How do we know that communism if not socialism doesn't work?
It is commonly thought that communism if not socialism doesn't work on the basis that all of the countries that have tried it have failed e.g. USSR, Cuba, Venezuela. A classic right-wing gotcha question, is "name one country where it has succeeded". Can you do so? Does it matter if all of the countries that have tried it have failed?
Comments (52)
I think China has proven it does work. A couple years ago they had the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, for example. But it has also proven that communism, like all grand collectivist ideologies, is tantamount to state capitalism. So long as the republican form of government is the framework upon which they build their dreams, it will never come to anything else.
Xi Jingping has said: "We should review the fresh experience gained by the people under the leadership of the Party, constantly adapt Marxism to Chinese conditions and make contemporary Marxism shine brighter in China."
Of course, "Western" Marxists see little Marxism in the "constantly adapting" Marxism of the CCP. :wink:
I'm glad you pointed out China is really just a perverse form of capitalism.
China doesn't really prove anything in favour of or against communism, imo, for that very reason. China is not a country which can honestly truthfully be said to be communist in anything but name.
Even if The Chinese Communist Party is now only communist in name, The Chinese Communist Party proper survived for around 70 years, as did the USSR. Does this speak to communism being fiscally workable, or does their failures speak to it being fiscally unworkable?
Its communist in name, intention, ideology, belief, and practice. Its just that capitalism is largely a bugaboo. No economic system which is not capitalist has ever existed anywhere in history of states, the only difference being in who ought to manage it.
Good point. I'm not sure that I would argue that capitalism is working, but as you say, what constitutes failure or success? No doubt anything can be spun in any direction.
Quoting Pantagruel
Reminds me of that G.K. Chesterton quote:
Thats a good point. I mean, slavery works. Utilitarianism can justify injustice so long as the greatest number are happy.
Quoting unenlightened
While it's a matter of perspective, some examples are more explicit.
Considering the USSR ceased to exist, I think it is safe to say that it failed. The question is, did it fail because of its economic system.
Economic crises in countries such as Cuba and Venezuela hint to communism's failure, but these must be measured in degree and number against the crises experienced in countries with alternative systems (namely capitalism).
Not so much, if you consider the amount of outside interference to make sure they failed.
https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-cuba-relations
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14263/
Success and failure can be fairly judged if the attempt is given a chance. The inability to defend against aggression,sabotage and corruption is not the failure of the idea; merely weakness on the part of those implementing it. No historical example of a socialist or communist system that I know of was given a fair trial. Some of the prehistoric or extra-historic (undocumented by European conquerors) may have succeeded. The Huguenots and Cathars were religious movements attempting some form of Christian communism and were persecuted to death by the Catholic church.
Capitalists yell a lot about competition but will stop at nothing to achieve monopoly. (Worst board game ever invented. Not very good as a social system, either.)
There is no such thing as pure capitalism, pure socialism, pure communism, or pure democracy. Social and political organization is generally a mix of various systems. The Scandinavian countries have elements of capitalism and socialism in a democratic political system. That might be as close as we get to socialism. Even the uber-captialist country, the U.S., has a large social welfare system, so we're not pure evil. (Jamison and Zizek said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism.)
I don't count the USSR or PRC as communist or socialist, despite their names. Cuba gave it a go but did so in a particularly disadvantageous environment (enforced by the US). Venezuela?
Is it worth succeeding at "socialism" or "communism" if the people are impoverished? Is capitalism a success if the people are impoverished? (Sure, because capitalists don't care if you are starving,)
Actually, capitalism prefers that people are well nourished because a full belly is much more productive and better for the bottom line.
Apparently the communists didn't care about starvation when millions died in the great chinese famine
Firstly, none Communist country has really applied Marxism into practice. They were countries influenced by or based by Karl Marx, but they hardly understood what he meant. Some nations, like Cuba or North Korea, followed up the path of their respective dictators, creating and establishing a self-basis of Communism.
Nonetheless, it is true that China is a good example of a successful nation. Thanks to Deng Xiaoping revolution in the 1990's, China has been becoming one of the main countries of the world. I think they were very clever, because, as ssu pointed out, they are always adapting their system to new challenges. Yet, I do not know if we should consider them as Marxists, because their main role and leader is Maoism. We can conclude that while Western or Eastern European Communism has failed dramatically, Chinese Maoism remains.
I wish @Hailey and @guanyun could log in and express their opinion on this.
Chesterton is an old favourite, very human and a great writer. But the Christianity he was talking about is not a system at all. In the hypothetical evolutionary marketplace of social systems, forgiveness, and love cannot compete with rape and pillage. Here is a fable.
An idea arose and became ubiquitous in Europe, beginning in Britain especially, that combined empiricism and rationality in a form that excluded morality and feelings. It was called "science". This philosophy discounted empathy entirely and as it became dominant, state sponsored piracy developed into an industrialised slave trade and worldwide exploitation that led to the industrial revolution as commodities became more and more plentiful. The modern US and Canada are of course off-shoots of this global exploitation that encompassed The americas and the Caribbean, almost the whole of Africa, India, Australia, NewZealand, large parts of the far East, and the subjugation though never the conquest of China. This triumphant system can be be called "Utter Ruthlessness", or "The British Empire" or "The White Man's Burden" and has been adopted by every other country as the only way to survive in a world where it has arisen. The only weakness is that the lack of all feeling allows it to literally destroy the whole of the global environment on which it depends.
Marxism was always meant to be put into action. Maoism is the Chinese version, like Leninism was the Russian version. Neo-Marxism is the western european and american version. When Marxism is put into practice, it adapts to the character of the respective culture, but the core principles of each version derive directly from classical marxism.
Quoting Vera Mont
Yes, that's what complicates the question even more - all of the communist countries mentioned in my OP were being undermined by the western capitalist countries both overtly and covertly. I knew about Cuba, but reading your second link about Venezuela, it's almost unbelievable how cruel the west were.
As for the USSR, I have seen from interviews a lot of people in the poorer regions look back fondly on it.
Quoting BC
From the link provided by @Vera Mont it doesn't look like Venezuela was given a fair chance either.
Quoting BC
That might be where we first see UBI. Even if a nation is not in favour of guaranteeing its citizens enough to stay alive, UBI may become the cheaper option as automation continues to accelerate.
Remember, the USA has been governed by plutocrats from its inception. It has always had a diverse, mutually hostile and ruthlessly stratified population and very spotty record in public information. Add the aggressive religious movements and a culture of hero-worship and factional scapegoating - how can democracy stand a chance?
Social progress is made for disenfranchised segments of society only when there is a major shock to the economic and political elite.
This can work on a small scale. The "everybody knows everybody" scale. Tribality. Where empathy can play a large role in shaping a small community.
But on a global scale, the ignorances, biases and prejudices between whole groups of people against other groups keep us divided and distrusting and leads to imbalances in how we value eachother, both what entitlements each person ought to have, and which opinions are valid.
Communism takes perfect cooperation, unanimity and persisting sense of equality/fairness, or at the very least it takes extensive propaganda, fear and silencing of opposition/revolutionaries. Neither case is promising.
Secondly, hierarchy of power directly contradicts communisms ethos that everyone is on a level playing field with equal empowerment. Someone has to enforce policy, but enforcers exert influence over their subjects, meaning there's a power dynamic, furthermore those in power are hardly "slumming it". They're "so important" to maintaining status quo that they are kept very well indeed.
In addition to despotism (thinking of Stalin) the major problem in the USSR and China were episodes of very bad management. Bad management happens under every kind of economic / social / political system, and it is a major contributor to bad outcomes. The great weakness of state capitalism is the potential for bad policy without effective resistance.
Capitalism is no less plagued by bad management, but has a better chance of effectively dealing with failing companies. That said, comparing allegedly communist countries with capitalist examples like the USA reveals plenty of failures here, too. Lots of wealth by abysmal distribution. On the other hand, there's nothing utopian about capitalism. It's designed around accumulation of wealth.
CCP is quite alive and kicking.
Yet in the Chinese example one has to remember what they have experienced: The "Great Leap Forward", which ended in mass famine, and the Cultural Revolution were huge disasters. The textbook Marxism that we call Maoism had come to an end when ideologically and physically as chairman Mao died and Deng Xiaoping took over. Boluan Fanzheng campaign was launched to "correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution" and get rid of the craziest excesses of Maoism of the Cultural Revolution. And this is what some typically Western communists totally disregard as some still cling as nearly an religious artifact to the purity of the words and ideas of Karl Marx himself and make the delusional argument that Marxism has simply not been attempted anywhere in earnest. The Chinese have had their share of ideological dogmas and I would dare to say have learnt their lesson from them.
Still in China, the official policy of Socialism with Chinese characteristics has been successful, has brought one billion people out of poverty and is de facto responsible of the historical Chinese economic growth as it is quite clear that it is the CCP that is in charge of China. Xi Jingping has himself said that Chinese socialism isn't and will not keep fixated in Marxist dogmas, but still is Marxism.
I think it has been arrogance and simply ignorance of the West not to see and understand that China won't somehow turn into a liberal western capitalist state once they open up their economy for global trade and that the "Chinese Socialism" is at least what the CCP genuinely believes in. After all, they do have achievements that they can show to their people. And the CCP has been all along what it stands for, they haven't changed.
The peril of centralization just there. Economies perhaps have to be de-centralized in order not everybody makes the same mistakes.
Quoting BC
The USSR's huge contribution to the war was one of things at the forefront of my mind, along with it beating the west to space.
The answer to why it failed looks quite complicated, but arguably it survived long enough for us to say it is an example of a non-capitalist country that is strong and powerful.
The empirical record on the whole phenomena is all over the place, just as it is with capitalist liberal democracy.
But the reason we know communism doesn't work is that's how the word works. If something worked then it wouldn't be communism.
There was a program on PBS in the early 90s on how Russians felt about the demise of the soviet state. The post-soviet quality of life took a dive for many Russians, which probably colored their reactions, but many cited good things that the soviet system delivered. One of the things that was discussed was that there was an accessible bureaucracy to handle the complaints the people had about housing, streets, transit, markets, and so forth. It was accessible and reasonably responsive,
Joseph Stalin, may his soul rot in hell, was malevolent despot a good share of the time. He imposed famine on Ukraine in order to crush resistance to collectivization. He ignored all sorts of intelligence about Germany's planned invasion, and almost lost the country to Hitler. He had wiped out the military leadership, which had to be rebuilt to mount an effective defense. We can thank the soviet system rather than Stalin for the victory.
Another socialist enterprise worth discussion is Yugoslavia under Tito. One of Tito's achievements was to keep a lid on the various bubbling ethnic resentments which boiled over after Tito's demise. Tito's regime may have been the most effective of Eurasian communist states. North Vietnam might also be mentioned -- they beat us at our game, after all, no small achievement. North Vietnam may not have been a paradise, but it beat North Korea all hollow.
Well, I personally think that many European countries, from what I heard and read, is closer to what a Communist society than the actual Communist countries. I also think for a developing communist country, it'll inevitably have to borrow things from capitalist countries, so that to achieve socialism, degrees of capitalism is unavoidable. One last point is that I doubt that in a country ruled by dictatorship, where there is no balance of power and no way of checking the power, socialism can really be realised since the system would fail to be effient enough to produce enough science and technology to produce effectively to sustain a high quality of living for people.
If a socialist country is a country where the means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by the people and values economic equality, then I can't say that China fit in the descriptions very well. I don't know how China can manage to reduce economical inequality which is quite enormous currently. In terms of universal healthcare and education, China indeed has them but the quality of healthcare and education still has a long way ahead. As for other social services, I think the public transpotation system is very good as well as the digital payment. Delivery servies are very good as well, though it exploits may workers.
For me the answer is pretty simple i think.Look around you.Colleagues, friends, neighbors,social workers even family sometimes.
Do all these people seem ready or willing for you to follow the main "all equal" path of communism??
Don't judge by what they(we)say.Just by what you see they(we) do.
Even communists are so confused that they think they act equal and at the very end they do the exact same.They are just so confused that they don't event understand it themselves.
They just find silly excuses ,as we all do, to justify their(our) own shit.
Of course not all people are like that.There are really exceptional People who believe and act like that indeed.Personally i deeply,deeply admire them.
But the vast majority of people aren't like that at all.Ego is in our genes.Totally "killing" it ,or pretend that we can totally "tame" it,well i don't know if it is even possible.
And i don't know if ever the majority of people will reach to that spiritual level as to achieve it and be ready for applying a real communist or socialist system.
That is another point of communist confusion. Because it is materialistic at heart, the loftiest entity that a communist can recognize is the State. And given that tyranny is the default position of the State, it is very reasonable to be suspicious of any state that wants to centralize power in order to bring about some hypothetical utopia. Compare this to the competition, a metaphysical reality of infinite possibility and ethical certitude (God and religion are very compatible with the capitalist republic, which generally delivers a higher standard of living) . . . it makes sense that people can't make a spiritual commitment to communism.
Communism is most tropically understood as the workers owning the means of production. That has rarely been tried at scale.
Socialism's most central aspect is caring for the well-being of everyone. Reciprocity is the cornerstone of civilization and no society or government has ever yet been legitimate at scale.
Even if a particular ideology meets that criteria, the nuances will completely charge the way it expresses, as will any number of arbitrary factors like how technology advances. Every instance of an ideology must be judged on its own particulars. Every class is ideology believes it's doing good.
As for the myriad of people who say socialism leads to mass murderer, that's a logical fallacy. Mass harm is Always done in the name of the some common good. Until a government actually exhibits caring for everyone, socialism hasn't been tried.
typically understood*
class of ideology*
duck autocorrect
We could say the same about classical monarchy, autocratic dictatorships, imperial dynasties, &c.
This is getting into the epistemological territory of identification. Is it communist because there is such a thing in-itself that is communist, or is it a mere descriptor that we apply to a phenomena because it fits sufficient relativistic criteria.
It makes sense for me also.There is really strong competition here ,as you mention.
It is much more easier to be followed.And doesn't require such hard fight as to change our own selves and our belief system first.
So seems also logical for me that communism remains an utopia, even if i still vote for leftist parties on elections.
Socialism doesn't lead to mass murder. In an overwhelming number of cases, every time communism has been implemented on a large scale, it resulted in mass murder of its own citizens.
Mass harm is, indeed, always done in the name of the good. And the greater the promise of the good, the greater the harm. No one promises a greater good than the communist.
Government is constitutionally incapable of caring for everyone. In theory, government is constituted to care for its constituency, or at best, its citizenry at large. That is what makes it difficult for the communist government: not everyone belongs to its constituency, and they make things unequal and must be murdered so that everyone will belong to the constituency, equally.
I think some of the principles of the left are invaluable to humanity as a whole, and even more to the individual in particular. (Add: ironically, Jesus was a leftist)
Do you see a relevant link between the current "leftist" political parties and communism?
I'd distinguish between ideology, nation, state, and party. Communism is an ideology, nations are historical claims on territory, states control nations, and parties compete to control states. I'd also point out that nations work differently from monarchies and dynasties: the nationalist cause is self-determination within the framework of a nation. If you don't even have a nation then it's an understandable demand because it's the basic framework of power in the modern world. One could be said to be without a politics if you don't even have a nation.
"Communism doesn't work" is not specific enough to evaluate. Doesn't work, for whom? The right-wing politician in the OP? Well, that's not a surprise. Doesn't work for China, with an actual Communist Party in charge adopting to new circumstances just as one would predict a Marxist ideology would? (but that's not *real* communism, some way) Doesn't work for radicals who want more out of an apathetic government claiming to be The One True Free Way For the World?
Communism "hasn't been tried" by some, and "has been tested and found wanting" by others -- but I'd suggest that ideologies don't work like this line of thinking is stating at all. Ideologies are big-picture thoughts that often times don't give a specific evaluation for the particular activities of politics. Even when they do they touch the day-to-day at a step removed from a particular law being debated or policy being enacted or action being taken. They are whole ways of understanding a political world or order.
For my part I prefer the warts-and-all approach. Communism has been tried, and it's done horrible things and good things -- just like liberal capitalist nations. I'd say the common there is in the structure of a nation. To build a nation requires violence, or at least that's been the most common and effective method so far. And to keep a nation in control also requires violence -- there's something to be said for the theory that the modern state has a claim to a monopoly on violence. It's what keeps the state in order.
But the way that you and I know communism "doesn't work" in the manner proposed in the OP? I pretty much think it follows by definition. The usual arguments have been trotted out here -- that we're too selfish, or some such. So we define communism in this way where it cannot be realized, refer to the human nature we all know, and call it a day. Not even a single look into a history book is needed!
Well the only link i see as to be honest is that current leftist parties(some of them at least)are the closest to reality that communism can get.At least so far in mankind.
They are as if communism tries to wear a more realistic - pragmatistic suit.I find that better for sure than the utopia.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Yeah i have.
Solid breakdown. Important to distinguish these things. The nation is definitely the base unit for state and ideology. Nation is one's people. A person naturally assumes the ethics (and by extension the politics) of his people, otherwise they wouldn't be his people. This is the strength of patriotism. Unfortunate that nations are easily manipulated.
In classical marxism, ideology, state and nation become merged at the final staged of history. The problem is that in marxism, ideology is the base unit for state which forms the nation. It has it all fundamentally "flipped on its head" as it were.
Quoting Moliere
That's a certainty. I think it was Weber who called it the "legitimate use of force". I think the main difference is the efficiency by which communist regimes have systematically exterminated its own citizens. Compared to other examples in history of internal purges (even considering the advantages of technology), Communism holds all the records by far.
Let's decentralize companies too then!
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Fair warning; I'll be going off into a tangent here.
A higher standard of living for whom? At least from 1945 until 1970 health data of Soviet Union citizens improved more rapidly than anywhere else in Europe. The US meanwhile is lagging in many metrics compared to other "capitalist" societies. I don't think capitalism is a good indicator - or in fact that this is really a question of economics. A lot of rich people and politicians like to pretend it is, because it keeps them rich but the result is people subservient to the economy and a certain class all the while extolling the virtues of capitalism and individualism. Classes are real (anyone denying this, please study some marketing which still uses the NRS social grade) and consistently cause problems as there are no people "all free and equal" but persons that are responsible and cooperating members of their respective groups (Rawls).
In any case, the "tyranny of the State" is one of those catchphrases that I always find interesting. What is it? Is it their monopoly on violence? No problem in a democratic society. The tyranny of the majority? No problem when we have human rights and particulary due process. It requires a learned legal profession to produce good lawyers, informed and interested citzenry to make political choices and educated politicians, leaders and visionairs to put into public discourse what we should be talking about. We need a vibrant society but what we have is egoism and decandency dressed up as philosophical liberalism. But there are political obligations related to liberalism that self-styled, winner-takes-all, laissez-faire capitalist individuals ignore (Randroids, tax-is-theft idiots and average US politicians).
When a number of persons conduct any joint enterprise according to rules and thus restrict their liberty, those who have submitted to those restrictions when required have a right to a similar submission from those who have benefited by their submission. (Hart, 1955: 185)
This is an argument for fairness but raises the question of what qualitative nature the benefits must have that they require a duty for the individual to perform their part (as the moral intuition is no such obligation exists when the benefits are trivial). Enter natural duty theories.
Simmons believed in a debt of gratitude but fails to specify the content of the debt.
And of course there's consent to political obligation which is problematic as usually no such act is performed by citizens.
So, of these approaches, in my view the "fairness" argument can gain the most traction via natural duty theories such that the political obligation is not based on a moral transaction between people and wider society , but because it either a) promotes an impartial moral good, (utility or justice); or 2) is a moral duty owed by all persons to all others (universal rights).
Liberalism divorced from political obligation is just selfishness.
They are decentralized. Only some of them go bankrupt or out of business, but not all.
And if you have modern markets, an oligopoly of the large company and a multitude of smaller niche companies prevail.
But when the central planners have the infinite wisdom of what to produce and what not...
For all those who get easy and affordable access to food and energy.
Quoting Benkei
Why did its rapid improvement stop after 1970? It can be atttibuted to the fact that czarist Russia was lagging behind the medical advancements taking place in early 20th century capitalist societies. So when the soviets began to catch up by adopting medical technology that was developed under capitalism, it was accompanied by a spike in general health.
Quoting Benkei
It certainly involves the monopoly on violence, but this is not the cause of state tyranny, only one of the means by which it can be carried out. Tyranny of the majority is not state tyranny, unless we are pointing to a specific tyrannical ochlocracy.
Tyranny of the state is not a difficult concept. It is when a government abuses its power (which is awfully close to sounding tautological, and probably why you call it a catchphrase.) There are different ways it can do this, different reasons for doing it, and different means by which it can commit an abuse of power. In the case of communist state tyrrany, it is quite distinct from other forms of state tyrrany.
Quoting Benkei
I agree. Liberalism requires self moderation. And liberal societies need reasonable regulations. It is all about the balance, and even more, keeping the balance.
Quoting Benkei
Quoting Benkei
The key is here: "as the moral intuition is, no such obligation exists when the benefits are trivial". There is an inherent religiosity and competitiveness in capitalist republics that mitigates strongly against triviality for anyone willing to put a stake in the game.
Communism, on the other hand, struggles mightily with its own triviality. It expects everyone to do their duty and comply. However, the benefit is not so immediate, it is a rather vague and tenuous promise of a perfect world. Because it is a pipedream that lacks all substance and personal appeal, it has a hard time selling itself to anyone with the determination to make a good life for themselves (despite invoking things like utility, justice or universal rights). It appeals more to those with an inclination towards general malcontentedness.