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i'd like to hear your take on "communism is idiocy".
OP didn't respond so I will take a shot. My understanding is that under communism, the economy has to be planned by the government. Under capitalism, the price of shoes (for example) is usually determined by the demand for shoes and the amount of shoes that can be manufactured. If demand falls, the price falls. If manufacturing capacity increases, the price falls more, etc. This mechanism has feedback loops that make it efficient. In theory, companies never make more shoes than they can sell, because if they do make too many, they can sell the excess by cutting prices. Under communism there is no free market, so the mechanics of supply and demand don't work. Some communist bureaucrat conducts a study and estimates that the country will need 100k pairs of shoes next quarter. The government then makes those shoes in a state-owned factory. Suppose, though, that it turns out that the country needed more. With no free market, there is no competitor to step in and meet the demand for shoes - now you have a shortage. Similarly, you can have considerable waste if you grow too many apples or whatever. In true communism, there is no price to adjust - you either have an apple voucher or you don't. Thus there is generally more problems meeting demand efficiently. This is, in fact, exactly what we saw under the Soviet Union - the stores were often stuffed with unwanted items while long lines developed for items that were in high demand. Without any consideration of authoritarianism etc., this is an often-cited reason for the failure of communism.
I am not a political theorist or an economist, so please correct me if I am wrong.
You've got the general critique from Mises right, but that's an extremely outdated critique that has long been debunked. The article Prices in a Planned Economy helps show how prices in a fully publicly owned economy could be planned, including what you are describing as "price signals." The fact is, the USSR's economy did work, and worked rather well, but issues like having to spend a huge portion of GDP on the defense industry just to keep up with the US starved the rest of the economy for growth, and the Soviets planned by hand rather than by computer. Neither of these issues need to be taken by any Socialist state going forward.
Thanks for the reply! The article you linked was very interesting. I am aware that western propaganda emphasizes the challenges and failures of communism while sweeping the manifold problems with capitalism under the rug, and it is nice to consider a different viewpoint. There is also an unfair tendency among western philosophers to link authoritarianism with communism when there is no philosophical connection. My personal belief is that authoritarianism was already pervasive in imperial Russia and China, and that better explains the brutality that has been unfairly associated with communism.
I would also like to say that capitalism is way less efficient than people are led to believe - take fast fashion, for example. Excess shoes and clothes are constantly being dumped on developing countries because the manufacturers failed to find a buyer at any price.
No problem!
I do disagree on the notion of "authoritarianism." Claims as such usually come from the ruling class in Capitalist countries who saw their class-allies oppressed in Russia and China. For the working class, society became more democratic.
That's a decent point for fast fashion, though it is designed as a "churn and burn" system and is built on the backs of Imperialism, creation in the Global South for poverty wages to sell in the Global North for dirt cheap.