What’s your definition of communist? For me it implies a centrally planned economy to the exclusion of any free market and is definitely at great risk to fall into autocracy. I think that kind of project is doomed from the start, so I wouldn’t call identify myself as a communist.
Those are leninist/Maoist. If we’re being generous we could call them aspirationally communist. But not actually communist.
2 defining criteria for communism is being stateless. Ie not having an governing state elected or otherwise. Definitely not having a large hierarchical unanswerable centralized government. And the other being classlessness. Something that the large central politburos preclude.
The one thing Leninism shares in the most asinine and negative way with communism. In the actual vision of communism, Marx and others theorized that the workers of the factory, etc. Should own the factory. Social ownership. However, Leninism warps and twists it negatively in that the state owns everything, not the workers. They may claim that the workers are the state. But that’s bullshit as can easily be seen by any time they put down a citizen revolt. Roll out the tanks, etc. Like Tiananmen Square.
Bingo. I lost count of how many times I had to explain to a tankie that the PRC isn’t even communist, and then they double down on trying to feed me some bullshit about how the workers supposedly own the state (because the monoparty happens to call itself communist). Like gtfo no the fuck they don’t, that’s communism in name only.
There’s never once in history been a truly communist society, unless you count early Byzantine monasteries, medieval Dithmarschen, or perhaps the ninja communes in Muromachi-era Japan (namely, the Kōka ikki and Iga ikki). Those are literally the closest things to actual communism that have ever existed, at least in recorded history.
from what i heard, cold war era slovenia got somewhat close. they were technically in the east bloc, but moscow had enough problems with yugoslavia as-is to micromanage them, so they could implement some common sense policies such as letting a factory fail if it doesn’t work and just doing something else instead, without the common capitalist failings of letting some rich guy own the whole thing or making the bankruptcy the workers’ problem. i haven’t looked into it too deeply, so i expect their system was still imperfect in ways i don’t really know about, but afaik they were rather prosperous for a soviet-allied state.
I am not sure. I’ve never given it a concrete thought. Communism as a whole is very nebulous. I particularly like the socialist aspects and the welfare for all goals of communism. I like the dream of not having to work to survive.
But I do not like the planned economy aspect of it. I haven’t seen anyone do planned economies well. This includes non communist countries that tried it. There’s something to say about how it is impossible to create a complex web of plans that accurately and adequately account for humanity’s ever-changing needs and wants. But economics is fairly complex and I have little authority over the subject matter to say anything with confidence.
Basically - Freemarket, multi-socialist-only party system, with four strong pillars of democracy acting as checks and balances, with welfare for all.
I don’t identify as a communist in the conventional sense or any other particular label per say. But I do lean left.
There’s a new book out called “Blueprint: A plan of socialist change” talking about how to get from here to there and what there exactly is. I plan to read it, which means I’ll be listening to 20 minutes of a podcast interview with the authors…
But when you say communism, people will probably think you mean Soviet-style communism, which you explicitly don’t mean. Why don’t you call yourself a socialist instead? I think it fits, from what you’re saying.
What’s your definition of communist? For me it implies a centrally planned economy to the exclusion of any free market and is definitely at great risk to fall into autocracy. I think that kind of project is doomed from the start, so I wouldn’t call identify myself as a communist.
Those are leninist/Maoist. If we’re being generous we could call them aspirationally communist. But not actually communist.
2 defining criteria for communism is being stateless. Ie not having an governing state elected or otherwise. Definitely not having a large hierarchical unanswerable centralized government. And the other being classlessness. Something that the large central politburos preclude.
The one thing Leninism shares in the most asinine and negative way with communism. In the actual vision of communism, Marx and others theorized that the workers of the factory, etc. Should own the factory. Social ownership. However, Leninism warps and twists it negatively in that the state owns everything, not the workers. They may claim that the workers are the state. But that’s bullshit as can easily be seen by any time they put down a citizen revolt. Roll out the tanks, etc. Like Tiananmen Square.
Bingo. I lost count of how many times I had to explain to a tankie that the PRC isn’t even communist, and then they double down on trying to feed me some bullshit about how the workers supposedly own the state (because the monoparty happens to call itself communist). Like gtfo no the fuck they don’t, that’s communism in name only.
There’s never once in history been a truly communist society, unless you count early Byzantine monasteries, medieval Dithmarschen, or perhaps the ninja communes in Muromachi-era Japan (namely, the Kōka ikki and Iga ikki). Those are literally the closest things to actual communism that have ever existed, at least in recorded history.
from what i heard, cold war era slovenia got somewhat close. they were technically in the east bloc, but moscow had enough problems with yugoslavia as-is to micromanage them, so they could implement some common sense policies such as letting a factory fail if it doesn’t work and just doing something else instead, without the common capitalist failings of letting some rich guy own the whole thing or making the bankruptcy the workers’ problem. i haven’t looked into it too deeply, so i expect their system was still imperfect in ways i don’t really know about, but afaik they were rather prosperous for a soviet-allied state.
I am not sure. I’ve never given it a concrete thought. Communism as a whole is very nebulous. I particularly like the socialist aspects and the welfare for all goals of communism. I like the dream of not having to work to survive.
But I do not like the planned economy aspect of it. I haven’t seen anyone do planned economies well. This includes non communist countries that tried it. There’s something to say about how it is impossible to create a complex web of plans that accurately and adequately account for humanity’s ever-changing needs and wants. But economics is fairly complex and I have little authority over the subject matter to say anything with confidence.
Basically - Freemarket, multi-socialist-only party system, with four strong pillars of democracy acting as checks and balances, with welfare for all.
I don’t identify as a communist in the conventional sense or any other particular label per say. But I do lean left.
There’s a new book out called “Blueprint: A plan of socialist change” talking about how to get from here to there and what there exactly is. I plan to read it, which means I’ll be listening to 20 minutes of a podcast interview with the authors…
But when you say communism, people will probably think you mean Soviet-style communism, which you explicitly don’t mean. Why don’t you call yourself a socialist instead? I think it fits, from what you’re saying.
Haha
I suppose. I’ve never given it thought. But yeah I am socialist in the parameters of the current definition.