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I came to think that it's actually pretty simple. Hierarchies are generally bad for human societies. Capitalism has no stellar track record, but it somewhat works because it lets people to have multiple social hierarchies, e.g. I can work for capitalist2 instead of capitalist1, and it's quite easy to switch (doesn't require to move my family to another culture).

That's why capitalism works quite well in democracy (where multiple hierarchies are allowed) and becomes really oppressive in other political systems.

The socialism/communism failed where it made one social hierarchy dominant (so-called "communist" countries), just like all other systems like that. In situations, where one social hierarchy is not dominant, like Scandinavia, socialism actually works really well.

(Marx is partly to blame, in my opinion, because he focused to much on "state" without stressing "democracy" enough. But then, having single hierarchy in society was more or less a norm, so it does make sense what he did it.)

Of course, this has nothing to do with anarcho-communist ideals which almost always, in some form, reject hierarchy. The standard explanation (that WSJ espouses) is quite selective how it assigns blame to communism and praise to capitalism - it completely ignores the hierarchy problem. Interestingly, the free market ideal of capitalism (which is kinda unreachable utopia similar to what communism is to socialism) actually eschews any social hierarchy as well - everybody is his own master, and they are all competing at the same level.

So to sum up - I think human societies are "free" (and so "successful") to extent in which they can avoid having a (single) hierarchy. Of course, it's tough because we have natural tendency to have social hierarchies, and we also probably need them for cooperation. Both socialism's and capitalism's original goal was to sidestep existing social hierarchy, and the extent to which they succeeded in that task determined their practical success (but this is true for other systems as well).

If only all humans would spontaneously just decide to do away with every single instinct which evolved over millennia and cohere with your particular utopia de jour. But alas, those dumb apes just may never sufficiently enlighten themselves.

I know you're being sarcastic, but I agree you need to understand the value of something before you ditch it. Hierarchies have their benefits, but I do believe that we can keep the positives and remove the negatives.

Good example is Linux kernel development. It is hierarchical, at the same time, there are strong institutional guarantees that prevent this hierarchy to ossify too much (kernel can be forked by anyone, people up in the hierarchy have limited power over your life).

Would just like to point out that your description of the Linux development sounds like syndicalism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism

You still get the choice between A and B but there is a much stronger emphasis on people getting out exactly what they put in.

Really should be titled "Leninism's Bloody Century"...or maybe I'm just being pedantic.

Lenin? Stalin was the killer, and he departed from Lenin's philosophy in several very key ways that break the pedigree you suggest.

Please, not again. Lenin called for terror to be used, he called for the use of mass executions to speed up the eradication of opposition, he... well, read up on what Lenin wanted. Read the Gulag Archipelago and take good attention of the time line described. Notice that 'comrade Lenin' was the instigator of many of the policies which led to the creation of the Gulag system. While Lenin was not as paranoid as Stalin he was just as ruthless in creating the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'.

No form of Leninism was anything but a brutal dictatorship. It really wasn't even socialist considering the government didn't represent the workers.

> the ideology devoted to abolishing markets and private property

It's all encapsulated in the subtitle. You can not do away with that without enslaving people. And enslaving people means killing your opponents which are bound to be numerous in any "normal" situation.

Could you elaborate? As it stands there's no connection between the two concepts.

Just curious, why was this flagged? To me, this article on Communism's violent past is as important as some of the other posts we've been seeing on HN on capitalism, basic income, etc.

I have always maintained that Communism is a good idea on paper that is not very practical. The sheer amount of misery it's been causing is a testimony to this.

On the other hand, pure capitalism is harmful as well, to a lesser degree though. The sweet spot may be the right balance of Socialism and Capitalism.

"Great in theory, lousy in practice" is a misguided saying. What that really means is that the theory itself is lousy.

Social safety nets and the correction of market failures in capitalist economies really have nothing to do with communist theory at all. All they have in common is the very bland observation that "life in a capitalist economy isn't perfect." But the meat of Marxism isn't about that. The core of Marxism is a bizarre theory and a prescription of how to fix the world that leads to misery and slaughter.

The fact we need to smooth the rough edges of the free market does not entail admitting even a mote of recognition to Marxism.

> pure capitalism is harmful as well,

It's not like we have ever experienced it. We have never seen capitalism running free without major State intervention. At best we get Crony capitalism these days which is nothing like "pure capitalism".

We have, back on 1600s when joint stock companies were first invented, eg Dutch East India Company. They had their own armies and we got slavery, colonisation of Philippines, India and other places, all through private, profit-driven enterprise.

You can say we have had the very same thing with full state Powers that had nothing to do with Capitalism, since the beginning of History, so putting it on the back of "Capitalism" is kind of tenuous. Anybody or any organization in a position of ultimate power will go in that kind of behavior. Plus, the East India Company was pretty much a proxy for States involved in the area.

The point of capitalism is that you are supposed to have a lot more competition because of fragmentation.

I think the opposite is true. Pure capitalistic free market naturally tends towards monopoly or collusion. State intervention is needed to ensure competition.

And then corporate interests collude through and ultimately control the state, and we've arrived at an interesting system of two party democratic republican fascism

I think we came close in the 19th century.

Any market based system starts to break down in terms of efficiency and value when there isn’t a robust competitive environment. It really requires small players. Look into any major corporation for an example — internally they look more like a command economy than a rich marketplace.

I guess I feel like your sentiment is silly when the same is easily said about America (and capitalism). To say lesser degree is to say “I value occidental ideology and problems over those of others.”

The sweet spot lacks corruption. It’s as simple as that. To inflate one over the other seems silly as they’re all good on paper and failures in reality.

We’ve neve had capitalism, we have cronyism and “socialism for the rich,” as my economics professors would...

Only if by theory you mean "let everybody magically have everything and be happy". If you get to the particulars of how that is supposed to work, turns out the theory is pretty crappy too. E.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

> If you get to the particulars of how that is supposed to work, turns out the theory is pretty crappy too.

E.g. see "The free market efficiently matches demand with supply."

Useful perspective that speaks about how the USSR was different from Marx's actual writings:

https://youtu.be/3AvA73mH9dk?t=10m00s

The USSR was a totalitarian regime, not really socialist in the sense of anarcho-socialism or libertarianism which was the kind of socialism that was popular in the 19th century, eg Proudhon's writings or Oscar Wilde's essay "man's soul under socialism" and all those european libertarians.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism

The USSR was totalitarian because that is what you end up with when you follow Marx/Engels/Lenin on the way to communism. Large-scale communism is like the pot of gold under the rainbow, a goal which will never be reached. It can work to a certain extent on a small scale, up to the maximum number of people which a person can personally know - somewhere between 120 and 150 people. Anything more than that and communism will fail as it becomes easy for freeloaders to hitch a ride, leading to friction within society, which again will lead to 'strong men' to stand up for society and position themselves as leaders, leading to the dissolution of the classless society. Even small-scale communism - think monasteries, Quaker collectives, etc - is not really classless as there are always leaders and followers in any group of people. Communism is the right plan for the wrong species, it works wonders for ants and bees and other similar species but it fails when applied to competitive primates like us.

And socialism? State socialism is supposed to be the precursor to communism according to the troika of M/E/L. It has all the disadvantages of capitalism combined with all the disadvantages of communism. Social democracy - as practised in the Sweden of the '60s - can work to a certain extent: in a homogeneous society where the population is raised with something resembling the Benedictine work moral - ora et labora - and where slacking is frowned upon by the community. It is harder to make it work in a heterogeneous society with less social control as it gets all too easy for freeloaders to parasite on the work of others which will lead to friction in society.

anyone with a non-paywall link? quite curious about the contents

The author doesn't distinguish between socialism and communism.

Socialism is the government owning means of production. Communism is a form of government. As he mentioned, some communist countries (China) have managed to become capitalist.

The bloodshed from socialism (no private property) is well documented.

I still do not understand people who apologize for socialism saying that it wasn't implemented well. Capitalism might not be implemented well, and it seems to work.

Socialism is workers owning the means of production. Communism is a pretty serious departure from that, taking it to the government level.

The bloodshed from totalitarianism is well-documented and really didn't have much to do with Communism at all anyway.

Let's be wary of any equivocation between "destroy the people who can singlehandedly ruin lives by manipulating markets" (you will note this is a tiny minority of bad actors) and "destroy anyone who hurts my ego while I'm in power" (i.e., pretty much everyone).

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