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RE: It was never about capitalism vs communism - it was always about centralized vs decentralized
Can you really have decentralization in a communist society when the communist philosophies reject private property rights? Doesn't that impose a de facto decision-making entity or collective for "common property" or "common ownership" and doesn't that contradict the purpose of decentralization? Maybe there's a version of communism that I'm not aware of, but every iteration that I've ever had explained to me ultimately involved some sort of "democratic" body that made decisions for the collective. How do you reconcile this with the desire to eliminate centralized authority?
To some extent, the concept of public property without a governing use of force is indeed theoretical, but on smaller scales, you can observe that there have been common fields where people could let their sheep graze and similar.
(Which led to the Tragedy of the Commons, but sustainability of the idea is separate from the idea itself.)
Also, it's noteworthy that Marx' idea of a post-scarcity superabundance is something I don't see as realistic to begin with.
Communism only works with ants
But yes as you say it's a decentralized system.
(With a common goal. Keeping the queen alive, and feeding the newborns)
Yeah, I agree on the "post-scarcity" argument. That seems to make most of the socialist/communist theories completely worthless, in my opinion. It's great to dream about it, but it's nowhere close to being a realistic possibility.
But even shared property use doesn't address the management/maintenance of it, any exclusion from use by either inside or outside actors, and the rules created for it all in the first place. Democratic decision-making and enforcement presupposes some sort of unanimous agreement to the rules of voting beforehand, which is almost never actually proven in any "democratic" society. It just seems to me that any decentralization claims by those with centralized "democratic resolution" processes are completely contradictory. Property rights seems to be the only way that any centralization can actually be avoided in both theory and practice.
i lived now for 5 years mostly in a community without money. Of course to get used to it can be quite tricky, but i for my part don't want to miss it. Its functioning very simple, the ones who take care of something make the decision about it. Thats it.
But wasn't Marx a writer, a theorist, and not a politician? He would probably be disgusted with all that happened afterwards... I relate to part of communism, and parts of capitalism. I think neither one is perfect, both have their huge flaws. Communism means that there is someone, or a group of people that controls the destiny of the state. And every time that someone has too much power is his/her hands they become despotic. Even if they don't, the mere fact that you depend on who sits on the throne of power by itself...
On the other hand capitalism was created for the most part for the rape and robbering of other countries that are now the third world. The western world got its money from the Americas and Africa. Several banks were started by fortunes created through slavery. All this to say that there is not perfect system. There is no perfect nothing. Because the idea might be great, but in the end of the day, it's people who follow that ideia... and people are not perfect either... Only when we as humans become more conscious and grow, can we really change things. There are some signs already... amidst all the dread.