Not trying to start an argument: what are examples the biggest successes of communist regimes/movements?
In China a notable example is the raising of the median income significantly, to almost 40k USD last I checked, essentially lifting a huge amount of people out of poverty.
The USSR raised life expectancy and HDI significantly, and when it collapsed both fell sharply in the resulting countries.
Was that income after Deng opened up China as the world’s manufactory? That giant amount of support from capital seems to be more effective than any decision communism made.
Both Mao and Deng era’s both had foreign investment, and high growth rates compared to capitalist countries.
Both are still built on the foundation of socialism: 5 year plans, no private land ownership, public ownership commanding the heights of the economy, and a smaller capitalist sector for foreign investment.
From 1949-1978, the Mao Era, China’s GDP grew an average of 7% per annum. Mao sincerely wanted the Chinese to get rich, just that all that wealth must be distributed as equally as possible. This is reflected in China’s 1978 GINI coefficient being a very egalitarian 0.16. A GINI coefficient of zero means that all the income is evenly distributed to all citizens and a coefficient of one means one person has all the income and everybody else has nothing. As a comparison, Sweden’s is currently 0.25, the lowest in the world, China’s is 0.37, the US’s is 0.41 and for all of humanity, 0.65. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
With the advent of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and opening up China’s economy to do battle with Western capitalism(the Deng Era, 1979-2012), China’s economy has grown an average of 10% per annum, while America’s growth averaged 6%. A not-well-known point of history is that many of Deng’s reforms were actually started by Mao, Deng and Zhou Enlai, going back into the 70s and 60s, which helps explain the Mao Era’s phenomenal socioeconomic achievements. These earlier reforms were cleverly rebranded as “new” by Deng. Western capitalists eagerly lapped it up, in their lustful pursuit of Chinese profits, starting in 1978.
These imperial lies have continued into the Deng Era. China is still a communist and socialist country. Baba Beijing has simply used the West’s methods, markets, investment and technology to continue to advance the wellbeing of China’s people, within its non-capitalist economy. This is hard for most Westerners to wrap their heads around, that China has been and continues to be a communist and socialist country, till now, 2015, and will continue to be so as long as Baba Beijing is in power. This explains why the West has been relentlessly trying to overthrow the Communist Party of China (CPC), since liberation in 1949.
Reform and Opening Up was a plan devised by communists to more quickly achieve communism.
it did a lot of harm before the party leaders learned how to control it and it led to occupy wall street style protests in the late 80’s which included the tiannamen square protest.
that event forced the party to devise ways to neuter the harmful aspects of capitalism that were taking root in the country because of deng’s reforms and it’s been a continuous try/fail effort ever since.
PRC, USSR, Cuba, Vietnam, DPRK. All succeeded where others failed in defeating western colonialist attempts, and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
PRC deserves special recognition for lifting more people out of poverty in the past 30 years than any other country in history… so much so that world poverty is increasing if we leave it out.
The first was the USSR, which was dramatically uplifting for the working classes. It was followed by PRC, DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc, and movements in countries like Venezuela are trying to establish socialism. All of these countries brought dramatic improvements to their living standards upon adopting socialism. For example, in Russia and China, life expectancies doubled, and functional literacy rates went from 20-30% to 99.9%. In the case of Cuba and the DPRK, we can see resiliance against sanctions that results in higher living standards contextually than peer capitalist countries.
Generally speaking, communism usually starts off great for the majority of people. Brings people out of poverty and whatnot. Very, very bad for the rich and upper middle classes but overall the public benefits.
Then authoritarianism kicks in and everything goes to shit really fast. People very quickly lose equality and equal treatment as a result.
Corruption is the biggest, inevitable problem because people naturally want to improve their position relative to their peers. Since that’s incredibly difficult under communism, you end up with lots of quid pro quo. Underground, black markets for anything and everything take hold and become just as important as the main economy.
Basically, it never works out. The end result is authoritarianism and deep corruption every time. Just like other forms of government! Except with communism, the pressures of the system force these sorts of problems to arise much faster.
This isn’t really true, though. You’re confusing the necessary mechanisms put in place to defend socialism with a general, vague, idealist notion of “authoritarianism.” People don’t seek to improve their conditions with respect to their peers, but instead seek to uplift themselves. In capitalism, you see such anti-social behavior because that’s what the underlying mode of production is focused on.
Whoah there! I was talking about communism, specifically. Not socialism (which isn’t well defined).
You were referring to socialist countries like the USSR, where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy and the working classes in control of the state. Communism is post-socialist.
Vibes based analysis with nothing backing it except vague anticommunism.
This is the west’s leading country, accusing its enemies of “authoritarianism”:
What would be the opposite/absence of “authoritarianism”?
Not looking to offend but I’d be curious how they define ‘authoritarianism’ as well. My experience has been essentially that it’s often defined as “when the government does something”, which is essentially meaningless.
Corruption often rises from centralizarion of power without having “checks and balances”. So Central economy planning system might be more to blame, than the socialist movement part of communism.
Not to mention, that in a central economy planning system, there is no accurate way for the average Joe to signal on what he needs/wants to be made (talking about consumer items, not base needs).
That kinda creates the need for separate markets to rise to meet the demand, which works without the supervision by the state. The market can’t really self-regulate, so a lot of people end up scammed daily.
Ah… the glory of USSR and the hoops and whistles an average man had to take to buy a shitty radio.
Shit, even if you wanted to have a birthday party, you had to pay extra to get vodka from under the counter.
Corruption often rises from centralizarion of power without having “checks and balances”. So Central economy planning system might be more to blame, than the socialist movement part of communism.
Corruption arises from people desiring better conditions for themselves, and manipulating available levers. There’s nothing about socialism and central planning that makes it more corrupt than capitalism.
Not to mention, that in a central economy planning system, there is no accurate way for the average Joe to signal on what he needs/wants to be made (talking about consumer items, not base needs).
Fundamentally incorrect. Not only can you gather feedback directly, but you can use planned economics based on consumption to reallocate production and distribution.
That kinda creates the need for separate markets to rise to meet the demand, which works without the supervision by the state. The market can’t really self-regulate, so a lot of people end up scammed daily.
Socialist systems can legalize markets and control them by maintaining ownership of the commanding heights of the economy. Black markets arise from problems with the socialist system, but these are not unsolvable problems.
5·24 minutes agoThere’s nothing about socialism and central planning that makes it more corrupt than capitalism.
There is in that things that we call corrupt under socialism, is just normal business under capitalism.
True! A much more elegant way of getting across the broader point I was trying to make.
