Why has every attempt to reach communism utterly failed and killed a good chunk of the own population?

Why has every attempt to reach communism utterly failed and killed a good chunk of the own population?

communism from what I know about it, aims to achieve a nation or a world where people live like they do on the tribal level but on the national or global level. I.e., they don't really care about money and live for each other.

Humanity in its current state can't do that. A nation is an abstract concept and nationalism/nations are a facade to unite people of different tribes toward a single goal. Even within a homogenous nation, people will fragment into their own tribes which form out of anything like religion, ethnicity, hobbies, culture, economic class etc.)

You can't expect people to care for each other on a national level, people will always keep to their own

Most actually didn't kill a good chunk of their population.

>utterly failed
Because it doesn't take human nature into account, just like every other rationalist ideology. People, en mass, just aren't rationale enough for rationalism to succeed.

>killed a good chunk of their people
Because the rationalist ideology is rooted in a utopian vision; things would be perfect if everyone else just played along. Because the final vision is so perfect and so totalizing, everything from minor rights violations to ethnic cleansing is just one small step for the greater good. Pursuit of a defined utopia gives people free license to be the jackbooted thugs they really want to be.

>human nature

mostly because they were undemocratic backwards nations before they attempted communism, and thus became undemocratic backwards nations led by idealists.

Leninism would be a better description than communism anyway, as it was mostly lenin and his "success" in Russia/Soviet-Union that led to china and others attempting to do the same.

>not REAL communism

>it's a dumb commie forgets that humans are just advanced apes and their conduct is just a function of their biology episode

Because it identifies societies problem as "a rich elite are using their control of capital and resources to exploit the populous"

One of the steps they identify in resolving this is a dictatorship of the proletariat. So basically part of their solution is to concentrate even more power and wealth into an even smaller bureaucratic elite and hope that out of the goodness of their hearts they don't just exploit them like the last guys

not an argument

Arguments are pointless against those who will not see reason

'Human nature' is a weak argument. "Human Nature", insofar as a mass population that complied with or actively supported the society itself, found itself reconciled with the ritualistic mass murder of Aztec society for hundreds of years.

If we acknowledge that different humans have different 'natures', we see that Liberalism and capitalism trample over many people's natural instincts just as well as communism does--It was the liberals who sent King Louis and thousands of others to the guillotine for acting on his natural instincts afterall.

If there's a lesson to be gleaned, its the potency of moral certitude against moralistic scruples and how willing a precarious state invested with absolute power will be to resort to violence for its 'greater good'.

It's tough business trying to plan an economy. Having people sort it out themselves makes much more sense.

Because the best way to make communism look like a step in the right direction is to start in an anarchic hellhole full of dead and dying

Because every attempt at communism has not been the real movement of the workers seeking to abolish commodity production but instead a utopian effort undertaken by idealistic bureaucrats and opportunists. Let's go down the list.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 had proletarian elements, and it was proletarians who voted the Bolshevik party into majorities of the workers' councils in Russia's cities. But Lenin pretty quickly destroyed these councils in favor of efficient state planning, turning the newly born Russian socialist republic into a state not run by the workers, but by party officials. As early as 1917 Marxists like Bordiga and Pannekoek were identifying the dangers of such a top-down socialism. By the 20s, the USSR operated like one giant capitalist factory, demanding growth and obedience regardless of the needs of the workers.

The communist revolution in China was just a great peasants' revolt, as the great landless masses of China rose up against their oppressors. Their aims were not to create socialism, because these peasants did not participate in capitalism. What they wanted was an individual petty-bourg existence, through yeoman property ownership or shared ownership of large farms. Mao, the peasants' beloved revolutionary leader, duly obliged them as he also enacted harebrained industrial schemes with the expressed purpose of making "communist" China a more competitive player on the capitalist market.

The socialist states of Eastern Europe were created by Stalin out of whole cloth as the Red Army tore through the ruins left by the Nazi occupiers. Local socialists and opportunists were hand-picked by the Soviet government on the basis of loyalty alone. In Yugoslavia there was no class revolution but an an anti-imperial struggle, in which communists happened to lead the charge and determine the practice economy. Yugoslav workers had no great support for socialism until Tito's government told them to love it.

Just a sizable portion.

Lol the food guide does say healthy portions.... Just theirs said of people starve

>"Human Nature", insofar as a mass population that complied with or actively supported the society itself, found itself reconciled with the ritualistic mass murder of Aztec society for hundreds of years.
You are confusing "human nature" with "moral values" . Your example only proves that the aztec society had different values than the western society but it does not prove that there are several human natures.
Every human is egocentric, that's a fact.

>we see that Liberalism and capitalism trample over many people's natural instincts just as well as communism
How so?

>-It was the liberals who sent King Louis and thousands of others to the guillotine for acting on his natural instincts afterall.
And the revolutionnaries didn't act on their natural instinct?

Except it hasn't?
How can people deny that the Russian Revolution was beneficial for the Russian people? Do people not realise how shitty the Imperial Russia was?

They have absolutely no idea.

These guys have almost never read a single book on the Soviet Union that isn't a Solzhenitsyn novel

war communism is the best communism :^)

/thread.

Too bad Veeky Forums is full of literal retards who think 'communism is when the state owns everything'

I won't say that communism hadn't been tried, but it certainly hasn't been tried anywhere that wasn't already a shithole to begin with.

>just disregard the fact that Germany annexed 1/3 of the territory and 2/3s of the industrial capability

Why are you spamming anti communism threads in attempt to make Veeky Forums into an ideological battleground?

So is communism impossible? tankies say "state capitalism" is a necessary stage to achieve communism.

Yes, and tankies are retards.

>Too bad Veeky Forums is full of literal retards who think 'communism is when the state owns everything'
Well, can you really blame them when almost every attempt at communism has become exactly that? Actually, not even that is something they have managed to achieve.

do venezuela I want more of your excuses

>state capitalism
Nice oxymoron

>thinks capitalism can exist in the absence of the state or in any way opposes it

Get a load of this lumpenprole

It's almost as if Maexism Lenism was the only doctrine allowed by the Third Internationale, and Lenists actively murdered anarchists.

Lmao, Capitalism is a mode of production based on private control, not 'muh freemarket'. Many of the most notable capitalist institutions were in fact state sanctioned monopolies.

(You)

t. anarkiddie

>state control is the same as private control
I don't think so

Because they gave absolute power to a single individual, which corrupts. Also the rulers' drive to ruthlessly maintain power creates a climate where people can't criticize obviously terrible ideas like the great leap forward.

>I'll just restate my point and not actually respond

Once again, understand the difference between private control and mode of production. Capitalism is commodity production based on a fluent law of value, to meet needs on a basis of profit, not need.

>I will proceed to define capitalism the same way socialist (who are opposed to capitalism) do
Special kind of retard, heh? Next time someone asks me for a definition of Marxism I will ask the fascists.

Capitalism is private ownership
Statism is public ownership
Socialism is social ownership
Communism is communal ownership

Therefore, state capitalism (or socialist capitalism, or communist capitalism) are oxymorons.

Hail to the bus driver,
bus driver, bus driver,
Hail to the bus driver,
bus driver-man.

You are the dunning-kruger effect embodied. Have you ever read a book? Do you understand what the word "ownership" means?

>t. anarkiddie

Nice argument faggot idiot

Venezuela is a social democracy based off oil wealth, and once the price of oil collapsed the gibs stopped flowing. Even a conservative economist would tell you this. Just search "Venezuela" on Bloomberg or the Economist.

What I wonder is why you guys always bring up Venezuela, though. It's not a communist country, the vast majority of businesses are privately owned, and the structure of their economy is not dissimilar to Norway. Yeah it's run by people who call themselves socialists, but that's the of half the center left parties in Europe.

It's hilarious that you guys actually agreed that Venezuela is just another social democracy before things went to shit there. Now you have a nice, if dishonest, anticommunist narrative to bring out whenever a struggling worker says they can't afford healthcare.

...

Not an argument

I would have to explain two hundred years worth of economic thought to him if he thinks "capitalism is private ownership" describes the totality of the ideology.

private property is still personal property. It may not be owned by you but it is owned by an entrepreneur (and or his investors).

>The workers overthrowing the old regime and voting in a dictatorial government of their choosing isn't a dictatorship of the proletariat
wew

No. Capitalism is an economic system where goods are traded for other goods (or IOUs in the case of money).

>arguement is a shit meme
at least pol makes good memes

>ITT: /leftypol/ tries once again to convince everyone to hate money and everybody laughs at them

Pretty accurate

It doesn't, but it's a necessary condition to consider something capitalism. You can't have capitalism without private ownership.

Nice strawman. I never said a thing about personal property, it's implied I was talking about the means of production.

>"Capitalism is an economic system where goods are traded for other goods"
>What is a commodity
>What is capital
>What is the difference between use value and exchange value

You have no idea what you're doing

What is the simplest definition?

Yeah well fuck them

Socialism is a movement of workers, not bureaucrats, and requires property to be owned collectively through local democratic councils, not a faraway government.

More importantly, a defining feature of socialism for Marx was the abolition of commodity production and wage labor. No socialist society has done this, thanks to the ludicrous Cold War mentality that higher GDP would lead to world domination and eventually communism. Lenin was even pretty explicit about wanting to emulate Western capitalists. After Marx, Plekhanov, and the social democrat Kautsky, his main influence was Henry fucking Ford.

Lenin sincerely wanted to help create a communist society, but after the revolutions in Germany, Hungary, and Western Europe failed to bear fruit he went full retard, convincing himself that only through increased capitalistic exploitation could the Soviet Union be developed enough to end wage labor. We all know how that turned out.

Because communists consistently fail to realize that human nature exists and is opposed to every aspect of communism.

Because its an unrealistic utopia written by an autistic G*rman NEET

Communists are Utopian faggots who thing that everyone will just share everything if they abolish the state.

What is "private property," to you?

Capitalism: an economic system based on the production and maintenance of capital.
Capital: "That part of a man's stock from which he expects to derive a profit" t. Adam Smith

>labour
>theory
>of
>value

>HUUURRRRR YOU DIDN'T DEFINE THE IDEOLOGY YOUR DEFENDING IN THE TERMS MY IDEOLOGY USES TO EXPLAIN IT HUURRRR ARGUE ON MY TERMS OR NOT AT ALL MARXISM ISN'T ONE GIANT SELF-REINFORCING CULT I SWEAR

...

The USA has wage labor, commodity production, market distribution, and capital mostly controlled by a few thousand plutocrats.

The Soviet Union had wage labor, commodity production, market distribution, and capital mostly controlled by a few thousand bureaucrats.

These systems are not considerably different. In the Soviet system, the workers do not control the economy. There is no hint of the socialism that Marx, or even the utopian socialist thinkers before him, described would occur.

...

>Capitalists ignoring the existence of capital
>Capitalists creating straw men because they can't respond to actual argumentation

Really can't say I'm surprised

Why have you put the anarchy symbol with real socialism? Everyone knows that socialism and anarchy is incompatible.

>Commodity, use value, and exchange value aren't all Marxist terms that are completely irrelevant to an actual non-Marxist (read: non-retarded) definition of capitalism

You really don't knew what you're talking about. At the very least, read a couple Wikipedia articles.

Capitalism is a system of commodity production, where owners of property pay wages to people who only own their labor. Property may be owned by an individual or by a group of individuals. That doesn't change the nature of this mode of production.

Statism is not an economic term used by any historian or economist. It just means the existence of a state. With the exception of ancaps, every capitalist is a statist because they recognize the state must defend property from thieves and revolutionaries.

Socialism and communism can be considered mutual ownership, but that's really too vague. Marx made it clear that socialism was not a policy, but instead the collective economic system that would inevitably occur once commodity production and private property had been abolished.

No "socialist" society has abolished commodity production or private property. Marx would be the first to tell you that socialism has never existed.

Marx based a considerable portion of his work on the ideas of Adam Smith, particularly on his notion of "capital" (see: ). Try again kiddo

Not really. East Germany, for example, was known for its feared secret police apparatus, but they killed negligible numbers. Similar to Cuba and most Eastern European countries.

Proletarians supported Napoleon III, did that make the second French Empire a dictatorship of the Republic??

Read Marx, read Pannekoek, read Bordiga, or even read Luxemburg or early Lenin. A socialist society must be built through an association of democratic workers councils who confiscate bourgeois property and begin the process of dismantling wage labor and the value form.

This is what the dictatorship of the proletariat means.

>capitalism works without being an autistically specific variant of capitalism
>socialism always fails because it isn't MUH autistically specific variant
Almond status: ACTIVATED

What are you even talking about?

See this is the problem with Marxism, this post right here. A fascist and a monarchist and a laissez-faire capitalist and even a non-Marxist socialist can all get together and argue economics, but when a Marxist enters the race it becomes a complete shitshow. You keep trying to get people to argue on your terms, using your silly jargon within your phony little dialectic but nobody is going to take the bait. You can't just shove your dick into the conversation and say "MY WORDS ARE THE ONLY ONES THAT ARE RIGHT IF YOU'RE NOT DEFINING YOURSELVES WITH MY WORDS YOU'RE WRONG", nobody is going to take you seriously and nobody does take you seriously. Nobody who disagrees with you is going to concede the right to define language to your ideology and only yours. You guys can't argue on more neutral grounds and its why you always look stupid.

>Quoting a post that reaffirms what I've already said
I don't know what you were expecting to get out of this post. I never had any issue with using the word capital in the definition of capitalism, my issue was with the other 3 words as I said. Capital as a medium of exchange is a pretty integral part of capitalism.

There are tons of variants of capitalism that are functional

every variant of socialism fails and socialist always say, but that wasn't REAL socialism whenever you bring up a failed attempt

...

>Proletarians supported Napoleon III, did that make the second French Empire a dictatorship of the Republic??
No because that was not based on class consciousness. The Soviet Revolution was a revolution of class consciousness wherein the workers forcibly installed a dictatorship of the proletariat, led by the leaders of their choosing. I don't know about Pannekoak or Bordiga or Luxemburg, but it was true to Marx and therefore Marxism.

Prove that the Russian people could only have experienced beneficial reform from under the boot-heel of the Bolsheviks.
Protip: You can't.

Are you deaf? Whenever someone points out capitalist failure, capitalists either deny it, externalize it, or say it's not REAL capitalism.

>This passes for a good meme on /leftypol/

capitalism fails sometimes, the difference between it and socialism is that it also succeeds sometimes

Like socialism succeeds sometimes, contrary to right wing memes and propaganda?

>Hire some guy to mow your lawn
>Your personal property is now private property as it's the place a guy works at

I see through your commie schemes.

...

>Like socialism succeeds sometimes
literally where?

China

t. chinese capitalist

See this is silly because capitalism as done a better job at humanitarianism than any other ideology, including communism. You're measuring capitalism absolutely when you should be measuring it relatively against communism or mercantilism. Of course, that's all presented on the assumption that humanitarianism is good. Tbh most of those people dying are probably not white so I have no qualms with it. In fact, I would argue for a mode of production that removes even more of said people. Anyway, 1/10 meme made me reply.

>Its capitalism's fault that Africans are too retarded to farm efficiently and have 8 kids per woman
/leftypol/ can't meme

Socialistic elements in non socialist countries (e.g. the Soviet Union and its satellites) made or maintained substantial improvements in living standards. In Albania the life expectancy went from like 35 to 68ish in 15-20 years.

Revisionism is the true path to enlightenment.

>externalizing
typical

>White guilt
Typical

Literally irrelevant.
It's not about whether there were better alternatives - there were, the Bolsheviks weren't perfect and they got worse over the time. The point is that they greatly improved on what came before them.
>Africa isn't exploited for capitalist interests
apex kek

Hello my name is deng and im a Socialist of the capitalist variety.

>M-muh niggers need socialism
Give them socialism. Prove to yourself that both niggers are subhuman and that communism doesn't work.

>africa's problems are all whitey's fault
So are you a jew or a Kang?

>Africa isn't the way it is because of Africans
Oh you sweet summer child

The reason most anti-communists bring up Venezuela is because of how many communists used to praise it and bring it up as an example of how communism "works."

>Socialistic elements in non socialist countries
>anything besides pure laze-fare ancap is a socialist element
The fuck are you even talking about

>It's not about whether there were better alternatives - there were, the Bolsheviks weren't perfect and they got worse over the time. The point is that they greatly improved on what came before them.

The point is that what came before was going to be greatly improved upon regardless. Do you justify the Nazis seizing power because they "greatly improved upon what came before"?

>-but Nazi economics were not sustainable!
and Soviet economics were?

But the whole point is that it's not a "medium of exchange." Capitalists are so dense they can't even define "capital" correctly when the definition is handed to them.

I was quoting myself, by the way