| | This "idea" DOES seem simple, so simple that it might have missed integrating key aspects of humanity. This "idea" can appear so perfectly simple, when it is not being applied to reality. Applied to reality -- as it was , in the 20th Century in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and Red China -- it leaves mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. More than 100 million people lost their lives prematurely due to this horrific experiment with "a simple idea."
History cannot be looked at by inventing definitions of different types of economy/government and pretending that they come about as simple consumer choices. Definitions are a dodgy business; I define Capitalism as exploitation, and you define it as free enterprise. Both are true, only your definition excludes nasty sides of capitalism and mine is very broad. Much better to look at why a country turns out the way it does.
Economic explanation of Red China, also applies to pretty much all other "socialist" countries: As the developed countries of the world became capitalist and began the consequential imperialist search for new markets, China found itself unable to compete due to poor industry and unfavourable pricing system enforced by the Europeans that it had to adapt to. Resources were being bought and leaving the country, so it was necassary for the Chinese to nationalise industry to make sure they could use their resources to develop their country. The aim was to industrialise enough and accumulate enough national capital to survive in the global market shaped by the European Imperialists. This was hugely successful; the CCP did build modern China and double life expectancy.
NB: Thats not meant to be a conspiracy theory that the CCP was secretly capitalist. They believed they were socialists no doubt, but the partys popularity came from it's stance against the west and the socialist ideology grew out of hatred of the capitalist west and Japan, but as the country developed enough to compete with the west it could only grow richer through trade and finding new markets.
Russia was largely the same story, except that actually was a workers revolution but productive techniques weren't advanced enough at that point to be better than capitalism so to survive Lenin had to introduce "War Communism" where he basically co-opted the soviets under state control which basically resulted in the same path as the Chinese one described above.
I'm just gonna ignore the calling Nazi Germany communist.
The economic cause of communism as Marx and actual communists would be capitalism fecking proletarians off enough for them to organise and seize industry. But first capitalism has to develop to the point it has in the west all over the world which cause it to run out of new markets to exploit. The need to find more and more markets and achieve infinite growth in a finite world would cause capitalists to have to eat further and further into the life of the working class, lowering wages and raising prices and privitising everything, so eventually they'd have to fight back.
And besides, there's always the fatal flaw in your argument that none of those countries attempted to put into practise what I described.
Aka: localized pockets of 'Mob Rule'
Democracy=Mob Rule
Why are common people incapable of ruling themselves?
And how do "people" "organise" production? By majority vote?
I wrote this somewhere else:
1) An international federation of workers must be created to co-ordinate their actions.
-A likely structure for an international federation of workers would be made up by committees in every workplace who would elect a representative for a regional committees, and regional committees would in turn elect representatives for a global committee but no central authority would exist. To keep order in each committee a chairman would be elected but he would hold no official power and would be instantly recallable by vote.
2) Industrial workers all across the world must organise to jointly seize control of all industry.
3) Distribution to each according to need would begin. To organise this more effectively autonomous neighbourhood committees with elected and instantly recallable leaders would be formed. These committees would generally have the following functions:
-Manage distribution in their neighbourhood.
-Launch community projects.
-Communicate with industrial committees to order what is required.
-Elect representatives to send to the regional committees.
Who produces? Whoever had been "voted" to produce? What if the "elected" "producer" refuses to accept the "elected" responsibility to produce at the "elected" level -- if at all? Do we "elect" a punishment for her -- for not 'towing the elected line'?
What if this 'elected producer' had a different dream about what to do with her life? A dream other than that which had been 'elected' for her? What is the "solution" for the individuals, individuals who have an idea of what it is that they want to do with their lives? What if there is a part of humanity -- where folks routinely have personal dreams about what they want to do with their lives -- that cannot be erased by a mere code of collectivism? What then, Comrade?
Most likely some people would dream of being producers, and there'd be enough volunteers to not have to call a vote. If there was a job that could not as yet be automated that no-one would do it, then people would have to create some sort of motive for doing it, like more rewards or whatever. Only failing that would people be elected to do something. Most likely people would take turns to do the nasty jobs; there really won't be all that much work to do, as automation of work would be kosher if people aren't dependant on a wage to survive and also most jobs would cease to exist such as marketing, business, retail, law and law enforcement, accountancy....so as time goes by people would do less work for the community and spend more time bettering themselves in their leisure time. Rich people generally have more interesting lives because they aren't at work so much, I find the ones I know have done many different sports and are better read or play more musical instruments. If work was abolishing humanity would be beautiful.
And apart from specialised jobs careers wouldn't exist, only tasks. People would have more free time to realise their own ambitions.
And I never particularly dreamed of working in a bar for most of my waking hours. Luckily, it's only temporary for me because I've saved a bit of cash, done a "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" course, and I've got a place in a good university to do Chinese Studies so I'm out of it.
But that's only cos I'm a sharp guy, (not to brag but I would be lying if I didn't think I was more on-the-ball than my peers) but capitalism requires an enormous downtrodden underclass who have to work long hours for peanuts in boring jobs. They have dreams too, and even if one guy achieves his dream he's forcing some other guy down a slot. Why can't everyone have the choice to live their dreams?
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