I think a large nation the size of the former Soviet Union or China should be enough to invalidate communism and centrally planned economies if that’s what you’re suggesting.

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kjkjadksj 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Those just invalidate totalitarianism. On the other hand, the US government uplifted itself from the great depression and won WWII thanks to a centrally planned economy. People like to forget about that fact though.

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_mlbt 3 days ago | parent [-]

How do you achieve nation or world scale communism without totalitarianism? I am one of many people who know the history of communism’s failures and will never accept it willingly.

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frank_nitti 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would be more interested to see your response to the key point of their comment - that the US exemplified this on a large scale in recent history.

That would be more compelling than to simply claim to have a lot of knowledge of history

	▲	_mlbt 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I don’t think the World War II economy is repeatable today. It was a time of great patriotism with the majority of the nation supporting the war. People were willing to sacrifice for the cause and accept rationing of goods and making substitutions. They also knew that these sacrifices were temporary and helped their loved ones win the war and hopefully return to them sooner. Today in America it is hard to get more than half the population to agree on anything. There is no unifying catalyst to bring about the consensus, cooperation, and personal sacrifice that would be necessary to implement a centrally planned economy in the United States today.

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kjkjadksj 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

We already have communism to a certain degree in every democratic government. You already accept it willingly. It is just a matter of expanding more government programs on top of sectors being squatted by rent seekers looking to make money without actual contribution to the economy beyond rent seeking from those that do contribute to the economy. The only hard part is that rent seekers tend to have an outsized influence on politics than workers.

Really, what is the utility of a rent seeker? By definition they are a leach on the actual productive elements of an economy. A waste. An inefficiency. I mean, you pay someone to do something, but you have to pay them even more than what might be required because they have this nonworking person sustaining themselves on rent seeking you also need to pay stuck on that back of that worker. That is the situation in so many economic sectors. It leads to a huge loss of money and productivity objectively. It leads to businesses outsourcing labor due to the artificial costs brought on by speculative rent seekers in a given local economy.

My landlord has no job. They collect probably 16k in rent a month from all the units in the small complex in which they raise rents yearly. In terms of investment in the property they once hired a handyman to cauk my sink so probably not even $200 a unit a year in overhead on average. They don’t do renovations or any work between tenants beyond sweeping up the floors and they try and keep as much security deposit for themselves as possible for stupid things. I pay a substantial portion of my income not to upkeep the roof over my head, but to ensure my landlord can have an upper class existence in a high cost of living area while not having to work a job and contribute any labor or ideas.

Does that seem like a good system to you? Enabling freeloaders to leech off the people doing the actual work that makes the world spin, to a point where they are paid far more than most workers? Passing that lifestyle to their nonworking children through inheritance? Essentially creating a hidden nonworking feudal kingdom sustained by the functional economy? One that has outsized political and media influence to ensure the boat is not rocked? Really think about what is actually happening in our economy.

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_mlbt 3 days ago | parent [-]

So you would like to have the government take over all the houses and become your landlord instead?

When they seize these properties, how should the government determine who gets to live where? Should it be based on your profession? Your family size? Your standing within the Party, Comrade? Perhaps your ability to bribe the government agent who is responsible for assigning housing? What if there’s not enough housing for everyone and the government is behind on building more? How many random strangers are you okay with sharing your apartment with?

Resources are fundamentally finite and unequally distributed, even under communism.

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kjkjadksj 3 days ago | parent [-]

Same way it works today. Only rather than a portion of my salary going toward rent and supporting the lifestyle of my landlord, it goes to maintenance and development, and my landlord has to find something socially productive to do to get a meal and their bmw. Let me rent an apartment from my city for a fair market rate that does not factor in the landlord living off my back. Lets go a step further. Let me buy a home without paying a banker interest. I’m a worker in the system, I am a fungible unit of labor. My home should basically be accounted for already, I should be able to move in the day I sign my job offer with no money down.

Another example of communism that isn’t some impoverished corrupt nation economically isolated from global trade through US led embargo: on base housing at your local military base.

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_mlbt 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Another example of communism that isn’t some impoverished corrupt nation economically isolated from global trade through US led embargo: on base housing at your local military base.

Military on base housing has been privatized since the 90s. You are provided a housing allowance as part of your pay that is then paid to corporate landlords.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_housing_privatizati...

	▲	kjkjadksj 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		What a terrible disservice to our military personnel throwing leeches on their back.

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nathan_compton 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I guess ask a Chinese person? Like I'm sure many Chinese people aren't happy about the way their state functions, but the vast majority of them live their lives pretty much like we do. I don't know if I would take that as a total invalidation of whatever it is they have over there. Would I prefer a western style system? Definitely, but I'm not sure its so easy to point at China and say "this is an abject failure."

In fact, quite the opposite: most of the poverty reduction in the last 50 years has been in China, for example. Most of the cheap stuff we buy is manufactured there. Being the "factory of the world" doesn't seem like a definitive invalidation of that system.

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ackfoobar 3 days ago | parent [-]

The poverty reduction comes from the Chinese "Communist" Party adopting capitalism.

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nathan_compton 3 days ago | parent [-]

This is a pretty glib way of putting it. The chinese system isn't really capitalism, at least not of the "free market" type. Like I'm not saying that communism is responsible for the improvements in poverty, but I am saying that a significantly non-capitalist system has resulted in big changes. My point is that we often talk like anything that is not a pure capitalism is bound to grind to a halt and be catastrophically bad, but that isn't true.

	▲	ackfoobar 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		On the spectrum between pure communism and pure capitalism, modern China is closer to the US than the US is close to pure capitalism. > has resulted in big changes The change was allowing market forces to align incentives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_and_opening_up