How can communism deal with the food per total human issue without people managing that based on their own effort and resources and self-determinstion? Has the centralized planning leads to starvation problem been resolved now? I am not being sarcastic and am open to persuasion. Our current system is a disaster but it’s not clear to me how communism can deal with problems of motivation, allocation, and resource management to avoid mass starvations.
How can communism deal with the food per total human issue without people managing that based on their own effort and resources and self-determinstion? Has the centralized planning leads to starvation problem been resolved now?
Starvation that happens under capitalism never seems to count or matter.
Pretty much every AES state that experienced famine did so early on, and/or during the fall of the Soviet Union. Food is stable in pretty much every AES country (though the DPRK has little agricultural land due to its geography). Central Planning isn’t an issue with food production, most famines in Socialist countries came from similar sources as famines prior to becoming Socialist, not because of Socialism, and thus eliminated famine by developing more and improving production.
I recommend looking more into how Socialist countries actually function, I think you have a very idealistic notion of Communism that is more detached from actual practice.
If the government says “we will always feed and cloth and house you” and the land can feed 100 million people, and people reproduce as much as possible, going from 10 million to 60 million to 110 million, at 110 million people there won’t be enough food. How does communism propose to stop the population from being imbalanced with nature? I say this as someone disgusted and appalled by the worsening homeless problem in the USA and the Christian response of putting spikes on the ground so people can’t sleep. Homlessness existing in this day and age is vile. I just don’t see how communism can work in balance with nature, but am open to persuasion. My skepticism may not be warranted, since Finland has mostly solved the homelessness problem, but that’s also in a Democratic Socialist capitalist system. I am also one of the typical Americans that is scared of larger governments and it leading to more central control and corruption, with a corresponding loss of freedom.
My desire to vote or be a part of a political party is really linked to being pro-gun, pro-women (and considering transwomen women), pro-business, pro-digital freedom and anti-homelessness. Capitalism in the USA has become a horrible mess, but mostly becaise religious idiots keep electing horrible politicians. But I’m starting to think more and more that religious idiots electing horrible politicians may be a part of the plan, may be by design. And when the supposed hard-core Christians are also so spiteful to the homeless, it really makes me open to persuasion.
I am not sure if the problem is solvable. Some people want to do drugs and be irresponsible. Some people want to be productive. But maybe this is the sort of Ayn Rand lie that ultimately justifies cruelty.
Many religious people see controlling population dynamics by government approving or denying procreation as dystopian. There are just so many religious idiots in America and cruel people. I like that in capitalism people can start businesses. However, if communism can cleanse the USA of religious assholes and stop homelessness without taking away guns, I’m open to hearing ideas about what communism can do. Still not a communist, but disgusted by society enough I’m open to hearing ideaa.
Really, this means i should run for office to try to change things and stop the evils of homelessness. But i am gay and therefore unelectable.
Communism isn’t just providing everything for everyone no matter what. Overpopulation is a problem any economic system will have to deal with, and that’s not something that has hard binary boundaries.
Speaking of the USA and it’s food consumption, we waste an incredible amount of food. We grow food based on it’s profitability not it’s effectiveness at feeding people or delivering nutrition. Varieties are prioritized by their ability to stay “fresh” longer (or engineered) so that we can literally outsource farming to nations we can exploit on the cheap without the food spoiling on its way back here, by boat because that’s cheapest.
There have been attempts at things like centralized planning that were remarkably resilient to disruption in South America. If I recall, they managed to build a network, like decades ago, that allowed organizations within an industry to share information about production and stock, which allowed them to accommodate natural disruptions. I don’t know for sure if that covered food specifically, if I’m being honest. Either way, we’ll never know how long it could have lasted because we intervened and “convinced” the locals to adopt capitalism.
I don’t think there is a rule that “planning” or cooperation in production leads to things like starvation. Of course, anything can be planned poorly and if everything relies on a single bad plan there is the possibility that everything could go terribly wrong. Or things can just go wrong without any planning or cooperation, or because its not important to the owners of the means of production that people are fed - many people are malnourished and starving as we speak… Unfortunately, humanity has had very little opportunity to try centralized or cooperative planning because it threatens capitalism and established powers. I think if we did it carefully and learned from our mistakes centralized or cooperative planning could absolutely work. I have very mixed feelings and limited knowledge about China, and I am hesitant to believe anything due to propaganda war waged by both the CCP and capitalists worldwide. However, it seems clear that they have been prioritizing food security for a while. How are their rates of starvation and malnutrition?
To be perfectly frank, my biggest concern about real socialism is that it is hard to make sustainable. This is not because of inherent flaws but because capitalist powers and oligarchs will sabotage it at every opportunity. It’s been happening throughout history and humans have only gotten better (and even more subtle, if necessary) at sabotaging things. Look into how difficult it has been to allow the government to help people with programs or improve agencies that exist for that purpose… especially since Reagan. Now observe how quickly the current US federal government is being dismantled because those agencies we’ve somehow managed to create get in the way of profit.
Hell, our current world economy is incredibly intertwined. Our current trade war with China makes it clear that even if a country mastered food distribution, anything imported could just be cut off or maliciously priced to sabotage that achievement. Unfortunately, even if we tried to be food secure without growing food elsewhere the US can’t grow everything, and definitely not in the proportions we would need. Some of it, like coffee and tropical fruit, has to be excluded from the economy or imported… which leaves us vulnerable to manipulation.
How can communism deal with the food per total human issue without people managing that based on their own effort and resources and self-determinstion? Has the centralized planning leads to starvation problem been resolved now? I am not being sarcastic and am open to persuasion. Our current system is a disaster but it’s not clear to me how communism can deal with problems of motivation, allocation, and resource management to avoid mass starvations.
Starvation that happens under capitalism never seems to count or matter.
Pretty much every AES state that experienced famine did so early on, and/or during the fall of the Soviet Union. Food is stable in pretty much every AES country (though the DPRK has little agricultural land due to its geography). Central Planning isn’t an issue with food production, most famines in Socialist countries came from similar sources as famines prior to becoming Socialist, not because of Socialism, and thus eliminated famine by developing more and improving production.
I recommend looking more into how Socialist countries actually function, I think you have a very idealistic notion of Communism that is more detached from actual practice.
If the government says “we will always feed and cloth and house you” and the land can feed 100 million people, and people reproduce as much as possible, going from 10 million to 60 million to 110 million, at 110 million people there won’t be enough food. How does communism propose to stop the population from being imbalanced with nature? I say this as someone disgusted and appalled by the worsening homeless problem in the USA and the Christian response of putting spikes on the ground so people can’t sleep. Homlessness existing in this day and age is vile. I just don’t see how communism can work in balance with nature, but am open to persuasion. My skepticism may not be warranted, since Finland has mostly solved the homelessness problem, but that’s also in a Democratic Socialist capitalist system. I am also one of the typical Americans that is scared of larger governments and it leading to more central control and corruption, with a corresponding loss of freedom.
My desire to vote or be a part of a political party is really linked to being pro-gun, pro-women (and considering transwomen women), pro-business, pro-digital freedom and anti-homelessness. Capitalism in the USA has become a horrible mess, but mostly becaise religious idiots keep electing horrible politicians. But I’m starting to think more and more that religious idiots electing horrible politicians may be a part of the plan, may be by design. And when the supposed hard-core Christians are also so spiteful to the homeless, it really makes me open to persuasion.
I am not sure if the problem is solvable. Some people want to do drugs and be irresponsible. Some people want to be productive. But maybe this is the sort of Ayn Rand lie that ultimately justifies cruelty.
Many religious people see controlling population dynamics by government approving or denying procreation as dystopian. There are just so many religious idiots in America and cruel people. I like that in capitalism people can start businesses. However, if communism can cleanse the USA of religious assholes and stop homelessness without taking away guns, I’m open to hearing ideas about what communism can do. Still not a communist, but disgusted by society enough I’m open to hearing ideaa.
Really, this means i should run for office to try to change things and stop the evils of homelessness. But i am gay and therefore unelectable.
Communism isn’t just providing everything for everyone no matter what. Overpopulation is a problem any economic system will have to deal with, and that’s not something that has hard binary boundaries.
Speaking of the USA and it’s food consumption, we waste an incredible amount of food. We grow food based on it’s profitability not it’s effectiveness at feeding people or delivering nutrition. Varieties are prioritized by their ability to stay “fresh” longer (or engineered) so that we can literally outsource farming to nations we can exploit on the cheap without the food spoiling on its way back here, by boat because that’s cheapest.
There have been attempts at things like centralized planning that were remarkably resilient to disruption in South America. If I recall, they managed to build a network, like decades ago, that allowed organizations within an industry to share information about production and stock, which allowed them to accommodate natural disruptions. I don’t know for sure if that covered food specifically, if I’m being honest. Either way, we’ll never know how long it could have lasted because we intervened and “convinced” the locals to adopt capitalism.
I don’t think there is a rule that “planning” or cooperation in production leads to things like starvation. Of course, anything can be planned poorly and if everything relies on a single bad plan there is the possibility that everything could go terribly wrong. Or things can just go wrong without any planning or cooperation, or because its not important to the owners of the means of production that people are fed - many people are malnourished and starving as we speak… Unfortunately, humanity has had very little opportunity to try centralized or cooperative planning because it threatens capitalism and established powers. I think if we did it carefully and learned from our mistakes centralized or cooperative planning could absolutely work. I have very mixed feelings and limited knowledge about China, and I am hesitant to believe anything due to propaganda war waged by both the CCP and capitalists worldwide. However, it seems clear that they have been prioritizing food security for a while. How are their rates of starvation and malnutrition?
To be perfectly frank, my biggest concern about real socialism is that it is hard to make sustainable. This is not because of inherent flaws but because capitalist powers and oligarchs will sabotage it at every opportunity. It’s been happening throughout history and humans have only gotten better (and even more subtle, if necessary) at sabotaging things. Look into how difficult it has been to allow the government to help people with programs or improve agencies that exist for that purpose… especially since Reagan. Now observe how quickly the current US federal government is being dismantled because those agencies we’ve somehow managed to create get in the way of profit.
Hell, our current world economy is incredibly intertwined. Our current trade war with China makes it clear that even if a country mastered food distribution, anything imported could just be cut off or maliciously priced to sabotage that achievement. Unfortunately, even if we tried to be food secure without growing food elsewhere the US can’t grow everything, and definitely not in the proportions we would need. Some of it, like coffee and tropical fruit, has to be excluded from the economy or imported… which leaves us vulnerable to manipulation.