That productivity is why we should be very careful throwing out capitalism without a convincing alternative. Communists mock ideas like universal basic income as patches on the system...but it's really harnessing the fruits of a blind, dumb, merciless, but extremely powerful machine and redistributing them.
People are understandably concerned that, true communism or not, attempts to bring about a revolution will look very much like the historical states that called themselves communist.
Certainly, the bulk of socialist and communist intellectuals were supportive of the Soviets for a long time, even after Stalin. It took decades for their opinions to turn. If a new socialism takes hold, and fails, why should we expect world socialist opinion to condemn it instead of blindly supporting it? More importantly, why would the architects of the failed experiment relinquish power?
All of these questions are asked, and answered, and have metrics in modern mainstream economics. They're not examples of brave socialists speaking truth to power and shaking the system, they're literally the foundation of what economists study!
"Purchasing power parity" is precisely the concept used to adjust for local cost of living (and the extreme poverty figure is purchasing power adjusted). The role of imports and exports is literally contained in the most mainstream measure out there (GDP). Exports increase it, imports decrease it. If local economies are destroyed, this will be reflected in many, many measures.
If you're arguing that metrics are imperfect, sure. But better that than no metrics and just a vague sense of things going well or going badly. And you can point to ideologues who misuse metrics or are trying to "sell something". These people are constantly and loudly challenged, and this means that the numbers have to be, and are, extremely solid. I'll then point to communists who have a vested interest in attacking the statistics. If things are getting better, it kind of removes the entire impetus for communist projects, after all. And the localized experiments in communism haven't performed well enough for anyone to be convinced of its merits.
This is a well thought out reply, thanks. Before I say any more, I want to offer that if you're
interested in both economics and social systems, you should really consider reading marx's Capital (vol 1) -- that's what it's about, and it genuinely laid a lot of that foundation which liberal economists study today! Whether it makes you any more interested in communism or not, I think you'll find the contents and arguments are pretty different than you expect -- it's a difficult book to boil down into summaries, and it's a book that has had a
lot of politically motivated distortions passed around. If you're interested, but don't have time to read capital,
David Harvey is a well respected scholar who frequently records lectures that can help summarize key thoughts (although he has his own academic interests and focuses, which slightly distort the content of the book vs just reading it)
It sounds like you already know a decent amount about history, economics, and politics, and I'm not really comfortable or interested in explaining the
merits of communism to people, so I'm not going to dig into the moral argument. I don't imagine you're prepared to make a moral argument for capitalism vs communism, either -- better writers than either of us have made both.
The main thing I do think is flawed in your way of thinking is that I don't think you're really that familiar with what it is communists are demanding. Liberation of workers, abolition of private property (a term of art -- from wikipedia:
" In Marxist literature, private property refers to a social relationship in which the property owner takes possession of anything that another person or group produces with that property") and an end to the unlimited accumulation of Capital irregardless of the practical use of the objects of that Capital, to name a few. Whether it strengthens your faith in Liberalism or converts you, i do think if you ever find yourself with a lot of time and energy to read a 1000 page economic tract that you would get something out of reading about marxism from the original source.
I do want to address some of the points you made in your post though, where I think they're inaccurate, or where it doesnt seem like my original point was properly conveyed.
Point by point --
1- I don't think UBI will make the world any better long term, but I agree with you that it would improve people's lives, and the communists who outright mock it are on the wrong side. This is another point where Marx differs a lot from some of the more simplified versions of communism -- Marxists don't believe reforms can solve any real problems, but they're not about to sacrifice improvements to workers lives any way they can get them. A lot of Capital is about marx celebrating the advances that labor movements made in things like the length of the working day and the level of wages (while not overlooking the ways that Capital successfully subverted a lot of those supposed gains.) So like, the marxist position as i understand it is: keep your eye on the prize (liberation from wage labour) but obviously there's a moral imperative to reduce suffering via reforms wherever possible.
2- Sure, but that's mostly propaganda. People aren't afraid of Liberal revolutions turning out as bloody as the french revolution did. Unless you find yourself overthrowing an emperor in a nation with a massive peasant majority you're going to at the very least find very
different pitfalls than revolutionaries in the early 20th century did.
3- To varying degrees. I wouldn't say the bulk were supportive of soviet
ideology (although attacks on it were widely suppressed, especially within the ussr.) Trotskyists were a big deal for a reason, and one of the other most important groups of revolutionaries at the time, the far left revolutionaries in Germany, were very critical of Lenin's path before they were sold out by the liberals and murdered. Many academics were supportive of the ussr in the cold war compared to the usa, which, like, the usa was a much more powerful nation than the ussr, and one with apartied for a huge % of the population which was constantly invading small nations and starting coups, so is a reasonable enough position to take, even considering the ussr's sins.
4- Again, see above about marx's contributions to modern economics -- but also, yeah, I agree that those problems are also recognized by capitalists. I only brought that up to dispute the claims about raising people out of poverty, which I think is a particularly weak argument in support of capitalism.
5- What is the impetus for communists to attack metrics? Communism campaigns on an end to
exploitation, not an increase in quality of life, persay. While the relationship between exploitation and poor conditions is obvious (exploited peoples' quality of life is at the mercy of their benefactors, and subject to change or degradation if there's a profit motive,) the absence of poor conditions does not imply the absence of exploitation. Furthermore, the thing that communists disagree with isn't really even the metric -- it's the thing the metric is trying to measure (what marx called
Value and
Exchange Value)
