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Comment by cyber_kinetist | Hacker News Reader

Communism (at least in an ideal Marxist form) has no relation to equity, it’s more of a liberal concept than anything else.

People use the term Communism (both upper-case and lower-case) in various ways nowadays, but Marx’s original ideal form of society was "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" The ultimate goal is to create an affluent productive society that can provide all amenities for all people, so they can unleash their potentials as individuals without being enslaved by capitalists as wage workers just to survive. And socialism is only an intermediate step before realizing this ideal state, socialism wasn’t intended to be ideal even for the leftists (In this sense communism has never been tried anywhere yet).

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> In this sense communism has never been tried anywhere yet

From my knowledge of European history, this is not true.

Marx also said that there should be a dictatorship of the proletariat, who should seize the means of production.

The difficulty is, is that absolute power corrupts absolutely, to steal a phrase.

The worker's union movement working inside a capitalist system has brought more benefits for workers, than communism, which proved to kill millions wherever it is attempted.

> From my knowledge of European history, this is not true.

You will need to elaborate on that.

> Marx also said that there should be a dictatorship of the proletariat, who should seize the means of production.

Which should be temporary, right? Do you have an example where it was actually temporary? That would answer my point above.

> You will need to elaborate on that.

My particular familiarity is with the German Democratic Republic. There were many true believers in communism, who in their attempt to construct a communist utopia created and contributed towards a police state.

Jordan Peterson said it shows arrogance to suggest that people just weren't doing communism right, and that if only they got the theory right, then they would usher in the utopia.

I would tend to agree.

> Which should be temporary, right? Do you have an example where it was actually temporary? That would answer my point above.

Your point was to assert that communism has never been tried.

Mine was that it has been tried, and is always unsuccessful. So the failure of temporary dictatorships is proving my point, not yours.

I think we're talking past each other. You say "communism doesn't work because we can't reach it", and I say "it's not entirely clear if communism doesn't work because we haven't managed to reach it".

Don't you think that you risk missing interesting ideas if you reduce communism to temporary dictatorships?

> communism doesn't work because we can't reach it

No, I'm saying it has inherent problems that means it doesn't work, and "doesn't work" is putting it lightly, given the number of people who have suffered and died under the ideology.

> Don't you think that you risk missing interesting ideas if you reduce communism to temporary dictatorships?

No, I've already mentioned that workers unionising under a capitalist system has brought more benefits to workers than communism.

Yes, and this will require violence to achieve (how else can you enforce the “from each” and “to each”?)

Communism has been tried. Again and again. The utopian endpoint it tires to get to is not possible. The consistent result is mass death and poverty.

OTOH systems not going as far as communism, but still with far more equitable outcomes than e.g. US system, have been tried as well and have been quite successful.

The "this will require violence" argument makes no sense. If you live in the US, everything you have is the end result of some horrific violence. Inferring a need for violence to achieve some ideal is a completely useless analysis.

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