Communist Failures

[Kephalos]

Can you clarify, in your definition, what the isms you used mean?

My simplistic demarcation is:
1) Communism: collective control of economic resources, often using procurement procedures to distribute them.

Yes, this is what I mean by socialism, or at least in an abstract or idealized sense, the complete collective control of economic life in order to achieve the ultimate goal of justice and prosperity, a goal shared by socialists and non-socialists like myself alike. Communism, like I said, is or rather it was "socialism in a hurry", i.e. using revolutionary violence to overthrow "capitalism" and establish socialism. Right now, I think, there is no serious widespread support for anything like Communism (thankfully!) as there was for example at the beginning of the 20th century.

I say thankfully, because the combination of an uncompromising, dogmatic maximalism and Machiavellianism of Communism (again, think Lenin and the Bolsheviks or the Chinese Communists) is almost always a bad thing, no matter what it is applied to, whether socialism or any other political ideology (think of the Jacobins for instance). Now, while I certainly share a desire for justice and for prosperity (and I think that other things equal justice should take precedence to prosperity if they happen to be in conflict), I don't believe the kind of collective control of all or most of economic life is the right way to make either justice or prosperity happen. A mixture of centralized and decentralized allocation of resources is necessary (libertarianism is just as unrealistic as socialism, even if I do think socialism can lead to worse things when combined with revolutionary maximalism and utopianism), although maybe I do tend to lean more towards decentralized or "market" ways of doing so, although they are very imperfect.

One thing that's essential is this: rejecting socialism should never be an excuse for rejecting the goal of having social justice nor should it lead (as it can do, in the case of nationalistic and even racist movements) to selfishness, whether that selfishness is merely individual or collective (the kind of group egoism of nationalism and racism).

 

[ygolo]

Yes, this is what I mean by socialism, or at least in an abstract or idealized sense, the complete collective control of economic life in order to achieve the ultimate goal of justice and prosperity, a goal shared by socialists and non-socialists like myself alike. Communism, like I said, is or rather it was "socialism in a hurry", i.e. using revolutionary violence to overthrow "capitalism" and establish socialism. Right now, I think, there is no serious widespread support for anything like Communism (thankfully!) as there was for example at the beginning of the 20th century.

I say thankfully, because the combination of an uncompromising, dogmatic maximalism and Machiavellianism of Communism (again, think Lenin and the Bolsheviks or the Chinese Communists) is almost always a bad thing, no matter what it is applied to, whether socialism or any other political ideology (think of the Jacobins for instance). Now, while I certainly share a desire for justice and for prosperity (and I think that other things equal justice should take precedence to prosperity if they happen to be in conflict), I don't believe the kind of collective control of all or most of economic life is the right way to make either justice or prosperity happen. A mixture of centralized and decentralized allocation of resources is necessary (libertarianism is just as unrealistic as socialism, even if I do think socialism can lead to worse things when combined with revolutionary maximalism and utopianism), although maybe I do tend to lean more towards decentralized or "market" ways of doing so, although they are very imperfect.

One thing that's essential is this: rejecting socialism should never be an excuse for rejecting the goal of having social justice nor should it lead (as it can do, in the case of nationalistic and even racist movements) to selfishness, whether that selfishness is merely individual or collective (the kind of group egoism of nationalism and racism).

What I'm reading is remarkable agreement on specific value judgements on how to govern resources, with a lot more disagreements about definitions.

Given that, maybe the isms aren't actually useful for thinking and discourse.

 

[Virtual ghost]

The problem is scale. If everyone is deciding on resource allocation for everyone else, this grows at least by the square of the number of people. In the same way for business councils, by the square of council people. Most won't even care or be affected by a wast majority of decisions.

Every society in the end has some top-down dynamic build into it. Especially since we all start living as babies. Which is why democracy is important, because it make sure that there is at least some down-top dynamic to balance things out. Therefore every system that tends to fundamentally reject this balancing will eventually run amok in some sphere. It is never too good if the social pyramid is too steep and flat land instead of it isn't realistic. Therefore the only thing you can do is make sure the pyramid isn't too steep. Which is the test that Communism evidently failed.

 

[ygolo]

For me, in the US, and in many European countries--France comes to mind, the Authoritarian Left fervor against technology brings to mind "The Great Leap Forward," and disdain for the "Stinking Old Ninth"

Great Leap Forward - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Stinking Old Ninth - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Anti-Rightist Campaign - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Cultural Revolution - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I'm mainly talking about the influences of the AI safety funding cabal led by "Effective Altrists," the writers for Vox's Future Perfect, and techno-pesimissts generally--who emphasize being angry together while the world ends.

This has led to the lack of even taking points from technologists with different point of view from the "Effective Altruists" by left leaning politicians, like Scott Wiener.

As further evidence, I look at the techno-pessimist historian influence on mainstream comedians, like Jon Stewart, and Adam Conover (whose comedy I enjoy).

Just like in the "Great Leap Forward," people(especially in Left wing media) are quite content making technical people starve to death for their perceived "surpluses."

 

[Haight]

First of all there is no such thing as Communism, there are Communisms. There are simply too big varieties of the idea that you can put everything under one dome and get the full picture. Especially if we add time/history component into the mix.

Bingo!

If you read anything comprehensive about Marx you will realize his vision has never actually been produced. Just variations that are not actually Communism. The Governments that call themselves, or are identified, as "Communism" are somewhere between Authoritarian and Totalitarian regimes.

Semantics. I get it. But words, and the meaning of words, are quite important. Especially as the basis for an argument or debate. Especially in this instance where "Communism" is a strawman that everyone is plucking at. It's too easy. Try something harder and more challenging. There is much to learn if you do.

I'll provide an example. Why hasn't the communist ideals of Karl Marx ever been realized in full? Or simply replace "Communism" in this debate to "Totalitarianism."

 

[ygolo]

Bingo!

If you read anything comprehensive about Marx you will realize his vision has never actually been produced. Just variations that are not actually Communism. The Governments that call themselves, or are identified, as "Communism" are somewhere between Authoritarian and Totalitarian regimes.

Semantics. I get it. But words, and the meaning of words, are quite important. Especially as the basis for an argument or debate. Especially in this instance where "Communism" is a strawman that everyone is plucking at. It's too easy. Try something harder and more challenging. There is much to learn if you do.

I'll provide an example. Why hasn't the communist ideals of Karl Marx ever been realized in full? Or simply replace "Communism" in this debate to "Totalitarianism."

That's a general problem with isms.

But I wouldn't want to play "No True Scottsman."

No true Scotsman - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Zealots for almost any cause can create lots of damage.

I mainly want to focus on failures of government run procurement systems--e.g. Veteran's health benefits.

 

[SensEye]

I'll provide an example. Why hasn't the communist ideals of Karl Marx ever been realized in full?

I suspect there must be a few master thesis or PHD dissertations that tackle this question. I confess to have read none of them (nor studied Marxist philosophy to any degree).

What I would ask as a follow up question. If the communist ideals of Karl Marx were ever realized in full, how spectacularly would they fail? Or succeed I suppose, but I'd have all my money on fail if it was a bet.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

It can work well on a small scale, at the local level, but I think you run into problems trying to execute it on the scale of a nation state. I say this as someone who would describe my ideological beliefs as closest to geolibertarian socialist. But I recognize you have to maintain bottom up democracy for socialism to work. And the problem with democracy is it is too chaotic to sustain pure socialism, so the best we can really aim for is a mixed economy system that blends aspects of liberal capitalist models and socialist/communist models. So, social democracy, I guess they would call that? Although I have my own spin and thin we could replace most forms of taxation with a few taxes (land value and luxury taxes would be adequate)

But I'm an idiot about economics and political science and don't really know what I'm talking about, ask someone smarter.

 

[Lark]

I'm very much in favour of a socialism (as I understand it) and I dont think its in the same family tree as communism at all, and definitely not since the sobering experience / history of both has become well known.

That said, I'm really not sure that any of the old labels, socialism, capitalism, communism, marxism, any of them, are that useful, most of them are pejorative labels now, terms of abuse and not much else besides. They obscure rather than clarify anything.

There's a brilliant criticism of communism in the calculation debates and Hayek's neo-liberal ideas about communism as a sort of absolute monarchy reborn.

Though, honestly, and I dont expect any libertarians or unreconstructed capitalist apologists to ever, ever admit it, its a criticism which applies just as well, more so probably, to monopoly capitalism or an economy in which wealth is just increasing concentrated among fewer and fewer people.

 

[ceecee]

It can work well on a small scale, at the local level, but I think you run into problems trying to execute it on the scale of a nation state. I say this as someone who would describe my ideological beliefs as closest to geolibertarian socialist. But I recognize you have to maintain bottom up democracy for socialism to work. And the problem with democracy is it is too chaotic to sustain pure socialism, so the best we can really aim for is a mixed economy system that blends aspects of liberal capitalist models and socialist/communist models. So, social democracy, I guess they would call that? Although I have my own spin and thin we could replace most forms of taxation with a few taxes (land value and luxury taxes would be adequate)

But I'm an idiot about economics and political science and don't really know what I'm talking about, ask someone smarter.

It worked in Milwaukee for 30 years.

Milwaukee Socialism: The Emil Seidel Era

uwm.edu

 

[Lark]

It can work well on a small scale, at the local level, but I think you run into problems trying to execute it on the scale of a nation state. I say this as someone who would describe my ideological beliefs as closest to geolibertarian socialist. But I recognize you have to maintain bottom up democracy for socialism to work. And the problem with democracy is it is too chaotic to sustain pure socialism, so the best we can really aim for is a mixed economy system that blends aspects of liberal capitalist models and socialist/communist models. So, social democracy, I guess they would call that? Although I have my own spin and thin we could replace most forms of taxation with a few taxes (land value and luxury taxes would be adequate)

But I'm an idiot about economics and political science and don't really know what I'm talking about, ask someone smarter.

When I think of any economy, whatever scale, household or nation state or supra-national, there are always going to be A LOT of unacknowledged, minimised or ignored factors or drivers which I would consider "socialism", the sheer amount of co-operation, collaboration, consensus required to make competition possible for instance.

The amount of "free", ie voluntary, unremunerated, labour involved in the informal sector, which is the bedrock upon which the marketplace, voluntary sector, charitable sector, independent providers all rest upon. You can argue about other sorts of rewards being involved than money, that's fair enough, gift relationships do exist, but everyone has got to eat eventually so I dont really put that much stock in those arguments.

So, there's that, I know that some pundits will split hairs about it and say its "social" not "socialism" or "communitarian" not "socialism" and not all alternatives to or critics of individualism are "socialistic", fine, I dont have a great deal of interest in that sort of word game.

Anyway, I dont think that socialism or capitalism are ideas which you can say work on a small scale but dont work beyond that. No reality is likely to conform that well to the theory in practice.

I do think that the mixed economy and social democracy are compromise positions, I dont think they are or should be considered left wing or socialistic ones, that's a propaganda position held by people who imagine their own anti-socialist version of an alternative is more feasible than it really is.

Since at least the mid to late nineties I think the left wing has dispenses with a lot of its radicalism, its sobered up, the right wing hasnt, why would it since they think they've been on nothing other than a winning streak since Thatcher-Reagan, whatever a close reading of reality might tell them to the contrary. So while you had most left wing parties dispensing with their militant tendencies one way or another, the right just morphed into their militant tendencies.

In the UK you had their friends in the city tanking the economy in order to get their party back into office and wipe out the real deep running structural adjustments which were in the pipe line.

More recent than that the shortest lived prime minister in the history of the world, with the possible exception of latin America, when Liz Truss tried to implement the radically capitalist reforms of the Institute of Economic Affairs, it tanked the econonmy, ruined the country and almost lead to the relisting of the UK's credit status with international lending authorities.

Its not radical left anything that's threatening anything at the moment but radically capitalist ideologies that are immune to any sort of reality check. The Trump attack upon very moderate, very basic liberal reforms, branding them marxist, is an attempt to move the centre ground even further to the right in line with that same radical capitalism.

I'm not sure where its going to stop because to be honest every single thing the same radicals describe as communist is hardly communist at all, its all tricks played to keep zombi frankenstein capitalism on life support since it became so badly exhausted in its monopoly form. Its not democracy that's chaotic, its those tendencies, which are anti-democratic.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

well like i said i don't know

 

[SensEye]

I do think that the mixed economy and social democracy are compromise positions, I dont think they are or should be considered left wing or socialistic ones...

I agree with you here. I think the mixed economy/social democracy that everybody in the first world is used to, is in fact, what most people agree is the most workable system. Left/right positioning is just how much of what mix one thinks is optimal. Left wingers want more government involvement/regulation in more things, right wingers tend to want less.

PS> I refer to primarily economic issues/basic infrastructure issues. Kitchen table type issues as it were. Which are the important ones, or should be. Alas, social issues tend to be emotional hot buttons and tend to get a high priority when they should not.

When you get into 'social' lifestyle/personal issues like abortion rights, gay rights, what sins are allowed (i.e. legal vs illegal drugs, prostitution, and the like.) left/right tends to get turned upside down, with right wingers wanting more government control, left wingers wanting less. Of course, religion gets mixed up in these issues too, which causes more chaos.

 

[Haight]

I mainly want to focus on failures of government run procurement systems--e.g. Veteran's health benefits.

Sorry, that was not my understanding based on my read of the OP.

But let me be completely honest. You know me, I simply read the title, skimmed a few posts (probably two, if I were to guess), and posted a response. You actually got me to read the OP after your response. I call that a win!

Beyond that, my position on Government run procurement systems is they are good in theory, but rarely in practice. But I love that people are at least trying.

 

[ygolo]

well like i said i don't know

This is the most honest thing anyone has said in the thread.

I want to take that position myself.

But my direct ability for livelihood is being directly attacked by people who call themselves leftist. It's difficult to be objective under these circumstances. You can read my private blog to understand the circumstances more fully.

Monopolistic Capitalism, Fascism and Authoritarian Communism have procurement systems at the core of their resource management schemes.

 

[ygolo]

I'm very much in favour of a socialism (as I understand it) and I dont think its in the same family tree as communism at all, and definitely not since the sobering experience / history of both has become well known.

That said, I'm really not sure that any of the old labels, socialism, capitalism, communism, marxism, any of them, are that useful, most of them are pejorative labels now, terms of abuse and not much else besides. They obscure rather than clarify anything.

There's a brilliant criticism of communism in the calculation debates and Hayek's neo-liberal ideas about communism as a sort of absolute monarchy reborn.

Though, honestly, and I dont expect any libertarians or unreconstructed capitalist apologists to ever, ever admit it, its a criticism which applies just as well, more so probably, to monopoly capitalism or an economy in which wealth is just increasing concentrated among fewer and fewer people.

I know the isms have a lot loaded in them. When discussing the "kitchen table," there is more agreement than disagreement.

So, let's discuss when and under what conditions resource allocation through procurement systems works or doesn't.

The Monopolist Capital procurement system from Amazon, for instance, gets people packages really quickly. However, the abuse of warehouse workers is well documented. This is similar to Apple's abuse of factory workers through its suppliers. People love their smartphones, but there are abuses of the global south and Asia that bring them their convenience.

 

[ygolo]

It can work well on a small scale, at the local level, but I think you run into problems trying to execute it on the scale of a nation state. I say this as someone who would describe my ideological beliefs as closest to geolibertarian socialist. But I recognize you have to maintain bottom up democracy for socialism to work. And the problem with democracy is it is too chaotic to sustain pure socialism, so the best we can really aim for is a mixed economy system that blends aspects of liberal capitalist models and socialist/communist models. So, social democracy, I guess they would call that? Although I have my own spin and thin we could replace most forms of taxation with a few taxes (land value and luxury taxes would be adequate)

But I'm an idiot about economics and political science and don't really know what I'm talking about, ask someone smarter.

I sometimes think a naive view may have the most perspective. There are a lot of isms, but I believe I agree with what you are saying.

But from the evidence that I have seen, Land Value Taxation has done wonders anywhere it has been tried, even partially.

Anyone who thinks about things long enough realizes that there are places to use procurement procedures and places to use trading mechanisms.

Scale and homogeneity are pretty salient factors.

For people with homogenous issues, values, and concerns, efficient communication of their needs is not as necessary. There is less need for permissionless innovation to try to solve problems.

However, for people with heterogeneous issues, values, and concerns, efficient communication of needs directly with others who can provide for those needs makes sense. There is a significant need for permissionless innovation to solve problems.

 

[ygolo]

I suspect there must be a few master thesis or PHD dissertations that tackle this question. I confess to have read none of them (nor studied Marxist philosophy to any degree).

What I would ask as a follow up question. If the communist ideals of Karl Marx were ever realized in full, how spectacularly would they fail? Or succeed I suppose, but I'd have all my money on fail if it was a bet.

It worked in Milwaukee for 30 years.

Milwaukee Socialism: The Emil Seidel Era

uwm.edu

The crux of the issue is under what conditions does the mix of procurement vs. trading for allocating resources make the most sense?

I don't believe that a non-mixed allocation of resources can even exist.

 

[Haight]

The crux of the issue is under what conditions does the mix of procurement vs. trading for allocating resources make the most sense?

I don't believe that a non-mixed allocation of resources can even exist.

For whatever reason, I want to understand your question and I do not.

Is "procurement" a country's indigenous resources and "trading" is obtaining non-indigenous resources from another country?

 

[ygolo]

When I think of any economy, whatever scale, household or nation state or supra-national, there are always going to be A LOT of unacknowledged, minimised or ignored factors or drivers which I would consider "socialism", the sheer amount of co-operation, collaboration, consensus required to make competition possible for instance.

The amount of "free", ie voluntary, unremunerated, labour involved in the informal sector, which is the bedrock upon which the marketplace, voluntary sector, charitable sector, independent providers all rest upon. You can argue about other sorts of rewards being involved than money, that's fair enough, gift relationships do exist, but everyone has got to eat eventually so I dont really put that much stock in those arguments.

So, there's that, I know that some pundits will split hairs about it and say its "social" not "socialism" or "communitarian" not "socialism" and not all alternatives to or critics of individualism are "socialistic", fine, I dont have a great deal of interest in that sort of word game.

Anyway, I dont think that socialism or capitalism are ideas which you can say work on a small scale but dont work beyond that. No reality is likely to conform that well to the theory in practice.

I do think that the mixed economy and social democracy are compromise positions, I dont think they are or should be considered left wing or socialistic ones, that's a propaganda position held by people who imagine their own anti-socialist version of an alternative is more feasible than it really is.

Since at least the mid to late nineties I think the left wing has dispenses with a lot of its radicalism, its sobered up, the right wing hasnt, why would it since they think they've been on nothing other than a winning streak since Thatcher-Reagan, whatever a close reading of reality might tell them to the contrary. So while you had most left wing parties dispensing with their militant tendencies one way or another, the right just morphed into their militant tendencies.

In the UK you had their friends in the city tanking the economy in order to get their party back into office and wipe out the real deep running structural adjustments which were in the pipe line.

More recent than that the shortest lived prime minister in the history of the world, with the possible exception of latin America, when Liz Truss tried to implement the radically capitalist reforms of the Institute of Economic Affairs, it tanked the econonmy, ruined the country and almost lead to the relisting of the UK's credit status with international lending authorities.

Its not radical left anything that's threatening anything at the moment but radically capitalist ideologies that are immune to any sort of reality check. The Trump attack upon very moderate, very basic liberal reforms, branding them marxist, is an attempt to move the centre ground even further to the right in line with that same radical capitalism.

I'm not sure where its going to stop because to be honest every single thing the same radicals describe as communist is hardly communist at all, its all tricks played to keep zombi frankenstein capitalism on life support since it became so badly exhausted in its monopoly form. Its not democracy that's chaotic, its those tendencies, which are anti-democratic.

I implore people to be somewhat quantitative in their reasoning--especially when thinking about scale.

There are times when being qualitative makes more sense (when dealing with extreme uncertainty and unlimited possibilities, for instance).

There are times when quantitative reasoning makes sense. For logistics and resource allocation, quantitative reasoning has some bearing. Even if the numbers are made up to a certain level, they still inform the structure of how quantities are related. Just don't take conclusions too seriously.

Practicable theories conform well to reality really well. I realize that the complexity of people and society makes theorizing tricky. But I think you can make things concrete when you think about X people each haveing Y issues, and having Z people in the procurement apparatus to attend to those issues etc.