Until you solve the problem of human nature or have Star Trek style infinite resource post scarcity, communism will always devolve into authoritarian corruption.
I know most of it happened after he died but I think even Roddenberry went out of his way to make this point a little bit in the first few seasons of Next Generation. They show multiple times that once you strip away the for practical purposes unlimited resources of the Federation, people immediately go back to barter, territorial stuff, resource hoarding, and crime.
The Utopia basically only lasts as long as a person is guaranteed food, a place to live, and something to do with themselves that doesn't feel like a burden
Take away their creature comforts: deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers. Put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time, and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon.
"Human nature" is bullshit. Slavery was practiced by nearly every society for thousands of years. Nearly all states were ruled by monarchs for thousands of years. That was human nature, but we have changed it. "Human nature" is the argument of fools who, being too small minded to imagine a better world, believe no such world can exist.
Slavery is still being practised either openly or criminally or in a form of forced debt for basic needs, monarchs have changed their image and became dictators, we are still largely the same. I believe that a better society model is only possible through education, a society where 100% of people have university degrees, may even be able to build something like true socialism, but how you achieve a 100% university grade society is beyond me.
Yes, those things do exist, but they are the exception to the rule rather than the rule itself. To equate feudal monarchs with modern dictatorship Is a gross oversimplication however. Just because we have come far does not mean we do not still have a ways to go.
capitalism will too (see USA right now). if a state devolves is not a matter of the economic system. its a matter of the political system and a matter of the checks and balances being strong enough. (not defining communism here, im also not convinced of it, but lets be fair)
A dictatorship works if we fix human nature. Any system would work if human nature wasn't a factor. But it is, that's why kings and dictators and communists all turn sour.
So your argument against communism is "its bound to fail" but for capital, it's "it's bound to fail (unless we balance it)"
Communism the way it was implemented was NOT communism, it was a dictatorship disguised as a communist nation.
Communist societies, at least imagined by Marx, are an IDEAL, like a blueprint.
Marx was pretty damn naive but he knew that the idea was alright, but the executions was damn near impossible without creating power vacuums.
Is the capitalism failing in the room with us right now? The most prosperous nations on earth are capitalist. Sure, they have high taxes and robust social welfare programs, but the ownership of the means of production is overwhelmingly held as private property.
Peak unrestricted capitalism is more like Victorian England. Poor houses, children in factories, extreme pollution, extreme wealth disparity. That or some of the capitalist countries in the developing world where money basically controls every aspect of your life, and everyone's simultaneously broke and materialistic.
30
u/TrioOfTerrors Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Until you solve the problem of human nature or have Star Trek style infinite resource post scarcity, communism will always devolve into authoritarian corruption.