Quote Originally Posted by hddscan View Post
Communism is utopia. It could only be achieved in small, closed societies. Communism relies on people to be truly altruistic, with compassion, super humane in a sense. And this can only be achieved if a society would have no economical or cultural problems whatsoever, internal or external. People should be willing to do "greater good" for the whole society and not for themselves but this can only be done if all the people in such society are more or less equal in all terms, so the uniqueness of an individual has to be removed completely, which is practically impossible.
I agree that communism is better suited for smaller groups. People need to be really committed and there needs to be discipline. In a way, you could say that monasteries run a sort of "communism". Everyone lives in the same way, they share almost everything and it's "to everyone according to their needs". They are held together by strong religious conviction. Also, they can simply ask people to leave, who don't follow the rules. A country can't really do that..

The problem with doing it in a large country, is a lot of people never wanted socialism to begin with. They will be negative. Others are just uninterested, lazy or out to exploit the system. Countries like the USA will be out to sabotage the socialistic state as much as possible. And as the years pass, people forget the hardships before socialism and they start taking everything for granted -- worrying a lot more about their "rights" than their obligations.

One of the reasons social democracy worked in Sweden was because it was a completely homogenous country, and there was a real high work ethic among regular people, thanks to Lutheranism. (Neither is true anymore though....)

In actual communism, just triple all the challenges. I agree that it's just not compatible with human nature at present.
But note: The world in Star Trek is communist. If there was a colony on Mars, they'd be living "communism" by necessity, even if they wouldn't call it by that name.

Quote Originally Posted by hddscan View Post
I don't see it as a negative thing. But obviously different people may have different opinions.
No I don't see it as something negative either. But it seems like it's a closed chapter now - gone and not coming back. Or if it's coming back, it will be different and called something else.

The image of socialism was totally ruined in the 1990s. As a "brand", it's almost dead.
Or does anyone see communism or socialism making a real comeback in our lifetimes? I don't...

When I say "socialism" I think of - no private means of production, job and housing for everyone... etc, etc.
Have you got a different view on what it is?

Also: I think all countries that implemented socialism put their own "deviating" touches on it, so there really is no text-book example of "plain" or "pure" socialism.