- low pollution rate
- high living standards
Are there any historically model communist countries?
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8Subjective, lacks research, may not be history.– MCW ♦Commented Jul 8, 2019 at 0:12
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7Still lacks research. More objective - although it is going to be difficult to distinguish between the Marxist position that all tribal societies are communist (with correspondingly low pollution rates and high living standards), and the commonly accepted position that there are no communist societies. The first step in resolving that would be to research, define, and document the terms.– MCW ♦Commented Jul 8, 2019 at 0:35
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3Not to mention that you can't trust communist state statistics. My favorite is the claim that mortality in the CCCP was 0%– MCW ♦Commented Jul 8, 2019 at 1:16
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2@Mark C. Wallace to be fair they probably meant morality ;-)– user31561Commented Jul 8, 2019 at 5:29
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1The Warsaw Pact countries, with the exception of the Soviet Union did not call themselves communist countries, but sozialist. The difference (in theory) between the two is whether money exists or not. Since the SU used money, their claim at being a communist society is false. Money in the sozialist countries, being internal, money was not used in trade between them. All of the sozialist countries I visited (from Berlin) during their existence had a very high pollution rate. So based on both counts, none of the Warsaw Pact countries fulfills your conditions.– Mark JohnsonCommented Jul 20, 2019 at 13:23
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1 Answer
First, let us discard the "primitive communal societies" (as Marxism describes pre-historic societies): they cannot be compared with anything else and their "communism" has been disputed.
Second, for "modern" societies, the answer is, emphatically, no. Every single communist society attempted either disappeared through attrition (people leaving) or builds a wall to prevent that. The fact that people universally run away from communism is a conclusive proof that it does not offer most people a better standard of living (because most people value bread over circuses).
PS1. The few still existing tiny utopian communities are sustained through a constant influx of volunteers, not organically. They are like a zoo vs biosphere experiment.
PS2. Communism in this context is defined as economic model of communism (lack of private ownership of means of production, IOW, private enterprise being illegal, or at least prohibited from hiring employees), rather than political aspects (lack of liberty and democracy). Cf. authoritarian capitalist regimes in tigers and the current PRC and Vietnam who are communist only politically, not economically.
PS3. In response to the socialist apology in comments:
Benin/Afghanistan are/were socialist in name only, these are agrarian non-collectivized economies, so their "socialism" affects only a small percentage of urban population.
Both Yugoslavia and PRC had "граница на замке" (border is locked up) policy, and still plenty of people tried to escaped (to Austria from Yugoslavia, to Hong Kong from PRC).
Cold War started after WW2, and USSR was locking borders already long before that. "Diplomatic isolation" coincided with relatively liberal NEP, while soviet industrialization was done, to a large degree (from Магнитка to Днепрогэс - both poster children of the Industrialization), by American and other western capital and engineers hungry for application in the aftermath of the Great Depression. In fact, blaming "hostile capitalist surroundings" for all internal problems is a classic Soviet lie, it is sad to see how well it persists.
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2You may want to take a look at the standards of living and migration demographics of the PR China and Vietnam in the last 20 years or so. I am aware of the fact that these two countries are dictatorships and have a tainted human rights record, but your contention that people universally run away from communism seems to be incorrect and to have no basis in reality.– 0rangeCommented Jul 8, 2019 at 20:08
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4PRC and Vietnam are hardly communist in the last 20 years or so - they are authoritarian capitalisms a la South Korea and other "tigers" of 50 years ago. This completely conforms with my assertion that people value bread over circuses.– sdsCommented Jul 8, 2019 at 20:56
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1Thank you. I accept your argument that PRC and Vietnam are possibly no longer communist economies (politically, they certainly still are communist). However, this opens the question of how that is defined and whether other historically communist countries such as East Germany (you mentioned the wall) had communist economies. Further, it is important to understand that people in East Germany, for instance, did not lack bread. They lacked freedom of speech, freedom of movement, good bread, and, precisely, circuses.– 0rangeCommented Jul 8, 2019 at 22:07
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@0range: see PPS for definition of communist economy - straight from Marx.– sdsCommented Jul 8, 2019 at 22:08
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1Your definition is not as clear-cut as you may believe. It is a misconception that private enterprise was illegal in communist states. It was strongly discouraged and owners were harassed in various ways, but it was not illegal. Small retail businesses, bakeries, etc. as well as farms (unless forcibly collectivized) were often still private.– 0rangeCommented Jul 8, 2019 at 22:13