Would any of ye have liked to live in a communist country?

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Its a great idea if humans were mindless drones with no ambition. However humans always want something better then everyone else and will not be happy to have the same as their neighbors.

All that communism does is allows the corrupt to profit greatly and the masses to be equal. And equal at a **** level.

My wife is russian and her mum tells stories of what it was like. Yes you got an apartment for free (eventually). One of her friends got married and they applied for an apartment, they eventually got issued with a 2 bedroom apartment 16 years later at which point they had 4 kids and were living with her mother.
You queued in hundreds for basic goods and got your allowance. New clothes were in very very high demand and there was never enough for everyone. Black market was a big thing.

To look at people in capitalist society and conclude that human nature is egoism, is like looking at people in a factory where pollution is destroying their lungs and saying that it is human nature to cough.

ScumLord wrote: »

The problem with communism is that trade is a fundamental part of human behaviour. Trading is hard wired into just about everything we do, it's how our brain works, and has worked since before the homo sapien came along. Any ideology has to take into account that people will resort to trading over the simplest things. It even crept into Christianity when we saw the church allowing people to pay for spiritual services and even buy off sins.

For me the bottom line is there's no set ideology that will work all the time. Communism might work well in one place but be completely unworkable under different conditions. If communism works today, it might not work tomorrow after some new technology is created. The fundamentals of trade always work. Capitalism is crude but at it's most basic it works best with our trading deposition. Socialism is also fairly fundamental to humans, as much as we like to see ourselves as individuals we're about as individual as ants. All our greatest advancements have been brought about through social groups.

Ideologies are great starting points, good guides but they're always going to fall short if they don't allow adaptation to our environment.

You can trade personal items in a communist society. Although most things you need would be provided through the way the economy is set up, so there is very little need to trade. I could imagine some people trading some personal items. That type of trading would obviously be fine, but most items you could get in fully developed communism. In the lower stages, when you're paid according to the quantity and quality of work, I would imagine a lot of trading happening. As we develop the means of production, increased automation, efficiency, etc, there would be no need to trade very much. If you want to trade though you could, although I think it would be rather silly for most items since you could just go get such item from the "store".

I'm not a communist, but most of the descriptions of communism in this thread are very simplistic, or even false; especially the false belief that communism requires gulags or opposes diversity.

I think a lot of people confuse communism, as a political & economic philosophy, with the 'queuetopias' of the U.S.S.R., which is a bit like likening capitalism to 18th century England. It's simply wrong. Show you a country in the world in which communism has been a success? Well, I can't, no more than you can show me a country where Capitalism has been a success, and capitalist modes of have been established for a lot longer. The world's first communist country only opened its doors less than 100 years ago.

My favourite exponent of communism, as much as I disagree with his politics, is the French philosopher Alain Badiou, and this quote in particular:

Again, I'm not a communist (although, I think it's ridiculous that the word still carries any stigma, as if somehow incriminating). But I'd say I'm about as sympathetic to communism as I am to capitalism. Both have legitimate arguments to make, and neither is necessarily the correct one. There probably isn't a 'correct' answer to the problems that are created by man's existence.

ScumLord wrote: »

It's not about need, it's a behaviour, as much as people like to listen to music trade is as much a fundamental part of their psyche. To suppress it is the same as trying to suppress art. We can see this in communist countries now where people will turn to the black market even if they're getting everything they need.

Is there any evidence that people NEED to trade, biologically/psychologically? We trade because that is one of many ways of allocating resources among society, we didn't do much trading in primitive communism (most of human history) so there is no reason to suggest we need huge amounts of trade as humans. And I said you can trade stuff with people if you want. However, you won't need to trade in the sense of a market, but you can trade if you'd like.

People do not trade for the sake of trading, it's to get resources of some kind. If a person has most of the stuff they need, like food, water, house, hygiene products, phone, computer, etc, they will not trade for the sake of trading in and of itself. Do you personally trade for the sake of trading in and of itself, or is it because that's how resources are allocated in our market society? There might be items you need to trade in communism, like personal items or something very very rare that can't be mass produced in any way, but the allocation of most resources would be taken care of by the economy I've described before. Trading is necessary in any type of market economy. That's how resources are mostly allocated.

In primitive communism, there were no markets, everyone hunted and gathered. They didn't trade much because everything was collectivized. It's not that trade must be the way we allocate resources, its just that it's efficient compared to primitive communism because there was no good way of planning, no technology, and no specialization during that time due to low developed means of production, and everyone had to get food all day otherwise people would starve. There is trade/exchange in the sense that everyone works for society and then is able to receive from society, but less traditional trade. So in that sense of needing trade, you would need it but would be present also.

People listening to music is a silly comparison to trade. Of course both are behaviors, anything you do is a "behavior". It's just that this behavior (traditional trade) is present because the allocation of resources in our present society requires this, while listening to music is not dependent on our material conditions. Obviously material conditions would impact the type of music, what we listen through like live, CD, iPod, etc, but the listening to sounds is the base of what we are going for, unlike trade which it's base is to allocate resources among society, you know what I mean? So there are fundamentally different ways to allocate resources than markets, but not fundamentally different way to hear sounds (music). Sorry if I'm confusing or redundant, it's hard to explain perfectly by typing.

What do you define trade as? Because if you mean that in the sense of trading similar to markets, then it will be similar to what I described with less and less need for it, but still small amounts if necessary, because the real thing we humans NEED is to allocate resources, not necessarily market type of trading. If the concept of working for society and therefore receiving from society is some sort of "trade", then that would be sufficient except the few personal items that people would and could trade anyway. Also, if you're "getting everything you need" and want (when communists say according to their needs usually means your wants too within reason), what would you possibly go to a black market for? I find it odd how you think if you had all of your needs and wants met, you'd still go to a black market. For what would you go there for? You said communist countries, there are no communist countries, so they will obviously have black markets. Communism is an international movement, not just national. There is no money in full communism, there is some is less developed communism, but we have never reached either of them for many reasons. If you consider the USSR, China, etc communist because they call themselves communist, you need to think a little deeper. I am a communist, if I claim I'm a republican, I am not a republican, I am simply a communist who calls himself a republican. Works both ways. Actions speak louder than words.

It's very possible some people will participate in black markets for illegal and dangerous things. That always happens, but there is always a black market for dangerous items. It's just obvious that this depends on what's illegal, how well law is enforced, and how most people's needs (and wants) are met.

andekwarhola wrote: »

I think the points made about gulags were more that all attempts to implement a communist society (as in expecting to work and exist for the communal good) quickly ends up with a vanguard having to 'safeguard' it.

I myself like the idea of a more socialistic society but I just don't think it's workable.

Is capitalism?

I can't think of a single capitalist society that can be described as truly capitalist.

No theory or ideology is 100% implementable.

Christians, Muslims and Jews don't abandon their religion just because 'nobody is doing it exactly right', or because there is no State currently implementing their values with perfect loyalty to the ideology.

The important thing, as always, is to strive towards perfect implementation. It's never going to work out exactly perfectly. I've always felt that arguments about the fact that communism won't be a 100% success are a little impotent.