Comment by marginalia_nu
3 years ago
The notion that we'd be able to design a society from the ground up in the manner dictated by Communism is fundamentally science fiction as well. This isn't unique to Communism, overall I think the degree a society can be controlled by anyone in power is significantly overstated. It's quite a parallel to the project of terraforming Mars. Nobody is doubting we might affect a change with policy or violence, but what's missing a degree of control in the magnitude and direction of that change.
Communism seems bad because Western countries still have a good quality of life for a large percentage of the population. The moment this stops being the case, people in the West will be clamoring for communism. This is just a matter of time and perspective.
Well by Marx' predictions, this should already have happened. It throws a real spanner in the works for the theory that the evolution of a society is quite so inevitable and predictable.
But this comes back to my point. This is essentially putting faith in Asimov-style psychohistory.
Well that's why they use tools like tiktok to try to convince the West that life is terrible and everyone is miserable. They need to speed things along
Marx theory is about the fight of classes in society. There is nothing predictable about how this fight will happen. The only prediction is that in the end only one class will remain. It cannot be the bourgeoisie simply because they don't work! Moreover, even if only the bourgeoisie happened to survive without work, their instinct is to kill each other (economically) until only one remains. So his observation, that the final state must be some form of socialism or total destruction, makes complete sense.
The children yearn for the state-owned mines
USSR wasn’t communist it was fascist.
That it was communist was propaganda so communist == bad.
It’s not about economics but the emotional tone of a society.
Under capitalism in the US I can let you die in the streets without lifting a finger. Guess you didn’t capitalize hard enough.
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We can design it. That is what Congress should be doing by passing laws.
We have a system that is kind of working. Laws and regulations are ways to tweak the system, tune it for better performance.
So, lets say we notice that huge wealth inequality is having a negative impact, then we can tax the wealth, and yes, 'distribute' it, like to build roads. That does NOT mean suddenly we are communist.
People stuck in the Capitalist's/Communism argument, if they think it is binary, then really don't understand either one.
> We can design it. That is what Congress should be doing by passing laws.
They sure are passing laws, yet there has been repeated failures at affecting the desired change despite near unilateral agreement among the lawmakers about the direction of the desired change. This includes the war on drugs, the prohibition, and so on.
I'm not disputing these laws have some effect, I'm disputing the ability to envision an outcome, and pass a law such that it has the desired effect.
I'm just saying, we do have a system in place to make corrections. Because they have not been doing it, doesn't mean we can toss it all out and start over.
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