6 ms·

Yeah, tell that to the millions of dead left in its wake.

quadrangle 10y ago
There have been nowhere near enough actual trials of communism to conclude anything fully. The core examples were all poorer countries with various problems, corruption… To reject communism as a concept over the atrocities of Stalin et al is as reasonable as rejecting capitalism because the U.S. was built on slavery and the genocide of first peoples. The atrocities were real, and they did connect to economics, but to just assert that capitalism is the slavery of U.S. history or that communism just is gulags and bread lines is extremely short-sighted. Neither system was anything like the core principles of the economic models (which are just models, so we should reject anyone who focuses only on the models and not on practical reality, but we can't treat each real-world case as the definitive case either).
- darawk 10y ago
  While you are right, many people (e.g. Hayek) argue that collectivism entails authoritarianism and control. That the two are inextricably linked, due primarily to the local knowledge problem. I'm not necessarily arguing that that is the case just trying to explain why people make this argument. The idea is that, logically, any economically communist country will, by definition, eventually come to resemble the Soviet Union, China, and other negative instances. We can debate whether or not that is so, but I think it's a legitimate debate to have, especially being that all known examples have in fact worked out that way.
- 4WIW 10y ago
  You can say the same thing about National-Socialism or any other ideology out there. There are just not enough countries to try them all on, and I am not sure why should we...
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    National Socialism (i.e. Hitler) was based fundamentally on nationalism and racism. We can reject it because the principles themselves are unethical. We can reject it even if it had succeeded economically! If you want to make an argument that the principles of communism are unethical, that's an independent argument from the claim that certain historic attempts had various atrocities and therefore you reject the principles (even though many of the atrocities are not related to the principles — Stalin disappearing his political enemies has no basis in communist principles…
    - 4WIW 10y ago
      1. My argument was about "National Socialism and any other ideology out there", you focused only on the first part. Even if you filter out unethical ones (not sure how, but let's say you can), there would still be too many to try, and not sure why should we keep trying theories instead of letting the society evolve in a natural way. 2. Specifically about giving communism a fair trial despite all past failures because it is "ethical": no thanks. I find its principle of "dictatorship of the proletariat" unethical and proven disastrous. 3. Stalin disappearing his political enemies was rooted at least in part in Lenin's cornerstone principle of "democratic centralism" which was critical ingredient for the success of the communist revolution. Trying to decouple the two doesn't do history justice.
      - quadrangle 10y ago
        The point is that you should argue why you find "dictatorship of the proletariat" unethical and not confuse the difference between ethics and economic viability. There's definitely philosophical problems with communism and communist thinkers of various sorts. No denying that. But the screwed up crappy attempts at something like communism simply don't invalidate all of the principles which must be considered separately. Basically, if you run a shitty version of an experiment, you don't get to then claim you proved the null hypothesis. It's one thing to say "we can't afford to experiment" and another to say "we had [shitty] experiments and so now we can conclude things." You could argue for no more trials and still accept the fact that we never got any good trials from which to conclude enough about the real principles.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  Review "The Black Book of Communism" for a catalog of the death and misery from communist countries, over and over. Voluntary communes and Kibbutzen have failed as well - none have been capable of operating without subsidy.
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    All you're saying is that attempts at communism have all had major problems. That's true, but it's not enough to be conclusive. If you want to pick examples that point various ways, you can note that Cuba has corruption, lack of democracy, is an impoverished island suffering the effects of significant economic embargoes in the global system and yet still vies for having one of the best health care systems. They even a top country in providing doctors to serve abroad in troubled places! And the Soviet Union was a horrendously corrupt place that failed in most respects to live up to communist ideals and yet still managed to compete technologically with the richest countries on the planet despite being economically far far far weaker in fundamentals. The U.S. only barely beat the Soviets in the space race etc while being massively richer. The Soviets had many orders of magnitude more losses in WWII also. The history of Communism is one where anti-communists did everything they could to undermine any success, the trials were full of corruption and abuse, and even still they had notable successes. The kibbutzen failed not strictly because all the ideas were unworkable. They failed because they had to function economically in a larger context. None of them had wealth along the lines of successful capitalists either. Capitalists have only ever operated capably by controlling a lot of capital or getting subsidy, at least in the form of law enforcement that serves the side of capital. We can conclude that all attempts at communism so far have had serious flaws. We can also conclude that capitalism has always had serious flaws too. Anyone who takes a polarized one-sided view on this stuff can be rejected as just being dogmatic. Piketty is not one of these one-sided dogmatic people, he's actually interested in studying empirical evidence and not concluding more than the evidence can truly support.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      > major problems That's a bit of an understatement. It has a pretty much 0% success rate, for both coercive and voluntary attempts. > capitalism has always had serious flaws too Yes, but nothing like the communist failures, and capitalism has had incredible success stories. > The Soviets had many orders of magnitude more losses in WWII also. Nobody doubts the heroism and sacrifice of the Red Army in WW2. That's a whole 'nother topic, though. > The U.S. only barely beat the Soviets in the space race etc while being massively richer. The USSR was able to direct massive resources at single problems, at the sacrifice at most everything else, but the US could do it with little sacrifice. > did everything they could to undermine any success Nobody made the communist countries perform mass slaughter. > The kibbutzen failed not strictly because all the ideas were unworkable. They couldn't feed themselves. No communist system has ever been able to feed itself. All have required imports from capitalist economies, or starved, or tolerated capitalist farmers.
- nickff 10y ago
  How many more millions of test subjects must die before you accept the negative result?
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    The only important question in terms of test subjects dying is whether they don't die under some other circumstance. The U.S.S.R and Chinese dictatorships were/are horrendous. On the other hand, Cuba has major ethical problems but subjects dying isn't these days really among them. Cuba does a better job of keeping people healthy and secure than the U.S. does. There's no homeless sick people in Cuba basically. Everyone gets quality medical care even though the country is massively poorer in fundamental resources than the U.S. The people dying in the cases you are referencing did not die because of the ideas of communism. The atrocities were carried out in the name of communism but had no basis in actual communist ideas.
DarkLinkXXXX 10y ago
If deaths caused by leaders purporting to advance communist ideals can be attributed to communism, then how many have died at the hands of those purporting to advance capitalist ideals? Would it be reasonable to attribute these deaths to capitalism as well? I really don't these type of conclusions are a positive contribution to economic discourse.
- darawk 10y ago
  Are there significant examples of that in history? I would be looking only at governments causing the deaths of their own citizens. I don't think it'd be fair to count foreign wars there. EDIT: Just to be clear, i'm not implying that they do not exist. Genuinely don't know of any and would be curious if you do.
  - turar 10y ago
    Pinochet's Chile for example.
    - darawk 10y ago
      Thanks for that. That seems like a pretty solid example. In reading about it, I would nitpick one detail that seems non-capitalist to me: they didn't allow the currency to float. This is a pretty big deal, from my admittedly limited understanding of economics. If you don't allow the currency to float, your import/export ratios can't respond to market forces, and in a globalized economy this can be catastrophic, especially during a global downturn. To quote from the wiki: "One of the junta's economic moves was fixing the exchange rate in the early 1980s, leading to a boom in imports and a collapse of domestic industrial production; this together with a world recession caused a serious economic crisis in 1982, where GDP plummeted by 14%, and unemployment reached 33%" Of course, you can't prove a counter-factual. There's no way to know for sure what would have happened if they hadn't done this. But it seems to me that this, at least somewhat, mitigates the significance of this particular example.
  - geogra4 10y ago
    bengal famine, laotian genocide
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Mikeb85 10y ago
And millions were killed by fascism, by colonialism, and by other -isms. There is nothing inherent to communism/socialism that necessitates killing, plus historical context is a thing.
broke_wagon 10y ago
Carrying a communist (or capitalist, or ...) banner around as you pillage doesn't make you a communist (or a capitalist, or ...). Attack the system, not those who usurp its name. Only then we can have a discussion.
- broke_wagon 10y ago
  I am painfully aware that this argument seems prone to a "no true Scotsman" defense, but really, the basic principles of communism are very much at odds with many of its famous "proponents" (usurpers).
turar 10y ago
You're confusing communism with totalitarianism.
- barney54 10y ago
  Usually communism requires totalitarianism. I don't know of any examples where communism didn't require totalitarian as long as we are talking about the country level. But I'd like to hear some counter examples I'm not thinking of.
  - turar 10y ago
    No countries actually had communism, but if we're talking about socialism, then you're mostly right. My opinion is that there are many reasons for it, including: - Those countries were poor and without sufficiently established democratic institutions. - Those countries had to immediately mobilize to defend from richer capitalist countries (lead by the US) trying to undermine them in any possible way. Constant defense mode leads to totalitarianism. That doesn't mean that socialism requires totalitarianism by nature.
    - BurningFrog 10y ago
      Central planning of all production means that the central planners controls everything in society.
      - turar 10y ago
        Central planning is not a requirement for socialism. In fact, the only significant difference between capitalism and socialism is a democratically controlled workplace, which is inherently less authoritarian than capitalistic totalitarian workplace governance. It's also ironic how people constantly conflate "democracy" and "capitalism" on one hand, and "totalitarianism" and "communism" on the other, while completely accepting totalitarianism during a significant portion of their life -- their workplace.
  - yk 10y ago

There have been nowhere near enough actual trials of communism to conclude anything fully. The core examples were all poorer countries with various problems, corruption… To reject communism as a concept over the atrocities of Stalin et al is as reasonable as rejecting capitalism because the U.S. was built on slavery and the genocide of first peoples. The atrocities were real, and they did connect to economics, but to just assert that capitalism is the slavery of U.S. history or that communism just is gulags and bread lines is extremely short-sighted. Neither system was anything like the core principles of the economic models (which are just models, so we should reject anyone who focuses only on the models and not on practical reality, but we can't treat each real-world case as the definitive case either).

darawk 10y ago
While you are right, many people (e.g. Hayek) argue that collectivism entails authoritarianism and control. That the two are inextricably linked, due primarily to the local knowledge problem. I'm not necessarily arguing that that is the case just trying to explain why people make this argument. The idea is that, logically, any economically communist country will, by definition, eventually come to resemble the Soviet Union, China, and other negative instances. We can debate whether or not that is so, but I think it's a legitimate debate to have, especially being that all known examples have in fact worked out that way.
4WIW 10y ago
You can say the same thing about National-Socialism or any other ideology out there. There are just not enough countries to try them all on, and I am not sure why should we...
- quadrangle 10y ago
  National Socialism (i.e. Hitler) was based fundamentally on nationalism and racism. We can reject it because the principles themselves are unethical. We can reject it even if it had succeeded economically! If you want to make an argument that the principles of communism are unethical, that's an independent argument from the claim that certain historic attempts had various atrocities and therefore you reject the principles (even though many of the atrocities are not related to the principles — Stalin disappearing his political enemies has no basis in communist principles…
  - 4WIW 10y ago
    1. My argument was about "National Socialism and any other ideology out there", you focused only on the first part. Even if you filter out unethical ones (not sure how, but let's say you can), there would still be too many to try, and not sure why should we keep trying theories instead of letting the society evolve in a natural way. 2. Specifically about giving communism a fair trial despite all past failures because it is "ethical": no thanks. I find its principle of "dictatorship of the proletariat" unethical and proven disastrous. 3. Stalin disappearing his political enemies was rooted at least in part in Lenin's cornerstone principle of "democratic centralism" which was critical ingredient for the success of the communist revolution. Trying to decouple the two doesn't do history justice.
    - quadrangle 10y ago
      The point is that you should argue why you find "dictatorship of the proletariat" unethical and not confuse the difference between ethics and economic viability. There's definitely philosophical problems with communism and communist thinkers of various sorts. No denying that. But the screwed up crappy attempts at something like communism simply don't invalidate all of the principles which must be considered separately. Basically, if you run a shitty version of an experiment, you don't get to then claim you proved the null hypothesis. It's one thing to say "we can't afford to experiment" and another to say "we had [shitty] experiments and so now we can conclude things." You could argue for no more trials and still accept the fact that we never got any good trials from which to conclude enough about the real principles.
WalterBright 10y ago
Review "The Black Book of Communism" for a catalog of the death and misery from communist countries, over and over. Voluntary communes and Kibbutzen have failed as well - none have been capable of operating without subsidy.
- quadrangle 10y ago
  All you're saying is that attempts at communism have all had major problems. That's true, but it's not enough to be conclusive. If you want to pick examples that point various ways, you can note that Cuba has corruption, lack of democracy, is an impoverished island suffering the effects of significant economic embargoes in the global system and yet still vies for having one of the best health care systems. They even a top country in providing doctors to serve abroad in troubled places! And the Soviet Union was a horrendously corrupt place that failed in most respects to live up to communist ideals and yet still managed to compete technologically with the richest countries on the planet despite being economically far far far weaker in fundamentals. The U.S. only barely beat the Soviets in the space race etc while being massively richer. The Soviets had many orders of magnitude more losses in WWII also. The history of Communism is one where anti-communists did everything they could to undermine any success, the trials were full of corruption and abuse, and even still they had notable successes. The kibbutzen failed not strictly because all the ideas were unworkable. They failed because they had to function economically in a larger context. None of them had wealth along the lines of successful capitalists either. Capitalists have only ever operated capably by controlling a lot of capital or getting subsidy, at least in the form of law enforcement that serves the side of capital. We can conclude that all attempts at communism so far have had serious flaws. We can also conclude that capitalism has always had serious flaws too. Anyone who takes a polarized one-sided view on this stuff can be rejected as just being dogmatic. Piketty is not one of these one-sided dogmatic people, he's actually interested in studying empirical evidence and not concluding more than the evidence can truly support.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > major problems That's a bit of an understatement. It has a pretty much 0% success rate, for both coercive and voluntary attempts. > capitalism has always had serious flaws too Yes, but nothing like the communist failures, and capitalism has had incredible success stories. > The Soviets had many orders of magnitude more losses in WWII also. Nobody doubts the heroism and sacrifice of the Red Army in WW2. That's a whole 'nother topic, though. > The U.S. only barely beat the Soviets in the space race etc while being massively richer. The USSR was able to direct massive resources at single problems, at the sacrifice at most everything else, but the US could do it with little sacrifice. > did everything they could to undermine any success Nobody made the communist countries perform mass slaughter. > The kibbutzen failed not strictly because all the ideas were unworkable. They couldn't feed themselves. No communist system has ever been able to feed itself. All have required imports from capitalist economies, or starved, or tolerated capitalist farmers.
nickff 10y ago
How many more millions of test subjects must die before you accept the negative result?
- quadrangle 10y ago
  The only important question in terms of test subjects dying is whether they don't die under some other circumstance. The U.S.S.R and Chinese dictatorships were/are horrendous. On the other hand, Cuba has major ethical problems but subjects dying isn't these days really among them. Cuba does a better job of keeping people healthy and secure than the U.S. does. There's no homeless sick people in Cuba basically. Everyone gets quality medical care even though the country is massively poorer in fundamental resources than the U.S. The people dying in the cases you are referencing did not die because of the ideas of communism. The atrocities were carried out in the name of communism but had no basis in actual communist ideas.

DarkLinkXXXX 10y ago

If deaths caused by leaders purporting to advance communist ideals can be attributed to communism, then how many have died at the hands of those purporting to advance capitalist ideals? Would it be reasonable to attribute these deaths to capitalism as well? I really don't these type of conclusions are a positive contribution to economic discourse.

darawk 10y ago
Are there significant examples of that in history? I would be looking only at governments causing the deaths of their own citizens. I don't think it'd be fair to count foreign wars there. EDIT: Just to be clear, i'm not implying that they do not exist. Genuinely don't know of any and would be curious if you do.
- turar 10y ago
  Pinochet's Chile for example.
  - darawk 10y ago
    Thanks for that. That seems like a pretty solid example. In reading about it, I would nitpick one detail that seems non-capitalist to me: they didn't allow the currency to float. This is a pretty big deal, from my admittedly limited understanding of economics. If you don't allow the currency to float, your import/export ratios can't respond to market forces, and in a globalized economy this can be catastrophic, especially during a global downturn. To quote from the wiki: "One of the junta's economic moves was fixing the exchange rate in the early 1980s, leading to a boom in imports and a collapse of domestic industrial production; this together with a world recession caused a serious economic crisis in 1982, where GDP plummeted by 14%, and unemployment reached 33%" Of course, you can't prove a counter-factual. There's no way to know for sure what would have happened if they hadn't done this. But it seems to me that this, at least somewhat, mitigates the significance of this particular example.
- geogra4 10y ago
  bengal famine, laotian genocide

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Mikeb85 10y ago

And millions were killed by fascism, by colonialism, and by other -isms. There is nothing inherent to communism/socialism that necessitates killing, plus historical context is a thing.

broke_wagon 10y ago

Carrying a communist (or capitalist, or ...) banner around as you pillage doesn't make you a communist (or a capitalist, or ...). Attack the system, not those who usurp its name. Only then we can have a discussion.

broke_wagon 10y ago
I am painfully aware that this argument seems prone to a "no true Scotsman" defense, but really, the basic principles of communism are very much at odds with many of its famous "proponents" (usurpers).

turar 10y ago

You're confusing communism with totalitarianism.

barney54 10y ago
Usually communism requires totalitarianism. I don't know of any examples where communism didn't require totalitarian as long as we are talking about the country level. But I'd like to hear some counter examples I'm not thinking of.
- turar 10y ago
  No countries actually had communism, but if we're talking about socialism, then you're mostly right. My opinion is that there are many reasons for it, including: - Those countries were poor and without sufficiently established democratic institutions. - Those countries had to immediately mobilize to defend from richer capitalist countries (lead by the US) trying to undermine them in any possible way. Constant defense mode leads to totalitarianism. That doesn't mean that socialism requires totalitarianism by nature.
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    Central planning of all production means that the central planners controls everything in society.
    - turar 10y ago
      Central planning is not a requirement for socialism. In fact, the only significant difference between capitalism and socialism is a democratically controlled workplace, which is inherently less authoritarian than capitalistic totalitarian workplace governance. It's also ironic how people constantly conflate "democracy" and "capitalism" on one hand, and "totalitarianism" and "communism" on the other, while completely accepting totalitarianism during a significant portion of their life -- their workplace.
- yk 10y ago