Were nations better off communist rather than capitalist?

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Asa said:

Why does it always have to be one or the other?
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A really interesting question. Going further ... Could we each be our own state? In the stone age sovereignty was at the individual level, or at the level of families and tribes. What would it be like if we saw the land as something we were part of instead of something someone owned?
 
John K said:
A really interesting question. Going further ... Could we each be our own state? In the stone age sovereignty was at the individual level, or at the level of families and tribes. What would it be like if we saw the land as something we were part of instead of something someone owned?
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That sounds a lot like anarchy syndicate
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
That sounds a lot like anarchy syndicate
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It could be where we go if technology takes care of all our essentials in the future. I'm afraid it wouldn't work though because there are too many people about whose only way of living is to try and dominate others. I think my this-world utopia would be to live in symbiotic harmony with Gaia, but sadly I think that if it were practical it would be drowned in bullies and other arses.
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
Was the US and other countries better off communist? Was the USSR and China as bad as western leaders liked people to believe? It seemed like the USSR was doing pretty well until Reagan, Thatcher, and other leaders kept taunting them to disassemble.

I know the biggest benefit of capitalism is that it's decentralized, more efficient, and gives people incentive. However, it seemed communism might give people more peace of mind as far as opportunity to learn and opportunity for more interesting jobs. The USSR was the first country to make it to space, for instance. So a lot of citizens had the opportunity to take part in contributing to the space program.

The problem with capitalism is that it increases inequality and most of the wealth goes to the leaders of the largest, profitable corporations. There seems to be evidence that capitalism is rather inefficient by itself. For examples, for-profit education tends not to work well. The companies that tended to do rather well were actually government contractors in Defense and education.
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Better on what grounds? It's a question of value so you would have to specify how you valuate 'good' in this case.

What's for sure is that capitalism has proven to be more sustainable than communism.

I think Karl Popper's arguments against historicism are decisive in showing that a communist system cannot work. It should be mandatory reading for all students!

See here for the section called "Hegel, Marx and Modern Historicism".
 
Ren said:
Better on what grounds? It's a question of value so you would have to specify how you valuate 'good' in this case.

What's for sure is that capitalism has proven to be more sustainable than communism.

I think Karl Popper's arguments against historicism are decisive in showing that a communist system cannot work. They should be mandatory reading for all students!
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It works in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Ideally something like anarchy syndicate is better. Socialism / communism is better at preventing poverty, building communities. Socialism gives people more opportunity. Like, who wants to work at some sandwich shop or fast food place, hotel, or mechanic when one could work something like NASA. One problem with capitalism is it divides, people are left behind.

A Star Trek civilization is basically communist.

I don't think anyone likes totalitarianism though, or authoritarianism.
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
It works in China, Cuba, and Vietnam. Ideally something like anarchy syndicate is better. Socialism / communism is better at preventing poverty, building communities. Socialism gives people more opportunity. Like, who wants to work at some sandwich shop or fast food place, hotel, or mechanic when one could work something like NASA. One problem with capitalism is it divides, people are left behind.

A Star Trek civilization is basically communist.

I don't think anyone likes totalitarianism though, or authoritarianism.
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So you think everyone in the USSR worked for a space program? :grinning:

China is not communist, although we cannot deny that there exists a strong element of central planning in Chinese state.
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
It works in China, Cuba, and Vietnam.
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China and Vietnam are hybrid systems, very far from the communist DNA in significant respects. Cuba is closer to that DNA.

Okay, that's one country doing relatively okay out of 193. If anything, an outlier.
 
Home, yes. Jobs, yes, but I wouldn't say a very meaningful one. Don't forget that Stalin relied heavily on industry and there was a lot of factories, plants etc. Doesn't seem much better to me than working for McDonalds.
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
No, but everyone was guaranteed a home and a job, probably more meaningful than some the things under capitalism.
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I really doubt that, to be honest.

Also, didn't you say in a different thread that what drove the world to misery was the Industrial age? You realise that communism is a quintessentially industrial system...?
 
philostam said:
Home, yes. Jobs, yes, but I wouldn't say a very meaningful one. Don't forget that Stalin relied heavily on industry and there was a lot of factories, plants etc. Doesn't seem much better to me than working for McDonalds.
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It's better than seeing people in poverty, which the US still has today. Working with machinery seems. bait more interesting than working at Mcdonald's
 
Ren said:
I really doubt that, to be honest.

Also, didn't you say in a different thread that what drove the world to misery was the Industrial age? You realise that communism is a quintessentially industrial system...?
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Without a doubt, it is capitalism that drove the Industrial Age, not communism.

Carnegie, Rockefeller, Henry Ford were capitalists.

US / Germany had the most innovative technology in WW1/ WW2 because they were capitalists.
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
It's better than seeing people in poverty, which the US still has today. Working with machinery seems. bait more interesting than working at Mcdonald's
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Well, there is no way to know what's "better". I personally don't like physical labor or operating some heavy and dangerous machinery.

In any case, arguing that USSR was a good system is foolish.
 
Interesting topic though, and we can certainly debate about communism vs capitalism in abstraction. :grinning:

But USSR simply wasn't a successful implementation. Yugoslavia was much better and more free.
 
philostam said:
Interesting topic though, and we can certainly debate about communism vs capitalism in abstraction. :grinning:
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Okay, let's do this then :p

Do you think a teleologically oriented system can work given the fallibility of human knowledge and the impossibility to predict historical events accurately?
 
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