Can anyone succinctly explain communism? Everything I’ve read in the past said that the state owns the means of production and in practice (in real life) that seems to be the reality. However I encountered a random idiot on the Internet that claimed in communism, there is no state and it is a stateless society. I immediately rejected this idea because it was counter to what I knew about communism irl. In searching using these keywords, I came across the ideas that in communism, it does strive to be a stateless society. So which one is it? If it’s supposed to be a stateless society, why are all real-life forms of communism authoritarian in nature?

  • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
    6·
    5 days ago

    Curious, what small scale examples are you thinking of? Those might be a good model.

    Just trying things and seeing what sticks puts millions of lives on the line. Seems risky. But maybe eventually we can predict mass human behavior well enough to develop a control loop that keeps an unstable system stable without succumbing to selfishness/power grabbing? But that seems dangerously close to just hoping AGI will save us all.

    • sevan@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      5 days ago

      There have been many groups that form communes within a larger system. Sometimes its built around a religion (or cult), sometimes around various ideals, like artist communes. In my opinion, what makes these work is that they’re small (your reputation matters), people join it voluntarily, and people can be kicked out if they don’t uphold the ideals. So, you don’t need a state to enforce the rules aside from a mechanism to remove people who don’t participate fairly. And because they are within a larger entity, they don’t have to deal with things like national security or foreign affairs. I don’t think that model scales to a national level.

      • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        5 days ago

        Yeah I agree. If people don’t have a relationship with everyone, that sort of reputation model would be hard, so it wouldn’t scale well.

        • sevan@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          I don’t know a lot about the Amish, but possibly. From what I know, it seems like they embody some of the core principles in terms of contributing to the community and managing a balanced, relatively equal society. I don’t know anything about their religion, so I don’t know if there is a level of control from church leaders that might be more of a centralized control structure. But they might be an example. You can also search for examples of hippie communes or artist collectives.

    • niartenyaw@midwest.socialEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      I recommend reading The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber for more details on societal structures of the past

        • niartenyaw@midwest.socialEnglish
          1·
          4 days ago

          Some examples in the book include the Wendat people and Teotihuacan. You can also check out the book’s wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything.

          One of the core conclusions of the book that you may find interesting (quote from the wiki):

          Based on their accumulated discussions, the authors conclude by proposing a reframing of the central questions of human history. Instead of the origins of inequality, they suggest that our central dilemma is the question of how modern societies have lost the qualities of flexibility and political creativity that were once more common.