The trouble with scale is more to do with efficiency than viability. A communist society can function at scale, and if there were no competitors but other stateless, moneyless, classless societies, it would be no issue to continue indefinitely.
Viability aside, I generally identify as left-leaning and anti-capitalist rather than explicitly communist precisely because I have serious concerns about the desirability of the end-state of communism as a stateless, moneyless society. I’m about to head off to do labor for my immensely shitty capitalist overlords, but in short, communism, in the sense of a stateless, moneyless society, does not mean that everyone holds hands and comes to consensus by singing the Internationale and embracing their comrades with warmth and love, despite what some might say or think.
Rather, communities without institutions or traditions of rigid class systems still end up with immensely shitty decision-making and power imbalances - it’s just not predicated on the abstract idea of ownership of the means of production as it is in societies with modern conceptions of property rights. As anyone who has ever seen a commune interact in the long-term - or, for that matter, any large social group without strong distinctions between members - the amount of petty backbiting, unofficial leadership, ostracization, politiking, and general unpleasantness is… staggering. Especially since it’s often couched in extremely passive-aggressive behavior and denial - either genuine or just to outsiders - of ongoing problems.
I would like to note, here, that capitalist societies and groups with strong hierarchies suffer the same - this is not a unique problem to communities with weak or nonexistent class structure - I bring it up because many people tend to speak like material conditions or ideology will paper all this over in the end-state of communism, when reality makes that… unlikely. What happens in a society without the means of conflict resolution in capitalist or state societies is not that misbehavior is eliminated - it’s that certain means of enabling misbehavior become more prominent (social capital), and others less prominent (material capital).
Relevantly, such is also backed up by accounts of band and tribe societies before complex hierarchies develop - especially within the structure of individual families. The means of accumulating and exercising power differ - and certainly are less enduring - but power is still accumulated and exercised, and that is the core of social enabling of misbehavior.
This is certainly not to say that endstage communism is worse than capitalism; nor is it necessarily even saying that it is not better than capitalism. But anyone who thinks that communism, executed in the real world, is utopian, does not understand how human beings interact. We, as creatures, are too complex to make a utopia. Utopias demand simplicity, and simplicity is not within us.
Generally, because of that, I lean towards democratic market socialism as the probable best end-goal for humanity as we would recognize it. I remain unconvinced that social capital is preferable as a wholesale replacement for material capital as a means of organizing society, and am skeptical of insistences that the destruction of all coercive institutions will result in a more just and fair society.
Europe is mostly socdem rather than demsoc, though there’s some overlap, and certainly they’re closer to it than we are in the US.
In the kind of IDEAL society I’m talking about, the vast majority of firms would be like Mondragon rather than just a handful.
As for the article, I didn’t read it (sorry, low motivation today) but monkeysphere arguments tend to be correct in terms of emotional attachment, but not in terms of how social power is extended and exercised.
Not at scale though. Humans are hell in large groups.
The trouble with scale is more to do with efficiency than viability. A communist society can function at scale, and if there were no competitors but other stateless, moneyless, classless societies, it would be no issue to continue indefinitely.
Viability aside, I generally identify as left-leaning and anti-capitalist rather than explicitly communist precisely because I have serious concerns about the desirability of the end-state of communism as a stateless, moneyless society. I’m about to head off to do labor for my immensely shitty capitalist overlords, but in short, communism, in the sense of a stateless, moneyless society, does not mean that everyone holds hands and comes to consensus by singing the Internationale and embracing their comrades with warmth and love, despite what some might say or think.
Rather, communities without institutions or traditions of rigid class systems still end up with immensely shitty decision-making and power imbalances - it’s just not predicated on the abstract idea of ownership of the means of production as it is in societies with modern conceptions of property rights. As anyone who has ever seen a commune interact in the long-term - or, for that matter, any large social group without strong distinctions between members - the amount of petty backbiting, unofficial leadership, ostracization, politiking, and general unpleasantness is… staggering. Especially since it’s often couched in extremely passive-aggressive behavior and denial - either genuine or just to outsiders - of ongoing problems.
I would like to note, here, that capitalist societies and groups with strong hierarchies suffer the same - this is not a unique problem to communities with weak or nonexistent class structure - I bring it up because many people tend to speak like material conditions or ideology will paper all this over in the end-state of communism, when reality makes that… unlikely. What happens in a society without the means of conflict resolution in capitalist or state societies is not that misbehavior is eliminated - it’s that certain means of enabling misbehavior become more prominent (social capital), and others less prominent (material capital).
Relevantly, such is also backed up by accounts of band and tribe societies before complex hierarchies develop - especially within the structure of individual families. The means of accumulating and exercising power differ - and certainly are less enduring - but power is still accumulated and exercised, and that is the core of social enabling of misbehavior.
This is certainly not to say that endstage communism is worse than capitalism; nor is it necessarily even saying that it is not better than capitalism. But anyone who thinks that communism, executed in the real world, is utopian, does not understand how human beings interact. We, as creatures, are too complex to make a utopia. Utopias demand simplicity, and simplicity is not within us.
Generally, because of that, I lean towards democratic market socialism as the probable best end-goal for humanity as we would recognize it. I remain unconvinced that social capital is preferable as a wholesale replacement for material capital as a means of organizing society, and am skeptical of insistences that the destruction of all coercive institutions will result in a more just and fair society.
I disagree with most of what you have to say, but admire and respect your process in reaching it.
I challenge/invite you to a simultaneous knife fight&makeout session.
I accept, honor demands it o7
Okay. I’m mostly in socal these days. Where do you want to do this?
Great read all around, and I’d bet if we talking IRL we could have some damned interesting discussion!
I’d like your thoughts on this article. It’s old and the formatting is hosed up, but it really changed my views on humans and the societies we form.
https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
Seems to be working in Europe! Best we got anyway, and miles ahead of this American hellscape I’m stuck in.
Europe is mostly socdem rather than demsoc, though there’s some overlap, and certainly they’re closer to it than we are in the US.
In the kind of IDEAL society I’m talking about, the vast majority of firms would be like Mondragon rather than just a handful.
As for the article, I didn’t read it (sorry, low motivation today) but monkeysphere arguments tend to be correct in terms of emotional attachment, but not in terms of how social power is extended and exercised.
To be fair capitalism clearly doesn’t work at scale, either.
Nah. Coordination just takes work. It is work.
And no amount of committee or hierarchy or shittiness can fix that, only add noise.