I say “probably” because we don’t know - nobody has ever tried communism yet.
Well, that depend on your definition of try. The common soviet revolutionaries were not fighting and dying to put Stallin in charge, or to enact purges and gulags. But revolutions are always tricky. We can’t tell if the problem is communism or just a revolution going wrong.
But we have a branch of mathematics called Game Theory that is designed to model these situations in theory and it’s very difficult to design stable communism even just in theory. Partially just because eliminating the owning class puts all that power into the hands of the political class. Partially because state is not pushed to run the economy properly when there is no competition to compare to. And partially just because there is no practical data, unlike for capitalism.
Regardless, between the risks and costs of a revolution, the uncertainties of entirely untested system and theoretical issue with communism, I find it very much preferable to work on improving social democracies, that we see working in Europe instead of risking it all on communism.
Though I don’t know if USA is salvageable without a revolution anyway :/
Communism is as much of a utopia as capitalism (“trickle-down” just does not exist, unless humans stop being humans), but since most large countries are already running a version of capitalism, there’s just too much risk involved in a revolution.
I think a socialist-capitalist entity would have the most success. Capitalist market (heavily regulated) + Universal Basic Income, housing & healthcare, all taken care of by the government. That takes care of those on the “lower rungs” while giving incentive to educate/work/get rich for those who are into these kinds of things.
Well, that depend on your definition of try. The common soviet revolutionaries were not fighting and dying to put Stallin in charge, or to enact purges and gulags. But revolutions are always tricky. We can’t tell if the problem is communism or just a revolution going wrong.
But we have a branch of mathematics called Game Theory that is designed to model these situations in theory and it’s very difficult to design stable communism even just in theory. Partially just because eliminating the owning class puts all that power into the hands of the political class. Partially because state is not pushed to run the economy properly when there is no competition to compare to. And partially just because there is no practical data, unlike for capitalism.
Regardless, between the risks and costs of a revolution, the uncertainties of entirely untested system and theoretical issue with communism, I find it very much preferable to work on improving social democracies, that we see working in Europe instead of risking it all on communism.
Though I don’t know if USA is salvageable without a revolution anyway :/
100% agree on all points.
Communism is as much of a utopia as capitalism (“trickle-down” just does not exist, unless humans stop being humans), but since most large countries are already running a version of capitalism, there’s just too much risk involved in a revolution.
I think a socialist-capitalist entity would have the most success. Capitalist market (heavily regulated) + Universal Basic Income, housing & healthcare, all taken care of by the government. That takes care of those on the “lower rungs” while giving incentive to educate/work/get rich for those who are into these kinds of things.