The definition that most folks have of communism is what happened in the USSR.
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Here is a report from the scene, at the time, from a lady who knew her definitions.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia
Here is a list of successful experiments, some happening now.
http://listverse.com/2016/06/29/10-instances-of-anarchist-societies-that-actually-worked/
This is a report on what the Spanish anarchists had going before hitler's planes bombed them back into submission.
This is a report of how Mexico repressed another experiment, with the approval of Bill Clinton.
They were bombed back into submission, from the air.
http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/programs/alternativeeconomy/zapatismo/en
The struggle continues today.
http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/mayor-and-4-others-killed-in-chiapas-town/
So, check your facts, and definitons, before you speak, please.
This link is from the time that this definition was being fleshed out.
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism
The point I am trying to get across to you with this post is that newspeak is alive and well, your worldview has been shrunk by limiting your information with definitions that are not true.
http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/1984/1984.htm
You can't know what you don't know, nor that you don't know it.
If you reject ideas that don't conform with the ideas that you already accept you will never know if what you have been led to believe is erroneous.
If you only hear what is being said from the pulpit you only know what the choir knows,...
I spent several years as an an-crap, I argued against an-coms using the same arguments I hear today, but I was wrong.
I was wrong because I rejected ideas that didn't conform to what I already 'knew'.
Since that time I have had the opportunity to read works from the other side.
Guess what?
I was wrong.
If you take the time to do the reading you will see that many of your most cherished beliefs are there because the ruling class needs them to be there to keep you on the plantation, defending your slavery at all costs.
I hope you take a few hours to read the resources I used in this post.
You may find that you got some 'pologizing to do,....
Have a perfectly peaceful day!
Dont forget Jonestown.
Anyway, im not sure if you deliberately gave your post a title similar to the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy, but this post employs it heavily.
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It was a reference to the fallacy.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman
I'm not sure that Jonestown was an experiment in communism, more like a mass mind control, and sacrifice.
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The mass mind control thing is very exaggerated. Most of the people in jonestown drank the kool-aid at gunpoint. That said, I have to wonder; what is the distinction between the "social programming" you advocate in the comments above and "mass mind control"?
Regardless, the mass-murder is how jonestown turned out, but thats not how it started. Jonestown (both the one in south america and the earlier one in san fran)was founded entirely as a communist enclave based on communist principles (much like the USSR was). If you ever get a chance, read "Raven" its really an incredible story that documents this (i think i heard theyre making an HBO miniseries out of it too).
The peoples temple was a mainstream, leftist, communist force that the jerry brown and walter mondale praised as a working experiment in communal living. The peoples temple was founded in the mid 50s. The mass suicide happened in november of '78. Well meaning people just like you were using the peoples temple as an exmaple of communism working for nearly 20 years
If you look at what Jim Jones and the "peoples agricultural temple" was writing and saying for most of that 20 years, it probably sounded as idealistic and anarcho-communist as anything in your list of the 10 "successful" expirements. The difference is that it survived longer than they did.
As to no true scotsman, i understand it, but i don't really get why youre using it. Bringing up that fallacy seems to argue against the point youre trying to make. Maybe im just too dense right now ive been up all night.
The thing about these "successful" communist enclaves is that they all:
Of the 3,4,5,8,9,10 bunch some only lasted a few months and some lasted 2 or 3 years. You know the difference between them and jonestown, cuba, north korea, china, and all the other terrible communist societies that you exclude because of what they became later? The difference is that someone had the good sense to wipe them off the map before they had a chance to start with the killing and the maiming and the mass suicide (read the last part of that sentence in the same voice as the scientist on the simpsons.)
If jonestown had been as short lived as most of your examples, it would probably be on that list as an awesome ideal communist societies that never had a chance to succeed.
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Ok, this is the point where I stop defending what came before, afaik nobody has proposed what I have proposed, ie, keep working, stop paying.
Specifically, by co-opting the existing distribution systems, by continuing to supply the shelves, without continuing the crapitalust's accounting gimmicks, merely producing to meet demand, we can have a world that is free of the 'economic' shackles that keep us from colonizing space.
Imagine nasa with an all volunteer labor force, from the miner that mines to minerals to the mathematician that keeps the rockets in orbit, this is my proposal.
That closely resembles what is currently known as collectivism, hence my use of a familiar, though misdefined, term, communism.
I have no desire to defend what has come before, except maybe Berkman, but he didn't have Costco to hijack in his day.
As for the fallacy reference it was an attempt to catch folks' attention, if the rewards can be taken as an indication, it may have worked.
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WHat youre describing( workers owning the means of production and taking what they want from producers) is leninist war communism. They tried it from about 1918 until 1921 and it was a complete disaster.
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Replying here due to nesting, commenting the slavery comment, I really need to learn markdown,....
You are correct, for me to take your goods and not give satisfaction to you, would be wrong of me, but it is freedom, otherwise, as in the status quo, I have to meet the terms set out in a market controlled by you.
Currently, I have to either wage slave, or exploit my neighbors' inability to perform an act, ie, fix the dishwasher, make a guitar, etc,... in order to trade in a market that is controlled by someone other than myself.
Not a free market scenario.
In a free market scenario bums would self regulate by garnering the ire of their neighbors, folks would refuse to co-operate with them.
This link describes such a scenario pretty dang well,.... F-IW,...
http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php
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Yeah, not exactly, if you read the history you will see that rule by force, and not cooperation along mutual aid lines, was used to set up a crapitalust pyramid (bosses get more than workers, everybody gets paid wages in fiat money).
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia
The peasants were starved to feed the fat cats in the city, not because cooperative endeavors naturally fail, but because they got screwed by greedy crapitalusts that used the propaganda of the anarchists to delude the peasants into remaining on the plantations until failure was assured.
Starving them was cheaper than shooting them,...
Surely you don't dismiss the idea that we are capable of organizing along lines that distribute the work more equitably than the status quo?
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voline-the-unknown-revolution-1917-1921-book-one-birth-growth-and-triumph-of-the-revolution
Nestor Mahkno,....a little too hard for his own good.
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Why angry at people before you know them? Sort of counter-productive, isn't it?
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Tired of banging my head into the wall that is people in general?
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Communism does work as long as the commune is small enough so that the individual can see the results of their action or inaction. Maybe with the aid of computers and the internet, the size can be increased.
What I usually find in a commune is 10% workers, and 90% freeloaders. This always ends in collapse, usually with the workers getting disgusted and leaving.
An-cap fails at the other end. If society does not regulate the capitalism, then "anything for a buck" starts to become planet destroying
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We can take the structure that is a big box store, manage it to replace what is taken from the shelf anywhere in the world, tell the accounting department (and irs agents) to get productive jobs, and flip this paradigm on any given Tuesday.
Yes, there will be bums, but we can minimize that with social programming.
We teach our girls not to reproduce the bums, and to mob those that excel, rather than rock stars and bad boys.
We carry the bums now along with the gov't structure that supports them.
If the bums could just go to the store and get what they need to survive another day we can take all those gov't workers, put them to productive work, and cut the overall cost of supporting bums exponentially.
Think how much less we would have to work if profit and taxes were removed from the equation.
Not that we would work less, there are planets to colonize, but the paradigm would be shifted.
Rather than giving the banksters another quadrillion dollars we could build retirement communities on the moon.
If you don't consume much, as documented on a blockchain, you could live much better, have more time to raise your children, and live a pretty comfy lifestyle.
Instead we have crapitalism with it's wars and raping of the planet.
You have a choice to make,...
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The bums, those who don't work simply because they don't want to... I don't believe there are many people who wouldn't do something productive at least part of the time. There are some no doubt, but I think most people would grow disgusted if they were legitimately "leeching." At the very least most people would aim to better themselves in some way. Personally, I would work my ass of to colonize some planets.
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Thank you, @erebus, I have been beating this drum for many years, it brings a smile to my face, and a spring to my step, to have you agree.
Folks work because that is the prime function of our lives, we are driven to survive while minimizing pain, and that means a/c, indoor plumbing, and the internet,.....
I hope you invite your friends to open their minds to alternatives to crapitalism,....
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I have actually converted a few people, working on one of my friends right now that is socially left but still believes in the right wing "free market."
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No, it wouldnt be a free market. It wouldnt be a market at all, since a market requires some sort of mutual agreement for exchange.
In the term free market, "free" doesnt mean "free or charge", it means that neither side of a transaction is forced or compelled to enter into that transaction against his will. (ie free in the sense of not enslaved or forced).
What youre describing is a system where you get to take whatever you want from someone who produces something, whether he wants to give it to you or not, and give him in return whatever your "moral standard" determines is appropriate.
That's called slavery.
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The market isn't free if you are demanding that I give you something in return for your goods, if the market were that you give me goods and my own moral standard says I must reciprocate, that would be a free market.
If you take the time to read those books in my posts it will help with your database that you draw from.
I really didn't understand why the older anarchists wanted to smash crapitalism until I read the books.
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I believe that the reason small communes worked best historically and even in some modern theoretical models is due in part to the reasons you listed, but also due in part to the scarcity myth that often forces competition where none needs exist. Of course as freebornangel mentioned and linked, the attacks on what otherwise could have been successful attempts are always a factor.
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Before the advent of the big box stores distribution was toooo decentralized for this proposal to be adopted.
We would have had to reach millions of small business owners and convince them to take a chance.
Today we just co-opt a structure that is already there and cause it to serve the masses rather than the few oligarchs.
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I wonder if the scarcity mindset has more to do with:
Whichever it is, it definitely has a hold on the people.
If we ever move from burning stuff for electricity to all forms of sustainable generation, what will that do to the scarcity mentality? Or is the scarcity mentality keeping the old electric company in place?
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