this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Thanks for the high quality references.
The article here nicely stresses that there is only one way to communism and that there can even ony be one party. That's true in theory, but a single party can make a mistake in implementing communism so that it would be a valid option to have various parties each representing one approach to communism among which the population has to choose.
Likewise I think that requiring the destruction of state to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat is a nice theory but in reality, everybody in the state administration is proletarian, if we identify everybody but the billionaires as proletarian. Otherwise, the state would collapse because nobody with an education would be able to participate in the administration.
You argue that there were successful communist revolutions. But those were only starting to implement communism since there hasn't been a place with communism yet.
My point of view is that there is no need for the dictatorship of the proletariat to create a place for communist relations. A cooperative can be such a place. Instead of having to wait for a revolution, communist and socialists could live in the reality of their preferred relations right now.
Thus it doesn't matter how many times people failed. People constantly start small businesses. Communists must have the resources to do that, too. Run a restaurant as a cooperative and expand it. This creates the resources to create more advanced cooperatives. Without going full oppressive, the capitalist class cannot do much to prevent such a cooperative.
The problems that will arise will show the real problems of communism. Without an army to suppress dissidents, a cooperative has to deal with those problems. To me, that's a better way to figure out communism than to wait for a revolution.
Having a single party simply means that society has decided on a political system they want which is communism. Plenty of debate and change can happen within that scope. In fact, we can see this in practice with China where the political system proved to be far more flexible and adaptable than the multiparty systems seen in the west.
What actually happens with multi party systems is that they favor homeostasis. Since you have elections every few years, that becomes the horizon for doing large scale projects. Once a new party is voted in, they can abandon the project and change course. This makes it very difficult to make large scale changes and long term planning. This is why stuff like large scale infrastructure projects is effectively impossible to do in western countries.
A proletarian is any person whose primary source of income is their labour, so all skilled workers and administrators belong to the proletarian class. This is also not a hypothetical as you can look at how this works in practice in Cuba, Vietnam, or even China.
What there have been as a result of revolutions is tangible improvement in the living conditions for the majority. Everywhere communist revolutions happened we've seen people get education, food, housing, jobs, and healthcare.
And frankly, communism isn't going to be possible until capitalism is abolished as the dominant global system. It's not as if these societies are allowed to develop peacefully towards communism. They are constantly under siege from the capitalist empire headed by the US. The blockade on Cuba is a perfect example of this.
You keep saying this, and the elephant in the room continues to be that no evidence of this has been seen in over a century of people trying. So, unless you have something dramatically new to add here that hasn't been tried before, there is no reason to think that this approach will work going forward based on prior experience.
It does matter how many times people failed, because doing the same thing over and over produces same results over and over. There are very clearly limits on how far cooperatives can expand, and we see what those limits are in practice. And if this model somehow did threaten the capitalist class then they will go full oppressive, as they have done in the past. You can look at how worker organization was violently put down in US in the 30s as an example.
And I simply don't expect this to achieve much of anything based on looking at prior experience. I also don't think people should wait for a revolution. What people should do is educate others and explain the fundamental problems with the capitalist system, why it's heading into a crisis now, and what sort of system should replace it.
As I've mentioned before, people don't try to make violent revolutions happen as their first choice of finding a resolution, it's the last resort measure that people end up arriving at because the class that holds power does not allow for any peaceful resolution.
We end up with revolutions, as class contradictions sharpen within society. More and more people start demanding change as they see their standards of living erode, and the ruling class inevitably resorts to increased repression. At that point, the revolution becomes the only path towards resolution of these contradictions.
The standard of living erodes in the West because resources are starting to be shared globally. A communist revolution would have even less resources unless there is a willingness to continue exploitation.
Even if the revolution comes and currently big cooperatives are bound to be destroyed, why not start a small cooperative restaurant now?
US is a huge country with a ton of natural resources. This isn't an actual problem. The reason there is a problem is because the capital owning class would rather do production outside of US in cheaper markets, and the mechanics of that are explained here in great detail. A communist revolution would result in people in US using their own resources for the benefit of the workers. No exploitation is necessary here.
Nobody is stopping you from starting a coop restaurant now, it's just not going to address the fundamental problems in the capitalist system that are continuously pushing the entire system towards the inevitable collapse. The very mechanics of capitalism are unsustainable. The only possible paths are either a revolution or descent into full on fascism.
The text is interesting but the author doesn't seem to know that Smith's invisible hand was invented to explain away the risk of outsourcing that was already known back then.
But outsourcing is not bad. It spreads wealth globally. It's interesting that you argue for isolation when communism usually is a global approach. That's the exploitation I was hinting at. You want to keep 'your' resources instead of sharing them with the world. But even if you do, look at China's history to know the problems that will come with that strategy.
Do you remember the end of the text? That virtualization will make any revolution unnecessary. If you want communist relations, you better come up with something new if you don't want to find a new way to have working cooperatives.
No, outsourcing does not spread wealth globally. In fact, the very opposite of that is happening in practice.
I'm not arguing for isolationism at all. I'm arguing for the country to leverage its own resources and labour to meet its needs without relying on exploitation of other countries. In fact, this has to be the foundation for any sort of public ownership where the workers own the means of production.
That's not what exploitation is.
The problems of having constant and consistent improvement of standard of living for its population without suffering economic crashes every decade as seen under capitalism?
The text simply explains the mechanics of financial capitalism which led to deindustrialization of the west. I do not have to agree with every single conclusion it makes. I don't have t come up with anything new because I'm perfectly happy with the kinds of relations USSR, Cuba, or China managed to achieve. I see these as a real and tangible improvement on relations in western societies under capitalism.
Nobody is stopping you from implementing your cooperativist utopia, but I'm simply explaining to you that it's an unlikely outcome in practice. You can do what you want with that.