Are most/all of the common negatives railed at communism just capitalist propaganda?

[MoK]

Could we agree on a definition of Communism which is based on the following principles? We can discuss each if you are interested and see if there is anything missing. We can then discuss the importance of education in such a system.

1. We are equal: We should be treated equally and have the same proportion of wealth created.
2. One Earth, one nation: This resolves the tensions between nations’ interests.
3. Collaboration instead of competition: This resolves the tension between individuals’ interests.
4. No social or political hierarchy: Individuals do their best in the dynamical structured system, depending on their ages, skills, interests, and genes.

[tabemann]

That definition of ‘Communism’ does not incorporate the key elements of either my definition of small-c communism or my definition of big-C Communism; it is not centered around “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”, on one hand, or authoritarian state capitalism, on the other. If anything, it is a collection of principles without relevance to either the original core idea of communism or the reality of Communist parties in power.

Edit: I take that back. I re-read your post, and small-c communism does envision a stateless, classless society. However, your post still does not mention the key economic elements of a small-c communist society.

[WeSee]

@Flying

I have already said several times that communists wanted to create such a “well-managed organization” precisely through the creation of a NEW MAN — someone who would place society’s interests above personal interests. It did not work in a single socialist country.

My understanding of Marx is that the creation of the NEW MAN is dependent upon providing an environment such as I described. That is why “It did not work in a single socialist country”. Such an environment was never established.

@Flying

Of course, it is possible to imagine such a society. Even more than that — we would very much like to have such an organization. But it turned out to be unrealistic to expect people, on a mass and stable basis, to work more for the well-being of the organization than for their own benefit. Even for the simple, not even philosophical reason that people go to work primarily out of necessity, in order to earn a living. Isn’t that true? And the more a person earns, the better they can materially provide for their life. That is their personal benefit. And there is nothing antisocial or unethical about that. It is simply human nature.

Actually that is the “nature” of man living in an environment NOT such as I described.

[WeSee]

Perhaps you have not read the following which I posted earlier in this thread:

@WeSee

In general, when I think about communism it is about what I think Marx had in mind when he wrote about final stage communism. To understand that, it helps to take a “big picture” conceptual view first. What Marx seems to mind is an ultimately stable society. The question is how to maximize the stability of society.

Cooperation needs to be maximized. Think of a well managed organization with everyone working toward maximizing the well being of the organization rather than for their own benefit. In the case of communism, the organization is society as a whole. Division of all stripes is the enemy. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, classless society, common ownership, etc.

Cooperation is the engine that drives communism

Seems like, for the most part, the principles that you listed can be logically derived from the above.

[Flying]

@WeSee

“The point is that this is precisely the ‘nature’ of a person living in an environment that is NOT like the one I described.”

@WeSee

That is exactly the point: there is something in human nature that does not change with changes in environment. Namely: “Most people in most situations are guided by their own interests.”

This is an objective, natural, deeply rooted feature of human nature. Until this is understood, people can endlessly imagine and model the kinds of social environments envisioned by Marx, socialism, or communism — including the one you described. But these remain desires, even dreams. Attempts to implement them in reality have so far failed everywhere. Objective patterns are called objective precisely because they do not depend on human wishes or intentions.

What I cannot understand is why supporters of communism rarely analyze the following situation: on the one hand, a large part of humanity desired communism and attempted to build it in many countries. On the other hand, not only did these attempts fail, but they often led to harsh dictatorship and physical terror against the very people who supposedly desired such a system. Perhaps there is some fundamental, even metaphysical reason for this?

It cannot be said that nobody has tried to answer this question. Even on this forum there are people who already have an answer. They say: “Perhaps we simply did not try hard enough.” And they are not alone in drawing that conclusion.

[WeSee]

@Flying

That is exactly the point: there is something in human nature that does not change with changes in environment. Namely: “Most people in most situations are guided by their own interests.”

This is an objective, natural, deeply rooted feature of human nature

Your post is illogical on many different levels.

That said, it seems that your position rests on the above being true. You are mistaken. Once you understand that, you should be able to see all the other flaws in your post.

Google the following:
how much is selfishness a product of environment

I’d post the results Google AI gave me, but this site has a hard policy against doing so.

[MoK]

Oh, thanks, I was suspecting that I was missing something. People work in an optimal system, a system that produces maximum output/products given minimum input/resources, to fulfil their needs. There shouldn’t be any surplus or deficit in an ideal system.

[Frank]

Socialism is in line with human nature.

@Flying

This is an objective, natural, deeply rooted feature of human nature. Until this is understood, people can endlessly imagine and model the kinds of social environments envisioned by Marx, socialism, or communism — including the one you described. But these remain desires, even dreams. Attempts to implement them in reality have so far failed everywhere. Objective patterns are called objective precisely because they do not depend on human wishes or intentions.

We have done socialism in the past. In Bronze Age societies, people brought their produce into the temple. Priests took a cut and then distributed food to the people as needed. Where there were markets, the prices were set by priests. There were heavy penalties for trading outside this scene.

This system broke down during the Bronze Age collapse when free markets arose. It isn’t clear if free markets were a result of the collapse, reinforced the collapse, or both. (See Eric Cline’s 1177 BC )

The point is: it only seems like non-socialist environments are human nature because that’s all we know. It’s very difficult now for a full-fledged socialist country to get underway because of the boom-bust nature of capitalism. When it’s booming, it creates a brain drain. When it’s collapsing, everything around it collapses with it. Socialism is relatively static way of life. You could say the waves coming from capitalist countries just crack socialist countries apart.

[tabemann]

@Flying

This is an objective, natural, deeply rooted feature of human nature. Until this is understood, people can endlessly imagine and model the kinds of social environments envisioned by Marx, socialism, or communism — including the one you described. But these remain desires, even dreams. Attempts to implement them in reality have so far failed everywhere. Objective patterns are called objective precisely because they do not depend on human wishes or intentions.

Every attempt in modern times to implement small-c communism on a large scale has failed not due to any fault of communism or human nature but because it was crushed by force of arms, by both capitalists and Marxist-Leninists, whose interests it opposed. We saw this both in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War, where the anarchists were squashed between both the Whites and the Bolsheviks, and in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, where the anarchists were similarly crushed by both the nationalists and the Stalinists.

[MoK]

I cannot see how those principles could be derived from your post, so it would be nice of you if you elaborate. We can then discuss how to reach such a system through proper education gradually.

[WeSee]

Perhaps it’ll help if I flesh out the key underlying concept from the first paragraph a bit.

@WeSee

In general, when I think about communism it is about what I think Marx had in mind when he wrote about final stage communism. To understand that, it helps to take a “big picture” conceptual view first. What Marx seems to mind is an ultimately stable society. The question is how to maximize the stability of society

Marx seemed to have a teleological view in mind: maximizing the well-being of society and subsequently all of its members with an eye toward maximizing the stability of society.

The next paragaphs from the same post was derived with the above concept in mind:

@WeSee

Cooperation needs to be maximized. Think of a well managed organization with everyone working toward maximizing the well being of the organization rather than for their own benefit. In the case of communism, the organization is society as a whole. Division of all stripes is the enemy. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”, classless society, common ownership, etc.

Cooperation is the engine that drives communism.

Can you see it now?

[MoK]

I don’t think that one can derive equity from what you stated, namely, maximizing cooperation or the well-being of society. I don’t see how maximizing cooperation requires a system without any hierarchy.

[WeSee]

Not sure why you are still failing to see it. Try fleshing out what you have in mind.

[MoK]

Consider individuals who cannot cooperate well in a society, like people with disabilities or those who are terminally ill. Maximizing cooperation leads to a radical idea wherein one is allowed to remove these individuals from society. It is through the principle of equity that we conclude that these individuals have the same right for living as others.

[WeSee]

Reread the following

@WeSee

Marx seemed to have a teleological view in mind: maximizing the well-being of society and subsequently all of its members with an eye toward maximizing the stability of society.

Specifically “[ALL] of its members”.

Also note that “maximizing the stability of society” requires equity.

[jkop]

Perhaps not the most commonly discussed negatives, but as marxism became politicised, it also became pseudoscientific and anti-intellectual.

Pseudoscientific in the sense that marxists use ad-hoc explanations in order to protect their ideas from being proved wrong. For example, when workers don’t behave as expected, it’s because of their “false consciousness”. Karl Popper writes more about this.

Anti-intellectual in the sense that Marx and Engels declared that philosophy is just an ideology, maintaining status quo in the interest of the powerful. The dominant philosopher at the time was Hegel, and the obscurity of his philosophy can certainly stop thinkers from making any progress. But the idea that philosophy is ideology goes past Hegel and casts doubt on the love of wisdom for its own sake. Instead you are diagnosed as someone who does philosophy for the sake of power. Even intellectuals such as Foucault thought that power goes deeper than logic.

Not only marxists diagnose or psychologize their opponents, most political activists do, because they are interested in power, not the truth of words.

[felipec]

First of all Stalinism wasn’t communism. The central idea of communism is collective ownership (the proletariat owns the means of production), and that didn’t happen in Stalin’s Soviet Union, did it? It wasn’t a “bastardization”, if it didn’t have the central feature, it wasn’t communism, period. It would be like a “Christian” who doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ.

The idea that the Soviet Union was “communist” wasn’t just capitalistic propaganda, it was also Stallinist propaganda.

All the models that are called “communist” are in fact Lenninist and do not have the central feature of communism.

---

As for the “human nature” argument, it is a ridiculous fallacy as you immediately intuited. It is mathematically impossible for 100% of humans to “hoard” power, by definition only a minority can do that, and only a minority does that.

If this “human nature” feature is only exhibited by 1% of the population, that’s not the norm, that’s the exception.

And it ignores all the countless examples we see all over. You can find YouTube videos where humans risks their life to save a stranger’s baby, or even a dog drowning, there is no monetary incentive for these kinds of altruistic behaviors.

Capitalism can’t explain phenomenons like Wikipedia either, where millions of humans altruistically improve the site for no monetary gain whatsoever.

There are many more examples: open source, Linux, Android, Blender, OBS Studio.

This argument ignores the vast majority of people and focuses only on a minority of greedy exceptions.

[Flying]

@WeSee

My God, I am so grateful to you for this suggestion to Google the topic of egoism. After the short introductory text about the different forms of egoism, there follow encyclopedia articles as well as a discussion on this subject on Reddit. Unfortunately, that discussion is already closed, but the materials are still available.

For me, this is an incredible source of support. Why did I not read this earlier when I was exploring this topic? But perhaps it is even better this way, because I arrived independently at my own formulation of the regularity of personal interest.

1. So I would ask you, please, to read these materials carefully to the end, and then reconsider whether I am really so wrong.

2. Everywhere in these materials there is discussion of the natural and physiological component of egoism — which is exactly what I have been talking about.

3. Third — and very importantly — where in my posts did you see me talking about egoism? I consistently speak about SELF-INTEREST. And these are not the same thing. Egoism is always a form of self-interest. But self-interest is not always egoism. Egoism is an extreme and aggressive form of self-interest, and quantitatively speaking, it represents only a minority of it.

[Flying]

@Unimportant

A concluding question for Unimportant.

This discussion, which began with your original question, has perhaps unexpectedly — even for yourself — turned into a long, multifaceted, and meaningful exchange. Many participants have invested a considerable amount of their time, energy, and knowledge in taking part in it.

Would you be willing, calmly and thoughtfully, without rushing, to answer the following question: what conclusions have you personally drawn from this discussion? Which arguments — and whose arguments — do you find the most convincing? And have your views on communism changed? If so, how do they look now, and why?

It would be especially interesting if you could answer point by point.

I think all participants in the discussion would find your reflections interesting to hear

[WeSee]

“Egoism” is NOT the word that I wrote in English.
Seems most likely that whatever you are using to translate is not doing it very well.

Also from what I gather the results from Google AI are highly dependent on both language AND the location of the user. Very different training sets are used as well as different ranking factors. There may also be local restrictions on what Google AI is allowed to return.

Your views are decidedly wrong according to what it returns here in English as to how much selfishness is a product of the environment. Here it says that it is “highly reliant on environmental factors” for example.

The concluding comment from Google AI follows:
" Selfishness is an adaptive response to environmental feedback. While the impulse is biological, the manifestation is almost entirely a product of environmental constraints. In an environment of absolute security and high social cohesion, selfishness is a logical error (maladaptive). In an environment of instability and low trust, selfishness is a logical necessity (adaptive). Therefore, the environment holds the veto power over the biological impulse".