If you want communism, you can start a commune

I see this way too often here on Lemmy, so I want to post this. Starting a commune is legal in most countries. If you believe in communism, you can found a commune and show us all how great it is.

You lack money? Well, that is literally what stock markets and venture capitalists (capitalism) are created to solve. If you are ready for an IPO, you can sell shares to raise funds. If you are not, you can get Venture Capital in exchange for shares until you are ready for an IPO.

Getting rid of capitalism means you need to find a different way to obtain funding for new ventures. And if your system relies on government charity (some government board handing you money) or taking resources violently, than your system sucks.

Edit: I don’t mean that this is a replacement for full communist system. I mean this as a way to get some of the advantages while showing sceptics (like me) it can work and is better. A first step.

korthrun,
@korthrun@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Ah yes, the core definition of communism: a small farm offering a delusion of independence, which is run within a capitalist system.

DreamlandLividity,

Maybe I should have specified, I don’t mean it is the same as full communism. But is a way to get large part of the advantages and build support (by showing others it works and its advantages).

DampSquid,

Yep. That’s a real shit post

BackOnMyBS,
@BackOnMyBS@lemmy.world avatar

I haven’t seen a true shitpost in a while. This one is great lol

josefo,

Putting the shit on shitpost, in a very unique way. I wish this was sarcasm.

Siegfried,

OP, if there was a viable way of making communism work, some one would have done it already. And inb4 if external pressure and/or internal grinding makes your system collapse, then it does not work

DreamlandLividity,

I mean, that is kinda my stance.

On the other hand, I am always open to being proven wrong.

MacNCheezus,
@MacNCheezus@lemmy.today avatar

The thing is, it can only ever work if it is chosen voluntarily by every participant, and it requires that everyone be committed to relentlessly work on themselves to root out their own selfishness.

Marx was right in the sense that humans are by nature selfish, but but he was wrong in thinking that selfishness could be abolished by force. What past experiments have shown is that if communism is violently imposed (i.e. via revolution), people will just find other ways to be selfish. For instance, if hoarding wealth is impossible, but everyone’s income is guaranteed no matter what, people will simply try to find ways to work as little as possible.

There IS an example for where communism DOES work BTW, and that’s functional, healthy families. Think about it: since children are naturally weaker than adults, parents do have to work harder in order to provide them with food and education, but as the parents grow older and weaker, the children become stronger and more capable, so they can provide for their parents in their old age. It really is from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.

Ibaudia,
@Ibaudia@lemmy.world avatar

Giving you a real answer, there are many barriers stopping people from making communes in capitalist nations. There are problems with land and property ownership, financial integration with the capitalist system, taxes, and pressures from anti-communists.

Communist nations, as compared to small local communes, have the advantage when it comes to resource allocation, bureaucracy, and stability due to scale.

Basically, starting a small commune isn’t really that practical when you’re surrounded by capitalism on all sides, and isn’t really what people mean when they talk about a communist society. You can’t really have the labor distribution, property, or means of production structures Marxists talk about without a central government at the scale of a nation.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

Then does the nation have to be a certain size? There are plenty of micronations in the world. Tuvalu has only around 12,000 people. Does socialism not work in such nations? What about nations with 5 million people? What is the minimum?

As for taxes, what is the issue there? Surely even in communism, you would have to give some portion of production to the government to build infrastructure, run emergency services etc.

Wouldn’t financial integration be an issue on international level if it is an issue on inter-company level? (PS: what even is the issue? Is it just being uncompetitive?)

And what is the issue with land and property ownership? Do you mean you can’t seize them by force or do you mean it can’t be collectively owned? Because I am not a lawyer but I think you can own stuff collectively if you write your contracts and documents correctly.

PS: As for anticommunists interfering with your business, there is actually a law against it.

Ibaudia,
@Ibaudia@lemmy.world avatar

The size of a nation doesn’t inherently determine the success of socialism. There have been historical examples of relatively small nations with socialist-inspired policies and economic structures that achieved positive outcomes. I was moreso making the point that nations are different from communes existing within capitalist nations on a variety of levels.

Socialist principles can be applied at different scales. Micronations and small nations can focus on social programs, resource distribution, worker-ownership, etc., regardless of their size.

For taxes, while infrastructure and services are vital, a truly communist system wouldn’t depend on taxation in the traditional sense. The idea is for the community to directly produce the goods and services it needs. Again, this runs into conflict when a commune needs to exist in a capitalist framework.

Commune members would contribute their labor and skills, and in return, directly receive what they need. This minimizes the need for a complex tax system as seen in capitalist societies.

Regarding financial integration, a communist system wouldn’t rely on traditional capitalist financial models focused on competition. Trade and international exchange would likely be based on cooperation and needs fulfillment instead of pure profit motives.

The challenge lies in managing the complexity of large-scale bartering or exchange systems on an international level, but it’s not necessarily impossible. For a small commune in a capitalist nation, though, I can’t see that ever happening.

For land, the issue isn’t about violently seizing property, but rather transforming the concept of ownership itself. In a communist model, the means of production would be collectively owned by the community.

For the legal stuff: you’re right! Legal structures exist to support collective ownership (co-ops, land trusts, etc.). The issue is how those structures interact with a dominant capitalist system and its legal frameworks.

For anticommunist interference, yes it is illegal but when has that ever stopped anyone from harassing their political opponents?

Hope that answers most of your questions!

DreamlandLividity,

The size of a nation doesn’t inherently determine the success of socialism. There have been historical examples of relatively small nations with socialist-inspired policies and economic structures that achieved positive outcomes.

Ok, so its not size that is the issue.

I was moreso making the point that nations are different from communes existing within capitalist nations on a variety of levels.

Yes, I get that is the point you want to make but I am inclined to not believe you, since it sounds way too convenient. “I can’t show you a small scale proof of concepts because evil capitalism exists.” So my question is, what exactly are the issues? Concrete examples.

For taxes, while infrastructure and services are vital, a truly communist system wouldn’t depend on taxation in the traditional sense. The idea is for the community to directly produce the goods and services it needs. Again, this runs into conflict when a commune needs to exist in a capitalist framework.

Ok sure, but that does not prevent a commune from existing. If it can produce enough economic value, it does not matter if it builds infrastructure itself or pays taxes. Just treat the commune like a micro-nation that can’t produce firetrucks and bulldozers and has to obtain them from abroad by bartering using money as the medium.

The challenge lies in managing the complexity of large-scale bartering or exchange systems on an international level, but it’s not necessarily impossible. For a small commune in a capitalist nation, though, I can’t see that ever happening.

Why? International trade is already pretty much barter facilitated by money. Why couldn’t a commune treat the surrounding system the same as a foreign nation from trade perspective?

Trade and international exchange would likely be based on cooperation and needs fulfillment instead of pure profit motives.

So a communist nation can’t peacefully coexist and cooperate with any other system? Doesn’t sound very robust.

For the legal stuff: you’re right! Legal structures exist to support collective ownership (co-ops, land trusts, etc.). The issue is how those structures interact with a dominant capitalist system and its legal frameworks.

What exactly? What laws would we need to change to make this possible?

For anticommunist interference, yes it is illegal but when has that ever stopped anyone from harassing their political opponents?

Sure, it can’t stop it but it can limit it. Again, if your system falls apart due to little push back, its not a very robust system.

Sidhean,

overall, i rate this post lmao/10. I wish i thought it was a joke.

Remember, OP: you are not immune to propoganda

DreamlandLividity,

I know I am not. But I am an engineer, so I am able to tell apart a workable plan and wishful thinking. I have never heard anything but wishful thinking from communism proponents. I know that does not mean a workable plan does not exist but I tend to not believe in things I see no evidence of.

redempt,

I don’t think being an engineer makes you qualified in economics, politics, or sociology.

Nisaea,
@Nisaea@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Can confirm. As an engineer I’m an absolute dumbass when it comes to advanced economics.

DreamlandLividity,

Sure, I don’t claim it does. But it makes me skilled enough to identify when a proposal is missing large parts that are needed to implement it.

Worx,

You don’t even seem to know what communism is, seeing as you conflate it with socialism in another of your comments

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

No, I will readily admit I don’t even know what communism would be in practice beyond the vague nonsense people say like “collective ownership”. I have been trying to ask here for a few days now and didn’t really get anywhere.

That is exactly my criticism. From what I have seen, communism is not an implementable plan, it is a “politicians promise” of things being better without the rich with nothing backing that claim up.

Of course, feel free to prove me wrong by providing a link or an explanation. Or even better, by implementing it in reality on a smaller scale as the post challenges the readers to.

redempt,

“collective ownership” is not vague. the simplest way to transform capitalism into socialism is to make every company a co-op and implement progressive tax policy.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

;D Maybe if your understanding of economy does not go beyond people in factories make things :D

I mean, you have no right to act this clueless when the main post gives one of the issues away. Namely: How do you get investment for new companies?

Also, you are mixing communism and socialism. ;D Did you not even read the whole comment chain? How do you manage to do this when I was called out for this in the comment I was replying to? ;D

redempt,

dude you’re insufferable oml

investments can come from public funding for research which is democratically decided or headed by democratically elected experts

the entire ideology I hold is that people need to be directly involved in economic decision making. that is all. it can’t be held away from the people, because then the decisions won’t benefit them.

can you please not act like such a prick when making your points?

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

But those are the things you are leaving out. How is this public funding collected, who decides where it goes, how are these people elected?

These are the kind of things you need to figure out for your communist system to work. My belief is you can’t, because it does not work. You will not be able to create a system that works for the greater good while humans follow their selfish interests.

But maybe I am wrong. Prove me wrong. Show me a detailed plan. “Some committee that is somehow elected will distribute some funding” is so vague there is no way to debate over it.

IMO you and so many others use this kind of vagueness to mask the massive issues communism has, that prevent it from being viable in the real world.

The infuriating thing is that so many people are supporting a violent revolution, that could easily result in hundreds of thousands of deaths while seemingly having no real plan of what to do once they win.

redempt,

okay, why are you imposing that on me though? I’m not a violent revolutionary, I’m just someone who believes we need a far more democratic approach to our economy. I can’t resolve a perfect system for you in perfect detail and I find this kind of argument frustrating. if you want an example of a system, I believe something similar to project cybersyn would be great. unfortunately the US has overthrown or otherwise stunted every socialist project, but we have lots of data to suggest that UBI, co-ops, and social welfare are highly effective at improving quality of life for everybody, as well as productivity.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

You are the one who said the description of communism was not vague. And I was careful not to include you with the violent revolutionaries part.

If you don’t want communism, but just social policies in capitalism, then I am on board with that. Of course again, the devil is in the details, but I am generally on board with UBI (or something similar), universal healthcare, etc.

Idk about co-ops, feels like if those worked, we would see a lot of them already. There shouldn’t be anything blocking their creation as to post says. I am all for removing any barriers for their creation if I missed some but I don’t think they should be forced.

redempt,

co-ops get outcompeted by corporations. this is a capitalist economy we have, and so it’s very geared towards competitive profit seeking. co-ops provide better worker protections, better working conditions, better stability and resilience, and better products. corporations are better at being single-mindedly profit driven, which is what our economic structure rewards.

communism is not a vague concept, but I’m not an expert and it’s not my ideology; I’m a democratic socialist.

it’s important to remember that under capitalism a company is very much motivated to curtail workers’ rights and anything that would threaten the status quo. I find “just start a commune” to be an unhelpful argument because the system is rigged against it, which is why they tend to fail.

capitalism is not markets, nor is it free trade. capitalism is the specific system where there is an owning class that dictates how the economy is run (CEOs / shareholders), thereby holding that power away from the working class, whose lives are dictated by their decisions. I see no reason for the economy to be organized this way, which is why I believe democratic organization (either central planning or a more bottom-up approach) is an improvement.

if you’re genuinely interested in finding a system better than what we have, I don’t think arguing with strangers on the Internet will accomplish what you want. I think Second Thought makes some very good videos on these topics, though he seems to have some authoritarian leanings I don’t agree with.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

co-ops get outcompeted by corporations. this is a capitalist economy we have, and so it’s very geared towards competitive profit seeking.

Remember that profit and created value go hand in hand, or at least, our legislation should make sure it does.

co-ops provide better worker protections, better working conditions, better stability and resilience, and better products. corporations are better at being single-mindedly profit driven, which is what our economic structure rewards.

True, but corporations have to generate profit for shareholders. This is the profit that should be used for improving worker conditions etc. by co-ops. Also, some worker protections should be legislated leveling the playing field even more to the point where reasonably efficient co-op should outcompete a corp.

communism is not a vague concept

At least here on Lemmy it seems to be. Kinda makes no difference to me if someone has the secrets to successful communism if I can’t see them.

it’s important to remember that under capitalism a company is very much motivated to curtail workers’ rights and anything that would threaten the status quo.

Within the company, sure. Outside, it has motivation to hinder any competition and this has to be prevented by govt. regardless of whether the competition is a co-op or a corp.

the system is rigged against it, which is why they tend to fail.

I am not accepting this claim without concrete examples. How is it rigged?

capitalism is not markets, nor is it free trade. capitalism is the specific system where there is an owning class that dictates how the economy is run (CEOs / shareholders), thereby holding that power away from the working class, whose lives are dictated by their decisions.

That is a misconception. Any individual CEO/shareholder have very little control over how the economy is run. And while they may cooperate in some areas and situations, they are ultimately competitors most of the time. If you make the simple assumption that they chase profit, than they have even less control. I think they are far closer to just another cog in the machine then to any dictators. That is the appeal of capitalism, as long as you align your goals with profit for corporations, they will fulfill your goals with ruthless efficiency.

if you’re genuinely interested in finding a system better than what we have, I don’t think arguing with strangers on the Internet will accomplish what you want. I think Second Thought makes some very good videos on these topics, though he seems to have some authoritarian leanings I don’t agree with.

Its not as much finding it. I think I have an idea what it looks like, but I also know how easy it is to be wrong about issues as complex as these. So I am more taking a pause and looking at differing opinions to see, if some don’t show me wrong.

redempt,

anticompetitive and anti labor practices are fundamental to capitalism - you can regulate them all you want, companies will always find ways around it. wage theft (overtime violations, unpaid or underpaid wages, off the clock violations, etc) significantly outweigh all other forms of theft (larceny, robbery, vehicle theft, etc) combined.

in addition, something like planned obsolescence (companies intentionally making their products less long-lived so you have to buy more of them) cannot be completely prevented with regulation, since companies can always choose not to make their product better in a particular way, or no better than the absolute minimum requirement.

profit measures value extracted, not value generated. providing a service to people (postal service, healthcare) produces a measurable amount of value which is not directly profit. you can always increase profit by paying workers less and charging more for your product, and these both get more effective the more you have cornered the market. a high amount of profit tends to mean a huge amount of money being extracted from communities and working individuals.

capitalism is competitive, and competitions have winners. you can make all the regulations you want, but even when everyone “plays fair” someone will eventually emerge on top.

competition is massively inefficient; you have no incentive to share anything, so huge amounts of redundant research and work gets done without public benefit. I see collaboration as the far greater social force, since it prevents us from undermining each other. an economy which is based on and rewards collaboration rather than competition would be better able to provide for everyone’s needs and ensure nobody is left behind.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

anticompetitive and anti labor practices are fundamental to capitalism - you can regulate them all you want, companies will always find ways around it. wage theft (overtime violations, unpaid or underpaid wages, off the clock violations, etc) significantly outweigh all other forms of theft (larceny, robbery, vehicle theft, etc) combined.

In my experience, these anti labor practices are almost not a thing where I live. Seems regulation works in this regard.

in addition, something like planned obsolescence (companies intentionally making their products less long-lived so you have to buy more of them) cannot be completely prevented with regulation, since companies can always choose not to make their product better in a particular way, or no better than the absolute minimum requirement

Funnily enough, the corp I work for is quite obsessed with making products last longer. How is that possible? Simple. We provide service contracts together with purchases, so customers pay monthly service fee and we have to keep the products functional. So it saves us money (and increases profit) to make repair costs low. You just need to think a bit outside the box.

profit measures value extracted, not value generated. providing a service to people (postal service, healthcare) produces a measurable amount of value which is not directly profit. you can always increase profit by paying workers less and charging more for your product,

Profit is a function of the value created vs resources consumed to produce the value. As long as there are worker protections legislated, that is just efficiency.

and these both get more effective the more you have cornered the market.

Yes, monopolies are bad.

a high amount of profit tends to mean a huge amount of money being extracted from communities and working individuals

Sure. But unless you are talking about a monopoly, unusually high profits leave room for competition to sell the goods cheaper. So outside of monopolies, the profit you can extract is limited. And making goods cheaper is the same as increasing wages, it benefits the public.

capitalism is competitive, and competitions have winners. you can make all the regulations you want, but even when everyone “plays fair” someone will eventually emerge on top

What are you even talking about? Yes, the most efficient companies emerge on top which is exactly what we want.

competition is massively inefficient; you have no incentive to share anything, so huge amounts of redundant research and work gets done without public benefit.

That is true.

an economy which is based on and rewards collaboration rather than competition would be better able to provide for everyone’s needs and ensure nobody is left behind.

The issue is building such an economy. Most people will always pursue their selfish gains. Capitalism channels this by making “creating valuable things we can sell to people for minimal cost” result in large profits. Where the selfishness would show up in a cooperation based system you describe would be much more difficult to predict since it depends on the details of your system. But the results are likely to be worse exactly because it is hard to predict and therefore regulate or otherwise deal with.

I mean, the most obvious question is, without competition, what drives companies to be efficient?

redempt,

as always, this boils down to mistrust of your fellow man. capitalism makes us more selfish, it rewards greed, that is what it incentivizes and so of course people act greedier. people want to help each other, they want to make the world a better place to live, and nobody should be forced to work how someone else says they should with no say in it. without competition, people have to pick up the slack with altruism and actual passion and care. if we reward collaboration, if we incentivize kindness and caring and actual benefit, those are the things we will see more of. as it stands, we subsidize everything that is killing us.

the goal of an economy is not to produce endlessly, as much as possible. capitalism is extremely growth oriented. that’s about all it’s good for: rapid growth, at the expense of equity and workers’ autonomy. we no longer need this growth and competition; we need to downscale and produce less. the goal of an economy should be to provide what people need, as seamlessly as possible.

everything you’re saying speaks to a lack of understanding of the world around us. I think you can describe this “ideal” form of capitalism, but it’s nothing like what we actually see in the real world. companies are extremely exploitative, they do ignore or lobby against regulations as much as possible, they exploit workers as much as they can get away with.

the fundamental problem is that ethics are not profitable. ethics are a luxury, and you can always find a way to cut costs if you’re willing to be unethical. an economy is not a machine to squeeze optimum efficiency out of, it is made of people with thoughts and feelings and ambitions, and all of its externalities come back to these same people.

if we want to have an ethical society, ruthless pursuit of efficiency is about the worst possible way to get there, but it is the ultimate goal of capitalism. this efficiency is not for us, though; it is efficiency of accruing as much wealth (and thereby power) as possible.

I don’t believe any strict power hierarchy (like the employer-employee relationship or the parent-child relationship) can ever be fully ethical. we may sometimes deem them necessary, but I think we really need to think twice about making someone subject to another person’s will. workers in a corporation have no say at all in how their workplace is run, what their duties are, or how they carry them out. for eight or more hours per day, people do not control their own decisions, and I think this is the most egregious effect of capitalism.

this is again going to come down to lack of faith in human nature. I believe that people are fundamentally good, that they care about the world around them and want to improve it for themselves and the people they love. they can sometimes be selfish, but they are far more giving than we ever give them credit for. there is immense trauma throughout the world from war and abuse, but there is even greater capacity for kindness. it’s easy to believe that people are fundamentally cruel when the world around us is cruel, but the average person has no say in how it operates; this system of incentives rewards whoever is most willing to act immorally to undercut their competitors, essentially guaranteeing that the least ethical individuals end up in charge of everything. you can see this in the leadership of virtually every major corporation.

I believe the average person is far more hardworking, caring, loving, and kind than the people who run our economy, and if all of us collaborated and organized together, we could be far more efficient and beneficial to one another than our current system allows. the more we do this, the easier it becomes to be kind. after all, we know that the leading causes of crime and abuse are all situational. we will need unprecedented solidarity, and only by uplifting everyone out of poverty can we get there.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

the goal of an economy is not to produce endlessly, as much as possible. capitalism is extremely growth oriented. that’s about all it’s good for: rapid growth, at the expense of equity and workers’ autonomy. we no longer need this growth and competition; we need to downscale and produce less. the goal of an economy should be to provide what people need, as seamlessly as possible.

The current GDP per capita is about $1,050 a month. That is before taxes, capital investment and amortization. If you believe we don’t need growth, that is what you should strive to live off of since that is your fair share.

as always, this boils down to mistrust of your fellow man

For a good reason:

nbcnews.com/…/trans-adults-florida-blindsided-new…

politico.com/…/doctors-abortion-medical-exemption…

apnews.com/…/israel-palestinians-hamas-attack-mil…

nytimes.com/…/iran-rapper-toomaj-salehi-death-sen…

None of the above are related to Greed. Just needless cruelty.

this system of incentives rewards whoever is most willing to act immorally to undercut their competitors, essentially guaranteeing that the least ethical individuals end up in charge of everything.

This happens in any political system: youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs

So tell me. Will you donate everything you earn above $1,050 to charity since it is above your fair share? If not, clearly people can’t be trusted to just cooperate fairly of their own free will.

redempt,

now you’re just putting words in my mouth. when did I ever say everyone has to give everything they have over “the average” away? it’s true we should strive for more equality, and I would be happy to pay a larger share to taxes for the public good rather than warfare, but you’re really not making good faith arguments anymore.

if your faith in humanity is determined entirely by the people in charge, then you’re going to have no faith at all. so you’ve missed my point. these are not carried out by “the average person”. democracy can lead to less cruelty. it is not perfect, but it also helps if the population is not heavily propagandized and is well educated.

I’m going to stop replying after this because I feel that you’re not addressing the points I’m making anymore.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

You are literally saying we don’t need bosses to tell us what to do and don’t need competition. That we can cooperate in good faith. Yet you think taking more than your fair share is not an issue for such a system?

You are either delusional or you are trolling.

Taking more than your fair share (average) is by definition competing.

Also, I specifically picked events that are not mainly driven by the leaders but by the populace.

Maeve,

That's the thing, and it's by design: you can't begin to imagine anything different. Maybe this will help?

https://www.marxists.org/subject/students/index.htm

DreamlandLividity,

Ok, can you please point me to a chapter where the actual economic mechanism proposed are described? Can’t quickly find it there.

Maeve,

Go read Karl Marx, beginning with Capital and The Communist Manifesto. Neither are long reads, and I should reread them myself, when I get a breather and my brain isn't mush.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

The utility of a thing makes it a use value.[4] But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron, corn, or a diamond, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use value, something useful. This property of a commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities.

I could do a million things more productive with my time than reading whole paragraphs of tautologies. This is literally beyond obvious. Either point me to some concrete plans on how a communist economy would work or don’t, but I am not reading a book worth of this.

Maeve,

This isn't McDonald's and I'm not your oncall personal spoon feeder.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

Then don’t complain about me assuming you are either too dumb or too uneducated to understand why empty words like those and your wishful thinking can’t result in a functional governing/economic system.

alcoholicorn, (edited )

You’re making claims about a subject you are not an expert in, and refusing to read any literature on the subject.

You shouldn’t be calling others dumb or uneducated.

But also Capital is written that way to preempt arguments; it’s an academic work. His other works only suffer from 3 page long sentences that require significant contextual and historical knowledge of mid 1800s europe.

Lenin is an easier place to start.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

You’re making claims about a subject you are not an expert in, and refusing to read any literature on the subject.

I unfortunately don’t have unlimited time, so I am forced to refuse to read books that are unlikely to be relevant.

But also Capital is written that way to preempt arguments; it’s an academic work. His other works only suffer from 3 page long sentences that require significant contextual and historical knowledge of mid 1800s europe. Lenin is an easier place to start.

Then maybe can you point to a work that does not assume an 1800s economy? Also, Marxism was tried already by the Bolsheviks. It failed horribly. If there were no improvements made since, what is the point? While I like the scientific method, I am certainly not willing to try the same thing again and see if just as many people die a second time.

I am not interested in being expert on communist history, I am interested in examining any modern plan to see if I can see issues in it or if it looks like it could work and is worth supporting.

alcoholicorn,

While I like the scientific method, I am certainly not willing to try the same thing again and see if just as many people die a second time.

Capitalism kills far more people, by design. While the famine in the USSR was due to wide-spread drought, the famine that would kill millions in Bengal a few years later was entirely man-made.

I am interested in examining any modern plan to see if I can see issues in it or if it looks like it could work and is worth supporting.

You cannot understand present society, let alone have a model that can predict future developments with any reliability if you don’t learn history.

But if you want to understand economics, you’re gonna have to read a book on economics.

Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism is good if you’re more interested in higher-level detail than Marx talking about linen.

State and Revolution is more history and provides analysis of communist projects.

atlasraven31,

I do wonder if a Communist country will just send me money…

Seraph,
Seraph avatar

If you want socialism, you start a social.

josefo,

If you want capitalism, you start a capital.

DreamlandLividity,

You’re late, someone already commented this 😆

zea_64,

Did you just suggest selling the means of production to the bourgeoisie to fund a commune? I… what?

DreamlandLividity,

No, I am saying that getting funding for new businesses is a necessary part of any economic system. It is clear to me how that works under capitalism. I have never seen a sane explanation on how that would work in democratic communism.

zea_64,

Ah, see, that’s a different question than how you get funding under communism under capitalism.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

So what is the difference? How does it work under communism? Some planning committee? So when someone wants to make an independent news broadcast, episode of South Park, or Fuck the government T-Shirt, they need to ask the government committee?

What about more serious things like abortion pills, anti-conception, hormone therapy for transgender people, a religious symbol? You want to entrust almost every aspect of your life (everything you can get in exchange for your work) to a committee?

Killing_Spark,

You’d rather entrust almost every aspect of your live to the benevolence of some people that do not have any oversight by the populous that they have power over by the means of controlling the capital?

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

I trust the greed of rich people. If people are willing to pay for something, at least some will invest in it to profit off of it.

Also, unlike with a committee, I don’t need a majority of them to do so. That’s the advantage of the capitalistic solution, you don’t really need much trust.

Killing_Spark,

There is one problem with this: what’s profitable and what’s beneficial for society do not necessarily align.

DreamlandLividity,

Am I saying that we should give corporations a free run of the country? No, we should legislate them until they look like a models of virtue comparatively to now.

But the smart way to do it is to align their greed with our interests. As an example, creating a carbon tax is much better then government trying to implements specific green initiatives. The corporate greed will find efficient and innovative way to reduce emissions compared to the heavy handed and inefficient regulations the governments do.

If that is not possible, then just legislate them normally. Or even make a government run/funded competitors. In Slovak republic, insurance companies are private except one that is government run and serves as a lowest bar that others have to compete with.

Let corporations do what they do best, which is optimizing the economy and let governments regulate what needs to be regulated.

Killing_Spark,

One example where that doesn’t seem to work is public infrastructure. There is just no way to make this profitable and simultaneously provide a service that actually meets the needs of the public in terms of availability and price.

DreamlandLividity,

Did I say it always worked? IMO USA is definitely too capitalistic right now. There are things like healthcare, utilities, emergency services, infrastructure and many more that are better of government run (or as mentioned above, at least have government compete), either because it is impractical to have real competition in these areas or because they are so important it is better for them to be inefficient than cutting corners.

But making the leap from this to communism is ridiculous IMO. Gradual improvements to the system that we know works because we live in it is the way to go.

Maeve,

Socialism light? There's a beginning point somewhere.

DreamlandLividity,

Sure, if you want to call it that. I like managed capitalism, since it captures that you should regulate what needs to be regulated and not more.

Maeve,

We used to actually do that.

zea_64,

I’m not well read enough on communism to know smart people’s ideas there, but the way I see it it gives room for any system of experimentation the people want. Maybe you pitch your idea to the government instead of investors, and they give you resources. In a system with small markets, you can start in the market and, if it does well, get upgraded to governments operated. “Communism” doesn’t mean one thing, and there’s a lot of room for variety, do we could we decide to try one of these systems but then switch to another, allowing better adaptation than capitalism where profit is the only way.

I take hormone therapy for transgender people (hi, I am transgender people) and I’m already at the whims of the government. Perhaps a communist government might not make it free for me if the political climate said no, but as long as it’s not outright banned and there is some alternate system to the government’s plan, I could still get it. That’s not far off where I am now, actually (Florida). Perhaps we could write this sort of going around other government to some degree (perhaps by small market) into the constitution as a layer of safety.

I’ve been saying “let the government do [x]” a lot, and if you’re from a neoliberal country you might have heard “excessive bureaucracy”, but that’s a result of capitalism ruining your government. Government doesn’t have to be bad, nor even a monolith. Most forms of communism I’ve heard of have multiple levels, from committees covering broad country-level goals to committees on local-level details, each level getting a fair degree of autonomy. But also, you can talk to or even get on the committees! They’re made of citizens like you, and with no corporate interests or lobbying!

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

First of all, thank you for a sensible and pleasant reply. It really is a breath of fresh air in here :)

I think the small markets only go so far. Many things in a modern economy don’t work well on a small scale. This is actually where many of the worst examples of capitalism come from too. With high barriers to entry into areas like mobile phones, medicine, social networks, utilities etc. some companies become near monopolies. But as you say, various solutions could be tried.

Another issue I can see is the difficulty of ensuring power is not too concentrated in a small group of people. But again, various things could be tried and capitalism has these issues to a lesser extent as well.

That is, if we have more than one try… The thing that concerns me most is how to try them out without driving the economy off a cliff and without violence. If we could try these systems on a smaller scale next to capitalism, than I am all for it, lets experiment. But most people here talk about a revolution or confiscating all wealth above a threshold (dismantling the capitalist system). If this is really the only way to try communism, then I think it is much more sensible to work on gradually improving capitalism instead. There are capitalist countries that are very nice to live in (like the Nordics, Switzerland, Netherlands, …). So we know this is possible and even more or less how to get there.

zea_64,

Seizing the means of production and putting it in the ownership of the workers will, realistically, require revolution or damn well near it. But, workers owning their work doesn’t require an end to our current markets. We can keep them mostly as is, besides, of course, the rich and powerful people who currently do no work and just “own” things. From that state, it can be a more gradual transition.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

If you think this, you are likely severely underestimating how important modern financial markets are to doing anything. You redistribute the wealth suddenly enough and I expect the great depression will seem like nostalgic good times.

More importantly, is the difference between what we know is possible without a revolution (countries I listed above) so much worse than communism it would be worth the lives lost in a revolution? I don’t see it.

zea_64,

Plenty of people die daily in first-world countries that could have been saved in a different economic system, because saving them was not profitable. Even more die elsewhere, where the first-world countries have outsourced a lot of their miserable jobs. Cobalt mines in the Congo, used for certain lithium-ion battery chemistries for instance, have terrible working conditions and child labor. Another example is climate change: how many people will die this century from famine and water scarcity caused by a changing climate? Externalities don’t factor into capitalist profits, and the governments are usually under their control so they’ll just pay lip service to action or very slowly and reluctantly enact regulation.

Revolution is a one-time cost. It’ll suck, I hate it, but it seems to me like it’d be worth it in the long run. I’d also love to avoid revolution entirely, but that threatens capitalist profit so I really doubt governments (again, controlled by the interests of capitalists) will make it easy.

Another thing worth noting: revolution doesn’t mean financial markets have to immediately change. Companies can still act capitalist (at the start), they’d just be controlled by the workers now. Once workers own everything, and government infrastructure is set up to facilitate the sort of democracy and management communism would need, we can phase in changes. With control of the government, there could also be subsidies set up to help stabilize the market during transitions; for the US at least, there’s about ~$700 billion/year for the military as it stands, that seems like a sizeable fund to pinch from for such subsidies in the short term.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

First of all, look at your government, your elections and tell me people will vote for sacrificing their comforts to preserve ecology under any democratic system…

Second of all, the global GDP per capita is $12.688. That is yearly. So after you redistribute the world wealth equally, you get $1057 before tax, capital investment and capital amortization monthly. The issue isn’t really the economic system, it is that there isn’t enough for 8 billion people to live comfortably.

Next, financial markets require investment money and traders with education and experience. You are really expecting the people whose fortunes you have taken and shot at during your revolution to keep running your financial markets? And run them in your best interests?

Finally, the same polarization that prevents a democratic change would prevent a violent one. Have you seen the US military? No amount of pitchforks and handguns is defeating that. Unless you convince most of the population to support you, you are doomed to fail. And if you do convince them, why do you need a revolution instead of an election?

Killing_Spark,

I’d imagine it works the same as it does under capitalism but instead of pitching to a set of private investors the investment decisions are made… Democratically?

DreamlandLividity,

lemmy.world/comment/9668312

femboy_bird,

Well that’s 9 iq points I’m never getting back

DreamlandLividity,

🤣

Maeve,

Yes, I wish I'd ignored this thread altogether.

KISSmyOSFeddit,

If you want capitalism, you can start a capital.
If you want sexism, you can start a sex.

Go start a j.

juliebean,

*then your system sucks

DreamlandLividity,

Am I blind and don’t see a typo?

Or are you disputing that resorting to violence or relying on the govt. for basic entrepreneurship is bad?

wildbus8979,

How do you feel about capitalism using violence to maintain itself?

DreamlandLividity,

Depends what you mean maintain itself. From real outside threats, I don’t see an issue. If you mean from people fairly competing or peacefully changing it from the inside, I feel the same way as any other unjustified violence.

NeptuneOrbit,

Everyone’s boss fairly gives a paycheck while moving all the profits upward, whilst we all live under the threat that is our resume is empty for long enough we will starve and die on the street. Cool stuff.

DreamlandLividity, (edited )

Where the hell do you live that starving to death due to a resume gap is a concern?

PS: I just realized how ironic it is to call capitalists out for starving people who disagree with them.

NeptuneOrbit,

If I can’t work? I don’t eat

DreamlandLividity,

Must suck where you live. Especially if a resume gap = can’t work

NeptuneOrbit,

K

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