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Democratic communism has never been tried and therefore it's impossible to say it has failed.
But Scandinavian countries, with their social democratic economies, are among the best countries to live in the world.
Oh Sir, you are not at all a good communist! Incentives for workers is capital roading! Witholding wages!? Firing a comrade for lack of production!? Unthinkable.
I'm searching for a bit of middle-ground here.
Let's say a highly socialised system but not pure communism, because I think it could work.
Could it work; for who? The state? The people? A select few people? You have to define who it could work for.
Communism; this word has been drug through the mud and back, so you need to clarify what definition of communism you are referring to. Marx? Soviet style? NK?
generally speaking, then Marx/Soviet style but a modernised version.
One with a small incentive system, perhaps some small scale private business and property rights.
a kind of cross between Democratic Socialism and Communism
generally speaking, then Marx/Soviet style but a modernised version.
One with a small incentive system, perhaps some small scale private business and property rights.
There were a lot of small businesses in SU. Most agricultural production (and that's a lot!) was created by individual farmers. Much of the rest by collective farms (cooperatives). And the rest by heavily financed state farms. There were other businesses as well.
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how about that idea?
For rich - totally wrong
Soviet style state capitalism can be extremely effective. After all, it was! Before felling pray to conservatives and the Cold War.
The problem with that system is that the government may become olligarchial. And if it may, it sure will. It is possible to overcome this problem.
Here's where communism may be practiced in it's purist form, North Korea. Not sure why it doesn't work, but this night time satellite image shows the difference between communism and capitalism in North and South Korea:
who were the conservatives in the SU - do you mean people like Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin?
A bit of history - I'll try to be very concise:
Shortly after being elected, Stalin gave a speech with his infamous words: "We are 50 or 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in 10 years. Either we do it, or they crush us."
He was totally right, except that Russia had less than 10 years before 1941...
At that time SU was not too far from social-democracy. Small businesses flourished, but industrial growth was inadequate to avoid the coming destruction (it was expected from the former WW1 Allies, but came from Germany...)
To fix that problem Stalin implemented the planned economy - grossly state capitalist system. Results were absolutely stunning - in less than a decade pretty miserable ruined SU managed to create a state of the art military engineering school, world's best weapons, and industry that easily overproduced advanced Germany with all continental Europe under its control.
After WW2 he refused to decentralize the economy, because of the Cold War. Then he died... Hrushev began decentralization, but only went half-way.
After his death conservatives and technocrats were fighting to the death (politically speaking). Conservatives wanted the return of Stalinism, only without a strong leader. Technocrats-progressives wanted to continue liberalization, to make SU social-democratic.
Conservatives have won, and over the years became so entrenched that Soviet elections were not from the bottom to the top, as they were meant to be, but from the top to the bottom. That's olligarchy mascarading as democracy.
Then there was a nasty period of a recession and a political crisis. A populist president Gorbachev came to power... Shortly thereafter - the end... Well, that end was just the beginning... but still...
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how can it be overcome?
By carving these words in the constitution: Totalitarism is bad, no matter how democratic it seems!
Here's where communism may be practiced in it's purist form, North Korea.
They've got state capitalism, which is as far from anarchial communism as it gets.
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Not sure why it doesn't work, but this night time satellite image shows the difference between communism and capitalism in North and South Korea
When Soviet Union was alive North Korea was a very developed country (for the 3rd world), while SK was just a huge village. But then US destroyed NK's power plants, leaving it with closed factories, and even without home lights. It also threatened (and still does) to nuke NK.
it looks like the West does not want to give communism any chance of success - and then claim a mighty propaganda coup.
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