I too want a post-scarcity luxury space communism utopia. Unfortunately most iterations of communism feel more like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than actually plugging the hole in the fuselage.
It’s just human nature in my eyes. Power attracts many people and the less positions of power to fill, the fiercer the competition and the more ruthless the ultimate victor. Communism focusses too much power in too few positions, so ultimately, corrupt people are almost guaranteed to win. Democracy is spreading out that power more. It is still not perfect, corrupt people are still regularly found at the top, but they wield less power individually and they have to do it more in the open.
Any socialist society needs to be democratic first, socialist second. Many more democracies have gotten closer to socialism than socialist societies have gotten close to democracy.
Cuba has an extensive democratic process. Cubans just democratically drafted the country’s newest family code, hammering out the details in over 80,000 citizen councils around the country.
Which societies are those? Because all the world’s most democratic countries tend to be the most capitalist.
Communism focusses too much power in too few positions
Literally the opposite of communism
The ideal of communism, maybe. Yet every country that called itself communist became authotarian. Why is that? Evil tongues might suggest that the ideal of communism simply fails to prevail when confronted with reality.
In theory yes, and you are going to say all communist countries were not “real communism” now ? The USSR was known for its ruthless and violent political scenes. Leaders condemning their opponents’ families to discredit them for example. North Korea gives all power to the supreme leader (a communist monarchy lmfao). Communist China is the closest to what you might you believe in but it’s insanely violent in the backstage. The closer you are to higher seats of power, the more in danger you are.
On top of that any individual at the top can effectively enact their preferred policies over everyone. Millions died simply because the supreme leader ordered so.
Communism focusses too much power in too few positions,
marxism would be a better term instead of communism as true communism requires no one having economic or political power over someone else
It would, but communism on a decently large scale needs someone to allocate resources. And that jon comes with a lot of power. Which brings us back to marxism.
We should select leaders by lottery from a pool of those who have passed a civics exam instead of elections. Maybe that would help with the problem of corrupt people seeking positions of power.
And who makes sure that the rules aren’t broken? Who makes sure the lottery wouldn’t be rigged? Your ‘solution’ is defenseless against corruption. It offers no mechanic to deal with the corrupt. The beauty of democracy and capitalism is that it allows for those who want more power, to achieve it within the system. By that, they will stay within the system and be subjected by the accountability it provides. If your solution allows absolutely no way to stack the cards in your favor, then it will be rejected by all who wish to, and it will crumble before long.
Thats why i personaly believe that we should strive to build an A.I. to replace leadership, be it political and/or economical. Leadership has shown that they are 100% corruptible and that they are willing to sell the lives of the people they are suposed to protect to pretty much the fucking devil, in exchange of the privilege of showing that they have the biggest dick in the room or to get another swimmig pool in their 8th mansion (im mostly refering to global warming and oligarchy but other scenarios still apply). In my book that shows that we as a species can not lead ourselves without genocide and opresion, and even with those they dont really lead people, just protect their own interests and those of their friends. The A.I. wouldnt be corruptible, would exploit resources with sustainable technology in a renewable manner, eventually leading to having the equivalent of infinite resources, and would provide all the needs of the people in a human way, from phisical to psicolgical, and eventually more edonistic needs where possible. Imho the fact that we are not working on something like this is kinda worring since i think is the only way to realistically save ourselves from ourselves.
Thats why i personaly believe that we should strive to build an A.I. to replace leadership, be it political and/or economical.
The problem with that is that the most powerful AI, the one with the most capabilities, is built by, or stewarded by the people in power. The problem is that every human is selfish, at least to some degree. Any AI coming from people will be selfish as well. Chatbot Tay might be a meme now, but I think it shows quite apptly that any alorithm that learns from humans will inevitably display human traits and greed is one of those traits.
The ship is not sinking, the sea level is simply rising to its rightful place