Comment by meri_dian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meri_dian | Hacker News Reader

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Most people aren't very good at nuanced appraisals of things.

While capitalism does have its weaknesses, it also seems to be one of the driving forces behind modernity, which I think most of us can agree is a supremely good thing.

We've tried tearing down the system before. Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one. This is not to say that we should close ourselves off from thinking of new ways to organize our societies, but it seems that capitalism and all that it encourages is responsible for the 'rising tide' of global human civilization we've witnessed over the course of the industrial revolution to now. Sure there is inequality, but as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Would you want to be the average middle class or poor person 300 years ago, or today?

As innovation continues to change the material conditions of the world, our economic systems will evolve in response, probably for the better. Capitalism will not look the same in 100 years or 1000 years as it does today. But over time gradual development will improve the system, not some grand scheme that calls for tearing down capitalism and replacing it with something else.

>Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one.

This is a frustrating and arrogant thing to say. If you can honestly go through and thoroughly criticize the core collective works of great socialist thinkers like Engels, Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and the uncountable thousands who have poured thousands of hours into tomes which are freely available online to study and understand, then you should do so. I would love to read this! You'd probably become a very famous person! But coming out gung ho and so arrogantly conclude that all these people, and all the hard work they have done in both theory and praxis is kaput without a very strong argument behind you is pointless and childish. It stifles conversation and is the reason discussing economic systems with people who don't understand them is an exercise in futility.

I actually respect a great deal of Marxist and socialist thought about our societies and economic systems. Capitalism has flaws, surely, and pointing them out is important so we can fix them.

But on the whole, much of communist ideology and theorizing is far removed from reality and suffers from a lack of understanding about human nature. Socialist description and perspective on society is interesting and can be enlightening, but its prescriptions are bad.

Many scientists and thinkers over the course of history have dedicated their entire lives to theories that are ultimately shown to be fairy-tails. It happens all the time.

Your comment contains a germ of why communism is a failed concept: "Hard work." Hard work does not imply valuable work. You've conflated the two, as have all the thinkers you cite.

If you want proof that "hard work" isn't necessarily "valuable work," simply start digging holes in your backyard. It is hard work. At the end of the day, though, you'll have constructed nothing of value (unless you appreciate the value of holes).

But, as you see, value is a subjective concept. Communism believes it to be objective. But what's valued in communism is simply the biases of its architects. Resources, then, aren't allocated through an objective pricing system weighing conflicting values, but through waits, favors, loyalties, and fiat. Eventually, the system becomes so corrupted it fails.

We've objectively seen the failure of the communist system across cultures over the last 100 years. By now, there should be no doubt about its inherent ills.

> Hard work does not imply valuable work.

There are plenty of examples of work not being valuable in capitalism too.

I'd put most obscure financial instruments up as one example.

At one point those contracts were subjectively valuable to the parties involved. The assumptions under which they were made turned out to be false, and now they're valueless. The point is that the labor expended to put them into existence does not make them inherently valuable.

Obscure financial instruments can be valuable if they free up capital to be put towards productive means.

> "Hard work." Hard work does not imply valuable work. You've conflated the two, as have all the thinkers you cite.

Now you've misunderstood me, I'm not saying that because they've done a lot of hard work that what they say is immediately relevant. I'm saying what they've said is relevant, and they've put in a lot of hard work to get their points across. You can't just handwave because in your ignorance you believe you're right and everyone else is wrong, you have to actually confront what they've said

I refer you to the critiques provided by Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, and Kim Il Sung (and descendants). They have provided strong enough critiques to say, at least, that there is room to be deeply suspicious of the works of the "great socialist thinkers", and to wonder how well their fine-sounding ideas align with reality.

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