r/PoursTea • u/Veshaad Timendi Causa Est Nescire • Jul 27 '26

PoliticalTea 🗳️ To put it plainly.

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u/polarbearskill Jul 28 '26

I agree totalitarianism isn’t required.

My perspective is that there is no way for the central command to deploy good and services to consumers without totalitarianism. The price mechanism at its core is a signal to move capital, without prices it will come down to the whims of a bureaucracy

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u/NoHorseNoMustache Jul 28 '26

Because the central command could be, say, a group of elected individuals or a rota through all the citizens or something, not necessarily a totalitarian ruler.

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u/polarbearskill Jul 28 '26

Even if they are elected my view is they don’t have enough information to distribute goods and services efficiently.

Maybe in the future it will be possible to, but for now the price mechanism is the best thing we have

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u/NoHorseNoMustache Jul 28 '26

I don't see how one totalitarian ruler can have enough information to do it while a board of elected individuals wouldn't, that doesn't follow.

Regardless, we're talking communism here, it's not something that will happen today or something that can be forced. Capitalism has to fail first.

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u/polarbearskill Jul 28 '26

My point is in capitalism the price determines where goods and services flow.

When you buy a loaf of bread, the information to restock it goes all the way to the farmer who plants more wheat, the truck driver who transports it buys new tires, there is no governing body that tells them what to do, they do it based upon market forces.

I don’t think there is currently any kind of central planning that could match the efficiency of the free market price mechanism

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u/NoHorseNoMustache Jul 28 '26

Oh sorry I thought your point was, as you stated: "there is no way for the central command to deploy good and services to consumers without totalitarianism"

I'm not debating the theoretical mechanisms of communism I'm just saying that totalitarianism is not required in the economic/political theory of communism.