What exactly is communism?

[General Maximus]

What the title says: What is communism? How does it work? What are it's pros and cons? How does it affect the economy?

I am sorry if you are annoyed by the question, but I really wish to know how it is different from other government types. I am already familiar with the name, but not with it's working and theory.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

[Larkin]

Communism strives to create a classless - and ideally stateless and moneyless - social order. It would do this by common ownership, distributing existing wealth equally among the people. It follows the ideas of Karl Marx, which can be read in The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital.

No nation has ever achieved full Communism. It has never been possible for a nation to disestablish its state. In terms of wealth distribution, people have suggested Cuba is the closest to a Communist state there has been, but it is still a long way away in my mind.

I personally believe Communism is impossible.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

In the market economy you live under government runs some things like the police , schools, social welfare etc, but most enterprize is private - undertaken by regular people without the government getting involved. In a communist society the government would run everything. Phone companies, chemical firms, contruction companies, you name it the government is in charge of it. They also aim for far more radical social welfare models. Since the government employs everybody they can dictate their wages, and communist governments typically pay lesser workers more and more skilled workers less than employers in a capitalist economy would.

[Larkin]

In the market economy you live under government runs some things like the police , schools, social welfare etc, but most enterprize is private - undertaken by regular people without the government getting involved. In a communist society the government would run everything. Phone companies, chemical firms, contruction companies, you name it the government is in charge of it. They also aim for far more radical social welfare models. Since the government employs everybody they can dictate their wages, and communist governments typically pay lesser workers more and more skilled workers less than employers in a capitalist economy would.

Wrong. Communism, in theory, doesn't have a government. It's stateless.

In practise, the only way to equally distribute wealth and establish common ownership is through a government.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Wrong. Communism, in theory, doesn't have a government. It's stateless.

In practise, the only way to equally distribute wealth and establish common ownership is through a government.

Well, let me rephrase that, that was the brand of communism followed in the USSR and its sattelites.

[General Maximus]

Does that mean that in a communist nation, someone is experiencing poverty, and others will help him along to make him as one of their equals?

Stateless? So there are no leaders with much more power in such government. Is it meant only for, by and according to the people?

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Does that mean that in a communist nation, someone is experiencing poverty, and others will help him along to make him as one of their equals?

Well, without state interference people usually don't voluntarily do that, as we see in capitalist society. The government makes them do it essentially.

Stateless? So there are no leaders with much more power in such government. Is it meant only for, by and according to the people?

A communist society is suppozed to be stateless but none has been able to exist without a state.

[General Maximus]

As far as I know, Marxists demand better conditions for people. Leninist theory is matching the Marxist theory. But how did these combine and form the sometimes violent movement that we see now?

[justicar5]

Does that mean that in a communist nation, someone is experiencing poverty, and others will help him along to make him as one of their equals?

Stateless? So there are no leaders with much more power in such government. Is it meant only for, by and according to the people?

Depends on the model, but Council Communism has no government beyond worker councils in the workplace/town, who make decisions on local issues. The theory is that everyone works, for pretty much the same wage (some allow unpleasant jobs to pay more, so a sewer maintenance guy gets more than a teacher) but the idea is pretty much everyone has the same amount of resources, and does a job that (in theory) they want to do, rather than being trapped into doing a job they hate. People with disabilities are cared for by the people who want to work as carers.

Thanks for the replies. I now know what is actually Communism, thanks to ye goode people.

So if a country experiences communist revolutions, what becomes of it's aristocrats? Are they forced to hand out major portions of their property? Since they cannot keep their property as their own in a community which shares resources. Or there are exceptions and aristocrats are allowed to keep their wealth as their own?

No, the property they own was based on the forced labour of others, so it is considered stolen property and divided amongst the victims (in theory)

[G-Megas-Doux]

Communism is a government system where people who live in a community share a responsibility for the tasks required for the wellfare of each other and take a hand in governance and organisation. In this way anyone of a capability to work is a worker and has a say in the governing of the commune. All those incapable of working are dependents of the commune such as children being educated or the infirm.

When on a large scale communism requires links between communities to a central authority and thus a bureaucracy. As everyone capable of contributing is a worker they are entitled to vote and as such in a society dominated by referendum this leads to a large bureaucracy. Power is ceded to individuals who become carear bureaucrats and organisors who are elected.

A hallmark of communism has been a single party state where multi candidates stand for election. However this becomes a closed patronage based system and becomes vulnerable to becoming an elitist oligarchy which is counter to the intent.

Communism has the capability to become technocratic in terms of leadership for certain areas but the greater the seperation from the origional workers the more chance of clinical detachment a government has. This can lead to a drudge like existance alluded to in the famous book 1984 in a critique of socialism in general and particulary British socialism. It was famously described by George Orwel. "If you wish to see the future, imagin a human face being stamped on by a boot repeatedly."

Whilst communal living may have its benefits on a local rural standard of living urban conditions can become a contest for resources with a lack of aspiration for those who have failed the technical or bureacratic routes of advancement.

Life may be a struggle under different systems of government and it also depends on the political situation at the time for the individuals as to how they fair, however communism suffers from ridged structural requirements and oligarchic defficiencies.

Accountability to the public in a one party state become difficult when central patronage and a large military exist and at times can be impossible unless there is an individual fall from grace.

Whilst incomplete I hope this was a reasonable introduction and further information would be gleaned from reading about the histories of various socialist and communist countries identifying the problems that were faced and the trends that were developed. The founding theories of socialism would be a good accompanyment by reading about works from authors such as Karl Marx and others.

[G-Megas-Doux]

The idea is that everyone should have as much as they require to perform their task no more or no less. However the division of the goods and services become as difficult point outside of a simplistic model. As such it requires a more complex system which can lead to setting values with an internal market and currency so that that people can live. However what is found is that without a form of capitalism that allows winning and losing the value of such currency becomes meaning less as it will always be less value then bartered goods or a strong foreign currency. Example being the rouble was not worth anything of note and foreign currency was highly prized in soviet russia. China made its great leaps when it decided to use capitalism as a means to an end and allow highly regulated privatly owned state licenced business to make and export goods bringing in resources to replace what has left the country making it richer then it was when it was less industrial.

With regards to statelessnes. Communism tries to simplify all relationships to worker and community as such there is no need for religion or nationality only to consider ones self as part of the community and a good worker. It relys on debasement of the self to survive. A key concept was the spread of the workers revolution to the other countries so that all people could live the same way.

However despite this minorities and viewpoints by their nature as being different would always be discriminated against. Being for examples class enemies or non conformist.

As far as I know, Marxists demand better conditions for people. Leninist theory is matching the Marxist theory. But how did these combine and form the sometimes violent movement that we see now?

I could be flipant and state Joseph Stalin. But that would belie the situation in that people always want better for themselves.

Social mobility is the lubrication to progress in society. It has lead to changing composition of power and competion in advancement. In a Bureaucratic oligarchy this leads to power battles between the rising factions within the super party and when the previous leader dies or sometimes before people take sides or are forced to. The removal of the people and supporters depends on the ruthlessness of people.

To become a good organisor requires a certain amount of detachment. My example of Joseph Stalin is a reasonable one as Stalin was left with the bureaucracy of the state to run as no one wanted to head that department so all promotions within the party went through him and all structural apparatus were under his perview. As such all challengers could be eliminated one after the other and this became a habit.

Being so detached from his enemies or problems he could remove them in a clinical way. This is a pattern that has been repeated for example with Po Pot removing up to a 1/3 of Cambodia in the 1970's.

Such detachment from the people one controls can lead to real tragedies repeated throughout human history in different forms of governement.

[Nikephoros Kapatsos]

Here

[General Maximus]

Thanks for the replies. I now know what is actually Communism, thanks to ye goode people.

So if a country experiences communist revolutions, what becomes of it's aristocrats? Are they forced to hand out major portions of their property? Since they cannot keep their property as their own in a community which shares resources. Or there are exceptions and aristocrats are allowed to keep their wealth as their own?

[G-Megas-Doux]

In practice it usually fails to achiebe the goals of everyone being happy in their job. As for arristocrats they are usually driven away or on occassion murdered example being the Tsar or Russia and his imediate familly. In China the last Emperor lived his life as a gardener to Mao.

[justicar5]

In practice it usually fails to achiebe the goals of everyone being happy in their job. As for arristocrats they are usually driven away or on occassion murdered example being the Tsar or Russia and his imediate familly. In China the last Emperor lived his life as a gardener to Mao.

The Tsar was murdered during a civil war, to prevent the Whites from freeing him. Mao had won the civil war before the Emperor was captured, so there was less of a risk in letting him live. Brutal Realpolitik in action.

[Menelik_I]

What the title says: What is communism? How does it work? What are it's pros and cons? How does it affect the economy?

I am sorry if you are annoyed by the question, but I really wish to know how it is different from other government types. I am already familiar with the name, but not with it's working and theory.

Thanks in advance for any answers.

There are 2 things you should take into account in the search of your answer : 1) What Communism proclaims it is (communist manifesto) and 2) what it does in practice because of its internal structure and it is the only answer that really matters.

For one Communism not about the collective ownership of the means of production, that is a goal of it, but the most important aspect of Communism is the establishment of a all powerful central power. This means that communism requires A the conquest of power and B its conservation at all cost by either the destruction of political opponents or fusion of State and Party.

Communism cannot be Democratic be democratic, even if it is not violent, because it the process of collectivization, which is actually a process of centralization, will put all economic power under the hospice of one group of people and as such makes political expression difficult. The reason being that no effective political endeavor can exist without proper economic power on its size, either to allow the political actors to afford the costs of politics (drop in productivity) or be better able to rally people to their cause. This is why Russia have problems to transition to democracy to this day, because most of the economic power is still in the hands of the Soviet apparatus in the form of KGB/Nommenclatura remnants such as Putin.

The economic effects of communism could be really seen as secondary, because some times communist policies where enacted in practice to destroy political rivals via economic measure. (nationalization of farms to neutralize landowners in USSR), so that it is subordinated to the conquest of political power itself.

So in short : Communism about setting a all powerful central government, it just happen that Nationalization and collectivization make that easier.

Hope this helped.

[Fallenempire]

i think their has to be some form of direct democracy before something like communism or anarchism is possible

[King Gambrinus]

My advice to you would be to make strong differences between the terms Communism, Marxism, Marxist-Leninism (USSR, Cuba and pretty much any so called 20th Communist state) and Trotskyism.



Ignore people who say Communism is Statism. That is just McCarthyist propaganda that Americans still believe.

[General Maximus]

Thanks for the replies. Especially Menelik for this easy explanation.

So communism is pretty much decentralized. But there must be some central authority keeping check on those decentralized local authorities, right?

Since the population in a communist regime has only one class, there must be some election process too.

[King Gambrinus]

Meneliks explanation is biased and factually wrong. He's a neo-con. Better read the Communist Manifesto before listening to his bile.