Thread: Re-writing Communism

Originally Posted by Spartiate

One of your issues with communism seems to be that highly skilled workers receive little pay after such a long education process. I have already explained how in communism, there is no such thing as "pay". You receive no monetary compensation whatsoever for your work. Your incentive to work hard is to keep the system healthy, or else everything falls apart. In exchange, the state provides you with a home, food, clothes, transportation, utilities, you name it... And in an advanced country, this means a very comfortable lifestyle. Now the question is, as a doctor, do you feel more important to society than a factory worker, or a teacher, or a police man? Are their places in society not just as necessary as yours? If everybody enjoys a comfortable lifestyle, does it really matter that they can live as you can, or must you enjoy a higher standard of living still?

In practice this has never worked out. The result has been just a bunch of highly educated people receiving meagre pay and meagre rations. And yes people in communist Russia did receive monetary compensation for their work;although, very little. We already live in an advanced state though, and most people do pretty well with the system. I don't see a beaucracy being able or competent enough to do so. Even the poor in our country and the states live very well at any rate (compared to other countries). Like i have said though, Money is a huge incentive for people, if it is not a huge incentive, then it is certainly part of the package. It is what drives ingenuity, competition and what keeps quality people working to earn the money they deserve. People can't be counted on to work just for the common good or just so that they can have an "alright" life style. They need the incentive. Take the contrast in Public Schools and Private ones.

That said, if we are on the topic of revising Communism, then i suppose a system within the beaucracy which operates much like a Capitalis one.

Example: where good teachers who prove themselves are rewarded and keep their jobs, and the ones who are not up to scratch are let go. But then the issue of rewarding the good teachers with higher pay comes into the spot light, since i take it a communist system would want to pay everyone just enough to get by or at least enough to live a basic existence.

See UM's post for details.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

On the shortcomings of the Soviet Union in this respect, like I said, in a socialist country (the USSR was a socialist country working towards communism), it is up to the government to place a value on its workers. I know that the Soviet Union highly valued its factories and farms (hammer and sickle, eh), as most of the original Soviet base were peasants and factory workers while the intellectuals of the Russian Empire sided with the monarchy. In any case, that's what this thread is about, improving the system. A future socialist nation would simply have to revise its employment compensation in accordance with modern needs.

In my own opinion,, I don't think neither socialism nor communism need to be revised. In this respect, I believe that instead of revising such a system we (in north america) can learn from Northern and Western Europe's succesful marriage of socialist principles with a modern capitalist state.

I don't quite understand why you are advocating a pure communist or at the very least extremely socialistic state. The truth is, we have plenty of precedences that show that such a state would not work;while, at the same time we have a succesful demonstration of the marriage of socialism and Capitalism.

In the previous post of mine, i demonstrated why I believe having the state as the only employer is a huge down side, and that it limits ingenuity at the same time. Multiple employers provides competition and reward for the best workers. In Soviet Russia for instance there was no accountability for workers in regard to quality of their labour or negligance most of the time. People just didn't get fired. This hardly promotes innovation.

We also adressed the short comings of a pure capitalistc system in regards to an education system, and I gave support for why I believed that the best of both ideologies could be married into a system that works. (We laready have a viable example in Europe and as you have pointed out Quebec which in my opinion is more European than North American)


There are just too many problems with a Communist state.

In the case of communist-like dictatorships, sure these nations had some economic policies that were inspired by communism, but communism is also a political theory. These dictatorships, often based on a sole leader (Stalin, Mao, Kim, Castro, etc.) bare no political resemblance to the communist ideal. Communism preaches power to the masses, not a single leader, and that is why I do not consider these countries to be communist.

The leaders of these countries which were dictatorships were communist, the problem was that the government system really gave the protleate (sp) any real say in the governance. Thus they had no checks and balances and everything was done according to their behest. Again, it was communist, just without any accountability for the leaders so they undertook projects and governance styles which were opressive by and large.

I touched on the issue of "the communist ideal" in my previous posts and why I deem it to be impossible. There have always been huge problems with a pure communist state or one that aspired to become that ideal.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

On the idea that lack of competition stifles innovation or motivation to work, I say that it is necessity that drives these. Competition is only one form of necessity, in the past we have seen very innovative results from survival, warfare, etc. In communism, innovation and motivation would come from the necessity to keep the system healthy, as every person forms a cog in a very complex machine.

My point was that competition provides innovation in a way that a communist system doesn't. When you have multiple parties competing they can come up with something much better than just a group that has no one else to compete again. That's the difference between a monolithic team of researchers hired by the government and engineers and scientists under the employe of corporations. They have much more pressure to innovate and come up with something that can one up the competition. Invariably the competition is what provides the most innovation, not just merey neccesity.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

The problem with mixing capitalism with communism, is that whenever a society is predominately capitalist, the government will pay more attention to its industry-driving corporations instead of its social programs (since the corporations drive the economy and social programs exist for the "less fortunate"). For a socialized institution to truly thrive, it must have a monopoly. With a monopoly, the government is forced to provide the best quality services (assuming it wishes to take care of its people). It is a shame that many people have developed an "us vs them" approach to the government, seeing anything stemming from the state as untrustworthy and against the greater good. We could make a whole thread on how it got to that point...

Well, I think the opposite is true in many respects. Having lived in Canada the health-care system is not the best and to be honest, private practices can do things betters than government. But, I think you may have a good point here.

But what do you mean by the government paying more attention to the industries? The government wouldn't neccesarily run the industries, so besides regulations and taxation how would its attention be diverted?

Originally Posted by Spartiate

I live in the province of Quebec in Canada, probably the most heavily socialized area in North America. It is a thriving example of successful socialism, especially considering our proximity to extremely capitalist neighbors. Throughout our history, we have been culturally isolated from our English surroundings, and the people of Quebec have developed the notion of "Solidarity" to look after each other. Here healthcare is free, college is free and university is heavily subsidized, most city services are ran by the municipal government, television and radio stations are ran by the state, daycares are virtually free, the list goes on and on... One of the most successful examples of Quebec nationalization has been our electricity provider, a highly profitable state corporation responsible for some of the most complex civil engineering projects in North America. Frankly, we have come to expect a lot from our government and we wouldn't have it any other way.

I agree with this system, but let us not forget that capitalism plays a role in this as well. It is a finely tuned symbotic relationship between the two forces at play. One extreme over the other would fuck things up.

What are your problems with the state of things your home province of Quebec, that you think pure communism could fix? By the sound of it things seem pretty tight over there. You have both the benefits of capitalism and socialization (sp?). State control over all aspects of the economy would be a mistake.

Originally Posted by Spartiate

Don't worry, English isn't my first language ...

Impressive. Too bad English Canadians don't show the same willingness to learn another language to such an advanced level.