We are too late.

It sounds like you're wishing for communism. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked too well when it's been tried on a large scale. However, the failures may be due more to faulty implementation rather than inherent flaws in the concept. Many small communities, like the Amish and some third world communities, have succeeded at making this sort of system work reasonably well.

One of the biggest problems that gets in the way is high population density. It has been shown time and again that the higher a population density gets, the more antisocial the people become. This is one of the reasons there was less crime and more trust in the past. There was less crowding in the world. Nonetheless, the Chinese made a pretty good effort at communism in the most populated country on Earth. They seem to be moving away from it somewhat now, but they still retain much of their communist principles. Their current success should give us reason to look at their society more carefully.

Communism is a nice ideal but all efforts in the past in that direction have led to an oppressive totalitarian state which is probably not a pleasant or desired goal. What seems to be missed is a basic cultural change and these are not managed easily, especially with the intensive concentration on competition as the main driving force in society. The powers in control seem rather inured to common social benefits in deference to wild surges to get as much as possible for one's self and the devil take the hindmost.

Sand, I have to point out that the idea that communism has led to oppressive totalitarian states is more or less a myth. The truth is, countries like Russia and China were already totalitarian states before communism. They merely continued their tradition. Capitalist states often become oppressive dictatorships too, especially if that is the traditional situation in that country. The key to a successful system is to have competent and benevolent governments. Unfortunately, no one has come up with a way to guarantee that.

Under Marxist ideology communism was theoretically to be a liberation of the underclass of workers from the pressures of a capitalist state. That was the theory behind the revolution. To claim that a previous government was a suppressive one and therefore a subsequent one could do no more than follow the previous pattern is the oddest stretch of logic I have seen for a while. The constitution of the USSR was quite democratic in concept. There were many forces at work to consolidate Stalin's control of his country and turn it into what cannot be denied as a dictatorship of monumental suppression and ethnic and political persecution. To claim now that communist Russia and China were wonderful places strikes me as very strange.

I didn't say that communist Russia or China were wonderful places. I said that they were already repressive totalitarian states before communism and remained that way under communism. I'm not saying they couldn't do better, I'm saying they didn't do better. This isn't a matter of logic, it's historical fact. Communism was suppose to liberate the working class, but it didn't work out that way. Cultures that have a history of despotic leadership tend to have a hard time changing that habit. It can be done, but it's not easy and doesn't always work.

As far as I understand it Marxist theory held that when a highly industrialized country reached the point where the working class was so thoroughly oppressed by their capitalist masters that the hardships became unbearable the overwhelmingly larger number of workers would revolt and establish a state where the means of production was totally controlled by the workers. Neither czarist Russia nor precommunist China had developed industrially to the point of fulfilling Marxist theory when they became communist so, theoretically, it was a topsy-turvy political change. The capitalist nations immediately defined these switches as a basic threat to capitalism as communism was theoretically an international movement of workers worldwide originally until Trotsky was kicked out and Stalin restricted communism to the USSR, although even Stalin cultivated international worker sympathies. After WWI The USA and Britain sent troops into Russia to defeat communism at its inception but they were expelled. This, and subsequent capitalist attempts, led to militaristic paranoia on both sides leading inevitably to the cold war after WWII. True democratic communism has never emerged anywhere and it is very questionable that it provides anywhere near the economic dynamic that has made capitalism so successful.

The current sharp economic decline in the USA due to the oppression of the working class in general and the rapacious greed of the economic elite seems to follow the lines that Marx indicated in his theory as a precondition to the fall of capitalism but the propaganda of the capitalist system and its tight control of the means of communication and media plus the almost total corruption of all sections of the government has so distorted the concepts of the population in general as to where their best destiny may lay that any kind of general citizen control of the economy and the means of production is, at the moment, not a practical outcome. Things will have to get a lot worse before common sense becomes a powerful motivation. The feeble efforts of the current Obama administration may deter any violent outcome for a while but something more dynamic will have to be done in the end, one way or another. Things look to get very unpleasant in the near future.

Nice summary sand. That's exactly the way I understand it too.

WOW!! What an excellent conversation!! Sand and Dwane Anderson, you guys seems very professional in terms of topic, and I am very impressive by that as a young Chinese.

Anderson,you said "Communism was suppose to liberate the working class, but it didn't work out that way. " I could not agree more. I think that you probably know the "Cat theroy" by our ex-president DengXiaoPing,"no matter white cat or black cat,as long as it catches the mouse, it is a good cat". that theory indicate that our policy is that let few people get rich first, then rich people lift all the people out of proverty.

That is what DengXiaoPing said, however, I do not know how that can work and I do not believe that it can be achieved. As a college student who was born in a not rich family, I study hard and hope can change my life and to become someone. I was encouraged by my some of my foreign friends and aslo some Chinese who are older than me.however,at the same time, some Chinese told me that "have good family background or good connection parents can get a good job much eaisly than who study hard. that is a huge problem China had right now-- Society fair.

I want to explain more , but I had go, I will come back to that later.

If we still believe it and do it, oneday it can be true.