Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works

[Victor Maxus]

Okay, think I might mention this, it might help. First of all, communism is NOT an invetion of Karl Marx. He did not come up with it, he took the idea from many other people, cultures and communities. All Marx was doing in his book was to make a case of using communism on a large scale. (I have a degree in history and political science, I had to read the book.) ((So don't report me to the Committee of Un-American Activities)) But he did use various examples in the book of where communism did work in order to make his point of how it could be used for European nations.

Now, what I said just adds to the confusion, what is "True Communism?" Well, I guess the best example to look at is a form of Communism that worked for thousands of years. Yes, THOUSANDS of years. The Native Americans. They had a share and share alike attitude. Food, health care, shelter, clothing, the works were all the results of people working together to get the resources and then sharing among everybody. so, it did work, for a very long time.

BUT the problem here is that most Native American tribes are only a few hundred people in size. Every one knows every one. They did not have cities of hundreds of thousands of people, nor did they own the land, so they had no concept of protecting and defending what was theirs.

I guess to make this little fictional area to work, one thing to look at, is how to get people in a more technological society to think like the Native Americans did. After all, Marx did get people to believe in real life examples of communism, and some bought into it. The problem was is that the people only bought part way into his theories, and thus the failures we see in communism as we know it. But what if Rosa finds a way to get people to commit more to what worked for the Native Americans for so long, perhaps then it could work.

But the big obstacle is still there. As my college professor said. "The first three words a baby learns are mommy, daddy and MINE."

[Hannes665]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Why do microworlders live as them do? What about Yrth or Merlin?

The reason I want to know why Communism works in Rosa is more of RP reason than philosophy reasons.

I was wondering what is different, how did they prevent that Orwell’s "Everybody are equal but some are more equal than others" did not come in place and so on and how they would the influence the local governments. So that anyone that would want to take over the local governments in a game and so on.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Hannes665

The reason I want to know why Communism works in Rosa is more of RP reason than philosophy reasons.

I was wondering what is different, how did they prevent that Orwell’s "Everybody are equal but some are more equal than others" did not come in place and so on and how they would the influence the local governments. So that anyone that would want to take over the local governments in a game and so on.

Apparently the 'de-fanging of the ChKa' was why 1984ism didn't happen (as mentioned in the OPs).

[Michele]

Originally Posted by DocRailgun

Communism probably would work fine so long as it doesnt have fascists running it. "Communism" as we know it in the US (the USSR, Red China) had little to do with "the workers".

So have we got any historical examples of Communism run by non-Fascists, and working? Examples that do not boil down to being social-democracies, I mean.

[Mgellis]

Above a simple society of a few hundred people, probably with a very low TL, where "communism" works very well, I don't believe you will have a human society where communism will work.

Now, you can have state socialism. The government owns and allocates most or all of the property, the means of production, goods and services, etc. And that doesn't have to be a brutal dictatorship; it can be benign, with everyone equal under the laws, etc. Certainly, there is the possibility of corruption or military coups or whatever in such a society, though.

You could even have a society where state socialism has completely replaced capitalism on a global scale.

I think many socialist societies will suffer from various social and economic woes. The simple fact is that most people are a little on the selfish and lazy side. Most will do their "fair share," a "B" effort, in return for necessities like food and shelter and basic luxuries like entertainment, but if there is no real opportunity to rise higher, get more, most will not give their all, and many are likely to coast as much as they can. After all, if you end up with the same house, food, etc. regardless of how much effort you put into things, why work harder than you have to? Since this will apply to about 80% of the population, even in a society where those with merit do get promoted, get more luxuries, etc., you're going to have a lot of slackers. There will probably also be a thriving underground economy, black market for stolen goods, etc. In a dictatorship, this will include "banned" products. In any state socialist society, it will include goods and services that people are selling on the side, either because the planned economy has not provided them to a certain area, or because people just want to make more money. (In some societies, this "money" will actually be in terms of goods and services rather than cash.)

Actually, this would be a pretty good setting for various campaigns. I just don't think it will be the "utopia" envisioned by Marx and others.

Mark

[vicky_molokh]

Utopia - no. Stable - quite likely, if it works out well. So far, capitalism didn't either. ;)

[JAW]

Originally Posted by Hannes665

The reason I want to know why Communism works in Rosa is more of RP reason than philosophy reasons.

I was wondering what is different, how did they prevent that Orwell’s "Everybody are equal but some are more equal than others" did not come in place and so on and how they would the influence the local governments. So that anyone that would want to take over the local governments in a game and so on.

Maybe they didn't exactly prevent the "everybody is equal but some are more equal" - but made it "legit". The "working" communism could well be meritocrasy where some people have more status than others - while still be more fair than typical capitalism. After all in capitalism you can inherit money and property in general - and thus power - so meritocratic communism would be more "everybody is born equal".

Of course it's likely that status would end up more or less hereditary in this case also - if human nature is not radically changed. But it does not mean that the society can't be "working" and quite prosperous. It would just not be quite as egalitarian as the "hype" about communism suggests. At what point it would not be communism at all - we'll I think the minimum requirement or communism to be communism is that property that can be used for creating more property cannot be owned privately - in large scale at least. Ie - individuals can own money - they can own their houses - they can sell and buy stuff - but they cannot own factories or farmlands. And money could not be put into bank account or stocks to "make" more money..

Now the "problem" remains that there's going to be lot of common property - and some people will have more control over how it is used than other. And it's likely to lead to corruption. But that's true in every state - even in capitalistic states - as no state has managed to become "pure" enough capitalism that there's no taxes and common property at all. "Pure capitalist" state would likely not be a state for long - and would fall to anarchy (oh well there could be alternative timeline where pure capitalism is prevalent - states own nothng not even armies - well thats actually what many "cyberpunk" worlds are aproaching,,). But I think it's all matter of degrees - "working communism" could be something where more of the property is communally owned and there's some corruption - but not too much - and while people are not "equal" the power over the plentiful common property is divided fairly enough by meritocratic and/or democratic processes.

For roleplaying I'd be interested to see a status chart for the mainstream communistic culture of "Reality Rosa".. In "ideal communism" where no one is more equal than any other there would of course be only one status level - but that would not be very interesting for roleplaying - nor very plausible IMHO.

[David Johnston2]

[QUOTE=JAW].

Planned economies work alright and have worked through the history - feudal systems were not exactly free markets

They also weren't really planned economies. Merchants were about as free to pick where they'd go with what products and what prices they'd ask for when they got there as they are now. I think though that my question was misinterpreted. I was not challenging the idea that communism could "work" under certain circumstances. I was just asking what is the manner in which it works. Is it a centrally planned economy that has some kind of "ethical calculus" that make it work, or is it a situation where it is simply forbidden for anyone not actually working in an enterprise to own shares in it, or is it just like regular Communism, only the capitalists were all killed so there's no competition to show it up?

[smurf]

The point is understanding the hypethetical.

Here we have a scenario of communism - whatever that is.

Many have their own view, its not nice etc, but that is tainted with a cold war and a ruthless Stalinist dictatorship.

Next is comming to terms with this mode of production. How would it work, how can you prevent the class system dominating society.

BTW Utopians are usually despostic. Marx hated the world Utopia because it relegated man to nothing. Who is going to feed society, ie the struggle for existentence proves the point that Utopia is not possible.

Engels argued for a demonstrative society rather than an oppressive demands. Some people will not believe in the possibilities until proven factually.

Lenin went on to formulate the communists could not afford to be pacifists and also they are the vanguard of the working class and need to organised.

Trotsky formulated there is combined and uneven development in the world and that history does not have to be a linear train ride but events can move societies over other societies.

Lucas (Lucash) demonstrated that false consciousness weighed on the minds of the revolutionairies just as it did with other workers.

Gramsci put forward a theory views that conscious was uneven too and that the workers must have theory and practice.

Luxembourg theorised that a mass strike brought the working class to the position of revolution.

There are many writers of this stuff and not all of it is based on Stalin, Mao, Tito and their copy cats.

The OP's heading

A world where communism works would be nice IMO - because I do not see the 'present communist' states as being communist

Others would disagree.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by JAW

And NASA got to moon on taxpayers money and did not make much immediate profit doing it... So it was planned economy enterprise for common cause rather than capitalistic enterprise for profit, no?

No, it was private-for-profit enterprises like North American and Grumman who were hired to build the hardware by NASA. NASA mostly just operated the hardware. Even almost all the support work at KSC was contracted out.

The US government actually builds relatively little. The Army Corps of Engineers does a good bit and a few government labs make small numbers of exotic weapons and other tech but the very great majority of everything else is done on contract basis by private industry.