Reality Rosa: A world where Communism works

[JAW]

Well - "communism" does work.
China works. Soviet union, DDR, etc -- worked for a while. They might have not been utopias where everyone were happy - and were not able to compete economically with rest of the world. But I think it's fair to say that they did get bad start and were at least somewhat isolated during the cold war and used lot of resources on it - and they still got the standards of living upgraded from what they were before, their space program working, etc...

More interesting question would be..
What is communism anyway? Is china communistic? Were soviet union communistic? Maybe not exactly. If not - we don't really have any real world example of working (or non-working) communism. So the locals of the "Reality of Rosa" are the only ones who know.. What is their society like? How does it work? If they define it as communistic what makes it communistic - and is it essentially different from our worlds China or the former soviet union and how? What makes it "communistic" in their mind if modern China or former soviet union are/were merely "socialistic" if even that?

And...
What are the problems in their society? I assume it's not utopian if not too dystopian either - if it's suppose to be both plausible - and interesting to roleplay in. What are the problems in their mind? There might be things that we would not consider big problems - or at least are willing to accept in our world - while they (or most of them anyway) might ignore some things we would consider unbearable.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Hannes665

Great write up, shows how Communists may have gain more power but like David J. said.... Whys is Communism working anyway in this world?

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

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

True communism won't work with humanity under earth normal forces as we know them.

But is the communism of Rosa (Lenin-7) True communism or just a luckier/
more successful version of filtered-through-humans communism?

Originally Posted by tantric

There is something similar on AltHistory.com

Red Eagle Rises

Not to mention that Cowd posted Reality Rosa there as well.

Originally Posted by sn0wball

Why is Nazism working in some many timelines ?

Isn't it usually depicted as having been militarily successful rather than
actually working? (e.g. German companies dominating as much or more due
to Germany being top nation (and having taken over non-German competitors
after the latters' nations' defeat) rather than because of the business policies.)

[AstralRunner]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The mathematical alteration I was talking about was something that would make the problems of a planned economy solvable with less than Transhuman Space technology and a lot of advances in economic theory. We obviously can't predict our economy that well here in 2008 in Reality Dullsville. If we could we wouldn't be having this economic crisis.

It's not that easy. Value only exists in the subjective judgments of individuals, making it fundamentally unmeasurable in any way but the preference revealed by the actions of individuals in the market. I remember something about a Soviet official saying that their goal was to make the entire world communist, except New Zealand. When asked about the exception, he said they'd need someone to tell them the prices.

[JAW]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Ugly as it is sometimes, the thing that makes capitalism work is that it's a self-regulating system. Nobody has to understand what's going on at the moment much less plan for the future with perfect foresight. Everybody just has to keep trading stuff for other stuff.

If there is some great socialist breakthrough that makes Communism work it needs to be something that makes collectively owned economies self-regulating.

Well - "self regulating" might be a understatement. "Self optimizing for economic growth" - might be more correct (well maybe not exactly "optimizing" but you get the point, right?). It doesn't only make capitalism work - it has made capitalism economically superior to any other systems. It's not like anyone has very actively fought for "capitalist world revolution" capitalism just sells itself - and buys everything for itself. It took some time for the bourgeois to take over from previous ruling classes but it has happened everywhere.

Planned economies work alright and have worked through the history - feudal systems were not exactly free markets and land ownership was handed down from kings to nobles and from nobles to their sons - the Pharaohs got their pyramids done - and I don't think they were done by private building contractors (I might be worn in this who knows..) - but capitalism has proved more efficient.

In an alternate world where communism was the global estabilishment this might be seen as the "dollary danger" of capitalism. Even with communism getting a "headstart" because of lucky historical happenings the remaining capitalist countries would be likely to be economically stronger - with the "oppressed proletariat" working long hours of course to make it possible..

And while capitalism may result in waste of natural resources when there's plenty around - so can badly planned economy (as USSR has proved) - and with natural resources being scarcer (as they would be to capitalist countries in this alternate timeline) the self regulating/optimizing aspect of capitalism would work for their more efficient use. So the capitalist countries would remain dangerous..

But it would by no means make the whole timeline unplausible - otherwise we could say that the 1000 years of history when planned economies were prevalent were unplausible..
As I understand it communism does not prevent trade totally - just private ownership of factories land etc.. So it's not so different from feudalism for example - just that instead of kings and nobles the lands are controlled by committees. How (un)democratically those committees are chosen can vary... Some sort of merit based system for choosing who acts as a boss could help to increase efficiency - but I can see there being problems of motivating both the bosses and workers (and I understand there were in USSR and there were attempts to solve them - that did not always were so successful - although their space program and ice hockey team worked quite impressively..)..

[vicky_molokh]

The hockey team was a team of cheaters. They were full-time pro players even though they officially 'worked' on their respective jobs and only trained in their 'free time'.

[JAW]

Originally Posted by Molokh

The hockey team was a team of cheaters. They were full-time pro players even though they officially 'worked' on their respective jobs and only trained in their 'free time'.

Yeah thats for sure. But the team was not privately owned enterprise for making profit and the players did not receive huge wages. Just to point out that it is possible to have people working full time with high motivation in planned economy too.

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?

[Michele]

Originally Posted by JAW

Yeah thats for sure. But the team was not privately owned enterprise for making profit and the players did not receive huge wages. Just to point out that it is possible to have people working full time with high motivation in planned economy too.

They were not paid the very high wages of Western star players but they still belonged to the Communist elite. They might have been paid as the men who were technically their "colleagues" in their "day jobs", but playing still earned them privileges and benefits beyond their nominal wages. They were "fat cats" just like party apparatchiks, not your ordinary Soviet coal mine worker. Nobody said the privileged classes in that system did not work hard to maintain or improve their position over the miners.

[Xenarthral]

Originally Posted by JAW

Planned economies work alright and have worked through the history - feudal systems were not exactly free markets and land ownership was handed down from kings to nobles and from nobles to their sons - the Pharaohs got their pyramids done - and I don't think they were done by private building contractors (I might be worn in this who knows..)

I distincly remember one of my professors describing businesses as "islands
of planned economy in the market economy sea".

[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".

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

So...why is Communism working anyway?