• Tinidril@midwest.social
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      8 days ago

      The same could be said of capitalism. The reality is that both systems, in a purist sense, are ridiculously naive. Lots of problems have been solved through decommodification and common ownership of public goods, just like lots of problems get solved by markets. The trick is knowing how and when to use each.

      • Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 days ago

        You’re not wrong but that’s a big old whataboutism IMO. Or switching goalpoasts (I’m not here defending capitalism) or similar.

        Common ownership of goods, like we have in europe (schools, hospitals, roads, and so on) are not inherent to communism and are very good IMO.

    • hobata@lemmy.ml
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      8 days ago

      Your ancestors would strongly disagree with this opinion.

      • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        Calling that communism really doesn’t work. Family groups of a few dozen people sharing things doesn’t just scale up to modern societies.

          • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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            8 days ago

            What examples of post Industrial Revolution communism are you thinking of?

            I specifically say post Industrial Revolution because the societal changes brought about at that time and since pretty much invalidates earlier examples. The genie is out of the bottle and there’s no way that the global society is going to go back to being mostly agrarian.

            • mrdown@lemmy.world
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              8 days ago

              The ottoman communal system worked post the industrial revolution. The system collapsed not because the system was flawed but because the Ottoman was over militarizing . I do not advocate for a complete communism system either but rather an hybrid

        • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          Communism probably could actually be done today properly. The problem with the Soviet Union was that the logistics technology just wasn’t where it needed to be. It wasn’t practical with the tech a hundred years ago to gather and compute all the data needed to manage production chains. Now? Private megacompanies have already built the infrastructure of state communism. It’s called Walmart. They do the exact kind of demand projections and intricate logistics planning that the Soviet planners tried and failed to do. The Waltons just have much better computers.

          You could establish state communism in the US just by nationalizing Amazon and Walmart. Instead of paying money, everyone gets a certain number of credits to spend at Amazon or Walmart each year. Then we use all our computerized supply chain systems to direct those funds to actual production.

          The problem with communism was that it was tried a century too early.

          Sure, you can lean on more universal tropes like, “if everyone is paid the same, no one has an incentive to work.” But those same failures of incentives exist in capitalist economies. Very few workers receive any benefit from being more productive at work. They’re paid hourly or salary. At best they get a nominal bonus at the end of the year that is meant as more of a symbolic than actual reward. Modern capitalism also doesn’t incentivize workers to work hard. It incentivizes them to work just hard enough to not get fired.

        • hobata@lemmy.ml
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          8 days ago

          It’s called primitive communism. But you can call it primal society.

          • calcopiritus@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            It’s so primitive you can call it whatever. Just as you call it primitive communism, someone could probably argue it is primitive feudalism, capitalism, anarchy, or whatever else.

      • Visstix@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        I’m not sure what a modern day picture of russia has to do with our ancestors.