Can Communism work?

This thread is to ask the question "can communism work?"

Quoted from a website:

"Communism is a society without money, without a state, without property and without social classes. People come together to carry out a project or to respond to some need of the human community but without the possibility of their collective activity taking the form of an enterprise that involves wages and the exchange of its products. The circulation of goods is not accomplished by means of exchange: quite the contrary, the by-word for this society is "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".

With communism the government of people gives way to the administration of things. Contrary to the illusion produced by the present society the state and its institutions are not the inevitable result of the growth and complexities of societies, but the opposite, the result of the frantic socialisation of the species without community. The necessity for distinct organs of administration, repression and assistance has its cause in the maintenance of class society. The state is the defender of the dominant class which is increasingly integrated into it. It is forced to alleviate destitution which is increased by a social life where man becomes a predator for man.

With communism the oppositional but complementary relationship between the political and economic spheres disappears, i.e. between the citizen supposedly governing society in freedom and equality, and the producer as a slave to material necessity, hierarchy and the despotism of the factory. Communist theory and struggle are a critique of economy and politics."

So, it seems like a decent enough idea. Why doesn't it seem to work? And why are so many people quick to pin the word "communist" onto someone as an insult?

Communism doesn't work because the governments which employ them are highly corrupt and take advantage of the system. With a decent government, communism could work.

What are your opinions?

 

The only times communism can even contemplate working is when it's voluntary by all the people involved.

I sincerely doubt this will ever happen on a country wide scale.

 

No, the people just have to accept it, not want it. The only requirement for a working Communist government is an incorruptible leader (or governing body, though finding one incorruptible person is improbable enough, without trying to find a group of them).

If ever a communist country gets a leader who is not corrupted by his absolute power, then the system will work beautifully- the problem is finding the nonexistent incorruptible leader!

Later!

 

For some reason, communism, socialism, and other leftist economic systems always seem to deteriorate into fascism - communism doing so in fairly rapid speed, the others quite slower. The main reason of this is because these types of systems go against human nature. It is our nature to look out for our own interests and guard our assets. In order for the government to break down this self-barrier, it requires a tremendous amount of power. And then those with power give in to their own insticts - and kill those who oppose them.

So, in conclusion, communism can not work. However, I do think it could have worked in more primitive times, in a non-Western culture.

 

Sadly, human nature prevents communism from working. We tend to get greedy. The Soviet Union was not really a democracy but more of a dictatorship. Democracy can never work either due to human nature. The closest thing the world has ever seen to a true democracy was ancient Greece.

 

Wrong, Bolo.

The only examples I've ever heard of with communism working is in small communes where people join voluntarily.

Non voluntary communism is slavery.

 

It works in theory.

But it doesn't work in practice.

It only would work if the person in charge was PERFECT.

Which has a very small probability of happening

 

While I most certainly do not believe in Communism or even Socialism for that matter I think its worth pointing out that since WW2 most countries with Communist governments have been subjected interference from the US. In many cases this has involved waging war on governments through proxy armies such as the Contras in Nicarugua, support and even organising coups such as Argentina in 1973, outright invasions and removal of governments such as in Grenada in 1983, several example of interference in elections and sanctions and embargos in the case of Cuba. We don't know how things might have turned out in these countries if they had not been subjected to such interference. Fidel Castro especially is an extraordinary man who might have been able to achieve so much more had Cuba not been subjected to over 40 years of attacks in almost every form. Considering Cuba have the one the lowest infant mortality rates in the world (superior to that of both the US and UK) and the highest level of adult literacy in Latin America he has clearly achieved something.

Now I'm not claiming that everything would be wonderful in communist countries had it not been for the US but the point is so many left-wing governments weren't given a fair chance. Please don't post back if you want to try and justify the actions I described. This isn't the thread for such a discussion.

 

No, Communism can never work. This is what I posted in the Socialism thread:

Only someone lacking knowledge of basic economics can still believe that an entirely controlled economy can work efficiently. Lack of inflation and full employment can be mandated, but a flow of high-quality goods to the public has never been generated by a Communist economy which can match any ordinary Capitalist one. The reasons are not obscure:

1) Lack of infinite knowledge. Large modern economies are too complex for governments to be able to assemble all the information to do rational and effective planning. Stock markets and corporate elites may make irrational and even disastrous decisions - as shown by the collapse of Enron - but ultimately mistakes in the free market tend to be self-correcting. These difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that in a planned economy it is not in the interest of most individuals to generate and convey accurate data. The worker lies about how much work has been done, the manager about how many goods are being shipped, and the economist about how successful the latest plan has been. The official statistics quickly become a fiction from which it is impossible to generate any rational plan.

2) Put simply, people work harder for themselves than they do for the common good in large enterprises. This may or may not be an unchangeable aspect of human nature; but no Communist government has ever been able to inspire its people to work really efficiently except for brief periods, usually through terror. Both Soviet Russia and China had to rescue their disastrous agricultural policies by allowing farmers to develop private plots for their own profit - an obviously Capitalist scenario - which typically produced far more than the properly socialist communal farms.

Exceptions may be found in settings where people know each other well, but in large modern states it is impossible to generate the enthusiasm to work hard except in wartime or similar crises. Toward the end, the Soviet economy was notoriously rife with absenteeism, employee theft, and idleness: "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."

Socialists commonly try to inspire workers with various slogans and visions of the glorious future, and these can actually work for a time; but they are simply impossible to sustain in the long run.

 

Non voluntary communism is slavery
Does that mean that non voluntary democracy is also slavery? I may not want to live in a democratic country, but I don't have much of a choice do I?

Communism isn't a flawed theory, it's flawed in practice due to mankind's greed, as many have posted above. You cannot blame a system for not working. When representative democracy was first introduced, the noble classes thought it would never work, and it has now been in place for hundreds of years. Once mankind realises what greed breeds, once the capitalist bubble bursts (and it will someday), people will look for alternatives; most probably a sub-Communist form.

Equality has always been the goal and it works in theory, however total government control leads to inevitable oppression of the masses because of rebellion. If police states weren't the symbols of Communism in practice then maybe it would work, however you must remember that a "true" Marxist revolution has never occurred. Leaders have always compromised ideals. If the political landscape evolves as Marx predicts, we may eventually see a pure Communist world: Worldwide revolution.

The theory does have its flaws, however, as the "workers" of Marx's ideal aren't generally intelligent enough to revolt against the ruling classes. IMO, Europe will continue to look further right and the youth will get fed up and lead a leftist revolution, but it's a fair way off...

 

Firstly, communism can't be achieved through revolution, it's supposed to be the evolutionary stage of long-term socialism. Hence why you can't really call any state of the 20th Century "Communist" in the true sense of the word.

Secondly, it's a wonderful theory, but several hundred years too early. Imagine a cyberpunk version of Thomas More's Utopia, if you will!

E_S

 

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "wonderful" theory.

 

Several contributors have said that for communism to work it would be necessary for the leader to be perfect and incorruptible.
This is making the assumption that communism requires " a leader", a fact not at all supported by any reading of Marx or Engels. Any society controlled by one ruling party, itself prone to undemocratic and bureaucratic distortions, will end in failure, a fact recognised by Christian Rakovsky and Preobazhensky, two leading figures in the Left Opposition.
Obviously as a socialist or communist, I consider the terms largely interchangeable, I don't accept the view that Marx's maxim " from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" is against human nature. What is against human nature is totalitarianism, and Rosa Luxemburg's warnings to the Bolsheviks have been borne out through time. It is impossible to create meaningful change through minority rule. For socialism to succeed it must fight the cultural hegemony of conservative ideas just as Gramsci said, and build support from the ground up.

 

Humans on the whole are greedy and selfish. That is why communism will not work.

 

Jediguy it is a "wonderful" theory... man living together as equals... it's the goal of society... it's just impractical due to varied levels of intelligence and differing personal goals.

 

I think Friedmann said it best when he described capitalism as the only system where greed doesn't hurt. Under almost every example of a communist government in the past, corrupted leaders have turned their states into fascist nations and unrightfully took a huge amount of their country's economic gain for themselves. In capitalism, however, the greedy can do very little harm to their fellow citizens. How much power does the richest capitalist in the world have over me? Not much, if any.

 

But that's an economic policy. I assume what you're all talking about here is a system of government.

So, it seems like a decent enough idea. Why doesn't it seem to work? And why are so many people quick to pin the word "communist" onto someone as an insult?

Communism doesn't work because the governments which employ them are highly corrupt and take advantage of the system. With a decent government, communism could work.

You might as well ask why the streets in California aren't paved with gold.

 

Well communism is an economic policy. It's just that governments who have adopted the policy have historically gravitated towards an authoritarian system of government (i.e. fascism/totaltarianism) in order to carry it out.

 

Can Communism work?



Well, no. Neither does any other system. Humans always tend to screw things up. There will always be stupid and power-hungry people, and with stupid and power-hungry people in the world, communism cannot work.

 

Small-scale, voluntary communism does and has worked for centuries.

At the macro-level(large scale), it has proven disastrous.

 

Yes, small communisms work. But they must be kept small. Like intentional communities or frat houses on college campuses.

 

I agree that on a small scale communism can work. On a large scale, it's nice on paper but terrible in practice. The other members have laid out the reasons why this is so. Inefficeincy, corruption, a void of individual power, these are all problems that plauge communism in practice. The larger it gets the worse it gets. Also as I stated in the socialism thread, a monopolistic organization, be it free enterprise or government controlled lacks neccessity to drive innovation.

 

On a wide scale, I don't think Communism can work. There's one important human characteristic that needs to be wiped out before it can work. Greed. This will keep most people from busting their butt only to have the fruits of their work divided among everyone, including people that don't work as hard. Sooner or later, the hard working person is going to get ticked off and stop working as hard. The question is why should he work hard when everything is going to be equal. I really don't think Communism takes human nature into account.

 

I find it very amusing seeing people say 'it works in theory'.

What a load of crap.

Do I have to remind these people, that if something is theoretical, it hasn't actually been tested yet?

The whole 'it works in theory' is a totally flawed argument.

Any system where everyone is happy and fed is good, there is no argument there from anybody.

The reason in works in small tribes is because people in these communities share kinship, and they do thnigs for their family.

Large nation states do not have these types of relationships, and any implementation of such a system becomes dictatorial and bureaucratic.

And human beings are not equal, nor should they. I personally would not tolerate a world where everyone is the same!! The equality that should be sought is equal rights.

 

Uh, communism is an economic theory, really. People assume democracy and a socialist style economic model are incompatible. Not so. Both capitalism, socialism and communism deal with surplus from the means of production, and the redistribution thereof.

E_S