Were nations better off communist rather than capitalist?

Ren said:
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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Great question.

The answer is obviously no - however, I don't think that communist states should even attempt this. There shouldn't be some powerful computer that could help them improve their centrally planned decision making.

But I cannot answer more at this point. What do you/others think?
 
Socualism/Communism is better at preventing poverty and building communities?

ROFL.

Yes, it's good at building communities that flee or starve. And yes, when everyone's poor, the word ceases to have meaning, so I guess in that sense it's true.

Misery loves company so nothing builds community like suffering side by side.


Sarcasm aside, I'm currently staying with my family in law in Colombia. There are 4.5 million Venezuelan refugees here. Come here, have a conversation with them, see how you feel then.
 
Ren said:
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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In my view, no. There is arguably too much of a risk that a system ran by AI/technology being too data-centred and efficient, invariably being cold and perhaps even inhumane. Unless you're into a Matrix reality then hell yeah
 
Lady Jolanda said:
Sure, if you like the 1950's. :D
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Lol the 1950s were great - relative to what came before. We had no central heating, no car, no fridge or washing machine, no double glazing. I was only a kid then and didn't know any better (who could) but you can keep it and stuff it.
 
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slant said:
This feels like a question that would take at least three years of research to even have a slightly intelligent and informed opinion on.
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To be fair, a lot of serious research has been done on the topic already.

In the realm of both political science and historical research, I think it is fair to say the consensus among experts is capitalism is full of flaws, while communism (at least as it has been implemented in the twentieth century) is a catastrophe.

I think we can only take the OP question as open-ended if we posit from the start that communism has never been truly implemented. For example communism should theoretically not lead to an autocracy. But then this raises the question: is it a democratic communist system actually possible? etc.
 
The bigger question could be, could a civilization like in Star Trek be implemented?
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
The bigger question could be, could a civilization like in Star Trek be implemented?
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Nah, these things have to develop. It's the implementers who are the problem and mess everything up. It's not to say it can't happen, I mean, communism (the epoch) and Christianity have common themes. It's the Socialism (epoch), the need for violent revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat (that the smelly, stupid proletariat can't be trusted to run themselves) which is where things immediately go wrong.

Vanguard, my arse!

I'll be communist with the people I like, you do the same, and eventually it'll reach a tipping point or something.
 
Ren said:
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?
Click to expand...
I’m thinking that this depends on the nature of the goals. If they are intrinsically bound up with a theoretical system then I fear they are doomed to failure. That’s because no fixed system can be appropriate for all eventualities- I doubt that contemporary political systems can seriously pursue essential objectives that need several generations of sacrifice to deliver for example. We seem to be struggling with that problem at the moment in relation to the environment. There are no stable goals of that sort because the way our societies develop and the things our environment throw at us means these goals have to change, and that tends to destroy the related system.

On the other hand there are goals expressed as values that seem to be independent of any one system and which most civilised societies agree on in some form or another. The pursuit of happiness, the right to life, etc. I think that these sort of objectives can be accepted as teleological objectives and remain constant and valid under severe changes in society, political system, or environment.
 
I have quite a lot I could say about this, but apart from John & to some extent Ren (you need to give us your actual opinion, man!), the level of this debate has been pretty low. Up your damn game, lads!

What I find disappointing about the modern reception of Marxism is that Marx's theory of history (Historical Materialism; HM) and critique of capitalism are given nowhere near enough credit because of what happened subsequently in the twentieth century.

To me, HM is almost like Newton's theory of gravitation - it fits all the contemporary data and seems to work quite elegantly, but breaks down over the long term and at particular scales, &c. (e.g. Newton compared to Einstein). As theories of history go, HM is still unsurpassed to my mind (mostly because nobody since Tonybee has really bothered), and people forget this. It's easier to critique than it is to replace, and all the whoha in the modern field of International Relations of them whinging about how historians won't theorise their output and have stopped producing theories of history ('substantive philosophy of history') seems to prove this.

Marx was an intellectual powerhouse; an unsurpassed genius in his time and field, and his modern reception feels like people bashing a Newton as if they could've done better.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
I have quite a lot I could say about this, but apart from John & to some extent Ren (you need to give us your actual opinion, man!), the level of this debate has been pretty low. Up your damn game, lads!

What I find disappointing about the modern reception of Marxism is that Marx's theory of history (Historical Materialism; HM) and critique of capitalism are given nowhere near enough credit because of what happened subsequently in the twentieth century.

To me, HM is almost like Newton's theory of gravitation - it fits all the contemporary data and seems to work quite elegantly, but breaks down over the long term and at particular scales, &c. (e.g. Newton compared to Einstein). As theories of history go, HM is still unsurpassed to my mind (mostly because nobody since Tonybee has really bothered), and people forget this. It's easier to critique than it is to replace, and all the whoha in the modern field of International Relations of them whinging about how historians won't theorise their output and have stopped producing theories of history ('substantive philosophy of history') seems to prove this.

Marx was an intellectual powerhouse; an unsurpassed genius in his time and field, and his modern reception feels like people bashing a Newton as if they could've done better.
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Well said, I agree with this. The first time I read Marx, I was truly shocked...The quality of his writing and insights were staggering.
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
I have quite a lot I could say about this, but apart from John & to some extent Ren (you need to give us your actual opinion, man!), the level of this debate has been pretty low. Up your damn game, lads!
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It's funny because the person I'm 'seeing' at the moment said recently that on the forum I tend to facilitate/ask questions rather than give my opinion. ^^ So perhaps there's a bit of that at work here, but mostly I haven't been pushed to express my opinion because the OP question seemed a little bit old/unexciting to me. @philostam suggested moving the discussion to a more abstract/theoretical level which is probably the only way to salvage it.

One thing I'll say for the time being is that you can be an intellectual powerhouse and still produce a theory that is completely false. I'm not claiming that applies to Marx but it is still important to emphasise this distinction. As for my actual opinion, well, let me figure it out first and then I'll develop it in more detail :p
 

Here is the take by Yannis Varoufakis: "Confessions of an erratic Marxist".

I already mentioned him a few times, but I consider him to be one of the greatest public intellectuals of our time.

What's also interesting is that his 3 biggest inspirations are Marx, Keynes and John Nash, who are all typed as INTJs.

No surprise that Varoufakis seems to be an INTJ as well. We seem to be attracted to our own type on some level.
 
The_Mysterious_Stranger said:
The USSR was the first country to make it to space, for instance.
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To put a man in space, the first country to send something into space was Nazi Germany during some of their rocket tests
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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Not to Pol Pot it ain't
 
philostam said:

Here is the take by Yannis Varoufakis: "Confessions of an erratic Marxist".

I already mentioned him a few times, but I consider him to be one of the greatest public intellectuals of our time.

What's also interesting is that his 3 biggest inspirations are Marx, Keynes and John Nash, who are all typed as INTJs.

No surprise that Varoufakis seems to be an INTJ as well. We seem to be attracted to our own type on some level.
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And Leo Tolstoy , Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Leon Trotsky were all INFJs.
 
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I like the idea of communism mixed with capitalism. Because it better motivates people into STEM, philosophy, and more sophisticated arts (like music, architecture. As Neizche said, make art achievement oriented. (I think Dennis Prager has a good criticism on a lot of the liberal art) Capitalism is a distraction. Sort of how renaissance artists were under direction of the Vatican.
 
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