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Happens too often...
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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I don't like to think that I or we really can't imagine a better system but I don't think it's completely unrealistic to say something like best we got. I say this only because things like communism and all their promises can only really come about through a revolution and the price in blood is jaw dropping. So much killing. It also almost certainly means people materially worse off for a long time if not the rest of their lives in the wake of this revolution even if over generations it manages to eventually deliver.
I'm all for substantial reform and leftist/liberal politics but it's difficult for me to ignore the great peril and huge gamble of revolution. Some times a society successfully manages to make things so bad that there's so little to lose that it can seem a realistic option but I think everybody considering that option should weigh it very carefully. It's very possible to sacrifice everything including your own life and thousands of others' only for the whole thing to get derailed by opportunists and to make a bad situation so much worse.
These same arguments can be used to ward off a revolution against a dictatorship or absolutist monarchy, though. Or even against slavery.
It's true.
This is one of the three big problems of communism for me, though I believe that long term there's no other way forward than by using violence. The few that are powerful got there by willing to play dirty and please the rest of the bourgeoisie instead of the people, and anyone that enters that scene hoping to make a change will either be forced to play that game or to be kicked out. It's a endless circle that only force or technology can break, and I don't bet on technology making things better for us.
The other two are:
Realistically the proletariat can't all run a state together simply because there's too many voices, so there always ends up being a few that rule over the many. Some have proven to believe in the cause and not use their newfound power for a new bourgeoisie to arise, but eventually they will pass away and someone has to take their place. How do you make sure that no one ends up betraying the people leading to either reviving the old system or a new bloody revolution?
The late stage withering of the state is a nice concept that does make sense assuming that society completely changes after a long time of living in an equal system, but it hasn't been seen in practice. Of course it's unfair to rule it away since it wasn't inefficiency that killed communism but outer interferences from capitalist countries that feared communism like the plaugue (which makes sense given that the rulers of those countries don't want to become one with the proletariat and definitely don't wan't to be imprisoned, exiled or executed).
This is the first time I've seen this mentioned on lemmy, and it's always been my fundamental concern with communism. We've never made it to the end state of communism - to date, it has always stopped at the authoritarian stage, which is supposed to be temporary and transitional.
Arguments can be made that this is a product of foreign interference, and there's definitely merit to that, but it's not the whole picture. No matter what political system you have, highly concentrated power is not easy to dismantle and socialize. It doesn't magically get easier just because you ousted the old guard and put new people in that position. So long as there is benefit to being the leader, you're generally looking at people who want those benefits, not the responsibility of carrying the project forward.
Technology could address some of the difficulties involved in direct democracy (which, imo, is THE fundamental thing required in communism - hell, democratic capitalist countries would benefit too), but there are many ways to manipulate a populace so that it almost wouldn't matter.
I'm not going to pretend I have any answers here, or that communism as a political system is inherently bad, but the draw of power is a fundamental source of corruption no matter what your stated intent is.
Communism is simply an economic framework, not a political one. I dont agree with the notion that authoritarianism is a prerequisite for communist society.
At the very least the existence of anarcho communism points towards that.
Communism is an entire social philosophy, not just an economic model.
Fair - I did wonder about inappropriately conflating things around this point - but a transitional 'dictatorship of the proletariat' is definitely a stage of development in communism. For what it's worth, what I'm reading on the subject right now is this (only started reading after commenting, prior comments based on previous knowledge/discussions of communism): https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm
Admittedly, perhaps not all flavours of communism, but it's hard to argue with this showing up in history. The question becomes: is it really a dictatorship of the proletariat? Or a separate political class using that language and ideology to justify their position?
I will be the first to admit I'm not up-to-date with my communist theory, nor aware of the dominant strains of it in contemporary good faith discourse. So I'm happy to be presented with rebuttals or different positions on this - the more you know and all that.
You seem well intended, no worries.
Just for an example, Im a libertarian communist. I believe in a Democratic communism where a direct democracy makes larger political decisions.
Somewhere between anarcho communist and socialist. My view on governments, communist or otherwise, is that they should be only big enough to help the people. It should serve effectively no other purpose but to run social programs and to stop greedy people.
The dictatorship of the proletariat originally, in Marx's work, did not mean a literal dictatorship, but a democratic government run for the workers with the effective exclusion of other potential power centers. He refers to capitalist democracy in turn as a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, for reference.
Marxist-Leninists are the big offenders here, because two of the major 'innovations' to Marxism introduced by Marxist-Leninists (at least, two which are relevant here) are that of the revolutionary vanguard (that you need to give power to a small number of people who are really well-read on theory, and THAT'S what will save the revolution), and the idea that you can 'skip' over capitalist democracy and go straight to socialism if you just try really hard and shoot a lot of people who think wrong.
Marx was long-dead by the time Marxism-Leninism came about.
I fully agree, it's refreshing to find someone open minded that can have an actual discussion over politics without going all agressive and insane
This is conspiracy-theorist nonsense.
Real "drain the swamp" energy
You say this as if capitalism isn't responsible for hundreds of thousands, if not millions or more of deaths
In the face of capitalist derived climate catastrophe, I'm not sure if we have any options.
All you need to do here is show that non-capitalist systems won't consume fossil fuels, which I find to be extremely unlikely.
Communism doesn't incentive excess production or planned obsolescence. Historically they also had good public transportation.
Im saying there is a lot of energy waste in capitalism that leads to tons of emisions
Its no coincidence that the the US is one of the highest emitters of carbon.
Energy waste like heating homes, powering hospitals, and getting food from point A to point B?
Considering the Holodomor maybe that last point I can concede