Under capitalism, a lot of the time, highly dangerous jobs are also highly paid. Kind of a balance that the individual decides to engage with. Same idea behind getting an advanced degree in STEM or law. I think of my job by example, I’m a power plant operator at a large combined cycle plant. No fucking shot I’d be doing this if the pay wasn’t good. I’m around explosive and deadly hot shit all day.
Why are some people veterinarians? Specialized and low paying for the amount of education needed and debt incurred.
Why are some people firefighters? Dangerous and not particularly high paying.
Your personal motivations don’t represent any society, at large.
Your premise is that people only choose jobs because of the salary? I reject that premise. All information I’m aware of tells us that most people choose jobs because of aptitude, interest, skills and prestige, not because of financial concerns (given that all jobs compensate equally).
It should also be noted that communism doesn’t mean uniform pay. You need to go back to the drawing board and rephrase your question.
Also it’s absurd to suggest that capitalism rewards dangerous jobs more, when it clearly doesn’t. Your example is terrible because power generation is heavily regulated and very safe. The most dangerous jobs are extraction or harvesting jobs, and they can be high paid…but are not well paid in the most dangerous circumstances.
I agree with your sentiment but it’s absurd to tell OP that his job is “very safe”. Until you’ve seen what heavy industry is really like, I’d refrain from commenting on it. I’m an industrial electrician and I’ve worked in steel mills, foundries, factories, power plants, etc.
It can truly be the wild west out there. Operators have a tough job in often sketchy situations, heavy machinery, around nasty chemicals and fumes and just the dirtiest grime. Mills fucking suck for example. We’ve been working on the Oswego plant in upstate New York which is the largest supplier of aluminum for Ford. It burned down, twice. There was a giant ass hole in the roof from the fire and like 12 feet of water in the basement from all the fire departments spraying where all the electrical equipment is. Then when they were fixing shit, another fire happened from someone welding on the roof.
This is an extreme example, but it is insane how the world works sometimes. I was 22 working on a solar power plant out west and the maintenance guys told me everything was locked out and off. I do a dead check and find 1000v on the busbar from a row of solar panels on some shit I was just about to work on. “Oh yeah that disconnect box is broke, we don’t shut that one off” was the response.
Safety and regulation can only get you so far unfortunately. Safety is always #1 all these places say but you really gotta be on and alert and conscious of what’s going on around you at all times. Injuries can happen in an instant
I think there’s a difference between a job being dangerous and a job having statistically significant dangerous outcomes. What you seem to be describing is a job with many dangers, but you don’t provide data on if the job actually produces outcomes caused by a dangerous environment more than most jobs. Something like this provides evidence on what jobs are statistically dangerous in the US at least: https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm
the highly dangerous jobs usually are done by red states people: crab fishing in alaska, Oil drilling, fracking, lumber, because the lack of Economy and jobs in thier own state, which is probably on purpose. it all pads the pockets of the elites.
assuming this isnt the case with communist top down RULE, it should be STEM fields, including psychology, environmental conservation, social sciences is a priority.
For advanced STEM degrees, there are people who just enjoy learning that sort of thing and applying their knowledge.
In the same vein, some folks are just attracted to dangerous and difficult jobs because they get a sense of purpose or identity from it.
Others it’s community. I knew a guy who did 20 years active duty military, then joined the national guard, then took a job for the same national guard unit as a DoD civilian and stayed on until they forced him to retire. They had practically drag the guy out. He never did anything but bitch and complain about the work he spent more than 40 years doing, he sounded like kinda hated his job, but he liked being a part of the military.
Without subversive profit incentives, the incentives become to make necessary-but-undesirable jobs more safe/pleasant/automated. Without worrying about their next paycheque, people can spend time on the issue.
This requires a post-scarcity society that is fairly well developed, before they try to convert to communism.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that capitalism pays dangerous or unpleasant jobs well, though. Some do, but lots don’t.
I happen to find working with patients at high risk of violent behaviors to be fulfilling. That said I think if people were less worried about what immediate benefit my patients have to society (as opposed to the fact that any of those people in the community could slip in the shower and get a TBI and become a very unpleasant person in under a month and would want someone to care for them too) I would probably be allocated more resources to do my job a lot more safely.
I don’t think communism means “everyone gets paid the same regardless of work”.
Also capitalism doesn’t mean that people get paid more or less depending on type of work.
Capitalist means that means of productions are privately owned by capital. While in communism means of production are owned by work.
At least that’s the theory.
Alright, so, could you adress my question though? I know that sounds cunty, but, I’m not sure how else to respond.
They did answer your question. Same way in a “capitalist” society: those who take more responsibility or risk earn more benefit. More/better food, more rank, more commission, more salary, better housing, better medical care, etc.
There are plenty of examples of this happening and also not happening under both capitalism and communism. Is there a trend? That’s a very long debate.
So, a cast system…
It’s spelled “caste,” and castes are (critically) hereditary. Leaving a caste you were born into is virtually impossible.
People who do more/harder work can get compensated an appropriate amount. Note that this runs at odds to the current system where a CEO makes 1000x their employees salary despite not working 1000x as hard.
Ayeeee got me. I still don’t see how that doesnt just create the same type of class based system we already have.
Because everyone would have access to the same opportunities and same schools etc. Those with better talents or a better work ethic will probably make more money. Instead of today where families hoard wealth through generations.
So different levels of society make different levels of money, allowing them to afford better qualities of life. You’re talking about capitalism.
Under Maoism or Stalinism, aka the dictatorship of the dictator pretending to act for the proletariat? You are ordered to do it, for your own good and the good of the Party. If you don’t follow orders, you just get shot; and your family is put in a prison camp, your children raped and beaten and forced to labor.
Under real stateless, classless communism? Nobody knows, because that hasn’t existed yet. Anyone claiming to know exactly how it might operate is talking out of their hat. Marx is pretty clear on that.
I mean, there was a time before states and classes were invented.
Yeah, where the dangerous job was “hunt something so you don’t starve”, the motivation for doing the dangerous job is pretty obvious.
Not if you live in any kind of group. “Why should I go hunt? You do it.” And then I get excluded from the group - that could still happen.
(I’m spitballing, I know nothing about anything, just interested bystander)
If you’re interested, you could look it up.
Here’s a quick start.
I genuinely appreciate the shithead responses. Thats how I handle threads a lot of the time too.
Not meant purely as shithead responses. I can’t contribute anything substantial to the discussion but I’m interested, so I’m throwing out random thoughts to bits and pieces and trying not to sound like I consider myself an authority on anything.
You are describing shit head responses.
Yeah, let’s go ask the cavepeople of 30,000 years ago how they handled dangerous industrial jobs in a communist country.
That’s a different topic, isn’t it? I was responding specifically to the notion that a stateless and classless society has never existed.
When was this time when they never existed? A state is just a government and last time I checked anthropology pushed that back to family-ish tribes. Classes are basically tiers and you can see related splits in some family units. I think you’re either going back to monkeys, or romanticising
Both “state” and “class” have specific definitions that were developed at some point. Of course you can find similar structures anywhere living things are coexisting, that doesn’t mean they meet the common conceptions of “state” and “class”.
Agreed. But it sounds like you care about the time before these mechanisms occurred and then my argument is that they have similar mechanisms that trace back further than the specific terms you’re using
Yes, generally outside the context of civilization though. Combining stateless and classless with civilization is the hard part.
Most people who specialize do it just for the love of the game.
They are apathetic wether people pay them or not.
I went to school for four years, obtained 7 separate licenses and accrued a decade of experience. I am absolutely not apathetic as to whether or not I get paid.
Granted, but you are not everyone.
Max Planck definitely was not motivated by greed.
I don’t think developing a skill and wanting to be compensated for it is greed. Its just an equitable exchange of goods/services.
Are you suggesting your skill is more valuable than others? If so by which standard? What determines how valuable a skill is?. Or do you think other people don’t develop their skills as well?
I don’t know what you do for a living, but realistically unless you are a farmer your job is not actually essential. People can survive decades without doctors, can police themselves, etc, granted it would be a worse life than currently, but it’s survivable (and I don’t think you’re in either of these positions either, if I were to bet I would say you work in something that’s completely irrelevant to society but that earns money to some rich guy). However everyone needs to eat, so why do you think your skill is more important than the skill of the people actually keeping you alive?.
In my post I list my job. I am a power plant operator. I hold an engineering degree and many specific licenses. A big part of why I make the money I do is because in my job, I am required to run at the danger, secure it and get things working again. If i didn’t people would die, indirectly in the hospital and directly because catastrophic failure and inability to contain it means literal explosions. I run at the thing shooting death out and make it stop, without a laps in electric feed. Look into how dangerous steam is, majority of the steam I work with is 1800 PSI. We keep the lights on at a major hospital and several hundred homes. If the rest of the grid collapsed, we can black start, run as an island and provide a safe haven to thousands. I think the risk I assume, expertise I have and sacrifices I make mean I should earn more than someone who stocks shelves at the grocery store. Ironically, I am also technically a farmer too, but I make almost no money doing that because I have a small operation. I produce and sell honey, lamb meat, eggs, chicken meat and dried beans.
By definition, it kinda is.
You are looking for monetary compensation for a skill you developed.
Edit to add: you are not a greedy person by wanting to survive. Neither are notable scientists completely altruistic. But the most memorable ones that leave a mark are not concerned with surviving. That may be because of their heritage more than their motivation.
Alright.
All the love to you homie.
Why do people do things like rock climbing and other activities that have a high risk of injury or death when mistakes are made without being paid? Some people find dangerous stuff to be more enjoyable than less dangerous stuff.
Most dangerous jobs under capitalism are NOT well paid. People will do dangerous jobs for many reasons, but pay is rarely one of them.
Im speaking from my anecdotal experience of working a dangerous job. I do it 1. Because I genuinely find it interesting 2. Because it pays better than most jobs. If the pay part wasn’t there I’d find something equally interesting in engineering that paid well.
Your job isn’t dangerous. It’s potentially dangerous…but well-regulated and rated as very safe by employment standards.
Resource extraction jobs, for example, are statistically the least safe and tend to not pay well.
You get more stuff, more status, etc. Or alternatively, penalized, threatened, etc. Whatever it takes to motivate people to do the job. Even if paper money isn’t a thing in communist societies (which it still is), money’s just a symbol for debt. You’re going to get something, somehow, for a job people greatly desire to be done without enough doers and they’ll become “indebted” to you disproportionately for doing it.
In Soviet society for instance, you might be provided a nice apartment in central Moscow if you were doing something “important”. This assignment would be via your government-controlled employer and their agreements with some other government bureau that officially managed the buildings to dole them out to select people.
So, same deal as anywhere else, just a different mechanism. Higher ration, bigger dacha, jump to the front of the line to get a car, etc.
Compensation is usually not much about how dangerous a job is, though. It’s more about how many people are willing to do it for any number of reasons. Some people are just not very risk-adverse, and figure they’re going to be fine at a job that is more dangerous. And they’ll be compensated at a normal level as long as there are enough such people to fill the need.
Short answer: We don’t know
Longer answer: We hope technology will be fully developed by then to do that stuff for us
One of my favorite answers so far, thank you!
Communism doesn’t mean no money, undesirable labor will always have to be incentivized. I think most people would prefer to be incentivized with the promise of access to luxuries, higher pay, more vacation time, recognized status in the community, rather than the threat of your survival, housing, healthcare, education, etc. You would still have taxes, but critical infrastructure would be owned by the laborers and the state.
Ideally, because there would be no individual ownership of infrastructure or the means of production. So, again ideally, the profits are equitably distributed through labor instead of shareholders. One of the goals of this kind of system would be the elimination of class. Not because people can’t make more money and have more luxuries, but because everyone has the same opportunities. Whereas most of the world today you can just pay for those opportunities.
Now, how exactly do you pull this off? Idk, other than a massive cultural shift. I’m sure someone with a reply telling me what I got wrong will have that answer.
This isn’t entirely accurate. What you described is a ‘socialist’ community, the so-called ‘lower stage of communism’. In this stage, there would still remain incentive based structures for labour. It employs a policy of “from each according to his ability to each according to his works”. Inequality still exists as explained by Marx here:
This equal right is still constantly stigmatized by a bourgeois limitation… one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another… Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal share in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another. — Critique of the Gotha Programme
It is during this lower stage that the transformation of social relations and productive forces gradually alters the motivations for labor to a more virtue-based one.
The problem most communism skeptic people have with communism is that they reason within the current modes of subsistence and assume it is impossible.
“What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” — Critique of the Gotha Programme
Marx also stated that he expected us to remain in the lower stage of communism for centuries, but it is during this stage that we prepare the productive forces to sustain communism and start producing goods for their use-value rather than for their exchange value, so that we can achieve the higher stage of communism which employs 'from each according to their ability to each according to his needs. This higher stage is truly classless because we would supposedly have solved scarcity, it would be stateless because people would organize communally to meet their needs, and it would be moneyless because the means of production and means of subsistence would be free for all to access.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor… has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want… only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!’ — Critique of the Gotha Programme
based on history: not being sent to gulag?
For some people they choose these fields out of a sense of duty to the community but this is rare and not likely to fill the required productive capacity. The end goal should be automating these fields and a communist society run by workers would inherently work towards this goal. However in the mean time incentives like an early retirement and reduced working hours would likely boost numbers significantly. This is a sacrifice though as it means more people are required to do the job and these workers stop contributing to society at an earlier age, depending on the material conditions and specific stage of development this could be much harder to accomplish in which case that sense of duty would have to be reinforced by culture. The socialist transition is no paradise, it requires dangerous work and personal sacrifice to create a better world. There are likely other incentives that could be implemented more easily but these are the first two I thought of.
Thats a pretty pragmatic answer, I like it!
This is a good answer and I would just like to mention the democratic / assembly nature of communism. If you have an assembly where the community has to decide “who will do this tough / dangerous job?” and someone steps up to do it, they will get the respect of the community (and probably some sexual interest from the sex(es) of their choice tbh). The human-nature aspect is important, as we are social animals. We already have this going on already, like why do game crackers and pirate groups do what they do, at significant personal danger? Reputation, among other things. That goes back to the warez scene and even to phreakers and whoever else was hacking before them.
It could also be that a certain individual enjoys the danger or difficulty of the job.
Let me try this in levels.
Under the transitionary phase between capitalism and communism, there is still currency/money, there is still commodity production, there are still bank accounts. So, for things that society needs but people are less willing to do, the answer is compensation. Communist parties have always compensated people for their work, yes even prison laborers, and for the work that fewer people are qualified for or fewer people desire to do, that compensation is increased to create incentives.
When we reduce that to simplest form, the answer is incentives.
Before capitalism, people still did dangerous work and difficult work. They didn’t do it because they were going to get rich (they weren’t), they did it because the consequences of not doing it were dire.
In feudal and slave societies, this is because the consequences, though they might be social, we’re personalized by the oppression of lords and masters. Lords and masters beat, tortured, and killed serfs and slaves to incentivize them to do dangerous and difficult work.
But what about before those societies? In nomadic societies, people did difficult and dangerous work because it needed to be done, and the consequences of not doing it were felt by the whole tribe. People weren’t tortured and murdered to incentivize them to do the dangerous work. In fact, people got together and tried to make the dangerous work less dangerous.
Reducing those things down, we have an understanding of what “difficult and dangerous” work really is - socially necessary work.
We also understand how it can be solved without incentives - socially collaborative problem solving.
So, in the transition between capitalism and communism, we still incentives and we still have socially necessary work.
Why do we call it a transitionary period? What is happening to make a transition?
The transitionary period is the period of socially collaborative problem solving to make socially necessary work both less voluminous and less risky (which includes risk of harm as well as risk of understaffing and risk of knowledge loss). No one knows that communism looks like yet. But we know what contemporary experiments exist in reducing the volume and risk of socially necessary labor - robotics, real-time systems monitoring and feedback, new construction methods, new chemical science, new applications of physics, etc.
As it turns out, sedentary lifestyles are also incredibly dangerous and lead to huge numbers of premature deaths. So it’s unlikely that communism will go the same direction capitalism seems to go, with huge numbers of people sitting in office chairs or couches for decades on end.
That was a shocking amount of writing that didn’t really say anything.
Edit~ sorry for being a dick
Read closer. It said:
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we don’t know the exact forms and processes that communism will take as it is still being built for the first time in modern history
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during the transitionary phase, which all communist countries you can name are in and no country has ever yet left, incentives are and have been compensation, meaning money
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prior incentives from pre-capitalist societies were violence
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prior incentives from primitive societies were the outcomes of doing the work
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without monetary incentives, primitive societies didn’t wonder about how to incentivize people to do dangerous work, they wondered about how to make dangerous work less dangerous
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as communism is built from capitalism, compensation is the incentive that will be used while society also works on reducing the need for incentives by making dangerous work less dangerous or making it obsolete. A communist society will be one where the incentives are sufficient to get the work done without being so large that they create an upper class of rich people
I also should have said the richest among us under capitalism have never done dangerous work and that people who do dangerous work rarely become capital owners anyway.
There is nothing contradictory about people who do more difficult or dangerous getting special privileges (which is all extra salary really amounts to) under communism.
I will read and respond to this properly by adding an edit to this comment. Im busy at the moment but I do want to genuinely thank you for putting the amount of time and effort into your answers in this thread. I know I’m answering in a kind of snarky way to most comments. Don’t take the snark as disdain for you, just a skeptical and generally snarky guy.
Edit~ thank you for the response and all the time you took crafting it. What I understand from your response is essentially the following. We do not necessarily know what compensation for less appealing/dangerous/years of specialization jobs will look like. However, it’s likely there will likely be a quantifiable difference in quality of life. I accept that answer as its the most reasonable I’ve seen in this thread. The people saying things like “some people just enjoy a hard days work” still infuriate me though…
Was any of it
capitalismcommunism? It still reads as being focused on the transition and basically using resources, pride and threatsEdit: Corrected “capitalism” to be “communism” 🤦♂️I probably should just get off the internet for the day
I’m not sure I understand your question. Was any of what capitalism?
Yes allocation of resources is essentially how a large number of human needs are met and that would not be different under connunism. Only the system of resource allocation changes, not the basic science of how humans operate. Need chemicals, need energy, can’t do that without allocation of resources.
I don’t think I mentioned anything resembling pride, but I also don’t know that pride is a sustainable way to run a society. Threats are also sort of universal regardless of system. They exist in all societies. It would be the system of threats that would change
🤦♂️ Sorry, I meant communism and wrote capitalism. I’ve probably made larger errors here though so don’t feel the need to respond
But for “pride” I meant a very broad generic doing it for others / prestige / feels good / vision / ideology.
was any of it communism?
It would be better to say that all of it was the movement for communism but none of it was a communist economy. In that way I think it becomes clear. It’s like training for football. Is any of the physical training “football”? No. But all of it is towards football and the actions are specific to the movement for football.
Similarly, all of what we call communism in our day to day discourse is the actual communist movement working on the process of bringing about a communist economy (or just “communism”) but, since communism hasn’t been achieved yet, it’s still very experimental and unknown. Every step produces new empirical learning which gets studied by communists all over the world to analyze what works and what doesn’t.
I see you didn’t mention anything like that. I just assumed a “carrot” to your mentions of “sticks”
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Yeah. I opened the comments because I was genuinely interested in how communism tackles this and was kind of looking forward to a thought-provoking answer. The above just kind of dances around the question entirely. I especially loved this line:
No one knows that communism looks like yet.
Gives me major “trust me bro” energy. Kind of reminds me of the religion I was in as a kid where every difficult question was answered with “no one fully understands God, you just have to have faith”.
Sorry, I figured if people were asking questions that maybe they would have done some reading beforehand and gotten some contexts.
A communist society is an academic or theoretical concept, much like a capitalist society is. Every country in the world that has implemented capitalism has done it with different specific characteristics.
No one has yet made a communist country, only communist parties that set building communism as their goal.
It’s not about “trust me” or “have faith”. You can look at every country ever run by a communist party and the incentives for dangerous work have always been more salary. The incentive for more difficult or rarified work have always been more salary.
But that’s not that useful of an answer because obviously there has to be difference between capitalist and communist countries.
So I tried to explain how we think of it theoretically. Difficult and dangerous work has always existed as it has always been socially necessary. Solving for how this work gets done is the job of a society. It has been solved through collectivism (primitive society), physical violence (feudal and slave society), and wage slavery (capitalist society). Communism will solve it through collectivism, because that’s what it definitionally means, and so long as it’s solved through wage slavery or physical violence, it doesn’t meet the definition of communism.
No one knew what capitalism would look like before it emerged either. Capitalism in its current form took centuries to develop in fits and starts all over Europe. And while it tried to emerge, monarchs and feudal lords fought against it, hard and violently.
So when I say no one knows what communism looks like, I am not saying “trust me”. I’m saying it’s a problem to be solved through the process of building society. Just like there were new problems to be solved under capitalism that not only did people not understand but many problems emerged that people could never have predicted.
I posed the question because I’m not a communist, but, I’ve also not looked into it very much. I’m not fully in support of whatever the fuck is happening right now. So I figure, maybe some good answers will help me grasp why so many people recommend communism. Turns out its kind of a cliche question, yet, nobody seems to have an answer. Wild to me, personally, to advocate for something so world shifting without clear answers to massive questions like this. I love the comments that are just like “well some people just really like to work hard” alright, I’m not betting society on the hope some people are willing to work a 10× harder/more dangerous job for the same level of benefit.
I think it’s more nuanced then you let on. People in general have vastly different aptitudes, interests, risk tolerance, etc…, as I’m sure you’re aware. Not everyone would be a hippie artist given the chance. I don’t think it’s crazy to assume that when society provides for everyone’s basic needs, including the ability to pursue leisure activties, there would still be people that want to work in combined cycle power plants because that interests them and it’s something that provides real value to society.
I think another important thing to consider is that when the need for capitalist growth and profit motives are removed from society we wouldn’t need as much power and as many combined cycle power plants. People wouldn’t be addicted to hoarding shit and consuming, advertisers wouldn’t be trying to convince people to do so, and we wouldn’t be making as much stuff. We would be allocating resources in a way that is just and equitable for all members of society and the environment. Workers could work a few hours a day or a week a month, because the plant wouldn’t demand the maximum amount of labour value they can legally get out of each worker. That doesn’t sound like so bad a life to me, I think enough people would think so too.
At the end of the day, it’s like a lot of the other comments are saying: it’s hard to imagine a world without capitalism because we haven’t tried it.
Please keep in mind that I have read very little of the actual literature and am woefully uninformed on the topic of communism. This is just my interpretation of things might work based on the little I’ve managed to pick up on the subject, but I thought my input would still be valuable.
Edit to add: The job might not be as dangerous either. Without profit incentive you wouldn’t need maximum up-time. You could do more shut downs and preventative maintenance. Take slower/safer approaches to tasks. I’ve never worked in a power plant, but I don’t think I’m too far off what might be posible.
I hate the excuse “we haven’t found the right version of communism” that communists use to explain away why no communist countries have succeeded.
That being said, I am no radical capitalist, I strongly believe in social democracy with a regulated market.
One of the core properties of man is wanting more, wanting better, why not exploit that property and let people accumulate more, get better stuff, as long as it is done in a regulated manner?
Tax the shit out of the rich, but let them have their high score board so they can brag to eachother.
My point is this, the world isn’t equal, there are hot areas, there are cold areas, there are wet areas, there are dry areas, there are areas with beautiful views, areas with nothing interesting to look at outside.
Say you build thousands of identical apartment, some will be colder than others, some will have more moisture, should an identical apartment with an amazing view be more expensive than an apartment with a view of a brick wall?
What about an apartment that just happens to get more light due to geography, should that be more expensive than an apartment that is in constant shade?
My point is that even in a “true” communist system there inequallities that can’t really be quantifiable, yet absolutely matter.
They matter more or less depending what a person want.
I hate the excuse “we haven’t found the right version of communism” that communists use to explain away why no communist countries have succeeded.
That’s not an accurate representation of the position at all.
A communist society is a theoretical concept. You can’t just become a communist society through a revolution. If you have a feudal society and then have a revolution, you now have a new leadership structure of a feudal society. If you have a capitalist society and you have a revolution, you have new leadership of a capitalist society.
When society says a country is communist, what society means is the country is run by a communist party. A communist party is an organization that aims to build communism from the current state of their society. It’s never been done before.
So communists are not saying that we haven’t found the right kind of communism. We’re saying that communism is arrived at through empirical, iterative experimentation. And the reality is that feudal and capitalist societies also emerge through a process of empirical iterative experimentation, it’s just not described that way and it’s not deliberately theorized about by the leadership. Communists parties are very self conscious and self aware. They know that there is no answer to “what will communism look like?” yet. They know the job is to iteratively build towards the key goals of eliminating class distinction, eliminating the profit incentive, and eliminating privatization of wealth. How that happens is in the realm of the experimental.
One of the core properties of man is wanting more, wanting better, why not exploit that property and let people accumulate more, get better stuff, as long as it is done in a regulated manner?
This is an argument from a mystical concept of human nature. I could easily retort with the statement that one of the core properties of man is having limited capacity for things (limited stomach size, limited time, only 2 hands, only 2 eyes and one area of focus, etc).
But all of human society, including primitive communist societies, used the human drive for progress to solve social problems. It’s just that in class society, wealth is arranged such that only the minority hold the wealth and power and they use that wealth and power to capture the drive for progress and channel it into maintaining their positions of power. This is obvious when you think about war and jingoism. The king is threatened by another king. He needs someone to fight the other king, but he won’t do it personally. So he has to get you to fight. But that would make your life worse. So he has to convince you that the other kingdom’s people are evil barbarians who want to take everything from you. Now you have to balance the risk of becoming a soldier versus the risk of losing everything by not becoming a soldier.
Human drive for progress is ever present. Under communism, the human drive for progress is taped to make society as a whole better. Before we get to communism, that will mean salaries. After communism, we’re not entirely sure what that means. It probably means vouchers for additional privileges, more leisure time, etc. basically everything you want money for, you would just get that thing you want without the need for a market system of rationing.
Tax the shit out of the rich, but let them have their high score board so they can brag to eachother.
This doesn’t solve the problem. The rich, with their high scoreboards, control the governments. That’s how liberal democracy with private property works. The rich started the governments. It was the rich merchants that wanted liberal democracy so they could have power as well as riches. They raised militias and killed kings and then built societies that elevated the merchants to positions of power. That’s done now. They aren’t going to let you use the governments their class made to remove them from power. They’ll allow high taxes if it’ll get you to stop fighting for a generation or two, and then they’ll use their power to accumulate wealth in other ways. At the end of the day, they control the majority of the planet’s resources and they can starve you out if you don’t like it.
My point is this, the world isn’t equal, there are hot areas, there are cold areas, there are wet areas, there are dry areas, there are areas with beautiful views, areas with nothing interesting to look at outside.
Yes, that’s why communism is an experimental process that each country will go through differently.
Say you build thousands of identical apartment, some will be colder than others, some will have more moisture, should an identical apartment with an amazing view be more expensive than an apartment with a view of a brick wall?
Perhaps we’re thinking on different scales here. A single building can hold thousands of apartments. We’re trying to solve the problem of housing for billions of people. It’s impossible to build identical apartments for all of them.
But yes, your point is well taken and not something that people don’t understand. There is an infinite amount of complexity in the world and a doubly infinite combination of personal preferences and aversions associated with that complexity.
People should be able to prioritize what’s important to them and they should have those needs met. There are limited resources and limited resources need a mechanism of rationing.
But with apartments, let’s look deeper. If you want to have a chance at getting an apartment you like, it needs to be available. The more we have of something, the easier it is to get. So what if we overbuilt housing? The problem with overbuilding housing only exists under capitalism. Apartments go unrented and landlords lose out on profits. Worse, abundance lowers prices since supply outpaces demand, so keeping a balance between supply and demand keeps profits high. Capitalist media has been dunking on China for years for over building housing, saying it’s tanking their housing market and prices are falling and so many apartments go unrented.
Which would rather have? An abundance of very cheap choices so that you aren’t competing with a mob for each apartment and driving the prices through the roof. Also, remember that in the USSR, even though salaries were low, housing still only cost 10% or less of monthly earnings. We’re talking about completely different scales here.
My point is that even in a “true” communist system there inequallities that can’t really be quantifiable, yet absolutely matter.
We know. That’s why we say communism can be described as “from each according to their ability, to each according their need”. We don’t distinguish between needs like food and water and needs like variety and sunlight and music and leisure time and self expression. They’re all needs.
Communism is not a program of everyone gets the same thing. This idea comes from one of the easier experiments to run while trying to build communism - mass produce a single thing, get economies of scale, meet the needs of the many. Food insecurity is climbing incredibly in the US, but to take the examples of Russia and China, they were experiencing famines every 4 years and 2 years, respectively, before their communist revolutions. One of the first goals was to feed all the people consistently and reliably. They ran lots of experiments - mass production, pest control, mechanization, etc. They failed a few times before getting it right. But eventually the average Soviet citizen was getting more calories than the average US citizen, and the bottom of Soviet society was significantly better off than the better of capitalist society.
The communist movement is greatly aware of the variety of needs and desires of the human species and far from denying those things, it is attempting to create a society where everyone gets their needs met, no one is homeless or impoverished, no one is driven to crime because they need to feed themselves or their family, etc .
But eventually the average Soviet citizen was getting more calories than the average US citizen, and the bottom of Soviet society was significantly better off than the better of capitalist society.
As somebody unfamiliar with this topic: Can you back that up please?
Question: what incentive is there?
Answer: incentives! (But in plural)I mean, would you rather I say that in general communist incentives are specifically this? There’s no way to answer that question. Prior to the abolition of money, the incentive is money. If the society moves to vouchers, the incentive is vouchers. That’s why I said “compensation”.
I also said reduction in work volume and reduction in work risk.
That’s three specific incentives.
Did you want me to say “you can get a super soaker or a stuffie at the ticket counter”?
If there is no way to answer that question you could have started saying so and then explain why, that would have been a much better answer.
Your theory is very pretty and seducing. According to my relatives who lived in 2 different communist countries during the war, there is no incentive to do anything and most people sat on their asses because nothing makes a difference. And that’s why they escaped this communist heaven you mention (escaped, because you don’t leave communism without having problems).
No one knows that communism looks like yet.
Thanks for the laugh.
Last but not least, in communist countries you have to put locks everywhere, especially in the kitchen, because your neighbors will steal your food. But I guess it’s not mentioned in your book “Communism for Dummies.”
Which war? You have realtives that were alive and living in the USSR during WW2 and they tell you stories about their time there?
I don’t know anything about anything. But in those two different countries, had that transition period happened that they mentioned?
That word “transition” is just being used as a mystical band-aid that doesnt actually provide any information.
There have been no countries in the modern era that have made it communism. Every communist party in the world is starting from a non-communist starting point in a world where capitalism is the dominant economic form that shapes everything. Name any Communist country and you’ll be naming a country led by a Communist Party.
A communist party is a party that sets building communism as their goal. The process of building communism has never been complicated to date. The first experiment large scale experiment in building communism was the USSR. They lasted 70 years. Many would say they stopped even attempting to build communism around year 50 or 60.
I know this but that doesn’t answer my question. I know too little about history but afaik nobody did any kind of transition period like what the other commenter described.
Edit: wait, that was you lol
Yes. It was me. All communist revolutions Mark the beginning of a transitionary period. Not a single one has achieved a “final form” of communism. The ones that still exist are still building towards communism. The ones that failed failed before they built communism. Some people call it socialism, some people call it the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Talking about these concepts is challenging even for the people who have researched and studied. It’s honestly confusing for people who haven’t spent a lot of time researching it. It was for me.
Just like capitalism, it will be much easier to talk about this stuff when we look back over 400 years of history, but while we’re still in the first half of the process, if not earlier, it’s hard to pin down.
Just so you know, I’m thinking out loud, not trying to argue against you.
So you’re saying they were really all stuck in that transitionary period, yes? Because they sure all seemed to claim to have achieved their goal. Maybe that’s where a root of the problem lies? They all pretended to have it all figured out, effectively lying to the people, instead of being honest and trying to make everybody come together to work through the problems.
You’d have to be very open about this process from the very start and trust that everybody is willing to endure that uncertainty of not knowing where the journey is going exactly. That’s probably a big ask, both of the people leading such a, well, for lack of a better word, revolution as well as the people following. The former need to have at least a certain desire for power which always brings with it a risk of corruption - they’ll have to not grab for more power AND let go of that power eventually. And the latter need to trust and believe that giving up their familiar lifestyle will be worth it in the end.
They all pretended to have it all figured out
Have you read the writings of communist leaders? They are very clear that the victory is of the revolution over the former ruling class and that from this point forward the country is building a new future.
effectively lying to the people, instead of being honest and trying to make everybody come together to work through the problems.
But they did create a collaborative society where everyone came together and solved problems. From collective farming to citizens commisions to workplace and local councils to national initiatives. They’ve all achieved so much incredible stuff. Cuba developed a COVID vaccine on the same timeline as the US and the USA spent billions incentivizing a competition between privately held companies.
You’d have to be very open about this process from the very start and trust that everybody is willing to endure that uncertainty of not knowing where the journey is going exactly.
Yup. That’s what it is. And that’s what they do.
That’s probably a big ask, both of the people leading such a, well, for lack of a better word, revolution as well as the people following.
It is. And that’s part of the experimental process. What systems are needed? What roles do people play? How do you defend against outside corruption and internal corruption at the same time? How do you deal with the people who disagree and want to turn back the revolution to the way things used to be?
All very hard problems. All part of the movement, the literature, the debates, the speeches, the education, the philosophy, the critique.
It’s all there. It’s been going on for over a century. You can read all about it.
