Discussion about Communism continued

[K. A. Pital]

I could try to add this to the thread where most communism stuff is in, there's one in History.

Done. This thread is one huge pile of a communism discussion, lets make sure all such discussions where they concern history end up here.

[stormthebeaches]

Shit, it's been a while since I've been on this board. My long absence was due to more traveling, followed by some personal issues that I'd rather not get into right now. Still, I don't want to abandon the discussion so here I am.

Before I re enter this debate I think we need to make sure that we understand each other on a few key terms.

Communism: the belief that humanity should live in a small isolated communes where the people govern themselves.
Marxism: The belief of how best to achieve the Communism utopia according to the German philosopher Karl Marx.
Marxist-Leninism: Lenin's interpretation of Marx's works.
Socialism: The belief in increased workers rights and public ownership of the means of production.
Stalinism: An insult thrown around, accusing Stalin and those who followed his model of not being true Communists.

Do you agree with these terms?

As for democracy, actually, it is mentioned, I believe, but primarily not in the manifesto. Marx explained that only worker representatives elected through universal suffrage can constitute a worker government (dictatorship of the proletariat), and elections are a fundamentally democratic mechanism.

That explains a bit of it. I just read the Communist Manifesto which, to be honest, is incredibly vague about what post-revolutionary government would look like.

However, even if I assume that Marxism went a system of government that resembled the 1871 Paris Commune we still have some problems. The Paris Commune only ruled a tiny area of land. Marx called for World Revolution which would require a revolutionary government encompassing the World. Such a massive state would require many levels of bureaucracy in order to function would led to people being detached from the upper levels of government. You say that this state would be democratic but without proper checks and balances all sorts of power abuses would happen. Free and fair elections would not remain free and fair for long.

The Marxist concept of class has nothing to do with income. A capitalist can be dirt-poor (if he's in debt) and a worker theoretically rich, and they'd still belong to their respective classes because one ownes means of production and the other does not. Traditional Marxism does not assume equal pay for all, I believe, and neither do most variants (except the most extreme Maoist movements, perhaps).

I see.

Actually, it is not that important. The inequality in America is pretty atrocious, but due to it's First World status and accumulated wealth, a poor person in America is in a better position than a poor person in the Third World. The flawed society not necessarily becomes poorer if it becomes more flawed, it just gets a poor underclass, which gets little attention and little political power. Many nations exist in such a state.

Actually, it is. Poverty and social flaws go hand in hand, where there is one there will soon be the other. Your example of the United States actually works against your point. The USA, despite its vast wealth, has numerous social flaws that still exist despite its wealth.

A state monopoly has advantages stemming from a massive economy of scale, and if said advantage weighs over the possible inefficiencies in distribution, there is a net benefit from the state monopoly to the society.

There are more problems to a state monopoly than a lack of efficiency. State monopolies (or any king of monopoly for that matter), lack competition, and a lack of competition inevitably leads to complacency, laziness and stagnation. Normally, customers would be able to punish such a monopoly by buying from the competition but if the monopoly owns all the means of production there is no alternative for the customer.

As for abolishing family - the XIX century family that Marx witnessed was a nightmarish social construct where females were exploited almost like property (I've recently found out that "rape in marriage" was not a crime in some First World nations apparently). The family certainly underwent a huge reform and I also believe there's fewer families now than there were in the past in certain segments of the population, especially in advanced First World nations.

Three problems here:
1. It's a bit extreme to denounce the 19th century family unit as a nightmarish social construct. It did have its uses (look up public/private sphere divide).
2. Even if the 19th century family unit was that bad it is still a bit extreme call for its abolishment, as oppose to simply reforming it.
3. Considering how modern day women in civilized nations have domestic abuse laws and rights for women and such, would you at least agree that this particular aspect of Marxism is very dated?
4. While there are fewer families now in the first world then there are in the past, the family unit is still going strong and won't be disappearing any time soon.

Oh, doubtlessly it did, and so did many other industries. My point was more along the lines of slavery leaving a huge army of destitute people - slave labour was not the key element, but released slaves, who were almost always destitute and thus more often fell into the underclass, became part of the necessary army of cheap labour which was used in early industrialization. Other parts of this massive army were destitute migrants (e.g. Irish and Chinese) who died in dozens of thousands building stuff. So while slavery itself was destroyed by capitalism and was antagonistic to the labour market concept, its prior existence was conducive to creating the army of proletarians, cheap people to be used for industrial projects.

Samuel has already dealt with this point.

Europe started industrializing very early and it is hard to find the data on how many people died here and there. It is slightly easier with America, and the death toll seems to be massive enough. North America does not count because it was a colony too?

When did I say that colonies don't count. Where did that strawman come from? The point I was trying to make is that massive industrialization projects don't have to led to massive death tools and I was citing Europe as a example of industrialization done right. Since this particular discussion is going no where I'm going to drop this argument.

As for quoting Wikipedia - I object to that

You've quoted Wikipedia plenty of times.

Especially if you can't read your own source:
Quote:
Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.[fn 4]

So it does state this quite plainly. I said it is doubtful now, but I am not sure if it was this way or the other way.

Well that was embarrassing.

Regardless, that still doesn't change my original point that proportionally the Irish potato famine was more than twice as bad as the drought that hit Ukraine. It also doesn't change the fact that the Soviet Union was proportionally exporting more food out of Ukraine than Britain was out of Ireland.

Since Wikipedia is not good enough for you I shall point you towards Michael Ellman, a respected historian who, using Soviet archives estimated that 1.8 million tones were exported in the years 1932-1933 (he was Wikipedia's source). I hope this is a good enough source for you.

Also, we have forgotten to mention the impact of the collectivization of the farms, which was a big factor in the famine.

Sorry for suggesting you are an American. I think in a few threads about American politics and stuff I saw your name, and you were asking about stuff that is relevant to American politics only. Serves me right for making such a huge leap.

I'm British. I take an interest in American politics because my country is closely tied to the United States.

Cuba and China have embarked on capitalist reforms for quite a while. Neither pursues a policy of 100% employment that once characterizes socialist nations in and out of the COMECON. China has a free labour market where people are sold and bought according to supply and demand, they do not promise fixed employment for anyone. As for Cuba, one should check whether they still keep the 100% employment as a policy goal or not.

Wouldn't the fact that China and Cuba have embarked on capitalist reforms be proof that those the Communist system wasn't working in those countries?

The USSR saw that landing humans on the Moon would look a repeat of the same feat after Americans accomplished it. I don't think the USSR expected the US to curtail their Moon program so rapidly. In fact, the USSR was looking at long-term projects like Mars missions and possibly a Moon habitat. The goals for space programs of the 2000s (planned in the late 1980s) were quite ambitious. Manned landing on Mars by 2015, etc. The Soviet series of probe missions to Venus remains until this day one of the most extensive studies of this planet ever undertaken by humanity, and this was done after American Moon landing. The USSR built a universal 100-ton to LEO-capable rocket (Energia) which was not only to be used for the orbiter like Buran, but also for possible launches of spacecraft and even parts of long-term habitation modules to the Moon (and possibly to Mars). On the other hand, Americans built the Space Shuttle - a system which was by design not capable for any interplanetary missions, only for Earth-to-orbit deliveries. The difference in approach is pretty striking, if you ask me.

Just because the USSR had some big space exploration goals it does not mean that it would achieve them. The NASA had some very ambition goals after the moon landing, like setting up a permanent moon base by the seventies and getting a man to Mars by the mid-eighties. However, the cost of Vietnam forced the USA to abandon its goals. For all we know, if the Soviet Union survived, the cost of putting down the uprisings in Eastern Europe might have forced it to abandon its ambitions in space.

[K. A. Pital]

Shit, it's been a while since I've been on this board. My long absence was due to more traveling, followed by some personal issues that I'd rather not get into right now.

I'm travelling almost all the time, man. No worries.

Communism: the belief that humanity should live in a small isolated communes where the people govern themselves.
Marxism: The belief of how best to achieve the Communism utopia according to the German philosopher Karl Marx.
Marxist-Leninism: Lenin's interpretation of Marx's works.
Socialism: The belief in increased workers rights and public ownership of the means of production.
Stalinism: An insult thrown around, accusing Stalin and those who followed his model of not being true Communists.
Do you agree with these terms?

Hmm. Not entirely. Communism: a general economic order where communal or "public" property exists (not private property). Also, a political ideology favoring such property over private property. Marxism: a XIX century economic model of socio-economic development that postulates the progression from capitalism to communism through socialism. Marx did not give much more than vague recipes on how to reach communism, all of which usually went down to "abolition of private property on capital", "general abundance of means of production" and "communal/public property should replace private property in the end". Marxism-Leninism - correct, socialism - yes, more or less correct. Stalinism is not an isult, some historians use it as an academic term, and many non-Stalinist Marxists and socialists also use it to describe the precise system of government, ideology and economic order of the Soviet Union in 1930-1953, as well as some other nations (e.g. the DPRK) until now. Sometimes Stalinism is used as an insult, true, but it doesn't automatically invalidate the term, since Stalin's model, from economy to social controls, was quite specific.

That explains a bit of it. I just read the Communist Manifesto which, to be honest, is incredibly vague about what post-revolutionary government would look like. However, even if I assume that Marxism went a system of government that resembled the 1871 Paris Commune we still have some problems. The Paris Commune only ruled a tiny area of land. Marx called for World Revolution which would require a revolutionary government encompassing the World. Such a massive state would require many levels of bureaucracy in order to function would led to people being detached from the upper levels of government. You say that this state would be democratic but without proper checks and balances all sorts of power abuses would happen. Free and fair elections would not remain free and fair for long.

And yet, elections somehow remain a workable mechanism (even if corrupt and unfair) in very large nations. For example, India. One cannot automatically abandon the faith in elections simply because there was an electoral failure somewhere. Those failure are numerous and many. Checks and balances not always prevent a nation from turning into a dictatorship with only a veneer of electoral activity. The probability of failure of electoral mechanisms and in general a failure of democracy does not correlate with the maturity of the electoral system as well - mature systems can produce failures of democratic procedure, and immature systems can surprisingly survive (India).

Actually, it is. Poverty and social flaws go hand in hand, where there is one there will soon be the other. Your example of the United States actually works against your point. The USA, despite its vast wealth, has numerous social flaws that still exist despite its wealth.

I only meant to show that poverty can exist in a relatively rich nation. A relative rich nation does not mean a nation wherein there is no poverty.

There are more problems to a state monopoly than a lack of efficiency. State monopolies (or any king of monopoly for that matter), lack competition, and a lack of competition inevitably leads to complacency, laziness and stagnation. Normally, customers would be able to punish such a monopoly by buying from the competition but if the monopoly owns all the means of production there is no alternative for the customer.

Usually a state monopoly of such enormous scale would in any case behave like an oligopoly. Why? Well, part of the reason is that state enterprises would have a common owner, but be distanced by the simple fact they are separately administrated. A good example is the competition between factories in the USSR producing rocket engines, trucks for a certain ministry, etc. Obviously the failure of this competition to spread to other sectors of industry must be examined. But it is not automatically obvious that an oligopoly is a bad thing. The modern automobile industry is effectively an oligopoly, with less than 20 manufacturers producing over 90% of world motor vehicles. It has concentrated enormously over the last century (in Germany alone, the number of car manufacturers reduced from 80 in the 1930s to what, 6 right now?). Of course, one would have to ensure efficiency of the oligopoly.

Three problems here: 1. It's a bit extreme to denounce the 19th century family unit as a nightmarish social construct. It did have its uses (look up public/private sphere divide). 2. Even if the 19th century family unit was that bad it is still a bit extreme call for its abolishment, as oppose to simply reforming it. 3. Considering how modern day women in civilized nations have domestic abuse laws and rights for women and such, would you at least agree that this particular aspect of Marxism is very dated? 4. While there are fewer families now in the first world then there are in the past, the family unit is still going strong and won't be disappearing any time soon.

Spousal rape was a serious problem back then and remains a problem until now. Right now women have protections which they simply did not have at the time. Adultery is no longer a sin; divorce and abortion rights are almost universal, spousal rape and domestic violence are decisively criminalized (and even then, it is still often very hard to prove a case of domestic violence in court). Of course, it is dated. Of the many trends Marx observed, not all stood the test of time. Falling profit margin remains a hot point until this day, and Marx can get some credit for being attentive enough to notice this general trend. But not all of his observations and ideas are as notable, sure.

Samuel has already dealt with this point.

He pointed out that slaves more often became sharecroppers while poor migrants took the role of cheap labour. I admit that the general dynamics of emancipated slave occupation must be further studied. However, forced and cheap labour played an important role in industrial projects in the XIX century, and there's no way around it. Many companies accumulated capital or accomplished large-scale projects using these types of labour and clearly accumulated capital is one of the first necessary elements for a transition to capitalism.

When did I say that colonies don't count. Where did that strawman come from? The point I was trying to make is that massive industrialization projects don't have to led to massive death tools and I was citing Europe as a example of industrialization done right. Since this particular discussion is going no where I'm going to drop this argument.

Part of the problem is the inability to count death rates properly during early XVIII-XIX century projects. Massive industrial projects more often than not have a sizeable deathtoll. The world's biggest canals (by the volume of earthworks in cubic meters) definetely have a big death toll, as do some of the longest and most important railways.

You've quoted Wikipedia plenty of times. Well that was embarrassing.

Hence why I said Wikipedia is not the best source to use. "Criteria is verifability, not truth". Clearly if we're looking for facts, we have to dig deeper, if it is possible.

Regardless, that still doesn't change my original point that proportionally the Irish potato famine was more than twice as bad as the drought that hit Ukraine. It also doesn't change the fact that the Soviet Union was proportionally exporting more food out of Ukraine than Britain was out of Ireland. Since Wikipedia is not good enough for you I shall point you towards Michael Ellman, a respected historian who, using Soviet archives estimated that 1.8 million tones were exported in the years 1932-1933 (he was Wikipedia's source). I hope this is a good enough source for you.

I know that the USSR was exporting a lot of food, and I know Ellman good enough - he's a respectable and responsible historian who knows his math. Hence why I said the famines were similar in their mechanism, export exacerbated the situation. Would 1,8 million tons of grain be enough to save all those who died from the famine in Ukraine and other parts of the USSR (Kazakhstan primarily)? Maybe not. Would it be enough to alleviate the famine and lower the death toll? Quite probably. Besides, if we are mentioning Ireland and Ukraine in comparison, one should note that the famine in Ukraine led to the excess deaths on the scale of 3-4% of the population, whereas the Irish famine dealt an enormous demographic blow to Ireland, almost 20% of the nation's entire population. And Ukraine's population managed to increase in spite of the famine, whereas for Ireland the blow had long-term consequences and the population declined.

Also, we have forgotten to mention the impact of the collectivization of the farms, which was a big factor in the famine.

I already said that mass involuntary collectivization is a uniquely Stalinist policy; considering the damage it dealt to light industry and agriculture in the early USSR, I don't think any communist (who has the data) can support the way it was carried out in good faith. One can reasonably defend some aspects of Soviet agrarian policy - mechanization, fertilizers, but not forced collectivization, I presume.

I'm British. I take an interest in American politics because my country is closely tied to the United States.

Oh, I see.

Wouldn't the fact that China and Cuba have embarked on capitalist reforms be proof that those the Communist system wasn't working in those countries?

Yeah, it would. However, it would also prove that 100% employment is only a feature of communist nations, and not that of capitalism. As for the viability of post-Stalin type of socialism (by that I mean the USSR, Cuba and majority of the COMECON), since the USSR collapsed all other socialist nations collapsed with it. They could've been economically and socially successful (for example, Yugoslavia ran industrialization without excessive death tolls and its HDI growth was on par with some of the fastest developing nations in the world), but failed nonetheless due to a general domino principle. The collapse of the USSR put enormous stress on socialist nations all across the world. Regardless of what they achieved, the hegemon and leader was destroyed.

Just because the USSR had some big space exploration goals it does not mean that it would achieve them.

The USSR actually built a universal 100-ton heavy lifter capable of launching both humans and other space cargo. That's the difference. It had ambitious goals and actually created technology to achieve them. Americans simply rejected amibitious goals at design stage, and that was the end of it.

The NASA had some very ambition goals after the moon landing, like setting up a permanent moon base by the seventies and getting a man to Mars by the mid-eighties. However, the cost of Vietnam forced the USA to abandon its goals. For all we know, if the Soviet Union survived, the cost of putting down the uprisings in Eastern Europe might have forced it to abandon its ambitions in space.

A valid point. Nonetheless, NASA's ambitious goals never manifested themselves in a rocket capable of all that stuff. I doubt the curtailing of NASA progams was related to the war in Vietnam, too. Incidentally, the Soviet Union built the ENERGIA rocket at the same time as it was engaged in a very costly conflict in Afghanistan (1979-1989). So historical precedent, at least, shows that the Soviet Union did not put ambitious goals aside because of a local war, neither did it make the plans in thin air.

The USSR always devised universal booster plans, whereas the USA went to specialization and effectively destroyed any chance of serious interplanetary manned exploration by picking the Space Shuttle. It was a decision taken consciously, I believe, not under pressure for cheapness (after all, the Space Shuttle was a pretty expensive program).

[Akhlut]

Wouldn't the fact that China and Cuba have embarked on capitalist reforms be proof that those the Communist system wasn't working in those countries?

Yeah, it would. However, it would also prove that 100% employment is only a feature of communist nations, and not that of capitalism. As for the viability of post-Stalin type of socialism (by that I mean the USSR, Cuba and majority of the COMECON), since the USSR collapsed all other socialist nations collapsed with it. They could've been economically and socially successful (for example, Yugoslavia ran industrialization without excessive death tolls and its HDI growth was on par with some of the fastest developing nations in the world), but failed nonetheless due to a general domino principle. The collapse of the USSR put enormous stress on socialist nations all across the world. Regardless of what they achieved, the hegemon and leader was destroyed.

Didn't the general hostility toward Communist nations also produce a heap of problems for the smaller nations after the USSR fell, especially with large economic pressures heaped on small nations without sufficient capital?