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Was Communism *Ever* a Viable Alternative Economic System?

theprestige

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theprestige
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I'm sorry, but the thread title, "Is communism a viable alternative economic system these days?" has been bugging me since the day it was posted:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226311

Forget about "these days": Was communism ever actually viable? Were there ever any practical demonstrations of viability, on the scale of anything larger than a kibbutz?

If anybody has any answers, please try to include what you mean by "viable": how you measure it, what your standard is, whether you think your example(s) meet your standard, etc.

Seriously, I'm asking. I want to know.

ETA: Oh, and I should probably ask you for your definition of "communism", too.
 
To broaden the question a bit, while communism was never going to be as successful as free markets, during the late seventies many people put their bets on a Soviet victory in the Cold War.
 
Well, the Soviets were widely considered a "superpower" during the Cold War.

I would never argue that communism is a desirable system to live under, but it seemed to work somewhat for a while.
 
Uzzy said:
The early Soviet Union would certainly disagree as well.
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I started my IT career in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. I learned pretty quick that putting on a good show while burning through all available capital was not a viable business model.

Given that the early Soviet Union was the direct precursor to, and cause of, the late Soviet Union, it doesn't seem to be a viable method for running a country, either.

But please, feel free to provide some details about the early Soviet implementation of communism, that demonstrates that it is a viable economic system: What aspects of early Soviet economy would you consider "communist"? What aspects would you consider "viable"? Why?
 
MG1962 said:
When did the Chinese economy tank?
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During the Great Leap Forward, for example. Oh, they had some periods of small growth (not terribly impressive when your starting point is so damn low), but it wasn't until they moved away from communist economics that they saw any prolonged, significant growth.

MG1962 said:
I know enough to tell the difference between a purge and an economic collapse
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I didn't say "collapse", nor did I mean it. By "tanked" I meant "did really poorly". The US economy did in 2008-2009 tanked, but it didn't collapse. If you needed clarification, you should have asked.
 
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theprestige said:
I'm sorry, but the thread title, "Is communism a viable alternative economic system these days?" has been bugging me since the day it was posted:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226311

Forget about "these days": Was communism ever actually viable? Were there ever any practical demonstrations of viability, on the scale of anything larger than a kibbutz?

If anybody has any answers, please try to include what you mean by "viable": how you measure it, what your standard is, whether you think your example(s) meet your standard, etc.

Seriously, I'm asking. I want to know.

ETA: Oh, and I should probably ask you for your definition of "communism", too.
Click to expand...

Communism is an economic system where all productive capacity is shared by everyone. The questions of how that works, who is responsible, who is in charge, etc, have never been answered.

It's alleged precursor socialism is a system where the productive means are owned by the state. It's been shown to produce a rigid system that is slow to adapt to new situations and push development forward.

Socialism can outrun capitalism in the short term (5-10 years max), as it can mobilize available resources more rapidly, and closed markets that it needs can work well for local economy. In the medium term (up to 20 years or so) it can hold it's ground against capitalism, but mostly because of the first couple of years. In the long run, it's bad.

In theory, an underdeveloped country could develop most rapidly if it started off as a socialist state, exploit that system to the fullest for a few years, then switch to capitalism. As far as I know Israel and China did something similar, and results were thus far quite good in both cases. The problem is that there are so many things that can go wrong and did go wrong on a whole range of other examples that such development model should still be discouraged. It's possible China will become a prime example of this in the next decade or so.

McHrozni
 
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Ziggurat said:
I didn't say "collapse", nor did I mean it. By "tanked" I meant "did really poorly". The US economy did in 2008-2009 tanked, but it didn't collapse. If you needed clarification, you should have asked.
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I have two issues with that - I am unaware of any communist writings that say the economy has to grow. The communist economy is to sustain rather than improve.

My second issue - most communist economies did collapse entirely. Most notably the Soviets who tried to keep spending with the West, and finally ran out of steam. Same with places like Albania and Romania to mention a few the communist system could not maintain an economy for those countries and collapsed almost to bedrock.

China was always the standout exception. While it might not have experienced standout expansion, it didn't go backwards either. My opinion of why that is comes from the Chinese understanding one basic concept of economy, infra-structure.
 
theprestige said:
I'm sorry, but the thread title, "Is communism a viable alternative economic system these days?" has been bugging me since the day it was posted:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=226311

Forget about "these days": Was communism ever actually viable? Were there ever any practical demonstrations of viability, on the scale of anything larger than a kibbutz?

If anybody has any answers, please try to include what you mean by "viable": how you measure it, what your standard is, whether you think your example(s) meet your standard, etc.

Seriously, I'm asking. I want to know.

ETA: Oh, and I should probably ask you for your definition of "communism", too.
Click to expand...

I would have to say no.

While communism can, and has, worked on a small scale (such as the kibbutz system that you mentioned), unfortunately people being the greedy, self-serving gluttons that they often are makes it quite impossible for communism to work on a large scale.

And just to help clarify things a tad, places like the former USSR, the Peoples Rublic of China, and so on, were never communist; even though there respective dictatorships loved to describe themselves otherwise.
 
MG1962 said:
I have two issues with that - I am unaware of any communist writings that say the economy has to grow. The communist economy is to sustain rather than improve.
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In an environment where the rest of the world is growing, yeah, actually, it does.

My second issue - most communist economies did collapse entirely.
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That's setting the bar pretty low for "viable". If that's the chosen standard, I guess you could make the case, but it's not good enough for me.

While it might not have experienced standout expansion, it didn't go backwards either.
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For periods of time, it did. That whole backyard steel thing was a catastrophe, for example, which destroyed far more wealth than it created.

My opinion of why that is comes from the Chinese understanding one basic concept of economy, infra-structure.
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Given the problems that they're currently experiencing with high-speed rail, I'm not convinced they've really got such a great handle on that.
 
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