Free enterprise is successful because the consumer ultimately dictate's the market: what is produced, how much is produced, and the cost. Naturally, the consumer is in the best position to decide what will enhance their quality of life. Communism has always been sold as a "fair and equal" approach to governance, but history shows it is a way to maintain class separation for people holding power.
Ah, another example of be aware of people throwing around the world naturally. Which usually means they havent understood how stuff works, but wanna sell it to you..
(More often found in stuff like "natural cleaning solutions on water basis", but this works also..
)
Maintaining class separation never was the issue.
I mean, sure, on the PR front, maybe - but not on the system level. The issue there more often than not was misallocation of resources and central planning always working less well, than decentralized planning with a better incentive structure. (As in "if I good at something, I get filthy rich in the process, potentially".)
The trouble with communism is fairly obvious to me; government claims full ownership of all production and resource, yet is incapable of producing resource.
If you look at the chinese model currently, they still hold the more or less sole ownership of resources, and give rough planing goals on the regional level, then let the regions compete against each other on metrics, using capitalism. Because allocation of resources is better under capitalism. Resource flow is managed via paybacks into the political elite and to not make it that obvious, you hold an anti corruption campaign once in a while, usually aimed at internal opponents in the one party system. But you make sure, that industry titans never get ownership over resources. They only get them, if they pay the state.
State in itself then does all the longterm planning, and the social services stuff, which unlike in the US cant be financed, by always pronouncing that "if people are about to rebel" we raise the debt ceiling.
There is a certain kind of working logic to that as well..
In capitalism that tends to produce oligopolies the logic usually goes, at one point you cant ignore societal needs anymore, because the people will rebel, so even if you sell out power to uncontrolled power centers, people will somehow fix it through political movements. (Exchange the political elite, new elite gets bought (maybe not straight out bought, but "adviced by, without a direct exchange of money") by a different subset of industrialists, but that produces new economic activity, and...)
That said, the concept of communism is just going be more outdated as technology moves forward anyway.
I've got bad news for you. Surveillance capitalism (not a slant against capitalism, its just the name for that kind of innovation
), kinda good at keeping systems stable. And central planning capacity is always increasing..
As for China, the only reason why the Chinese are not starving while trying to share a grain of rice among everybody in the village is specifically because they’ve embraced some (not all) principles of the free market.
While true, you also have to look at the feedback loops. Your logic always goes exactly as far as "industrialist making money - and then lives happily ever after".
Feedback loops in capitalism are messy as heck. Take climate change as an example. What do you do to fix "misallocations". Or a crisis.
US usually prints large amounts of money ("Moonshot projects") and creates new sectors and opportunities, if needed. To be able to do so, you have to keep the output of your education system still somewhat egalitarian, and at "best minds succeed" levels).
If you cant do that (printing money) - you try to drum up buzz for new industrial sectors, via activist movements, impact investment, cofinancing startup scenes, and the education sector. But its messy.
The issue is, that whole regions under capitalism can spiral into regressive loops (self enforcing), and telling people that they are now poor for a while, until the next development comes along doesnt always work. (Again, climate change f.e.) because f.e. resources might be allocated by the market 'wrongly' f.e. (short term profit perspective, not taking limits of growth into account, not taking into account that switching planning concepts 5min before a systemic issue occurs might be too late, ...). Feedback loops.
They should be considered as equal to Nazi symbolism - it’s just another failed ideology from the past that was entirely based on hate and led to untold suffering.
No and yes.
The ideology wasnt wrong. It (Karl Marx - "The capital") was probably the single most influential economic theory (also in the capitalist world) since its inception. Regardless, that it got people wrong, but so does capitalism (rational actors).
But this is a fluffy battle around concepts and what they mean.
The political system born out of this ideology (has to do with what groups form when, and who killed/imprisoned what leader, and who held a speech when, with fluffy orange hair), very much was flawed. And failed hard. Partly because of a failure to allocate resources as efficiently, partly because of the power imbalances mentioned - but the atrocities usually always had been sufficiently covered up.
Does this mean, that 'communism wasnt wrong and with different people at the helm, and the technology we have today and..' no, not at all.
Marx was a depressed loner looking at society from the outside (and it was a good critical view), who in a period of industrial change (moguls against aristocracy, with moguls ultimately winning) could bundle enough interest to create an ideology based political movement, which in an instance was taken over by other people ("drive for power") and ideologs (people with an opinion), and well connected people who were probably more influencial in making it a popular movement than Marx himself.
This differs from current politics, where everyone acknowledges (also an ideology btw.) that societal systems are so complex, that a simple ideology (what you tell the voter) should not drive political decision making anymore. But we still do the song and dance (feedback loops), just without the constant measuring process of "do I have correct ideology". Because the answer is always "it depends".
Next step is to look into feedback loops failing. Like f.e. "capitalism winning" against Roosevelt new deal concept (he only shifted power from one industrial elite to new growing one - he wasnt the anti capitalist devil you are painting him as, by a long shot..
) having to do with, that trade unions were basically broken up, which also has to do with a drive towards an export oriented economy. And that if you are producing anything for america specifically at this point in time, you must be stupid...
Or the feedback loops with 'externalities' (stuff outside the corporate logic, that always thinks in 15 year cycles max.) like climate change.
So capitalism is reinventing itself many times over (Bretton Woods? We are financing your shortterm growth for a stake in your longterm growth?) Communism was as well - and yes they did it by partly embracing the free market. But then what does partly mean...
Leading into the final point I want to make which is -- talking about ideologies, and is mine truer than yours, and which one did win - and...
ultimately is useless. Talking about symbols (they are just emotionally charged "thingamajiggs") ultimately is useless, because try anticipating how the system will develop over time - and fail every time (in anticipating it..
).
Talk about ideologies and symbols becomes important, if the PR level of politics is important to you (and sometimes rightfully so) - so if someone has told a bunch of people a nice story again, and they have created symbols, and simplified it enough, so that it could become popular -- and someone thinks, that there might be a problem with that.
Then talking about symbols becomes important.
Or on the other side of the PR spectrum. If you've got to unify people because of internal pressures and sell them hopium (not necessarily meant negatively), then talking about symbols becomes important. Usually more so in painting an enemy to "unite against".
But deducing out of symbols and ideologies, why one societal concept is better than another one - usually is done by historians. So PR people writing about the past.
(In this instance.) Usually necessity trumps ideology and ideology is good for rallying people, but not much else. But its also needed, because people need to have a vision of the future, to get to acting towards it. Or even just a feeling of something thats developing.
Communism or capitalism pretty much struggle with the same issues that both would acknowledge and in a sense (we also have national 'champions' that are too big to fail, so the state bails them out...), having competing systems isnt the worst thing that could happen. From a problem solving perspective.
Now is "China taking over" - well, yes to a certain extent. They have won the battle of minds (political ideologies) in many developing countries, but mostly because the IMF and world bank failed so hard and they were good in allocating a BUNCH of moneys (during their capitalism driven extreme growth period), they invested in said markets much like Bretton Woods did. (Instead of producing failed economies, which pretty much was the goal of the west (but everyone always, ...
) in resource rich countries, that werent your own.
). And suddenly those countries like the Chinese model better, because its connected to progress.
But then comes the messy part again where the US is fighting to keep world reserve currency and limited chinese growth at a period where its most inopportune for them, and they dropped all "world trading route systems" like a hot potatoes, except those "in the region" and switched their economy to internal growth (at least pro forma), because they had to. (Growth rates werent as high as before.)
Is that US and capitalism being bad for doing that? No - its entirely understandable.
Why cant the US switch to an internal growth period? Because the US 'owns' the world economy via its reserve currency, stupid. As in - the US is always profiting more from gaining rewards based on the worlds economy than on its own. Despite this kind of being the end goal, try to change that, and see how you fail.
At which point you should have understood very distinctly how much ideology is worth.
(And symbols which stand for ideology.)
--
Very last point. Why is Nazi special and more evil than all other thingies? Well - first, because its so easy to get people hooked and active in said ideology. Three points.
1. We against them (ingroup vs outgroup), based on race. You master race, because you born right, you are better, no one can take that away from you, you just betta. Talking about hopium. People are now so flipping sure that they are better, and no one can take that away from them, that they follow leader to the end of the world. Thats very potent stuff.
(Nowadays reframed to "ultranationalism" (Amurica to the amuricans), and other stuff.)
2. Industrialists become rulers of the state. Industrialists like very much. Very compatible with capitalism and everything else.
3. All that is needed from you, grunt, is weapon power and wearing uniform. Oh, you will be loved by your girlfriends, girlfriend. Lets go - lets make our own state. And while we are at it, kill off the former intellectual elite, and then when we have growth problems start invading neighbor countries. Talking about growth potential. Oh, and who do we blame? Jewish world conspiracy?
It doesnt take much. Also its a flipping well established concept -- that ended in the worst atrocities humanity was capable of producing to this day offering entirely new perspectives on "human detachment" and "dehumanization".
(Ok, maybe the Incas were worse in terms of their blood cult, but who is writing that ranking...)
Meaning - the risk of this happening is a little higher, than you getting another Karl Marx, who convinces people on the power of egalitarianism as an ideology, which then repopularizes central planning, and then you are having a rough winter, at which point the atrocities spike through the roof, because you cant have anyone see whats really happening. (As a political system.) Kind of hard nowadays also, because - internet.
-
And to understand that all - in terms of a more educated ideology (because what are we without ideologies, really..
) all you have to do is to watch two movies. But you have to watch both of them.
Mr. Jones (2019) (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Jones_(2019_film) )
and
Office (2015) (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_(2015_Hong_Kong_film) )
Both of them are propaganda to some extent, but also go a little deeper into concepts.
In the first one you see communism from the western perspective.
In the second one you see capitalism from the chinese perspective. (But that isnt enough, so maybe you have to watch a third movie -
Kaili Blues (2015) (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaili_Blues ) )
And if you then just want to watch a good movie about "growing up" the human spirit and some of the drives "society" tries to contain - may I recommend Wong Kar-Weis Days of being wild (1990) (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Being_Wild ).
The chinese movies might be harder to source, but they are worth it.
(And yes, you will be watching them with subtitles on.)
That should help you stop obsessing about political concepts, even if just for the moment.
You can get back to it later.
But please dont be stuck in the state, where you dont want to hear what
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism was - and that it probably has more to do with your concept of communism, than communism itself.
Spoken as someone thats unlikely to embrace a "I for one welcome our new chinese overlords" mentality.
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