Comment on What’s the difference between communism and socialism?

• Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  We had 65,000 years of communism here in Australia. It was a gift economy. People lived with their families. They hunted food for their families, made tools for their families, constructed shelter for their families, made farms for their families. Reciprocity is one of the fundamental Indigenous values. You give what you can, you take what you need.

  If you have a society where people’s work is valued, then they take pride in giving. Look at Linux, look at Wikipedia. People do great things for each other because kindness is a fundamental human trait. Capitalism is the source of our modern greed and selfishness.

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  • CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I always ask myself “could this ideology produce a world class hospital” when thinking about if I agree with an ideology. Do you think a gift based communist economy could produce one? Not being snarky, I’m genuinely on the fence on one hand I say no but on the other hand, from an altruistic perspective a world class hospital is in everyone’s best interest so… maybe, yeah, it feels at least possible if you got a lot of other stuff right?

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    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I’m not convinced a hospital is the best place to heal the sick. Indigenous health outcomes got a lot worse after colonisation, even when Indigenous people weren’t classed as fauna. A lot of Indigenous people get diagnosed with a serious illness, travel hundreds of kilometres to a hospital, and die there. Because at the hospital, they’re isolated from their family, their community, their home, their country. I grew up in white culture, and I still find hospitals to be isolating places as a patient. It’s gotta be way worse for someone who didn’t grow up in that kind of environment.

      Instead, imagine a travelling doctor service where the doctor has hours to get to know you while they treat you, where you feel valued as a patient. The biopsychosocial benefits should be obvious. There’s just one problem: patient volume.

      Fortunately, communism has some great solutions to the patient volume problem. For example:

      • No more tobacco companies
      • No more gambling companies
      • No more financial incentive to push hard drugs
      • No more financial barriers to preventative medicine
      • No more 80 hour workweeks to support your family
      • No more dangerous working conditions in the name of profit
      • No more fossil fuel companies
      • No more car pollution

      Capitalism makes people sick in the name of profit, and then sells them the cure. In a communist system, doctors would have more time to treat their patients like people.

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      • LurkingLuddite@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Ehh, you’re thinking too small minded to approach the topic of hospitals in a communist society.

        There would be far more doctors because the biggest barrier to entry is the cost of years upon years of schooling. If anyone who wanted and was capable were able to simply go to school without taking on huge debt or needing help, far more would try.

        On top of that, if there was no money incentive to go be a doctor in a big city, far more people would be good doctors near small towns.

        You would absolutely NOT have to travel thousands of miles and be away from your family, unless you had a novel disease that literally only a select few knew how to treat. You’d also still be in much better spirits knowing treatment wouldn’t impoverish you.

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      • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I agree with most of that, but I think I still need to bring up the benefits of centralised health services. In simple cases, you don’t really need that, but in tricky cases you might. For example, if you need an MRI image before surgery, you just can’t rely on travelling doctors. Those machines are expensive, so you’re only going to have those in large cities where they can be used more frequently.

        Surgery also benefits from being a centralised service. You can’t expect a traveling surgeon to carry all the stuff you need for keeping the whole room clean. Besides, the room itself needs special equipment. A simple scalpel and a steady hand aren’t enough to make it work.

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    • linguinus@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I think your approach for evaluating political economic systems is sound, and it’s worth pointing out that, despite decades of unimateral embargo from the us, Cuba has some of the best doctors in the world. They developed their own covid vaccine. From Wikipedia:

      Cuba provides more medical personnel to the developing world than all the G8 countries combined.

      I think it makes a strong case that a political system oriented towards common good can overcome crippling material restrictions imposed by a hostile neighboring superpower to provide free, high quality, universal healthcare.

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    • GuyIncognito@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Future communism (as opposed to primitive communism, the mode of production of hunter-gatherer bands that preceded agriculture) is a completely theoretical mode of production that is theorized to come after socialism. Basically, the idea is that the state will eventually wither away. How exactly this occurs is a problem for later, but it doesn’t preclude any form of organization, just no state.

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  • bobzer@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Ok… lithium is mined in Australia and is needed in factories in China and India. Who decides where it gets sent?

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    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The clan or tribe who cares for the land where the lithium is mined will meet for a yarning circle. At the yarning circle, they’ll talk about the foreigners’ need for lithium and whether the foreigners make for good neighbours. The foreigners’ gifts to the clan will be judged. The totem holders of the impacted species will speak on sustainability issues.

      They’ll reach a consensus on whether the foreigners are good neighbours, whether they need the lithium, and how much damage the mine will do to the land. The clan will make a decision together. Then the mine will be approved or denied.

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      • bobzer@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        foreigners

        Don’t see this word applied much in communist literature. Are we not all the proletariat united?

        Everyone will listen to the Elders

        On what basis? Are they elected or just old?

        And what prevents the group who you decide not to supply lithium to from invading you and taking it?

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      • ivanafterall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        What if several tribes claim the land with the lithium, as tends to happen with valuable resources?

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      • angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Sounds just like today. The positions of elders would soon atract the ruthless psychopats that seek power. The sustainability speak soon becomes an empty ritual. A few powerfull people decide the important stuff based on their potential gains.

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  • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    What you’re describing sounds more like communitarianism than communism. Despite the confusingly similar name they are actually very different ideologies. (though they also have some similar precepts at the same time)

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    • Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It’s both.

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