"Prometheus" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:41:23 -0600, "Adam Corolla"
wrote:


I'm not sure in what way I am misunderstanding communism. The sense
in which I mean it is the situation where a mass of workers unite to
elevate a leader or ruling class who then begins to dictate the terms
of society.

That's not communism, it's dictatorship.

Communism is where essentially all property is communally owned and there
are no class divisions, people are basically equal. For example, factories
and office buildings wouldn't be owned by individuals or corporations, but
by society at large. What Russia, China and North Korea have had is a
dictatorship which gives lip service to communist ideals but replaces
"society" as the owner of all capital with "the ruling class." It's
essentially the opposite of communism: the masses own nothing and a tiny
minority own everything. That's exactly what Marx was against.

There are few small communities scattered throughout the world which
actually live in accordance with what Marx was getting at. They thrive
because it's a more efficient way to run than competition; however, it takes
a *very* rare kind of person to let go of the idea of personal property and
work for the common good, which is why communism has never been attempted on
a large scale. Even if the original leaders of the USSR, red China and N.
Korea were sincere and altruistic (and I'm not saying they were, by any
means, but even IF they were) they had to force people to live by communist
principles, which is the first step away from those principles because it
sets up a class system.

Essentially, Marx's complaint was that the rich get richer while not
actually contributing anything to society, the people who make society great
by doing all the chores like making things and providing services live in
poverty, and there seems to be no way out of the cycle. Why not make
everyone do their share of the work, and give everyone an equal share of the
profit? It sounds like a good idea, but turned out that it's impossible to
implement on anything other than a tiny scale because of the rise of the
middle class. 99.99% of people would rather own their own property and have
the chance to get rich than have to get an equal share as everyone else. In
addition, if you always get paid the same whether you do a good job, a
****-poor job or no job at all, what's your motive to work? Improving
society sounds nice, but why bother putting my droplet into the vast ocean
when I can live a life of ease without any noticible difference in the
result--but when the majority of people start thinking this way, eveything
goes to crap.


In the abstract, this is supposed to lead to an eventual
state of anarchy in which all people work for the benefit of society,
but in reality, it tends to lead to a small group retaining power
though intimidation and a network of informers.

Eventually, most communist societies fail because there is little
incentive to demonstrate skill or innovation, and the best way to "get
ahead" is to become a more effective victim to gain more of the meager
benefits the state has to offer.


Yep, we're saying the same thing, except that what you're calling communist
societies are actually dictatorships. It might be that dictatorship is
supposed to be the first step in a series of steps toward true communism,
but it doesn't work on a large scale because people are greedy and want to
"get agead" as you call it by gaining lots of personal property--so one
never gets past the first step--as soon as the dictatorship starts to ease
up, people start reverting to capitalism again. Not saying there's anything
wrong with that, it's just how people are and it's why you can't force
communism on anyone.

Actual communist societies not only survive, they thrive. Twin Oaks and
East Wind in the US are two examples. They produce way more than they
consume. However their membership numbers leveled off in the 1970s at
around 60 to 100, because that's about how many people out of the two to
three hundred million in the US who actually want to live the way Marx was
talking about. They rule by a set of by-laws which can be changed by a
two-thirds majority vote. In other words, these "communist" societies are
also true democracies in which the majority (in this case, two-thirds rather
than +50%) actually rules, unlike any nation on earth!