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Communism has never existed, nor could it ever exist. Men have never come together for any length of time except by force, or pure self-preservation.
All civilization is coercion, and all civilization is hierarchical. In fact, all human societies are hierarchical, going back to primitive tribalism.
The closest you could ever get to communism, would be one-world socialism, but it would still have a bunch of power-hungry narcissists at the top running the show.
As for the reason communism failed, it is because the common-people are never in power in any society. It is the elites that always run the show, and drag the common people around. The purported communism in our world failed because "states" must always do what is in their national interests, because states compete with each other in an almost Darwinian fashion.
Industrial/financial capitalism produces more state power than any other form of government. Because Industrial/financial capitalism is able to produce the resources/production/capital/technology for a state to build a massive technologically-advanced army, and also the capital to bribe/manipulate/overthrow and otherwise intervene in the internal affairs of foreign governments.
Communism was useful in rapidly-industrializing what had been third-world peasant countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. Basically, the state stole the land from poor peasants, and then used the resources of the state to "modernize" agriculture and manufacturing(IE to bring in tractors and other heavy equipment, which the small-farmers were either incapable of purchasing because of a lack of capital, or were hesitant in purchasing).
After the land has been seized, and the peasants have been moved into the cities to work for their employers, and the land has been put into the hands of those with sufficient capital, then communism no longer serves any function. After that far more production/capital can be produced through privatization. Especially considering that the vast-majority of the so-called wealth in the world, comes in the form of financial speculation through the machinations of central-banks. Which is why supposedly communist China not only has a stock-market, but uses state-intervention to try to artificially-inflate it, just as we do in America.
Speculation produces what Marx called "fictitious capital", which can be used to buy real capital(IE the real resources of the world). Globalism is about America(and its corporations/banks) using our fictitious-capital produced through financial speculation, to buy up all the world's resources, and to otherwise dominate world markets.
The future will be ostensibly a socialist one-world government, but in reality, it'll be a kind of aristocracy, just as all societies already are. But without the need for states to compete with each other.
Communism has never existed, nor could it ever exist. Men have never come together for any length of time except by force, or pure self-preservation.
All civilization is coercion, and all civilization is hierarchical. In fact, all human societies are hierarchical, going back to primitive tribalism.
The closest you could ever get to communism, would be one-world socialism, but it would still have a bunch of power-hungry narcissists at the top running the show.
As for the reason communism failed, it is because the common-people are never in power in any society. It is the elites that always run the show, and drag the common people around. The purported communism in our world failed because "states" must always do what is in their national interests, because states compete with each other in an almost Darwinian fashion.
Industrial/financial capitalism produces more state power than any other form of government. Because Industrial/financial capitalism is able to produce the resources/production/capital/technology for a state to build a massive technologically-advanced army, and also the capital to bribe/manipulate/overthrow and otherwise intervene in the internal affairs of foreign governments.
Communism was useful in rapidly-industrializing what had been third-world peasant countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. Basically, the state stole the land from poor peasants, and then used the resources of the state to "modernize" agriculture and manufacturing(IE to bring in tractors and other heavy equipment, which the small-farmers were either incapable of purchasing because of a lack of capital, or were hesitant in purchasing).
After the land has been seized, and the peasants have been moved into the cities to work for their employers, and the land has been put into the hands of those with sufficient capital, then communism no longer serves any function. After that far more production/capital can be produced through privatization. Especially considering that the vast-majority of the so-called wealth in the world, comes in the form of financial speculation through the machinations of central-banks. Which is why supposedly communist China not only has a stock-market, but uses state-intervention to try to artificially-inflate it, just as we do in America.
Speculation produces what Marx called "fictitious capital", which can be used to buy real capital(IE the real resources of the world). Globalism is about America(and its corporations/banks) using our fictitious-capital produced through financial speculation, to buy up all the world's resources, and to otherwise dominate world markets.
The future will be ostensibly a socialist one-world government, but in reality, it'll be a kind of aristocracy, just as all societies already are. But without the need for states to compete with each other.
Too much truth here. You aren't expecting a response, are you?
Communism is a dirty word in America .... The question is, if this ideology has failed in every other nation it's been tried in, why should it work in America? How are we different than Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea, etc? What will America do differently than those other nations once the far left gets their way to avoid a similar fate?
If you really want to talk about failure, go ahead and talk about Russia and China. But Cuba and N. Korea are still functioning. Have they delivered as other developed countries have? Not so much. Is that "failure"? That would be a value judgement. Their judgement would probably not be that of failure.
So, in talking about Russia and China, they failed for reasons mostly unknown in the U.S. because the government and media don't want us to understand it so we cannot solve it here, either.
And what were those reasons? Well, mainly they failed because they did not establish broad, worker involvement and control of the workplace and government. They took the (failed) path of assigning government functions and offices to selected individuals answerable only to Stalin and Mao and the top government officials directly under Stalin and Mao. The failure to integrate broad workers and give them powers was the main cause of the failure. And the failure took the form of the government officials' natural human greed causing them to serve themselves and seek gain and profit, and ultimately transform the developing communist-directed economy to state capitalism in which not the workers, but the state itself became the owners of the means of production.
Failure to involve workers was the main cause and would be the main prevention of failure.
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The closest you could ever get to communism, would be one-world socialism, but it would still have a bunch of power-hungry narcissists at the top running the show.
Socialist/communist ideas work only to kick start poor or third world economies....
Socialism is not a settled "science" or system. It is still in the experimental stage and will remain there until the workable design and form are established. Changes are still developing as is the theory of socialism itself. So it is too early to declare that socialism can't work or that it works only for Third World countries or that it is this or that.
Why is the world the way it is? Did all of this just fall into place randomly? Is the world the byproduct of a lack of foresight? Poor planning? Bad people?
People always say that the real problem with our world, is that we just don't have the right people in charge. But why don't we? Is this some kind of new problem? Did this just happen in the last 50 years? Or are the problems today, the same problems which have always existed?
Here is the truth, the world is the way it is, because the world is the way it is.
Nations must do what is in their "national interests" at all times, or they will cease to exist. The same principle applies to corporations as well, being that nations and corporations are already practically the same thing.
If it was beneficial from a business-perspective for corporations to be generous/charitable/magnanimous, then all businesses in the entire world would be just that. But by-and-large, they aren't(unless by appearing to be charitable/environmentally-conscious/etc, they can make more money).
If Mondragon is truly an example of Socialism in the world, fine(though I have my doubts). But most-likely it is merely exploiting some sort of niche in the market(its employees are mostly highly-paid professional types).
I was talking politics the other day to a guy, and he kept asking me what my political ideology is, or more-specifically, he kept asking me "What do you want?".
I finally got annoyed with him and said, "What does it matter what I want? I'm not going to get it. I might as well wish for the moon to be made of cheese. The world is what it is, it is governed by forces, and all people, businesses, and governments must follow them, or be destroyed. The world never really changes, only circumstances change."
The truth is, you could collapse society entirely tomorrow, everyone could die but just a tribe of primitive men, and you will, at some point in the future, return right back to where we are today.
The philosophy of market economies is based on the idea that everyone is concerned only with himself. The philosophy underlying communism is based on the idea that everyone cares about others as much as he cares about himself.
The latter is falser than the former and that's why communism fails.
Communism is a dirty word in America, yet many of the principles being advocated by more and more Americans are communist at core. You can call it progressive, liberal, leftist, whatever but whatever you call it the principles are the same.
Communism- a way of organizing a society in which the government owns the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) and there is no privately owned property.
Can you name any democrat or liberal that desires the US government to own all land, oil, factories, and infrastructure? NO, and democrats/liberals do not desire to be communists.
But part of USSR-like communism that you speak of is having a dictator or ruling class, and its the republicans that are pushing us into a dictator-like/ruling class state. Today in America you need around $1 billion dollars in campaign funds to run for president, and only the super rich and those connected to a network of large corporations can become president.
Democrats try to pass campaign finance reform laws to stop the super rich from controlling our government, but republicans oppose campaign finance reform. Its the republicans that are fighting for a America where only the super rich can be elected to government (and pushing us into a dictator-like/ruling class state controlled by the super rich.)
Why is the world the way it is? Did all of this just fall into place randomly? Is the world the byproduct of a lack of foresight? Poor planning? Bad people?
....
Here is the truth, the world is the way it is, because the world is the way it is.
No, the world evolved just like all things including life itself evolved. This information is kept from us for the most part and so some people think what you said is the answer. But I'm sorry to tell you it is not.
There was-and-is a sequence. And it is logical.
Ancient hunter-gatherer nomadic societies found that it was better to stay put and plant crops and domesticate animals. That let to someone realizing that if ownership of land was developed, the owner could profit from letting others farm and raise animals on that land. So feudalism and class society were born. This is an entirely logical evolution.
Growing crops and raising animals became more and more efficient and people were freed up to focus on making clothes for the society, making tools, and inventing new ones. They found that if they collected clothing workers together and gathered tool makers together, etc., it improved efficiency and quality. Guilds were born. This is an entirely logical evolution too.
Experience with guilds and their organization and structure and concentration gave someone the idea of owning productive centers and the equipment necessary to do the work and the owner could profit from it while many workers did the bulk of the work for payment. Capitalism was born. This is an entirely logical evolution too.
Capitalism provided unprecedented growth, incentive for invention, increasing technology, and increasing standard of living.
At some point capitalism produces all the invention, growth, technology, and improvement in standard of living it can accomplish efficiently and beneficially. Then it begins to create its own problems that it cannot actually solve due to its own inherent contradictions, though it says it will fix everything and pretends it can. (This also happened with the previous forms of economy and that typically motivated the change to a new system, often accompanied by violence as the status quo beneficiaries of the current system resisted change.)
But capitalism is class society just like all others that preceded it were, and the non-ruling working class ends up suffering progressively more and more when the inherent contradictions in the system result in greed at the top, government control by the top class, disenfranchisement of the working class, increasing hardship for the working class, diminishing hope and expectation for improvement in conditions and life style for the working class, and the workers begin to grow more and more desperate. This is an entirely logical evolution too.
The hunter-gatherer societies formed class societies when feudalism was born and they overthrew the existing system. The oppressed underclass in feudal society became the entrepreneurs and overthrew the feudal system. The new capitalist system created an oppressed worker class which has and will overthrow the capitalist system. Always the lower class created by the economic system in effect eventually takes their role as workers whether as farmers or guild owners or modern workers and carries it to a new level as a ruling force. The workers always take over their system to form the new, emerging one.
Now this history gives rise to theory to guide us in the future developments and it is this: in capitalist society, for the first time, the modern working class has no other class they can exploit for profit and so no underclass results from their rise to power in socialist societies. Hence no more oppression. The end of class society becomes possible.
The philosophy of market economies is based on the idea that everyone is concerned only with himself. The philosophy underlying communism is based on the idea that everyone cares about others as much as he cares about himself.
The latter is falser than the former and that's why communism fails.
The latter is falser than the former and that's why communism fails.
Nothing fails with enough force. The problem with force, is that it takes a lot of effort, costs a lot, and leaves people disgruntled.
It is far better for people to do what you want them to do, without you having to force them. If they choose to do it on their own, it costs nothing.
Thus, you must give people the appearance of freedom, while at the same time, pushing them in the direction you want them to go.
This is why so-called "freedom", couldn't come about until the invention of the mass-media, and some sort of mass education system. And this is the real purpose of the church, to make people do "good", because they want to do it, instead of having to force them.
The Soviet Union didn't fail insofar as it couldn't muster the force to stay together. The problem was that using force alone simply wasn't an efficient way to socially-organize a country/empire.
Which is one of the reasons why Russia so quickly brought back, and legally-protected the Orthodox Church. And has heavily pushed "Russian Nationalism"(IE national pride). To foster a sense of internal social-obligation/identity, thus encouraging people to work for some "common purpose"(IE to protect their nation/national culture from foreign imperialists), thus allowing them to be free, but still guiding them in the interests of "the nation".
I'm paraphrasing Milton Friedman, but in essence he said, "You are only as free, as your freedom is beneficial to the government. If your freedom didn't benefit the government, you would be a slave."
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