A 4chan anon’s analysis on the workings and failings of Communism:
Actually an important subject, so I’m glad you’ve brought it up. I think there are “numerous* reasons why communism doesn’t work, but also why communism isn’t a natural system at all.
Let’s take the focal point of the manifesto – each according to his ability, each according to his need. What’s the problem with this? You can’t define individual needs without a free market to signal the value of the goods. You can’t just sit down and say “Okay, here’s what everyone needs” – there’s no basis for anything. It’s entirely arbitrary.
Motivation is another key factor. Men are motivated to work more when they’re rewarded for more effort. Feudal serfs were paid wages in “subsistence”, and because they could not earn more, worked only at a bare minimum. This is what happens in Communist systems: Workers only receive subsistence (what they “need”), and hence work poorly, if at all. Russians who have lived through the time have an adage about this, which goes, “You pretend to pay me, and I pretend to work.”
But the root of the problem goes deeper, and in fact is perhaps one of the greatest misunderstandings of Marx today. The reality is that communism is only an idea.
I do not just mean this in the idea that it is only a theoretical model: I mean it in the very certain fact that “communism” only exists in the minds of individuals. There is no evidence of it in reality. There is truth to the fact that “Communism has never been tried”, but only in the fact that it cannot be tried, because it does not exist. It is akin to saying “Well, no one’s ever seen/heard God before” – they have not, and it is similarly because they do not exist in the physical world.
Marx’s thought is descended from a long line of traditions, going back to Hegel, Plato, and Jesus. Like Hegel, Marx was a “prophet” communicating to the people the revelation that an inner voice had imparted to him. And it is ironic that Marxism, which seeks to squash out religion and its false gods, replaces them with a new one: Historical determinism, an idea that has no basis in reality, and is only brought to us from “revelation”. It is irrational from the start! But like other false gods, it is justified by taking appearances and using them to “fit the mold” – an after the fact explanation. His belief that there is a cosmic force called “Dialectical Materialism” which governs human history independently of human volition, is mere mythology.
And so Marx made up fancy words, fancy “dialectics”, all to prove that his view of the future “must” come into play. Because it was inhuman, and because it could not come into play on his own, his devout followers shed the blood of millions to make his dream come true. The “proletariat” class Marx imagined was nothing more than a gang of bloodthirsty killers.
One interesting thing to point out is that the Dialectic is really just a manner for studying history and society, and it’s actually a half-decent one (although it’s terrible if used in isolation, which far too many historians do).
The problem is that Marx created this system with a explicit purpose in mind.
Marx wrote the communist manifesto before he wrote Kapital, and so he devised this rather brilliant system to try to bring greater scientific rigor to history and the study of society, but he did so in the most un-scientific manner possible, with a foregone conclusion before he even approached the problem.
You can apply the dialectic and come to completely different conclusions, which sort of indicates how difficult it is to really make these studies purely scientific.
A rather dense essay to go through. A bit of something to lighten the mood at the end:
“If communism doesn’t work why do so many people support it?” – “Because they don’t work either”.
– Another 4chan anon
Original screen cap:
Temple of Zagan 