What Is Wrong with Communism? - no-one-is-here
======
082349872349872
According to the recently re-elected polish President, whatever was wrong with
it, was not as wrong as granting LGBT rights.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
europe-53039864](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53039864)

(Duda was born 16 May 1972, so he ought to have some personal experience of
their relative "wrongness")

------
uberman
At a macro level, with communism, the state will inevitably fail to predict
the correct demand for products and the result will be that a black market
will rise for products with more demand than supply and the wasteful
destruction/dumping of products with more supply than demand. The rise of
black markets in particular will ultimately undermine the communist's promise
of "to each according to their need". Almost all modern communistic systems
are actually mixed economic systems reflecting that a pure communistic model
is not feasible.

At a micro level, communism saps the entrepreneurial energy from economies as
it relies on the state to determine what goods and services should be
produced. It also potentially acts like a disincentive to work as work is
performed for the national well-being not the personal well-being. Not that
all individuals reject the notion of patriotic work for the betterment of the
nation but I feel that more are incentivized by personal rather than patriotic
rewards.

Traditionally, communism leads to the restriction of movement and voice for
the citizenry. Any system that needs to erect laws and walls to keep its own
citizens from leaving or voicing their displeasure seems to be a system that
is fundamentally flawed. I am not saying that any other "pure" ideology
(particularly free market capitalism) is without faults, but you asked
specifically about faults related to communism.

------
vladmk
There's nothing inherently wrong with the system, in fact it's amazing. The
problem with it is people, the government and people can easily get corrupted
leading it into a North Korea like system politicians can take advantage of.

~~~
kazinator
There is plenty of wrong with any form of collectivism, no matter how just are
its courts, and how free is its administration from corruption.

------
eucryphia
He says it like it's a bad thing:

"The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with
them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of
production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of
existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting
uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier
ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and
venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become
antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that
is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses
his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the
bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere,
settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere."

— Marx 'Communist Manifesto'

------
CLPadvocate
The problem (with Communism and with answering your question) is that
Communism was never implemented yet, thus making it hard to say to what degree
it can be implemented at all. The most "communist" thing that the world had
were different collective communities, for example the original Kibbutzim in
Israel, which can at least be considered "socialist" to a large degree. On the
other hand none of them were state entities, which means they were heavily
influenced by a surrounding state form.

From a formal point of view, Communism can be considered one of the purest
forms of democracy, which makes it susceptible to the largest problem every
democracy has - the people. Any democratic society relies extremely on the
people's good will, (social) responsibility, and education. That makes it also
the most fragile state form possible - as soon as even one of the criteria
fails, the society inevitably changes. It can be a more or less slow evolution
into an aristocracy or a monarchy, or a rather revolutionary change into an
ochlocracy, oligarchy or a tyranny.

~~~
kazinator
Various small scale systems such as farming or housing co-operatives are
arguably forms of implemented communism. However, those are not complete,
autonomous governments with their own borders, armies and justice systems. :)

~~~
CLPadvocate
that's pretty much also what I said :)

------
maxharris
the individual is the smallest minority group you can possibly have

------
realpanzer
No matter what intentions communists had, path to Communism always led to
tyrrany.

~~~
kazinator
No instance of communism started with good intentions. The starting point was
the seizure of property, which is already a form of tyranny.

Imagine being declared scum because you own a business, and having almost
everything taken away from you.

~~~
CLPadvocate
but also to be honest, most of the "businessmen" were scum - we're talking
about 19th/beginning of the 20ieth century, where a worker was worth basically
nothing. 16 or even up to 20 working hours per day were usual, even for
children of ages of 10-12. and that for a salary that was barely sufficient to
rent a corner (literally!) in a room and a bit to eat (and you don't want to
know what was in this food).

there were exceptions, but even the better working conditions were so far
below today's standards that calling e.g. the factory owner "scum" would
actually be way too mild.

~~~
kazinator
In 20th century communist revolutions, small business owners such as
storekeepers had their property taken away.

It is not a historically correct view that only those business people who
matched evil stereotypes from Charles Dickens novels were targeted for
dispossession, and everyone else could continue on as before.

It simply became a crime to own property pretty much beyond personal
belongings.

Your own little farm, book store, whatever.

Talk to anyone of Chinese descent who got on a boat and the hell out of
Vietnam when the communists won the war.

Speaking of descent, these communist takeovers have been tinged with
racism/xenophobia. Whereas in Vietnam it was the Chinese elite with money and
education, in the The Soviet revolution, the situation was heavily anti-
semitic since a lot of the business owners were Jews.

Modern liberals in America, especially anyone too young to remember and relate
to the cold war are, know basically fuck all about any of this. No first hand
account of anything, just indoctrination from politically-correct sources.

I myself am a refugee from former Czechoslovakia. I actually lived in
communism.

Ironically, now I once again may not criticize communism. Wait, that's not
even what I'm doing. Rather, I may not make uncontroversial, true statements
about communism that Stalin would likely agree with if he were here.

------
eucryphia
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-23/video-uyghurs-
shaved-...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-23/video-uyghurs-shaved-
blindfolded-xinjiang-train-station-china/11537628)

