Comment by socialismisok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by socialismisok | Hacker News Reader

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Not quite, equality of outcome isn't necessarily the target. The most common axiom is "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".

Different socialist and communist communities interpret this differently. The fundamental baseline is no one should starve, no one should be homeless, no one should lack basic medical care -- essentially there should be a baseline safety net for everyone.

Some communities focus on workers and profit distribution - the company's profit should be directed by the workers, reinvested or paid out at their discretion (rather than collecting in the pocket of "owners"). Some focus on equality of outcome. Some are built of gift economies similar to the economies of some indigenous tribes.

What most people think of as communist is the Stalinist model of the Soviet Union - an authoritarian, single party, fairly corrupt institution. The Soviets pushed their brand of communism onto other countries, which is why you see so many built on that model. (The Soviets actually attacked other communist states that were more libertarian and democratic.)

I would say yes, authoritarian communism is prone to the outcomes you describe. There's a reason I disparage Stalinists by calling them "Tankies" and do my best not to associate with them.

> "Different socialist and communist communities interpret this differently. The fundamental baseline is no one should starve, no one should be homeless, no one should lack basic medical care -- essentially there should be a baseline safety net for everyone."

Ok, well show me the communist country that lives up to even those ideals and doesn't have an elite ruling class that has privilege and benefits above the working class and poor.

> "I would say yes, authoritarian communism is prone to the outcomes you describe."

Well, yeah. That's pretty much the only type of communism that exists. You can't choose to not live by communism in a communist country. It's by its very nature authoritarian. Because if they were, say, to allow real deviation from that economic and societal system (not the "managed" deviation you see in places like China), their system would quickly fall apart. If today I decided to go and live on a commune in Washington that functions locally under the principles of communism or socialism, I would be able to do so. Nobody could say boo. You can't decide to go and live by the principles of free markets/capitalism (again, real capitalism) in China or any other communist country.

I'd say to take a look at Israeli Kibbutzim, but you'll tell me they aren't technically communist.

I'd tell you to look at indigenous pre industrial economies, but you'd probably say they aren't still around (and again, not self identified as communist).

I'd tell you to look at Mondragon, but that's a large democratic worker co-op making billions of dollars, not a communist country. That's fair.

So let's talk about Portugal post carnation revolution. Portuguese politics is dominated by the socialist party, the social Democratic party, the communist party, and the green party. The State owns many major businesses and many more companies through trust in the public interest. You might say they aren't a communist country, I might say they aren't a Stalinist communist country. But they self identify as socialist country.

I'd encourage you to read up on Ujamaa and the Arusha Declaration, prime minister Julius Nyerere's plan to lift Tanzania out of poverty in the 70s. It unfortunately failed due to world events. But seriously, consider reading up on it. It wasn't perfect, maybe it would have gone autocratic. More broadly I could spend days writing comments about African Socialism.

You can look at the Spanish revolution and the communists who fought against the Stalinists and the Soviet Union. Eventually they were militarily crushed, but they were worker led, libertarian socialist economies with millions of people, eventually stomped out by Stalinists.

I don't think I met the bar of your question, but I hope that I dispelled the idea that there is only one kind of communism.

I also hope I provided at least some interesting things to go dive into on Wikipedia. At the very least I hope I'm providing some novel intellectual stimulation.

There is a hugely rich variety of models, and not all of them require a unitary authority or harsh anti democratic laws. There's a very interesting historical and modern discussion around many, many other models, and not engaging with it (or saying that all these models are the same as the Soviet model) is ignoring a lot of well thought out theory and practice.

I understand what you're saying. There are different ways to implement any social or economic system. Capitalism doesn't always look the same, neither does communism.

But there has to be a core definition, and as long as that core definition is met, then the method of implementation doesn't much matter. But none of the examples you posted are examples of real communism.

For example, you talk about the Portuguese government owning many major businesses. Well, one of the core tenets of communism is the abolishment of private property in favor of communal property. Private property and business exists in Portugal, so it's not an actual communist country.

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