I hate being that person but communism has essentially been exclusively used as a campaign promise by corrupt/evil groups attempting to seize power from the population.
Broadly speaking, people don’t understand communism and assume it just means “you own nothing and share everything. And starve.”
Just like people argue that crony capitalism isn’t capitalism, totalitarian communism isn’t communism. Corruption is the real problem.
It’s like a shitty cake recipe that looks good on TikTok, you can tell me how great the cake looks all day, but I saw you add a cup of salt to the batter
First up, just because it hasn’t worked, there’s no reason it can’t work - or is there? I’m all ears. You missed that bit.
Beyond that, the most common issue is the fact that communism is typically achieved abruptly, with little to no pre-work. If you don’t address the centralisation of wealth (and by extension, political influence), of course power is going to collapse back into authoritarian hellishness.
Transition via social democracy, taxing away the inequality, getting the populace on board with world-class social services, providing more services over time, as you transition from worker representation on boards and equity stakes to full worker ownership and workplace democracy over time.
Taking the benefits of the people fuelling the economy - workers, and handing it to wealthy shareholders that contribute nothing as they consolidate into monopolies, creating market failure in an economy fundamentally built on markets makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a better way - it just takes a bit of work.
The idea is to minimise the power imbalance to prevent individuals from being able to act on their own interests to the detriment of others, while changing incentive structures to minimise the benefit of doing so.
The government can intervene (and has done so historically) to crack up monopolies. By failing to do so in an economic system where economic power is tantamount to political power, we’re signing the execution order for democracy. Look at the political influence that the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Gates already hold. It spits on the face of democracy - a concept that I happen to value. This is a problem with a simple set of solutions.
The path we’re on only leads to worse lives for all of us - lower wages (they’ll only avoid slavery as long as the government stops them - look at Western companies operations in developing countries), less competition, higher prices, less social mobility, the elimination of the concept of meritocracy, escalating tragedy of the commons… We can and should do better.
The greatest predictor of corruption, as with most crime, is inequality. Removing massive inequality eliminates the means to fund corruption, while a fairer allocation of resources disincentives it (though I’d also support strong penalties for engaging in it).
Western companies operate overseas because they’re financially incentivised to do so - this is largely due to cheap labour with minimal protections (slaves more frequently than there should be), but also due to factors like proximity to raw materials. The fact that they would move to America in a heartbeat isn’t exactly a selling point - it’s just more evidence of the harm done by capitalism, and an argument for worker enfranchisement. The long, well documented history of the CIA overthrowing governments to install regimes more favourable to US commercial interests doesn’t exactly help this point either.
The free market doesn’t self regulate - it naturally collapses into monopolies, and all the associated suffering, graft, and market failure. The corruption is an example of the failure of these companies to self regulate as they work to bypass existing regulation. Regulators regulate companies chase profit - no matter what… We should empower the regulators to stop the worst tendencies of companies operating under the profit motive. Again, look to western countries operating in the developing world for all the evidence you need of this - nestle is a great, though far from unique case study - abhorrent labour practices, environmental vandalism, political fuckery, and predatory marketing in particular.
This brings me to ask - why would you cheer for our political democracy to be choked out by a lack of economic democracy? Why would you not want democracy in your workplace rather than having the fruits of your labour leeched away by unaccountable, unproductive, uninformed owners?
You are correct, but that is because no one has ever applied communism IRL as it should be. It has always come along with a dictatorship type of leadership sadly.
Me and the boys looking for a single communist country that wasn’t a totalitarian hellhole:
Me, looking for a single communist country.
I hate being that person but communism has essentially been exclusively used as a campaign promise by corrupt/evil groups attempting to seize power from the population.
Broadly speaking, people don’t understand communism and assume it just means “you own nothing and share everything. And starve.”
Just like people argue that crony capitalism isn’t capitalism, totalitarian communism isn’t communism. Corruption is the real problem.
The problem isn’t really “corruption”, but systens which allow and even encourage corrupt actions.
That’s why these countries turned into totalitarian hell holes, the system was set up for a small group of people to rule over everyone else.
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It is
Which is diametrically opposed to what communism is supposed to be. They just stole the name.
Corruption is the real problem and all systems must develop a tolerance of it to some degree.
It seems to me, when looking at the history of communism, that it has a particularly low tolerance for corruption and that things go to shit quick.
It’s not that true communism hasn’t existed, it’s that it simply cannot exist.
It’s like a shitty cake recipe that looks good on TikTok, you can tell me how great the cake looks all day, but I saw you add a cup of salt to the batter
Here I go fixing communism again…
First up, just because it hasn’t worked, there’s no reason it can’t work - or is there? I’m all ears. You missed that bit.
Beyond that, the most common issue is the fact that communism is typically achieved abruptly, with little to no pre-work. If you don’t address the centralisation of wealth (and by extension, political influence), of course power is going to collapse back into authoritarian hellishness.
Transition via social democracy, taxing away the inequality, getting the populace on board with world-class social services, providing more services over time, as you transition from worker representation on boards and equity stakes to full worker ownership and workplace democracy over time.
Taking the benefits of the people fuelling the economy - workers, and handing it to wealthy shareholders that contribute nothing as they consolidate into monopolies, creating market failure in an economy fundamentally built on markets makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a better way - it just takes a bit of work.
deleted by creator
The idea is to minimise the power imbalance to prevent individuals from being able to act on their own interests to the detriment of others, while changing incentive structures to minimise the benefit of doing so.
The government can intervene (and has done so historically) to crack up monopolies. By failing to do so in an economic system where economic power is tantamount to political power, we’re signing the execution order for democracy. Look at the political influence that the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Gates already hold. It spits on the face of democracy - a concept that I happen to value. This is a problem with a simple set of solutions.
The path we’re on only leads to worse lives for all of us - lower wages (they’ll only avoid slavery as long as the government stops them - look at Western companies operations in developing countries), less competition, higher prices, less social mobility, the elimination of the concept of meritocracy, escalating tragedy of the commons… We can and should do better.
deleted by creator
The greatest predictor of corruption, as with most crime, is inequality. Removing massive inequality eliminates the means to fund corruption, while a fairer allocation of resources disincentives it (though I’d also support strong penalties for engaging in it).
Western companies operate overseas because they’re financially incentivised to do so - this is largely due to cheap labour with minimal protections (slaves more frequently than there should be), but also due to factors like proximity to raw materials. The fact that they would move to America in a heartbeat isn’t exactly a selling point - it’s just more evidence of the harm done by capitalism, and an argument for worker enfranchisement. The long, well documented history of the CIA overthrowing governments to install regimes more favourable to US commercial interests doesn’t exactly help this point either.
The free market doesn’t self regulate - it naturally collapses into monopolies, and all the associated suffering, graft, and market failure. The corruption is an example of the failure of these companies to self regulate as they work to bypass existing regulation. Regulators regulate companies chase profit - no matter what… We should empower the regulators to stop the worst tendencies of companies operating under the profit motive. Again, look to western countries operating in the developing world for all the evidence you need of this - nestle is a great, though far from unique case study - abhorrent labour practices, environmental vandalism, political fuckery, and predatory marketing in particular.
This brings me to ask - why would you cheer for our political democracy to be choked out by a lack of economic democracy? Why would you not want democracy in your workplace rather than having the fruits of your labour leeched away by unaccountable, unproductive, uninformed owners?
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You are correct, but that is because no one has ever applied communism IRL as it should be. It has always come along with a dictatorship type of leadership sadly.
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deleted by creator