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Viliam comments on Open thread, Aug. 03 - Aug. 09, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Communists (in the marxist sense) definitely take a systems thinking gear like approach, not a magical "evil people do evil things" approach. The entire idea behind Marxism is that there's a systemic problem with capitalism where the rich own the means of production. This will lead to a systemic unrest among those who don't own the means of production, which will eventually lead to a revolution.
I would say the problem is not systems thinking in this case, but lack of empiricism. Communism has been proven again and again to lead to corruption, but that fact is ignored by communists because it contradicts their systemic models. That's not just a leftist problem though. For instance, it's been shown again and again that raising the minimum wage doesn't lead to unemployement, but that's been ignored again and again by the right because it contradicts their systemic model.
True for textbook Communism, but it doesn't work for politicians. What is a Communist politician supposed to say to their voters: "Let's sit here with our hands folded and wait for the inevitable collapse of the capitalism"? They must point fingers. They must point fingers more than their competitors for the same role.
And when the Communists rule the country... they empirically can't deliver what Marx has promised. So they must find excuses. Stuff like "Socialism is the initial stage of the Communism, containing still some elements of capitalist system such as money; just wait a few years longer and you will see the final stage". In reality, you have a pseudo-capitalist system with a dictatorship of the Communist Party, state-owned factories and regulated prices, mandatory employment and press censorship... and you stay there for decades, because... well, again, you must point fingers. American imperialists, internal traitors, everyone is trying to destroy our 'freedom' and happiness.
EDIT: But probably more important than this all is that you have to "sell" Communism to people who are prone to magical thinking. So whatever the original theory was, as soon as it reaches the masses, your average supporter will think magically.
Yes, I agree with all of this. It's essentially restating my initial point, which is that communism's problem is not that they don't think in systems - it's that they don't update their systems based on empirical results.