Is there any evidence of a non invasive Communist Government?

[Zinegata]

Yes but slaves were never a majority of the population. The majority of the population throughout the Republic and the Empire were wage labourers and self employed.

Marx's definition of a pre-industrial state is basically one where the majority of the population still owned and controlled their own "production". Aside from the slaves (who nonetheless were allowed to keep some of their earnings) the Roman empire belonged to this category.

Strictly speaking if we go by the definition that capitalism is "private ownership of the means of production" then many pre-industrial states would qualify. However, again, people heavily load the term capitalism with other "modern" institutions like corporations, and Marx himself was specifically objecting to the form of capitalism wherein large-scale factories are owned by a handful of individuals while the majority of the people actually working at the factory are wage-earners.

That people - including Marx himself - keep failing to decouple the issue of "private ownership / small business" and "large corporations where most of the workers are wage-earners with no ownership" is a big reason why corporations get away with exploiting their workers so much.

 

[Lyudmila Pavlichenko]

Communism is good as hell. If you can't at least respect Thomas Sankara then I don't have any respect for you.

 

[demanvanwezel]

Communism is good as hell. If you can't at least respect Thomas Sankara then I don't have any respect for you.

I disagree, at least in hell you only have yourself to blame for your suffering, under communism there is nothing you can do to ease your suffering

also I respect sankara, not as a communist but as a dictator, he's pretty much the archetype of the benevolent dictator, if you're going to subvert democracy and overthrow the governemnt then at least see to it that your people get it better

 

[Lyudmila Pavlichenko]

I disagree, at least in hell you only have yourself to blame for your suffering, under communism there is nothing you can do to ease your suffering

also I respect sankara, not as a communist but as a dictator, he's pretty much the archetype of the benevolent dictator, if you're going to subvert democracy and overthrow the governemnt then at least see to it that your people get it better

You say this as if Sankara wasn't a genuinely popular leader. What was actually an undemocratic coup was the one that overthrew him.

 

[Geriander]

Communism is good as hell. If you can't at least respect Thomas Sankara then I don't have any respect for you.

A Communist that outlawed labour unions.

 

[Henry IX]

Yes but slaves were never a majority of the population. The majority of the population throughout the Republic and the Empire were wage labourers and self employed.

Not true - or at least not true for certain time periods. After the reforms of Diocletian most people in the Roman Empire were no longer free to determine their form of work. Jobs became hereditary and controlled by what we would now call guilds. As such, not free labour, although the individual retained some personal liberty. In the countryside the population of free farmers progressively decreased as they were forced off their land by a combination of punitive taxes, insecurity and the purchase of land by the aristocracy. The majority of farmers (as far as we can tell based on the limited records) during the late Imperial period were Coloni and were no longer free. They had been reduced to the status of serfs. As such Marx's categorisation of the economic order of the Late Empire was not entirely wrong. If you want to attack Marx there are far bigger problems with his historical works than that.

 

[Rich Oliver]

The majority of farmers (as far as we can tell based on the limited records) during the late Imperial period were Coloni and were no longer free. They had been reduced to the status of serfs. As such Marx's categorisation of the economic order of the Late Empire was not entirely wrong. If you want to attack Marx there are far bigger problems with his historical works than that.

So my point was that the Roman Republic was Capitalist by any reasonable categorisation. Marx's stageist theory is nonsense. There was no progressive class of Feudal land lords who overthrew a reactionary slave owning class. There was no progressive political revolution that instituted Feudalism, as there was no progressive political revolution by the bourgeois to end it. The big merchants sided with the King in English Civil War. Besides this was long after Feudalism (a dubious category in itself) was supposed to have ended.

 

[Imgran]

That people - including Marx himself - keep failing to decouple the issue of "private ownership / small business" and "large corporations where most of the workers are wage-earners with no ownership" is a big reason why corporations get away with exploiting their workers so much.

That's because the only possible distinction is one of magnitude. The line between businesses and corporations is extremely blurry. Some see everything beyond a single mom and pop storefront as a corporation, others draw the lines in different places.

It's one of the problems of identity politics as a whole. We know what the archetypal example of each group looks like, but if we can't form a more useful litmus test to judge the cases in between, it's not a useful distinction to make.

And identity politics was one of the central pillars of Marxism, and one of its greatest failings is falling too much into the trap of classifying people by the groups they appear to belong to, and thereby ascribing motivations to the group identity rather than the individuals within it.

 

[Geriander]

That people - including Marx himself - keep failing to decouple the issue of "private ownership / small business" and "large corporations where most of the workers are wage-earners with no ownership" is a big reason why corporations get away with exploiting their workers so much.

As Marx could observe during his own lifetime, the economies of scale that came with the industrial revolution meant that private ownership led to large industrial concerns. Given a large enough market a small business can often expand and outcompete other small businesses resulting in almost everyone being a wage worker. Corporations is sort of a side issue as it doesn't matter much to the worker if the company is owned by one individual or a multitude. That is simply a matter of finance.

 

[bz249]

As Marx could observe during his own lifetime, the economies of scale that came with the industrial revolution meant that private ownership led to large industrial concerns. Given a large enough market a small business can often expand and outcompete other small businesses resulting in almost everyone being a wage worker. Corporations is sort of a side issue as it doesn't matter much to the worker if the company is owned by one individual or a multitude. That is simply a matter of finance.

While using capital to get more capital is much easier in the industry/service sector it has worked quite well in the agriculture too. Let it be Roman or High Middle Age latifundia or the enclose in 16-18 century England.

 

[Geriander]

While using capital to get more capital is much easier in the industry/service sector it has worked quite well in the agriculture too. Let it be Roman or High Middle Age latifundia or the enclose in 16-18 century England.

True but it really takes off with the industrial revolution. Cottage industries really couldn’t compete with factories. Large estates with tenants/slaves didn’t achieve the same economic dominance over free farmers under most circumstances. The growth of markets during the 19th century also made it more worthwhile to expand businesses in scale.

 

[JodelDiplom]

While using capital to get more capital is much easier in the industry/service sector it has worked quite well in the agriculture too. Let it be Roman or High Middle Age latifundia or the enclose in 16-18 century England.

In a pre industrial economy, you can accumulate land and you can accumulate some businesses. You can hoard tradeable goods and you can build workshops. But in a pre industrial economy there is no real dynamic behind economic expansion once the Malthusian limits have been reached. The productivity of agriculture limits how, if at all, your economy can grow. This means you do not get the capitalist accumulation that Marx described as the phenomenon that got the industrial revolution started - the dynamic growth of economic output that was first driven by investment of earnings from agriculture or trade into industry, then by reinvestment of earnings from industry into further intensification of industrial production. Instead, what you get in a pre industrial economy, is that earnings end up getting consumed by rich nobles or priestly classes, or they get "invested" into things that do not yield material benefits, such as cathedrals, monasteries, palaces. The economy as a whole only has growth through expansion of agricultural production, more or less, and contracts when agricultural production contracts.

This sets the pre industrial economy, and pre industrial capitalism, apart from industrial capitalism.

Enclosures are actually one of the things that Marx and his school wrote about extensively, and which they pinpointed as one of the big things that allowed landlords to increase land rents and accumulate money to be invested into the very early industrial enterprises.

 

[Premu]

I'll ignore Zinegata's weird rambling and point out that there are actually millions of communist communities out there, and most work at least decently. Those operate according to the principle in which the necessary work is shared between members according to their abilities, and the fruits of this labor are shared according to the needs. These communities are commonly called "families".

A family is the closest I can think of the communistic ideal, and most of them work because of the special relationship and the small amount of persons involved. In such circumstances you normally don't need massive force to get people to share both earned money and work to do with their spouses, kids or parents.

But not all families work out in the end - there are many marriages which end in a divorce, or children breaking with their parents. The most important reason for splitting up is money - spouses often can't agree on how the limited amount of money available to them should be spent.

Now try to create a state with millions of people based on these principles, but without the close relationship between all citizens, and without a clear oversight of the overall situation. Obviously conflicts which happen already between people who love each other will happen far more and with much more intensity. As everyone tends to overestimate his or her part compared to the rest, most people will think they give more than they take. And as you can't simply "divorce" from your state, this means the state needs to use force to make everyone complying to the rules. So you'll always end with a dictatorship.

 

[pharaomatic]

One thing I seem to notice and am often fascinated by is the massive amount of Communist governments in history that initially had very positive ideals (Workers Rights, Free Healthcare, etc) yet they always devolve into surveillance states that often terrorize even their most ardent supporters. The GDR would be a good example in that they didn't necessarily "kill" dissidents, but put them through immense social and psychological totrture. Are there any Communists who spoke out against this and/or possible Communist or Syndicalist states that would be AGAINST organizations such as the Cheka, Stasi, NKVD etc?

A place for you to look could be Allende's Chile. It's one of the few if not the only example of a communist government getting voted into power without any fiddling or on foreign bayonets. Unfortunately he got ousted pretty quickly afterwards by a military junta and the CIA, so noone will ever know if it would have turned into a totalitarian state or socialist paradise.

 

[Geriander]

A place for you to look could be Allende's Chile. It's one of the few if not the only example of a communist government getting voted into power without any fiddling or on foreign bayonets. Unfortunately he got ousted pretty quickly afterwards by a military junta and the CIA, so noone will ever know if it would have turned into a totalitarian state or socialist paradise.

Popular Unity was a coalition of several leftist groups including social democrats and christian socialists, not just communists. Allendes own faction wasn’t the communist one.

 

[pharaomatic]

Popular Unity was a coalition of several leftist groups including social democrats and christian socialists, not just communists. Allendes own faction wasn’t the communist one.

Yeah, agree, but it was still a real leftist government and kinda the pet example that socialism didn't have to be introduced by force for the left in the 70s & 80s. That's the main reason I brought it up.