Questions for communists

[beenherebeforeagain]

Care to enlighten me?

I'd prefer that you enlighten yourself and actually do some research on it beyond skimming the Wikipedia article. Mondragon is a worker-owned cooperative venture that operates in several different sectors of the economy. Pay is set by the workers' cooperatives in the different sectors; the average pay range for all the different ventures is about 1:5--which means the "highest" senior managers get to make about five times what the "lowest" entry-level employee makes. Sure, as some have pointed out, it is "fully integrated into a capitalistic system." The same can be said of the kibbutzim in Israel, and employee- and member-owned companies all around the world. Being a small organization in a larger economy does not change its basic nature from being communistic. Notice the lower case c.

When founded by a young Catholic Priest a few years following the end of the Spanish Civil War (in 1941, as the rest of Europe was in the midst of some minor military conflict...), Mondragon experienced continual disruption by the government and anti-communist elements in Spanish society--as well as anti-Basque elements, and pressures from Basque separatists. The collective has persevered, and succeeded in the modern economy, whereas the shortcomings of state-centered communism became obvious and led to the downfall of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact "communist" nations. China has left the golden path of state Communism, although it has had its share of troubles in the process. Others have addressed North Korea.

Communism has been show, by the success of organizations such as the Kibbutzim and Mondragon and the failures of the state-centered forms, to only work on the small scale--what economist EF Schumacher said was "with a human face." These are pragmatic, local organizations--communities--whose members work to improve their collective condition, rather than expecting the success of a few to trickle down to the many others who made success possible.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

So... Marx thought that we were going to get a mixture of capitalism and communism?
I fail to grasp your application of dialectics.

I was pointing out what HE said--he also thought it required violent revolution...

My belief is that he was WRONG. The dialectic is rubbish. There is no direction to historical events, developments do not immediately entail their opposite, etc. He had unrealistic models of human psychology, sociology, politics, economy, etc. I think some--a few--of his critiques are perhaps useful, but his detailed work is no more or less valid than The Wealth of Nations.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I fail to see how set pay or worker ownership makes it's nature "communistic" unless you are using the word in a different way then I have come to understand.

Go read some about the founding of the organization and its trials and tribulations over the decades. Especially, look at that link to religious communism that you posted, which is where it originated. Or have you forgotten that not too long ago that "liberation theology" was a vibrant and influential part of the RCC; in fact, the current pope came of age during its heyday, where he lived...

 

[Spiderman]

I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation so far...love you guys

I realized I'm a communist, I'm just for the communism as it is practiced at monasteries

 

[Laika]

I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation so far...love you guys

I realized I'm a communist, I'm just for the communism as it is practiced at monasteries

Lol. If you want to join in you're welcome to use the communist only sub forum if you want more info or to share whatever. It could use some activity. this discussions been pretty interesting so far.

Communist Only

 

[Spiderman]

Lol. If you want to join in you're welcome to use the communist only sub forum if you want more info or to share whatever. It could use some activity. this discussions been pretty interesting so far.

Communist Only

Thank you! I don't know however if the staff would recognize my brand of communism as legit communism. If a Bennedictine monastery counts as communist, then I'm communist!

 

[Laika]

Thank you! I don't know however if the staff would recognize my brand of communism as legit communism. If a Bennedictine monastery counts as communist, then I'm communist!

There isn't an official definition as of yet but we could use a bit of variety. Just be yourself and see if its "clicks". If not- no worries. There's plenty to explore.

I think @Kirran is religious and anarchist communist and uses the sub forum. so maybe that's someone you can talk to about it.

 

[Kirran]

I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation so far...love you guys

I realized I'm a communist, I'm just for the communism as it is practiced at monasteries

Keep in mind that by definition the vast majority of people can't be monastics - do you advocate a similar form of social organisation for them as for monastics?

 

[Spiderman]

Keep in mind that by definition the vast majority of people can't be monastics - do you advocate a similar form of social organisation for them as for monastics?

minus the chastity and forced prayers...I still think it is the best way of life. Everyone puts forth their talents and money to build up the community.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

minus the chastity and forced prayers...I still think it is the best way of life. Everyone puts forth their talents and money to build up the community.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"?

There's a reason Marx stole/borrowed this from the Bible...

Of course, the Lenin/Stalinists changed it to, "He who does not work, neither shall he eat..."

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Do you have a proposed method for transforming a semi-feudal society into the Marxist utopia?

No. I am not a Marxist. I used to be a Marxist. The Marxist "utopia" is not my goal.

 

[Spiderman]

I'm not talking about you right now.

Lenin/Stalin did not "change it". They were attempting a realistic transformation to what Marx envisioned.

Who is your least favorite communist leader in history?

 

[Spiderman]

My least favorite self-proclaimed communist is Pol Pot.

I thought that was who you were going to say

That sicko deserves as much contempt as Hitler. He never was capable of being responsible for the same number of deaths or he would have been.

Do you like Ho Chi Minh?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I'm not talking about you right now.

Lenin/Stalin did not "change it". They were attempting a realistic transformation to what Marx envisioned.

I'll have to respectfully disagree there. They were justifying their own grab for power and the establishment of a state cult around Lenin, and later Stalin's, lust for power.

I also note that they persecuted anything they considered to be an unorthodox interpretation of Marx...which led in part to the schism with Mao in China, but also the the Gulag and death for many real Marxists who didn't share their zeal for top-down governance.

 

[Spiderman]

Can communists be allied with Fascists?

 

[siti]

I disagree; if people start forming effective collectives--such as Mondragon, or the Kibbutim--they will effectively start to change the nature of capitalistic societies.

Small collectives can show that they are a better way of organizing a community and businesses than traditional private enterprises...or not...but it's not ideology but pragmatism that should decide.

Well the historical evidence can attest to whether this is true or not. Mondragon has not changed the capitalist nature or the boom and bust frailty of Spain's economy. Mondragon employees are just as subject as everyone else to the vagaries of the property markets and fluctuating living costs. Their savings (apart, perhaps? from their shares in the cooperative) are at the mercy of the same disastrous collapses as anyone else's...

...likewise the kibbutzim - they have had over 100 years now to change the nature of their capitalist society - but they remain effectively as far as I can see, reasonably successful collective enterprises within a capitalist "free"-market economic system. They are obliged to respond to market forces (rather than collective social needs) as the principle guiding factor in deciding their future direction.

So all that is not to say that small collectives are not a better way of organizing communities...but as long as they are run as businesses in an otherwise overwhelmingly capitalist economy, all they can prove is that they are as good or better than capitalists at their own game. It still doesn't make it communist. The situation I referred to in Fiji (prior to Colonial rule from the 1870s) was much closer to communism - but it failed to survive the onslaught of capitalist colonialism and now struggles as a so-called "developing nation" - a label it will never, by its own efforts, be able to get rid of as long as its success is measured by GDP. On the international stage, Fiji plays its role among the poorer of the "proletariat" nations to the "bourgeoisie" of the multinational corporations and international banks. But don't kid yourself that the apparently richer western capitalist nations are really any freer - they too are subject to the corporations and the banks.

I would argue that communism has never really happened in the modern world. So far, we have tried collectives of various sizes - from small kibbutz to Soviet empire - but they have all been forced to hold their own amidst the reality of the capitalist system they rejected ideologically - and so far they have all eventually been brought to submission one way or another. Marx and Engels may have favoured a gradual approach, but I suspect that communism's day might arrive suddenly and by necessity rather than incrementally through dialectic (if sometimes radical) reasoning. But the more of the latter we do in advance, the better we'll be prepared when necessity imposes itself.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'll have to respectfully disagree there. They were justifying their own grab for power and the establishment of a state cult around Lenin, and later Stalin's, lust for power.

I also note that they persecuted anything they considered to be an unorthodox interpretation of Marx...which led in part to the schism with Mao in China, but also the the Gulag and death for many real Marxists who didn't share their zeal for top-down governance.

They were just megalomaniacal sociopaths, Stalin especially. Stalin had a lot in common with Hitler, as all totalitarian dictators do. I hate them all.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Well the historical evidence can attest to whether this is true or not. Mondragon has not changed the capitalist nature or the boom and bust frailty of Spain's economy. Mondragon employees are just as subject as everyone else to the vagaries of the property markets and fluctuating living costs. Their savings (apart, perhaps? from their shares in the cooperative) are at the mercy of the same disastrous collapses as anyone else's...

...likewise the kibbutzim - they have had over 100 years now to change the nature of their capitalist society - but they remain effectively as far as I can see, reasonably successful collective enterprises within a capitalist "free"-market economic system. They are obliged to respond to market forces (rather than collective social needs) as the principle guiding factor in deciding their future direction.

So all that is not to say that small collectives are not a better way of organizing communities...but as long as they are run as businesses in an otherwise overwhelmingly capitalist economy, all they can prove is that they are as good or better than capitalists at their own game. It still doesn't make it communist. The situation I referred to in Fiji (prior to Colonial rule from the 1870s) was much closer to communism - but it failed to survive the onslaught of capitalist colonialism and now struggles as a so-called "developing nation" - a label it will never, by its own efforts, be able to get rid of as long as its success is measured by GDP. On the international stage, Fiji plays its role among the poorer of the "proletariat" nations to the "bourgeoisie" of the multinational corporations and international banks. But don't kid yourself that the apparently richer western capitalist nations are really any freer - they too are subject to the corporations and the banks.

I would argue that communism has never really happened in the modern world. So far, we have tried collectives of various sizes - from small kibbutz to Soviet empire - but they have all been forced to hold their own amidst the reality of the capitalist system they rejected ideologically - and so far they have all eventually been brought to submission one way or another. Marx and Engels may have favoured a gradual approach, but I suspect that communism's day might arrive suddenly and by necessity rather than incrementally through dialectic (if sometimes radical) reasoning. But the more of the latter we do in advance, the better we'll be prepared when necessity imposes itself.

I for one do not think communism will supplant capitalism (certainly not completely) in any sort of revolution. If it is to succeed at all (and I do not believe in a metaphysical destiny in which communism will inevitably replace capitalism), it will take time, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years...certainly not in my lifetime.

So what if in 70 or 100 years some initial attempts at communism did not completely defeat capitalism? MODERN Capitalism, and anything resembling real Democracy as well, to be frank, have only been around for at best a few hundred years. Change takes time, and we may find that capitalism has resulted in too-rapid change, environmentally, and maybe even socially.

 

[siti]

I for one do not think communism will supplant capitalism (certainly not completely) in any sort of revolution. If it is to succeed at all (and I do not believe in a metaphysical destiny in which communism will inevitably replace capitalism), it will take time, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years...certainly not in my lifetime.

So what if in 70 or 100 years some initial attempts at communism did not completely defeat capitalism? MODERN Capitalism, and anything resembling real Democracy as well, to be frank, have only been around for at best a few hundred years. Change takes time, and we may find that capitalism has resulted in too-rapid change, environmentally, and maybe even socially.

Yes - I wasn't talking about revolution - the ovine nature of our species probably precludes that. No, I think communism will be necessitated by the eventual but ultimately inevitable demise of capitalism - which depends for success on the concentration of the means of production (aka capital) in the hands of a smaller number of the "brightest and best" in order exploit the earth's resources with maximal efficiency with the object of creating a "rising tide that lifts" an exponentially increasing number of "all boats". The only problem (well not the only problem, but the fundamentally fatal flaw) with this is the inescapable fact that the earth's resources are finite. Capitalism will ultimately fail - either by plundering resources at a catastrophically unsustainable rate for too long, or by failing to lift the tide sufficiently to prevent the deaths of billions as a direct result of poverty - or both. I am not suggesting that this will happen soon - probably not in my lifetime - perhaps not even in my grandchildren's lifetime - but eventually it is inevitable IMO and then we (at least the few that are left) will probably be forced to adopt the kind of agrarian communism that was advocated by the pre-industrial forerunners of modern communism in the 17th century (people like Gerrard Winstanley for example, whose efforts at gradual implementation of a kind of proto-communism failed as surely (and even more spectacularly) as the later efforts I have mentioned previously).

In the meantime, I think we can usefully devote at least some of our time and effort in thinking deeply about how such a system might actually be made to work for maximal benefit. Who knows? We might even learn the lesson before catastrophe forces us into it - but I doubt it.