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> I'm generally not aware of how to make it work without significant centralized power. You get rid of the need for power entirely. Communism, by definition, i

> I'm generally not aware of how to make it work without significant centralized power. You get rid of the need for power entirely. Communism, by definition, is free of state. That hinges on achieving post-scarcity. The Communist Party’s primary tenant is achieving post-scarcity to one day usher in communism. The Soviet model failed, really, because they never got there. Probably not because of a poor power dynamic, but because post-scarcity was, and still is, beyond our grasp. It may not even be possible. When you think about it, the Soviet model is fundamentally designed to fail! If everything went according to plan, it would have fallen to communism. It was never meant to be sustainable.

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vasco 3y ago
What I never understood about communism is what's the point of adding it if you already have post-scarcity? Say you got there, just keep using what got you there. And if to get there you need an oppressive "temporary" state, then I don't want it.
- randomdata 3y ago
  What are you adding, exactly? Communism is just a thought experiment that imagines what the world will be like when post-scarcity is achieved. Star Trek is a more modern adaptation of the same thought experiment. Perhaps you are referring to actionable ideas we have come up with over the years to try and push us towards post-scarcity?
- vidarh 3y ago
  The idea is that if that the capability to be post scarcity does not equal being actually post scarcity, and so bringing about actual post-scarcity means ensuring that what is produced actually gets into the hands of everyone one way or the other. One might imagine many different ways of achieving that, but it wouldn't magically happen.
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
> Communism, by definition, is free of state. That hinges on achieving post-scarcity. While Communists sometimes proclaimed that as a utopian future, it is hard to see how it could have come to pass. Firstly because communism would need some kind of perpetual enforcement apparatus for its ancillary goals like ensuring an end to religion and belief in the supernatural. Secondly, that political philosophy put so much emphasis on the working masses as the class to support and identify with, that one doubts it would permit a future where there were no longer any working masses. I’m reminded of some Maoist literature I once found in a Chinatown bookshop: in discussing the Peking Man fossil, the book claimed that what separated Man from the apes was his ability to labor, and if a person did not work hard, he was not a true human being.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Leninist-derived forms of communists argue for a transitional period, but many other forms of socialism and communism argues it needs to come to pass by destroying the state, and Marx himself shifted towards that, e.g. when after the Paris Commune criticised them not for not replacing the state but for not going further in tearing down the old state (a shift that gave the basis for e.g. libertarian Marxism) That was also the principal criticism against both Marx and later the Bolsheviks from the left: That rather than "need some kind of perpetual enforcement apparatus", given Marx own criticism of the state as a tool for class oppression you could not hope to reform or take over the state without risking a recreation of the same problems as the state tries to maintain its authority, but need to destroy the state immediately. A criticism that precipitated the anarchists leaving the First International, but also many later splits. With respect to religion, the notion tend to be that ancillary goals like an end to religion would come simply from removing poverty and providing education, from the thinking that people flock to religion to seek comfort when their lives are hard, and so it's not necessary to do anything about it per se. > that one doubts it would permit a future where there were no longer any working masses. The very basis for the rise of socialist thought was the notion that the rise of capitalism made a level of productivity possible where the amount of labour necessary to sustain society would drop. Marx spends the first half of the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto fanboying over the productivity increases made possible by capitalism and describes its downfall as coming from crises of simultaneous over-production and under-employment - in other words a sharp reduction in the need for labour, but without the social structure to allow the labour and its proceeds to be shared. So in that sense, maybe still "working masses" but masses no longer limited by a need to maximise hours of work to earn a living.

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vasco 3y ago

What I never understood about communism is what's the point of adding it if you already have post-scarcity? Say you got there, just keep using what got you there. And if to get there you need an oppressive "temporary" state, then I don't want it.

randomdata 3y ago
What are you adding, exactly? Communism is just a thought experiment that imagines what the world will be like when post-scarcity is achieved. Star Trek is a more modern adaptation of the same thought experiment. Perhaps you are referring to actionable ideas we have come up with over the years to try and push us towards post-scarcity?
vidarh 3y ago
The idea is that if that the capability to be post scarcity does not equal being actually post scarcity, and so bringing about actual post-scarcity means ensuring that what is produced actually gets into the hands of everyone one way or the other. One might imagine many different ways of achieving that, but it wouldn't magically happen.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

> Communism, by definition, is free of state. That hinges on achieving post-scarcity. While Communists sometimes proclaimed that as a utopian future, it is hard to see how it could have come to pass. Firstly because communism would need some kind of perpetual enforcement apparatus for its ancillary goals like ensuring an end to religion and belief in the supernatural. Secondly, that political philosophy put so much emphasis on the working masses as the class to support and identify with, that one doubts it would permit a future where there were no longer any working masses. I’m reminded of some Maoist literature I once found in a Chinatown bookshop: in discussing the Peking Man fossil, the book claimed that what separated Man from the apes was his ability to labor, and if a person did not work hard, he was not a true human being.

vidarh 3y ago
Leninist-derived forms of communists argue for a transitional period, but many other forms of socialism and communism argues it needs to come to pass by destroying the state, and Marx himself shifted towards that, e.g. when after the Paris Commune criticised them not for not replacing the state but for not going further in tearing down the old state (a shift that gave the basis for e.g. libertarian Marxism) That was also the principal criticism against both Marx and later the Bolsheviks from the left: That rather than "need some kind of perpetual enforcement apparatus", given Marx own criticism of the state as a tool for class oppression you could not hope to reform or take over the state without risking a recreation of the same problems as the state tries to maintain its authority, but need to destroy the state immediately. A criticism that precipitated the anarchists leaving the First International, but also many later splits. With respect to religion, the notion tend to be that ancillary goals like an end to religion would come simply from removing poverty and providing education, from the thinking that people flock to religion to seek comfort when their lives are hard, and so it's not necessary to do anything about it per se. > that one doubts it would permit a future where there were no longer any working masses. The very basis for the rise of socialist thought was the notion that the rise of capitalism made a level of productivity possible where the amount of labour necessary to sustain society would drop. Marx spends the first half of the first chapter of the Communist Manifesto fanboying over the productivity increases made possible by capitalism and describes its downfall as coming from crises of simultaneous over-production and under-employment - in other words a sharp reduction in the need for labour, but without the social structure to allow the labour and its proceeds to be shared. So in that sense, maybe still "working masses" but masses no longer limited by a need to maximise hours of work to earn a living.