

Communist Principles in Design - zan2434
http://zainshah.net/blog/2012/09/communist-principles-in-design/

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jicksta2
"With too much freedom comes far too much responsibility; not that users
aren’t entitled to full responsibility but, honestly, they don’t want it."

Equating communism in general to a restriction of freedom is simply erroneous.
A core tenet of communism is democratic control over production. There are two
main branches of communist philosophy: statist and anti-statist. The anarcho-
communists, who are more liberal than any other political philosophy I can
think of, would never say that a freedom must be restricted by someone above.

"Authoritarian" is what the author meant. Ironically, capitalism exists to
allow for the design of somewhat decentralized, somewhat competitive
authoritarian institutions that will control production. What he's describing
is more inherently capitalist than communist. He's confused by the fact that
the USSR was simply a state-capitalist society just like the US is, only with
weaker trust networks.

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greenyoda
"Equating communism in general to a restriction of freedom is simply
erroneous."

Perhaps, but it's certainly an easy mistake to make, since historically, all
governments that have claimed to be communist have been authoritarian or
totalitarian, and none have had democratic control over production (or really
over much of anything). Some of these governments hold "elections", but who is
going to be in charge after the election is never in doubt.

