There’s a good joke I heard from a friend about Communism:
What kind of communism do you support? The kind that’s purely theoretical, or the kind that always fail?
There are plenty of communist societies which have existed throughout the years, though. The Sovs being fascists with a coat of red paint doesn’t change that.
Not at scale though. Humans are hell in large groups.
The trouble with scale is more to do with efficiency than viability. A communist society can function at scale, and if there were no competitors but other stateless, moneyless, classless societies, it would be no issue to continue indefinitely.
Viability aside, I generally identify as left-leaning and anti-capitalist rather than explicitly communist precisely because I have serious concerns about the desirability of the end-state of communism as a stateless, moneyless society. I’m about to head off to do labor for my immensely shitty capitalist overlords, but in short, communism, in the sense of a stateless, moneyless society, does not mean that everyone holds hands and comes to consensus by singing the Internationale and embracing their comrades with warmth and love, despite what some might say or think.
Rather, communities without institutions or traditions of rigid class systems still end up with immensely shitty decision-making and power imbalances - it’s just not predicated on the abstract idea of ownership of the means of production as it is in societies with modern conceptions of property rights. As anyone who has ever seen a commune interact in the long-term - or, for that matter, any large social group without strong distinctions between members - the amount of petty backbiting, unofficial leadership, ostracization, politiking, and general unpleasantness is… staggering. Especially since it’s often couched in extremely passive-aggressive behavior and denial - either genuine or just to outsiders - of ongoing problems.
I would like to note, here, that capitalist societies and groups with strong hierarchies suffer the same - this is not a unique problem to communities with weak or nonexistent class structure - I bring it up because many people tend to speak like material conditions or ideology will paper all this over in the end-state of communism, when reality makes that… unlikely. What happens in a society without the means of conflict resolution in capitalist or state societies is not that misbehavior is eliminated - it’s that certain means of enabling misbehavior become more prominent (social capital), and others less prominent (material capital).
Relevantly, such is also backed up by accounts of band and tribe societies before complex hierarchies develop - especially within the structure of individual families. The means of accumulating and exercising power differ - and certainly are less enduring - but power is still accumulated and exercised, and that is the core of social enabling of misbehavior.
This is certainly not to say that endstage communism is worse than capitalism; nor is it necessarily even saying that it is not better than capitalism. But anyone who thinks that communism, executed in the real world, is utopian, does not understand how human beings interact. We, as creatures, are too complex to make a utopia. Utopias demand simplicity, and simplicity is not within us.
Generally, because of that, I lean towards democratic market socialism as the probable best end-goal for humanity as we would recognize it. I remain unconvinced that social capital is preferable as a wholesale replacement for material capital as a means of organizing society, and am skeptical of insistences that the destruction of all coercive institutions will result in a more just and fair society.
Great read all around, and I’d bet if we talking IRL we could have some damned interesting discussion!
I’d like your thoughts on this article. It’s old and the formatting is hosed up, but it really changed my views on humans and the societies we form.
https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
democratic market socialism
Seems to be working in Europe! Best we got anyway, and miles ahead of this American hellscape I’m stuck in.
Europe is mostly socdem rather than demsoc, though there’s some overlap, and certainly they’re closer to it than we are in the US.
In the kind of IDEAL society I’m talking about, the vast majority of firms would be like Mondragon rather than just a handful.
As for the article, I didn’t read it (sorry, low motivation today) but monkeysphere arguments tend to be correct in terms of emotional attachment, but not in terms of how social power is extended and exercised.
I disagree with most of what you have to say, but admire and respect your process in reaching it.
I challenge/invite you to a simultaneous knife fight&makeout session.
I accept, honor demands it o7
Okay. I’m mostly in socal these days. Where do you want to do this?
To be fair capitalism clearly doesn’t work at scale, either.
Nah. Coordination just takes work. It is work.
And no amount of committee or hierarchy or shittiness can fix that, only add noise.
I wouldn’t say fascist.
Reactionary, enthusiastic about killing communists, generally not super big on the value of human life, hyperauthoritarian and imperialist, with a death spiral similar to fascism, but not fascism. That’s a specific thing.
I mean at minimum the Stalin era hits literally all of Umberto Eco’s Ur-fascism points.
Its not though. Almost. There are a lot of similarities, but its not.
I feel like the deeper you go the more different they look. Stalin was a shit head gangster who never shoukd have had power. The purges and stuff were about his fear, or terrorizing his subjects.
Fascist purges are about hatred, especially of complexity, and of frenzy. You’ll notice fascist purges always kill people who prompt questions, they always narrow horizons of thought, of ways of being. Stalinist purges only sometimes did that.
Its not though. Almost. There are a lot of similarities, but its not.
It hits literally every point, quite firmly. Not really sure how much more fascist you want them to be.
I feel like the deeper you go the more different they look. Stalin was a shit head gangster who never shoukd have had power. The purges anf stuff were about his fear.
Fascist purges are about hatred, especially of complexity, and of frenzy. You’ll notice fascist purges always kill people who prompt auestions, they always narrow horizons of thought, of ways of being. Stalinist purges only sometimes did that.
Stalinists purges very often did that and very often were about hatred of complexity and frenzy. And if your argument instead is that “Some of Stalin’s purges were about fear disqualifies it from fascism”, then that would disqualify Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy from being fascist as well.
eco
Eco’s 14 points are a quick heuristic, not a deep study.
purges were fucked
Like i said, the closer you get to the top the more fascist stalin looks, and i will not defend him morally. This is entirely pedantic quibbling about how he sucked.
They did sometimes, sure, but it wasnt the primary goal of every purge like you tend to see in fascism.
Like purging queer and trans people; the nazis tried to kill them so there was no more complexity or people around who inconveniently didnt fit assigned gender roles and prescribed life paths, a narrowing of scripts. It’s why they hate us.
Jews and romani; distinctive diverse cultures laced through the imperial core. Resevoirs of diverse values and virtues that would need their own rhetoric to turn fasc.
My brain is melted right now, but it’s a pattern i remember seeing.
Eco’s 14 points are a quick heuristic, not a deep study.
What criteria are you using for fascism that the Stalinist USSR lacked?
They did sometimes, sure, but it wasnt the primary goal of every purge like you tend to see in fascism.
Bruh, there were numerous purges in the mainstream fascist regimes that were predicated primarily or entirely on paranoia rather than bigotry. Just like the Stalinist SovUnion.
Like purging queer and trans people; the nazis tried to kill them so there was no more complexity or people around who inconveniently didnt fit assigned gender roles and prescribed life paths, a narrowing of scripts. It’s why they hate us.
Do you… do you not remember what the Stalinist USSR did to queer folk???
Jews and romani; distinctive diverse cultures laced through the imperial core. Resevoirs of diverse values and virtues that would need their own rhetoric to turn fasc.
I have some really bad news for you about how the Stalinist regime treated ethnic minorities.
The kind thats not reactionary enough for the cia to give it a pass.
“The kind that only works on a small scale.”
Something like it is currently functioning at a scale larger than some states in several places in the world. Its sorta how the group that kicked ISIS in the dick while turkey tried to exterminate them (and has so far failed) organizes.
Examples? I want to see how they’re doing.
Anarchist Rojava is still going strong - they held out against ISIS and Turkiye, and intermittent pressure from Assadist forces until the Syrian Civil War ended. We’ll see how it shakes out going forward, but they did a damn fine job in a chaotic time, and no matter how it ends, that will always be inspiring.
I hope the new Syrian government regards it simply as not worth the trouble of attempting to dismantle them - at the moment, things are tense, but both sides have formally committed to a peaceful co-existence in the new Syria.
The zapatistas (who’ve been going for 30+years, to the great and freauently violent displeasure of the mexican government) and AANES (who have done pretty well militarily) come to mind, there are others but they’re either under more pressure or smaller.
The last bubble should say, “NYET!”
“NYEHHHT!”
