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(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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How's about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?
What about products that designed to create ongoing streams of revenue, like a patent on an invention or a piece of art you can collect royalties from every time it is displayed? The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
Under communism, how does the stock market work? I'm not a big fan of it, but it's pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.
Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Of those five, none have achieved actual communism, and several have inarguably embraced capitalism to a great extent. All of them have essentially authoritarian governments. Which is unsurprising, since a dictatorship of the proletariat is central to the Marxist vision of how to create a communist society, and involves the creation of a single-party transitional government that forcibly suppresses all its critics and rivals.
I'm not big into capitalism and I think we should implement plenty of socialist reforms, but I will never understand why some people on the Left—or anyone for that matter—think communism is what we should be striving for.
If it makes money (or some equivalent) then you can't own it. Parents aren't necessarily, if you're supported so that you can invent for the betterment of society or for fun.
Dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be a temporary phase, but it is a fundamental weak point in the transition to communism that I think cannot be overcome, because once people get that power, they won't be able to give it up (or they'll be removed by people who don't want to give it up).
So I consider communism sort of an unattainable ideal that we should strive towards rather than actually considering implementing irl.
Marx believed in the natural progression of economic systems, from feudalism to mercantilism, mercantilism to capitalism, and capitalism to... well, something else anyway. Socialism, communism, fascism, and really any of the other isms that came about in the late 19th and 20ths centuries were meant as post-capitalist systems. Marx of course was a proponent of socialism or communism, but it's not a foregone conclusion that one of those will be the preeminent system after capitalism.
Anyway, my point is that the USSR et. al. were too early to the game. Capitalism hasn't yet run its course naturally.
I agree with everything you said, although important to note that "natural progression" may not be smooth progression. How much suffering needs to pass before a violent uprising is natural instead of forced? I expect it's hard to tell when you're in the thick of it.