Kerala: As you mention, not a country. Also didn’t really seize the means of production. But when I think of Communism working well, it’s at a local level like this rather than at the level of a country. There are communes and kibbutzes that lasted decades. Generally a tough life but at a small level you can have a government controlling everything without hopefully making as many huge mistakes. Worst case you can more easily just leave if they do (hopefully they let you).
Chile: Also didn’t fully seize the means of production, it’s more or less a perfect example of a government that’s run by a socialist majority for a small amout of time and which enacts socialist measures during that time, but never reaching full communism. This is the kind of thing I would hold up as the ideal case. Socialism for long enough to strengthen the situation of the people, but not long enough to wreck the economy and grow into full blown authoritarianism.
No, I’m more of a social democrat. I’m a believer that the best we’ve come up with is to have a government who’s job is to fill in the holes (economic externalities) of capitalism, while curbing it’s worst instincts (monopolies, tragedy of the commons issues like global warming).
Indeed this is the system the most successful and happy countries use. Go too far to the capitalist side or too far to the socialist side and things deteriorate quickly, as history shows over and over.
Right now, especially in the USA, we are experiencing what happens when things go too far to the capitalist side.
Unfortunately it seems that this combined with misinformation leads to fascism which will destroy even capitalism and likely leave us only with war and authoritarianism. Which is what you get at both extremes of the political spectrum.
When it comes to personal liberties, I am more of a libertarian though. I am against the war on drugs or most wars, proxy or otherwise, unless they are in defense. The non aggression principle in libertarianism is something that appeals to me.
More Anarchist, I think that we should try to disengage from states and their power structures and treat people with respect and autonomy. Try to bring thee principles into daily life and interactions and live as much of a better alternative as I can.
Devolution of powers is a fine first step to work towards if engaging electorily, but that’s a long way from the be all and end all of political ideology.
I’m definitely on board on the small scale. Unfortunately when faced with issues like health care, education, global warming, and curbing the excesses of capitalism, only a government can solve those issues. At least it’s the only mechanism we’ve found so far.
But yes, government should always be the tool of last resort for things that can be done no other way.
Those still to be solved problems may also be the result of governments. Those problems would likely shrink (albiet be replaced by others) when there aren’t global systems of power and exploitation pushing to keep extracting resources from a corrupted Global South, polluting as processed by an overworked Asia, into commodities to sell to underpaid and liminally employed citizens of the Global North for them to destress and feel a fleeting sense of meaning in our increasingly atomised societies.
It’s a good point. One that is true to some extent for communism as well. If we were operating in a system that was less efficient as extracting resources and using them for production, we would conceivably get more out of the resources we have and avoid the pointless cycles you point out.
Unfortunately in practice it didn’t work that well because the resources under communism were just used less efficiently and in a more polluting way which negated a lot of the gains. The net result was just less benefit getting to the end user. Though you could argue that people were freed from the capitalist treadmill of overwork to feed largely meaningless consumption that you mention. They just had to pay in quality of life, occasional hunger and genocides, and personal freedoms.
The other issue is that if one country is operating inefficiently and there is another country operating efficiently, inevitably the other country will overtake the first, as we saw in the Cold War. So such a system would need to be enforced pretty strictly on a worldwide level least it get beaten by a system more streamlined for production and militaristic endeavors.
For anarchy, enforcement isn’t strong enough to not get taken over by another system (or at least the requirement for personal buy in of all in the system is too high to be practical)
Kerala: As you mention, not a country. Also didn’t really seize the means of production. But when I think of Communism working well, it’s at a local level like this rather than at the level of a country. There are communes and kibbutzes that lasted decades. Generally a tough life but at a small level you can have a government controlling everything without hopefully making as many huge mistakes. Worst case you can more easily just leave if they do (hopefully they let you).
Chile: Also didn’t fully seize the means of production, it’s more or less a perfect example of a government that’s run by a socialist majority for a small amout of time and which enacts socialist measures during that time, but never reaching full communism. This is the kind of thing I would hold up as the ideal case. Socialism for long enough to strengthen the situation of the people, but not long enough to wreck the economy and grow into full blown authoritarianism.
Thanks for the detailed responses.
Sounds like, to me, that you have a bigger issue with government than Socialism or Communism themselves. Are you much of an anarchist?
No, I’m more of a social democrat. I’m a believer that the best we’ve come up with is to have a government who’s job is to fill in the holes (economic externalities) of capitalism, while curbing it’s worst instincts (monopolies, tragedy of the commons issues like global warming).
Indeed this is the system the most successful and happy countries use. Go too far to the capitalist side or too far to the socialist side and things deteriorate quickly, as history shows over and over.
Right now, especially in the USA, we are experiencing what happens when things go too far to the capitalist side.
Unfortunately it seems that this combined with misinformation leads to fascism which will destroy even capitalism and likely leave us only with war and authoritarianism. Which is what you get at both extremes of the political spectrum.
When it comes to personal liberties, I am more of a libertarian though. I am against the war on drugs or most wars, proxy or otherwise, unless they are in defense. The non aggression principle in libertarianism is something that appeals to me.
How about you? Full blown socialist I’m guessing?
More Anarchist, I think that we should try to disengage from states and their power structures and treat people with respect and autonomy. Try to bring thee principles into daily life and interactions and live as much of a better alternative as I can.
Devolution of powers is a fine first step to work towards if engaging electorily, but that’s a long way from the be all and end all of political ideology.
I’m definitely on board on the small scale. Unfortunately when faced with issues like health care, education, global warming, and curbing the excesses of capitalism, only a government can solve those issues. At least it’s the only mechanism we’ve found so far.
But yes, government should always be the tool of last resort for things that can be done no other way.
Those still to be solved problems may also be the result of governments. Those problems would likely shrink (albiet be replaced by others) when there aren’t global systems of power and exploitation pushing to keep extracting resources from a corrupted Global South, polluting as processed by an overworked Asia, into commodities to sell to underpaid and liminally employed citizens of the Global North for them to destress and feel a fleeting sense of meaning in our increasingly atomised societies.
It’s a good point. One that is true to some extent for communism as well. If we were operating in a system that was less efficient as extracting resources and using them for production, we would conceivably get more out of the resources we have and avoid the pointless cycles you point out.
Unfortunately in practice it didn’t work that well because the resources under communism were just used less efficiently and in a more polluting way which negated a lot of the gains. The net result was just less benefit getting to the end user. Though you could argue that people were freed from the capitalist treadmill of overwork to feed largely meaningless consumption that you mention. They just had to pay in quality of life, occasional hunger and genocides, and personal freedoms.
The other issue is that if one country is operating inefficiently and there is another country operating efficiently, inevitably the other country will overtake the first, as we saw in the Cold War. So such a system would need to be enforced pretty strictly on a worldwide level least it get beaten by a system more streamlined for production and militaristic endeavors.
For anarchy, enforcement isn’t strong enough to not get taken over by another system (or at least the requirement for personal buy in of all in the system is too high to be practical)