To ask how modern communism is supposed to work?

[CurrentBun1981]

I was randomly thinking about this today and realised that, whilst I understand the very basic principles (stereotypes?) of communism, I don't really understand much about how it really should work when implemented 'properly' (if this has ever happened).

Googling it seems to bring up a lot of heavy theory or alternatively just wishy washy Reddit discussions. I'm assuming that young intellectuals/students who advocate for it don't want a Chinese style 'democracy', so how would modern communism work in theory?

I've read that leaders are supposed to take up key (temporary) positions in running of the country during the transitional period but that in reality these leaders rarely relinquish their power and just become dictators as seen historically.

Aside from that, why would anybody want to do the really grim, dirty or backbreaking jobs if they didn't have to? Who would do the really high stress/high risk jobs without any financial compensation? I read a discussion on it where a poster explained that people work for three main reasons - job satisfaction, societal duty, and the need for provisions/sustenance. He said that with Communism it's never the third reason and loads of people upvoted him.

A few people questioned this and the general reply was something about community pressure making people fall in line. I think this sounds bonkers and would never work in reality, much like what I've read about anarchy and communities policing themselves.

Mockers- yes agree. You have written it better than I. Was trying to convey there is a spectrum within socialism, and communism is the furthest within socialism from capitalism.

before there were 4 x the number of people scrounging in dumps? when? source?

True Believers would say that Communism was beyond Socialism, a far off utopia where all will be well. No sign of it anywhere to date.

The various lists of the best-governed countries show these states have much in common. They have free and fair elections of trustworthy and minimally corrupt governments, some form of comprehensive public wefare, either insurance and/or tax-based, and most of them are monarchies.

Look upthread Bunny, I posted a lot of 1990 to today statistics. The one I was referencing was % population innextreme povery has dropped from 5% to 1%.

Well, I have to say that this is the most interesting and thought-provoking thread I have read on MN in a very long time.

Thank you.

It has also made me realise that perhaps I should have paid more attention during my school history lessons

Here Bunny, for your convenience.
“Today, only 1% of people still live on less than $1.25 a day. This number has fallen from 5% in 1990.”

www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2015/07/what-progress-has-been-made-in-ending-global-poverty/

Sorry, I typed burney but just realised my autocorrect has been making it Bunny. Was inadvertent, not being snarky.

I've been to Cuba and found it so depressing, their is a huge black market in pharmaceuticals, prostitution is rife and people are v v poor and v v unhappy. Our hotel doctor begged me to sponsor him to be able to come here, he wasn't happy that he got paid the same as a dustman and the tours we went on were run by people all selling other stuff to get US dollars to better their lifestyle. TV is state controlled do very few has any idea of what the outside world is like. It doesn't work and they weren't happy.

I also travelled to Russia straight after the revolution. It was very strange, the older generation were protesting about the downfall of communism and there were still huge queues for staples outside shops. The little old lady who used to sit at the bottom of the escalator in the tube station wanted her job back because she was guaranteed an income, much the same as our OAPs get by way of their pension. People were still trying to sell you stuff to get a few extra dollars, they weren't happy with their lot by any means.

If you look at all the communist dictatorships they are run by people who their basic principles don't apply to.

Princessconsuela I’m sorry if that was your experience. There are many millions of victims of capitalism, we just don’t see their circumstances as being the result of capitalism. The garment workers who die in factory collapses, the ruined economies of Africa and the military dictatorships in South America. Everything needs to be evaluated in context and before communists took power in Russia there was extreme poverty, social problems and famines. There were many things happening in that time due to civil war and then World War Two that obviously influenced how things developed. I admire many things the soviets achieved while acknowledging it was definitely not a utopia. We are in a different period now and it’s impossible to say exactly what a socialist revolution in a developed country would look like. I think the main point is that people become aware of who is taking things from us. Everyday we work while the capitalists profit from our labour, while the world becomes unliveable and the problems in our society aren’t fixed. In the fallout from this crisis I hope people will revolt if major corporations that treated workers like dirt are bailed out and the suffering is put back onto everyday people. Unions need to organise and the government should step in and nationalise whatever it can. We can’t rely on private companies in times of crisis. Capitalism is not sustainable and it can only reinvent itself so many times. It relies on expansion for its survival and it has an end point.

Shocked to find corruption and prostitution in Cuba?

How very unlike the good old days under Uncle Batista.

I’m sorry if that was your experience.
If? Nice

There are many millions of victims of capitalism, we just don’t see their circumstances as being the result of capitalism.

Pretty big assumption there.

before communists took power in Russia there was extreme poverty, social problems and famines.

Just like after communists took power. They didn't improve any of that, not on a population level at least.

It doesn't matter what system(as a single solution)you pick, there will always be poverty,losers and winners , people at the top and people scraping the bottom. Because whichever system you pick,it relies on people. The "state" is not an idea and the anthropomorphism of it is pointless. The state will be formed of people,that will have to make decisions. People that suddenly will have A LOT of power and control. People that will bring their own ambitions,prejudices, wants,needs etc with them.

Look I get it, you fancy the idea ,the utopia of it. But that's what it is,it's an idea,that never worked in practice. An idea that you haven't lived or experienced past discussions with others and fantasising how great it would all be. Don't be so naive to think that there wouldn't be people as collateral damage and innocents caught in the crossfire. That's insulting.

Personally I’d prefer a system that wasn’t predicated on creating artificial consumer needs, importing Wish-style shit made by slave labour in China and thereby comprehensively fucking up the environment.

Communism does not, will not and cannot work because central planning by politically motivated bureaucrats will never be as effective or efficient as market forces in allocating resources and establishing the optimal price of goods, services and assets.

The Nazis had a state monopoly system going, as Orwell knew. Along with Autarky, they had mass privatisation of industry etc. but under the eye of the Nazi party. Nobody was going to be telling Hitler they didnt want to produce tanks because they were unprofitable. There wasn't/isnt only one alternative to capitalism.

Only you mentioned the Nazis as socialists.

Wikipedia actually have a really good page on the Nazi economy.

And most of them have very strong socialist movements, Mockers.

If you go far enough right or left there is hardly any difference between them. Ideology is more a circle than a line.

Imtootired are you just delusional or wilfully ignorant of other people’s experiences. Apologising for someone else’s lived experience of the brutal communism, you somehow try to equate it with what capitalism is. Read carefully and then read again what princessconsuela has written. That is what extreme socialism looks like, call it communism or something else. Workers do not produce wealth, wealth creators produce wealth, workers work and should be paid at least a minimum that a society agrees is dignified.
Funny how supporters of crazy leftie ideologies would never survive in a crackpot socialist/communist country for even a day.
Champagne socialism/communism anyone?

The Nazis may have called themselves socialists, but if you look at their stated objectives, they clearly weren't within what is normally understood by the term. They didn't advocate control of the means of production, supply and exchange by the people (or the state), for example.

They did not take over big business. They didn't really care as long as they created prosperity for ethnic Germans (and no one else).

The Nazi manifesto was a mishmash of various things, a wierd hybrid, with authoritarianism and racism as the only guiding principals.

before there were 4 x the number of people scrounging in dumps? when? source?
@BurneyFanny in 1981, 44% of the world's population were in extreme poverty. In 2015 it was only 10%.
ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

Communism doesn't work, but pure capitalism doesn't work either. You need a balance between the two (socialism).

Workers do not produce wealth, wealth creators produce wealth

Why are the "wealth creators" so keen on keeping the workers working as hard and long as possible then?

What are we working for?

Are you really trying to claim that when a worker digs up a ton of coal or builds a house or fills a thousand jars of jam or sews a hundred pairs of jeans, no wealth is the result?

I haven't heard of modern communism and would be surprised if genuine Marxist communism had a resergency.

What about Marxist feminists?

@Scott72

No country has 'pure' capitalism. All developed countries have a regulated free market economy with some state involvement. The level varies from sector to sector and country to country.

It's certainly somewhere in the middle, but it's certainly not socialism.

@IceCreamWaffles

Interesting point. Marxism isn't at all important in economic theory now, as far as I know. But it strikes me as hugely influential in other social sciences, particularly in how human rights theory applies to oppressed groups and minorities. The theory of the patriarchy is, as I understand it, a reworking of the idea that society discriminates against the workers in favour of the privileged.