OK, I may be way off here, but my gut feeling has always been that communism doesn't work because the whole system works against human nature. As I understand it, one of the basics of the communist system is that everyone gets paid the same wages for the same jobs--no merit raises, promotions, etc. There's no way to 'get ahead', if you will, for an innovative or ambitious person to legitimately make more money or better himself. I think that accounts for the tremendous amount of corruption in most communist countries--when there's no way for an honest, hard-working person to advance, that leaves the way open for dishonest people to advance through corruption.
I think the lack of competition hurts the society as a whole, too--there is no incentive to invent new technology or medicine, for example. I remember reading about Chernobyl, and how one of the reasons it was such a huge disaster is that the Soviet goverment built the reactor, but there were no plans for emergency services if such an accident happened. And because the government had the final say, no one could stand up and criticize them for the lack of planning.
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Re: communism
Date: 2006-11-06 09:12 pm (UTC)I think the lack of competition hurts the society as a whole, too--there is no incentive to invent new technology or medicine, for example. I remember reading about Chernobyl, and how one of the reasons it was such a huge disaster is that the Soviet goverment built the reactor, but there were no plans for emergency services if such an accident happened. And because the government had the final say, no one could stand up and criticize them for the lack of planning.