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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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
Boring meme
Not even really a meme… Or at least the template isn’t used properly - the guys should be saying the same thing.
