this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2023
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While historically I agree that communism hasn't worked out (not to be confused with socialism, which did work a few times and failed due to foreign sabotage from US), it's only been tried a handful of times and there are things to learn from each failure that could be applied to future attempts, just like in science. Scientists didn't go "yeah we need to stop researching x-rays as it hurt people a few times, doctor examinations are good enough" after lethal exposure killed people.
Also, the example you left above as the parent comment can literally be applied to China, which is one of the most capitalist countries in the world. Does this mean that capitalism inherently is like that?
was there any legitimate communism?
USSR was State capitalism, China went from State feudalism to state capitalism.
There was in the Free Territory of Ukraine under Makhno. Of course they were brutally crushed after 3 years because their succes and freedom was a threat to the Bolsheviks, and their legitimacy, who had already abandoned their ideals for power, as is inevitable when you concentrate power that much.
China is a fascist nation, not a capitalist liberal democracy. And I don't see any reason why we should expect future experiments with communism to be any less dismal than past and current experiments with it.
Capitalism doesn't have to be a liberal democracy. The sad truth is that authoritarian capitalism, while being something people don't like, is very effective when it comes to economic growth (just look how China turned into a superpower because of it).
Does this mean that capitalism more or less goes hand-in-hand with 'fascism', or is authoritarianism/totalitarianism/liberalism separate from economic systems such as capitalism, socialism or communism?
Speaking of which, assuming that communism is an optional later stage of socialism (which seems to be the consensus), the vast majority of socialist/communist countries have failed due to reasons related to their totalitarian/authoritarian governments, either due to the leader's death causing power struggles or the oppression going completely against the goals/ideals of socialism or communism and turning it into an oppressive state.
Does this mean that communist/socialist state cannot work because it requires totalitarian regime to establish authority and make everyone play by the rules? Well, no, there were lesser known attempts such as Salvador Allende's Chile (was very successful for a year, but failed due to CIA running propaganda compaigns, strikes and promoting a coup) and Paris Commune, they both were liberal as opposed to authoritarian, but failed due to mostly outside/external factors.