I’ll bite. Until we have machines doing most things, communism is unlikely to work, especially in post agrarian societies. We need to first fully realize not just post scarcity, but post work. In theory it seems like things like anarcho syndicalism and basic communism should work, but I don’t think they really function at a large scale. Socialized democracy and worker owned cooperatives within a capitalism system gets the closest to solving the problems imo. I like the idea of anarcho syndicalism the most, but I just don’t see how it can survive in todays world.
With all systems the same problems crop up. Powerful people seek to exploit ANY system to their benefit, and unmotivated people seek to do the least to get by. Who cleans toilets in a equitable communist country, who picks up the trash? Do we force people into job roles to fill the need? Without economic incentives I don’t see how the system stays healthy. Removing class barriers to some jobs does not always make them desirable enough to fill the need. Capitalisms structure inherently results in people that are strongly incentivized into those roles, because the wage will usually rise to meet the demand for employees. (Low educated citizens seeing opportunity in jobs that make a living wage.)
Currently the biggest problem we have, imo, is really that people with power expend tremendous resources on controlling the flow of information, and that has left a lot of people very misinformed. No matter the system, those same people will be fooled into voting for things that benefit the powerful to the detriment of the rest of us. That’s not so much a capitalism problem, but an information problem. That’s a problem we have no solution for. It has been an issue with humans since civilization has existed. We can’t individually know everything, so we rely on others to fill in the gaps in our thinking and assumptions, and many of those people have a motive to only give you the information that benefits them, or worse off just lie. A lot of peoples anger towards capitalism, is a result of unbridled capitalism in a world where most people have incomplete information to make good decisions at the voting booth. We only have unbridled capitalism because of misinformation, not because capitalism is inherently bad.
Basic Communism is the preceding step to advanced Communism, yes. Marx makes this exceptionally clear. What specifically do you think people are advocating for that cannot work?
There are numerous solutions to the “undesirable jobs” questions. For background, Marx makes it very clear that intense labor is condensed unskilled labor, sake with skilled labor. In lower Communism by which skilled labor is still a requirement, and thus labor takes on different characters, pay would likely be represented in different manners depending on intensity and complexity. Feel free to ask any questions if this is confusing.
I agree that misinformation is a huge problem, but I disagree that your conclusion is that it causes the issues with Capitalism, rather than Capitalism itself. Capitalism structurally has issues with power imbalance, and issues like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall that must be overcome via Socialism.
Overall, I think you would be served immensely by reading some Marx. I know that’s a very typical leftist response, but I do believe much of your issues come from assuming Communists want to jump straight to end-stage Communism now, rather than building it over time and adjusting with the change in Material conditions.
I AM left wing, have read about many social theories in my life all over the spectrum. There isn’t much one can do to distill that down to one post. Not one of the solutions to communisms problems I’ve seen in my lifetime are ever very fair or realistic. It comes with all of the same problems as capitalism as it pertains to power and it is infinitely less agile than capitalism. You can get to nearly the same place that communism wants to get, by adapting socialist ideals into capitalism while keeping capitalisms agility in the marketplace of needs.
I’m sorry, but you’ve made a number of blanket statements here with nothing to back it up, combined with a failure to address the very fact that your point on bullshit jobs was already thoroughly debunked by Marx.
If you’ve read Marx, why do you think people are advocating paying sewage workers the same as office workers? There are even methods that suggest working fewer hours for the same pay with regards to how strenuous it is.
How can you consider yourself left wing if you reject Socialism in favor of Capitalism? That’s just a centrist or right-winger.
How does Communism “come with all of the same power problems as Capitalism” if Communism is fundamentally democratic, and Capitalism fundamentally anti-democratic?
How is Capitalism more agile than Communism?
How can you say Capitalism can nearly get to a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society when it depends on all 3 to exist?
How can you “adapt Socialist ideas into Capitalism” when Capitalism and Socialism are mutually exclusive Modes of Production?
You can’t tell me the Great Purge is something a left-wing person would do. He thought Hitler was “a great man”.
I’m far from an expert in political history, but if we were to look at controversial figures on the left, Guevara and Castro are probably the “worst” I can think of that still clearly had left-wing ideals in mind.
Leftism isn’t synonymous with being a good person. As for Hitler, many Americans called Hitler a great man as well, it wasn’t until wartime that anyone went against Hitler meaningfully.
Stalin and Mao were both leftists, and both pretty damn brutal. Read anything Stalin has written, and it’s clear that he certainly believed himself to be a leftist, and a student of Marx and Lenin, no matter how horrible his actions.
I mean, it’s not an absolute, but Wikipedia defines Left-wing politics as “the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole or certain social hierarchies”.
Stalin actively repressed and killed ethnic minorities during the Great Purge. That’s absolutely not egalitarianism. I don’t know much of his politics but if he was trying to be a communist, his government was not really a “Dictatorship of the proletariat”. He could’ve written anything, actions speak clearer than words.
I’m not in any way defending the Moscow Trials or the Great Purge, but the reasoning behind Stalin’s Great Purge was to eliminate counter revolutionaries and solidify his own power so that he may continue the path to Communism, in his eyes and the eyes of the party.
Get into anarcho-syndicalism. Form and join existing anarcho-communist worker’s associations. The only sustainable way for us to end capitalism is if we start collectively associating and operating outside the framework of capitalism today.
Same here! For now, I try to focus on implementing self-sufficiency and communal practices, even if the bulk of my life is engaged with Capitalist systems.
Maybe there’s a sweet spot in between Capitalism and Communism. They are basically the 2 extremes of the political spectrum after all. Surely there’s a spot on the spectrum that embraces worker’s rights while also incentivising commercial enterprise. Checks and balances are always necessary, even in a utopia.
Who literally says that? Capitalism is the only system that allows people to dig themselves out of that hole. Know any Cubans? Socialism works awesome…says nobody crushed by it.
Can you explain the structural issues you belive Socialism to necessarily have? Can you explain why they are inevitable in Socialism, and moreso than Capitalism?
Yep, that’s why more democratic Modes of Production such as Communism are more resistant to corruption than antidemocratic Capitalistic Modes of Productuon.
Capitalism, by definition, is a system where Capital Owners pay wage laboring workers to create commodities. Functionally, you have people with excess power.
Communism, on the other hand, requires collective ownership of Capital. You don’t have fundamental power imbalances baked in.
Following, it’s easier to implement anti-corruption practices, such as forming democratic worker councils.
There was never socialism in Asia or Eastern Europe. At no point have the workers seized the means of production and had a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Do you think tools have mystical mind control aspects to them that cause their owners to commit genocide if society collectively owns them? If so, then why does genocide also happen in Capitalist countries?
I’m a fan of Communism with tight regulations and checks on corruption, personally.
Of the two, one is still far more realistic than the other.
Which one, and why, structurally? What about Communism or Capitalism works for or against democratic measures being put in place?
I’ll bite. Until we have machines doing most things, communism is unlikely to work, especially in post agrarian societies. We need to first fully realize not just post scarcity, but post work. In theory it seems like things like anarcho syndicalism and basic communism should work, but I don’t think they really function at a large scale. Socialized democracy and worker owned cooperatives within a capitalism system gets the closest to solving the problems imo. I like the idea of anarcho syndicalism the most, but I just don’t see how it can survive in todays world.
With all systems the same problems crop up. Powerful people seek to exploit ANY system to their benefit, and unmotivated people seek to do the least to get by. Who cleans toilets in a equitable communist country, who picks up the trash? Do we force people into job roles to fill the need? Without economic incentives I don’t see how the system stays healthy. Removing class barriers to some jobs does not always make them desirable enough to fill the need. Capitalisms structure inherently results in people that are strongly incentivized into those roles, because the wage will usually rise to meet the demand for employees. (Low educated citizens seeing opportunity in jobs that make a living wage.)
Currently the biggest problem we have, imo, is really that people with power expend tremendous resources on controlling the flow of information, and that has left a lot of people very misinformed. No matter the system, those same people will be fooled into voting for things that benefit the powerful to the detriment of the rest of us. That’s not so much a capitalism problem, but an information problem. That’s a problem we have no solution for. It has been an issue with humans since civilization has existed. We can’t individually know everything, so we rely on others to fill in the gaps in our thinking and assumptions, and many of those people have a motive to only give you the information that benefits them, or worse off just lie. A lot of peoples anger towards capitalism, is a result of unbridled capitalism in a world where most people have incomplete information to make good decisions at the voting booth. We only have unbridled capitalism because of misinformation, not because capitalism is inherently bad.
Basic Communism is the preceding step to advanced Communism, yes. Marx makes this exceptionally clear. What specifically do you think people are advocating for that cannot work?
There are numerous solutions to the “undesirable jobs” questions. For background, Marx makes it very clear that intense labor is condensed unskilled labor, sake with skilled labor. In lower Communism by which skilled labor is still a requirement, and thus labor takes on different characters, pay would likely be represented in different manners depending on intensity and complexity. Feel free to ask any questions if this is confusing.
I agree that misinformation is a huge problem, but I disagree that your conclusion is that it causes the issues with Capitalism, rather than Capitalism itself. Capitalism structurally has issues with power imbalance, and issues like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall that must be overcome via Socialism.
Overall, I think you would be served immensely by reading some Marx. I know that’s a very typical leftist response, but I do believe much of your issues come from assuming Communists want to jump straight to end-stage Communism now, rather than building it over time and adjusting with the change in Material conditions.
I AM left wing, have read about many social theories in my life all over the spectrum. There isn’t much one can do to distill that down to one post. Not one of the solutions to communisms problems I’ve seen in my lifetime are ever very fair or realistic. It comes with all of the same problems as capitalism as it pertains to power and it is infinitely less agile than capitalism. You can get to nearly the same place that communism wants to get, by adapting socialist ideals into capitalism while keeping capitalisms agility in the marketplace of needs.
I’m sorry, but you’ve made a number of blanket statements here with nothing to back it up, combined with a failure to address the very fact that your point on bullshit jobs was already thoroughly debunked by Marx.
If you’ve read Marx, why do you think people are advocating paying sewage workers the same as office workers? There are even methods that suggest working fewer hours for the same pay with regards to how strenuous it is.
How can you consider yourself left wing if you reject Socialism in favor of Capitalism? That’s just a centrist or right-winger.
How does Communism “come with all of the same power problems as Capitalism” if Communism is fundamentally democratic, and Capitalism fundamentally anti-democratic?
How is Capitalism more agile than Communism?
How can you say Capitalism can nearly get to a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society when it depends on all 3 to exist?
How can you “adapt Socialist ideas into Capitalism” when Capitalism and Socialism are mutually exclusive Modes of Production?
All in all, very dumbfounded at this comment.
Removed by mod
One was implemented and is actively ruining the planet.
The other was only used as a façade by dictators that didn’t feel like labeling themselves as right-wing.
Stalin was both bad and left-wing. Leftism isn’t a synonym for good, even if I’m a leftist and don’t support Stalin.
You can’t learn from historical examples and prevent the issues of the past by turning a blind eye.
You can’t tell me the Great Purge is something a left-wing person would do. He thought Hitler was “a great man”.
I’m far from an expert in political history, but if we were to look at controversial figures on the left, Guevara and Castro are probably the “worst” I can think of that still clearly had left-wing ideals in mind.
Leftism isn’t synonymous with being a good person. As for Hitler, many Americans called Hitler a great man as well, it wasn’t until wartime that anyone went against Hitler meaningfully.
Stalin and Mao were both leftists, and both pretty damn brutal. Read anything Stalin has written, and it’s clear that he certainly believed himself to be a leftist, and a student of Marx and Lenin, no matter how horrible his actions.
I mean, it’s not an absolute, but Wikipedia defines Left-wing politics as “the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole or certain social hierarchies”.
Stalin actively repressed and killed ethnic minorities during the Great Purge. That’s absolutely not egalitarianism. I don’t know much of his politics but if he was trying to be a communist, his government was not really a “Dictatorship of the proletariat”. He could’ve written anything, actions speak clearer than words.
I’m not in any way defending the Moscow Trials or the Great Purge, but the reasoning behind Stalin’s Great Purge was to eliminate counter revolutionaries and solidify his own power so that he may continue the path to Communism, in his eyes and the eyes of the party.
Still evil, still leftist.
Wish we’d see that someday
Get into anarcho-syndicalism. Form and join existing anarcho-communist worker’s associations. The only sustainable way for us to end capitalism is if we start collectively associating and operating outside the framework of capitalism today.
Exactly. No revolution occurred because everyone wished really hard it would happen but still played by the oppressor’s rules.
Same here! For now, I try to focus on implementing self-sufficiency and communal practices, even if the bulk of my life is engaged with Capitalist systems.
Human nature is a mf though
Sure, that’s why we need Socialism and eventually Communism, rather than Capitalism.
I mean im Canadian and it sure keeps going that way anyway
Canada isn’t becoming Socialist or Communist anytime soon, lmao
I’m a fan of pragmatism: real solutions to real problems.
So am I!
deleted by creator
Yeah, but I don’t think communism is a bulletproof solution either. Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
The real issue is that people think the disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink.
Maybe there’s a sweet spot in between Capitalism and Communism. They are basically the 2 extremes of the political spectrum after all. Surely there’s a spot on the spectrum that embraces worker’s rights while also incentivising commercial enterprise. Checks and balances are always necessary, even in a utopia.
Who literally says that? Capitalism is the only system that allows people to dig themselves out of that hole. Know any Cubans? Socialism works awesome…says nobody crushed by it.
I think you’re projecting your tribalistic tendencies onto literally everyone else on the planet.
Sure…sure…
Can you explain the structural issues you belive Socialism to necessarily have? Can you explain why they are inevitable in Socialism, and moreso than Capitalism?
This is the essence, corruption.
Yep, that’s why more democratic Modes of Production such as Communism are more resistant to corruption than antidemocratic Capitalistic Modes of Productuon.
I think many of the socialist states of Asia and Eastern Europe are or were ridiculously corrupt. How democratic those were is of course questionable.
The same could be said of Capitalism. The difference is that the very structure of Socialism is based on democratic principles.
I meant that it wasn’t really very resistant to corruption.
It’s still structurally more resistant to corruption than Capitalism, which is my point. It’s not immune, nothing is.
I’m not sure even that is true. Not sure how you can even really measure that. Or do you mean it could theoretically be?
Yes, theoretically.
Capitalism, by definition, is a system where Capital Owners pay wage laboring workers to create commodities. Functionally, you have people with excess power.
Communism, on the other hand, requires collective ownership of Capital. You don’t have fundamental power imbalances baked in.
Following, it’s easier to implement anti-corruption practices, such as forming democratic worker councils.
There was never socialism in Asia or Eastern Europe. At no point have the workers seized the means of production and had a dictatorship of the proletariat.
You can apply this No True Scotsman logic to capitalism, too. Its biggest fans say True capitalism has never been tried, either.
Not a fan of the genocide though
I read the demands of the Communist Party of Germany and I didn’t see Marx saying anything about that.
Can’t think of many who are. Certainly not me.
Do you think tools have mystical mind control aspects to them that cause their owners to commit genocide if society collectively owns them? If so, then why does genocide also happen in Capitalist countries?