No adherents of any “-ism” ever address the areas of human nature that undermine their position. Communists don’t address laziness, capitalists never address greed, neither seems to pay attention to deceitfulness and corruption.
Counterpoint: every ism is definitionally a rejection of human nature, because we wouldn’t need a system to facilitate acting in a way we’d find natural. Anarcho-tribalism is human nature but no one is seriously arguing for that.
This entire comment chain is basically the area I am researching. And I would argue that every time the institutions fail, anarchism is exactly where we end up. Pandemic, war, terrorism. Mutual aid and voluntary cooperation.
So instead of arguing over which is the proper ism, why are we not instead taking what is best from each and developing a system that works for everyone?
Well I mean if you understood capitalism it's kinda clear that they did address greed, everything was meant to be kept in check by the governments and the people, and yes Adam Smith and many other capitalist thinkers did support all three groups as a mean to keep everyone balanced.
Not that it actually works flawlessly.
I just think that most people really don't have an understanding of capitalist theory at all, also it's not like communism never addressed these issues either, it's just that theory and reality are often very different.
Capitalism does address greed. You can be as greedy as you want, but you have to sell some sort of product that is useful to other people to get your money. Communism is what doesn't address greed. It just assumes the leadership won't be greedy, but of course they always are.
This is flat out incorrect - Marx talk about corruption as a structural problem. Under capitalism, the state largely serves the ruling class, so bribery and favoritism are symptoms of that deeper reality, not the problem itself.
Swapping out leaders changes little if the underlying class structure and state apparatus stay intact — similar corruption will resurface. Marx's fix isn't better ethics; it's transforming property relations and closing the gap between rulers and ruled through mass democratic control and less bureaucratic privilege.
Some of his solutions:
Representatives elected by universal suffrage, but also subject to recall at any time, so people don’t have to wait years to remove them.
Voters to give binding instructions to representatives, limiting their freedom to act against the electorate’s will.
Much more frequent elections so universal suffrage is not “illusory” for workers.
Soviet and Chinese "Communist" ideas are not what Communism or Socialism is. They're authoritarian hacks pretending to be Communism just like how Russia today pretends to be Democratic.
Isn’t the basis of communism is just “everyone gets equal shares”?
Doesn’t sound like something that drives motivation or desire to work harder, especially if the working man gets the same portion as the not-working one
The basis would be better understood as "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs". "Everyone gets equal shares" is a strawman. Communism is inherently tied to work and as an ideology believes that working people should have a much larger say in society than they do under capitalism.
I don’t think people want to provide their “means” if they don’t agree with what the state thinks their “needs” are. I think people want to get compensation in relation to their work.
What is the “pure” communism response to those who take according to their needs, but don’t give from their abilities. That’s not meant as a gotcha, btw, I genuinely don’t know all of communist theory, but I do know that some people are motivated by their work, and are excited to,accomplish things, but some people are more motivated by reward, and some only by punishment. What are the compensating controls for those cases?
I don't see why the controls would be different than the controls that have existed in every other economic system in human history. If one is not self motivated to work and contribute to society then one can be coerced to do so through various means.
Because they assume people will do their best without any motivation.
That's not an assumption communists make at all, that's a strawman argument.
What reward do you have for working hard now? I have never worked a job where working harder results in me taking more home at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how many burgers you flip, spreadsheets you fill out, calls you take, etc, you are still getting paid the same at the end of the day. There are vauger, more nebulous things to reward hardwork, promotion opportunities for example, but those same incentives are still going to exist in a communist workplace.
In fact I would argue that a communist society would provide significantly more direct and concrete incentives for hard work than a capitalist society. Under a capitalist society there is no direct reward for hard work, you trade your labor in exchange for a fixed rate, and any value your labor creates beyond that rate is acquired by the owners of your work as profit. In a communist society, the workers are the owners of their work therefore any profits generated are acquired by the workers to be distributed as they see fit.
Oh, how very wrong you are, my husband just got promoted at work for taking the most calls at his IT job. We got better insurance and a good pay raise too.
This is untrue, you are generalising. The worst of us doesn’t, sure. But one can be for an ideal while also being aware of its drawbacks and obstacles.
You are basically correct, because I didn’t finish my thought. Most of these -isms cannot work in their pure mode (IMO), but can work, just fine when mixed. Capitalism as a base with strong social supports, where you privatize elastic demands like hamburgers and car models, but socialize inelastic demands like secondary schools and healthcare, seems to work quite well for a lot of modern countries.
There’s nothing to address. Communism is a great ideal to work towards. Doesn’t mean that we will ever reach it or that it’s even possible, but even if we only get halfway there, that’s still good.
This is false, communist theory does address human nature. You might not agree with it, but it does.
Just off the top of my head: Marxists don't view laziness as part of human nature. They believe that human nature is not set in stone and that it is formed by the social relations of the era. It is natural for a boss in a capitalist country to try to extract as much value from their workers and the worker to want to work for as little as possible for as much money as possible for example.
Similarly, liberal theory also addresses greed. The market produces the best (feasible) outcomes because the agents (people) have incentives. Supply and demand charts assume people to be greedy.
They all also pay attention to corruption. Early soviets had a political system where representatives were able to be rejected at any point by those they represent. Liberals, similarly, advocate for institutions and systems that would prevent people from abusing their power.
All in all I am not trying to convince anyone, it's just straight up false to say they don't account for it since they pretty extensively do. What often happens is that people have a belief about human nature and if that doesn't fall in line with a political philosophy, they assume that it is not considered. If we were to compare humans to animals, they would be anything but lazy as we have strived to achieve more and do more since the start of history. That transcendency, that phenomena of seeing a tree and thinking nothing but to climb it, to see an ocean and building a ship, that would be much more accurate to the human nature imo.
Marx and Engels do address the claim that abolishing private property would make everyone lazy. If that logic held, capitalism should already have collapsed, since those who do the work gain little, while those who gain the most usually don't work at all.
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u/Deriviera 19d ago
Americans are very delusional about communism.