this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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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.
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 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
Nah
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
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.
Why should that matter?
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
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?
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780810896390/When-the-United-States-Invaded-Russia-Woodrow-Wilsons-Siberian-Disaster#:~:text=In%201918%2C%20after%20the%20Bolshevik,Front%20against%20the%20Central%20Powers.
EDIT: I'll also add, post-1980 invasion is no longer necessary. Colonialism now happens economically.
If communism falls apart every time something doesn't go according to plan, then it's not going to work.
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.
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