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I think that very much depends on what your communist society looks like in practice. If you actually somehow managed to create somewhere a successful communist

I think that very much depends on what your communist society looks like in practice. If you actually somehow managed to create somewhere a successful communist society that actually succeeded at completing the revolution without a powerful state, maybe what you describe would happen. But we never have seen that happen because in practice communist regimes tend to have strong states that engage in rather heavy-handed central planning of the economy. As a result, funding for scientific enterprises in these societies ends up being directed toward whatever the political priorities of the planners are. In the Soviet Union's case, that was military technologies and Lysenkoism. Lysenkoism is a particularly troubling counter-example to your US coal mining example. In the US, the political inconvienence (presumably to the new administration) simply resulted in the project's funding being cut. In the Soviet Union, the political inconvience of natural selection resulted in thousands of scientists being jailed or killed, set back Soviet biology at least 150 years, and was partly to blame for the low crop yields that the Soviets kept experiencing. So yeah, I don't particularly like the status quo in scientific publishing, but it's better than abolishing private property. Abolishing private property is one of those ideas that sounds great in theory and always ends badly in practice.

etplayer 9y ago
I agree, it's something that sounds difficult to get right, and if it's possible to get right, what's the best way to go about it? I contend that the model which the Soviets adopted was poor, not only for the reasons you mentioned (rigid central planning, authoritarianism, and opposition to recognised science in favour of nationalism-based "science"). It's important to ask why these things happened, so I think that the solution is not as simple as I perhaps made it out to be. However we see that in the Soviet Union, places of science remained private property, administered by either private institutions or a state which claimed to be in control of the people, while it was clearly not. The whole Soviet model collapsed very early one because certain factions were banned, and their members executed. I do not think that this is the best that we can do. However I think that the solution, however utopian it sounds, lies in abolition of private property because otherwise we are still beholden to the whims of speculators and their profits rather than the interest of the community. Even if you only democratised science, this would be problematic; the scientists need to eat, and I would argue that they shouldn't have to eat only if the State or a private institutions tells them that they can eat. There are other examples to go along with what you said. I can't remember the source, but there was a time in the Soviet Union in which scientists wished to implement a much better system of central planning which took into account input and output tables continuously; whether or not the computer power existed at the time I don't know, but the system was quickly shut down by the Soviet bureaucracy - I think because it posed a threat to the power of the State. This is why I tend to by more sympathetic to anarchist ideologies (as a questioner at the end of the presentitaion mentions), because by destroying the material conditions of the state then the state ceases, what you describe as happening has less chance to take hold. This is why Communism is an anarchist ideology, in recognition of the very problem you have mentioned. Modern day Communists such as Zizek and Badiou accept this, and Badiou urges us to continue with the Communist Hypothesis[0]. The Soviet model was initially radical, but it was not radical enough to overcome the power structures which were much more entrenched than the founders of the revolution thought. So I still think Communism is the answer, but in what way is yet to be found out, and the debate fiercely rages. It's not that I think Lysenkoism is better than what we have currently (including all our junk "science" coming from here and there), it's that I think there is a solution superior to both situations, namely, in the reduction of power of the state and the diminishing of nationalism by making a global revolution as Marx's internationalist roots envisioned. It's not the abolition of private property that was the cause of Lysenkoism, it was exactly what we see now - rigid state bureaucracy and private institutions. [0] https://newleftreview.org/II/49/alain-badiou-the-communist-hypothesis https://newleftreview.org/II/49/alain-badiou-the-communist-h...
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  > it was not radical enough to overcome the power structures there are issues that are even more deeply rooted than that. for example it completely eludes me how luxuries would be handled and distributed according to needs, or if it's ever recognized a need for luxuries and if it were how they'd be distributed to each according to personal interests and preferences

etplayer 9y ago

I agree, it's something that sounds difficult to get right, and if it's possible to get right, what's the best way to go about it? I contend that the model which the Soviets adopted was poor, not only for the reasons you mentioned (rigid central planning, authoritarianism, and opposition to recognised science in favour of nationalism-based "science"). It's important to ask why these things happened, so I think that the solution is not as simple as I perhaps made it out to be. However we see that in the Soviet Union, places of science remained private property, administered by either private institutions or a state which claimed to be in control of the people, while it was clearly not. The whole Soviet model collapsed very early one because certain factions were banned, and their members executed. I do not think that this is the best that we can do. However I think that the solution, however utopian it sounds, lies in abolition of private property because otherwise we are still beholden to the whims of speculators and their profits rather than the interest of the community. Even if you only democratised science, this would be problematic; the scientists need to eat, and I would argue that they shouldn't have to eat only if the State or a private institutions tells them that they can eat. There are other examples to go along with what you said. I can't remember the source, but there was a time in the Soviet Union in which scientists wished to implement a much better system of central planning which took into account input and output tables continuously; whether or not the computer power existed at the time I don't know, but the system was quickly shut down by the Soviet bureaucracy - I think because it posed a threat to the power of the State. This is why I tend to by more sympathetic to anarchist ideologies (as a questioner at the end of the presentitaion mentions), because by destroying the material conditions of the state then the state ceases, what you describe as happening has less chance to take hold. This is why Communism is an anarchist ideology, in recognition of the very problem you have mentioned. Modern day Communists such as Zizek and Badiou accept this, and Badiou urges us to continue with the Communist Hypothesis[0]. The Soviet model was initially radical, but it was not radical enough to overcome the power structures which were much more entrenched than the founders of the revolution thought. So I still think Communism is the answer, but in what way is yet to be found out, and the debate fiercely rages. It's not that I think Lysenkoism is better than what we have currently (including all our junk "science" coming from here and there), it's that I think there is a solution superior to both situations, namely, in the reduction of power of the state and the diminishing of nationalism by making a global revolution as Marx's internationalist roots envisioned. It's not the abolition of private property that was the cause of Lysenkoism, it was exactly what we see now - rigid state bureaucracy and private institutions. [0] https://newleftreview.org/II/49/alain-badiou-the-communist-hypothesis https://newleftreview.org/II/49/alain-badiou-the-communist-h...

LoSboccacc 9y ago
> it was not radical enough to overcome the power structures there are issues that are even more deeply rooted than that. for example it completely eludes me how luxuries would be handled and distributed according to needs, or if it's ever recognized a need for luxuries and if it were how they'd be distributed to each according to personal interests and preferences