Communism sounds great but it assumes that the people who rise to the top and run the government are going to share the wealth. Humans aren’t like that, we are too selfish. The ones who reach the top will always take more and give less to the ones at the bottom
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that’s true…
The response should not be to lean into that and make taking more and giving less the foundation of your society.
Nearly every improvement in the organization of civilized societies for the past 3000 years has been based around increasing rigidity of redistribution of wealth and decentralization of power, not its concentration.
An imperfect solution is better than a decision which honestly claims to be no solution at all.
“Socialism won’t solve our problems” is a legitimate argument, perhaps, against utopian types. But those of us looking to make life less shitty by 10%-20% by implementing a socialist system are less impressed by the appeal to imperfection.
Ok but now you’re mixing up socialism and communism, I’ve lived under communism and it was not pleasant. So I’ll never ever like it in practice.
And your response
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that’s true…
Like come on really? You’re debating me on the FACT that humans are selfish at their core and will always help their own first? I had no idea this was even up for debate
Ok but now you’re mixing up socialism and communism, I’ve lived under communism and it was not pleasant. So I’ll never ever like it in practice.
No?
Communism, as the shorthand for the ideology, refers to any worldview with an end-goal of a stateless, moneyless, classless society. Communism, in common usage, often refers to, specifically, Marxist-Leninist interpretations (which are ironically not very Marxist) like the Soviet Union.
However, these Marxist-Leninist interpretations themselves did not claim to have reached communism, the end-goal of a stateless, moneyless, classless society. They claimed to have reached a socialist workers’ state, and I can quote any number of official statements from the USSR and PRC to that effect.
They reached nothing of the sort, of course, but when most people are discussing what next step we should take, various forms of socialism are what’s being discussed, not the end-goal of communism.
Like come on really? You’re debating me on the FACT that humans are selfish at their core and will always help their own first? I had no idea this was even up for debate
The idea that selfishness is humanity’s foremost trait ignores man as a social animal and the immense amount of self-sacrifice - even for strangers - people are capable of even without a firm ideological basis.
People are selfish. People are also selfless. ‘Human nature’ is not something that can be boiled down to simple platitudes to justify an ideological view.
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that’s true…
The response should not be to lean into that and make taking more and giving less the foundation of your society. Nearly every improvement in the organization of civilized societies for the past 3000 years has been based around increasing rigidity of redistribution of wealth and decentralization of power, not its concentration.
An imperfect solution is better than a decision which honestly claims to be no solution at all.
“Socialism won’t solve our problems” is a legitimate argument, perhaps, against utopian types. But those of us looking to make life less shitty by 10%-20% by implementing a socialist system are less impressed by the appeal to imperfection.
Ok but now you’re mixing up socialism and communism, I’ve lived under communism and it was not pleasant. So I’ll never ever like it in practice. And your response
Like come on really? You’re debating me on the FACT that humans are selfish at their core and will always help their own first? I had no idea this was even up for debate
No?
Communism, as the shorthand for the ideology, refers to any worldview with an end-goal of a stateless, moneyless, classless society. Communism, in common usage, often refers to, specifically, Marxist-Leninist interpretations (which are ironically not very Marxist) like the Soviet Union.
However, these Marxist-Leninist interpretations themselves did not claim to have reached communism, the end-goal of a stateless, moneyless, classless society. They claimed to have reached a socialist workers’ state, and I can quote any number of official statements from the USSR and PRC to that effect.
They reached nothing of the sort, of course, but when most people are discussing what next step we should take, various forms of socialism are what’s being discussed, not the end-goal of communism.
The idea that selfishness is humanity’s foremost trait ignores man as a social animal and the immense amount of self-sacrifice - even for strangers - people are capable of even without a firm ideological basis.
People are selfish. People are also selfless. ‘Human nature’ is not something that can be boiled down to simple platitudes to justify an ideological view.