The communist hypothesis

What Hacker News says

1. ue_Sep 2017
   >Remember this the next time that The Economist, Time magazine or New York Times tries to talk about "the wonders" of communism.

   Could it be that, if they talk in favour of it, they have a different idea of Communism to you? Modern Communist academics do, we must investigate the ontology of Communism; a good read on this is from Badiou, The Communist Hypothesis. Most modern academic Communists believe that we must search for what happened, how to prevent it and how to move past it, to say nothing of the various splinters and brothers in the Communist family tree - anarchism, Communailsm, democratic Socialism, etc.

   If you do reading on Communist literature since about 1950 you'll see they have occupied themselves with this investigation, the very one you are accusing them of ignoring.

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2. ue_Aug 2017
   For that reason I think we should support modern day Marxists (and non-Marxian Communists), anarchists and Communalists in their research and investigation into advancing their hypothesis. A good read on this is Badiou's The Communist Hypothesis.
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3. claudiawernerNov 2018
   Being a Communist website does not mean they support the practices of these corporations, nor the practices of the Chinese Communist Party - you'll find, if you look closer, that the website is a place for Marxists and anarcho-Communists in general, much more so than Maoists (who are heavily suspicious of the pro-capital Dengist reforms) or Stalinists.

   It's not ironic at all; it is only ironic when you conflate the CCP with what Badiou describes as the Communist hypothesis.

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4. claudiawernerJul 2018
   Some highly educated people describe themselves as Marxists beacuse they believe, with or without caveats, that Marx's critique of political economy, contained within it Marx's sociology and philosophy, come very close to a critique of the modern state of things, i.e the current mode of production, which most would identify as capitalism.

   I'll address each argument.

   1. As I've already responded to dragonwriter, it's incorrect to say that "Marxism" is a set of goals to be acheived or a kind of economy or a mode of production or a mode of social organisation. Marxism is simply the critique of political economy, and from that critique emerges the idea of Communism. As to the question, a lot of work has been done in Marxist (and post-Marxist) circles since about the 1950s, you may have heard of the Frankfurt School, for instance. Alain Badiou, a contemporary French philosopher, has written a book called "The Communist Hypothesis" in which he attempts to "rescue" Communism, not merely as a "less-bad" alternative to capitalism (even considering the track record in history) but as the only alternative. He uses the example of approaches to proving a hypothesis, in which each iteration the lessons learned from the previous attempt are modified. This is directly relatable to history - consider the evolution of Leninism after the Paris Commune, or Maoism after Leninism.

   2. Capitalism is the greatest precedent, and feudalism too before it. Though it's worth noting that not only is Communism the "upheaval" of an economic system, it is as Gilles Dauve but it: "the end of economy". Arguably, capitalism really has worked; Marx would be the last to claim that capitalism hasn't ushered in massive prosperity and progress.

   These are just my responses, but there is a whole host of diversity within modern (post 1930s) Marxist thought that stretches to this day, with various responses to your questions, obviously not so condensed. The Frankfurt School was critical of both Western capitalism and Soviet-style communism, while furthering the Marxist critique to a mass-media world. The left-communists champion a return to Marx himself rather than trying to re-formulate critique for the modern world.

   But I want to disspell the idea that modern Marxists are ignorant of history or human behaviour; Marxism is relatively popular in both sociology and some history departments.

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5. kunimuNov 2017
   >but no, This Time It Will Be Different®.

   Why do you think strawman thought-terminating cliches are an acceptable level of discourse? At best they serve to be distracting and needlessly hostile.

   >but you keep insisting in trying again a system that again and again has proven itself to be horrible.

   Not really; have you heard of Badiou's concept of the Communist Hypothesis? His argument is that Socialism, well, Communism has existed as an Idea for centuries, it is always the force to break down the "present state of things", it is the first element of society, the subversive one, to oppose the action of the State. To dismiss thirty years of research into Communism, creating branches such as anarchist Communism, communalism, feminist anarchism, Socialist technocracy and others with faux-empiricism is a little heavy handed in my view.

   As for your support of the wonders of capitalism, neither I, nor Marx, Engels or any contemporary Communist denies its push to reduce poverty.

   >shifting value from developed countries to developing countries.

   "Shifting value" is a very strange way of saying that developing countries are being systematically exploited due to the low cost of labour because they have almost no training.

   >but the current system has worked miracles

   So did the feudal system, and in fact so did the Soviet system (which I do not by any means support).

   >It can be improved

   So can Socialism.

   >but proposing a dramatic change to a system that ALWAYS results in bloody dictatorships makes no sense.

   Capitalism itself was extremely dramatic, it came "soaked from head to toe in blood" as Marx put it. In fact, he dedicates two chapters of his magnum opus to detailing the bloody history of capitalism and the laws passed in Western Europe that allowed it to flourish.

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6. etplayerSep 2017
   I agree, it's something that sounds difficult to get right, and if it's possible to get right, what's the best way to go about it? I contend that the model which the Soviets adopted was poor, not only for the reasons you mentioned (rigid central planning, authoritarianism, and opposition to recognised science in favour of nationalism-based "science"). It's important to ask why these things happened, so I think that the solution is not as simple as I perhaps made it out to be.

   However we see that in the Soviet Union, places of science remained private property, administered by either private institutions or a state which claimed to be in control of the people, while it was clearly not. The whole Soviet model collapsed very early one because certain factions were banned, and their members executed. I do not think that this is the best that we can do. However I think that the solution, however utopian it sounds, lies in abolition of private property because otherwise we are still beholden to the whims of speculators and their profits rather than the interest of the community. Even if you only democratised science, this would be problematic; the scientists need to eat, and I would argue that they shouldn't have to eat only if the State or a private institutions tells them that they can eat.

   There are other examples to go along with what you said. I can't remember the source, but there was a time in the Soviet Union in which scientists wished to implement a much better system of central planning which took into account input and output tables continuously; whether or not the computer power existed at the time I don't know, but the system was quickly shut down by the Soviet bureaucracy - I think because it posed a threat to the power of the State. This is why I tend to by more sympathetic to anarchist ideologies (as a questioner at the end of the presentitaion mentions), because by destroying the material conditions of the state then the state ceases, what you describe as happening has less chance to take hold.

   This is why Communism is an anarchist ideology, in recognition of the very problem you have mentioned. Modern day Communists such as Zizek and Badiou accept this, and Badiou urges us to continue with the Communist Hypothesis[0]. The Soviet model was initially radical, but it was not radical enough to overcome the power structures which were much more entrenched than the founders of the revolution thought. So I still think Communism is the answer, but in what way is yet to be found out, and the debate fiercely rages. It's not that I think Lysenkoism is better than what we have currently (including all our junk "science" coming from here and there), it's that I think there is a solution superior to both situations, namely, in the reduction of power of the state and the diminishing of nationalism by making a global revolution as Marx's internationalist roots envisioned. It's not the abolition of private property that was the cause of Lysenkoism, it was exactly what we see now - rigid state bureaucracy and private institutions.

   [0] https://newleftreview.org/II/49/alain-badiou-the-communist-h...

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