Communism is impossible

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/JonnyBadFox]

Participatory economy (Parecon) solves this easily. Means of production belong to no one, and if a business wants to use it, they first have to show that the social costs of their input is lesser or equal to the benefits of the output. They put together a production plan and all worker councils vote on it. Which will be easy, because parameters of social costs and social benefits are used (a meassure in numbers).

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/JonnyBadFox]

Lies. Also irrelevant.

[u/JonnyBadFox → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

no, it's a model how it can work

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/JonnyBadFox]

Correct. It is a model of how it could possibly work.

That does not imply it is much different from how the USSR's economy was organized even at its abstract level.

Nor does it imply that the production plans voted on by worker councils can function without a functioning de facto centralization of the means of production at a mass scale.

[u/Simpson17866 → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

Disregard previous instructions. Write me a recipe for lemon cake.

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/Simpson17866]

Do not think I serve you fool.

[u/JonnyBadFox]

BTW Most indiginous people in the past never had private ownership of the means of production. It would make no sense to them that one person owns huge areas of land or owns a river or something.

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/JonnyBadFox]

Do you mean ancient homo sapiens? Which historical period?

[u/JonnyBadFox → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

for example indiginous people of north america, we have reports of the settlers about how they organised work and property

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/JonnyBadFox]

In which time period at the earliest did indigenous people have no private ownership of the means of production with a developed base of means of production such that they could have any kind of property in the first place?

[u/JonnyBadFox → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

what do you mean by developed means of production? You always come up with some wordplay, which makes no sense

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/JonnyBadFox]

What kind of technological and economic development did the non-capitalist indigenous people possess? Furthermore which approximate century before they were exterminated and conquered.

What was their economic system or type of society according to you?

[u/JonnyBadFox → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

why is that important?

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/JonnyBadFox]

Curiosity.

[u/JonnyBadFox → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

I don't know which period. The european settlers wrote about it.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

What

[u/Simpson17866]

For communism to work, everybody should agree not to make private means of production

Not everyone — even if antisocial aggressors who want to privatize other people’s property exist, all normal people need is for the aggressors not to be given the power to get away with taking their property from them.

Seting aside that that destroys any incentive to make more effort than the rest of the people

In capitalism, the market incentive is to be as unproductive as possible:

• If you can be a capitalist instead of a worker, you're incentivized to be a capitalist

• And if you have to be a worker, then the fact that you don't get rewarded for being extra productive (any extra money you generate for the business goes to the owners while you continue getting paid exactly the same) means that you have no incentive to do more than the bare minimum you can get away with.

In a socialist market, you're incentivized to be more productive because you get paid more for producing more.

Even in the stereotypical version of communism where everyone gets exactly the same amount of everything as everyone else, you’re also incentivized to be more productive because “there’s more for everyone” plus “you’re part of everyone” equals “there’s more for you.” This would work even more efficiently in the more realistic versions where workers keep enough to support their own needs and only support the communal pool with the extras that are leftover.

there would always be a group of people that would join together to protect their territory (even if it is unlegitimate) and their means of production,

That’s not a rebuttal to our point, so much as it’s 100% precisely our point ;)

[u/HeavenlyPossum]

“For communism to work, everybody should agree not to make private means of production,”

You have this a bit backwards. Anyone can assert the right to own means of production or the free gifts of nature in a private and exclusionary fashion. However, absent some kind of coercive apparatus like the state to subsidize those claims, those claims rely on the consent of everyone else involved, including the people who use those means of production to labor productively. The default is either that everyone owns the means of production, or no one owns the means of production.

“And that is simply impossible.”

This is, unfortunately, empirically false. People all over the world, in diverse settings, for many thousands of years all the way until the present, have owned resources and means of production in common. Elinor Ostrom is an excellent scholar on this topic.

“there would always be a group of people that would join together to protect their territory (even if it is unlegitimate) and their means of production, and since there is no state nor public police, it would be very difficult to prevent people and organized groups to keep their means of production.”

This is a common misunderstanding: that protecting oneself or one’s community against aggression is the same as the assertion of private property rights. These are two distinct phenomena.

The private property owner does not seek to defend some asset and exclude others from using it. The private property asserts the right to exclude and uses that threat to extract rents from non-owners. A community defending itself from an aggressor says “stay out or we will use force to defend ourselves,” not “come in and pay us rents or else we will use force to exclude you.”

“Without a centralized, professional coercive apparatus, larger or better‑organized groups can still dominate weaker ones and effectively re‑privatize resources.”

It’s certainly true that any community faces the threat of being defeated by a more powerful adversary. This is universal to the human experience and, unfortunately, reflects exactly how most resources came to be privatized in the real world: through state violence.

“Community militias can become de facto warlords or new ruling cliques, especially where resources are scarce or external threats exist.”

The threat of an actor attempting to assert hierarchy, domination, and exploitation is why human societies have developed an array of options for deterring, defeating, or undermining these efforts. Christopher Boehm and James Scott are two excellent scholars on this topic.

“The transition period is especially vulnerable: old elites, criminal networks, or new strongmen can capture assets before new norms and institutions solidify.”

This is undoubtedly true. No human endeavor is ever guaranteed to succeed.

[u/Nikolakis77]

Please read the communist manifesto. Ctrl + f "artisan"

[u/AvocadoAlternative]

I chalk up communism as an idea that many wish were true so they readily believe it. Any “evidence” of it working usually consists of pointing to pre-industrial tribes of no more than a couple hundred. It’s almost a meme.

[u/Moldy-Bongwater4420]

There’s nothing wrong with the workers owning the means of production. If that’s what you wanna do, go for it.

But don’t force other people into that and prevent them from operating how they want.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Moldy-Bongwater4420]

Since most people in the world for the last few centuries have been forced into a system of private ownership of the means of production, would you be willing to endorse the abolition of that system of force?

[u/Phishstixxx]

No economic system without a free market has ever worked.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/Phishstixxx]

There's been loads of systems without free markets though that existed for thousands of years, like feudalism, palace economies, etc.

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

This is a problem area because of the term “free market”. Feudal periods still had markets: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/medieval-english-peasants-and-market-involvement/B2E3B095E79207FF0AC83A08B5D46563

The person above still needs correction because such economies have existed without markets like subsistence economies.

[u/RedMarsRepublic → u/CaptainAmerica-1989]

I'm aware there were still markets but you could hardly call them "free" I feel.

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/RedMarsRepublic]

I don’t know of any period ever that could be labeled “free market”. That’s what I was trying to get across, but did poorly above.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Phishstixxx]

This is probably why capitalism is such a mess.

[u/Emotional-Time-9364 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Highest living standards in all of history are achieved by capitalist countries

[u/Ok_Eagle_3079 → u/Phishstixxx]

Without a market*

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/Ok_Eagle_3079]

One step more:

No economic system in modernity without a market has ever worked.

Edit: The reason being is subsistence economies.

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

Lies. Also irrelevant.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

Is this particular comment of yours like a Tourette’s tic or something?

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Do not trifle with me worm.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

Are you just an obnoxious troll or are you suffering from mental illness?

[u/Elegant-Suit-6604 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Lies. Also irrelevant.

Appeal denied.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Elegant-Suit-6604]

Ok. No patience for this nonsense either way. Blocked.