[foldr]

> I’ve long complained that communists refuse to specify the details of how a communist society will work, or why it would be good.

Did capitalists do this in any comprehensive or satisfactory way prior to the advent of capitalism? I’m not a communist, but this seems like a fairly weak criticism.

[SauntSolaire]

The advent of communism was sufficiently long ago that it I'm not sure your critique applies.

[foldr]

I'm not sure why that's relevant. My point is that it's never really possible to provide a detailed plan for a complete changing of the social order. While it might be nice in theory to have such a thing, it's not clear that it's really a reasonable thing to ask for.

[tpm]

> My point is that it's never really possible to provide a detailed plan for a complete changing of the social order.

That's correct, but if the communist avantguarde says (as they did) "we have to completely change the social order by force, uproot everything, to build communism", there might be questions if it's at least going to be directionally good or bad. And if the answers can't be provided, then perhaps they shouldn't be doing it at all?

[foldr]

Yep, that’s the classic small ‘c’ conservative argument against revolutions or sudden changes. It’s a fine argument, but it’s not specific to communism.

[tpm]

Pretty sure I've already used it 20 years ago.

Yeah it's not specific to communism, one just needs to look at the sudden changes the US admin is implementing to see it's broadly applicable, only they don't even pretend to be interested in societally good outcomes.