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communism literally hasn't happened, though. socialism has happened.
if you think that any country has been communist, you have not read any writing by karl marx. even a simple scanning of the tiny manifesto would show you how incorrect you are in asserting that marxists claim that countries weren't communist simply because they "failed." marxists have never claimed any countries have been communist, only liberals and right-wingers have ever claimed that any countries were communist. the USSR was never communist, china was never communist. your argument that marxists claim that certain countries were only not communist simply because they reverted to capitalism or state capitalism, after western intervention, or, as you say, "failed," is a strawman.

socialism is seen as a prerequisite to communism by marxist-leninists, but not anarchists. most agree that the goal of socialism is to attempt to strive for communism.
"from each according to his ability, to each according to his deeds (socialism). from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs (communism)."
the countries that were socialist and ended up either capitalist or state-capitalist didn't "fail," but rather western intervention caused them to become unstable and dissolve.

why is it that you think the solution to being exploited is to become the exploiter? that's a terribly sad mindset and if you fail to see why this is so sad i'm afraid you're what some would call a 'classcuck.'
"yeah, we're all being exploited, but why not just become an exploiter instead?" why would you want to do that? who would rather exploit than attempt to fix an inhumane and rigged system?
one cannot simply 'refuse' to work unless paid what their skills are truly worth, and if people skills were paid what they were truly worth, that'd be socialism. if people refused to work, they'd die. there're these things called food, water, and shelter you need. considering the amount of reserve labor (unemployed) waiting in the wings, they'll laugh at you and tell you you're fired.

wages are determined by not only the amount of work one does but what their work is worth considering the materials and methods necessary to carry out said work. the example i gave of being in a factory and being paid less than what your labor is worth isn't just applicable to factory work or this specific scenario, it applies to all labor under capitalism. even if you got a different job that paid more, you are still not earning what your work is worth.

it's absolutely atrocious that a CEO makes millions by exploiting workers and taking all the credit. the CEO is only rich because of the workers. they are nothing without the workers that make their products.

if someone invented a machine that 'made it easier' to harvest grain, the workers utilizing this machine would still earn what their work is worth. what is their work worth, you may ask? that would depend on the availability of the grain and of the machines.

as for your claims about millions dying--these numbers are heavily disputed.
holodomor didn't happen, although there were famines, but none of these famines were man-made like people say. the famines that did occur were due to agricultural issues like dry land. the US had the dust bowl, but no one says it was a man-made famine. it wasn't a man made famine. neither were the famines that occurred in the USSR.
there were people killed, and there were purges, and in the process of these purges there were a number of innocent people killed, but millions billions gorillions of people weren't ruthlessly murdered for fun by stalin and lenin galloping through barren soviet fields.
the people that were killed were mostly nazis and fascists, and people that were hoarding grain during famines. people were starving due to a famine induced by land difficulties, and there were people hoarding an abundance of food that could have easily be shared during a time of crisis then later be compensated, yet they refused out of selfishness. this wasn't a simple manner of them needing the food and wanting to keep what they had to survive. they had a large abundance of food and refused to share it.
as for pol pot and whatnot? yeah, no actual marxists defend that guy. none. no one that admires pol pot is a marxist, socialist, communist, whatever, of any kind.

all of your questions pertaining to gauging the amount of money one makes are answered in 'wage labour and capital' by karl marx. i highly recommend reading this, as it will explain a lot, and even if you don't 'agree' with the sentiments expressed by marx, if you wish to argue with marxists, shouldn't you at least know what they actually think rather than fuel your arguments with lies fed to you about what communism is?

That's the great lie of socialism. They tell the people the means of production will belong to the people. Really the means of production belongs to the state.

The means of production includes farmland. If the farmland belonged to the people in the Soviet Union, would the Holodomor have happened?

If the farmland belonged to the people, then would the state be able declare 100% of crops from that farmland belonged to the state? Would the farmers and their families have starved to death if it was really there land?

That doesn't sound like the people owning the means of production to me.


So you say that wasn't true communism because the means of production didn't belong to the people. A country has a lot of people in it. Different people have different views on things so a governing body would be needed to reach consensus as to how to handle the means of production. This governing body would have control over the means of production. They would effectively own the means of production. That sounds an awful lot like we're back to the state owning the means of production.


One of the problems with people trying to build utopian societies such as "true communism" is they think the society they will eventually build will be so good for humanity that the ends justify any means nessessary.

Just ask the Khmer Rouge. They thought they would build the perfect society which would spread to benefit the whole world. Surely the lives of a few million people are nothing compared to ability to one day save billions of people, right? False economy. They didn't end up saving anyone.

Communism puts the needs of the nation above the needs of the individual but what is a nation but a multitude of individuals?

The big problem with most attempts at command economies so far has been that the state had little to no democratic control over the means of production, or over allocation of resources. Liberal economies avoid this partially because people vote with their dollars and competition means someone likely will adapt to fill a certain demand.

So far most attempts at socialism have involved the state, ran by a vanguard socialist party owning and controlling industry 'on behalf of the people', but without any democratic control over how the state chooses to allocate resources. Typically these parties are quite paranoid and invest heavily in arming the state and building a powerful military to quell dissent as well as to deal with external threats. When they allow market reforms this often helps improve how resources are allocated, but I believe that increasing democratic involvement over control of their economies would likely have a similar outcome. Any type of economy is bound to suffer if the state wastes too many resources on arms and on megaprojects to stoke it's own ego with little benefit to the average person. This doomed most states ran by communist (Leninist) parties, but isn't a problem that's limited to those states even if they're particularly bad at avoiding it.

Of course, companies themselves are effectively command economies ran like a dictatorship. Democratic self-management of firms that compete within a market economy would also qualify as a form of socialism, but not one that has been attempted on a large scale.

Socialism can't possibly succeed without democracy and market economics are one way to have some degree of democratic say in an economy, but not the only way.

Power corrupts. More power means more corruption. Having a controlled economy puts far too much power in the hands of the state. That leads to corruption every single time.

You think Trump is bad now? Imagine if Trump had direct control over the economy. Imagine if Trump had direct control over every factory and every farm and every office. That's what you'd get with communism.

No communist state has ever avoided corruption or ever will because the flaws inherent to communism mean it will happen for every communist state.

Well, at least you'd know where to look for the corruption, capitalism creates petty fiefdoms of business despots making it really hard to track the corruption since it's basically spread everywhere and when it is found those despots just point their finger at another despot as the culprit or the government so responsibility is never taken. In that one regard feudalism is superior: when s**t's not going well, and corruption is rampant, you know exactly who to look at-- now chop off his head and get a new guy in here!

True. A communist state and a corporation are very similar. Don't like big corporations? Imagine a corporation as big as the country. 

Corporations exploit their workers so they can pay dividends just like communist states exploit their workers so they can buy more MIG fighters. 

This is why the term 'state capitalist' is much more appropriate for those states than 'communist' is. By their own admission they're not communist, only socialist states ran by Communist parties. A Communist party has no need to exist in a communist state, this creates a conflict of interest which is only one of many reasons why Leninism isn't viable.

I'm of the opinion if you look at a nation, there's going to be a certain amount of corruption that takes place in that nation regardless of system. The corruption of a communist regime, a feudal aristocracy, or a band of capitalist businessmen will most likely be the same in the same country since it's entirely up to the citizen to fight corruption, not the institutions of power. Or let's put it this way: Russia is a 'capitalist' economy now, but the corruption is really no less or no more than it was under the communist economy 3 decades ago, it just appeared more corrupt because that corruption was consolidated in one location thus easily identifiable. This is obviously not a popular opinion because it puts the onus on the citizen for the corruption they experience, but in reality that's the way people need to start looking at it, because the power structure of a country won't change itself unless the population demands it.

Communism may sound great on paper, but it doesn't work when applied. In fact communism is terrifying when applied. Capitalism may get you to start worrying about millennials and the next pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey president, but there is a reason why capitalism works. I think Mom and Pop's business getting shut down, because of a corporation running over and buying them out, is better than every store and every place being the state. There would be no variety, and so, no freedom of individual product. Hollywood would turn into a place selling propaganda and there would have to be more independent filmmakers. Judging by how America works, no competition makes it worse for the production of domestic products. Meaning all of those Asian car companies and European car companies would have to find other countries to have their plants. Prices will increase from products because there is hardly any competition. Taxes would increase, so that would mean it would be more difficult for me to pay my water bill, my electricity bill, my grocceries, and several other things because of communists making everything socialized and the same. My taxes increasing gives me an inability to have enough money to pay for grocceries, so I will be poor, but considered middle class by the state. Yes, more labor in the states, but you didn't say communism and remove the international trade. Now, with international trade and communism, the state makes the decisions for the best jobs in America. We would all be office workers typing papers away for the big man, and America would be one entire corporation giant and monopoly. I would have to be lucky for owning a farm or a good plot of land, so that I have enough money, because everyone is earning the same paycheck. The problem of owning land was not counted in communism. And what if my land was near a source of water compared to other people.

That is why I don't like communism, on paper it may say monopolyless, but in reality the state is one monopoly, and your TV will be playing propaganda everyday instead of your favorite shows.

And actually we have social programs like social security, disability checks, shelters, cheap housing, trailers, and they're not bad compared to being in a big house with hardly anything special.

Added to that is the problem of work hours. How many work hours are you going to be able to have to compete with everyone else, so if everyone worked the same hours with the same paycheck would it work? No it wouldn't. Someone working construction will be home tired and need some fresh water more so than the same person who worked the same amount of work hours for a tech company. Tech company is not the same as a construction company. With someone working long hours, he or she will eat more or drink more to conserve some energy to work again for the next working day.

Last edited by ZachGoodwin on 21 May 2017, 10:29 pm, edited 5 times in total.

The original manifesto (which everyone likes to argue, but probably only 5% arguing have actually read), argues for a one party system, it wasn't a Lenin concept at all. That said, a core tenant was actually representative democracy which we have yet to see in a Communist regime (hence the reason we call them Communist regimes and not Communist democracies). The reasoning Marx gives for one party is purely to prevent the partisan gridlock the republics of his time experienced (yeah, it's still around ).

How does a one party democracy work?

One party is the same as no party. By establishing only one party control, theoretically it would eliminate partisanship altogether since the only option is one. Marx's idea was that democracy would function much like it does today but by eliminating internal grouping (multiple parties) it would be more representative because parties are a middle man structure between the people and the government the people are meant to control. In a sense it's a form between direct democracy and republicanism. I never said it was feasible or would work, but it is in the manifesto and it's never been tested in a so called communist state and probably never will so we'll never know. The problem with every communist state so far is they get the people whipped up about worker's rights and people's control of the modes of production, then some asshat comes in and makes a dictatorship out it before it ever truly gets implemented as intended. Marx actually thought the first place that would attempt it would be the U.S. because they already had the democratic institutions in place to make it feasible, lol, he got the Russians instead.

The manifesto is theoretical, there's not guarantees on anything in it, just a theory, but capitalism itself was a theory that was hammered as sedition for 200 years before the Dutch finally gave it a go and it worked. For the record I'm not advocating any system, merely an examination of the passed over parts of the manifesto. Marx's intentions weren't some evil attempt to control or destroy western civ as people have claimed over the years, his intentions were to alleviate the working conditions of mid-nineteenth century Europe which were basically sweatshops. I've always found the document interesting, and if anything he did identify a lot of issues with capitalism that we're dealing with to this day. You can argue his system won't work, I wouldn't disagree, but it's still a provocative read.

*addendum: I should also note government and party are a little different in Marx's interpretation that what we're used to. He viewed the 'party' much like we view our elected governments-- our parliaments, senates, etc, and the 'government' solely as the bureaucracy-- department of what have you, and department of what not.

The distinction between capitalism and communism is false, because capital, as we know it, trickles-down, from a state lending monopoly. This is also the 5th plank of the Communist Manifesto.

In the end, communism was supposed to lead to a gift economy.

But, communism begins with a gift economy, also.

It was called the original accumulation (of wealth, resources.) They assumed that you could buy someone's services or loyalty, with the commodities, and compared this to the original sin of the Bible, because it was used to coerce the poor person, against his will -- necessitating the welfare state.

Dialectics is just a dog, chasing it's own tail.

The USSR and China both certainly claimed to be communist, and were held up as successful examples of communist countries by your fore-bearers. A few years ago it was Venezuela that was supposed to be the communist paradise.


This is completely wrong. They failed because centralised ownership doesn't work and communism is a failed philosophy. Dozens of countries have attempted it and they have all failed. Sensible liberals learn from those mistakes and pursue economic liberalism, which has a habit of actually working, rather than pursuing weird utopian economic philosophies which have a track record of failing.


That's the thing, it's not about the "exploited" and "exploiters". Employers don't exploit employees any more than employees exploit employers. Sure, there's a bit of a power mismatch, which the state should try to fix, but being employed is not exploitation, it's something that benefits both parties.


Of course they can. People do it fairly often.

How did you arrive at that conclusion? Seems like you're describing capitalism. Perhaps you simply don't understand what capitalism is?

You've obviously never tried.

Most employers can't just take someone on and expect them to do as well as their current employees, who have skills and experience. Additionally, there are so many jobs out there that they know that if they don't pay their employees what they are worth, then they can just go somewhere else that will pay them what they are worth. Both employer and employee have choice.


If you're not being paid what you work is worth then threaten to quit if you aren't given a pay rise. If your employer is sensible then they will give you one rather than lose out on revenue. If your employer is not sensible, then someone else will offer to pay you what your work is worth because of the money it will make them.

In a socialist system, the government says your work is worth this amount, and you can't get any more, you can't negotiate, you can't try someone else. That's one of the reasons why markets work - people get fair wages and goods cost fair amounts. That isn't possible when some know-nothing is setting the prices.


CEOs don't exploit workers and take all the credit. CEOs have to make difficult decisions, and their choices have dramatic effects upon the revenue of their company.

A good factory worker maybe makes $10 a day for the company more than a bad one would. A good CEO can make thousands of dollars a day more than a bad one for that sort of company.


It was one thing arguing with a kid who has no understanding of economics, quite another arguing with a Holodomor denying Tankie who thinks the Kulaks had it coming and Stalin did nothing wrong. You're just as bad as Holocaust deniers who still support Hitler. Try reading an impartial history of the Soviet Union or an impartial biography of Stalin or just the Wikipedia articles on the subjects.


I am familiar with Marx. I also know that he's wrong. Value does not come from labour, it comes from demand.

Imagine a factory producing widgets. Three people work eight hour days operating the machines that make widgets. Unfortunately, widgets are useless pieces of crap that nobody wants, so they don't get paid.

Next door, the factory produces TVs. Three people work eight hour days operating the machines that make TVs. Fortunately, people want TVs, so the workers get paid.

If labour is what matters, then these six people, who essentially perform the same jobs, should all get paid the same. But it isn't. Nobody wants widgets. Nobody wants widget-makers.

If you want a worker-owned factory, then there's nothing to stop you setting one up and paying everyone what it costs to "produce" their labour-power rather than how much they are worth. Do you think it would succeed?

.

Much of the dust bowl could have been avoided.

Lenin introduced the notion of 'democratic centralism' which is about as undemocratic notion as one can come up with.

That's not really what I'm criticizing though. I'm saying an entity that exists to destroy itself is unlikely to ever follow through with that goal. That's the conflict of interest I'm describing.