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Is Communism good? This poll is closed. |
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| Yes |
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375 | 66.25% |
| No |
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191 | 33.75% |
| Total: | 523 votes | ||
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White Rock posted:It's their problem of dealing with externalities of production, such as the wellbeing of the workers (and later on, environment) that is critiqued, and that the inevitable accumulation and concentration of wealth into a single point is inherently destabilizing.
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Mar 31, 2017 13:32
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Cicero posted:Command economies probably could be more effective using modern technology, but a) their economic weaknesses seem to usually stem from ideological stubbornness/blindness (with the price controls that Ardennes brought up being a good example), not lack of access to the right tools, and b) the bigger problem is that every country with a fully socialized economy and every country with a government that's trying to get there, always seems to become authoritarian (Venezuela being the latest example). Capitalist countries have a variety of successes and failures with democracy, but communist countries always seem to fail at permitting actual representative government. Nevertheless, there is a broader issue of revolutionary states tending toward authoritarianism in the first place because of initial "siege mindset." Someone mentioned the Bolsheviks "ruining the idea" but ultimately there was very little way for whatever faction that came out of the Russian Civil War (if not most extremely bloody civil wars) without becoming authoritarian. People tend to mention Kerensky as the "last hope of Russian democracy" when Kerensky himself was an autocratic. In all honesty, even if the revolution didn't happen first in Russia, the state it happened to most likely would have suffered a similar spiral especially as foreign government openly invaded it. Of course, other issue is what was the alternative? Liberal/Progressives (they existed in Tsarist Russia) has failed to come up with any meaning element of change and the right simply just wanted the autocracy to continue indefinitely. Again, I don't see other states suffering that different of a fate. As for command economies, they are very good at initial industrialization and during "emergency" periods (i.e wars or something as damaging as them). They lose their effectiveness as the products a society craves becomes more diverse and unpredictable. In addition, predicting demand and correct pricing becomes more difficult. I actually don't think the contemporary era is actually a good fit for a traditional command economy in most circumstances, although I good see the government retaining control of the "commanding heights" of an economy. However, the problem of our era is that there is no long the ideological competition to make the "middle ground" possible. If anything the Soviets were a key competent in a broader ideological dialogue across the 20th century that no longer exists and it clearly shows. There are real fundamental problems with how capitalism currently functions, and without an alternative system to comparable against there is no longer to "push" the system in correcting itself. Also, I wanted to mention that a GMI system would also largely prove inadequate because it assumes a base of revenue that is impossible under our current system. Also, that the state probably should promote full employment during a period of increasing automation. If anything it makes more sense have a WPA-type employment or at least have people conduct "make work" jobs like the Soviets then just have a completely unfocused populace.
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Mar 31, 2017 13:54
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Ardennes posted:Nevertheless, there is a broader issue of revolutionary states tending toward authoritarianism in the first place because of initial "siege mindset." Someone mentioned the Bolsheviks "ruining the idea" but ultimately there was very little way for whatever faction that came out of the Russian Civil War (if not most extremely bloody civil wars) without becoming authoritarian. People tend to mention Kerensky as the "last hope of Russian democracy" when Kerensky himself was an autocratic. In all honesty, even if the revolution didn't happen first in Russia, the state it happened to most likely would have suffered a similar spiral especially as foreign government openly invaded it.
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Mar 31, 2017 15:20
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Bulgogi Hoagie posted:i don't know about theoretical foundations of marx but africa did pretty poorly 1960 onwards with self professed marxist governments and now that a lot of them liberalised around 20 years ago they've done a lot better so that must say something about marxism The 1960s post-colonial Africa where former colonial powers attempted to destabilize all of the nascent nations to maintain control of the resources that attracted colonizers in the first place? Where Western powers propped up or installed corrupt politicians or autocrats like Mobutu, Bokassa, or Bongo? Where Lumumba was assassinated for friendly overtures to the Soviets even though even the CIA officer tasked with killing him said he was no communist? Where the Belgians supported Katangan secession so they could keep their hands on the resources there, or the Brits supporting Biafra for their oil? Where apartheid South Africa occupied Namibia and invaded Angola to fight efforts to build socialism? How about the myriad scandals of France's ELF? Are we going to forget the intentionally under-developed conditions that existed in post-colonial Africa, a legacy of the extractive, exploitative nature of Western capitalism in Africa?
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Mar 31, 2017 15:56
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SyHopeful posted:The 1960s post-colonial Africa where former colonial powers attempted to destabilize all of the nascent nations to maintain control of the resources that attracted colonizers in the first place? Where Western powers propped up or installed corrupt politicians or autocrats like Mobutu, Bokassa, or Bongo? Where Lumumba was assassinated for friendly overtures to the Soviets even though even the CIA officer tasked with killing him said he was no communist? Where the Belgians supported Katangan secession so they could keep their hands on the resources there, or the Brits supporting Biafra for their oil? Where apartheid South Africa occupied Namibia and invaded Angola to fight efforts to build socialism? How about the myriad scandals of France's ELF? Of course not. We can't be anti-communist without ignoring the hundreds of millions of people killed by capitalist, imperialist exploitation.
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Mar 31, 2017 16:14
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oh man I remember back in the days when every single D&D thread converged to the past few pages of itt
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Mar 31, 2017 16:21
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Fiction posted:Of course not. We can't be anti-communist without ignoring the hundreds of millions of people killed by capitalist, imperialist exploitation. Duh, that might make capitalism look not so great E: Reminder that "concentration camps" as we know them were started by one colonial occupier to corral another colonial occupier And Hakimashou, the Germans didn't need any external help for the Holocaust SyHopeful fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 16:28
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SyHopeful posted:The 1960s post-colonial Africa where former colonial powers attempted to destabilize all of the nascent nations to maintain control of the resources that attracted colonizers in the first place? Where Western powers propped up or installed corrupt politicians or autocrats like Mobutu, Bokassa, or Bongo? Where Lumumba was assassinated for friendly overtures to the Soviets even though even the CIA officer tasked with killing him said he was no communist? Where the Belgians supported Katangan secession so they could keep their hands on the resources there, or the Brits supporting Biafra for their oil? Where apartheid South Africa occupied Namibia and invaded Angola to fight efforts to build socialism? How about the myriad scandals of France's ELF? Some of the most successful economic development of the last 100 years occurred under corrupt western backed autocrats and some of worst disasters occurred under self proclaimed democrats who were vehemently anti-western
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Mar 31, 2017 16:31
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Pinochet disappeared people to camps where they were raped by dogs, but oh, the economy
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Mar 31, 2017 16:36
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Typo posted:Some of the most successful economic development of the last 100 years occurred under corrupt western backed autocrats and some of worst disasters occurred under self proclaimed democrats who were vehemently anti-western Huh, makes u think
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Mar 31, 2017 16:43
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Halloween Jack posted:Pinochet disappeared people to camps where they were raped by dogs, but oh, the economy on average it was better to live in a right wing than left wing dictatorship during the cold war Pinochet killed like 20-30k in a country of 15 million, Pol Pot killed 2-3 million in a country of 7 million, Mao prob starved something close to 8% of his country to death in 3 years through over-requisition of grain though I have to admit it prob wasn't so bad living in Communist Czechoslovakia or Hungary or a Leningrad/Moscow in the USSR but those were areas with highest standard of living in the east bloc and I'd still still pick living in London/paris/nyc over those Typo fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 16:48
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Typo posted:on average it was better to live in a right wing than left wing dictatorship during the cold war
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Mar 31, 2017 17:12
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Typo posted:though I have to admit it prob wasn't so bad living in Communist Czechoslovakia or Hungary or a Leningrad/Moscow in the USSR but those were areas with highest standard of living in the east bloc and I'd still still pick living in London/paris/nyc over those Yeah, Moscow wasn't so great during the Tsarist period if you didn't have money. If anything the gap between the West and former Russian Empire was smaller during the Soviet period. Hell, if anything what caused the gap to widen again was the "reforms" of the 1990s. (Also, life under Salazar and Franco was pretty poo poo even if they weren't the Khmer Rouge.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 17:55
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Ardennes posted:(Also, life under Salazar and Franco was pretty poo poo even if they weren't the Khmer Rouge.) Not to defend falangism, but material conditions in Spain improved greatly in the last two decades of Franco's reign.
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Mar 31, 2017 18:46
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Ardennes posted:Nevertheless, there is a broader issue of revolutionary states tending toward authoritarianism in the first place because of initial "siege mindset." Someone mentioned the Bolsheviks "ruining the idea" but ultimately there was very little way for whatever faction that came out of the Russian Civil War (if not most extremely bloody civil wars) without becoming authoritarian. People tend to mention Kerensky as the "last hope of Russian democracy" when Kerensky himself was an autocratic. In all honesty, even if the revolution didn't happen first in Russia, the state it happened to most likely would have suffered a similar spiral especially as foreign government openly invaded it. The obvious takeaway to me is that communist states become/remain autocratic because most people don't really like full communism and if they were democratic they wouldn't stay communist for much longer. It's the same reason even though a lot of Americans nominally agree with the idea that "a government is best which does the least" in practice people actually like a lot of specific things the government does, which is why there aren't any developed libertopian countries. It's not a conspiracy, it's just that very few people really want extreme ideologies. Heck you could point to the recent GOP healthcare debacle as an example of this, half the country is down for "get government out of healthcare!" until it comes time to actually get government out of healthcare and suddenly it's "whoa hold on a minute you mean that my family would lose coverage? Huh actually maybe don't do that".
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Mar 31, 2017 18:49
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The US was a bunch of boojie twats getting pissy about paying their taxes and that set the tone for the entire nation for apparently the rest of time.
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Mar 31, 2017 18:57
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OwlFancier posted:The US was a bunch of boojie twats getting pissy about paying their taxes and that set the tone for the entire nation for apparently the rest of time. revolution by the bourgeois actually has a much better record than revolution from below come to think of it revolutions from above in general seems to have worked out a lot better than revolution from below
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Mar 31, 2017 18:59
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OwlFancier posted:The US was a bunch of boojie twats getting pissy about paying their taxes and that set the tone for the entire nation for apparently the rest of time.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:00
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They have a good record of replacing the flag and name under which the oppressors operate while failing utterly to address the actual problem, yes. Which is to say perhaps the reason they "work well" is that they set out to achieve very little.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:00
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It did mean that (white male) Americans were self-governing rather than subject to a monarch. That in and of itself is a huge improvement.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:01
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OwlFancier posted:They have a good record of replacing the flag and name under which the oppressors operate while failing utterly to address the actual problem, yes. otoh you can look at ataturk in Turkey or the Meiji restoration in Japan for examples when they did successfully transform their societies
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Mar 31, 2017 19:02
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Cicero posted:It did mean that (white male) Americans were self-governing rather than subject to a monarch. That in and of itself is a huge improvement. Nobody is self governing as long as they are subject to selling their capacity to labour to Capital in order to not die. So I'm sure it was great for the wealthy landowners, who frankly deserve a bloody monarch as far as I'm concerned.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:03
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OwlFancier posted:Nobody is self governing as long as they are subject to selling their capacity to labour to Capital in order to not die. you should really read about andrew jackson and william jenning bryan
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Mar 31, 2017 19:04
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Cicero posted:It did mean that (white male) Americans were self-governing rather than subject to a monarch. That in and of itself is a huge improvement. Take that Canada. (?)
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Mar 31, 2017 19:19
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OwlFancier posted:Nobody is self governing as long as they are subject to selling their capacity to labour to Capital in order to not die.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:28
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I don't really think it matters much to me whether there's a king or not, I still have gently caress all say in how I live because that's determined by how much money I'm allowed to keep and whether I'm allowed to work. Feudal lord or landlord they both get to decide what my life is like.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:31
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OwlFancier posted:I don't really think it matters much to me whether there's a king or not, I still have gently caress all say in how I live because that's determined by how much money I'm allowed to keep and whether I'm allowed to work. but to very different degrees: serfs for instance were tied down to the land and had limited labor mobility and ability to look for work elsewhere, whereas you are pretty free to move between cities in a modern democracy
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Mar 31, 2017 19:36
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Typo posted:but to very different degrees: serfs for instance were tied down to the land and had limited labor mobility and ability to look for work elsewhere, whereas you are pretty free to move between cities in a modern democracy Ooo I get my choice of lovely housing in a variety of equivalently lovely places because I'm forced to chase lovely jobs and also cough up the money to do that. Lucky me. I can sample the traffic fumes of multiple different cities.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:38
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OwlFancier posted:Ooo I get my choice of lovely housing in a variety of equivalently lovely places because I'm forced to chase lovely jobs and also cough up the money to do that. this isn't always true though: african-americans moved to the north in the 1920s because they can get higher paying jobs in the north than the south for instance there's literally shitloads of people in the world who are risking their lives this very second moving across borders in order to seek labor mobility: this isn't something to be scoffed at
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Mar 31, 2017 19:40
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I'm not really sure that "large sections of the population were displaced due to a need to chase livable wages during a major recession" is a selling point of capitalism.
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Mar 31, 2017 19:41
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Cicero posted:The No'est True Scotsman. "Doesn't count as self-governance as long as you don't also have FULL COMMUNISM NOW". but thats not a no true scotsman though?
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Mar 31, 2017 19:56
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Cicero posted:The No'est True Scotsman. "Doesn't count as self-governance as long as you don't also have FULL COMMUNISM NOW". yes how dare someone use a communist critique in the communism thread
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Mar 31, 2017 19:59
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OwlFancier posted:I don't really think it matters much to me whether there's a king or not, I still have gently caress all say in how I live because that's determined by how much money I'm allowed to keep and whether I'm allowed to work. In every conceivable society other people are going to have control over you, your life and your livelihood. How much control they have depends on 1000 real life variables and not whether their title is comrad or capitalist. The local pizza shop owner doesn't actually hold the power of life and death over anyone.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:20
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OwlFancier posted:I don't really think it matters much to me whether there's a king or not, I still have gently caress all say in how I live because that's determined by how much money I'm allowed to keep and whether I'm allowed to work. TBH this reads like depression.txt. =( Please try therapy. Also, sever. Also, ASDF is right and in absolutely any society that isn't post scarcity some parts of your life are going to be dictated by others.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:24
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Reality is, unfortunately, rather depressing.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:25
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OwlFancier posted:Reality is, unfortunately, rather depressing. Not to get all e/n but I promise you, it's not as bad as you think and you have more power over your life than you think.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:28
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And I think that is an illusion believed by those fortunate enough to not be made aware of exactly how little control they have. As I recall you actually own a business.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:34
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There is enough food, water, and housing for everyone in the world, actually. Capitalism manufactures scarcity by design where there really is none.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:42
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Cicero posted:Absolutely those are problems, which is why 'capitalist' economies inevitably have some regulations and redistributive mechanisms on top. Very few people want completely unrestrained markets. The problem is those "very few" have the wealth and influence over electoral governments and even the public discourse / culture to make sure things stay unregulated.
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Mar 31, 2017 20:47
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Fiction posted:There is enough food, water, and housing for everyone in the world, actually. Capitalism manufactures scarcity by design where there really is none. Socialism is hardly more irrelevant than when talking about global poverty. If first world leftists got their nationalist revolutions the rest of the world would be hosed and expected to say thank you for the end of "exploitation".
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Mar 31, 2017 20:52
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