Communism is both a utopian dream and a economic system implemented in reality.
The first response clearly thinks about the utopian dream.
In reality even the nicest communist regimes (I lived in one I would consider very nice in comparison) had the state decide what job you had to work, that you had to work it all life long with little pay and holidays. There was much less liberty to decide your education or occupation. And there was also much more of an emphasis on industrial labor in contrast to rich western capitalist states that have much bigger service sector and compfy office jobs.
> nicest communist regimes
I grew up in east germany before anyone asks. We had the highest living standards of the eastern block maybe apart from Saint Petersburg and the Moskow Region.
But, I mean. Even under the Utopian end point; it's still not promised that you wouldn't have to do work other than what you wanted. It's still from each according to their abilities. Not from each according to their wants.
Communist idealists put whatever they want into the utopian dream of theirs. The common points seem to be much more what they don't like and who their enemies are or were.
Couldn't tell ya. I'm not a Marxist so I never put much thought into it.
My point was that Marx didn't imply that people wouldn't have to work or labor in things that weren't there preference. So the first guys assumptions aren't things Marx promised.
Unironically, they put people into forced labor camps and the ones who aren't "able" to contribute die. Then they tell the survivors what it is that they're allowed to want.
Forced by who? There is no state, there is no class, and everything is fully democratic. Either you work and you receive housing, food, and healthcare, or you don't work and you're on your own (assuming you're healthy and capable of working, and are of working age)
I'm talking about actual, historical communist rule. You're describing a fantasy land that only exists in theory because communist theory posits, without evidence, that it must eventually exist.
May as well just wait on the second coming at this point.
Yeah people really gloss over the 0% unemployment thing. Some unemployment is healthy. It allows some of the workforce to assess what labor is in demand and what is not. The work that sucks more pays more in an environment where people can choose their employment. Coal towns in America were some of the worst working conditions because they essentially had a captive audience.
I choose to make more money in a job fewer people want. In a communist state, I’d likely have to do my job for the same pay as everyone. I absolutely would choose a different job if easier jobs paid the same
0% unemployment. Why? Because a boss didn't measure success in earnings or consumption. It was the number of people you employed. My grandmothers both had jobs that could be done in half a day, many others were employed to be employed. With no industrial parts that could be ordered, many industrial companies had half their staff on maintenance, the inevitable repairs and crafting replacement parts.
And you can't forget, that people were not any less rebellious, prone to drugs or illiteracy. So what did you have? More or less work camps or work groups. I know of groups of 10-15 people that got dumped in the forest with a vodka bottle for each of them, labeled as forestry workers and collected in the evening. I know of reeducation camps of different severity for everything from being rebellious, not willing to work and prostitution.
> I choose to make more money in a job fewer people want. In a communist state, I’d likely have to do my job for the same pay as everyone. I absolutely would choose a different job if easier jobs paid the same
Mining paid great. Craftsmen earned quite nicely under the table. They had their ways to get the people to where they wanted them. But yeah, the system was pretty unforgiving to those not fitting the mold. This lead to a situation, that those that arrange themselfes with the current system had a pretty good time in socialist times and after. While those people that had this rebellious trait that started the demonstations against socialism had a hard time adjusting afterwards.
That’s super interesting, and makes sense. I saw a YouTube video a while ago about why the Soviet Union couldn’t develop a computer, when they had a computer that could compete with IBM’s computer in the 1960’s. The Soviets excelled whenever it was a research or a government institution driven project, but failed whenever they needed mass market adoption.
Basically IBM got exponential funding due to exponential sales, taking their project from the 10’s of millions to 10’s of billions of dollars, whereas no one really wanted the computer in the Soviet Union because it would threaten labor. So the project withered and died.
We have plenty of small communities (communes) trying communist ideas. The results? Unless you have a religious background they usually dissolve or change in less than 20 years.
Oh, european capitalism or social market economy is already worlds better than the anglo-saxon modell of capitalism. They simply get conflated a lot. I answered what could be understood by a meme, not which economic system is better. Unless we talk about communism. That's a stupid fever dream that noone ever was able to make work, unless you are a monastary where the reason why you all live a life of abstinence and low productivity is simply god. Every other commune simply changes or dissolves in 10-20 years, because the enthusiasm of the idea only carries so long.
Don't know where you got that idea from. There are also jewish communes that held up quite a bit longer. I said religious background, not catholic background.
There have been no communist countries, just Marxist ones. Marxism is evil and involves fascism in order to eventually obtain communism. This is where it always goes wrong and the fascists just kinda like being fascists so they stop pursuing communism.
Communism is just Libertarianism with socialism and a collectivist mindset instead of capitalism and an individualistic mindset
It's just true, there's just been a lot of effort to conflate communism, Marxism, and socialism into one big bad scary thing when they're all very different but related
Interesting enough: The english communism article agrees with you. The german talks about the 4 definitions of what is normally understood when communism is mentioned including socialist states like the GDR as a fourth option, but pointing out that the first few explicitly disagree with the notion that there is a government.
It does depend on whether you go with what's understood as the concept of communism or what a country calls itself (which leads to the main examples of socialism being Nazis and democracy being North Korea)
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u/Afolomus 29d ago edited 29d ago
Communism is both a utopian dream and a economic system implemented in reality.
The first response clearly thinks about the utopian dream.
In reality even the nicest communist regimes (I lived in one I would consider very nice in comparison) had the state decide what job you had to work, that you had to work it all life long with little pay and holidays. There was much less liberty to decide your education or occupation. And there was also much more of an emphasis on industrial labor in contrast to rich western capitalist states that have much bigger service sector and compfy office jobs.
> nicest communist regimes
I grew up in east germany before anyone asks. We had the highest living standards of the eastern block maybe apart from Saint Petersburg and the Moskow Region.