The main issue is that they communism is economic policy, NOT social policy. While they do go hand in hand people often conflate the two. Many dictatorships use communism as a way to control the people but that doesn’t mean that communism leads directly to dictatorships.
If they’re using “communism” to control the people, then they’re not really using communism
Is true Communism even possible if it’s being attempted by flawed humans? Seems like it doesn’t matter the economic system so much as the fact that people will ruin anything given enough time.
It’s about incentives. Worker oppression in Monarchy requires a bad King, in Feudalism bad lords, in Capitalism bad shareholders, and in Socialism self-hating workers. If you shared your workplace, would you push to remove your rights? Or to screw over your customers? And then argue for that against everyone else you share power with? The incentives are plainly better in a worker owned economy.
I guess the main issue is with the government having absolute control over the economy. I would not want the most prominent politicians in my country having control of the economy. No matter how much I dislike capitalism.
Just put the people who work for a company in charge of the company. Have them elect who calls the shots. Also have them directly benefit from the company doing well. I guess that is like end-stage unions or smth. All power to the workers. Should be doable within capitalism, maybe, probably.
“All power to the workers” is a communist principle, though. It’s the main political slogan of the communist manifest by Marx and Engels.
Yeah, any economic system that concentrates power into one group is bad, whether it’s corporate monopolies or a single government (which ends up kind of like the ultimate monopoly in a communist state). Communists IMHO have a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and how incentives can be exploited for the benefit of everyone. We need a form of capitalism that promotes competition (because profit is possibly the most powerful motivator of innovation), but also keeps companies in check with strong regulations, strong workers unions, and profits taxed appropriately. It’s also important to recognize that some basic needs should be met by the government like public education, public utilities, correctional systems, national defense, welfare, healthcare, etc. But even with public services, there should be room for private companies to innovate and provide premium alternatives to keep the government in check (with exceptions obviously, we don’t want private military and private prisons for example).
While I mostly agree with you I don’t think country-owned companies or even monopolies are always bad. There needs to be a huge amount of real separation between politicians and those companies but it can work. In mine, both gambling and alcohol spirits stores are monopolies and owned by a country. Profits from gambling are distributed to grants for health and social welfare nonprofits. The question is if my country with very little corruption is the exemption that confirms the rule or if, if you do it right, it can work.
I also do not believe communism without very solid safeguards can work and those would need to be applied almost at the start. I am also pessimistic about human nature these days and am not sure if there can ever be enough safeguards to protect that model from misuse. I am what you could call a democratic socialist. I believe in mix and match where public and private companies can work in the same economy. Although I do oppose land resources being sold, especially as they are usually sold with a pittance for companies to profit. And I am not talking about private persons selling their land’s resources but government land resources. Selling them really doesn’t often make economic sense unless extraction would require a really high investment. Ecologic considerations should also be taken a lot more into account.
You can’t have a communist economic policy without being authoritarian. It’s human nature - once money is removed as a motivator, society breaks down unless you motivate people some other way (not being sent to the gulag).
Don’t forget the times dictators try to enforce communism onto nature. Mao’s Great Leap Forward killed tens of millions.
Mao’s great leap forward wasn’t communism, your using association fallacy.
