Though Brave New World is not a stable system either. It mentions in the book those "islands" everyone fears being deported to, filled with critical thinkers too dangerous to fit into society. If these dissidents were simply culled instead of being deported, BNW would be a stable system. However, this deportation creates a threat. You're putting together the brightest minds in the world, all of whom have a sense of individuality and hatred for the government in place. What's to stop them from amassing a military against an empire entirely devoid of any military hardware barring soma guns, which, while effective, have very limited range and are more suited to peacekeeping forces, not infantry.

I never claimed to be able to do it right. I was merely observing the facts objectively. As to whether gathering that data was ethical or necessary, thats a whole other can of worms.

No...Brave New World was NOT a stable system either....those damned pesky *humans* got in the way of a good idea...

And you didn't observe any facts "objectively" is you think there are "few" datapoints. That's just childish dumbassery. USSR....existed for Decades with enough power to damn near dominate the world....they had enough power to implement communism any way they wanted.

China...does communism way better than USSR....and still failed and has fallen to free market capitalism to truly makes gains.

Cuba. Enough said.

North Korea...

North Viet Nam.

Handfuls of other shitholes....the expirement has been tried mightily...and millions upon millions and suffered and died to come up with the oh-so-predictable results.

"In every damned classroom where a moronic teacher gives a "group project" with an equal grade for all and 5 kids are assigned to a group and all are told to work to the best of their ability and 2 kids do 90% of the project and at least one does jack shit because he knows the other fools will do all the work and he'll just sit back and collect...."

Actually, in my experience with these projects, if you get a majority of your group to contact the teacher early that someone is not putting in any effort despite our attempts, this problem will be solved, either by the slacker responding to the threats of failure, or by them receiving 0% of the group mark. (relative to the effort they put in)

If I'm in a situation where I'm the only one who is prepared to do work, I take a different approach. My diplomacy skills kick in like a key stalemate player getting forced out of a draw and I simply threaten to not do the work. After all, with my marks I can tank a fail on that project and still pass the subject, the rest of the slackers cannot.

If you know anything about scientific data, trying to produce a trend off less than several thousand results is very speculative and inconclusive. With less than 100 communist governments formed, I'd say the evidence is anecdotal at best.

Of course, to actually gather enough data to produce a conclusive result is an utterly ridiculous notion which brings me back to my original take on this thread:
"I can't find any scientific basis for any political system, what's your point?"

Whatever....then there is no form of government *at all* that can be judged.

Idiotic...

I reject the notion that the examples we have in history -- of the ruling over of billions of people now - is insufficient.

Other than the idea that social sciences is not "science" at all....

"I reject the notion that the examples we have in history -- of the ruling over of billions of people now - is insufficient."
Then you reject reality.

Nonetheless, I have to agree with krellin to some extent. Communism has never been tried because in each case in the transition someone or some group seizes power and turns the effort into some form of totalitarianism instead of communism. This has happened often enough that, although it's not proof in the sense that you would expect in a physics experiment, it's still reasonable to argue that in reality you can't implement it.

In my opinion the value of communist theory is not so much as a blue print for a society but in the bits and pieces of it that have been picked up in capitalist societies to counterbalance some of the cut-throat mentality and other fallacies of pure capitalism.

^ +1 oscarjd74

I'm not arguing that communist will work, I'm arguing that we don't have enough data to know it won't. While such an opinion is utterly pointless to argue, the OP made it necessary by raising an utterly pointless thread.

Actually, oscar, "cut-throat mentality" of capitalism is a perversion of that particular ideology as well.

A person who grinds his competition in to the dust and destroys them for his short term economic gain is also destroying his potential customers....I can't sell a damned thing to somone that's broke.

No capitalist with common sense wishes to see anyone poor.

So your idea that "pure capitalism" is cut-throat, destroy everony else, collect *all* the money to myself is simply ridiculous left-wing paranoid propaganda.

Or it is capitalism run awry by corruption in the same sense that totalitarian dictatorships are communism run awry by corruption...

Yeah, I got what you were arguing. My point is that in order for it to work there must first be a way to implement it and history teaches that there probably isn't.

And I'm pointing out that *probably* is a very key word in this situation.

Well gentlemen (and I use that word in the most commical sense...myself included, of course, lest any of you should be insulted)....I'm finding too much agreement....someone said, "I ahve to agree with krellin to some extent".

Clearly I'm off my game if this is so....so I must take my leave.

Have a great night guys.

Well of course everyone agrees, the topic of this thread is completely ludicrous.

No....I seek to find/create dissent where none should reasonably exist!!! I consider that my special power...your....your damned agreeability...it's like damned kryptonite to me!!

That's why Putin's ugly mug a while back was so momentaril gleeful....he'll argue about the sun being hot and the sky being blue on a clear sunny day...

Sigh...

Off to Netflix...

@krellin

You can't sell a damn thing to someone who is broke, but you can get him to work for extremely low pay. Why would you need to sell something to them. You just need them to work for you for cheap.

The fact that capitalism is flawed is not left-wing paranoid propaganda. There are many examples in history of the instability of capitalist economies (boom/bubble and bust) and we're still not free from the most recent crisis it has caused. A crisis I may add that is being dealt with by measures that are almost entirely contrary to pure capitalist theory, such as for instance government bailouts of banks and companies.

'No capitalist with common sense wishes to see anyone poor.' - what if they get into the business of providing for the poor, and manage to convince the government to foot the bill?

Genius business plan in the making, me thinks... 100% captive audience, and infinite bank roll of a debt creation machine. :)

"And I'm pointing out that *probably* is a very key word in this situation."

No it isn't. If you bet your life on flipping heads 10 times in a row you'll probably die. Are you now gonna try because I said probably? I think not.

"In my opinion the value of communist theory is not so much as a blue print for a society but in the bits and pieces of it that have been picked up in capitalist societies to counterbalance some of the cut-throat mentality"

In other words, turning Marx into a liberal and eschewing the dictatorship of the proletariat for holding hands with the bourgeoisie and begging them for crumbs. We have astronomical income inequality and a handful of bourgeois overlords control the wealth of the world but leftists are more worried that Russian revolutionaries aren't treating the landlords correctly.

oscar - if I am abusing my employees, and every other rich person is abusing their employees, you still have no consumers.

This is the current state of affairs in the US, to some extent...it isn't working. It is as much a perversion of ideological capitalism as the implementations of communism throughout history have been.

In a runaway capitalist system the rich don't need consumers, they are the consumers. They control all the capital and other means of production and can get cheap labor to produce whatever their hearts desire and sell it to each other or export it, while charging monopolistic prices to the poor for the basic necessities of life. The US are certainly heading in that direction.

Your criticism of communism applies here too, it's human nature that the rich want to get richer and it's human nature that they don't care if it happens at the expense of the poor. It is a fiction, ignoring human nature, that they would want to keep the poor wealthy enough to buy their stuff. All they care about is that they can themselves buy stuff.

This is why capitalism in its pure form isn't a viable system, why no country has implemented it in its pure form and why ever since the 1930's they all have implemented social security and such to counter balance the exploitation of the poor that inevitably occurs under pure capitalism. It is of course a matter of opinion to which extent such counter balances are needed.

The recent economic crisis and the huge increase in income inequality are clear indications that the neo-liberal free-market paradigm of deregulation, privatization and tax-cuts that has dominated the last few decades is failing and we need to change course.

oscar...."runaway capitalism".....good lord, your very phrasing of it is an indication that this is not "capitalism" as an idealist would envision it.

You are just as much a victim of moronic left-wing bias in your views of "capitalism" as most people are victims of moronic views of what constitutes "communism".

So what's the real answer here? Is it the Krellin/dD_ShockTrooper consensus that a scientific basis for communism is "completely ludicrous"?

^You certainly have a way of completely misinterpreting everything I've said. Then again, you did make this fucking stupid thread.

So a scientific basis for communism is not ludicrous?

No, not at all, we just don't have one. What's ludicrous is the idea that we have a scientific basis for any particular form of government.