What Do You Think About Communism?

[SlowwHand]

Lolcats can sum it up for me.

[Riesstiu IV]

Why do so many communists grow neckbeards?

[Elok]

Assuming that by "communism" you mean "Marxism" (which isn't necessarily the case, but your, uh, cat implies it), I think the idea is fundamentally flawed not just in its assumptions about human generosity--which I suppose is open to debate--but because the dissolution of private property would require a government so strong that it would inevitably fail to act in the benevolent manner predicted.

[Asher]

Communism: Nice sentiment, bad idea.

[SlowwHand]

One of those, "Good in theory, but fails in application". Marx must have been some kind of engineer.

[Elok]

What? It was my understanding that engineering is one of the most practical-minded professions out there, if only because they have a hard time avoiding blame when something goes terribly wrong.

[Winston]

I think it has done absolute wonders for the women's shot put.

[DaShi]

About as bad as a completely free market economy.

[Serb]

Ðàçóì êîãäà-íèáóäü ïîáåäèò.

[Hauldren Collider]

Ðàçóì êîãäà-íèáóäü ïîáåäèò.

I can't figure out if this makes less or more sense to me than your usual posts.

At least being unable to read it has spared my monitor this time around.

[Serb]

Good for ya and your sh!tty monitor.

[Ben Kenobi]

You know that feeling when you forget to wear hard soles and you accidentally drive a nail into your foot?

Yeah. Now do that to your balls. Both of them.

That is how I feel about communism.

[DaShi]

Why do you have to make everything about other people's balls?

[Ecofarm]

Marx failed to foresee fair market regulation. In his time, capitalism meant monarchy. With labor laws, environmental laws and other regulations, it is possible for the prol to escape the horrible oppression that is working in an office today - without totalitarianism.

[Rafe]

I'ts loaded with contradictions.

The state is a tool the capitalists use to despoil or enslave the workers yet the workers are meant to use this device to take back their stuff. Modern voter theory somewhat confirms this indirectly in that the value of your vote is so low that you not incentivized to become informed. This emasculates the power of the state as a tool that the proletariat may leverage to obtain freedom bcs lobbying > voting. Calls to enhance the power of the state actually enhance the choice variety of those with teh most money(power). The coercive nature of teh state grants additional options that wealthy institutions in markets would not have.

Additionally the state was supposed to become outmoded by atomistic worker collectives or syndicates which would function in a decentralized matrix. However its' not clear how this sort of anarchy of labour colonies would maintain itself if individuals with unequal skill began to move exit certain syndicates and negotiate for more power. Having removed the monopoly on violence decentralized agencies would have no means to control movement of people.

Also since Von Mises Economic calculation argument many of the intellectual socialists have abandoned eliminating cardinal value scales which emerge from capital markets to varieties of market socialism or voucher based socialism. Under communism the social order makes decisions via democracy. Democracy is simply binary where as a market permits a greater degree of signal fidelity in the form of a magnitude variable, 1, 2 , 20.71, 3.77 ^65. Also markets enhance an exit choice variable where as under democracy your forced to consume the products/ services winners would select. In this sense you can actually look at democracy as a form of market that is highly attenuated. It has some choice flexibility, it has the Schumpetarian notion of creative destruction = retrospective voting, it has capital in the form of the vote. It's extremely simplistic and discounts signal complexity for equality, competition exists alive in well in debates etc which serve a critical f(x) for the political discourse that generates decisions. Also Galbraith's criticisms of advertisement must be moved into the public process with aspects like propaganda or campaigns as institutions/parties attempt to sway opinion to buy or in this case become loyal to one product or another.