How would communism actually function?

[JennyFoxworth]

Coming from a communist country, I can tell you communist will take over and kill all other parties until they get complete control.

The meaning of communism is government completely control of everything. Western people these days spread an illusion tgat countries like china or vietnam is under communist control but going under capitalism, that's straight up stupid! You can research history since communist take over how many citizens of that country actually died.

Communism didn't work so those countries losen up their control, going back to socialism in a sense.

It's funny how this kind of topic is open on this page and shit like china does control covid, you can find china in focus youtube channel to see how many people actually die since December, when chinese government announced there was 2k cases it's actually 90k.

In 1975, when communist took over southern vietnam, firstly they took over all the banks and money, my grandma couldn't get a single penny out to make a funeral for my grandpa. All southerners working for the old government are either killed or sent to reeducation camps, where most died there. They took over guns and land ownership, everything belongs to the people but under government control. They changed the currency system 3 times people just jump of buildings with all the savings from the last money system. In the morning you have to wake up at 4 am to receive food. They would suddenly barge into people's house, saying those house have wealth, that means they are capitalists, and even a radio will be taken away under the name of the people.

Then all the men will be sent to cambodia and lao for the war. It got to the point no one candle anymore they ran to other countries by land or ships, some died in Cambodia, Lao, some kids these days were born on ships in malaysia shore or refugee camps in hong kong. The United Nations involved and try to solve the situation by having each countries receive a certain amount of refugees. My mom was able to contact her used to be fiancee after 10 years since he try to left in the 80s, he is now residing in Texas, but his family used to be French citizens and even France doesn't help them. My family lost in total 4 people to the wars since 75. My current aunt used to see people eating cockroaches on the street and die out of hunger. Not to mention none of southern kids including my parents were able to go to college back then.

By the judge of your replies to the comment you're spreading propaganda, and there are many people here making fun comments as well. When it related to the holocaust, nbd jokes about it, and somehow the world is joking about communism like it's funny. I just don't understand how that much blood and death is funny to you people.

[nightdrot]

Communism would function about like it did. Indeed, there is something perverse about a system that dubs itself "scientific," is then tested in multiple placed and times as different as backward North Korea and industrialized East Germany and gets essentially the same result, whose advocates then ask "how would it actually work?". The scientific method seeming to have revealed the answer repeatedly.

Where to begin?

Socialism was a romantic reaction to the Enlightenment. To wit, the idea of the Enlightenment was that man was a spontaneously rational and social being. That he had rights, rooted in nature.
However, man has been corrupted by institutions that evolved over history but that were not inherently rational and therefore not consistent with his natural rights.

The idea behind the Enlightenment then was that man must be stripped of the illogical and irrational/pre-rational sources of his identity - i. e. religion, ethnicity, tribe, etc. - and law made in conformity with his natural rights. When law and natural rights are consistent, man will live in harmonious relationship with his fellows.

The problem. of course, was that man gets his sense of identity from religion, family, tribe, nationality, etc. When stripped of these - as the British statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke put it - man is "reduced to his naked shivering nature."

Into this stepped Marx. In brief summation, he combined man's need for a sense of identity with a "scientific theory." He discerned a dialectic in History - with a capital "H" - in which economics and class was the source of man's true identity and that the clash of owning and working classes would result over time in a stateless utopia where man lived in fulfillment of his nature.

This, of course, was not scientific at all. It greatly oversimplified man's nature and, in practice - and this is skipping over a LOT of important detail - conduced to the concentration of power in an elite whose job, in Marxist theory, was to guide the workers toward that classless utopia that - allegedly - History was moving toward anyhow.

Pursuant to this, as a matter of economic policy, the government would own the means of production, private property would be abolished, and the economy - all levels of production, consumption, etc, - would be centrally planned. Suffice to say, such concentrations of power and planning with no intermediary institutions between the government and society conduced to brutal tyranny.

(Just as an aside, some of my family lived in East Germany. When my father went back to visit his relatives. One night they were sitting on the porch singing songs and talking and he noticed that his niece was walking the perimeter of the yard. He asked his uncle why she was doing that. His uncle replied, "To make sure that we can't be heard, because if we are and someone hears something they don't like, they will call the Stassi and we will all be arrested." Such is life under Communism. No right to say anything and even your neighbors might be spies.)

Indeed, even as a narrow economic theory Communism was absurd. As indeed the empty store shelves of the Soviet heyday and Venezuela's recent diaper shortage all suggest. With no incentives to produce, there is no production - and what is produced is so with no relationship to the demand for it.

CONT.

[Everyoneisplastic]

After seeing your responses to previous comments, it's obvious you are in denial. I used to be more left wing and I used to think "Hey, everyone gets free money, a share of the wealth, etc, etc.". Luckily I have seen with the truth with my own eyes. Think about this: in a socialist/communist economy, people who are in power stay in power, people are born into whatever class they are and there's no way to rise up the chain, government can do whatever they want, etc, etc.https://www.youtube.com/embed/IQPsKvG6WMIKarl Marx was a racist, an anti-semite, and hitler was his dream come true (except the part when people overwhelmed him and the Nazi party fell). Karl Marx said that slavery was not only good, but was necessary for America to survive as a positive example of communism and that without the virtue of slavery, America would surely fall. You call anyone who disagrees with you a biggot or brainwashed by capitalist propoganda, yet you follow a biggoted idealogy without any form of opposition, you buy into propoganda from communists without any doubt, you reduce constructive critisism by calling someone names, and you refuse to acknowledge any evidence that strays from your misguided views. If China and North Korea are so great, why haven't you moved there? Have you even seen what happens to anyone who protests in China or North Korea? Immagine a system of government where oppression can't be fought against. Immagine everybody being forced to worship government as God (that's literally what Karl Marx advocated in his book "The Jewish Question"). Think for yourself. I've done research, if you did any, you'd find that communism is a system of government meant to seize power by oppressing people and forcing them to bow down to the powers in government.https://www.youtube.com/embed/dgmZR-F1XIUhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/rAUldPbAC6ohttps://www.youtube.com/embed/iakx9RALxvEhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/inSNWiQcUHE

[Anonymous]

In a communist society the wealth produced would be owned and shared equitably, and as there is over-abundance produced, everyone can have all they want in living conditions and freedom- up to the point where it would limit others having the same, including the safety of the environment.

This hasn’t happened yet, as either most of the wealth has been in private hands (capitalism) or/and hasn’t been under democratic control (dictatorships). Or both.

As communism is democratic, it is formed by the people who are part of it at the time, so we can’t really guess the format - people will choose whichever method of decision-making suits them at the time - I guess different for local, regional and global issues.

What is sure is,

that working hours and conditions of work will be for the convenience of the workers, education will be available life-long, so people have a chance to find what they are good at and enjoy doing.

Status can be won by social contribution and not by amount of wealth in a bank - as money and the state’s enforcing role will become obsolete.

I don't agree with the user that said that history has shown us it wouldn't function well. They've actually been brainwashed by capitalist media to think that.

Cuba actually did pretty well, in response to the exploitation of the average plantation worker, unjust police arrests and executions by Batista's US puppet government; seized control with a much smaller force and survived an international embargo of 40+ years. They now have one of the leading medical programs in the world.

As of now, these are simply socialist experiments and haven't completed the transition to communism.

These are ignoring the societies pre-capital that had communism not as we know it now but as they lived it.

[hahahmm]

1. People connected to the most politically powerful become part of a special class of people who get special ID. This ID gives them access to walled cities with 5 star restaurants, resort style living quarters, amusement parks and every thing common people aren't allowed to buy because as a special person you need to be able to study the forbidden stuff to really understand why it's bad, you know. Only special people get to vote in elections.
2. Everybody becomes a spy. If you snitch on your neighbor you get rewards. There's an electronic system that lets you send reports in on anybody you want, any time. If 2+ people think you're a traitor you get arrested, no evidence needed.
2b. In China they have something called "education through work" or some such. Any cop can have you arrested without evidence and sent to a re-education labor camps for years. The cop determines the sentence. Yes, if a cop doesn't like you you're toast. Doesn't matter why.
2c. The governor of a state is like a King. He can have you arrested for any reason and sent to prison for life. Don't forget to bribe him or you'll be in for a surprise. Obviously his family/kids are above the law. If his son rapes your daughter you can forget about involving the law. This happens in some non commie countries also tho.
3. Someone decides what the standard of living is in each region. If your home is above that standard you get kicked out and it gets boarded up. You need to go live in a lower level place. I suppose that you would make sure that your super important industries like military weapons would coincidentally be in regions where you can give the people working on it nicer things so they have more incentive than the common person.
4. Some kind of resources need to be sold/traded to outside countries so you can bring in things that you need from the outside.
5. Ban on people saving more than a certain amount of money.
6. Huge limits on what people can buy to keep one person from having too much more than his neighbor.

[AlexanderAnttila]

Huh, strange. I was just pondering on asking the question; How is it possible that there are still genuine communists in the world.

Every single time communism has been attempted and implemented the result has been the same. Stalinism, Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, doesn't matter which branch, dictatorship, mass murder, inflation, bankruptcy, a derelict countryside to feed the industrious, monstrous capital, starvation, war and corruption.

And no, I do not agree that it's "a good idea in its foundation". Forced equality is not the same as justice. Equal opportunity, not equal outcome is justice. Does capitalism always offer the same opportunities? I'd say so yes. Not everyone starts from the same place, and many have it harder than others in climbing, but the opportunity is still there and open for all who work for it. One of the great causes for communist economy's failure is planned economy, as with Soviet's "five year plan", in producing only a specific and determined produce or ware. It completely clashes with the logic of supply and demand. And the results were predictable.

Capitalism isn't flawless, it has dark sides, but it is by far the best option we have, it has raised a third of the world out of abject poverty. And unlike communism, capitalism actually functions and sustains a nation. It has a superior track record empirically speaking.

And all those ignoramuses in the west who thrive in a capitalist society whilst whining for communism, they have no idea whatsoever what that disgusting ideology entails. It just irks me something fierce when people who haven't the slightest notion of what it is like to live under communism treats it like the liberation of mankind and all they have is leftist theory spouting its nonhistorical nonsense in western academia.

[Guffrus]

Well it very much depends on the form it takes, the spectrum of possibility is vast and the devil is in the detail.

The only thing you can really know about a system from the word 'communist' is that land and material wealth is shared, you dont know anything else.

Communism has worked very sucessfully many times in various places around the world but it has generally worked best to lift people out of very difficult times of hardship and shortage etc.

The main problem with communism is that the strong are enslaved by the weak and often it comes with centralised planning / a command economy and while economy of scale is a powerful and extremely worthwhile reality to harness the fact remains that one size does not fit all and no one is better equipped to make choices for a person than the person themselves.

I would suggest that if you are not going to explore anarchism the best 'system' would be one which harnesses the best aspects of capitalism and communism, leveraging their strengths and offsetting their weakness but sadly the world is yet to see anything even remotely close so far, its always the rich and the masses in a tug of war each trying to have things only their way and everyone loses because the vast majority of people are incapable or unwilling to do what is in the interests of the big picture, they just want what they think is good for them.

[Psychoanalytical]

Exactly as it did in USSR, China and Cambodia.

First, the ruling party/leader will start abusing communism's weaknesses to achieve total dictatorship.

Next step, anyone who opposes the system will literally be eaten alive by the system. Hence, most of the nation will turn into slaves to that one ruling body.

With USSR, people opposed the system, and that's why Gulags existed. 20 millions were killed, and the torture methods were disgusting. Stalin knew how fragile and malleable communism was and knew how to abuse it. Lenin was no different.

You can read about Red Khmer in Cambodia as well and Mao Zedong in China and how these two brought great distress upon Cambodia and China. Under Zedong, nearly 78 million people were killed.

Practically, communism is a fairy tale that is full of contradictions. Being very easy to abuse and manipulate led to the death of nearly 100 million people.

However... the communist movement is on the rise again.. because some entities are funding its growth and they target the younger unexperienced generations to brainwash them into believing that communism will solve all the world's problems. Once communism is back, history will repeat itself.

[cth96190]

Read history, especially everything by
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.
The facts are:
1. You own nothing.
2. You do not get to choose where you go to school, what you study, what work you will do, or where you will live.
3. People are disappeared and tortured to death, or thrown into a gulag and worked to death.
4. Human life, including yours, has zero value.
5. Communism is always maintained by state terror and mass murder. During the past century Communists have murdered: 66 million in Russia (Lenin and Stalin); 50 million in China during the Communist revolution and 84 million between 1949 and the death of Mao in 1976; two million in Cambodia; at least two million in Vietnam; an estimated 300,000 in Cuba; and millions of sundries in Africa and elsewhere.
6. Communism is the only form of government in recorded human history that built fences and walls to prevent the population fleeing Marx's "workers' paradise". Not even the Nazis had to build walls to keep people in.
7. Communism is by a large margin the most evil and despotic system of government devised by a human mind. I find it to be darkly amusing that idiot young Americans have been brainwashed by Communist indoctrinated teachers and lecturers into thinking that Communism, of whatever shade, has any redeeming features. It does not. If it did have good points, Cubans might not try to paddle bathtubs to Florida.

[tartaarsaus]

Economically, it wouldn’t. If we follow the reasoning by Stiglitz (and he won a Nobel Prize on this matter) because economists are simply incapable of calculating a general equilibrium (i. e. the optimal allocation of resources) due to a simply lack of information, you can never ever make a planned economy work as well as a decentralized (somewhat) economy. Related to that is the reasoning provided by Acemoglu (who is basically guaranteed to win a Nobel Prize on this matter), who say that because a system like communist regimes do not provide the capacity to invest in themselves and beyond however they want, they can never actually achieve high levels of GDP per capita. Also, the USSR actually had to liberalize substantial parts of its economy in the 70s to keep their economic success going.


Beyond that, it inherently requires forceful action to make it work, unless everyone voluntarily subscribes to those ideals (which is questionable at best). Then forceful action quickly becomes dictatorship.

[Anonymous]

Communism wouldn't function. It slowly or quickly destroys itself if left alone. When everything is owned by the state (government), and everyone gets equal share of things, people lose incentive to work because they'll receive the same to live off of whether they work 24 hours a day or work 10 minutes a day and spend the rest playing video games. When people stop producing, there's less and less for the state to take and distribute. Their only option is to declare "work or die". Then the people with the help of outside nations eventually revolt and force change to something like China's version of communism. Where the state still owns almost everything, but people are allowed to make money based on their work and not based on everyone getting paid exactly the same. You can obtain personal wealth in Communist China, but if you voice opinions that the government doesn't like, they can and do make you disappear with no consequences. It's eerily similar to the Democrat mantra in the USA where they want everyone to "comply or be locked up".

[ask8request]

I come from a country which was once part of the Eastern Bloc. A lot of people here miss communism. They had good infrastructure, hopitals, schools, post offices, everything, even deep in the mountains, food was a lot better, things were actually tasty, from what my parents have told me nowadays food is like dirt compared to the one they had. We had a very powerful army and people were a lot more educated because they were forced into education. Every person was trained to survive.

There was no crime and there were no drugs. Woman could actually walk alone in the middle of the night without being scared someone will do something to them, unlike nowadays.

It had it's bad side too but aren't we living in communism disguised as democracy now too? Lol, we are not free, it's just the illusion of being free.

Check Bald and Bankrupt on Youtube, he travels around post communist countries, see what people say in his videos, they are people who lived during that era, their opinion is the one that matters.

[RolandCuthbert]

? It wouldn't. The whole premise is built upon the nonsensical idea that human beings are good and could care for one another across notions of race, culture, ethnicity, gender, etc.

That's why you need a Republic that guarantees basic freedoms and rights.

[007kingifrit]

it can't function. it makes sense on paper but "on paper" just means without human nature. communists are idealists who think humans can all just share everything and that inequality is only caused by big bad mean people when in reality some people are born better than others. some are smarter, with more drive, more creativity, better looks... they can't be equal.

and worst of all all humans are greedy meaning whoever controls the "equal redistribution" is going to give themselves more. that's why russia is the most unequal country in the world today

[ZackBan]

You wouldn't have to worry about "function" because it will to shit pretty much right away.
Numbers don't lie pure communism never worked even those hybrid comunist countires are held back by the comunist side.
It's bullshit, something Karl Marx created to unite the workers against harsh working environment but the original idea of communism inplied that there would be no leadership at all. And yet it has only ever brought about dictators and tyrants.
So yeah i think the world would be a much better and friendlier place once the dream of a utopia is over and people realize that they make their own destiny in this world. You want it better go make it better. That's the only realistic version

[ibodi]

communism in china was changed many hands from marx engels to Lenins, I think that was just name. especially marx wrote for
illiteracy after Hegel. so I think truth is never understood. if you turn it to illiteracy. you need to be like bible. I watched it GDP communism in china had a jump for a while but close thought make value can not lead social source. then you saw reducing during that time. china change basically call socialism now. communist party is still name. https://www.youtube.com/embed/4-2nqd6-ZXg

[jshm2]

Its difficult to say as no true capitalists or true communists have ever existed.

Sure the theory and proposals are well documented, but even the Soviets were not fully communist, and neither are the North Koreans. The Chinese are more capitalist than communist in how they work their business arm.

Every system likes to assert itself as being "a flagship" but the inner working are never transparent.

Communism is very good in theory, but it relies on absolute obedience -which no human can ever possess. Hence it always falls short as corruption and totalitarianism become it's cancer. Too much power in the hands of a few unaccountable.

Capitalism for it's part relies on absolute compliance - again something no human can ever fully do. Which is why tax avoidance and exploitation by the few, is it's cancer. Too much power in the hands of a kingmaker few.

[israelisevil]

Communism is a last option solution by default. It worked in cuba because of how cruel and evil government before was it makes communism look good. unless your in a starving 3rd world country that is exploited by western companies communism is never answer. Also stalin and mao would be disgusted by the antifa fags that call themselves communist. Im a liberatarian personally but communists are more up for debate are then republicans and democrats are with any party besides republicans and democrat. Besides antifa faggots most communist far easier have inteligent debate with then a liberal or conservative.

[StrikeJam]

At first, communist party will not bring communism as social or economical model to the country, because it's not workable at all.
It's never worked before in any country, and will not in future as well.
How the country will function?
Well, in international communications it will fall under such countries like Russia or China (Depends from location and cultural background).
Inside country, most probably will try take more control over the citizens, but mostly will try to take control of business and economics in general. At will fail.

[DJB72]

Communism doesn't work. It never has.

Not because the principles of the philosophy are flawed, but because the "leaders" implementing it are inevitably corrupted by power. Even Castro didn't manage to avoid the trappings of power on an island as small as Cuba.

[chris0977]

Problem with communism is distribution of resources is equal. Intangibles, which drive the direction of society, such as authority, mobility, are far less equally distributed, or accessible, than in democracies, even republics, but controlled by the few, which gives them unprecedented power. This is how communism would actually function. An illusion of material equality (jobs, income, etc.), while few have any power to make decisions that guide the society billions live in without any say.

[Liya0078]

I come from Russia. The country would go from poor to very poor. Communism is a utopia only on paper. It kills individuality, creativity and human spirit. My grandparents lived through Stalin times...

[Bandit74]

I've never been able to visualize it. Whenever someone explains it to me it seems very vague or reliant on a bunch of assumptions. However maybe if we get to the point where ai automates everything and renders most people effectively useless then we might have to try it or at least something different than what we have now.

[jasco]

Well we have a economy that restricted people to only working jobs that the government decided was good for you. If you ever played fallout 3 at the beginning of the story they take a test that is basically useless because it's just stupid questions, well that's how a command economy would function to a extent. People would be a lot more miserable for sure, sense no matter how high you go your not gonna be making anymore money the average joe, also food shortage's and surplus would go up extremely sense the market symbols that would tell economist what to do, would be gone pretty much. The government would be like china and it would more then likely go up in flames because the people in my country ( U. S.) would more then likely die then let it happen