Was there ever a country that had something similar to communism before Russia or the Soviet union?
It was Mexico. The Mexicans unfortunately for them had the period between 1910 and 1930 of "Anarcho-Socialism", I call it Communism Lite, that kind of formed into Communism after the Lenin led revolution in Russia. In fact Stalin had Trotsky assinated in Mexico after he sought refuge there.
Wikipedia does not provide a lot of data on the subject and I can not find a better reference. It does not say if the Anarcho-Socialism folks there had a lot of success either. If you know of any Mexican history books that are available on the internet then look there. If you have a friend who can translate the Spanish then you will get even better information.
USSR was a state capitalist economy, communist-like economies existed in Free Territory in todays Ukraine, Revolutionary Catalonia, Aragon and Angalusia, and one exists today in Zapatista Chiapas in Mexico.
1. State capitalist is oxymoron.
2. Isn't it wondeful to see the rats abandoning the sunken ship? When there was a veil of ignorance sorrounding what was actually going on in Russia, it was never called that dirty name, capitalist. It was true blue communism, because it was supposedly succeeding.
Only after its ignominious public collapse do you find people suddenly calling it capitalist. Find me one single person who called it capitalist before 1989. There isn't one.
Whereas afterwards all the socialists say Russia was capitalist all along. There are a few in this forum alone who try to get away with that.
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It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
I'm fairly certain the Virginia colony in the early 17th century started out communist. Of course the word "communist" didn't exist at the time. In that light I'm sure there has been communism well, well before relatively recent history.
"Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit."
USSR and all states that have done complete nationalizations fit perfectly, with the private owner of everything being the state, therefore- state capitalism.
it was never called that dirty name, capitalist.
It was used by the anarchist of the First Internationale before USSR was even constituted for nationalized economies.
Otto Ruhle, Pannekoek, and many other communists used state capitalism for USSR back in 1920s.
Karl Kautsky, an orthodox marxist, called USSR state capitalism in Terrorism and Communism written in 1919
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_capitalism#Use_by_Socialists
Find me one single person who called it capitalist before 1989. There isn't one.
I suppose you will recant now?
^^This^^
EDIT: what smiling Dave said about the major claim that Russia was capitalist after its collapse.
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
I partially recant on the second point. Indeed the name seems to have been used by a few people early on, as you point out. So let's modify it a bit. The description of Russia as capitalist has "gone viral" since 1989.
But "the private owner of everything being the state" is an oxymoron right there. The state is not a private person.
To the OP, in any way or on the scale of Russia? Rothbard's Karl Marx as a Religious Eschatologist goes over communism before Marx and various failed experimental societies. Russia is not the first to experiment with communism, just the largest.
Definitely Mexico.
If you just want to talk about communes in general, they're practically an American tradition. Plymouth colony began as a commune, almost failed economically, and prospered after switching to private ownership.
Practically the first lesson in politico-economics learn by the first American colonists was that communism doesn't work, haha.
So what we're looking for is free-market capitalism.
But was it not Alexander Hamilton who advocated state capitalism with his development of the "American School of Economics?"
State becomes the new capitalist, everything is the state remains private property, it just changes the owner. Socialism as a movement and communism as it's subtype is about abolishing the capitalist concept of private property.
Communism certainly did not originate in Russia, neither the theory nor the practice.
One could argue that the first (known) communist theory was developed by Plato in "The Republic."
As for communism in practice, there were the coercive Anabaptists, Taborites, and various other bizarre Christian-communist sects in Central Europe as early as the 15th century who didn't only agitate but actually created communist states, albeit short-lived ones. Rothbard describes this in his “Austrian Perspective on History of Economic Thought.” Volume I, Chapter 5, Sections 5-7. The stories are really funny actually, communists going absolutely ape-shit crazy and failing spectacularly in exactly the way any non-insane person could easily predict.
EDIT: if you really want to laugh, listen to Rothbard's lecture on the topic. Rothbard's wit + psychotic communist antics = hilarity.
http://mises.org/media/1605/The-Emergence-of-Communism
Socialism as a movement and communism as it's subtype is about abolishing the capitalist concept of private property.
Why u hoggin' our shit yo?
I can almost hear the russian in your voice with "...abowlishing zee capeetalist, x ,y , z! Moder Trushia vill be gloreuos agane!"
New Harmony, Indiana circa 1824 was an attempt at communal living.
New Harmony resulted from the utopian vision of one man, Robert Owen.
Owen was forced to conclude his formal education at the age of ten.
He purchased the town for $135,000, and invited people to apply for the 800 spaces that were available. Owen believed that the community would serve as the model for the "New Moral World" communities that would follow New Harmony and eventually transform world society according to enlightenment principles. Progressive experiments in education, communal living and science were attempted, and Owen brought to New Harmony some of the m ost progressive European educators and scientists.
New Harmony provided equality for all its inhabitants, male and female. This manifestation of this equality was the responsibility of each citizen to contribute to the labor force of the community. In order to provide motivation for his workers in this system, Owen instituted a system of "time money" and "time stores". New Harmony currency was worth the amount of time that a worker had labored, and could be exchanged for commodities worth the equivalent amount of labor.
Although they were united by their communal labor, and to the idea of utopian life, the very rational concepts upon which Owen had based the community were antithetical to commu nal life. Because they lacked the strong central belief which served to unite other utopian groups, the members of the community were lacking the commitment to carry out the mission that Owen envisioned.
New Harmony dissolved in less than three years.
Can't make this stuff up
anymore.
So socialists object to the capitalist concept of property, making claims to the effect that property inevitably gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and this allows the big property owners to exploit the little property owners or those without any property yada yada yada......and so the solution to this problem is to give all property to a single entity. LOL
...it's a mad mad world.
The first place to create communism? No.
The first fictional place it was created was in the writings of Plato.
The first actual place, was Europe in the Middle Ages. The first specific town I can think of is Munster lead by Jan van Leyden though I would not be suprised if someone can find an earlier example.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Middle ages? You got any literature on that?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
Rothbard. “Austrian Perspective on History of Economic Thought.” Volume I, Chapter 5, Sections 5-7.
http://library.mises.org/books/Murray%20N%20Rothbard/Austrian%20Perspective%20on%20the%20History%20of%20Economic%20Thought.pdf
Or this Rothbard lecture:
Also Kuehnelt-Leddihn's book, “Leftism: From De Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse”, pp. 50-58
http://library.mises.org/books/Erik%20von%20Kuehnelt-Leddihn/Leftism%20From%20de%20Sade%20and%20Marx%20to%20Hitler%20and%20Marcuse.pdf
This is the internet...we don't cite sources here...
I dont think communism has ever existed.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
It has.
Where?
Not ussr, not mexico. As long as there is government its not communism. Its state ownership.
Man this is confusing, eh? I was, at least prior to this thread, aware that stateless communism is 'pure communism'? Prior to that stage of stateless communism there is a sort of state-communism, otherwise why make a distinction such as 'pure communism'? Confused again. "Anarchists and Marxists both agree on the long-term desirability of a stateless society, but disagree on how such a society will emerge and on what strategy, if any, is to be used for achieving stateless communism." ^^^That quote is from the Stateless Communism Wiki, I chuckle at the irony if a Marxist is debating how such a society will emerge given Marx's description of how communism will come about regardless of what men do. I guess, if one were to be loyal to Marx, a Marxian would claim there is no strategy necessary, whilst the Anarchist would claim there is(a strategy). Big ::Jordan Shrug:: To be crass: Molyneux almost downright says Russian went Commie because there were a lot of Jews turned Communists.
One: You are using the definition of Communism established by Marx
Two: Even if you use that definition there are two forms of communism: Crude and Final.
The USSR was still in the crude communism phase.
The OP asked "was Russia the first place to create communism?" This implies that Russia at least had communism; i.e. the OP is defining the social order in Soviet Russia as communist, and asking whether there are any prior historical instances of this king of social order arising. That's the question I was attempting to answer. Whether this social order in question is more properly called communist or socialist or something else is a separate issue.
Well was that "socialism" or "comunism" then?
We must define our terms here.
Whats the difference?
Ive always thought that state controlled economies would be command or socialist.
And then "communism" is anarcho communism.
Kelvin Silva: Well was that "socialism" or "comunism" then? We must define our terms here. Whats the difference? Ive always thought that state controlled economies would be command or socialist. And then "communism" is anarcho communism.
It's taken me a long time to ferret out a good definition between communism and socialism.
While I don't intend to list a completely exact one here, I will say that communism is that system which implements a communalist ethic. There's not necessarily a denotation or connotation of government power in straight communism / communalism. However, with socialism there is:
Socialism is the attempt to use the powers of government to force communalism on a country.
So, socialism would be a subset of communism. There have been many "communes" where people get together voluntarily and hold all things in common. None of these would be called socialism because they lack the aspect of government. People are allowed to leave, and may even be ejected for being too individualist (lol).
In Ethics of Liberty, Rothbard paints the true place of socialism in history, in a chapter called "Right, Left, and the Prospects for Liberty" (title is iirc).
In this chapter, he points out that socialism is a strange attempt to achieve the goals of the historical-liberals using the coercive powers of the conservative-coercive regime.
That is, if we paint the term cosmic-conservative as one stretching back through all time and ignoring its current (mostly wrong) usage in modern day America, then a conservative is one who is in favor of privilege, the status quo (which is the main denotation of the word), and coercive exploitation generally.
A liberal is one who was trying to get away from that and move to liberty and individualism.
Marx created socialism by taking the idealism of the liberals and their goal of revolution--of freeing people from the coercive exploiters, and mating it to the mechanism of that exploitation: government coercive power. But Marx went wrong further by accepting Godwin's blaming of private ownership of property for the ills of the world.
In that sense, socialism is a weird middle-of-the road phenomenon, taking elements from the historical liberals and conservatives.
At that time there was a liberal movement, 1800's, but it had been poisoned philosophically, mainly by the idea of darwinism and utilitarianism. Rothbard notes that Herbert Spencer, the great libertarian writer and thinker of that age, embodied in himself that move, coming towards the end of his life to stop believing in radical, immediate change--making the liberals (libertarians) of that day essentially acquiesce to the status quo, believing change would take many ages (darwinistic) rather than being achieved in fits and leaps. And, as they achieved power, these same liberals shifted from pursuing their idealism to focusing on gradualism towards the ideal, then to defending what little change they'd achieved, thus defending the status quo.
Anyway, I recommend the book, and I'll stop here :P
Ive always thought that state controlled economies would be command or socialist. And then "communism" is anarcho communism. was that "socialism" or "comunism" then?
was that "socialism" or "comunism" then?
By these definitions, there was socialism in Russia, not communism. And all of the previous historical instances I mentioned were instances of socialism.
Really? Mexico? 1910-1930 was a period of political instability where no particular warlord could establish any national authority of consecuence. And there were bandits trying their damnedest to get the country to full-communalism (though they were not marxist ideologues), unfortunately these guys are still held up as heroes today by the intelligentsia in Mexico.
But communist? Communist? I'm from down here, I've never once in my life heard the revolutionary period described as anarcho communist. I don't have one iota of respect for it, but the description seems to be ... unfitting.
Thats what i was saying. I dont think there was ever any communist society on a large enough scale to be considered for thought.
I think a lot of people confuse common ownership vs state ownership.
I agree. And the reason for this (I submit) is that communism (stateless communal ownership of property) is an impossibility on any scale.
Agreed, but it's a forgivable confusion, considering that the most well-known of the communists are advocating socialism as an intermediate step between capitalism and communism - and since communism is impossible, all we ever get from communist agitation is socialism. Likewise, if I were going around advocating Heaven on Earth, but I claimed that killing everyone and destroying everything was a necessary precondition for bringing about Heaven on Earth, I think we'd have to forgive people for forgetting about the Heaven on Earth part and associating me only with the ideas of killing everyone and destroying everything: being that the death and destruction stage is all they ever see, as the Heaven on Earth stage never arrives (because it can't).
Whoa, let's be clear and accurate here.
Communalism is perfectly viable and possible as an economic system. It works to a certain degree. Most people around the world going back into tribal days live in some variant of communalism, be that tribal or whatnot.
However, the modern world has been created by capitalism and been built up beyond what communism could support. Thus, a return to communism would mean drastic reductions in population size and wealth.
The evil thing is that there are people who want exactly that.
Communalism is perfectly viable and possible as an economic system.
Yes, but only on very small scales.
It works to a certain degree. Most people around the world going back into tribal days live in some variant of communalism, be that tribal or whatnot.
Again, small scale.
Yes. But it's not only that communism could never achieve anything remotely close to the level of production we enjoy, it's also an organizational problem; i.e. when the social unit grows beyond a certain point, either communism collapses or a State is needed to enforce it and at that point it becomes socialism. Can 10 people who know and like each other live communally? Sure. Can 100? Perhaps. Can 10,000? Almost certainly not. The problem is that communism requires people to act contrary to their rational self-interest, which people are unlikely to do in general, and especially unlikely to do for the benefit of strangers; and it's in the nature of large social units for almost everyone to be a stranger to almost everyone else.
"The problem is that communism requires people to act contrary to their rational self-interest, which people are unlikely to do in general, and especially unlikely to do for the benefit of strangers; and it's in the nature of large social units for almost everyone to be a stranger to almost everyone else."
Rand's attack on statism was aimed directly at the moral idea that self-interest was somehow low, and that acting contrary to your own self-interest somehow a higher moral ideal. In practice it just leads to pure duplicity, talking out one side of your mouth and still acting selfishly on the sly, for politicians especially.
People still think politicians are doing what's in everyone's best interest. Eventually we need to delegitimize the state by disabusing the public of such a notion. Nixon helped with that. Clinton a bit. Obama's idiotic trillion dollar budgets will force the next crisis...