And a good example of how communes work in a small community. On a national scale however, they will always fail as long as they are controlled by fallible humans. Once the AI overlords are in charge, I’m sure it will work out fine.
I think it could be done with some good structure in the democratic process and something like Cybersyn did in Chile. It’s still very tricky to get right. Cuba is weirdly democratic for example but it took 16k proposed amendments to get started.
Yeah it doesn’t work because resources are scarce. Then on a national scale only a few people have control over these scarce national resources. Which gives these people too much power. And often the people in control are sociopaths especially if they came in to power via a revolution aka a violent coup.
It’s less about the fallibility of humans, and more mathematical than that. A person ability to acquire wealth is proportional to the current wealth they have. (And I’m not just talking about money, I’m taking about resources and power) As a result, those with a tendency to act nastier have an advantage in gaining wealth. This same issue is present in a communist economy, because while communism eschues the concept of money, it does not reject the idea of unequal power. Even some super intelligent AI wouldn’t be able to fix this, as long as it was forced to give humanity basic freedoms and follow communist ideals.
Honestly, this whole communism vs capitalism debate is beneficial to the powers that be, since neither system actually tries to prevent the acquisition of power or the abuse of it.
Sorry, I should’ve been more thorough. I meant it functionally ignores the concept of unequal power. Any sufficiently large group effort will eventually build a power structure, regardless of whether it’s capitalist or communist.
I mean… Communism does. It acknowledges that unequal means leads to unequal outcomes. A thing that Capitalism can’t admit or it would breakdown the whole system, since it requires a quietly aspirational, weak lower class to function.
If we’re talking Marxist-Leninism, that’s a different subject.
That’s the part that too many people don’t get. Communes and co-ops can work great in small communities, but they have NEVER worked, and WILL never work for a large country. There are some things that are scalable and some things that aren’t. Communism is a perfect example of a system that isn’t scalable.
I love how you completely ignore why they didn’t work, namely existing as islands in a capitalism ocean, and capitalism doesn’t like competition.
Can you really not see how if everywhere was organised in small communities that then cooperated as needed on bigger issues at different scales could absolutely work (and was literally how humanity worked for like 99% of its existence), as long as there isn’t a massive greedy monster looming over trying to destroy it?
And a good example of how communes work in a small community. On a national scale however, they will always fail as long as they are controlled by fallible humans. Once the AI overlords are in charge, I’m sure it will work out fine.
I think it could be done with some good structure in the democratic process and something like Cybersyn did in Chile. It’s still very tricky to get right. Cuba is weirdly democratic for example but it took 16k proposed amendments to get started.
Yeah it doesn’t work because resources are scarce. Then on a national scale only a few people have control over these scarce national resources. Which gives these people too much power. And often the people in control are sociopaths especially if they came in to power via a revolution aka a violent coup.
Exactly. Much cooler to have an AI overlord than a low self esteem short agry little dictator
It’s less about the fallibility of humans, and more mathematical than that. A person ability to acquire wealth is proportional to the current wealth they have. (And I’m not just talking about money, I’m taking about resources and power) As a result, those with a tendency to act nastier have an advantage in gaining wealth. This same issue is present in a communist economy, because while communism eschues the concept of money, it does not reject the idea of unequal power. Even some super intelligent AI wouldn’t be able to fix this, as long as it was forced to give humanity basic freedoms and follow communist ideals.
Honestly, this whole communism vs capitalism debate is beneficial to the powers that be, since neither system actually tries to prevent the acquisition of power or the abuse of it.
What?
Communism = moneyless, classless, stateless society.
Sorry, I should’ve been more thorough. I meant it functionally ignores the concept of unequal power. Any sufficiently large group effort will eventually build a power structure, regardless of whether it’s capitalist or communist.
I mean… Communism does. It acknowledges that unequal means leads to unequal outcomes. A thing that Capitalism can’t admit or it would breakdown the whole system, since it requires a quietly aspirational, weak lower class to function.
If we’re talking Marxist-Leninism, that’s a different subject.
That’s the part that too many people don’t get. Communes and co-ops can work great in small communities, but they have NEVER worked, and WILL never work for a large country. There are some things that are scalable and some things that aren’t. Communism is a perfect example of a system that isn’t scalable.
I love how you completely ignore why they didn’t work, namely existing as islands in a capitalism ocean, and capitalism doesn’t like competition.
Can you really not see how if everywhere was organised in small communities that then cooperated as needed on bigger issues at different scales could absolutely work (and was literally how humanity worked for like 99% of its existence), as long as there isn’t a massive greedy monster looming over trying to destroy it?