Comment on If you want communism, you can start a commune

• Killing_Spark@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You’d rather entrust almost every aspect of your live to the benevolence of some people that do not have any oversight by the populous that they have power over by the means of controlling the capital?

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  • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I trust the greed of these people. If people are willing to pay for something, at least some of them will invest in it to profit off of it.

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    • Killing_Spark@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      There is one problem with this: what’s profitable and what’s beneficial for society do not necessarily align.

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      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Am I saying that we should give corporations a free run of the country? No, we should legislate them until they are a model of virtue.

        But the smart way to do it is to align their greed with our interests. As an example, creating a carbon tax is much better then government trying to implements specific green initiatives. The corporate greed will find efficient and innovative way to reduce emissions compared to what the governments do.

        If that is not possible, then just legislate them normally. Or even make a government run/funded competitors. In Slovak republic, insurance companies are private except one that is government run and serves as a lowest bar that others have to compete with.

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• zea_64@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m not well read enough on communism to know smart people’s ideas there, but the way I see it it gives room for any system of experimentation the people want. Maybe you pitch your idea to the government instead of investors, and they give you resources. In a system with small markets, you can start in the market and, if it does well, get upgraded to governments operated. “Communism” doesn’t mean one thing, and there’s a lot of room for variety, do we could we decide to try one of these systems but then switch to another, allowing better adaptation than capitalism where profit is the only way.

  I take hormone therapy for transgender people (hi, I am transgender people) and I’m already at the whims of the government. Perhaps a communist government might not make it free for me if the political climate said no, but as long as it’s not outright banned and there is some alternate system to the government’s plan, I could still get it. That’s not far off where I am now, actually (Florida). Perhaps we could write this sort of going around other government to some degree (perhaps by small market) into the constitution as a layer of safety.

  I’ve been saying “let the government do [x]” a lot, and if you’re from a neoliberal country you might have heard “excessive bureaucracy”, but that’s a result of capitalism ruining your government. Government doesn’t have to be bad, nor even a monolith. Most forms of communism I’ve heard of have multiple levels, from committees covering broad country-level goals to committees on local-level details, each level getting a fair degree of autonomy. But also, you can talk to or even get on the committees! They’re made of citizens like you, and with no corporate interests or lobbying!

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  • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    First of all, thank you for a sensible and pleasant reply. It really is a breath fresh of air in here :)

    I think the small markets only go so far. Many things in a modern economy don’t work well on a small scale. This is actually where many of the worst examples of capitalism come from too. With barriers to entry into areas like mobile phones, medicine, social networks, utilities etc. some companies become near monopolies. But as you say, various solutions could be tried.

    Another issue I can see is the difficulty of ensuring power is not too concentrated in a small group. But again, various things could be tried and capitalism has these issues to lesser extent as well.

    The thing that concerns me most is how to try them out without driving the economy off a cliff and without violence. If we could try these systems on smaller scale next to capitalism, than I am all for it, lets experiment. But most people here talk about a revolution or confiscating all wealth above a threshold (dismantling the capitalist system). If this is really the only way to try communism, then I think it is much more sensible to work on gradually improving capitalism instead. There are capitalists countries like the Nordics, Switzerland, Netherlands, etc. that are capitalist and are very nice to live in.

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    • zea_64@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Seizing the means of production and putting it in the ownership of the workers will, realistically, require revolution or damn well near it. But, workers owning their work doesn’t require an end to our current markets. We can keep them mostly as is, besides, of course, the rich and powerful people who currently do no work and just “own” things. From that state, it can be a more gradual transition.

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      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        If you think this, you are likely severely misunderstanding how modern financial markets work. You redistribute the wealth suddenly enough and the great depression will seem like nostalgic good times.

        Also, is the difference between what we know is possible without a revolution (countries I listed above) so much worse than communism it would be worth the lives lost in a revolution? I don’t see it.

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