"Communism sounds great on paper - it just doesn't work in reality!" = most tedious line of conversation EVER?

Gore Vidal: "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor."

the problem with Communism starts at the root: the basic assumption of how prices are derived for goods is just flat wrong

http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/paretian/social.htm

That said, I don't know why the dumbed-down "communism is GREAT on paper" meme is so persistent.

man, you guys love to over think things. it's probably because when people use this it's usually got sweet FA to do with their actual opinions on communism and they have no intention for it to be some statement of ultimate truth. it's just a shorthand way of saying that they are not fully convinced of some random argument that the other person is making. this is despite the fact that the other person is trying really hard to make it sound good. aka. "what-ever!"

personally I think its a huge tragedy of the 20th century that Marx's ideas were effectively totally discredited due to the actions of a bunch of bloodthirsty autocrats who never gave two shits about any of his work whatsoever. Kinda like with Jesus and Christianity.

^^ this is the same kind of "ZINGED YA, COMMUNISM" that the original phrase partakes in (sic)

-- max, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 16:16 (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Incorrect. It is a statement of fact. Much of the reason for Marx's poverty was that he insisted on not living in accordance with the theory which he helped to invent, and therefore he lived beyond his means.

Leninism =/ communism, or at least there are other variants that don't involve a dictatorship of the proletariat.

i liked this thread more when it was less about communism and more about this stupid phrase

dingbod im not really sure what point youre trying to make, but im fairly confident that its stupid

the OP is a lame-ass statement of course, but it's basically backwards. communism is a mess theoretically but it worked just fine in practice! it took heavy state force to keep a lid on everything, the population not the least, but half the world was communist for half a century, that's not a 'failed' record for a form of government. it could have gone on forever, but for the outside pressure. monarchy and feudal economics were garbage too but that had a pretty good run, didn't it.

I'm actually rather comforted that ILX still has a tough old Red in its midst. "You should have lived through the 70's" etc.

why aren't there more communes?

Leninism = communism, but like Marxism it has never been purely achieved

"living within one's means" is hardly a communist idea. what is "one's means" anyway? fiscal discipline? bourgeouis! (i always spell that wrong...)

what are communist ethics anyway

i dont know, but i bet they sound great on paper

oh i get it

something can't SOUND anything on PAPER, amirong?

another subtext to this is "liberalism sounds great, but fuck you"

The problem with the statement isn't its veracity. It's that every dumbass who never read any actual Communist tracts repeats it. It's conventional wisdom for stupid people. It would be fine if someone had read the Manifesto (or anything!) and had some developed opinions about the economy, and then had some new point to make about why Communism can't work (btw: The human nature part isn't just tired - it's wrong).

The other real problem is that it's frequently spewed by self-described libertarians who think that they have SUCH EDGY OPINIONS about the economy and politics because they've read some Ayn Rand.

I think Marx would disagree. what would be required is control from the BOTTOM - ie, the "workers"

In that, I obviously disagree with Mordy, above, though I'm not a libertarian and I've never read Ayn Rand.

Vietnam functions well because it's as much a capitalist democracy as a socialist state.

^^I can get with that analysis

which is why there aren't more communes.

Here's the problem with the "human nature" thing. It presumes that "human nature" (which in this case assumes that humans will attempt to attain as much power and wealth as possible) can't work with Communism. But guess what? Human nature doesn't work with Capitalism either. Without government interference, Capitalism would devolve into the same issues -- people trying to attain as much wealth as possible without any regard for the lower class. Which is also why Marx's Communism doesn't depend upon "human nature." It depends upon a moment of such technological superiority that Capitalism fails due to the cheapness of its goods. And that's why government control ISN'T the intermediary for a shift to Communism. Capitalism itself is the intermediary.

and pretty much all the societies that went communist were essentially agrarian/pre-industrial.

you know what else sounded great on paper--spider-man 3

there's a line in an old fry and laurie sketch "socialism is all very well in practice, but does it work in theory?"

Mordy, that doesn't parse. The "human nature" criticism of communism says if people's needs are fulfilled, and their work doesn't produce extra reward, then they won't work as hard. How does capitalism run into the same issue?

"Communism works if material goods are so cheap and abundant you can't charge for them" looks pretty good on paper...

Here's the problem with the "human nature" thing. It presumes that "human nature" (which in this case assumes that humans will attempt to attain as much power and wealth as possible) can't work with Communism. But guess what? Human nature doesn't work with Capitalism either. Without government interference, Capitalism would devolve into the same issues -- people trying to attain as much wealth as possible without any regard for the lower class. Which is also why Marx's Communism doesn't depend upon "human nature." It depends upon a moment of such technological superiority that Capitalism fails due to the cheapness of its goods. And that's why government control ISN'T the intermediary for a shift to Communism. Capitalism itself is the intermediary.

The govermental (top-down) interference necessary to effectively regulate a capitalist economy is minimal. It's not a matter of imposing an untested, artificial system of production and distribution, but merely of nudging a naturally-occurring system this way or that, depending on the needs of the moment. (Not an exact science of course, as the current U.S. economy demonstrates).

Finally, the failure of capitalism due to the cheapness of goods arugment simply doesn't work. Technology may make certain goods cheaper, but it also makes them MUCH more complex, and weaves the means of production into increasingly vast and interconnected webs.

I don't understand why Communism doesn't allow people to pursue their personal goals any less than Capitalism does.

And as far as technology, I agree that Marx didn't predict the complexity of modern technology. But not all goods become complex. We have something like food where the government personally intercedes in its production to stabilize the market. Acc. to Marx (presumably), food has reached a state of cheapness in the United States where Capitalism has begun to fail. It's kept intact through government interference.

As long as those goals are eating beets and waiting in line, it does. xp

Ok, so we're back to lolz the USSR = Communism.

I think what we've proved today is that if you want to get a bunch of people who like to talk about stuff talkin', the practicalities of communism is still Old Reliable

I'm never convinced by arguments based on 'human nature' - a concept so nebulous it can never specifically defined, much less proven

don't forget lolz USA = Capitalism

BE specifically defined etc

x-post

It could, I suppose, but was never constructed to do so. Marx and Lenin both seem to assume that individual goals will naturally be subordinated to group goals, provided that the right group goals are chosen. As a result, communist societies have tended to view individual goals that seem to run counted to expressed group goals as a threat.

At heart, the word "communism" itself may be hostile to individual goals and decision-making. The word presumes that most important social unit is the group, rather than the individual. Capitalism and democracy, on the other hand, both stress the importance of the individual.

Surviving today is so cheap it's ridiculous. What besides human nature keeps people working and spending?

"Feuerbach resolves the essence of religion into the essence of man. But the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations."

"Hey hey, my my. Rock and roll will never die."

what percentage of self-described communists don't live deliberately as part of an intentional community and why? show your work.

I'm never convinced by arguments based on 'human nature' - a concept so nebulous it can never specifically defined, much less proven

and marx agrees with that

the essence of man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is the ensemble of the social relations.

"...nd I'll have none of it!"

what percentage of self-described communists don't live deliberately as part of an intentional community and why? show your work.

-- Kerm, Wednesday, 30 July 2008 17:02 (4 minutes ago) Link

communists should work @ investment banks and the upper level management of multinational corporations to continue the socialization of capital. or something like that. right?

marx had a servant!!!!1!!!11

xp: no

he was also against abolishing child labor laws

Max: that quote basically boils down to, "man is not a man, man is the group." I.e., communist; i.e., anti-individualist.

One of the things people overlook in evaluating capitalism is the fact that it comes with a built-in feedback mechanism: money. An worker in a capitalist system knows exactly how well she's doing (regardless of what her boss or her spouse or her friends say) according to that one simple measure. The more she makes, the better off she is. Similarly, a company can measure its success by how much it grosses vs. how much it spends, and it can use this information to decide how much to pay its employees. If the company manufactures widgets, it knows exactly how many to make, based on how many its clients will buy. And the widget-punch manufacturer that supplies the company is similarly informed.

No one has to coordinate or regulate these interconnected systems in order to enusure that they function properly. Regulation may be necessary to prevent certain abuses, but the basic function of the system is guaranteed by the nature of the built-in immediate feeback mechanism that capital provides. No one designed this mechanism into captial. It isn't a philosopher's invention or a "good idea". It's just the way things work. You don't have to know why they work this way to notice that they, in fact, do.

In attempting to remove capital and the feedback it provides from the system of production and distribution, communism winds up with something much less flexible, intuitive and coherent. How many widgets should the manufacturer make? The number demanded by his clients? The number he feels like? The number insisted upon by a government agency in a city thousands of miles away? There is no reason for the manufacturer's clients limit their demands, or for the manufacturer to exceed his own expectations. And due to the complexities of modern manufacturing, there's no way for any individual or agency to fully grasp the entire system. As a result, production in a communist system is often something of a blind beast, spitting out widgets according to absurd whims.

Of course, the logic of production in a capitalist society is far from perfect. "What the market will allow" doesn't necessarily have much to do with what people actually need -- in fact, it explicitly excludes the poorest of the poor, simply because there isn't much money in them. But it at least has a flexible, responsive, "smart" feeback mechanism to guide production and reward success.