to think most people would like us to live in a communist country?

[wannaBe]

"landlords shouldn't be allowed to rent for more than x amount of money."

"People shouldn't be allowed to sell their houses for more than a certain amount of money."

"People shouldn't be allowed to earn more than a certain amount of money (I'm talking salary here not benefits)."

This isn't a thread about who is better off and who can afford to do what - that's been done to death elsewhere.

But do people really think we would be in a better place if we didn't live in a free economy and where we were dictated to by the state how much we could and couldn't earn/whether we could or couldn't sell our house etc? really?

Communism can't happen in one country in the global village. Thats one reason why it always fails, because its impossible to achieve surrounded by a capitalist shrinking world.

You can't judge communism on the so-called Communist societys that have gone before, because they never were. And you can't judge how people would act in a truly communist society because you are stuck in your nasty capitalist mindset.

It's so depressing that you can't even picture the majority of people simply not being cunts. Are you only motivated by money and power. I'm not, and I don't think its a huge stretch given the right conditions that we might have different motivators as a society. Capitalism is shit, it doesn't really work for the majority, try at least to imagine something different.

Well, that's the problem isn't it ? It works in theory...........but as soon as there is an opportunity to exert the freedom to not 'take it in turn' the system either becomes totalitarian to enforce compliance or collapses !

Taking turns may be great in theory but in practise it doesn't hapen.

Say In utopialand you have 1o workers who each have to spend an hour a day shoveling shit. Man number 1 hates shoveling shit but is not that fussed about having cake for pudding. Now man number 2 is not that keen on shoveling shit but loves cake. So man 1 and man 2 do a deal where man 2 shovels shit twice and man one pays him with his cake. See it is only a very small step to a capitalist society.

no, because there hasn't yet been a true opportunity to try it.

Hang on! I think it's worth investigating. If people like brain surgeons/prime ministers/CEOs of multinationals do it for the love of the job and the buzz of adrenalin, pay them less. People who have to do jobs that they hate - pay them more. It would be interesting to see who stayed doing their hugely satisfying and worthwhile jobs when they were earning the same salary as a bin man. Perhaps we'd end up with a bottom-heavy labour market.

It's not reasonable for the greater good of the society to have people taking turns though. Not everybody can be, say, a doctor. They can't just swap jobs, the shoveling person cannot do doctor's job, therefore it does not make sense to have a doctor in shovelling duty and people untreated at the same time. Of course, you can just make people with crap jobs rotate, but hey there we have, class-society again.

but cantspel - in that case both men are happy and no-one is hurt. Capitalism is only problematic because so many people aren't happy and lots of people get hurt in the race to get ahead.

but what you're not getting is that you are looking at a possible communist society through a capitalist veil. You can't imagine past it. So any comment is really not very useful.

If you had a true veil of ignorance you would work very hard to make a fair society. this isn't it.

I agree with Paranoid that capitalism doesn't work for the majority of people too.
I mean, most people are stuck in crap jobs, and also have to pay for basic services that should be free.
And we haven't mentioned the fact that many countries with capitalist economies have turned into dictatorships (think of South America...)

I agree with posters that say there has never been a communist country. They have all been capitalist at the state record. Cuba is in rather a different situation because of all the trade sanctions from the US. It has had to work out ways to function with a very limited economic interaction with the global economy. Despite Cuba's faults, it has now become the only country in the world that is deemed by international organisations to be environmentally sustainable.

It is worth remembering that while Cuba does have human rights abuses, and people are poor compared to here, and do often live in overcrowded houses, every child in Cuba is educated, has healthcare, is fed and housed. That is something that cannot be said for a great many capitalist nations in the world with similar levels of wealth to Cuba where children die of malnutrition, from unsafe drinking water or from treatable illnesses.

But Cuba isn't a communist country. It is a mixture of capitalism, communism, anarcho-syndicalism, green politics, elitism and socialism. They tend to pick the solution to fit the problem. While I don't think we should all behave like Cuba, I do think that we should stop thinking that any one type of system can resolve all problems. We need a range of different approaches and the goal should be to become more independent from the the global environment and economy, so that managing our problems is within our capabilities rather than thinking we can cope with vast collapses - be it the global economy or international wheat or oil shortages, which are outside of our control.

So where would all the entrepreneurs and the risk-takers be in the communist utopia? Who would use up their life savings to start a business because they'd had a good idea if there wasn't the possibility of reward at the end? Ok, so there'd be a few who might do it for the common good, but I don't think there would be very many. And why work hard at anything if you're not rewarded for that work?

And that's what happens in (initially) idealistic communist societies. Nobody works any more than they absolutely have to. So nothing gets done. You might have to wait six months for a TV or two years for a car. There's no choice in the shops and nothing that can be considered a treat. The government owns everything and doles it out in precisely equal measures to everybody. Is that really the sort of society you want to live in?

Communism theory would never work in practice. But neither does the theory of capiutalism as envisaged by Adam Smith. He didn't envisage large corporations - it was all small independent traders and artisans or small enterprises. He made it sound imo pretty good and a sensible way to live.

Realities are always much messier than any theories or policies.

Sorry, I didn?t read the whole thread, I had to post.
I was born and lived half of my life in a communist country and have witnessed suffering beyond anybody can imagine. Hard work did not matter, in fact nothing mattered. Only if you were part of the communist party and spyed on your neighbours, you had any chance to a decent life.
Under the ?lovely? communist regime I grew up with, you could not freely express your views as you do here, in this country, for the fear that you and the entire family would end up in jail or dead. Communism is a joke. I wish the people advocating communism from the comfort of this lovely democratic country could go and live one year in my country at the time when it was communist (which, thank God no longer is)

SRD, how dreadful.
I'd like to reiterate however, that no one has seriously expressed a wish to move to 1978 Romania (for instance), we were just thinking of alternatives to capitalism (not to democracy... there seems to be the equation capitalism/democracy and sometimes it is not the same).

It was all started by the OP, who suggested that most people who criticise free economies would like us to live in a communist country....

When you do go back and read the whole thread, if you have time and want to, of course. You're under no obligation to I hope that you'll feel less upset and cross because you'll see all the posts about the fact that so called 'communist' countries aren't, and actual communism doesn't exist. There is a difference between the idea of communism and the countries that call themselves communist.

I don't understand why people are talking about the so called 'communist' countries that actually exist and how if we had to live in one we'd hate it when what is being discussed is the theory of true communism and the fact that it doesn't actually exist.

So called 'communist' countries are anything but. And I can't imagine how bloody horrible it must be to live in one - but that's not the same thing as the idea of actual communism. iyswim.

So what would actual communism entail then if you could design the society from scratch? How would it operate? How would you regulate work, income, expenditure and personal freedom so that everything was fair? Would you allow immigration and emigration? What about ownership of goods or land? Would everybody be paid exactly the same wage no matter what job they did? What about schooling? Would every kid get exactly the same schooling? What about those that showed a real aptitude for (say) football or music? Anything special for them? etc etc.....

I don't think most people would like us to live in a communist country. MN is a very skewed demographic that does seem to have a left-of-centre majority. But if you're mistaking MN opinion for UK public opinion as a whole you may be pleasantly (or unpleasantly, depending on your perspective) surprised.

MN does seem to be far more left wing than society as a whole. Why people would want to live in a socialist/communist society with an enormous state I don't know, it sounds pretty horrific to me.

well said Rubberduck. I think we are very fortunate in this country. I think you have to learn from history and other countries experience of communism. It sounds pretty grim.

All animals are equal

Some animals are more equal than others

Strangely that seems to be the way the top half of our "Democracy" see it.

yes that's the point Fog as I am sure you know.

In animal farm, the animals are all in it together and start off that way overthrowing the farmer etc.

at the end of the novel the pigs sit around playing cards with the old farmer and other humans and the animals still left cannot tell who is human and who is an animal.

It has become the same as before and the animals are no better off than under the farmer.

I haven't read this book since I was 14. I suspect it may be out of fashion now.

But surely as Russia was never communist, most countries are not capitalist either. Under capitalism would all of those failed banks have been bailed out? A truly capitalist society would be less hard to swallow than the current system, where the elite are constantly sucking money and resources from the majority.

I think it's the total double standards and unfairness that gets peoples goats.

But Russia was trying to be and it just didn't work. Look at China. I take on board what Znaika says. It doesn't sound much fun.

I met some people who lived in America who came from Hungary or Yugloslavia (met them a while back on holiday) and they said there was nothing to buy and even in a professional role, you could afford very little.