And a good example of how communes work in a small community. On a national scale however, they will always fail as long as they are controlled by fallible humans. Once the AI overlords are in charge, I'm sure it will work out fine.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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I think it could be done with some good structure in the democratic process and something like Cybersyn did in Chile. It’s still very tricky to get right. Cuba is weirdly democratic for example but it took 16k proposed amendments to get started.
Yeah it doesn’t work because resources are scarce. Then on a national scale only a few people have control over these scarce national resources. Which gives these people too much power. And often the people in control are sociopaths especially if they came in to power via a revolution aka a violent coup.
Then on a national scale only a few people have control over these scarce national resources.
Then you have failed to implement communism. Why are you only giving a few people access?
What’s your fix? The same problem always crops up
Just ban corruption /s
No, it really doesn't.
I understand that. Let’s say everyone has access. Suddenly someone decides they want it all. Someone polices the amount people can take. Then they have the access and the process repeats
This was there same system imposed in communes. At scale, the threat of public shame is no longer enough
Someone polices the amount people can take.
Nah
the community polices the amount people can take.
If you set aside a class of "protectors", you're just asking for trouble.
Okay, so people will always take more than they should. We see this time and again with quite literally every single power system. What do you propose we do to make sure everyone gets their share?
Democratic centralism.
Why are you asking me to repeat myself? And also, why do you have so little faith in democracy? Bourgeois democracy, sure, but actual democracy of the people, with no bureaucracy?
So everyone decides who gets what and when. What if you’re not really liked in your community? Personally I don’t really have faith in humanity in general
So everyone decides who gets what and when
That makes it sound far more direct and personal. No, the community democratically decides how resources are distributed. And rules like "Dave can't have bananas" are too stupid to even consider in this.
What if you’re not really liked in your community
Why should that matter?
Personally I don’t really have faith in humanity in general
That's your own bias, and your own problem to deal with.
Exactly. Much cooler to have an AI overlord than a low self esteem short agry little dictator
On a national scale however, they will always fail as long as they are controlled by fallible humans.
Do you have even a single example of socialism or communism failing without first being invaded?
Why doesn't that count?
Why doesn't what count?
If communism falls apart every time something doesn't go according to plan, then it's not going to work.
something doesn’t go according to plan
That's a fucking weird way to put it. This isn't exactly falling at the first hurdle here.
Society isn't a game of Civilization. If "your system can't handle a military invasion while it's in the process of being built" is a major fail to you, realise that reality isn't about min maxing, and why the fuck are you taking outside invasion as a given? Why are you not condemning the US for invading them at their weakest point, the military equivalent of dropkicking an infant, and are instead deriding the invaded for not being able to put up a better fight?
Easy, the USA got invaded early by a superpower and recovered well enough. I could argue that it was a benefit in the way that it forged a national identity
Was the US "invaded" in the midst of an ongoing revolution, by an overwhelming force intended to warp its very society? No. It threw off its already existing, but sorely outnumbered colonial authority. It wasn't an invasion. It was a revolution in itself. And the US had all the advantage in its war for independence, especially considering France helped them out.
Chile didn't have that. Argentina didn't.
And even with this caveat, Vietnam and Cuba still stand as examples of socialism not "falling apart the fiest time something goes wrong". They had overwhelming force against them and still succeeded. So that point doesn't even work.
1812
It's less about the fallibility of humans, and more mathematical than that. A person ability to acquire wealth is proportional to the current wealth they have. (And I'm not just talking about money, I'm taking about resources and power) As a result, those with a tendency to act nastier have an advantage in gaining wealth. This same issue is present in a communist economy, because while communism eschues the concept of money, it does not reject the idea of unequal power. Even some super intelligent AI wouldn't be able to fix this, as long as it was forced to give humanity basic freedoms and follow communist ideals.
Honestly, this whole communism vs capitalism debate is beneficial to the powers that be, since neither system actually tries to prevent the acquisition of power or the abuse of it.
because while communism eschues the concept of money, it does not reject the idea of unequal power.
What?
Communism = moneyless, classless, stateless society.
Sorry, I should've been more thorough. I meant it functionally ignores the concept of unequal power. Any sufficiently large group effort will eventually build a power structure, regardless of whether it's capitalist or communist.
I mean... Communism does. It acknowledges that unequal means leads to unequal outcomes. A thing that Capitalism can't admit or it would breakdown the whole system, since it requires a quietly aspirational, weak lower class to function.
If we're talking Marxist-Leninism, that's a different subject.
That's the part that too many people don't get. Communes and co-ops can work great in small communities, but they have NEVER worked, and WILL never work for a large country. There are some things that are scalable and some things that aren't. Communism is a perfect example of a system that isn't scalable.
I love how you completely ignore why they didn't work, namely existing as islands in a capitalism ocean, and capitalism doesn't like competition.
Can you really not see how if everywhere was organised in small communities that then cooperated as needed on bigger issues at different scales could absolutely work (and was literally how humanity worked for like 99% of its existence), as long as there isn't a massive greedy monster looming over trying to destroy it?
It has definitely worked in large societies, what stops them is being invaded by states that want to oppress them
I thought we were an autonomous collective?
I told you, we're an anarcho-syndicalist commune!
Speak for yourself, Im a strange lady in a pond handing out swords.
That's no basis for a system of government!
Also love how the communists are the only ones who have a functioning society that you'd actually want to live in.
Yeah, too bad it is fictional
Ah, that’s why in real life their populations frequently leave en mas
Ah yeah, just look at Chinese population leaving en masse, oh wait.
I remember how a bunch of libertarians tried to convince people, by paying to have their editorials hosted online, how it was an intentional community. Their argument boiled down to if you have tradesmen, like blacksmiths and carpenters, the work load cannot be shared there for the writers are wrong.
One article I read literally said we see a blacksmith therefore for it is a libertarian community not a commun.
I lean libertarian, but that just sounds like an argument over semantics.
It was just a bunch of silly people trying to latch on to something popular.
They got communalism wrong with communism though.
Saying that they are communists would indicate that they are a state and not a commune. Communism does not have to be build up with communes.
Communism does not need to built up with a state either. A lot of communist thought points to the end goal of communism being the dissolution of the state entirely. I encourage you to do some more reading on the subject.
"I encourage you to do some more reading on the subject"
Damn you really want to show me your balls.
But yeah it's true, I just assumed we would be talking about the classical Marxist communism and not about communism as a spectrum, which it really is.
Not sure what you're going on about. The end stage of dialect materialiam - the root of "classical Marxist" communist theory, is the dissolution of the state.
You do need a commune for communism, but a commune doesn't have to be communist. If you study Karl Marx, he's very clear about that. He famously wrote about the Paris Commune aswell.
Communism is a political/ socioeconomic ideology, not a type of state.
It's socialism. Socialism, the people own everything. Communism, the state owns everything.