use guns and governments to force others to “share” against their will. Marx believed that was a necessary step, that would produce the abundance that would allow people to relax and work spontaneously for the collective.
What Marx failed to understand is the most productive economic plan is letting people do what they want (free markets), and that what people want to do is trade.
Marx envisioned full public ownership and central planning, because markets had a natural tendency to centralize themselves. He was not about “sharing” but progressing beyond Capitalism. People want markets and trade now, like they wanted feudalism before the steam engine, but one day markets will subside in the same manner feudalism did.
State “communism” means capitalism run by the state.
Communism has only ever meant full public ownership and central planning in Marxism. State communism is communism.
Only if there are no checks and balances. The typical “communist” regimes like Russia and China can hardly be called communist by any definition. Just like nobody would call nazi’s socialist, despite it being in their name (national socialism).
Fucking “I take all and ya’ll better belive I’ll redistribute favorably or fucking die” is hardly even left. I especially hate when people say “in theory it makes sense, but in reality…”, no it fucking doesn’t even in theory!
The USSR and PRC were and are examples of Socialist states run along Marxian economics, such as public ownership and central planning. If you consider Marx to be a Capitalist, I fear you haven’t read him.
I just feel like creating a class of people with absolute control that mustn’t be questioned under threat of absolute annihilation is a spit in the face of the most core socialist let alone communist values.
They both have one body dictating what the people’s needs are that mustn’t under any circumstance be challenged. Making the whole “according to needs” part null and void. Both have histories of completely neglecting their citizens in favor of pursuing imperial ambitions.
Also not calling anybody capitalist. Saying it’s not really communism isn’t the same as saying it’s capitalism. So considering your comment I feel the need to also express that my second paragraph is in no way saying other countries haven’t done the same under other systems like capitalism. Just covering my ass, feeling the ugly head of pointless what aboutism approaching.
What you describe in your first paragraph isn’t what Marxists advocate for nor is it what AES states look like. You can read historical texts like Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan, or This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong if you want to dig deeper, but overall government officials are an extension of class and not a separate class, and officials absolutely are accountable with mechanisms like Recall Elections.
More than the prior texts, though, contextualization is important, and Blackshirts and Reds does a great job of that.
Yes… I was saying the theory doesn’t match the situation on the ground. And the links you gave are all theory, which I at no point argued about.
The “separate class” I mentioned was also less of a theory reference, and more of a reality on the ground. Party members are treated differently. My grandpa was a party member back in the western block and had privileges regular folk didn’t. Like traveling around the globe and importing foreign “imperialist” goods seemingly at will. My mom stood out with his gifts, like wearing jeans.
Also you say they have accountability with stuff like recall elections, but I’d like to invite you to provide an example of this actually happening. Like genuinely, I can’t find any. All I find is officials being ousted by other officials, never by regular everyday people. As an example of completely dodging consequences, I’d mention that soviet countries and China both tried becoming leading grain exporters while their populations fucking starved, and people complaining were just labeled liars and thieves!
Which reminds me of a saying we used to have: “Kdo nekrade, okrádá rodinu” or “Who doesn’t steal, is stealing from their family”. A very different context from the one above, but it paints a pretty vivid picture, so I think it’s still worth sharing.
The three works I listed were history books, 2 written during the early Soviet Period and the third written shortly after the fall of the USSR. Theory is important, but so are history books, and in this case history books take priority because these are accounts of the ground. I am not sure where you get off believing them to be theory. You have your anecdotes, which can help guide your experiences, and I provided historical texts and analysis.
There can be no checks and balances on a state.
States only act in a way to preserve themselves. If that means by helping the working class - so be it. If it means oppressing the working class - that’s ok too. As long as the structure and elites remain in place.
Which is why authoritarian state communism always degenerates into a kind of state capitalism where the owner class is the state instead of capitalists. In communism there is no owner class
This is nonsense, and ascribes a supernatural element to whatever it is you declare a “state” without analyzing its structures or mechanisms. As a consequence, you incorrectly pretend that Communism somehow would not have a government, when the point of Marxism is working towards full Public Ownership and Central Planning through developing the Public Forces. Government officials are an extension of the dominant class, with a fully public economy there no longer exists classes.
