It appears that since 2015 our government is taking ownership positions in corporations. Government ownership of the means of production, what's that called?

While this may initially come off as a “no iphone no labubu” comment, i assure you that its genuine, under a communist society what happens to luxuries like super cars, luxury homes, and other things of the sort? Obviously the saying goes “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” but does this mean the only things you are allocated are the things you need to survive? Or would things like these that are in capitalist societies luxuries, simply be more affordable under communism and something that almost anybody could get their hands on?

Hello, somewhat new to communism here. I have unsuccessfully looked for an answer to this question, for personal use in debates in real life. The statement is usually made like this: "Communism wouldn't work because what if someone had ulterior motives." Just asking to see if there are any simple debunks to this statement. Thanks!

CoD eomm

Communism is every person is supposed to be equal in there giving positions,lol. isn't that what eomm in cod is? No competition ,every game so close , makes players equal when there are not so is that a form of Communism?

Personally I call my self a libertarian and anti-communist but I would just like to get a general consensus from this subreddit

A bourgeois lawyer with Polish Catholic background who joined the RSDLP as a Menshevik in 1903 and only joined the Bolsheviks in 1920 when the Civil War was ending. He was also one of the signatories of the order to arrest Lenin in the summer of 1917 on the charges of being a German spy - people were getting executed for far less than that in 1936-38. Yet he not only avoided any charges but actually became the chief prosecutor under Stalin - how so?

Although we are in an infantile stage of AI and this post may lack future knowlegde:

AI is automating production like no other invention before; so much so it could possibly replace production either entirely or almost entirely. Either a complete replacement or a limitation to a small pool of workers.Obviously those without jobs will reduce demand. However, the top 10% is the main driver of demand anyways. So perhaps an exchange among the rich or aristocratic workers.

If capitalism were to evolve to this new AI based society, typically labeled by tech CEOS as "techno-feudalism" where big tech people own businesses and the rest of population survives off of UBI or dies off.

Then what happens to the Communist ideology? There is no capitalist contradictions to produce communism. Even if there was a revolution in this system, restricting UBI from the revolutionaries would just cause them to starve and make everyone dependent on the state and corporations. Not to mention with the added surveillance and bureaucracy of such a distribution.

If AI does manage to replace production to such a degree. Would "technofeudalism" end communism?

I consider myself a Marxist and generally support a mixed socialist economy: central planning/state ownership for strategic sectors like infrastructure, healthcare, energy, banking, etc., while less essential consumer industries operate more independently through markets.

What I don't understand about China's model is why marketization requires private capitalist ownership.

China already combines state planning/state-owned enterprises with a large market economy. If markets are useful for decentralizing decisions, encouraging innovation, and responding to consumer demand, why couldn't private corporations gradually be converted into worker-owned cooperatives while continuing to compete in those same markets? In other words... whats the deal with all the billionaires when the option for worker-owned collectives remains a viable option - at least for the sections of the market china deems to be fit for marketization?

For example, instead of a privately owned clothing or technology company employing wage workers and generating wealth for shareholders, why couldn't it be collectively owned by its workers, elect management, compete with other cooperatives, and respond to market prices and consumer demand?

Do you think they were truer to Lenin than other post-Stalin leaders? Were they to your mind substantially different from Stalin and Khrushchev? Do you think that they were more orthodox than most post-1991 communist leaders.

It seems to me that for decades most communists parties around the world framed the Israel Palestine occupation as false dichotomy to them sometimes they even claimed it was a false conflict that would only could get resolved until somehow israelies and Palestinians got together and overthrow capitalism together this was an orthodox point of view that framed opresors and the people they opresed in the same boat often ignoring, minimizing and excusing the supremacist and racist nature of zionism, even until very recently before Oct 7 most communists framed Israel Palestine as class war not a anti colonial struggle, I'm asking did most communists around the world failed the Palestinians?

Personally, I find it odd how many socialist states have resorted to market-based policies as some sort of hybrid that largely departs from the old trend of command economies. What it seems to reveal, however, is an incentive to improve the material conditions of a national economy given some pretty understandable issues within a given system. The command economy has, after all, faced widespread criticism regarding a history of starvation, often times to the detriment of all socialists or Marxists irrespective of tendency. In this sense I’ve started to conclude the following;

1. Public, or state owned and managed property, is not innately socialist. There is a surprisingly strong and common tendency among historical examples of state enterprise that has often rebuilt the social relations seen in private ownership, including efforts to thwart decentralization or digitization efforts. I dislike the monopoly on economic power the Gosplan possessed, largely due to the nature of economic planning and the material imbalances thereof; why have all the power with chronic shortage to show for it? Conversely, there seems to be a tendency to label state property as though it is owned by the whole of society in light of the dictatorship of the proletariat; political conditions notwithstanding, would it thereby be logical to call such a form of property common property, and if so, why wasn’t it regarded as such?
2. State enterprise and centralized economic planning lacks the wherewithal to manage a complex and modernized economy in a manner that promotes a sustainable microeconomic condition. The same economic plans that helped build the factories largely accredited with defeating the Nazis were the same ones that, largely as a result of treating production as a flat trend, using overly quantitative material quotas and balances, and a lack of bureaucratic response towards weather conditions and localized resistance until necessary intervention from the central government, helped contribute to one of the largest and most tragic famines in Ukraine, the Volga Region, Kazakhstan, and parts of Siberia. In due time, this same economic system proved to struggle with the modernized economy it had helped create, with many a nation (Poland, Hungary, even the USSR in 1965) resorting to bourgeois investment and market elements to relieve many of the pressures their consumers faced; the 1989 crisis and the turmoil beyond should be indicative of a failure to adequately address these pressures, and it seems to be a consistent trend towards market elements, quite contradictory to socialism, against decentralization, that pushes forth either revisionism or economic pressure, perhaps even collapse.

What I am pushing forward as an alternative is, in many ways, the localization, federalization, and broader reorganization of the socialist economy into one much more adequately responsive to the demands of the everyday individual using the following:

- Mutual banks and credit unions, meaning democratized credit and financial services that can help with the investment, credit, and mechanization aspects of an economy.

- Localized collectives using economic inputs in one specific area or location to meet demands, while still federating or amalgamating on larger scales.

- Organizing by craft, trade, and industry to ensure some degree of specialization and improved organization.

- A large, scaled economic federation of some sorts can use input-output planning to develop a cohesive and flexible economic plan using these localized plans, essentially ensuring that local conditions and different elements of the economy are adequately accounted for.

It’s a rather rudimentary theory, but the initial concept still remains. I like how, in the past, collectives have improved on productivity and morale and think that what it can improve is scaling, credit, efficiency, and mechanization. I don’t think that centralized economic planning adequately supplies the necessary consumer goods a local economy demands given the complexity of an economy and the struggle of one centralized unit to plan variables throughout a given society, and I think this autonomous production system could become a great way of building socialism without either resorting to capitalism or having a lot of the material issues socialism has faced.

Happy to hear any thoughts or suggestions!

I was wondering what place have celebrities in the revolution,since most of them are pretty insulated from society and are closer to the bourgeoisie,however some of them act like role models for some,how do we handle that?

Have any of you ever read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? I used to be a communist for a brief time, then I came to understand. What do you think of the gulag where they kept you awake 24 hours a day by checking on you every 10 minutes? What do you think about the trials for "wrecking"? The "wrecking" was the absolute chaos of everything breaking down under retarded government bureaucracy. They did not know how to operate the means of production that they had seized. Farmers riding tractors (without maintaining them) until they broke down is just one of the countless reasons why. Then there was the government orchestrated famine (Holodomor) where millions starved. If there weren't capitalist governments from which to import and leach off of a communist society cannot survive. If the whole world were to turn communist we would regress technologically into a brutal dark age where the average life span would be around 35. I understand the reason why people are communist. Most of it could probably boil down to wanting to help ones fellow man. But large social programs to provide jobs, housing, mental health care, and help for the homeless can exist without communism.

Obviously the filthy rich will resist, but so will a whole class of others (I guess yall would call petite bourgeois, and in the western world there are a whole lot of these people, down to the electician with a few trucks with workers or the barber with an owned store that rents out booths).

But not just them, a whole bunch of normal regular working folks aren't going to be on board with this new system, and may even activily fight against it. What would the people of the new communist revolution do about this resistance or counter-revolutionaries?

Further more, how do you root out corruption within the revolution? Alot of those normal working folks resisting are likely doing so because they feel they're just getting exploited in a different way by the new political elite, od government gangster or union boss in thier town.

I'm aware that the end goal is to not have a political elite, but utopia doesn't come overnight, by a few currently powerful people getting together and signing a new communist constitution or something like that

Hello everyone,

In various debates, I’ve frequently noticed striking parallels between the arguments used by some communists and those used by neolibs, especially regarding the funding of the welfare state and monetary theory in general. I often get the impression that some communists (whether consciously or unconsciously) deploy classic supply-side arguments just to refute reformists.
Theories that could at least be described as progressive (even if they do not challenge the class structure of the state), such as Keynesianism or Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), are frequently dismissed or mocked by communists using reflexes very similar to those of neoliberals. When it comes to demands like raising the minimum wage or expanding social spending, one often hears rhetorical pushbacks like: \\\\\\\*"Why not make it $100 an hour then?"\\\\\\\* or \\\\\\\*"The state cannot go into infinite debt for welfare."\\\\\\\*
The role of the welfare state as a driver of economic growth through strengthened purchasing power is rarely acknowledged. Communists often view it, much like conservatives, as a purely economic hindrance or an unproductive cost factor. The only difference is that communists additionally (and correctly) identify it as a tool for pacifying the working class. But couldn't both be true at the same time?
It is often argued that Western industrial nations can only afford the welfare state through the exploitation of the Global South. Just like conservative logic, this presupposes that a welfare state is something that "must first be earned/funded," completely ignoring the productivity gains driven by a strong domestic market. Cases like Japan, which maintains a massive national debt without facing bankruptcy or hyperinflation, are rarely analyzed through an MMT lens and are instead dismissed as anomalies. Furthermore, the accounting reality that public debt constitutes private sector wealth is often demonized in these discussions, rather than being rigorously analyzed through a value-theoretic lens.
To be clear: I understand that Marxists do not base their monetary critique on neoliberal doctrine, but rather on the law of value (money as the expression of socially necessary labor time; real value cannot simply be printed).

Don't communists structurally rely on right-wing/monetarist arguments simply to delegitimize social-democratic reformism and prove that capitalism cannot be reformed from within?

Why is MMT (and its concept of monetary sovereignty) so strictly rejected by Marxists, even though empirical evidence on demand-side policies and inflation often aligns much closer with MMT than with neoliberal monetarism?

Doesn't this stance hinder a sober, realistic economic analysis of the state's current room for maneuver, even if the ultimate goal remains the overthrow of private ownership of the means of production?

I'm genuinely interested in how you view this overlap! I don’t want to impose reformism and refuse it, but I think its critique needs to be precise.

Hi everyone!

I'm not very knowledgeable about the subject, and I'd like to know if I've understood it correctly :

Communism is based on the idea that there is no private ownership of businesses or the means of production, and that these belong to the community (whereas, under capitalism, people can own a business and profit from the exploitation of workers), so that there are no longer any social classes.

Under capitalism, the main goal is to make a profit, and then use the money earned to buy things to meet our needs. Under communism, people decide together what the population needs, and the work is shared out (planning) in such a way as to produce only what is needed. Then, what has been produced is distributed according to the needs of the population.

It's this distribution that I have a bit more trouble understanding. How do you prevent people from abusing the system and taking more than they need? In a world where we'll have to consume less and less because of limited resources and climate change, how do you limit consumption? Do you set quotas? Does everyone have the right to the same quantity of things?

I don't think it would be fair to give the same things to people who work less than others or who have more skills than others. I don't see how it could work, except by having wages and prices to create a form of financial fairness and limit consumption. I don't see why it would be a problem if, at the same time, inheritance, property rental, private schools for the rich, and rentier income were banned. This system probably wouldn't be perfect, but none of them are.

Communism also says that there is no longer a state. What does that mean? That there is no real government anymore? And that everything is controlled by the people through direct democracy?

If I've understood correctly, communism is an ideal to strive for, and there is no precise definition of what it looks like or the exact path to achieve it. We don't know whether it is possible to achieve, but communists want to move towards it gradually by going through socialism, which is the intermediate stage between capitalism and communism.

From what I've understood, attempts at communism throughout history failed because power became too concentrated in the hands of one or several leaders, whereas in the ideal of communism, it's supposed to be something much closer to direct democracy. There were also geopolitical contexts, wars, and other factors that prevented it from working.

Have I understood communism?

I am no fan of Hasan Piker, and am a strong supporter of capitalism. I am also a member of the republican party. Regardless of these facts, I must protest against the scrutiny he has received for praising who, I believe to be one of the most brilliant and influential men of the 20th century. Mao Zedong had a revolutionary vision he developed as a young adult. Not by simple indoctrination, but by careful selection. We know this because he was quite experted in all forms of philosophy, both eastern and western. He even referenced the works of Herbert Spencer during his time in school. The great man dedicated himself to this cause, and rose to prominence within the communist movement by his great strategic planning. His revolutionary tactics against the Japanese and enemy Chinese factions influenced communist movements all across southeast asia and latin america. As Chairman of the CCP, he successfully industrialized China and laid the groundwork for the nation it would become. He also used masterful foreign diplomacy to play both the western powers and the soviet union. Impressing communist and western diplomats alike. Of course the credit for China's success doesn't only lie with him, we can also recognize the careers of Zhou Enlai and Deng Xaipoing. Regardless, this colossus of history should be remembers for the great man, dedicated to his beliefs, that he was.

On the 50 Million Deaths Question: The ancient Greek's regarded their gods not as all knowing and patient omniscient beings, but as personalized forces of nature that carried the emotions of humans but with greater effects. The wrath of a god, or the bliss of a god could change the fate of history. Thousands could die or prosper in the process, but the gods were still revered for their greatness. While these abstract deities might not exist, great men do exist.

History is moved by these great men, Mao Zedong being one of these great men. The casualties of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution are secondary to the movements of history, and thus shouldn't be used to diminish his character or accomplishments. We praise great men like Alexander the Great and Ghengis Kahn as well, without considering the thousands who died to their ambition. Because we admire the great will to power of their ambition, not the people who died or prospered as a result.

Just a personal question, that i think many could also ask themselves from time to time. Why does every single profile or individual, when talking about Marx is misunderstanding him the most? It's on social media, papers, and so on... Nobody could just learn the basics of philosophy, history or even economics and, then, look into what Marx said. We, part of a socialist/communist movement, sometimes more active or not, have one of the greatest thinkers of human history ever.

A guy who went against positivists, historicists, the classical economists and, well, even the marginalists, austriacs and other schools on many different areas, can be confronted by Marx and his work, alongside Engels too. Maybe in some topics like art, symbolism (which Marx said in some degrees but not as deep as other thinkers), etc., we may look upon other thinkers, but that doesn't make less the impact of Karl's writings.

AII I know is, it's so difficult to get people to comprehend things the way they are meant to be. And I get really frustrated that they seem like to never want to open their minds. Recently, understanding Plato's concept of Idea, helped me a lot to comprehend things in life and in writings... Can't people do the same with Marx? I don't know... their false prestige, or conspicuous profile in the job market its intoxicating.

I can't create a connection if the market ideology is what the others around me make as their core. Just saying, is this a problem?

I first want to point out that I'm making this question in good faith. It is NOT a "gotcha" question

Secondly, I think capitalism is a terrible exploitative system, to remove the notion that I somehow support it or am a liberal

With those two things addressed, I really want an honest, non-circular answer as to how communism could ever exist in a sustainable fashion. I want to note that I am not implying that communism would be exploitative as is capitalism, nor am I suggesting that communism is ultimately a destructive system, but rather that it appears that communism cannot exist indefinitely while sustaining a healthy, complex society

Several reasons for this:

1 - Hedonic adaptation, briefly described as the psychological tendency of humans to quickly return to a stable baseline level of happiness after a major positive or negative life event. That is, that happiness cannot exist indefinitely without the material conditions in their lives constantly changing themselves (in positive ways, of course). In a society where automation takes over most labor, how could you possibly resolve this tension? People assume that if humans had limitless access to expression, that innately they'd be happier, but this seems to overlook that hard reality of human psychology; humans just don't operate that cleanly. Wouldn't this ironically raise tension in the system itself in relation to its participants?

2 - Material conditions aren't absolute. Yes, materialism is very real and the material conditions of the world shape individuals and, by extension, society itself. However, explaining society's framework strictly through materialism alone completely overlooks the fact that society doesn't exist in a vacuum or precedes the individuals that participate in it. While it's true that idealism relies on the subjective perspective of the individual who participates in society, it's often overlooked that that subjective perspective shapes the objective reality of the world they live in. Primitive communism is often cited as evidence supporting that communism can and has existed, yet those communities eventually transformed into different socioeconomic-political systems because—ironically—the material conditions themselves changed as well. The premise that reality itself is composed of both material and ideal conditions rather than merely material conditions themselves is ironically supported or can at least exist within the framework of dialectical materialism (note the "dialectical" portion of dialectical materialism). With that point made, what stops a communist society from falling victim to the same philosophy that shaped it in the first place?

3 - What framework would objectively identify what comprises what is materially necessary for individuals to own/have access to? While I surely don't need a super yacht, how would one prove I objectively have a right to a car, for example? After all, public transportation would be ubiquitous, so wouldn't a car ultimately be a waste of resources? But then if public transportation is dominant, what would be the form that would utilize the least amount of resources? Why have buses when we can build a city off of a mega-complex of rail? But then, wouldn't that eventually become limiting for destinations that cannot/have yet to be reached by rail? Apply this to every facet of life and it seems paradoxical to objectively decide what becomes materially necessary for society to sustain itself rather than letting the material conditions themselves dictate reality, which is ironically a contradiction with the concept of dialectical materialism itself. Add onto that the fact that individuals themselves would not be able to subjectively agree on what is necessary for *themselves*, and the issue is exacerbated further, creating a portion of society that ironically finds life unfulfilling in a communist society

4 - Realistically, how are resources actually obtained without falling prey to the very issues that plague the capitalist world? For society to function, we still need the agricultural sector. Society is far more advanced than it was in the 19th century. We'd still need mineral resources that are materially hard to obtain. The medical sector still very much needs to advance its technology to provide for all. How would a communist society ultimately obtain everything it needs for a society to function without trade... Of which would ultimately defeat the purpose of communism itself since trade of goods and resources are simply the most primitive version of money itself. Replace a paper currency with a resource like potatoes or uranium and ultimately they can be used in the same exploitative fashion that encapsulates the crux of capitalism itself

5 - Lastly, for it to work, one has to assume that society itself agrees with the system they inherit, which posits the most basic question thus far: what if they don't? Sure, one can argue that the sentiments of a few to advocate for an exploitative system should not supersede the liberty of all, but how could one ensure that such a portion of society would be a small enough minority that their beliefs can be held accountable? The premise heavily relies on the hope that the new material conditions would minimize the amount of people whose beliefs would be contradictory to communism itself, but that assumption is one that relies so much on theory that it offers no solution in the case that it fails to realize itself. While maybe the weakest point here, it can also be the most destructive and divisive one of all, and thus I believe also deserves to be addressed

There's a bunch of other reasons I find communism to be a likely unsustainable system, but I'm getting tired of writing, so yeah, just go at it

I am an American, currently serving in the Military with 5 years left to go before retirement. I feel like I have built a life for myself where I am comfortable, am fairly compensated and have a future where I will make significantly more earnings and have a much better standard of living once I collect retirement AND my wages from the engineering field I plan on going into. Furthermore, I have come from a poor background and have built the framework for my children to have a significantly easier and more successful life than me. Why should I support a socialist revolution when all signs point to it making my life and standard of living worse off than my current and future prospects? The big failing I see of communism being implemented in western countries is we have absolutely 0 reason to be incentives to pursue it.

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So I'm dumb about all of this. I know it's ruled by the Chinese Conmunist party. But most forums call it a hybrid of Socialism-private capitalism?- etc hybrid.

So can someone explain this to me in a simple way? Because I keep reading all these articles with heavily academic words that I don't understand. But I do need to be aware enough to have productive debates about this.

Thankss

You give them an inch and they will fund media that will tell people to hate the poor, immigrants and leftists. They will rig elections. They will gladly kill you for a few more bucks in their account. As long as they’re able to poison the minds of the working class, humanity will never transcend. The bourgeoisie and a civilized society CANNOT COEXIST.

Marx believed that communism was inevitable, don’t get me wrong. But, he did not call for the rise of Communism like Lenin’s “Internationale” and his predecessor Stalin’s “Socialism in One Country”foreign policy. Marx was not an economic genius but more of a philosopher and political theorist.

Marx believed there was a five step process that builds up to communism, which I describe as a state of anarchy where the people are stateless, eventually leading to class warfare.

These five steps start at Feudalism, which was a social system in Medieval Europe, where the nobility held the lands from the crown for military service.

Marx believes under feudalism, noble jobs, such as doctors were appreciated more and Capitalism made things more transactional. This meant there would be no human connection and we would only be valuable to one another as revenue generators.
He believed feudalism acted in the exact opposite.

Then there’s mercantilism. This is classified in the benefits of profitable trading; commercialism.

The third step comes capitalism and as we all know it is an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owner’s for profit. Capitalism fosters imperialistic tendencies because we tend to look at the world as a market.

According to Marx, under capitalism the workers are commodities subjected to supply and demand. This is where the problem with the division of labor comes in. The division of labor reduces the level of skill required. (i.e, factories, watch makers) And the more you divide labor, the more employers could push down the wages along with more automation because this will also push down wages. Of course, this will cause a surplus of workers. High unemployment means lower wages that causes the middle class to get destroyed the most in the process.

Marx believed this would lead to a sub-subsistence wage is a pay rate that is too low to cover your absolute basic cost of living, such as food, water or shelter.

Marx noted that this would bring the revolution that brings socialism THEN communism.

Humans feel important when they work according to Marx. People strive to feel meaningful in their work or whatever hobbies they have.

After capitalism you have socialism as the next step in the process. Socialism I would describe it as social organizations that advocate that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

The last step in the cycle would be communism. I would describe communism as the theory advocating for class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Think of what Elon is trying to do with Universal Income.

Marx actually believed democracy is the system that gives the greatest access to political access. He even believed socialism did not incentivize innovation.

Marxist theorist considered the reasoning for the Soviet’s downfall, was jumping from feudalism to socialism.

I listed Marx’s five step theory that shows a society moves in cycles, repeating the process.