NationStates Jolt Archive

U can't go to cuba. its against the law. there are legal ways but it coast about $500 and up just for one. (veisas, cuban passports, tickets, and just other shit that normal people don't have to do.) money isn't everything in life u have to remember that. There is a greater meaning to life. I rather work for the better of the people have my basic NEEDS fullfil and discover the deeper meaning. Once more cubans can not go back to cuba it is against the law so really u are a second class citizen. Shit if ur german and u want to go back to germany who stops u. If ur cuban and u want to go back who stops u. CASTRO AND BUSH!!! until u see it with ur two eyes u will never understand why neither cubans or americans are free. we can be w/e ever we want but we never can stop to enjoy life. sure there they can't do anything but if they don't want to go to work they don't go, and nothing happens. its not lazyness its a family thing its a friend thing, its something i have yet to see here. I have this friend here for 2 years and i'm not as close to the friend i made 2 years ago in cuba and we barely see each other. yes my friend there is a connect there that u will never find here no matter how hard u try and i can swear to god/budda/muhmit/ ala/ and shango that if u find it here u truely are a lucky man. So thats y i like communism. I have seconddary citizen rights here and i have no rights there. but the connection is more then any right and any dollar amount can buy. I know this makes no since but for 2 reasons u have to see it and live ti and 2nd i'm a lil tipsy HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL AND TO ALL A MERRY HUNiKIKANZA

remember here more and more we are losing our freedoms too and the day people wake up and realize that then capilism will fall too

U can't go to cuba. its against the law. there are legal ways but it coast about $500 and up just for one. (veisas, cuban passports, tickets, and just other shit that normal people don't have to do.) money isn't everything in life u have to remember that. There is a greater meaning to life. I rather work for the better of the people have my basic NEEDS fullfil and discover the deeper meaning.
No one's stopping you from starting a charity or donating your money to one.

"Why Do You Hate Communism?"

'Cause, Communism, like, you know, SUCKS!

now that i think of it we are talking again about military communism. lets talk about pure communism. why would u not like. like that post before me said there is a demacray that saids majority rules, is that not what we more or less have now? communism is also meant for the working class (hints: the majority) so yea people who truely don't liek the PURE communism theory are the once who exploit the workers. Again communism is not able to be practised b/c human/animal greed. (I say human b/c i never seen a dog eat more then it needs, i've seen chimpmunks stock up on nutz but they need it so its not extra). Once more i'm really tipsy so please excuse missspeelings and parts that make 2 cents. so please be nice on these last two post tonight i'm fair game.

excellent post. my thoughts exactly. i also think that people dislike communism partly because they are scared of the unknown: people are wholly used to capitalsim and most likely find it hard to imagine living under another, like communism. i certainly find this hard. the fact that one is used to something does not make it best, or right.

One problem: communism HAS been tried. Ask the 90 million people killed by Mao Tse-Tung if they like communism.

(read Marx's "Wages, Price and Profit" or Adam Smith's "Wealth of nations"), so surely their 'greed' would cause them to overthrow this system? ,



no this greed would make capitlist thirve b/c people would find to take advantage of anything and turn a profeit. It kill communism b/c u want more for urself not others.

But you can't be saying that under communism, where the local workers collectively owned the means of production, they would simply allow the greedy and self-interested to take charge and start exploiting them all again!

If there was a revolution in Indonesia and the poor workers started running the factories, taking the fruits of their own labour, they would obviously stand up to anyone to tried to re-introduce their former state of working for a big corporation.

now that i think of it we are talking again about military communism. lets talk about pure communism. why would u not like. like that post before me said there is a demacray that saids majority rules, is that not what we more or less have now? communism is also meant for the working class (hints: the majority) so yea people who truely don't liek the PURE communism theory are the once who exploit the workers. Again communism is not able to be practised b/c human/animal greed. (I say human b/c i never seen a dog eat more then it needs, i've seen chimpmunks stock up on nutz but they need it so its not extra). Once more i'm really tipsy so please excuse missspeelings and parts that make 2 cents. so please be nice on these last two post tonight i'm fair game.

At least some people have managed to make a distinction between Stalinism/Maoism - often referred to as bureaucratic collectivism on the British far-left today (oddly called 'military communism' by everyone on this thread) and actual communism. But the democracy in a communist world (note I don't use the word 'state' or 'country' as divisions between peoples would no longer exist and we'd abolish the ruling class tool, the state) since millionaire media moguls (Rupert Murdoch) would no longer spread false ideas and hysteria to mislead the working class, while election campaigns would not be run by big business. Democracy should be run by the people, not some guy like George Bush with $350,000,000 from corporations to help proliferate his lies
Furthermore, the workplace would be democratic, not run by millionaire shareholders who sit on their arses earning interest, but by the people who actually produce the goods - the working class.

Look at the Sandinistas. Look at the Vietcong. Look at the National Liberation Front (Ben Bella's group), ZANU, FRELIMO, the 26th of July Movement, the Bolsheviks, the Chinese communists, the Khmer Rouge, the Pathet Lao, etc. That is why I hate communism.

The VietCong fought because they were being invaded, and they fought with remarkable tenacity against the Americans who were violating their rights to live. The Vietcong > you.

Because communism works in theory, but when carried out, it smells funny :sniper: :sniper: :sniper: :sniper: :p :( :rolleyes: DICTATORSHIP

I HATE communism because of the communist position on private property. It is the idealogy of envy.

To all those who say that private property is abolished in communism, it is not necessarily. Socialism holds that right of use is more important than right of property - The idea is thought to have originated from native americans where no one owned anything, and important tools and weapons were simply used by those who needed them to perform tasks important to the community.

To elaborate, you only 'own' things because you are going to put them to good use in working or doing whatever tasks are necessary to help out the nation you live in, and then you pass them on to whoever needs them more. You are certainly allowed to own private stuff that you you and your friends/family can use, this right of usage only applies to items and property that holds vital importance to the society at large, such as factories, tools, medication etc.). It is fundamentally a good idea because, as of right now, a lot of estate, food, money and machinery are standing around unused because capitalists like to hoard.

To answer the question, I absolutely detest state communism(and therefore, every marxist/leninist communist party in existence) because it will never provide true freedom for the citizens and workers in the nation where it is realized. It will become what we know in NS as Iron Fist Socialism, where you cannot voice your concerns about the government or attempt to better your own or others lives.

I suggest to readers who agree with me in liking socialism but despising state and authority, to read this link: http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html

It's dry, but provides a basic understanding of socialism as it should be.

I have noticed a lot of hatred towards communists lately. Being a communist nation, I want to know why other nations hate communism.
Communism is a system of government in which people are entirely represented, classes (poor-middle-rich) are non-existent, pacifism is encouraged, education and health care are free for everyone, and freedom is valued. Why would anyone hate that system?

I was in Czechoslovakia in 1982, Poland & East Germany in 1983. What you describe is accurate philosophically, but not in reality.

To all those who say that private property is abolished in communism, it is not necessarily. Socialism holds that right of use is more important than right of property - The idea is thought to have originated from native americans where no one owned anything, and important tools and weapons were simply used by those who needed them to perform tasks important to the community.

To elaborate, you only 'own' things because you are going to put them to good use in working or doing whatever tasks are necessary to help out the nation you live in, and then you pass them on to whoever needs them more.

That's not the same thing as private property. Private property essentially derives from exploitation and injustice. To elaborate: to make anything, you need control of land (and the raw materials within) but, more importantly, labour. For without labour, it is impossible to transform materials into usable goods, or commodities. The marxist opposition to private property explained in Das Kapital is that under capitalist production, workers are exploited in making goods, analogised to the idea that some of their labour is unpaid for - since they're not given a fair price for the value which THEY add to the raw material, then some of the value they add through their labour is stolen.
Furthermore, since no person has any right to declare that raw materials or land belongs to them (since they were there before they were born), it cannot be possible that anyone can declare that the ultimate resultant (e.g. petrol or steel) as their own. For anyone to own anything is to accept that someone has, at some point or another, seized part of the Earth as their own. In communism, the whole community owns everything as a collective. You can't just take some Native American thing and call it socialism - socialism and communism were developed as ideas by working class theoreticians in the 1830s, culminating in Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto. All marxist groups take their ideas from this period.

As for calling Marxist-Leninist parties 'state communist' - in the first couple of years after the October Revolution of 1917, Bolshevik Russia (not called the USSR until 1922) was in fact a socialist country run by the workers' councils. What happened after the Civil War with the NEP and later Stalinism (bureaucratic dictatorship) has nothing whatsoever to do with communism, and in the UK very,very few Marxist-Leninist groups associate themselves with it. I am not a Leninist myself, but purely a Marxist, since I don't think a minority can take power on behalf of the working class - however, in the party I'm in, the Red Party (www.redparty.org.uk), there are different trends of opinion, and Leninism is recognised as fairly legitimate - what followed him is despised.

I repeat to all of those on this thread who talk about Mao and the Vietcong as running 'communist' states, they were not communist. They called themselves 'Communist parties' and falsely claimed to run socialist states - US/UK media called them 'communist countries', but in fact they were bureaucratic states with socialist pretensions.

http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id9.html

Party programmes

Let us start by considering political party programmes or "platforms" of Hitler's day:

Take this description of a political programme:

A declaration of war against the order of things which exist, against the state of things which exist, in a word, against the structure of the world which presently exists".

And this description of a political movement as having a 'revolutionary creative will' which had 'no fixed aim, no permanency, only eternal change'

Acording to that link Hitler was very much so conservative. Things were changed and he qanted them back the way they were.


And this policy manifesto:


9. All citizens of the State shall be equal as regards rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. The activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good.

Absolute patriotism... not very liftist unless people are un the right are saying rightist areless patriotic.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.

13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.

14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.

15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

Social security is fascism? Whoa.
So a healthy middle class: always nice to have healthy people.

Hitler didn't socialism require worker ownership and control of the means of production. That wasn't his style being he was a extreme capitalism.

After that the link goes into ad nasuem and ad hoc statements. I think it has too much bias.

Americans hate communism because of years of government propaganda. I'm British (Yeah want to make something of it!?) and I think/know that communism is just one of the many ways for a country to progress.

In the beggining of the thread that was the ideal communism, it had some good qualities like less crime, free health care, and a lack of poverty; but the truth is if someone was corrupt, like Stallin everything would go to hell, he had the iron curtain, all of the money, and spent all the money on nukes and couldn't afford to feed Russia

In the beggining of the thread that was the ideal communism, it had some good qualities like less crime, free health care, and a lack of poverty; but the truth is if someone was corrupt, like Stallin everything would go to hell, he had the iron curtain, all of the money, and spent all the money on nukes and couldn't afford to feed Russia

Yeah they were some good days...

Marxist-Leninist doctrine says that a strong dictatorship must force communism upon everyone until it starts working, and a worker's utopia is achieved.

The whole theory of "current" (Last 1000 or so years) Communism is clouded in the first place. I doubt many of you have studied it well. Communism is rooted in hatred of success. The reason that it doesn't work is that it's based on a faulty assumption: All of the wealthy got their wealth through underhanded and immoral means.

However, Early Christian Societys did have forms of "pure" Communism; but, of course, humans cannot and will not be able to live in a utopia.

As for calling Marxist-Leninist parties 'state communist' - in the first couple of years after the October Revolution of 1917, Bolshevik Russia (not called the USSR until 1922) was in fact a socialist country run by the workers' councils. What happened after the Civil War with the NEP and later Stalinism (bureaucratic dictatorship) has nothing whatsoever to do with communism, and in the UK very,very few Marxist-Leninist groups associate themselves with it. I am not a Leninist myself, but purely a Marxist, since I don't think a minority can take power on behalf of the working class - however, in the party I'm in, the Red Party (www.redparty.org.uk), there are different trends of opinion, and Leninism is recognised as fairly legitimate - what followed him is despised.

I repeat to all of those on this thread who talk about Mao and the Vietcong as running 'communist' states, they were not communist. They called themselves 'Communist parties' and falsely claimed to run socialist states - US/UK media called them 'communist countries', but in fact they were bureaucratic states with socialist pretensions.

Either way, they were/are as Communist as Mauritania (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/mr.html#Govt) today is a Republic. Operations in any nation are going to be different; the ideal form from a book can never be followed to to letter. This is why the US suffered idiocy like Prohibition.

At the end of the day, it's still the application of the system that makes or breaks the system. So far, history has proven that Communism has never been successful *anywhere* where there is/was currency. (Ancient Sparta is the ONLY example of a successful Communist state.)

Sorry it is not my intention to take the thread off topic but I just have to answer to a couple of things.

1. I too am cuban, and the one thing i've realized from my trips to the islands and my life here in the US is that most of those cubans kill to go back

May I remind you that Cubans are refugees in this country not immigrants? When they got here they told the immigration official that they were being persecuted for their beliefs in Cuba. If that is the case then why aren't they afraid to go back and foward so frequently? It's obvious that they lied and therefore they should no longer be considered refugees and should not be allowed back into the United States. I think there should be no travel restrictions to Cuba but if a Cuban goes back then he should loose his refugee status. I'm sure that will stop all travel to Cuba dead in its tracks.

2. Here my neighbroos don't even know my name, over there they know each other and live for something else

Yes having friendly neighbors is nice but how fast do you forget los "Chivatos" and the "CDR" that keep on eye on you. I guess that’s the downside of having friendly neighbors, huh? And having a good relationship with your neighbor isn't an accomplishment of the communist system. Cubans have always been close to their neighbors and I'm sure that if they didn't have to worry about their "friends and neighbors" turning them in for saying something against the government they would be even better friends.

3. yes they are miserble but they are even more so when they get here.

Well of course they are miserable. I'm sure its not easy leaving your family and everything you have ever known behind. They have to adjust to their new lifestyle and it takes time.

4. and futhermore most of the cubans down in Miami are just pissed off b/c they lost there land to the goverment"

I say they have every right to be pissed off! I'm sure you wouldn't like it if the government came in and took you stuff.

5. I say capitilism is not the answer and until people STOP BEING GREEDY until then, communism is not the answer. but one day when we truely evolve then maybe it will be"

Yup, I think that alcohol is getting to you. Keep dreaming buddy.

6. Cubans here in the US are treated as second class citizens. Heres why.... If you are an American Citizen then u have the right to travel where ever you want for as long as you want. However we can not travel to cuba longer then 2 weeks and with 100 dollar limit a day.

Cubans are not treated as second class citizens. They are treated just like regular U.S. citizens who can't visit Cuba either. See my answer to number 1.

7. these seems to limit my right as an american and it also shows cubans that the US are pigs and creates more hatered.

Well if those travel restrictions make Cubans think Americans are pigs then I can't imagine what they must think of Castro.

8. So yea cuba can't be paradise but its b/c the US does not want any trade with the nation with stops almost anyother country to trade with it otehr the fellow communist country's cand Vennzula which is slowing turning to the next cuba,

Umm ok... so this is what a drunk sounds like on the internet. If Castro wants the embargo lifted then all he has to do is hold free elections and release all political prisoners. Is that too much to ask? According to Castro his people love him so what is he so worried about?

9. U can't go to cuba. its against the law. there are legal ways but it coast about $500 and up just for one. (veisas, cuban passports, tickets, and just other shit that normal people don't have to do.) money isn't everything in life u have to remember that.

The Cuban passport which Castro just raised the price to $350 dollars (U.S. citizens of Cuban origin are forced to buy this if they wan't to go back to Cuba) and the Visa that Cubans also have to buy to travel to their own homeland (Although I thought the Cuban government was getting rid of this) are all Castros fault not the U.S.. Everyone has to pay for tickets so I don't see why you are complaining.

10. i can swear to god/budda/muhmit/ ala/ and shango

What kind of Cuban doesn't know that it's spelled Changó? I'll take it that you are drunk but be careful with lightning strikes, hehe. ;)

11. Again communism is not able to be practised b/c human/animal greed. (I say human b/c i never seen a dog eat more then it needs, i've seen chimpmunks stock up on nutz but they need it so its not extra).

I'd like to introduce you to my dog. He eats as much as you feed him and then in the middle of the night throws up all over the bed.

A government saying it has more of a right to your life and your labor than you do can never be compatable with freedom.

There isn't a such entity as 'the public' - which is in reality a collection of individuals. If some individuals need to give up their labor, money, etc. for the sake of 'the public', it means, some individuals are giving their life and labor to other individuals.

The entire idea of public 'rights' can only come at the expense of individual rights, and it forces a conflict of interests. Rather than leaving it to individuals to seek agreements on their own terms, in which there is no conflict of interests (so long as the government secures the people's rights), the government forces on people the responsibility of fufilling others 'rights' to whatever economic materials or comforts are deemed necessary for them by the government.

Which is a whole other issue in itself entirely - who is in need of aid? It is for the government to decide. It is in fact one of the cheif roles of the government, which naturally brings about the chance of those with political pull being able to direct 'aid' their way, justifying in whatever way they can that it is for the public good, much like the Pigs in Animal Farm who justified their added comforts, which we have seen happen again and again happen in reality.

The whole entire thing seems to be a misinterpretation of rights. Capitalism holding that the rights to action, to pursuit of happiness is comfort is guaranteed, and all of its consequences, Socialism holding that economic rights exist, to the specific results of action in the form of property.

If economic rights exist, it begs the question: at who's expense is the guaranteed property(/comforts/whatever else) going to be produced? It can't be done without the labor of others, but if you force them to produce this guaranteed property, you are violating those individual's rights to their own choice of action.

Collective rights and economic rights can't exist, because it forces a conflict of interest on individuals and guarantees them property or comfort that can't be guaranteed, at least, not without the forced labor of others.

Irish Workers>> According to my history books, the soviets(worker councils) that most people belonged to -before- the revolution were acknowledged as legitimate by the bolsheviks only because they knew they could not accomplish their vision without.

Following that, everything went downhill. Anarchists demanding freedom of speech and 100% free elections for the soviets were killed. They even bragged about it in Pravda. This was legitimate because of "war communism", whatever that is supposed to mean(I know, though, rhetorical question).

I'm an anarcho-syndicalist - I could never support your party, nor any other, for authority is what is wrong with all government, communal or not. Do you not agree that the dictatorship of the proletariat is as terrible as any other dictatorship?

Regards,
Matias.

One problem: communism HAS been tried. Ask the 90 million people killed by Mao Tse-Tung if they like communism.
there is a subtle difference between true communism and the totalitarianism practiced by the corrupt leaders of the former USSR.

there is a subtle difference between true communism and the totalitarianism practiced by the corrupt leaders of the former USSR.

Yes. Humans can't actually practice "true Communism".

I don't really hate communism, so much as I don't agree with it anymore. Socialism doesn't bother me though. In Socialism, you can have all the free trade you want with some restrictions, which is sane. it's not all black and white.

Well, the basic premises of Marx's theory - whether you like it or not - is that communism is inevitable. Ok, so the attempts of certain regimes in Russia and China to reach communism descended into tyranny and totalitarianism. You don't have to defend the likes of Stalin, Lenin, and Mao to defend communism.

What Marx basically was saying was that all history has been the history of class struggles; with the 'haves' ruling society and the 'have-nots' being exploited by them. Over time the class distinctions have changed and power in society more evenly balanced. Socialism - he argued - would eradicate once and for all the class system by bringing about economic (and therefore political) equality. Without class struggle there will be no need for the political state, which will wither away, and so communism shall be reached.

Maybe Marx was wrong about how exactly socialism and communism shall be achieved (i.e through revolutions). But IMO there's still a chance that humanity will become increasingly egalitarian and in the end the future is more or less communist!

Well, the basic premises of Marx's theory - whether you like it or not - is that communism is inevitable. Ok, so the attempts of certain regimes in Russia and China to reach communism descended into tyranny and totalitarianism. You don't have to defend the likes of Stalin, Lenin, and Mao to defend communism.

Yes, that's what they wrote in the Manifesto. Yet (if you notice) they call their ideals the top of the evolutionary chain of human governance. They discount the very idea that there could be something AFTER their plan.

So: They put forward a theory of government which has never been tried. They say it's inevitable, and that it's the last stop to utopia.

That's pretty pompous. The American Founders never said "this is how America will be run for all of time", you'll note. But Marx and Engles do with Communism. Also, they were quite wrong: it was not the Industrialized West that was going to do the experiment (they were betting on Germany), but the East!

You may not have to defend them. But you have to accept them, in the way that Americans must accept Burr, Duke and Davis as American statesmen (no matter how distasteful that may be!). They are the human faces and implementation of Communism, for better or for worse.

Yes, that's what they wrote in the Manifesto. Yet (if you notice) they call their ideals the top of the evolutionary chain of human governance. They discount the very idea that there could be something AFTER their plan.

So: They put forward a theory of government which has never been tried. They say it's inevitable, and that it's the last stop to utopia.

That's pretty pompous. The American Founders never said "this is how America will be run for all of time", you'll note. But Marx and Engles do with Communism. Also, they were quite wrong: it was not the Industrialized West that was going to do the experiment (they were betting on Germany), but the East!

You may not have to defend them. But you have to accept them, in the way that Americans must accept Burr, Duke and Davis as American statesmen (no matter how distasteful that may be!). They are the human faces and implementation of Communism, for better or for worse.

They used historical evidence to back their theory - so far in history we had seen Upper Class States (feudalism etc) being replaced by Middle Class States (bourgeois capitalism etc). It seemed that the inevitable consequence would be a Working Class State, in which socialism would be used to eliminate Class divisions. Marx argued that the only point of the State was to protect the interests of the ruling class, and so once there were no more classes there would be no need for a State. Presumably once communism had been reached class divisions would never appear again. It's not that pompous; it's just rational and logical.

Marx was wrong about when and where the proletarian revolution would take place. No-one can deny that. He wrote in the Communist Manifesto that following the bourgeois revolution a workers' revolution would immediately take place. But isn't it clear from Marx's writings that he never predicted his theories would need to be forced into taking place? This is why Marxist-Leninism is a perversion of Marxism. Communism is not something to be implemented - as Lenin, Mao etc tried to do - it will just happen. Just like that!

Irish Workers>> According to my history books, the soviets(worker councils) that most people belonged to -before- the revolution were acknowledged as legitimate by the bolsheviks only because they knew they could not accomplish their vision without.


The Bolsheviks were an entirely cynical party which justified their own rule in the name of the soviets - in fact, we can clearly see that the worker councils were not really in charge, but the Bolsheviks had to maintain the pretense of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to maintain their excuse for having taken charge.

In fact, in the phrase 'dictatorship of the proletariat', when it was originally written, the word "dictatorship" had its most literal meaning, simply signifying 'leadership' rather than totalitarian rule.

Of course the reason that the USSR could never have been democratic was precisely because this took place, dictatorship of the party rather than the rule of the working class. That is why atrocities took place, since democratic rule was junked and political repression had set in by 1918.

It is unfair of you to condemn communal government, since this is the opposite of authority - society as a whole makes decisions, not just some bureaucratic clique, and all political positions are tolerated in a free society.

Rule of any minority is death for the revolution - i like you totally oppose authority. But collective government of the people is no dictatorship - the plan of socialists is to build the truest, freest and least restrictive democracy. This is the antithesis of authority.

I am equally a syndicalist - i believe it is the working class unions who must overthrow capitalist society. My party does not seek to seize power for itself, simply to raise the class consciousness of the workers so that they work together to change society. I would have thought we had something in common, in seeing the necessity that workers themselves, not a bourgeois vanguard like the Bolsheviks, are the revolutionary class.

Whether or not the USSR was "real" communism, private property is a basic human right. Whether it's taken away by a vicious "pseudo-communist" dictator or by "the real thing", it's still morally despicable to deny that right.

They used historical evidence to back their theory - so far in history we had seen Upper Class States (feudalism etc) being replaced by Middle Class States (bourgeois capitalism etc). It seemed that the inevitable consequence would be a Working Class State, in which socialism would be used to eliminate Class divisions. Marx argued that the only point of the State was to protect the interests of the ruling class, and so once there were no more classes there would be no need for a State. Presumably once communism had been reached class divisions would never appear again. It's not that pompous; it's just rational and logical.


But what happens if a state were arise which would protect all classes? A state whose purpose is to protect the rights of Life Liberty and Property from active aggression? All the while not touching the existing class system? A state in which the people rule by the vote, but are free to accumulate as much wealth as they see fit.

That's a possible route that Marx utterly ignores.

I have noticed a lot of hatred towards communists lately. Being a communist nation, I want to know why other nations hate communism.
Communism is a system of government in which people are entirely represented, classes (poor-middle-rich) are non-existent, pacifism is encouraged, education and health care are free for everyone, and freedom is valued. Why would anyone hate that system?

Where do you live?

Noone would hate the system if it wasnt abused. It always turns into a brutal dictatorship, people are poor, the econemy slumps, people slack off. It is impossible.

But what happens if a state were arise which would protect all classes? A state whose purpose is to protect the rights of Life Liberty and Property from active aggression? All the while not touching the existing class system? A state in which the people rule by the vote, but are free to accumulate as much wealth as they see fit.

That's a possible route that Marx utterly ignores.

*Extends hand for high-five*

But what happens if a state were arise which would protect all classes? A state whose purpose is to protect the rights of Life Liberty and Property from active aggression? All the while not touching the existing class system? A state in which the people rule by the vote, but are free to accumulate as much wealth as they see fit.

That's a possible route that Marx utterly ignores.

Errr.... isn't that just like any Western state? Not to try and remove classes is to accept that exploitation is ok. Liberty is totally antithetical to capitalism, since big corporations can effectively force people to work for peanuts for 80 hours a week. The idea that capitalism is freedom is ridiculous - it is only liberty for the wealthy, the bourgeoisie, to exploit the workers.

The people can't rule by the vote in a society with classes, since capitalism totally undermines democracy - we see how in the West the best-funded candidates who promise to do most for businesses win elections, even though they haven't the people's best interests at heart. Capitalist 'democracy' is rife with backhanders, injustice and exploitation.

As for 'free to accumulate wealth' - profit's made from underpaying the working class, so this is inherently unjust.

In general, a revolution will only succeed if led by exceptional individuals of extreme recourcefulness, charisma, cunning and self-motivation. It is these characteristics which mean that revolutionary leaders are often surprisingly good political leaders, even if they haven't actually had any formal political training. It is also these characteristics which make them eminently unsuitable for leading a truly Communist nation, as the very factors which allowed their revolution to succeed in the first place will give them both the following and the will to remain in power. They are, if you will the elite. Communist theory claims that, post-revolution, the elite doesn't exist, which gives them ample opportunity to secure benefit for themselves. In other words, if a Communist revolution succeeds, it will succeed in nothing but replacing an aristocracy with an extremely informal meritocracy. Marx was thinking purely in terms of social groupings, and in doing so, neglected to factor in the element of the individual.

Actually, a lot of revolutions in the past, and any communist revolution that would actually create a socialist state rather than a Stalinist bureaucracy, were not led by any individual, but were spontaneous risings of the oppressed class.
For example, the 1905 Russian Revolution and the February Revolution of 1917 were spontaneous risings of the workers, not just coups d'etat by the Bolshevik party.
Marx was exactly right - it is always a class, not an individual who carries out a genuine revolution. If it is a class who is oppressed, and a revolution is a change of ruling class to counter-act this, then why does the individual suddenly become the vital factor for you?

While it's true that the February Revolution of 1917 was a spontaneous rising of the workers, it's worth noting that the workers were, for the most part, simply protesting to end the war (which had, since Tannenburg, been going disasterously) rather than advocating any particular form of government, and, because of the lack of central organisation, had it continued unchecked, the most likely outcome would have been simple anarchy- or German rulership. According to Rodzianko, president of the Duma, "Should the agitation reach the Army, Germany will triumph and the destruction of Russia along with the dynasty will be ineviatble.". Indeed, the only reason why the February Revolution had the effect it did was because the Duma pressurised the Tsar into abdication in favour of "someone enjoying the confidence of the country", and it's worth noting that the leader of this Provisional Government was, initially, Prince Lvov (hardly the most socialist choice for a leader) who resigned in favour of Kerensky mainly because of his taking the unpopular stance of continuing the war against Germany, a stance which, ironically, Kerensky persisted in, which made him extremely vulnerable to the eventual Bolshevik takeover in November.

Communism is a system of government in which people are entirely represented, classes (poor-middle-rich) are non-existent, pacifism is encouraged, education and health care are free for everyone, and freedom is valued.

No they aren't; there are still poor and uber-rich; sort of; yes; no it isn't.


I challenge you to find one communist nation in which all of those criteria are upheld.

While it's true that the February Revolution of 1917 was a spontaneous rising of the workers, it's worth noting that the workers were, for the most part, simply protesting to end the war (which had, since Tannenburg, been going disasterously) rather than advocating any particular form of government, and, because of the lack of central organisation, had it continued unchecked, the most likely outcome would have been simple anarchy- or German rulership. According to Rodzianko, president of the Duma, "Should the agitation reach the Army, Germany will triumph and the destruction of Russia along with the dynasty will be ineviatble.". Indeed, the only reason why the February Revolution had the effect it did was because the Duma pressurised the Tsar into abdication in favour of "someone enjoying the confidence of the country", and it's worth noting that the leader of this Provisional Government was, initially, Prince Lvov (hardly the most socialist choice for a leader) who resigned in favour of Kerensky mainly because of his taking the unpopular stance of continuing the war against Germany, a stance which, ironically, Kerensky persisted in, which made him extremely vulnerable to the eventual Bolshevik takeover in November.

I didn't actually claim that the February revolution was a socialist one, the example was merely to illustrate my point that revolutions don't necessarily need a figurehead leader. The February revolution marked a significant overhaul of the political and economic society, from semi-feudalist to bourgeous state. I agree in as far as the workers need to have political education, preferably through their trade unions - but since workers will always revolt until the society where they rule is won, the necessary conclusion is socialism (then progression to communism).

The fact that Kerensky's government did not end the war, did not hold elections and did not end the hunger of the working class meant that a further rising was inevitable - it was unfortunate that the Bolshevik vanguard anticipated this with what basically amounted to a military coup. Even if the spontaneous rising appeared to have no political aim, the natural result of any revolution against Tsarism would have been a bourgeois democracy.

Errr.... isn't that just like any Western state? Not to try and remove classes is to accept that exploitation is ok. Liberty is totally antithetical to capitalism, since big corporations can effectively force people to work for peanuts for 80 hours a week. The idea that capitalism is freedom is ridiculous - it is only liberty for the wealthy, the bourgeoisie, to exploit the workers.

The people can't rule by the vote in a society with classes, since capitalism totally undermines democracy - we see how in the West the best-funded candidates who promise to do most for businesses win elections, even though they haven't the people's best interests at heart. Capitalist 'democracy' is rife with backhanders, injustice and exploitation.

As for 'free to accumulate wealth' - profit's made from underpaying the working class, so this is inherently unjust.

Capitalism is as complete freedom as can exist. It's the abscene of any government doctrine saying they have more a right to your life than you do, and puts freedom back in the hands of the individuals. How is that less free than a socialism which dictates your choices, rations, economic transactions for you? To say is it liberty for the wealthy only is pinning a certain kind of government and system on capitalism which doesn't necissarily exist. Just assuming that a capitalist government is going to be oppressive is quite arbitrary, and very helpful if you are trying to denounce capitalism.

And profit can exist btw. Profit is MADE by making more value out of what was formerly less valuable, which takes labour and knowledge. Because of the knowledge powering the labor THE VALUE OF THE LABOR IS NOT NECISSARILY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE VALUE OF THE PRODUCT. Some labor is worth more than other forms because of the combination of skill and knowledge involved.

Say I had a collection of metals. A certain form of knowledge and information can be utilized to turn those metals into a laptop computer. The total value of that computer can be more than the value of the metals and labor put into them, because of the value of the knowledge put into it.

That same amount of labor could be used to take a sledgehammer and smash the metals around into a senseless mess, making it worth nothing more than it was before. Or you could take the metals and make a toaster, or a pan, or several other things with the same amount of labor, all of which, despite the equal amount of labor, can vary greatly in price.

Profits in general are the product of free knowledge which can be put into goods to make them worth more than the cost of producing them. Not, in general, from exploitation of labor.

Yes, it has a horrible reputation.
Whilst communism is an extremely good ideal, it isn't very realistic. No one in history has been able to create a truly communist nation as Marx saw it. Too often, as Siap pointed out, they turn into military dictatorships and people are generally oppressed.
It's good in thought, but bites in reality.


If you count ever in history to be the USSR and China maybe but it seems like everyone forgets: The Paris Commune, The Spanish Revolution, Indian Society pre-european colonization.

You're just taught to beleive that it would never work in school because the powers that be don't want the public's eyes opened. Your teachers and government are brainwashing everyone into thinking "it's a fundamentally good idea but could never work" that is a lie!! It will only never work if we keep thinking like that and keep watching TV and listening to our teachers.

Sorry for the late reply, Irish Workers. Contrary to what some of my regionmates think, I don't spend all my time on here ;)

The Bolsheviks were an entirely cynical party which justified their own rule in the name of the soviets - in fact, we can clearly see that the worker councils were not really in charge, but the Bolsheviks had to maintain the pretense of a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' to maintain their excuse for having taken charge.

So far, we agree.

In fact, in the phrase 'dictatorship of the proletariat', when it was originally written, the word "dictatorship" had its most literal meaning, simply signifying 'leadership' rather than totalitarian rule.

Phonology isn't my strong suit, so thanks for bringing this to my attention. It does make the phrase a lot more sympathetic.

Of course the reason that the USSR could never have been democratic was precisely because this took place, dictatorship of the party rather than the rule of the working class. That is why atrocities took place, since democratic rule was junked and political repression had set in by 1918.

So far we agree, it just appears to me that marxist-leninists and the parties they form have no problem whatsoever with a strong centralist authoritarian rule of the revolutionary elite over the working class in the working class' name. I object to this in favour of true democratic libertarian communism, or anarcho-syndicalism. All government is shit, for authority and hierarchy will always pervert the best of intentions.

It is unfair of you to condemn communal government, since this is the opposite of authority - society as a whole makes decisions, not just some bureaucratic clique, and all political positions are tolerated in a free society.

Oh, I condemn authoritarian government - I'm all for communal, anti-hierarchal government by and for the people. To my way of thinking, marxist-leninist communism does not provide this, or at least not as much as it should!

Rule of any minority is death for the revolution - i like you totally oppose authority. But collective government of the people is no dictatorship - the plan of socialists is to build the truest, freest and least restrictive democracy. This is the antithesis of authority.

If you totally oppose authority, you are not a communist. Anarchists have always argued that real socialism cannot be created using a state. The basic core of the argument is simple. Socialism implies equality, yet the state signifies inequality -- inequality in terms of power. As I like to argue(but apparently have not made clear enough) I consider one of the defining aspects of the state its hierarchical nature. In other words, the delegation of power into the hands of a few. As such, it violates the core idea of socialism, namely social equality. Those who make up the governing bodies in a state have more power than those who have elected them.

I am equally a syndicalist - i believe it is the working class unions who must overthrow capitalist society. My party does not seek to seize power for itself, simply to raise the class consciousness of the workers so that they work together to change society. I would have thought we had something in common, in seeing the necessity that workers themselves, not a bourgeois vanguard like the Bolsheviks, are the revolutionary class.

Well, then you are more like a syndicalist movement than a communist party, aren't you? I'd like to learn more about that party, so I can ascertain the truth for myself.

I didn't actually claim that the February revolution was a socialist one, the example was merely to illustrate my point that revolutions don't necessarily need a figurehead leader. The February revolution marked a significant overhaul of the political and economic society, from semi-feudalist to bourgeous state. I agree in as far as the workers need to have political education, preferably through their trade unions - but since workers will always revolt until the society where they rule is won, the necessary conclusion is socialism (then progression to communism).

The fact that Kerensky's government did not end the war, did not hold elections and did not end the hunger of the working class meant that a further rising was inevitable - it was unfortunate that the Bolshevik vanguard anticipated this with what basically amounted to a military coup. Even if the spontaneous rising appeared to have no political aim, the natural result of any revolution against Tsarism would have been a bourgeois democracy.

While we seem to be covering a lot of the same ground here, I think you might be extrapolating a little far here in what the results would have been had it not been for the Bolshevik takeover. Although the Revolution didn't have any true internal leadership, it did have an external body which was willing and able to suggest reforms: the Duma (and, later, the Duma's creation, the Provisional Government.

Personally, my mind's drawing strong parallels to the English Civil War, in that both political situations involved an essentially monarchial system, a stubborn monarch, and a successor government which amounted to a Parliamentary Oligarchy (like the English Parliament, the Duma contained large proportions of nobility and landed gentry, and the Third Duma contained a majority of reactionaries and nationalists: although they both claimed to be democratic, both Parliament and Duma were more reflective of the views of the gentry than of the population as a whole- and, given the appalling levles of education prevalent in Russia at the time, not having a government truly representative of public opinion may even have been a wise move).

Anyway, my point is that, while the Duma and Provisional Government had been in the process of establishing a bourgeois oligarchy (which may, as in England, have eventually developed into a democracy if allowed to mature), it doesn't seem reasonable to assume that a progression to a socialist state from that point would have been anything like a natural progression.

They used historical evidence to back their theory - so far in history we had seen Upper Class States (feudalism etc) being replaced by Middle Class States (bourgeois capitalism etc). It seemed that the inevitable consequence would be a Working Class State, in which socialism would be used to eliminate Class divisions.

Yes and no. But my quibble isn't so much in their idea, it's in their belief that their idea HAD to happen, that it was perfect, and that it would never be supersceded by something better.


Marx argued that the only point of the State was to protect the interests of the ruling class, and so once there were no more classes there would be no need for a State. Presumably once communism had been reached class divisions would never appear again. It's not that pompous; it's just rational and logical.

And that's not quite what I was arguing. My point was that humans, once in power, become corrupt. Communism, because it is both an economic AND political system, is even MORE vulnerable to this.


Marx was wrong about when and where the proletarian revolution would take place. No-one can deny that. He wrote in the Communist Manifesto that following the bourgeois revolution a workers' revolution would immediately take place. But isn't it clear from Marx's writings that he never predicted his theories would need to be forced into taking place? This is why Marxist-Leninism is a perversion of Marxism. Communism is not something to be implemented - as Lenin, Mao etc tried to do - it will just happen. Just like that!

I disagree here. The Manifesto clearly leads the reader into thinking about revolt from the status quo; few could have possibly believed this would happen without a fight.

ALL versions of Communism are just that - VERSIONS. Maoism, Leninism, Stalism, Cuban Communism, even the minor differences in the then-Warsaw Pact nations: they are the human face of Communism.

You (nor anyone) could ever implement Communism right out of the Manifesto, no more than you could build a "generic" car using off the shelf parts. There will always be local flavor/personalities/issues. That it will "just happen" is fantasy -- and not what Marx was preaching. Workers of the World Unite! ... this does not equal "wait and see".

For this reason, the widespread failure of Communism around the world (and you can't say that Communism is doing better today than in 1960!) is just proof that Communism is not really implementable in a society that has currency. (Ancient Sparta being the *only* exception of a Communist State that ever worked.)

If you count ever in history to be the USSR and China maybe but it seems like everyone forgets: The Paris Commune, The Spanish Revolution, Indian Society pre-european colonization.

You're just taught to beleive that it would never work in school because the powers that be don't want the public's eyes opened. Your teachers and government are brainwashing everyone into thinking "it's a fundamentally good idea but could never work" that is a lie!! It will only never work if we keep thinking like that and keep watching TV and listening to our teachers.

The Paris Commune: Two months in power do not a proof of a working government make.

The Spanish Revolution: ??? If anything, this was a display of Anarchism, with some Communist overtones, notably collectivization. That it failed miserably and led to a Fascist government is not a glowing endorsement.

Indian Society pre-european colonization: NOT Communist! This is a wonderful fallacy, but most all (if not all!) American Indian cultures had currency (wampum, beads, or other means), and a loose economic/political structure.
Further, as they are pre-Industrial, Marx himself discounts them as Communist. QED.

Errr.... isn't that just like any Western state? Not to try and remove classes is to accept that exploitation is ok. Liberty is totally antithetical to capitalism, since big corporations can effectively force people to work for peanuts for 80 hours a week. The idea that capitalism is freedom is ridiculous - it is only liberty for the wealthy, the bourgeoisie, to exploit the workers.

The people can't rule by the vote in a society with classes, since capitalism totally undermines democracy - we see how in the West the best-funded candidates who promise to do most for businesses win elections, even though they haven't the people's best interests at heart. Capitalist 'democracy' is rife with backhanders, injustice and exploitation.

As for 'free to accumulate wealth' - profit's made from underpaying the working class, so this is inherently unjust.
I did describe the western nations. And in which western nation is "the working class" paid peanuts? During the early years of the industrial revolution workers may have been payed peanuts, but the laws have changed, reforms occured. Now western nations have governmental standards that protect the "workers" from abuses at the hands of their employers. Governmental standards in the US ensure safety and pay. These standards have been increasing since the first days of reform in the late 1800's.

And another point, Elanor Roosevelt once said "You can only be insulted if you allow yourself to be." I changed this quote a little to say "you can only be exploited if you allow yourself to be." I know no modern western nation in which a worker is forced to work for a company. People can quit their jobs. They can work for the government, they can found their own home run company, hell they can even be hermits. They can do whatever they want, and no one is going to stop them. Freedom of Choice, ever heard of it?

The money made by modern western capitalists is not from exploitation, but from creativity, investment and hard work. I intend to make more money than a janitor because I am going to college. If the people who have earned their money, then I feel it is perfectly legit for people to put out all the campaign ads they want. Freedom of speech, ever heard of it?

For this reason, the widespread failure of Communism around the world (and you can't say that Communism is doing better today than in 1960!) is just proof that Communism is not really implementable in a society that has currency. (Ancient Sparta being the *only* exception of a Communist State that ever worked.)

Here's one of Marx's favourite mottos; "Doubt everything". You can never be too certain. I don't describe myself as a Marxist - I'm a democratic socialist who thinks a communist world may or may not be something to look forward to. But I think the man was a genius and it would be foolish for people to dismiss his ideas because of the absolute failures of Marxist-Leninism and the unpopularity of old-style socialism in the world at the moment.

Indian Society pre-european colonization: NOT Communist! This is a wonderful fallacy, but most all (if not all!) American Indian cultures had currency (wampum, beads, or other means), and a loose economic/political structure.
Further, as they are pre-Industrial, Marx himself discounts them as Communist. QED.

Where does Marx say a communist society won't use currency?

The money made by modern western capitalists is not from exploitation, but from creativity, investment and hard work. I intend to make more money than a janitor because I am going to college. If the people who have earned their money, then I feel it is perfectly legit for people to put out all the campaign ads they want. Freedom of speech, ever heard of it?

So you're saying there are no longer class divisions in the Western World today? That's a pretty blind statement.

One of my major qualms with communism is the idea that people should receive equal compensation, no matter how much investment one puts into himself. I am putting lots of my time and money into attending college, and I feel I should be compensated later in life. As opposed to the guy I know who isn't going to school, who doesn't have a job, and just spends his time skateboarding. Can you tell me that he deserves just as much as I do? I don't think so.

So you're saying there are no longer class divisions in the Western World today? That's a pretty blind statement.
I'm saying there are class divisions, but they aren't solid walls. There is no line that says "middle class ends here. entry to upper class denied." Class mobility is far easier now than it was when Marx wrote his manifesto. People are capable of improving their lives. People born in the lower class can become President (Bill Clinton) or heads of corporations.

And admittedly, there was a lot wrong with the world when the manifesto was written, but Marx's ideas are not the right solution.

And the governments of the western nations have safeguards to keep the people with greater resources from abusing the people with less resources.

It scares me how many people don't know anything about communism.

I once tried to convert someone to communism, 20 minutes later, his response was, "Oh, yeah, communism. What was that again? I remember something about Russia from U.S. History class..."

Also, how many people actually believe that capitalism is a fair and equal system.

It scares me how many people don't know anything about communism.

I once tried to convert someone to communism, 20 minutes later, his response was, "Oh, yeah, communism. What was that again? I remember something about Russia from U.S. History class..."

Also, how many people actually believe that capitalism is a fair and equal system.
Maybe people do know about communism, they just see it differently from the way you see it.

Here's one of Marx's favourite mottos; "Doubt everything". You can never be too certain. I don't describe myself as a Marxist - I'm a democratic socialist who thinks a communist world may or may not be something to look forward to. But I think the man was a genius and it would be foolish for people to dismiss his ideas because of the absolute failures of Marxist-Leninism and the unpopularity of old-style socialism in the world at the moment.

I'm not certain he was a genius, but he & Fred definitely had a new idea and were true believers. :)

Be careful with that arguement, though. While it's never a good idea to dismiss things out of hand, it's not good to defend clearly bad ideas, either. (IE: Nazism, or the Spanish Inquisition).

Communism has several flaws.

The first being that it is impractical. It demands that its people all be perfect and work hard for the good of their neighbor, even if their hard work will never benefit themselves. Anybody who has done an honest day's work quickly realizes the value of the hard-earned dollar, and does not want to be forced to give up what is rightfully his.

Second, despite it sounding like a serene doctrine, it is the idealogy responsible for more death than any other. Some have argued that crusades and jihads hold this title, but close investigation of history will find fewer than 5 million killed in human history for religious reasons. However, in the past 100 years, Communist/Socialist governments have killed over 100 million. Between China (72 million), the Soviet Union (20 million), Cambodia (2.3 million), North Korea (2 million), Africa (1.7 million), Afghanistan (1.5 million), Vietnam (1 million), Eastern Europe (1 million), and Latin America (150,000), Communism rightly holds the title of deadliest idealogy. Nazism was responsible for 25 million, though it never proclaimed to be Communist, so its totals are not included above.

As to the first point, some may argue that Communism has never been given a fair chance, since there are Capitalist nations out there in competition with it. So? If an idea is good, it ought to be able to compete with any others without fear of loss. If Communism really is a good idealogy (better than Capitalism), then it ought to beat Capitalism hands down. It fails to do so.

As to the second point, some have argued that Communism got turned into a renegade form of socialism, or vice-versa, and so "true" communism has never been established. This may or may not be true. However, I can tell you that although "true" capitalism is not active anywhere in the world, it lacks the massive death tolls that Communism has racked up. As such, I would much rather see an imperfect capitalistic government that seeks perfection than an imperfect communist government seeking perfection, as the communist one will kill millions in the meantime.

Perhaps you disagree with me idealogically, but it is hard to deny 100 million deaths.

Where does Marx say a communist society won't use currency?

He doesn't. My point is that he's missing that aspect.

My Concept:
The whole point of currency is to make economic transactions simpler. Instead of finding someone who wants your apples and will trade you shoes, you use money as an intermediary.
The inherent flaw (in Communism) being that this will inherently generate inequities in wealth. Further, people (against doctrine) will sometimes (or even more often!) take more than they "need".

No Communist nation (except the ancient Spartans, whom OUTLAWED currency) has ever survived because of this. You can't share money. It simply doesn't work on anything like a large scale.

Capitalism is as complete freedom as can exist. It's the abscene of any government doctrine saying they have more a right to your life than you do, and puts freedom back in the hands of the individuals. How is that less free than a socialism which dictates your choices, rations, economic transactions for you? To say is it liberty for the wealthy only is pinning a certain kind of government and system on capitalism which doesn't necissarily exist. Just assuming that a capitalist government is going to be oppressive is quite arbitrary, and very helpful if you are trying to denounce capitalism.

And profit can exist btw. Profit is MADE by making more value out of what was formerly less valuable, which takes labour and knowledge. Because of the knowledge powering the labor THE VALUE OF THE LABOR IS NOT NECISSARILY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE VALUE OF THE PRODUCT. Some labor is worth more than other forms because of the combination of skill and knowledge involved.

Say I had a collection of metals. A certain form of knowledge and information can be utilized to turn those metals into a laptop computer. The total value of that computer can be more than the value of the metals and labor put into them, because of the value of the knowledge put into it.

That same amount of labor could be used to take a sledgehammer and smash the metals around into a senseless mess, making it worth nothing more than it was before. Or you could take the metals and make a toaster, or a pan, or several other things with the same amount of labor, all of which, despite the equal amount of labor, can vary greatly in price.

Profits in general are the product of free knowledge which can be put into goods to make them worth more than the cost of producing them. Not, in general, from exploitation of labor.


But people who make most money aren't the people who actually change the materials into a commodity, adding value to them, but the people who they work for.
The sledgehammer/laptop analogy doesn't make sense since Marx doesn't say that all labour has equal social value. He only talks about labour which satisfies social need, and under average production conditions. The variations between the effectiveness of individual enterprises are irrelevant - he analyses capitalism as a whole

Actually, the amount of labour required to make the same materials into different products does determine different prices. Surely you don't claim that making metal into a pan requires the same amount of labour as making it into a laptop? Laptops are more expensive since they're more sophisticated and require more man-hours to produce.

Also, how many people actually believe that capitalism is a fair and equal system.

Capitalism is very fair. Which means by definition that it is not equal.

Also, how many people actually believe that capitalism is a fair and equal system.

Capitalism is not an equal system, but it IS a fair system. In a society without restrictions on free enterprise, people earn a living dependant on their ability to provide service to society which is sought after. Those who are stricken by apathy do not succeed, those who work hard achieve greatly.

Another merit of capitalism is its defense of certain basic human rights that communism manages to ignore. It is morally despicable to deprive somebody the right to own private property. Marx said private property was theft? He was wrong. When seized from peaceful citizens of a free society, the so called "bourgeois", by violent sacking, THAT is when property is stolen.

Why on earth should the government have the right to determine that you are no longer allowed to own something for which you have worked hard?

Or to determine that you should die, without having first commited a crime?

You think that "the greater good" justifies government's rationing of food and other commodities, which they have seized from the once private sector? What if they determine that "the greater good" is for you to starve?

Is that, communism, your idea of a "fair and equal system"?

Why on earth should the government have the right to determine that you are no longer allowed to own something for which you have worked hard?
So do executives who earn millions 'work hard'? It's the people who work for them, with the least property, who work hardest


Or to determine that you should die, without having first commited a crime? Was that in the Communist Manifesto? Don't capitalist countries kill people who haven't committed any crimes?


You think that "the greater good" justifies government's rationing of food and other commodities, which they have seized from the once private sector? What if they determine that "the greater good" is for you to starve?
Errr..... that's Stalinism, not Communism

Sorry for the late reply, Irish Workers. Contrary to what some of my regionmates think, I don't spend all my time on here ;)
Well, I spend all my time here



So far we agree, it just appears to me that marxist-leninists and the parties they form have no problem whatsoever with a strong centralist authoritarian rule of the revolutionary elite over the working class in the working class' name. I object to this in favour of true democratic libertarian communism, or anarcho-syndicalism. All government is shit, for authority and hierarchy will always pervert the best of intentions.


Oh, I condemn authoritarian government - I'm all for communal, anti-hierarchal government by and for the people. To my way of thinking, marxist-leninist communism does not provide this, or at least not as much as it should!
If you totally oppose authority, you are not a communist. Anarchists have always argued that real socialism cannot be created using a state. The basic core of the argument is simple. Socialism implies equality, yet the state signifies inequality -- inequality in terms of power. As I like to argue(but apparently have not made clear enough) I consider one of the defining aspects of the state its hierarchical nature. In other words, the delegation of power into the hands of a few. As such, it violates the core idea of socialism, namely social equality. Those who make up the governing bodies in a state have more power than those who have elected them.
Well, then you are more like a syndicalist movement than a communist party, aren't you? I'd like to learn more about that party, so I can ascertain the truth for myself.

My party isn't Leninist, and we do have a lot of syndicalist ideas. I'm glad you want to learn more about the party - visit our website and read our paper! (www.redparty.org.uk)

I'm not a socialist, since I equally don't approve of the idea of a state. However, i do see it as a necessary transitional stage, to disestablish private property, phase out the state formation and break down borders as it encourages revolution elsewhere.
The end result seen by communists such as myself and anarchists is quite similar - the disagreement is merely on a tactical level. Of course, anarcho-syndicalists (I understand) are far more aware of the need of the working class to take power from the bourgeoisie than other anarchists are, and I applaud that.

Errr..... that's Stalinism, not Communism

Communism is an ideal which places your rights and your life in the hands of the state. Whether the state is a corrupt dictator with odd facial hair or a large coalition of working-class factory employees, in such a system it can still end your life or take your property (including any food you might accquire).

Food is private property too.

And in which western nation is "the working class" paid peanuts? During the early years of the industrial revolution workers may have been payed peanuts, but the laws have changed, reforms occured. Now western nations have governmental standards that protect the "workers" from abuses at the hands of their employers.
But it was the workers of the western countries who went on strike, organising Unions and parties, to win those rights - they weren't just handed down. However, you can't deny that western corporations and finance capital does exploit workers - most goods for sale in your town were made in the Third World. Governments only protect their own country's workers, since only they can vote against them - their standards do not prevent the employers abusing other workers.

The money made by modern western capitalists is not from exploitation, but from creativity, investment and hard work. I intend to make more money than a janitor because I am going to college. If the people who have earned their money, then I feel it is perfectly legit for people to put out all the campaign ads they want. Freedom of speech, ever heard of it?

Several people made this point to me (aren't i mr.popular?!). Do you seriously believe that a kid growing up in Indonesia is going to earn less than a contemporary in the USA just because he puts less work in? His social conditions, the opportunities open to him, determine his life.

Freedom of speech? - in the USA in the 50s you could be interned for being a communist. Only communists believe in real political freedom.

Freedom of speech? - in the USA in the 50s you could be interned for being a communist. Only communists believe in real political freedom.

Political freedom? But a communist system must outlaw free elections, surely, otherwise all of us greedy bourgeois pigs would vote in favor of actually having the right to private property again! Any communist nation which wished to remain in power would have to resort to violent oppression!

Second, despite it sounding like a serene doctrine, it is the idealogy responsible for more death than any other. Some have argued that crusades and jihads hold this title, but close investigation of history will find fewer than 5 million killed in human history for religious reasons. However, in the past 100 years, Communist/Socialist governments have killed over 100 million. Between China (72 million), the Soviet Union (20 million), Cambodia (2.3 million), North Korea (2 million), Africa (1.7 million), Afghanistan (1.5 million), Vietnam (1 million), Eastern Europe (1 million), and Latin America (150,000), Communism rightly holds the title of deadliest idealogy. Nazism was responsible for 25 million, though it never proclaimed to be Communist, so its totals are not included above.

The Soviet Union lost 30 million, actually, but Stalinism can't be counted as communism. It was a very thorough perversion, beyond even Trotsky's idea. And China lost most of those 72 million during the wars and struggles BEFORE Mao took power and promptly began his own Stalinist ideas (which he couldn't even get right). The total from it's communist idiocy is around 35-40 million, still bad, but not AS bad.

The Eastern European casualties are one and the same as the Soviet union's. Eastern Europe WAS the Soviet. union.

Vietnam's casualties were mainly caused by capitalist US intervention to shore up a corrupt dictatorship, not by the regime in charge. That million lies firmly at the capitalist door. Same with around a third of the North Korean ones, though the careful buggering up of their own economy, and the decision to maintain a head of state who's been death for ten years don't really support them much. They aren't Commies, they're just crazy.

Afgahnistan lost 1 million in the war with the Soviets. That was paid for with Capitalist CIA money. The big enemies of Communism. We can split it down the middle, if you like, and then we can split the casualties from the latest war there between Fundamentalism and Capitalism.

Nazism is the complete other end of the political scale to Communism. Mentioning them in the same sentence without including the words 'is the complete other end of the political scale to' speaks of political unawareness.

Now, do you want to tot up the Capitalism results?

Well, Al-Qaeda's so pissed off because of 'economic Imperialism' by the capitalist nations, but since they've done the killing we can split that half and half. Anyone remember how many people they massacred in the middle east?

How long have capitalist nations been bombing Iraq, pouring sanctions on Iraq (that starve the poor to death), ditto Iran, ditto North Korea, Ditto Vietnam, Cambodia?

China was violetly capitalist for 6000 years prior to turning Commie. Lots and lots of people starved to death then, too. Or were executed for stealing rice to feed their families.

Should we just count ALL the population of Africa now, or wait until the west has finished ripping them off and starving them to death? Loans from the UK and US are carefully balanced so only Western companies can be contracted to do work, so any infrastructure build will decay within around 20 years, and so that the recipient becomes even poorer and STILL owes more money. And then the poor, once again, starve to death.

The CIA, in order to further the course of Capitalism (not democracy. The CIA has NOTHING to do with that), has caused over 40 civil wars since it's founding in 1947. That's nearly one a year. Not to mention their tests with LSD, their self-funding by smuggling cocaine, and their support for brutal dictators like Idi Amin, Pol Pot and, so embarrasingly, Saddam Hussein. We put him there.

Oh, and need I mention the terror networks set up in the name of capitalism? Thought not.

How about all the casualties caused by crime? The US has over 10,000 gun crimes each year. The Soviet Union rarely had any crime casualty figures, but then again it did tend to kill the criminals, or at least work them to death.

Using Communism's body count against it is not a good way to try and discredit it. Capitalism has done just as much wrong there.

What I will say against it is IT DOESN't COCKING WORK. Communism is against fundamental human nature, since we're all greed little pigs at heart. We compete to survive, it's just how we're programmed. Why else do you think we invented war?

Political freedom? But a communist system must outlaw free elections, surely, otherwise all of us greedy bourgeois pigs would vote in favor of actually having the right to private property again! Any communist nation which wished to remain in power would have to resort to violent oppression!

But it would allow free elections - if there was a bourgeois majority, which certainly isn't true in the UK, than a workers' revolution wouldn't happen in the first place! The majority of people would be better off under communism

Accurate? First, there is no guarantee that the electors are going to place their vote for who they are supposed to (in the electoral college). You could have a Kerry voter/Bush voter vote for a completely different candidate.


The parties choose their electors before the election. I highly doubt they would choose ANYONE to be their elector that they were not COMPLETELY sure were absolutely loyal. Whatever party then wins the state, that party's electors then get to cast the electoral vote. So, with 99.99% surety, the electors will vote for who they are supposed to vote for. I believe there have only been 3 cases of "faithless" electors in our history, and none have actually made a difference in our election.

There's been more than three. One of Kerry's New Hampshire elector's decided to abstain, for no reason I can work out at all.

What I will say against it is IT DOESN't COCKING WORK. Communism is against fundamental human nature, since we're all greed little pigs at heart. We compete to survive, it's just how we're programmed. Why else do you think we invented war?

War is to satisfy capitalism and the desire to make profits - greed is promoted by the false competition of capitalism. In truth, we don't need to compete to survive.
The idea that greed will stop communism is a meaningless cliche - the reason why the workers will revolt is because of their desire to have more of the fruits of their labour, and since the greed of capitalism only benefits a wealthy few, the 'greed' of the majority would stop it going back.
The greed which undermined Stalinism was that if you give anyone power, they are corrupted by it. The bureaucracy was entirely self-serving. A true collective rule, without individual authoritarians, where everyone's actions are democratically accountable, avoids this problem.

But it would allow free elections - if there was a bourgeois majority, which certainly isn't true in the UK, than a workers' revolution wouldn't happen in the first place! The majority of people would be better off under communism

I think you'd be surprised at how many people depend on free-market capitalism without knowing it. Once many so-called communists found themselves wearing government-issue clothing, working for a wage which in no way reflected their abilities or contributions, and enjoying their daily state-provided rations, I am sure they would be more than happy to take part in a counter-revolution, against the redundant philosophy they had so vehemently supported.

Were britain to undergo a communist revolution, our economy would collapse. Instead of the some richer, some poorer society we live in today, the entire population would fall into abject poverty. How could the people of britain resist a capitalist counter-revolution once their rights, freedoms, and property were stolen from them?

Or perhaps not even a counter-revolution. If, as you say, such an administration allowed elections, I imagine they would promptly be voted out of power.

What I will say against it is IT DOESN't COCKING WORK. Communism is against fundamental human nature, since we're all greed little pigs at heart. We compete to survive, it's just how we're programmed. Why else do you think we invented war?

Not exactly how I'd express it, but it expresses the point nicely.

War is to satisfy capitalism and the desire to make profits - greed is promoted by the false competition of capitalism. In truth, we don't need to compete to survive.
The idea that greed will stop communism is a meaningless cliche - the reason why the workers will revolt is because of their desire to have more of the fruits of their labour, and since the greed of capitalism only benefits a wealthy few, the 'greed' of the majority would stop it going back.
The greed which undermined Stalinism was that if you give anyone power, they are corrupted by it. The bureaucracy was entirely self-serving. A true collective rule, without individual authoritarians, where everyone's actions are democratically accountable, avoids this problem.
I am so sick and tired of hearing that the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc, were/are not Communist, but Stalinist. How convenient. Any new country that pops up and declares itself Communist, then becomes totalitiarian, you can simply write off as <insert name of country's dictator here>-ist, and continue to proclaim the virtues of Communism, despite the fact that it has failed - EVERY TIME IT HAS BEEN TRIED. China is only now starting to become a real world power, by implementing CAPITALIST policies, allowing private ownership, etc. Results matter, and so far, the results of countries starting Communist have been miserable.

A true collective rule, without individual authoritarians, where everyone's actions are democratically accountable, avoids this problem.

A truly collective rule is impossible to implement. A collective rule which exhibits collectiveness through the populace voting for what they want - how does that differ from the democracy of today? You'll notice, actually, that people tend to vote in favor of economic and personal freedoms instead of omnipresent, extreme socialist government.

communism does more good than harm, i cant see why more people support facism

hasta la victoria, siempre

There's been more than three. One of Kerry's New Hampshire elector's decided to abstain, for no reason I can work out at all.
My bad, that's why I said "I believe". However, I was correct in saying that they have never affected the outcome of an election. See this:

Faithless Electors (http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm)

communism does more good than harm, i cant see why more people support facism

hasta la victoria, siempre

Communism and Facism, although with different moral objectives, are equally despicable in their implementation - namely deprivation of personal and economic freedom.

Communism and Facism, although with different moral objectives, are equally despicable in their implementation - namely deprivation of personal and economic freedom.
Well said. I think what gets lost in all this talk of capitalism vs communism is the issue of FREEDOM. Who has more freedom: The man who can earn, own, charitably give, or employ as much as he wants, or the man who can only earn, and only get, as much as the man next to him?

War is to satisfy capitalism and the desire to make profits - greed is promoted by the false competition of capitalism. In truth, we don't need to compete to survive.

Nope. War predates currency. Capitalism does encourage war, it's true - once you have too many goods, something must be done to destroy them. But war dates back to the birth of civilisation. It's no great coincidence the first thing our ancestors developed wasn't fire, or the wheel; it was the knife.

The idea that greed will stop communism is a meaningless cliche - the reason why the workers will revolt is because of their desire to have more of the fruits of their labour, and since the greed of capitalism only benefits a wealthy few, the 'greed' of the majority would stop it going back.

Not at all. The people will not rise up as long as they have just enough to live and get by. The Russian revolution had nothing to do with the discontent of the people against the government, it was because they were starving. Everyone wants to be slightly better off that their neighbours. What's the point of being well-off if there is no-one to feel better than?

THAT is why society naturally develops into classes, why capitalism was able to develop independantly evverywhere outside North America, and why a system based on equality can't work. I don't like it any more than you do. I'm fervorently anti-capitalist. But I'm also realistic. Don't imagine that people all want things for the good of their fellow man; most people couldn't really give a damn about their 'fellow man' unless they can see him, and plenty of them will pass him by.

The greed which undermined Stalinism was that if you give anyone power, they are corrupted by it. The bureaucracy was entirely self-serving. A true collective rule, without individual authoritarians, where everyone's actions are democratically accountable, avoids this problem.

Would be nice. Unfortunately, I can't see you managing to find an entire electorate's worth of flying pigs to live there.

I am so sick and tired of hearing that the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc, were/are not Communist, but Stalinist. How convenient. Any new country that pops up and declares itself Communist, then becomes totalitiarian, you can simply write off as <insert name of country's dictator here>-ist, and continue to proclaim the virtues of Communism, despite the fact that it has failed - EVERY TIME IT HAS BEEN TRIED. China is only now starting to become a real world power, by implementing CAPITALIST policies, allowing private ownership, etc. Results matter, and so far, the results of countries starting Communist have been miserable.

And I am sick and tired of people clearing not understanding what communism is and how Marx envisaged it being achieved.

In a communist society there would be no political state. Therefore, none of these totalitarian countries were communist, ok? It's quite simple really.

I am so sick and tired of hearing that the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, etc, were/are not Communist, but Stalinist. How convenient. Any new country that pops up and declares itself Communist, then becomes totalitiarian, you can simply write off as <insert name of country's dictator here>-ist, and continue to proclaim the virtues of Communism, despite the fact that it has failed - EVERY TIME IT HAS BEEN TRIED. China is only now starting to become a real world power, by implementing CAPITALIST policies, allowing private ownership, etc. Results matter, and so far, the results of countries starting Communist have been miserable.

But we condemn Stalinist parties before the revolution - it's nothing like Communism at all. Plus, Stalinism and Maoism are essentially the only two creeds which refer to themselves as communist - Sandanistas, Vietcong whatever all worship these dictators, and you can't condemn us for calling them the same.
There is an obvious difference between Stalinism and Communism - never has anyone in the world (except Spanish Civil War/Paris Commune) genuinely tried to set up a workers' republic.
Your argument is like saying that Christians are wrong because all states which justify themselves as justified by God have been vile dictatorships.

IMO these simplistic theoretical definitions hide the reality of the situation. You can all point out how flawed communism or socialism are, but it would be wrong to presume that any society is of a pure ideological position. We say we live in a capitalist world but in reality all economies are more of less mixed. i.e The free market has differing degrees of influence over the people. In the USA, for example, it is almost completely free market. But there is still government intervention and control, despite this nation being a beacon of capitalism. And then you get moderate capitalist/socialist countries in Europe ...which have a fine balances between their welfare states and their unregulated markets.

The truth is the world is very complicated and their are aspects of socialism/capitalism everywhere.

In a communist society there would be no political state. Therefore, none of these totalitarian countries were communist, ok? It's quite simple really.

What you describe is an anarchist state. In such a state, a form of free-market capitalism would instantly take place - people would have more that others, some through trade, but some through pillaging. In a society which lacks any authority whatsoever, authority will instantly arise, usually in the form of the most brutal, wily or just plain lucky competitor there is around.

From such a leadership, society will form. You simply can't maintain a state of human existence without some sort of leadership occuring.

Capitalism IS a free and fair system. You CANNOT guarantee equality of result, if for no other reason than what would mean a satisfying quailty of life for one guy will be deeply unsatisfactory to another person. A central planner can't know all of these things, and so he just parcels out whatever the government has in equal lots, regardless of whether anyone wants or needs what is being given out. That goes for jobs and entertainment and consumer goods as well as food and shelter. In trying to be "fair" and "equal" you wind up creating disparities because some will be satified and others will not. Though equal on paper, one may be suffering a great poverty of spirit because he has been denied the opportunity to achieve his full potential and aquire the rewards that come with it.

Capitalism accomodates these divergent needs by guaranteeing EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY, thus allowing each person to acheive whatever their desires, talents and motivations lead them to. The beauty is that the harnessing of these desires to the market benefits everyone, because in order to earn money people work hard producing some good or service that people actually WANT. They in turn exchange that money for the goods or services THEY want. Everyone wins, and you can work as much or as little as is necessary to maintain your desired lifestyle. There is no need for central planning, because the market regulates itself, allowing for the reward of work and distribution of goods and services exactly where they are wanted (or needed). That is fair. That is free.

What isn't fair or free is when the government decides how much you'll work, what you will do and how much you'll get for it, and even what choices you'll have in buying things with what you earn.

In the real world, resources are limited only by our ingenuity in releasing their potential. Capitalism encourages that by richly rewarding individual efforts that benefit everyone (by providing goods and services that people want at a price they a willing to voluntarily pay) WITHOUT any redistributive government intervention. Communism discourages that effort, because if you work harder, you don't get more. You cannot better yourself through hard work and effort, because the system requires you to stay at exactly the level the government deems acceptable, whether or not that satisfies you.

Further, private property is a fundamental right, in my opinion, because people should have the right to dispose of the income they earn through their own labor as they see fit. If they have given up a part of their LIFE in order to earn some money, they should be able to OWN what they get for it. It really is simple, if you OWN yourself, then you own the fruits of your labors, and neither the state nor anyone else has any claim to it. The third world will realize the tremendous benefits of Capitalism when they recognise the importance of, and therefore reinforce the institutions that support, ownership of private property. That would unleash the tremendous potential of otherwise dead capital tied up in dubiously titled, state owned or otherwise inaccessable property for the purpose of economic progress.

I have said it before, and I believe it to be irrefutable. Nowhere on planet earth will communism ever again be attempted as the organizing principal of a national economy or government. And if it is, it will fail quickly. Capitalism's track record is excellent, it has provided the greatest freedom and material wealth to the greatest number of people when compared to any other system thus far, and it keeps getting better. Perhaps a new economic order will arise that will do things even better, but it will have to take into account people's natural desire for wealth and status, our predeliction for competition, and our desire for freedom, if not, it will be as doomed as Marxism was.

Someone on this forum said that workers will revolt to get more of the fruits of their labors, well, in communism they can have NONE of them, because the state owns them. They will get whatever the state feels like giving them, and it will benefit a few at the top (the Party) and not the workers. At least in Capitalism, if the worker wants it bad enough, he can work and acheive great wealth, but in communism, he is denied the opportunity to succeed.

Another person said that NAZI'ism and communism were different. They weren't. They were almost indistinguishable, and to fail to recognize that is to confess your ignorance of history. Industries were nationalized, profits confiscated by the state, allegience to the state was encouraged at the expense of all other social institutions, including religion, family and friendship. They employed the same rhetoric about the working classes, they used the same single party mechanism for totalitarian rule, and they both herded enemies of the state into brutal death camps. They engaged in central economic planning and they cultivated politically connected elites at the expense of the creative force of the open market, which is fortunate, because they were ultimatley destroyed by the tremendous power of the Capitalist West, whose free people pursuing their own interests created technology and wealth that they could not match. "Right wing" is just something neo-NAZI's like to call themselves, but Hitler's National Socialism borrowed heavily from Marx and is far to the left of even Democratic Socialism.

Why don't you people read some books and study some history? Take a look at where things really are, and how they got this way. Don't just read the same shit from environmentalists and greens, or from socialists or unions. Read an economist or two. Look at a copy of Foreign Affairs, or The Economist. Try a book from someone who survived the NAZI's or communism. When you're done, you'll have new respect for Capitalism and a disdain for communism grounded in their real moral implications and their impact on those who live and work under them.

Lastly, the defense that none of the dictatorships that arose from the various communist revolutions were really communist is a poor argument. If anything, it suggests that it is impossible to implement the theory without generating a dictatorship with all the violence and brutality that entails. Insanity is commonly defined as trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Well, communism's been tried many times, and every one created a bloody, corrupt, oppressive and extremely poor nation that imprisons it's citizens and subjects them to the cruel whims of a dictator. So, why should we expect anything else from another attempt at it?

Nope. War predates currency. Capitalism does encourage war, it's true - once you have too many goods, something must be done to destroy them. But war dates back to the birth of civilisation. It's no great coincidence the first thing our ancestors developed wasn't fire, or the wheel; it was the knife. - I apologise for the inaccurate semantics of my statement. I was using capitalism as a blanket term for systems of minority rule and economic inequality.
But war is not to destroy goods, but to gain wealth. What did you mean?


Not at all. The people will not rise up as long as they have just enough to live and get by. The Russian revolution had nothing to do with the discontent of the people against the government, it was because they were starving. - but the starvation was just the result of that government. It was the material factor which fuelled their discontent against the state. The real cause for political overhaul is declining conditions - no-one in the UK would accept conditions to decline even nearly as far as "just enough to live"

[QUOTE=Nasopotomia]
THAT is why society naturally develops into classes, why capitalism was able to develop independantly evverywhere outside North America, and why a system based on equality can't work. I don't like it any more than you do. I'm fervorently anti-capitalist. But I'm also realistic. Don't imagine that people all want things for the good of their fellow man; most people couldn't really give a damn about their 'fellow man' unless they can see him, and plenty of them will pass him by.[QUOTE]
It's nothing to do with being nice to your fellow man - It's about the working class seizing power for itself! They don't do it for everyone, but because their class has declining quality of life. They rise together as a class because of their common interest.
Society naturally develops into classes? Other way round. Class divisions break down with every revolution. That is why we no longer see Emperors, senators and slaves, since the lower classes, with greater numbers, never accept it in the long run.

What you describe is an anarchist state. In such a state, a form of free-market capitalism would instantly take place - people would have more that others, some through trade, but some through pillaging. In a society which lacks any authority whatsoever, authority will instantly arise, usually in the form of the most brutal, wily or just plain lucky competitor there is around.

From such a leadership, society will form. You simply can't maintain a state of human existence without some sort of leadership occuring.

Look - you can presume all you like about human nature. But if you bothered to read some of Marx's works you'll find it quite clearly said that in his vision of communism there would be no political state. I've said this and explained why in earlier posts. And the "withering away of the state" does not mean an absence of authority.

IMO these simplistic theoretical definitions hide the reality of the situation. You can all point out how flawed communism or socialism are, but it would be wrong to presume that any society is of a pure ideological position. We say we live in a capitalist world but in reality all economies are more of less mixed. i.e The free market has differing degrees of influence over the people. In the USA, for example, it is almost completely free market. But there is still government intervention and control, despite this nation being a beacon of capitalism. And then you get moderate capitalist/socialist countries in Europe ...which have a fine balances between their welfare states and their unregulated markets.

The truth is the world is very complicated and their are aspects of socialism/capitalism everywhere.

I concur with you on this point. Socialism and capitalism are matters of degrees. Certain industries, for example, can be state-controlled whilst others remain in private hands. The extreme of Socialism is communism - utter state control (how else can you prevent private ownership?) - and the extreme of capitalism is, well, anarchy, which I've already talked about.

Neither extreme works. There are some things that just can't be privatized. There are some things that can't be in state hands.

Irish Workers: I'm interested in a point you made earlier. If, indeed as you say, Britain does not contain a majority who wish to support capitalism, or indeed the populace would support a communist revolution, why haven't the communist party yet been voted into power?

Capitalism accomodates these divergent needs by guaranteeing EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY,

How naive! How idealistic! Do you really believe this to be true? Then you are deluded indeed!

Pretending that capitalism is perfect is impossible.

Do you honestly believe that the poor deserve to be poor and the rich deserve to be rich?

Neither extreme works. There are some things that just can't be privatized. There are some things that can't be in state hands.

I agree. I'm all in favour of a mixed economy - with certain aspects of the market unregulated but all public services (health, education, etc) under puplic (state) control.

Well said. I think what gets lost in all this talk of capitalism vs communism is the issue of FREEDOM. Who has more freedom: The man who can earn, own, charitably give, or employ as much as he wants, or the man who can only earn, and only get, as much as the man next to him?

lets put it another way

who has more freedom, a person working all thier life, with no help from the government or society to then be shunned away , or a person who has equal oppertunity to achieve anything with grants and no competition by big corperate firms and free healthcare and welfare society for when they do slip up, quite literaly

Someone on this forum said that workers will revolt to get more of the fruits of their labors, well, in communism they can have NONE of them, because the state owns them. They will get whatever the state feels like giving them, and it will benefit a few at the top (the Party) and not the workers. At least in Capitalism, if the worker wants it bad enough, he can work and acheive great wealth, but in communism, he is denied the opportunity to succeed.
The state? In communism there isn't a state. I totally oppose the idea of a Party ruling over the people. The workers are the rulers in communism - the USSR WAS NOT COMMUNIST! Communism is the absence of a state, and the realisation of collective democratic control


Another person said that NAZI'ism and communism were different. They weren't. They were almost indistinguishable, and to fail to recognize that is to confess your ignorance of history.
Well, I'll tell you the difference. Nazism is the idea that what divides people is not class but instead race, whereas Communism is the idea that the working class, of whatever race, should unite together. They are opposites.[/QUOTE]



Why don't you people read some books and study some history? Take a look at where things really are, and how they got this way. Don't just read the same shit from environmentalists and greens, or from socialists or unions. Read an economist or two. Look at a copy of Foreign Affairs, or The Economist. Try a book from someone who survived the NAZI's or communism. When you're done, you'll have new respect for Capitalism and a disdain for communism grounded in their real moral implications and their impact on those who live and work under them.
I am, (presumably unlike you) a history student as well as a well-read communist, and am well aware of exactly what was wrong with the Soviet Union. I've read all those bourgeois magazines. For fuck's sake, the news bombards us with that stuff every day! You are just one of the millions of people who just doesn;t understand what communism really is


Also, please, can everyone stop using the word communism when they mean Stalinism. I don't describe racists from the Deep South or crusading knights as embodying Christian ideas, so don't do the same injustice to me.

How naive! How idealistic! Do you really believe this to be true? Then you are deluded indeed!

Pretending that capitalism is perfect is impossible.

Do you honestly believe that the poor deserve to be poor and the rich deserve to be rich?


While capitalism is far from perfect, it does provide an inherent charactristic of rewarding personal accomplishment. Not important for all, but for those who would otherwise be lazy if not motivated by reward (most of society to some degree or another) it provides an impetus for work...

Irish Workers: I'm interested in a point you made earlier. If, indeed as you say, Britain does not contain a majority who wish to support capitalism, or indeed the populace would support a communist revolution, why haven't the communist party yet been voted into power?

i believ that in a decade my generation will be right wing no EU Nazis voting the BNP in power, I WILL NOT let that ever happen, i would join resistance or the IRA if BNP ever came into power, as i am half irish

lets put it another way

who has more freedom, a person working all thier[sic] life, with no help from the government or society to then be shunned away , or a person who has equal oppertunity[sic] to achieve anything with grants and no competition by big corperate[sic] firms and free healthcare and welfare society for when they do slip up, quite literaly[sic]

The guy who's worked all his life. He OWNS what he earnt. The person with equal opportunity, if he lives in a communist state as you have implied, owns nothing. He has not got the right to anything beyond what the government says he does.

Irish Workers: I'm interested in a point you made earlier. If, indeed as you say, Britain does not contain a majority who wish to support capitalism, or indeed the populace would support a communist revolution, why haven't the communist party yet been voted into power?

Well, I think there are a few key reasons

- Continuing ability of UK capital to take advantage of foreign labour, to benefit of many in the UK.
- Strength of social democracy - reformism has not yet run out of options while maintaining capitalism.
- Lack of education/understanding of classical Marxism as opposed to Stalinism, and false impression given by USSR
- Control by the wealthy of the media is a huge obstacle
- Corporate funding of mainstream parties

Of course, the last 2 may seem inherent to capitalism, since we would not be able to overturn this before a revolution. However, as in Spain in the 30s, Trade Union support can make a big difference. And, with the RMT and FBU, two of the biggest unions, breaking to the Left of the Labour Party, there are some encouraging signs.

What you describe is an anarchist state. In such a state, a form of free-market capitalism would instantly take place - people would have more that others, some through trade, but some through pillaging. In a society which lacks any authority whatsoever, authority will instantly arise, usually in the form of the most brutal, wily or just plain lucky competitor there is around.

From such a leadership, society will form. You simply can't maintain a state of human existence without some sort of leadership occuring.

you're wrong. first off, marx did describe communism as without a state. second off, such an idea ISNT anarchism. anarchism pertains to a horizontal organization of government, a "system and management without ruler(s), i.e. co-operation without repression, tyranny and slavery". it is a lack of hierarchy, not a lack of organization. ochlarchism is a lack of organization, and it is presumed by genuine anarchists to not work...to be inefficient, and also to destroy the primary principles of anarchism, those of freedom and equality.

secondly, to all of you...communism, as marx envisioned it, or ochlarchism, has never been truly tried...but also would almost never work. you cannot claim equality in a situation where there is no government, unless you eliminate the current societal values of greed and corruption. it has been seen that greed and corruption do exist. these values are very present in world politics and relations, and are often driving forces. in order to eliminate them, one would essentially neede to hit the reset button on society. there are 2 problems with this. one, it means either finding a land mass with enough resources for children to grow up independently in, without members of society raising them, or evacuating a major land mass with these kind of resources, or else one would sacrifice the integrity of the experiment. two, it is known that greed and corruption do exist, and that they mustve come from somewhere, so one must ask themselves, how long will it take for them to reappear? it IS only a matter of time.

the end of the ochlarchist, or marxist (communist,) state is inevitable, and the beginning is very hard to achieve. a true anarchist state is what most of you are looking towards.

http://www.anarchy.no/

do your reading before you go accusing things of being anarchist when theyre obviously not.

- I apologise for the inaccurate semantics of my statement. I was using capitalism as a blanket term for systems of minority rule and economic inequality.
But war is not to destroy goods, but to gain wealth. What did you mean?

No no no no no. War in a purely capitalist sense is to destroy what has been created. Capitalism is a vast pyramid scheme which everyone, unfortunately, bought into. In order to keep going, there must always be manufactured goods to buy. If everyone has a washing machine, then the washing machine industry goes bust. If the army has enough tanks, they eventually won't need any more. The solution? Once everythings built up enough, you blow the crap out of the lot and start again.

In a capitalist society, everything must be temporary. If you are not running out of things at exactly the rate you are producing them, then price falls and the economy starts to fall apart. Hence, if you just have a war every now again, you can continually give the impression of economic improvement, and yet also constantly produce.

- but the starvation was just the result of that government. It was the material factor which fuelled their discontent against the state. The real cause for political overhaul is declining conditions - no-one in the UK would accept conditions to decline even nearly as far as "just enough to live"

It was the result of the First World War, actually. And you'd be suprised how far things could be allowed to fall before people would do anything. Crime would rise, obviously, but there would only be a revolution if that was required simply to survive.

The Russian people had put up with far, far worse quite happily until the food ran out. People have done all around the world. Look at China, or North Korea now. People will gumble and complain, but until they are in direct fear of death they will not rise up.

The only exception to this I can think of was the American revolution, and in that case we have an entirely absent government. Also, the revolution would have failed miserably had it not been for the intervention of the French. In a communist revolution, we can be certain the USA will step in on the OTHER side, and the people would be the losers overall.


It's nothing to do with being nice to your fellow man - It's about the working class seizing power for itself! They don't do it for everyone, but because their class has declining quality of life. They rise together as a class because of their common interest.
Society naturally develops into classes? Other way round. Class divisions break down with every revolution. That is why we no longer see Emperors, senators and slaves, since the lower classes, with greater numbers, never accept it in the long run.

The lower class will forever remain at the bottom of the heap. In any revolution, all that happens is that the upper and middle classes try to destroy one another. The workers will be fooled by one side or the other to believe that they are being helped, and then they shall be betrayed and returned to their initial position, often poorer and in worse conditions.
And just because the Emperor is called the Fifth Earl of Sussex, the senator is a lawyer in Hampstead, and the slave is called a brickie doesn't mean their roles have changed in the slightest. People seek to be defined by society, and thus they naturally form a class structure.
In the US, supposedly the classless society, we have the working/slave class (Usually your trailerpark/ghetto family, trapped in place.), the lawyer remains in his position, and the ruling/political class. It's inevitable, and raging about it won't help.

What you describe is an anarchist state. In such a state, a form of free-market capitalism would instantly take place - people would have more that others, some through trade, but some through pillaging. In a society which lacks any authority whatsoever, authority will instantly arise, usually in the form of the most brutal, wily or just plain lucky competitor there is around.

From such a leadership, society will form. You simply can't maintain a state of human existence without some sort of leadership occuring.

you're wrong. first off, marx did describe communism as without a state. second off, such an idea ISNT anarchism. anarchism pertains to a horizontal organization of government, a "system and management without ruler(s), i.e. co-operation without repression, tyranny and slavery". it is a lack of hierarchy, not a lack of organization. ochlarchism is a lack of organization, and it is presumed by genuine anarchists to not work...to be inefficient, and also to destroy the primary principles of anarchism, those of freedom and equality.

secondly, to all of you...communism, as marx envisioned it, or ochlarchism, has never been truly tried...but also would almost never work. you cannot claim equality in a situation where there is no government, unless you eliminate the current societal values of greed and corruption. it has been seen that greed and corruption do exist. these values are very present in world politics and relations, and are often driving forces. in order to eliminate them, one would essentially neede to hit the reset button on society. there are 2 problems with this. one, it means either finding a land mass with enough resources for children to grow up independently in, without members of society raising them, or evacuating a major land mass with these kind of resources, or else one would sacrifice the integrity of the experiment. two, it is known that greed and corruption do exist, and that they mustve come from somewhere, so one must ask themselves, how long will it take for them to reappear? it IS only a matter of time.

the end of the ochlarchist, or marxist (communist,) state is inevitable, and the beginning is very hard to achieve. a true anarchist state is what most of you are looking towards.

http://www.anarchy.no/

do your reading before you go accusing things of being anarchist when theyre obviously not.

Yes, I do believe that in a free society, people deserve whatever they have earned. If they have achieved great wealth through honest effort and shrewd investment, great. They set a fine example of the possibility of success. If someone is poor, they have the opportunity through hard work to become rich. Read my ealier post about my mother for an example, of which there are thousands in the US, and more in other countries as well. Almost every really wealthy person we know of came up through their own talent and hard work, Oprah, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Steve Jobs and more. They all took a risk and through their determination and effort acheived success, by providing something that people really wanted and were willing to VOLUNTARILY pay money for. That is a much better message than "hey, don't bother trying, let the government take care of you."

I can think of nothing more idealistic or naïve than to think that a whole country will work to the full extent of their abilities only to aquire exactly the same level of success as their neighbor, or that a government entrusted with administering the distribution of all that wealth will do so in a way that is fair and without corruption. Capitalism isn't perfect, it allows some injustice, but people are ultimately responsible for themselves, they own their own destiny, and that is liberating. Capitalism, to paraphrase Churchill, is the worst form of economic system, except all the other ones.

In the US, supposedly the classless society, we have the working/slave class (Usually your trailerpark/ghetto family, trapped in place.), the lawyer remains in his position, and the ruling/political class. It's inevitable, and raging about it won't help.

I don't claim that the US is a classless society - all your argument proves is that there are still class divisions, which I don't deny. Working class domination will end class rule, since there will be no further class to oppress.
Raging about it? I do more than that. I work hard for my party, edit a youth communist paper, and helped draw up the coalition for a party standing in 40 seats in the General Election. The left is tiny, but I'm sure as hell trying to help push it forward.

Oh dear, oh dear. I've never heard anyone claiming that a state fought a war to destroy property. The reason states go to war is to take control of resources and maintain access to markets, with the working class actually having to do the fighting for it.
Germany invaded Poland to enslave a new workforce, not just to artificially create a market with replaced goods. Along your argument, the state would be forced to maintain perpetual total war to maintain its armaments industry.

Communism is hated so much around the world because it is an endorsement to an imperfect and impossible system that has become undoubtedly the most corrupted the world has ever seen. Communism today is somthing that Marx, Engels, or even Lenin could not even begin to imagine. Communist regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Southeast Asia and other places have proven themselves to be nothing less than totalitarian regimes. As for me, I am Romanian, and as one, we have endured one of the most oppressive communist regimes of our time rivaled perhaps only by the mass murder policy imposed by Moscow. Yet people still believe in this system, and think it will work... I have experienced it first hand and will tell you, it won't. You may like a theory all you want, but as soon as you try to apply that, all hell will break loose. Communism is also a great political tool, I mean think about it. Example: Bush said Kerry was communist because he wanted the government to give people health insurance, to provide for the greater population, people that need it so. Communism as we know it, as its proven itself controls every aspect of the government. Bush wants to ban abortion, in Romania that was law under the Communists, and how many girls died due to illegal abortions, complications from childbirth. Banning such a thing would be far more barbaric that legalizing it. Overall, the truth of communism is only one, the most oppressive man in the world was not Hitler who killed 6 million people in his death camps, no it was Stalin, "man of steel", the communist dictator who's purges killed over 20 million of his own people, innocent, intelectual, anyone daring to speak against him, and to call yourself communist, is to embrace all of these atrocities of mankind. Have we not learned our lesson from history? It is indeed sad.

Well, I think there are a few key reasons

- Continuing ability of UK capital to take advantage of foreign labour, to benefit of many in the UK.
- Strength of social democracy - reformism has not yet run out of options while maintaining capitalism.
- Lack of education/understanding of classical Marxism as opposed to Stalinism, and false impression given by USSR
- Control by the wealthy of the media is a huge obstacle
- Corporate funding of mainstream parties

Of course, the last 2 may seem inherent to capitalism, since we would not be able to overturn this before a revolution. However, as in Spain in the 30s, Trade Union support can make a big difference. And, with the RMT and FBU, two of the biggest unions, breaking to the Left of the Labour Party, there are some encouraging signs.

Well, I disagree with Marx that the only way to socialism is through revolution. I believe the revolutionary aspects of his theory were a result of his contemporary social-political surroundings - the 1848 European revolutions etc. I'm much more fond of Bernstein and his thoughts on evolutionary socialism.

Have some faith in the people, Mr. Irish Workers. If they really wanted radical, absolute socialism they would vote for it. But the simple truth is that everyone disagrees when it comes to politics and so governing by consensus is the way to go.

Oh dear, oh dear. I've never heard anyone claiming that a state fought a war to destroy property. The reason states go to war is to take control of resources and maintain access to markets, with the working class actually having to do the fighting for it.
Germany invaded Poland to enslave a new workforce, not just to artificially create a market with replaced goods. Along your argument, the state would be forced to maintain perpetual total war to maintain its armaments industry.

I don't like Marxist interpretations of fascism, I think they're too simplistic.

Ever thought it might have been because Hitler and the Nazis genuinely believed they were part of a super-race that was destined to rule the world?

But people who make most money aren't the people who actually change the materials into a commodity, adding value to them, but the people who they work for.

When a person gains a thorough understanding of their work, they might know all the ins and outs of it, improvements and shortcuts, and be skilled and quick in solving problems that come up in their field of work. Such people then can become overseers who pass on their knowledge to workers around them, and manage and watch over them to maximize their productivity and the value of their labor. It is perfectly sensible that such people should be more important and paid more than the street-laborers under them. It is also sensible to say that the source of value is not the labor of the street laborers themselves, but the information which trained them and made them capable of producing valuable work.

The sledgehammer/laptop analogy doesn't make sense since Marx doesn't say that all labour has equal social value. He only talks about labour which satisfies social need, and under average production conditions. The variations between the effectiveness of individual enterprises are irrelevant - he analyses capitalism as a whole.

Well first off, that doesn't stop the analogy from making sense. It only means that it's something Marx doesn't disagree with (and last I remember I wasn't refuting Marx, but you.) Value is from knowledge, not labor, that's the point, not whether Marx agrees with it. The variations are critical because it is precisely the variations that show that there isn't an absolute correlation between raw labor and value.

Surely you don't claim that making metal into a pan requires the same amount of labour as making it into a laptop? Laptops are more expensive since they're more sophisticated and require more man-hours to produce.
I'm saying that even if it did, the pan would be less valuable than the laptop. You could just as easily waste man hours welding and screwing things, designing minute contraptions with no practical purpose and end up with a product with no practical value - as you could spend them producing a lap top. In each situation, the same amount of skill and labor is used (in the first instance skill can be required to acheive a very particular, albeit senseless part of labor) but in one case you end up with a worthless product, and in the second, one of value. The difference being the value and practicality of the knowledge provided.

The best I can give you is that perhaps there exists, in general (not universally or exactly) a proportionate correlation between value and labor. Which at best makes the emphasis on labor as the true source of value misguided.

Today's standard of living is not a result of raw labor, but rather the sum of inventions and ingenuities and contributions of thousands of years of evolution of human knowledge. Adam Smith said something to the effect of
"In an industrialized nation, a common peasant living off his own labor is equally comforted as a an African King with absolute mastery over the lives of ten thousand naked savages." If this doesn't put the value of labor in relation to the knowledge powering it into proper perspective, I can't think of anything else that would be capable of doing it.

And for a recap of points I have mentioned, which have gone unanswered and which I beleive are still perfectly relevant to the discussion...

A government saying it has more of a right to your life and your labor than you do can never be compatable with freedom.

There isn't a such entity as 'the public' - which is in reality a collection of individuals. If some individuals need to give up their labor, money, etc. for the sake of 'the public', it means, some individuals are giving their life and labor to other individuals.

The entire idea of public 'rights' can only come at the expense of individual rights, and it forces a conflict of interests. Rather than leaving it to individuals to seek agreements on their own terms, in which there is no conflict of interests (so long as the government secures the people's rights), the government forces on people the responsibility of fufilling others 'rights' to whatever economic materials or comforts are deemed necessary for them by the government.

Which is a whole other issue in itself entirely - who is in need of aid? It is for the government to decide. It is in fact one of the cheif roles of the government, which naturally brings about the chance of those with political pull being able to direct 'aid' their way, justifying in whatever way they can that it is for the public good, much like the Pigs in Animal Farm who justified their added comforts, which we have seen happen again and again happen in reality.

The whole entire thing seems to be a misinterpretation of rights. Capitalism holding that the rights to action, to pursuit of happiness is comfort is guaranteed, and all of its consequences, Socialism holding that economic rights exist, to the specific results of action in the form of property.

If economic rights exist, it begs the question: at who's expense is the guaranteed property(/comforts/whatever else) going to be produced? It can't be done without the labor of others, but if you force them to produce this guaranteed property, you are violating those individual's rights to their own choice of action.

Collective rights and economic rights can't exist, because it forces a conflict of interest on individuals and guarantees them property or comfort that can't be guaranteed, at least, not without the forced labor of others.

Profits in general are the product of free knowledge which can be put into goods to make them worth more than the cost of producing them. Not, in general, from exploitation of labor.

It was the result of the First World War, actually. And you'd be suprised how far things could be allowed to fall before people would do anything. Crime would rise, obviously, but there would only be a revolution if that was required simply to survive.

The Russian people had put up with far, far worse quite happily until the food ran out. People have done all around the world. Look at China, or North Korea now. People will gumble and complain, but until they are in direct fear of death they will not rise up.


The First World War and the state were entirely interlinked - in both the cases of February and October, the starvation/dissent were ultimately the result of the semi-feudal and bourgeois states' commitment to an imperialist enterprise.

What do you mean they put up with worse until the food run out? If in your country the government continued a pointless war, scrapped welfare and rationed food, you'd want to change it pretty quickly - wouldn't you? People aren't so fucking stupid that when their jobs are threatened and their rations decline they don't fight against it. The delay is largely just due to the time taken in organising a serious revolution and the class realising the problem.

Yes, I do believe that in a free society, people deserve whatever they have earned. If they have achieved great wealth through honest effort and shrewd investment, great. They set a fine example of the possibility of success. If someone is poor, they have the opportunity through hard work to become rich.

You said capitalism guaranteed equality of opportunity. There is no equality of opportunity between someone born rich whose family can afford first class education and opportunity and someone born poor.

i believ that in a decade my generation will be right wing no EU Nazis voting the BNP in power, I WILL NOT let that ever happen, i would join resistance or the IRA if BNP ever came into power, as i am half irish

Were either bigots such as the BNP or communist fanatics to come to power, I would doubtless take part in a movement of resistance.

Capitalism doesn't require war, in fact, to the extent that the people are involved in free enterprise, they abhor war, because it entails destruction of their PROPERTY. They want peace, and free trade flourishes in peace. Since we haven't invented perpertual motion or the indestructible washing machine, we don't need to blow stuff up. It wears out. Or someone looking to make more money in the market builds a better washing machine, with more features, that uses less energy, that goes faster, or get things cleaner. This gets the guy his money, while providing the consumer with a better product, no destruction needed. Almost all goods are subject to wear, tear, loss or breakage. Many are simply consumable. The beauty of the market is that it compenates for that automatically, because if there is no market for washing machines, then production will shift to whereever there IS demand. Only in a planned economy that can't react to the changes in the market will a surplus of goods result in economic disaster. The Great Depression was caused by European monarchies acting to protect their country's own industries by putting up barriers to trade with the US. We produced goods, suddenly we couldn't sell them, then fired the workers (because the companies couldn't pay them without revenue), who then couldn't buy stuff, and it kept getting worse. It corrected when demand and supply were able to keep up with each other when after WWII, many of those previously unavailable markets reopened.

Value is from knowledge, not labor, that's the point, not whether Marx agrees with it. The variations are critical because it is precisely the variations that show that there isn't an absolute correlation between raw labor and value. If it's from knowledge, not labour, then how come the more time you invest in work, the more value you add. If it was due to knowledge, then 500tonnes of coal would cost the same as 250, since you'd need an equal understanding of mining in either case - higher quantity costs more because of the labour invested in the work.


I'm saying that even if it did, the pan would be less valuable than the laptop. You could just as easily waste man hours welding and screwing things, designing minute contraptions with no practical purpose and end up with a product with no practical value - as you could spend them producing a lap top. In each situation, the same amount of skill and labor is used (in the first instance skill can be required to acheive a very particular, albeit senseless part of labor) but in one case you end up with a worthless product, and in the second, one of value. The difference being the value and practicality of the knowledge provided. Didn't I already explain the marxist conception of 'use value', the social need satisfied? In a broad analysis of capitalism, individual variations in unproductive labour are ignored, and the system seen as a whole. Value is measured in average labour necessary - that's why if you take twice as long doing the same thing it's not more expensive.


Today's standard of living is not a result of raw labor, but rather the sum of inventions and ingenuities and contributions of thousands of years of evolution of human knowledge. Adam Smith said something to the effect of
"In an industrialized nation, a common peasant living off his own labor is equally comforted as a an African King with absolute mastery over the lives of ten thousand naked savages." If this doesn't put the value of labor in relation to the knowledge powering it into proper perspective, I can't think of anything else that would be capable of doing it.

Yes, he does say that. Good for him. What's your actual point?

I don't claim that the US is a classless society - all your argument proves is that there are still class divisions, which I don't deny. Working class domination will end class rule, since there will be no further class to oppress.

Yours proves no more; at least mine can draw on 40,000 years of human history. In truth, I would like to be on your side, but frankly people will always seek to rule over their fellow man. Working class dominion will not come about without working class lawyers, accountants and other such high-paid professions. The most notable thing about working class lawyers is that there aren't any.

What you really need to achieve your aim is the abolition of currency. That means reworking the entire economic system from it's very roots, which is a bit trickier than you seem to believe.

Raging about it? I do more than that. I work hard for my party, edit a youth communist paper, and helped draw up the coalition for a party standing in 40 seats in the General Election. The left is tiny, but I'm sure as hell trying to help push it forward.

Good for you, and I hope you succeed. However, the revolution won't be happening. You'll have to win this through in Parlimentary election, and given the size of our middle class, who are very happy there, and their power in the House, I have doubts about your chances.

And my point about the class system remains. It is human nature for there to be someone to aspire to be, or at least to usurp, and also to desire for someone to be worse off than you. How else are you supposed to tell where you are?

It's a bad state of affairs, but the chances of being able to turn it around, particularly with a hostile superpower who just disagrees with your ideology on general principals, are not particularly high.
Let's look at working class politicians and their Jags, Bentleys and mansions, shall we? The first thing any working class lad does when he gets into power is sell out, same as anyone else. Stalin did. And while Stalinism is, indeed, not communism, it's what happens when a chap from the bottom gets to the top. I don't mean to piss on your parade or anything, but


Meanwhile, Friedmanistan? Your point would be very valid if it was true. Why exactly is Paris Hilton a millionaire? I know she's done a couple of porn vids, but she's certainly the richest little pornstar I know. No, it's because SHE WAS BORN THAT WAY. Which really just makes your post invalid for starters; how is it a fair system if one person starts off with more money than most people can ever hope to earn?

Also, Bill Gates doesn't do any real work now, yet he still earns more every hour than half of his staff earn in a year. How come he's harvesting THEIR work? They're earning the cash that goes in HIS pocket.

The Great Depression was caused by European monarchies acting to protect their country's own industries by putting up barriers to trade with the US. We produced goods, suddenly we couldn't sell them, then fired the workers (because the companies couldn't pay them without revenue), who then couldn't buy stuff, and it kept getting worse. It corrected when demand and supply were able to keep up with each other when after WWII, many of those previously unavailable markets reopened.

Are you a joke poster??

For one thing, which European monarchies are you talking about? You do know when the Great Depression took place don't you?

I thought it was generally accepted that the Depression was caused by the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. The American economy had become bloated and the whole capitalist system collapsed into crisis when shareholders lost confidence. Thanks for reminding us of a great historical example that shows how fluctuations in the market can ruin so many people's lives. Laisez-faire economics did nothing to resolve the situation, and the economy only gradually improved once FDR pushed forward state intervention.

No, it's because SHE WAS BORN THAT WAY. Which really just makes your post invalid for starters; how is it a fair system if one person starts off with more money than most people can ever hope to earn?

Also, Bill Gates doesn't do any real work now, yet he still earns more every hour than half of his staff earn in a year. How come he's harvesting THEIR work? They're earning the cash that goes in HIS pocket.

Should the fruits of your labor be redistributed upon your death?
The system is fair: you keep the fruits of your labor and redistribute them as you see fit. He chose to give (some/all?) to his progeny. That's a popular choice. :)

He's not harvesting their work. They are paid for their services. Bill took the risk and did the work to create a revenue generating firm. Had he failed, he'd just be another nobody.
By this arguement, you're inherently saying that there should be no benefits and no penalties for doing anything. This doesn't compute.

Are you a joke poster??

For one thing, which European monarchies are you talking about? You do know when the Great Depression took place don't you?

I thought it was generally accepted that the Depression was caused by the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. The American economy had become bloated and the whole capitalist system collapsed into crisis when shareholders lost confidence. Thanks for reminding us of a great historical example that shows how fluctuations in the market can ruin so many people's lives. Laisez-faire economics did nothing to resolve the situation, and the economy only gradually improved once FDR pushed forward state intervention.

Actually, the roots further lie in the Treaty of Versailles, which forced the Germans to pay huge sums to the European Allies. The Germans, in turn, borrowed much of the money. So you had the Euro Allies paying their US war debts with Germany money, which was mostly borrowed from the US!

Needless to say, the interest compundation over time was the killer....

Bollocks that's fair! Someone should live a life of luxury and privelege just because of an accident of birth???

Also, please, can everyone stop using the word communism when they mean Stalinism. I don't describe racists from the Deep South or crusading knights as embodying Christian ideas, so don't do the same injustice to me.
When you can name a single communist country without a history of oppression, mass murder, and slavery, we will stop. I can name several Christians and Christian ideas that have nothing to do with racists in the Deep South; you have yet to show me a successful model of communism. And you are comparing apples to oranges; Christianity is a religion, communism is an economic theory, with broad-ranging social and political implications.

Good for you, and I hope you succeed. However, the revolution won't be happening. You'll have to win this through in Parlimentary election, and given the size of our middle class, who are very happy there, and their power in the House, I have doubts about your chances.


I don't like to sound too Blairite and New Labourish....but Marxist dogmaticism never got anyone anywhere.

You can be ideologically pure...or you can moderate yourself and convince others of the justness of your cause; and so become popular.

you have yet to show me a successful model of communism.

and you have yet to show me a model of communism that conforms to that outlined by Marx

Oh dear, oh dear. I've never heard anyone claiming that a state fought a war to destroy property. The reason states go to war is to take control of resources and maintain access to markets, with the working class actually having to do the fighting for it.
Germany invaded Poland to enslave a new workforce, not just to artificially create a market with replaced goods. Along your argument, the state would be forced to maintain perpetual total war to maintain its armaments industry.

Perhaps that's because you clearly have little or no understanding of economics, just as you know little of sociology. A capitalist war (not all war, but the capitalist ones you are so keen to fight against) are about the wasting of wealth. A cruise missle can be used only once, and costs several thousand dollars. Thirty five million dollars worth of fuel are used up every morning by the US alone in Iraq. It's consumerism. Resources must constantly be consumed to maintain prices. If you gain control of more oil, for example, you must burn more or else you have gained essentially nothing.


The First World War and the state were entirely interlinked - in both the cases of February and October, the starvation/dissent were ultimately the result of the semi-feudal and bourgeois states' commitment to an imperialist enterprise.

What do you mean they put up with worse until the food run out? If in your country the government continued a pointless war, scrapped welfare and rationed food, you'd want to change it pretty quickly - wouldn't you? People aren't so fucking stupid that when their jobs are threatened and their rations decline they don't fight against it. The delay is largely just due to the time taken in organising a serious revolution and the class realising the problem.

As a student of History, I assume you are familiar with the slave-lives of Russian serfs prior to 1870? The fact that a significant portion of their population actively belonged to their feudal-system lords, who were free to do absolutely ANYTHING they liked to them? That the very concept of State Welfare could not be applied to these unfortunate peasents? And war has always been an excellent method of rallying populations behind their leaders. Not turning them against them.

They didn't revolt. They were granted extra rights and freed from servitude in 1870. Fifty years later, the comparatively free members of Russian society revolt, despite all these new rights. Because they ran out of food.

Don't be foolish and bank your hopes on some vast working class revolt as the masses suddenly decide that they must rise up against their oppressors. They need a clear and present danger to spur them into action. Otherwise, why hasn't your revolution happened yet? Why are you fannying arund editing a youth magazine, rather than running the Ministry of Plenty?

Bollocks that's fair! Someone should live a life of luxury and privelege just because of an accident of birth???

As opposed to Kim Jong Il? :D

Bollocks that's fair! Someone should live a life of luxury and privelege just because of an accident of birth???

In any political system there will be some exceptions to the rule. The fact is, as imperfect as capitalism is, it's a damn lot better than depriving certain rights - it is a persons right to dispose of their wealth as they wish - whether by passing it to their children, spending it, investing it, doing whatever they please with it.

You said capitalism guaranteed equality of opportunity. There is no equality of opportunity between someone born rich whose family can afford first class education and opportunity and someone born poor.
Ever hear of scholarships? These are based on something called "merit" - good grades earned thru hard work. Condoleeza Rice, our current National Security Advisor and soon-to-be Secretary of State, grew up as a poor black woman in Alabama.
Even the poor can excel, because the middle and upper classes are not taxed to death and can afford to be charitable, as in the form of scholarships to poor and minority students, and our taxes pay for government scholarships, grants, and loans. If you are smart enough, driven enough, and work hard enough, the sky is the limit in capitalistic society, at least as it is applied in the USA.

Don't be foolish and bank your hopes on some vast working class revolt as the masses suddenly decide that they must rise up against their oppressors. They need a clear and present danger to spur them into action. Otherwise, why hasn't your revolution happened yet? Why are you fannying arund editing a youth magazine, rather than running the Ministry of Plenty?

Exactly. If communism really is so wonderful, people would see that and vote for it. Don't bullshit that "oh, those greedy pigs control the media", thanks to our society allowing private media, you're free to peddle your philosophy to the populace just as convincingly as us capitalists.

and you have yet to show me a model of communism that conforms to that outlined by Marx
Because they have failed and tranformed into Stalinism, Maoism, etc, every time your "pure" model is attempted.

If it's from knowledge, not labour, then how come the more time you invest in work, the more value you add. If it was due to knowledge, then 500tonnes of coal would cost the same as 250, since you'd need an equal understanding of mining in either case - higher quantity costs more because of the labour invested in the work.

I apologize if I was unclear, but at some point I meant to inject (if I haven't) that labor is the extent to which knowledge is applied. The point is, none of that labour could have been of any value without first knowing how to mine coal, and at that, knowing how to mine it efficiently. Labor is the application of that knowledge, and thus is not the source of value.

(Edit: added this paragraph, and some other lines)
The obvious reply I see coming is "well how will that coal be produced without labor" and of course the labor is necessary. But an infinite amount of labor without a cause or direction isn't worth anything. All the value that could ever be produced by any sort of labor was only made possible as knowledge felt out the pathways for putting labor to effective use. Thus, the knowledge of how to use the coal and mine it was the source for all coal's value, in whatever amount. Labor seems to be proportionate to the new wealth created, but the wealth in its entirety is not due to the labor, and for that which isn't sourced in labor, is sourced in the knowledge which first made coal useful.

Even the value which can be attributed to the labor must source itself in the knowledge of how to use labor to produce and utilize coal in the first place. Which means that even the value of the labor must source itself in the knowledge that provided it.

Yes, he does say that. Good for him. What's your actual point?
The point was, an african king with command over 10,000 slaves is no more wealthy than a single peasant in an industrialized society relying off of only his labor. Labor of 10,000 men vs. labor of one man, and still an equal standard of living! Clearly there is an element contributing to standard of living besides labor alone! (Knowledge & technology available to the industrialized society.)

(Edited this)

Bollocks that's fair! Someone should live a life of luxury and privelege just because of an accident of birth???
It is not fair that I was born into a family that eventually got divorced. It's not fair that many children are born into poverty. You can whine about it, or do something about it. Are you saying that someone born into money is automatically undeserving?

Don't be foolish and bank your hopes on some vast working class revolt as the masses suddenly decide that they must rise up against their oppressors. They need a clear and present danger to spur them into action. Otherwise, why hasn't your revolution happened yet? Why are you fannying arund editing a youth magazine, rather than running the Ministry of Plenty?

Interestingly, with that Orwellian reference, may I draw your attention to the other most famous work of George Orwell, Animal Farm. In that, Orwell highlights that Marx's revolutionary theory was unrealistic anyway, as it was not a battle for liberty, or power, or even wealth that motivated the masses to revolt, but starvation and deprivation (hence the line "The revolution was achieved much earlier and more easily than anyone had expected"). This is the only reason for the Russian Revolution that Animal Farm is based on, not a battle for justice, but a battle against deprivation. The simple fact is that the masses do not revolt simply because they are oppressed.

Freedom of speech? - in the USA in the 50s you could be interned for being a communist. Only communists believe in real political freedom.
Common misconception that people were interned for being communist.

The McCarthy hearings, whilst disturbing, didn't actually jail anybody. Just scare a shitload of people.

The people who were jailed for "being communist" were actually jailed for various other things, typically they were actually spies for the Soviet Union, but communist propaganda says that they were jailed because they were communists.

People were fired from the US government for being communists, but they weren't jailed.

And anyways, that was the 1950's. 50 years ago folks. Not today.

Common misconception that people were interned for being communist. The McCarthy hearings, whilst disturbing, didn't actually jail anybody. Just scare a shitload of people.
Scaring people out of thinking certain things is still an affront to freedom.


The people who were jailed for "being communist" were actually jailed for various other things
Officially maybe.


People were fired from the US government for being communists, but they weren't jailed.
Which is still an injustice and offence against freedom. You don't have to imprison someone to violate their rights.

Bollocks that's fair! Someone should live a life of luxury and privelege just because of an accident of birth???
Some people might have worked extremely hard and spent very little money for the specific reason to make their children's lives easier than theirs.

Scaring people out of thinking certain things is still an affront to freedom.

McCarthy was discredited as a moron after a few months, and his position was never the official position of the US government, just one whack-job senator.




Officially maybe.

If you have any credible evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.




Which is still an injustice and offence against freedom.
Not when you are in a death struggle with a tyrrannical system that professes those beliefs. Do we complain about the Right-Wingers nazi types in the US government who were fired prior to WWII? Oh, wait, communists agitators in the US didn't decry Hitler until AFTER the prick invaded the USSR.

Don't try to bring irrelevances into this. I'm not saying communist societies are better, I'm just saying Americans should stop being so self-satisfied and accept that their own country has done plenty of awful things over the years. Communists were an unfairly-persecuted minority in the USA in the 1950's. No amount of hair-splitting over the details or "Oh-yeah?-Look-at-Hitler" comparatives will make that any less true.

No, I'm quite serious. I greatly simplified the economic circumstances that lead to the Great Depression, and I didn't even comment on the political ones. The reason the value of stocks declined was because the value of each share of the companies they represent is tied to the company's value. When the company can't sell things and begins losing money, it becomes worthless. The stock market is actually tied to events in the real world, and it crashed in 1929 because of interventions in the market by STATES in europe and the reaction here in the United States by our government. It was the intervention, not the market that led to the depression. FDR prolonged it by redirecting resources into welfare and make-work, when he could have lowered trade barriers and negotiated for access to closed markets.

The countries I'm talking about are Austria, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Others too, some monarchies, most at least dictatorships. Europe was failing to meet the level of output that America and England could generate because of the ossified kleptocracies that the continental nations maintained through their militaries, so they enacted tariffs. It goes back to the First World War, as mentioned, Versailles, loose monetary policy, borrowing and credit schemes that couldn't be sustained. All policies of the STATE, not of the market.

BIll Gates pays people what they are willing to work for. Unlike a communist country, no one is FORCED to work in Capitalism. If his employees wish to earn more, they can ask for a raise or find employment elsewhere. He earns the money because he created the company that now employs these people. He took the risk that resulted in their opportunity. At the heart of communism is greed and jealousy. It is evidenced by all the lies about how the rich don't deserve what they earned, but that the poor should steal it through force, embodied by the state. Yet, the wealth wouldn't be there to steal if it weren't for the entrepreneurs who took the risks and built their fortunes through their effort.

Capitalism realizes that one man's gain is not someone else's loss, but that each person can CREATE their own wealth through their effort. Communism relies on Malthusian economics and the idea of limited resources and wealth, which are assumptions that just are not true. Wealth is created through innovation and increasing efficiency, essentially applied knowledge. Better mousetraps, higher yielding crops, stronger fibers, faster microchips and so on.

As for Paris, her grandfather earned that money, and since he earned it, he gets to decide who to give it to. He chooses her. Sorry if you're jealous, but life ain't fair. You could start your own chain of hotels and then give your money to whoever you want. Speaking of fair, much of the evil in this world has been caused by people trying to violently impose their version of justice on the world. I like the world where everyone minds their own and tries to earn on honest living without hiring thugs or organizing mobs to steal and destroy other people's property.

When I assert that Capitalism is fair, I say so, AGAIN, because it provides equality of opportunity, not of result. Everyone has the SAME chance to succeed or fail on their own merits. I addressed it in an earlier post, but suffice to say that you have what you are born with by luck, but Capitalism lets you make the most of it. Everyone's birth is an accident of fate, but what they make of their life is what determines their identity and value as a person. Paris is rich for being born that way, and that may seem unfair, but her father and grandfather earned it by making a great hotel chain, something you also have the opportunity to do if you so desire, which IS fair. Many poor people have made the most of their opportunity and became extremely wealthy. Capitalism afforded them that chance, it doesn't discriminate based upon humble beginnings. And it has the added benefit of being fair WITHOUT the imposition of force by the government.

Lastly, I'll say that the US government has done much to subvert the economic system that has allowed us to be so successful, so we have our greath wealth IN SPITE of our government, and not in any way because of it. Since government creates nothing, all their money is stolen fom others through taxes. That means all those hard earned dollars aren't there to be reinvested in someone's business or spent in some private enterprise. So while government contracts may enrich some, they come at the expense of even greater economic potential in the marketplace.

Don't try to bring irrelevances into this. I'm not saying communist societies are better, I'm just saying Americans should stop being so self-satisfied and accept that their own country has done plenty of awful things over the years. Communists were an unfairly-persecuted minority in the USA in the 1950's. No amount of hair-splitting over the details or "Oh-yeah?-Look-at-Hitler" comparatives will make that any less true.
OK, I understand a bit better.

I also understand that the US has done bad things in the past and right now even. But I was just responding to a now-seemingly false idea of what you were supporting. It is a common tactic of communists to fall back to the Red Scare of the 1950's and say the US is evil because of that, and I was just assuming.

No, I'm quite serious. I greatly simplified the economic circumstances that lead to the Great Depression, and I didn't even comment on the political ones. The reason the value of stocks declined was because the value of each share of the companies they represent is tied to the company's value. When the company can't sell things and begins losing money, it becomes worthless. The stock market is actually tied to events in the real world, and it crashed in 1929 because of interventions in the market by STATES in europe and the reaction here in the United States by our government. It was the intervention, not the market that led to the depression. FDR prolonged it by redirecting resources into welfare and make-work, when he could have lowered trade barriers and negotiated for access to closed markets.

The countries I'm talking about are Austria, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Others too, some monarchies, most at least dictatorships. Europe was failing to meet the level of output that America and England could generate because of the ossified kleptocracies that the continental nations maintained through their militaries, so they enacted tariffs. It goes back to the First World War, as mentioned, Versailles, loose monetary policy, borrowing and credit schemes that couldn't be sustained. All policies of the STATE, not of the market.

BIll Gates pays people what they are willing to work for. Unlike a communist country, no one is FORCED to work in Capitalism. If his employees wish to earn more, they can ask for a raise or find employment elsewhere. He earns the money because he created the company that now employs these people. He took the risk that resulted in their opportunity. At the heart of communism is greed and jealousy. It is evidenced by all the lies about how the rich don't deserve what they earned, but that the poor should steal it through force, embodied by the state. Yet, the wealth wouldn't be there to steal if it weren't for the entrepreneurs who took the risks and built their fortunes through their effort.

Capitalism realizes that one man's gain is not someone else's loss, but that each person can CREATE their own wealth through their effort. Communism relies on Malthusian economics and the idea of limited resources and wealth, which are assumptions that just are not true. Wealth is created through innovation and increasing efficiency, essentially applied knowledge. Better mousetraps, higher yielding crops, stronger fibers, faster microchips and so on.

As for Paris, her grandfather earned that money, and since he earned it, he gets to decide who to give it to. He chooses her. Sorry if you're jealous, but life ain't fair. You could start your own chain of hotels and then give your money to whoever you want. Speaking of fair, much of the evil in this world has been caused by people trying to violently impose their version of justice on the world. I like the world where everyone minds their own and tries to earn on honest living without hiring thugs or organizing mobs to steal and destroy other people's property.

When I assert that Capitalism is fair, I say so, AGAIN, because it provides equality of opportunity, not of result. Everyone has the SAME chance to succeed or fail on their own merits. I addressed it in an earlier post, but suffice to say that you have what you are born with by luck, but Capitalism lets you make the most of it. Everyone's birth is an accident of fate, but what they make of their life is what determines their identity and value as a person. Paris is rich for being born that way, and that may seem unfair, but her father and grandfather earned it by making a great hotel chain, something you also have the opportunity to do if you so desire, which IS fair. Many poor people have made the most of their opportunity and became extremely wealthy. Capitalism afforded them that chance, it doesn't discriminate based upon humble beginnings. And it has the added benefit of being fair WITHOUT the imposition of force by the government.

Lastly, I'll say that the US government has done much to subvert the economic system that has allowed us to be so successful, so we have our greath wealth IN SPITE of our government, and not in any way because of it. Since government creates nothing, all their money is stolen fom others through taxes. That means all those hard earned dollars aren't there to be reinvested in someone's business or spent in some private enterprise. So while government contracts may enrich some, they come at the expense of even greater economic potential in the marketplace.
**Applause!!!!** I particularly like the phrase you use, "Equality of opportunity". Aptly put.

No, ------------------- marketplace.
Very well done. 10 points for you.

OK, I understand a bit better.

I also understand that the US has done bad things in the past and right now even. But I was just responding to a now-seemingly false idea of what you were supporting. It is a common tactic of communists to fall back to the Red Scare of the 1950's and say the US is evil because of that, and I was just assuming.

Two people arguing and then coming to find common ground, and both learning something from one another and walking away having benefitted from challenging one anothers beleifs?? On the NS boards???

Must have been planned or something!!!

Two people arguing and then coming to find common ground, and both learning something from one another and walking away having benefitted from challenging one anothers beleifs?? On the NS boards???

Must have been planned or something!!!
No, just me jumping in a babbling, and realizing I had made a mistake.

I have nothing against the concept of communism. I just think it gets a bad press because largely we think if the principle exponents of a religious or political system have a large amount of facial hair then it must be a bad thing. e.g. Stalin had a huge moustache, Hitler had that Chaplin thing goin' on, and bin Laden looks like he has his own bird sanctuary. And then there's Castro, although I suspect his to be a chin wig.

Indeed, George W Bush is never seen to even have any facial hair at all - not even a 5 o'clock shadow. This leads me to assume that he must therefore be the greatest leader in the whole world. And would still be the greatest even if he destroyed the American economy and it's global image, as well as being videoed bumming a chimp. No, really.

Because of what they're doing to our precious bodily fluids.

If you are smart enough, driven enough, and work hard enough, the sky is the limit in capitalistic society, at least as it is applied in the USA.

So the millions of Americans living in poverty are dum and lazy. Glad we got that straight.

I apologize if I was unclear, but at some point I meant to inject (if I haven't) that labor is the extent to which knowledge is applied. The point is, none of that labour could have been of any value without first knowing how to mine coal, and at that, knowing how to mine it efficiently. Labor is the application of that knowledge, and thus is not the source of value.

(Edit: added this paragraph, and some other lines)
The obvious reply I see coming is "well how will that coal be produced without labor" and of course the labor is necessary. But an infinite amount of labor without a cause or direction isn't worth anything. All the value that could ever be produced by any sort of labor was only made possible as knowledge felt out the pathways for putting labor to effective use. Thus, the knowledge of how to use the coal and mine it was the source for all coal's value, in whatever amount. Labor seems to be proportionate to the new wealth created, but the wealth in its entirety is not due to the labor, and for that which isn't sourced in labor, is sourced in the knowledge which first made coal useful.

Even the value which can be attributed to the labor must source itself in the knowledge of how to use labor to produce and utilize coal in the first place. Which means that even the value of the labor must source itself in the knowledge that provided it.
But knowledge itself is merely derivative of labour - it either results from time dedicated to education or from the lessons of labour itself. Nothing happens at all if people don't put work in - you're not born with knowledge of how to do any practical task.


The point was, an african king with command over 10,000 slaves is no more wealthy than a single peasant in an industrialized society relying off of only his labor. Labor of 10,000 men vs. labor of one man, and still an equal standard of living! Clearly there is an element contributing to standard of living besides labor alone! (Knowledge & technology available to the industrialized society.)
(Edited this) Of course, but technology derives from R+D work, not from thin air.

It is not fair that I was born into a family that eventually got divorced. It's not fair that many children are born into poverty. You can whine about it, or do something about it. Are you saying that someone born into money is automatically undeserving?

No. I'm saying that in a system that practises true 'equality of opportunity' he or she will need to prove himself/herself to be deserving through hard work. Paris Hilton inheriting all that ca$h and spending it on her lavish coke parties is a f***ing disgrace when there are millions of ordinary Americans working hard just to put food on the table or pay for their medical insurance or whatever.

Because they have failed and tranformed into Stalinism, Maoism, etc, every time your "pure" model is attempted.

No you really don't get it. Communism as envisaged by Marx HAS NEVER BEEN ACHIEVED so you have to attack the theory not these corrupt Marxist-Leninist dictatorships.

Well in the real world, and not some stupid game, communism is impossible since it's never been reached. instead, everytime - people inevitably take power which works out well, ask stalin. he killed twice as many people from his nation than hitler did in the holocaust. Another reason i hate it is because it's a godless society that bans religion... last time i checked that wasn't very 'free'.
And in terms of everybody being equal with equal work and equal pay... human nature gets in the way! obviously there are some people that won't work and will still get the same pay. the idea of the government stepping in and running the country - then "letting loose the reins" so the communist machine runs is impossible because the men that ran to get into the seat of power are too power-hungry and greedy to begin with to ujst hand over the control of a nation for 'the cause'.
So communism is stupid, godless, immoral, and a load of b.s.

No, I'm quite serious. I greatly simplified the economic circumstances that lead to the Great Depression, and I didn't even comment on the political ones. The reason the value of stocks declined was because the value of each share of the companies they represent is tied to the company's value. When the company can't sell things and begins losing money, it becomes worthless. The stock market is actually tied to events in the real world, and it crashed in 1929 because of interventions in the market by STATES in europe and the reaction here in the United States by our government. It was the intervention, not the market that led to the depression. FDR prolonged it by redirecting resources into welfare and make-work, when he could have lowered trade barriers and negotiated for access to closed markets.

Whatever your opinions on the cause of the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression, it still proves the point that global capitalism jeapordises the livelihoods of ordinary people with events completely out of their control. Where's capitalism's safeguard for individual freedom there?!? It is the rich who make the most out of capitalism while it works, it is the poor who suffer the most when it fails.

So communism is stupid, godless, immoral, and a load of b.s.

Many people think Jesus was a communist and that capitalism is an affront to Christian morals. But don't think about that too much, you'll get confused...

Capitalism realizes that one man's gain is not someone else's loss, but that each person can CREATE their own wealth through their effort. Communism relies on Malthusian economics and the idea of limited resources and wealth, which are assumptions that just are not true. Wealth is created through innovation and increasing efficiency, essentially applied knowledge. Better mousetraps, higher yielding crops, stronger fibers, faster microchips and so on.

If the market is constantly in search of profit there is no protection from exploitation of the environment and exploitation of people. There HAS to be state regulation to stop this.

As for the McCarthy thing, I'm with Stormwarz


BIll Gates pays people what they are willing to work for. Unlike a communist country, no one is FORCED to work in Capitalism. If his employees wish to earn more, they can ask for a raise or find employment elsewhere. He earns the money because he created the company that now employs these people. He took the risk that resulted in their opportunity. At the heart of communism is greed and jealousy. It is evidenced by all the lies about how the rich don't deserve what they earned, but that the poor should steal it through force, embodied by the state. Yet, the wealth wouldn't be there to steal if it weren't for the entrepreneurs who took the risks and built their fortunes through their effort. As if you have a choice not to work! Is this the choice to go without wages and starve? You must be joking if you think that it's easy to just ask for a raise or find another job - in most capitalist nations is rather a significant problem called UNEMPLOYMENT. You say Bill Gates took a risk - you think he risked his capital by investing it in an enterprise? This notion of risking capital makes less sense when we ask - where did the capital come from. Aaah yes - capital itself is the product of exploitation. All of these apparent risk-takers have either won capital because of underpaid workers before, or been handed it by some friend of theirs, a ruling class ally.
Embodied by the state? Forced to work? Again, I am disappointed that I need to repeat the fact that Stalinism is NOT the same as a free, democratic Communist society. Communism lacks a state!


Capitalism realizes that one man's gain is not someone else's loss, but that each person can CREATE their own wealth through their effort. Communism relies on Malthusian economics and the idea of limited resources and wealth, which are assumptions that just are not true. Wealth is created through innovation and increasing efficiency, essentially applied knowledge. Better mousetraps, higher yielding crops, stronger fibers, faster microchips and so on.

But then how come, for the most part, finance capitalists rather than engineers and scientists are the wealthiest people around? Time and time again your argument makes the ridiculous assumption that people who work hardest are the richest - it is absurd! Where does this idea derive from? Profit comes from the fact that workers add labour to a material to make it into a commodity with use value, and the bosses pays them a low proportion of this added value in order to take profit for themselves and the shareholders. Just because some sort of quasi-'American dream' idea tells you that you can become a millionaire doesn't mean that people who grow up in the Third World have any hope whatsoever of making it to the top.

As for Paris, her grandfather earned that money, and since he earned it, he gets to decide who to give it to. He chooses her. Sorry if you're jealous, but life ain't fair. You could start your own chain of hotels and then give your money to whoever you want. Speaking of fair, much of the evil in this world has been caused by people trying to violently impose their version of justice on the world. I like the world where everyone minds their own and tries to earn on honest living without hiring thugs or organizing mobs to steal and destroy other people's property. Earned it? Was it him who cleaned the sheets, sat at reception and worked in the kitchens? Or did he just put in the money and wait for the cash to roll in?
Start his own hotel chain? For those of us who aren't rich middle class kids who defend how much they/their family have taken from society by claiming that they put in hard graft, it's pretty hard to get the capital to do that.
Violently impose their version of justice?.... sounds like someone's talking about Stalinism again!
Minds their own? Financiers and the like wouldn't last five minutes if the workers downed tools and worked for themselves instead. 'Thugs'?'Mobs'? Sounds more like some Tory boy from the 30s who is scared of the working classes. I'll tell you what though - I don't like people who hire thugs either. That's why I was a bit pissed off when Coca-Cola hired paramilitaries to murder Colombian trade union officials (www.killercoke.org)



When I assert that Capitalism is fair, I say so, AGAIN, because it provides equality of opportunity, not of result. Everyone has the SAME chance to succeed or fail on their own merits. I addressed it in an earlier post, but suffice to say that you have what you are born with by luck, but Capitalism lets you make the most of it... Capitalism afforded them that chance, it doesn't discriminate based upon humble beginnings. And it has the added benefit of being fair WITHOUT the imposition of force by the government.

How is there equality of opportunity when most kids in the Third World don't even reach the age of 5? Thailand's a capitalist country, yet I don't see many high-fliers coming from there. You'd have thought that working 14 hours a day from the age of 10, they'd be pretty rich, given all the work they've done. There isn't equality of opportunity, since if you're from a working class background, even in the industrialised West, you get worse education, less job opportunities and less money from Mummy and Daddy to put into 'enterprise'.

If the market is constantly in search of profit there is no protection from exploitation of the environment and exploitation of people. There HAS to be state regulation to stop this.


Read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. It is in the interests of everybody to provide for eachother, since people will pay money for that which they most need. A food producer can save the lives of millions by selling them food, but still be motivated by greed, wanting their money, and trying to get it by providing them with what they need.

Of course, a certain level of state interference in private affairs is necessary to prevent theft, murder and the like.

Indeed, George W Bush is never seen to even have any facial hair at all - not even a 5 o'clock shadow. This leads me to assume that he must therefore be the greatest leader in the whole world. And would still be the greatest even if he destroyed the American economy and it's global image, as well as being videoed bumming a chimp. No, really.

1 - Bush hasn't destroyed the American economy yet, but you've got to give him credit for giving it a go
2 - Bush has destroyed the USA's global image
3 - While he hasn't been videoed bumming his chimp, a look at his wife suggests that it wouldn't be below his standard

That doesn't mean that Bush isn't below a chimp's

Read The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. It is in the interests of everybody to provide for eachother, since people will pay money for that which they most need. A food producer can save the lives of millions by selling them food, but still be motivated by greed, wanting their money, and trying to get it by providing them with what they need.

But surely the best answer to this is to have a truly democratic world where production is totally geared to meet social needs. The food producer thing misses the underlying point that in an egalitarian society there'd be no need for the poor to have to rely on him - this is much better!

That doesn't mean that Bush isn't below a chimp's
In fairness, a chimp couldn't masterminded an invasion of Iraq. That's why Rumsfeld and Cheney had to do it instead.

1 - Bush hasn't destroyed the American economy yet, but you've got to give him credit for giving it a go

Oh, because of course, communism would just work wonders for the economy. I mean, come on, how can you loose with a complete ban on private enterprise? Business would really boom under your leadership, wouldn't it?

Oh, because of course, communism would just work wonders for the economy. I mean, come on, how can you loose with a complete ban on private enterprise? Business would really boom under your leadership, wouldn't it?
Mmmm.... would the workers rather work hard for their own benefit, or so that their bosses can make more money?

Mmmm.... would the workers rather work hard for their own benefit, or so that their bosses can make more money?

The work they are forced to do by the state (and they'll have to be forced into it - given free will, most people would rather be allowed to own property and earn a variable wage) won't be for their own good. I thought one of the tenets of collectivism was that people worked "for the greater good".

The work they are forced to do by the state (and they'll have to be forced into it - given free will, most people would rather be allowed to own property and earn a variable wage) won't be for their own good. I thought one of the tenets of collectivism was that people worked "for the greater good".
Forced by the state? Stalinism, methinks
Why would people prefer a variable wage to a high one? It will increase if they work harder though
But if people do work for the greater good, than it will benefit them. In a factory of 20 workers, they'll realise that their co-operative effort is best for all of them. I don't mean working for the whole country - nationalisation, like in the USSR, implies that it is run by the state rather than the people at that place of work, and I don;t approve of that.
You seem to think that everyone in the country would earn the same - false. Everyone at a workplace - yes

Forced by the state? Stalinism, methinks
Why would people prefer a variable wage to a high one? It will increase if they work harder though
But if people do work for the greater good, than it will benefit them. In a factory of 20 workers, they'll realise that their co-operative effort is best for all of them. I don't mean working for the whole country - nationalisation, like in the USSR, implies that it is run by the state rather than the people at that place of work, and I don;t approve of that.
You seem to think that everyone in the country would earn the same - false. Everyone at a workplace - yes
You really don't seem to see the same humanity that I see.

If a company was forced to pay unreasonably high wages to people who performed basic jobs in its factory, it would promptly find itself bankrupt. Then all those 20 workers you describe would starve because they were out of work.

Economics should be like everything else in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

But knowledge itself is merely derivative of labour - it either results from time dedicated to education or from the lessons of labour itself. Nothing happens at all if people don't put work in - you're not born with knowledge of how to do any practical task.

Of course, but technology derives from R+D work, not from thin air.

Now you are just trying to include work of the mind within the sphere of labor as if it could be set side by side with bricklaying.

Knowledge is a derivative of knowledge - of intelligently deployed logic power to most efficiently attain information. You could solve a math problem by using massive amounts of labor to try every combination of numbers possible, or you could go at it with a plan- and your progress will be reflected by the mental skills deployed, not the raw time and labor used. Labor is a necessary part, but like everything else, it is entirely limited by the scope and capability of the person's mind- the true driving force behind it.

Einstein indeed worked hard, but to say he dedicated raw labor only to his progress and that he wasn't a gifted human being would be silly. Or to say that the crippled Stephen Hawking is 'laboring' and that it isn't the use of his mind that guides his research would be absurd. You call the exploration of thought and science 'labor,' as if nothing save for the statistics of books read, thoughts explored, and hours spent are the governing forces of our advancement?

If it isn't the mind that distinguishes humans from other animals, but the labor we are capable of, there is no reason why we should be any different from elephants or monkeys or horses or all these other animals equally (or more) capable of labor that we are. The major and only difference is the capability of our minds to use what little labor talent we have (relative to the strength of an elephant or horse) to its maximum efficiency.

Even if the mind is a form a 'labor', you have to admit that this form of 'labor' is what brings value to all the other forms of labor and makes them possible, and that a society would be best interested in pursuing this type of 'labor' and most rewarding the people capable of it, so that they could benefit all other types of labor in a way they never ever could by investing in them alone.

There is more to be had by rewarding those true and more important sources of value, by driving the people of your society to pursue it (as capitalism naturally does), than there is to reward those who work at less efficient and less contributive ways, which you couldn't even do without the wealth produced by them to begin with. Imagine trying to guarantee a U.S.$6.50 minimum wage to those 10,000 naked savages, without any means of actually producing it.

Value is a matter of using the mind to reach the most efficient paths and processes, and it applies to everything from personal life to industry to intellegence to a game of checkers. Some author said (and I forget his name) "Natures crowning acheivement is the human brain." It is a remarkable and lucky thing to be as capable and gifted as humans are, and if we are to truly to recognize and utlize our gift we must live by a system that not discourages, but encourages the use of the mind. (I'm not saying that the U.S. is a perfect example of capitalism, it too has fallen victim to a conflict of interests and is not an accurate representative, as communists are so quick to point out with the USSR and China, etc.)

If our well being were truly sourced in only labor, it would be an interesting question, having to answer how we manage to be more productive than the like of elephants and horses (which are much stronger and more capable of labor than us). Ultimatley, I beleive a system claiming we are no different from them would end up putting us back among them.

the eastern bloc believes communism is the way to glory..
only through the power of all of us working together can we strengthen our country.

Now you are just trying to include work of the mind within the sphere of labor as if it could be set side by side with bricklaying.

Knowledge is a derivative of knowledge - of intelligently deployed logic power to most efficiently attain information. Knowledge and knowledge are actually quite similar

You could solve a math problem by using massive amounts of labor to try every combination of numbers possible, or you could go at it with a plan- and your progress will be reflected by the mental skills deployed, not the raw time and labor used. Labor is a necessary part, but like everything else, it is entirely limited by the scope and capability of the person's mind- the true driving force behind it. All labour is planned. You could make a pan by hammering at a piece of metal forever or by planning it - maths is no different.

Einstein indeed worked hard, but to say he dedicated raw labor only to his progress and that he wasn't a gifted human being would be silly. Or to say that the crippled Stephen Hawking is 'laboring' and that it isn't the use of his mind that guides his research would be absurd. You call the exploration of thought and science 'labor,' as if nothing save for the statistics of books read, thoughts explored, and hours spent are the governing forces of our advancement? I don't deny that they are special cases. But when we see capitalism as a whole (and Marx always speaks of average labour conditions) the effect is minimal.


If it isn't the mind that distinguishes humans from other animals, but the labor we are capable of, there is no reason why we should be any different from elephants or monkeys or horses or all these other animals equally (or more) capable of labor that we are. The major and only difference is the capability of our minds to use what little labor talent we have (relative to the strength of an elephant or horse) to its maximum efficiency.
Even if the mind is a form a 'labor', you have to admit that this form of 'labor' is what brings value to all the other forms of labor and makes them possible, and that a society would be best interested in pursuing this type of 'labor' and most rewarding the people capable of it, so that they could benefit all other types of labor in a way they never ever could by investing in them alone. Humans are set apart from animals by their ability to labour. Even Engels wrote a work on this. But your essential point seems to assume that the most intelligent are the biggest benefactors of capitalism, which is false.




Value is a matter of using the mind to reach the most efficient paths and processes, and it applies to everything from personal life to industry to intellegence to a game of checkers. Some author said (and I forget his name) "Natures crowning acheivement is the human brain." It is a remarkable and lucky thing to be as capable and gifted as humans are, and if we are to truly to recognize and utlize our gift we must live by a system that not discourages, but encourages the use of the mind. If our well being were truly sourced in only labor, it would be an interesting question, having to answer how we manage to be more productive than the like of elephants and horses (which are much stronger and more capable of labor than us). Ultimatley, I beleive a system claiming we are no different from them would end up putting us back among them. Even along your own argument (and rightly so) animals can't labour, since they don't have the mind or the dexterity. It is precisely the mind which gives us the ability to labour, and so a system which enshrines labour therefore recognises the difference of mind emphatically. But the difference between animal and human mind is hardly comparable to the difference between the mind of a working-class and middle-class person (which is minimal)

Knowledge and knowledge are actually quite similar
Doesn't prevent using it to fuel it's own advancement.

All labour is planned. You could make a pan by hammering at a piece of metal forever or by planning it - maths is no different.

So are you agreeing with me now or what? What would the labor be without the planning? Without the knowledge? Let us at least establish that labor is useless without being directed by thought and that the degree of complexity of thought determines the value of the labor. And also, as you seem to be in agreement with, knowledge is advanced, as other things are, through thought and knowledge.

I don't deny that they are special cases. But when we see capitalism as a whole (and Marx always speaks of average labour conditions) the effect is minimal.
I was using them as extremes of what is generally true. Even students are only capable of knowing by inheriting knowledge from the great contributions of our past (and when they have that knowledge, it's value is NOT equal to the labor they put into learning it, its equal to its practicality & usefulness in the real world.) And when they gain that knowledge it is gained by mental processes (which you can argue is labor, but I am more inclined to call this area thought.)

Humans are set apart from animals by their ability to labour. Even Engels wrote a work on this. But your essential point seems to assume that the most intelligent are the biggest benefactors of capitalism, which is false.

I'd like to know what you base that on. Thomas Edison created a fortune through his inventions. As did Ben Franklin, albeit more through establishing superior businesses (without any capital). And my superintendent at my school said that there is a correlation between intelligence and benefit, saying a study was done showing a (general) correlation between IQ and standing. And in general, most of the fortunes I can think of that have been made were made either through skill, ingenuity, outworking the competition, or even if none of those, meeting a need or interest of the market at a given time (and yes, manipulation of the markets through clever investing and passage of corrupt and corporate favoring laws gets some people there too, but I again blame corrupt special interests specific to our goverment and a structure that didn't look ahead to prevent it, not the economic system).

And would you be willing to argue that Harvard and Yale and MIT grads are no more likely to have a good paying job than any regular guy from a run of the mill community college. (If your response is "they only got into that college because they had enough capital to pay the tuition" -- that is a completley unrelated subject and even if true they still tend to make more money, regardless of what they spend to get in.) There is a (in many cases justified) stereotype of east Asians being skilled at math, and as a race they tend to be more well off than average Americans. Germany has some of the best education in the world, and are an economic force in Europe.

I'm not even using any special authors or books on this one, just common knowledge and common sense.

And even if that wasn't true, to say that intelligence DOESN'T contribute to one's benefit in capitalism in SOME degree (or in any society for that matter) is something I could never accept as true.


Even along your own argument (and rightly so) animals can't labour, since they don't have the mind or the dexterity. It is precisely the mind which gives us the ability to labour, and so a system which enshrines labour therefore recognises the difference of mind emphatically. But the difference between animal and human mind is hardly comparable to the difference between the mind of a working-class and middle-class person (which is minimal)
In general for animals I meant the type of 'labor' they live on in hunting and hiding from enemies and protecting their young, etc. but that's beside the point. Horses can labor in ways comparable to that of humans in some cases. But even that is of human direction, the example of knowledge being the source of valuable labor is everywhere.

Enshrining labor doesn't necissarily enshrine the mind, and I beleive can even stray us from properly enshrining the mind. Even with labor's indirect appreciation for the capability of the mind, that appreciation should not be given through labor, but straight to the works of the mind for setting us apart from animals and being the reason we are capable of our standard of living.

I was using animals to establish that there was indeed a difference in the value of labor, and that the difference is because of knowledge powering it. Monkeys even have our dexterity.. where are their laptops? Even in the 'small degrees' existing today, the difference is because of knowledge and it is certainly not uncommon that intelligence has a lot to do with one's class.

Even so, these differences are minimal because knowledge spreads itself through the population and the originators who produced the knowledge effectivley, by virtue of discovering their knowledge, add value to the society that everyone can benefit from it, (including themselves, and rightly so, what we pay thinkers compared to what they produce is a great bargain by any measurement), increasing the value of work done, the specific field of the knowledge, and the industry in general and raise the standard of living, infinitley and forever.

Now if you develop an economic system that cares about rewarding LABOR and not the thought that makes it possible, you will emphasize only labor, and everything which has made labor and improvement possible will slow in its expansion, effectivley damaging the capability of that labor (or at the least hindering it's expansion), and I think I have demonstrated repeatedly, as even you have conceded with our differences relative to animals and the reason for it, that knowledge is the source of increased value and an economic system that pushes for the advancement of THAT will do a better job of improving itself and maximizing productiving than one that doesn't.

(I appreciate the chance to have such an engaging discussion, btw..)

Because of what they're doing to our precious bodily fluids.

There must not be a mineshaft gap!!

There must not be a mineshaft gap!!
Gentlemen, you can't fight in the war room!

So are you agreeing with me now or what? What would the labor be without the planning? Without the knowledge? Let us at least establish that labor is useless without being directed by thought and that the degree of complexity of thought determines the value of the labor. And also, as you seem to be in agreement with, knowledge is advanced, as other things are, through thought and knowledge. I do agree with this - labour without planning is worthless. A socialist economy would certainly be directed by thought, and might remove a lot of the wastage in capitalism.


I'd like to know what you base that on. Thomas Edison created a fortune through his inventions. As did Ben Franklin, albeit more through establishing superior businesses (without any capital). And my superintendent at my school said that there is a correlation between intelligence and benefit, saying a study was done showing a (general) correlation between IQ and standing. And in general, most of the fortunes I can think of that have been made were made either through skill, ingenuity, outworking the competition, or even if none of those, meeting a need or interest of the market at a given time (and yes, manipulation of the markets through clever investing and passage of corrupt and corporate favoring laws gets some people there too, but I again blame corrupt special interests specific to our goverment and a structure that didn't look ahead to prevent it, not the economic system). And would you be willing to argue that Harvard and Yale and MIT grads are no more likely to have a good paying job than any regular guy from a run of the mill community college. (If your response is "they only got into that college because they had enough capital to pay the tuition" -- that is a completley unrelated subject and even if true they still tend to make more money, regardless of what they spend to get in.) There is a (in many cases justified) stereotype of east Asians being skilled at math, and as a race they tend to be more well off than average Americans. Germany has some of the best education in the world, and are an economic force in Europe.
Well, while you anticipated it, I certainly would make the point that market manipulation is unproductive yet reaps great benefits for individuals. I do accept that it's possible for the most intelligent to make a lot of money in capitalism, but the correlation can be weak.
A genius born in the Third World might never get the chance to express that because that country only offered manual labour jobs and offered no education. Even in the UK, a clever student who goes to a run-down comprehensive school will do less well than one who goes to a private one, and even if he displays ingenuity and skill, may find it hard to succeed in life.
While Harvard or MIT will produce grads who earn more, and have cleverer students, class certainly has an effect, and it's much easier for a wealthy student to get in to any university than a poor one of equivalent merit.


And even if that wasn't true, to say that intelligence DOESN'T contribute to one's benefit in capitalism in SOME degree (or in any society for that matter) is something I could never accept as true.
I agree it contributes to some degree. However, I read an interesting argument about this, which is if you look at any distribution curve of humans, whether of physical qualities such as height or mental abilities such as test scores and IQ, there tends to be a huge concentration of people in the middle, and very few at the extremes.
However, wealth is about the only exception, since factors such as interest, wealthy parents, reinvesting capital etc. massively exaggerate the differences. Therefore, in the UK, for example, according to the government the top 10% of people own 77% of all assets, and 54% of financial wealth - the top 1% owns 13% of financial wealth. The more intelligent do better, yes - but their advantage is unfairly exaggerated.
I don't agree with the cliche that in communism everyone would be and earn the same. When it comes to running a factory, it will be the most intelligent who are chosen as the foreman. The most capable will be put in charge of the state, not just those with most campaign funds. It's not about rigid 'sameness', but society organising itself to ensure that everyone's individual talents are harnessed to help society, removing wastage such as destroying the environment for short-term profit or allowing children to die of diseases that could be prevented.




Even so, these differences are minimal because knowledge spreads itself through the population and the originators who produced the knowledge effectivley, by virtue of discovering their knowledge, add value to the society that everyone can benefit from it, (including themselves, and rightly so, what we pay thinkers compared to what they produce is a great bargain by any measurement), increasing the value of work done, the specific field of the knowledge, and the industry in general and raise the standard of living, infinitley and forever.

Now if you develop an economic system that cares about rewarding LABOR and not the thought that makes it possible, you will emphasize only labor, and everything which has made labor and improvement possible will slow in its expansion, effectivley damaging the capability of that labor (or at the least hindering it's expansion), and I think I have demonstrated repeatedly, as even you have conceded with our differences relative to animals and the reason for it, that knowledge is the source of increased value and an economic system that pushes for the advancement of THAT will do a better job of improving itself and maximizing productiving than one that doesn't.


My problem with your argument is that, however great someone's idea is, it's never truly more than an extension of previous ones. For example, the car wouldn't have been invented without the invention of the internal combustion engine. I think we advance more through a generally well-educated society, nurturing ideas from everyone, than a select few who can get a decent education. Even Marx's work was merely part of the philosophy of his society - he reassessed Hegel, and developed the ideas of an Irish socialist whose name currently escapes me - but he cannot be credited alone.

Obviously the spreading of knowledge is immensely beneficial - but we see that the USA and EU do not, for example, help spread modern farming techniques to Africa (since it would create unwelcome competition for their own economies) and I think that this is very damaging. Capitalism and self-interest of the minority is not the best way to advance and improve production.

I also appreciate the chance to have such an engaging discussion.

Here's my problem with your argument Irish Workers, you want it both ways. Labor is glorious when it is done under communism, but exploitation under any other circumstance. If a guy comes up with the great idea that makes a factory successful, why should he earn no more than the rest of the employees? What motivation is there for innovation under your system? You say that under your ideal communism, there will be no state, but that each worker will voluntarily work under communist principles. What happens when the factory next door offers the best workers from the first factory more money? If there is no state to enforce your communist ideals, competition will quickly emerge, and the communist factories will fail.

If the workers voluntarily choose to work for a place and earn a wage that they find satisfactory, how is that exploitative? You seem to only be concerned that someone else, like the entreprenuer or inventor will make more than the worker who implements his idea through productive labor. But since the job wouldn't exist for the laborer without the risk undertaken by the inventor/entreprenuer, it seems fair that he should reap the greatest benefit. I do think it is easy to go get another job, or quit one you hate, or at least flook for another job while working at the crappy one. I've done all three.

Also, I didn't say that those who work the hardest will always earn the most. What I said was that if you want to earn a lot of money, and you focus your energy on that goal, you can do it. And in the process, you will inevitabley create jobs for others, so everyone wins. Mr. Hilton may not have turned down many sheets, but by working to build his hotel chain, he provided the means to a decent living for thousands of employees. If those people are happy working at that station in life, and they earn a wage they think is fair, great. If not, they can, like many others have done, use the opportunity as a stepping stone, they can save their money and gain experiense that can be applied to a better job.

I mentioned my mother and her story before. She never had a friend in the ruling class to hand her money. She earned and saved her money, by working hard, making wise investments and not spending excessively. Now she has the necessary capital to not only create a business that will pay her very well, but to provide good paying jobs to many people in Mexicali.

Some people have other goals and values than money, and for them a simple job that affords them a comfortable living is enough. If they find their reward in having liesure time, or enough money to get drunk every weekend, great, that's their choice. If they wish to work very hard in a low paying job because they feel the work is important or valuable to society or advances social justice, they have chosen to make that trade off. But, I assert that in Capitalism, if you really want to be rich, you are only a few years of hard work away from it.

You say that pure communism rejects the state. If that is the case, then you would have to accept that some people would make different choices about how to run their lives and economic affairs. If they diverged from communism, you'd have to accept that. To do otherwise would bring about the Stalinist oppression you say you abhor.

I don't hate Communism. Not at all.

because i work harder than everyone else and i want to get paid more for it

because i work harder than everyone else and i want to get paid more for it
How old are you?

Communism would wok beautifully without currency. As soon as you have a method of arbitrarily assigning a certain worth to labour or thought, then people will want EXACTLY the amount they are due, and no less. If everyone was willing to work for the good of all, then sure, it'd be great. People aren't like that, though. They're petty, greedy, and they cheat. That's why the USSR and China ended up Maoist rather than Marxist. Even then, the leaders of the revolution understood that people will not lead themselves fairly, and will seek to abuse the system for their own gain. So state-control is introduced, which goes against the very principals you espouse so solidly, Irish, and hence shows that your system cannot come to pass. If we were all ants, it could, but we're not.

How old are you?

phedophile!

because i work harder than everyone else and i want to get paid more for it


You do realize that no matter how hard you work, you only get a raise if you're lucky. . . Right?

You do realize that no matter how hard you work, you only get a raise if you're lucky. . . Right?


I;m talking about being an Entrapanuer.......is that how you spell it ?

Communism would wok beautifully without currency. As soon as you have a method of arbitrarily assigning a certain worth to labour or thought, then people will want EXACTLY the amount they are due, and no less. If everyone was willing to work for the good of all, then sure, it'd be great. People aren't like that, though. They're petty, greedy, and they cheat. That's why the USSR and China ended up Maoist rather than Marxist. Even then, the leaders of the revolution understood that people will not lead themselves fairly, and will seek to abuse the system for their own gain. So state-control is introduced, which goes against the very principals you espouse so solidly, Irish, and hence shows that your system cannot come to pass. If we were all ants, it could, but we're not.
Greed and selfishness are the plague of this world. People cheat and turn altruistic ideals into profit for themselves. They like capitalism because it looks like them : hypocrits. It's a system where you can cheat, fill your pocket and rape the poor and still talk like you were helping the world who want to be raped (according to you of course). And then they turn a blind eye at the alternative and they say it will fail and they'd rather keep cheating and raping in their failed system. But in the end they're just old fossils who refuse the change and they will be rolled over anyway.

I;m talking about being an Entrapanuer.......is that how you spell it ?
Entrepreneur.

Anyway if you want to get paid more, don't work, buy shares, the return is better.

Greed and selfishness are the plague of this world. People cheat and turn altruistic ideals into profit for themselves. They like capitalism because it looks like them : hypocrits. It's a system where you can cheat, fill your pocket and rape the poor and still talk like you were helping the world who want to be raped (according to you of course). And then they turn a blind eye at the alternative and they say it will fail and they'd rather keep cheating and raping in their failed system. But in the end they're just old fossils who refuse the change and they will be rolled over anyway.

One world...democide. Communist nations have a real problem with the value of human life, esspecially their own citizens.The answer is in a fine mix of socialist values mixed with capitalism.

Entrepreneur.

Anyway if you want to get paid more, don't work, buy shares, the return is better.

Hummmm, I could always buy shares in my own company.

Hate is an emotive term. I would prefer to say that I dislike, or disagree with, communism as it is based on philosophical fundamentals that I vehermently oppose. Communism is based on the good of the collective, whereas my philosophical system is based on the premise of the good of the individual, and the right of the liberated individual to determine for his or herself what is in their best interest. One of those elements is the individual's ability to determine the worth of something (in terms of individual effort to obtain that thing), and to create wealth based on fulfilling the desires of others based on how much they determine something is worth, which lends itself to basic private property rights (These are not absolute, of course, but I'm not going to get into a fully-fledged economic argument here). Communism: I don't hate it, just oppose what it is based on despite its supposed benefits.

Hummmm, I could always buy shares in my own company.
Lol. If it's YOUR company, you can sell shares, you don't buy them.

Communism is based on the good of the collective, whereas my philosophical system is based on the premise of the good of the individual, and the right of the liberated individual to determine for his or herself what is in their best interest.

But in a just society surely the freedom of any one individual should not be allowed to infinge upon the freedom of another?

One world...democide. Communist nations have a real problem with the value of human life, esspecially their own citizens.The answer is in a fine mix of socialist values mixed with capitalism.
In Cuba life expectancy is still better though.

I hate capitalism and admire the ideas behind Communism, but it's unworkable. As Pylos said:

People cheat and turn altruistic ideals into profit for themselves.

But that really just backs up my point. Communism is hopelessly vunerable to corruption. Sad but true.

Many people don't like communism b/c there are some nations that are militant communists who like to smite others who don't agree with their principles. This is not right, but I agree communism does have an unduly bad reputation...

You've gotta be kidding?! I lived under Communism for 25 years, and it actually has an undeservedly good reputation in the West. I mean, Communism is really just as bad as the Nazism, and its ideals are just as evil.

You've gotta be kidding?! I lived under Communism for 25 years, and it actually has an undeservedly good reputation in the West. I mean, Communism is really just as bad as the Nazism, and its ideals are just as evil.
Where did you live?

Communism in history did have its good work.

I hate capitalism and admire the ideas behind Communism

You must be either very misinformed or very evil. "The ideas behind Communism" are just as evil as the ideas behind Nazism. Communism is an intrinsically totalitarian ideology and even in theory relies on massive violence.

Where did you live?

The Evil Empire aka USSR.

Communism in history did have its good work.

Like 100+ million dead?! A billion and a half brutally opressed even now?!

You must be either very misinformed or very evil. "The ideas behind Communism" are just as evil as the ideas behind Nazism. Communism is an intrinsically totalitarian ideology and even in theory relies on massive violence.

Can you please point out where in 'The Communist Manifesto' Marx endorses violence?

And as has already been said time and time again in this discussion....you couldn't have lived in a communist society (as envisaged by Marx) because it has never been achieved. The USSR was founded on Marxist-Leninism - itself a pretty dodgy perversion of Marxism - and descended into corrupt tyranny that I'm sure Marx would not recognise as having anything to do with his vision.

I hate capitalism and admire the ideas behind Communism, but it's unworkable. As Pylos said:

People cheat and turn altruistic ideals into profit for themselves.

But that really just backs up my point. Communism is hopelessly vunerable to corruption. Sad but true.
Communism corrupts itself into timarchy and then into capitalism. The first communists revolutionaires are usually honest people fighting for high ideals but soon they are replaced by people fighting for honnor and then they get rolled over by people fighting for profit and power and then capitalism is back.

The Evil Empire aka USSR.
Where in the USSR?
Where do you live now?
How old are you?

You must be either very misinformed or very evil. "The ideas behind Communism" are just as evil as the ideas behind Nazism. Communism is an intrinsically totalitarian ideology and even in theory relies on massive violence.


Communism as Marx saw it wasn't totalitarian at all. Communism as Stalin perverted it was.

However, my point is that it is all too easy to pervert communism to such ends, and that is why I said it doesn't work. You aim for a Communist Utopia, and you end up with a Stailnist State-capitalist dictatorship.

Stalinism is only a step away from Fascism. Communism is intended to be the complete opposite.

Communism as Marx saw it wasn't totalitarian at all. Communism as Stalin perverted it was.

However, my point is that it is all too easy to pervert communism to such ends, and that is why I said it doesn't work. You aim for a Communist Utopia, and you end up with a Stailnist State-capitalist dictatorship.

Stalinism is only a step away from Fascism. Communism is intended to be the complete opposite.
Communism must not be seen as an achievable system. It is an ideal and it is the engine behind social progress. It could be a motto and a common goal we seek to achieve as a people. I should be used as a vision and small steps can be done over a long period of time, but what's most important in current times is to conservate what has been acquired with the blood of our ancestors and to keep focus on the future. The things we take for granted will never come back when we loose them. The minimum wages, the mandatory social education, the child labor ban, the 40 hours working week, the benefits for the unemployed ... That's something we must never accept to be scrapped or soon we will find ourselves working in gulags.

Communism would wok beautifully without currency. As soon as you have a method of arbitrarily assigning a certain worth to labour or thought, then people will want EXACTLY the amount they are due, and no less. If everyone was willing to work for the good of all, then sure, it'd be great. People aren't like that, though. They're petty, greedy, and they cheat. That's why the USSR and China ended up Maoist rather than Marxist. Even then, the leaders of the revolution understood that people will not lead themselves fairly, and will seek to abuse the system for their own gain. So state-control is introduced, which goes against the very principals you espouse so solidly, Irish, and hence shows that your system cannot come to pass. If we were all ants, it could, but we're not.

Thanks for the backup. :)

You do realize that no matter how hard you work, you only get a raise if you're lucky. . . Right?

Not really. But you do have to stand out and put more into the job than your peers. Oh, and ask graciously. It's not the easiest combination.

I have noticed a lot of hatred towards communists lately. Being a communist nation, I want to know why other nations hate communism.
Communism is a system of government in which people are entirely represented, classes (poor-middle-rich) are non-existent, pacifism is encouraged, education and health care are free for everyone, and freedom is valued. Why would anyone hate that system?
Mostly, people hate communism because they've been told to for so long and they're too fucking stupid to question what they've been told.

BUT...as good as it sounds on paper (or in a computer simulation), EVERY SINGLE real-world communist country has become more or less a hellhole with no respect for individual rights. Centralization of power happens every time, with ensuing corruption, and the leaders then decide that the violence phase continues until the whole world is communist.

The divide between rich and poor in the USSR made today's U.S. look closer to the actual communist ideal of equality.

But look here for an interesting branch:
http://www.nestormakhno.info/index.htm

Communism as Marx saw it wasn't totalitarian at all. Communism as Stalin perverted it was.

However, my point is that it is all too easy to pervert communism to such ends, and that is why I said it doesn't work.
But you need to understand why exactly it came about. The reason communism has been perverted because the revolution came from above, the party taking power 'on the workers' behalf'. In a genuine mass uprising which instituted a real democratic government and de-centralised workers' councils, communism could never be perverted in the same way. Only being accountable allows this.

Here's my problem with your argument Irish Workers, you want it both ways. Labor is glorious when it is done under communism, but exploitation under any other circumstance. If a guy comes up with the great idea that makes a factory successful, why should he earn no more than the rest of the employees? What motivation is there for innovation under your system? You say that under your ideal communism, there will be no state, but that each worker will voluntarily work under communist principles. What happens when the factory next door offers the best workers from the first factory more money? If there is no state to enforce your communist ideals, competition will quickly emerge, and the communist factories will fail. Offer them more money - it doesn't work like that. The means of production are controlled by the local community's worker's councils, so there'd be no competition between like business (there'd not be eight car factories and one farm). As for 'labour is glorious under communism, exploitation under any other circumstance' - I claim that workers are exploited under other circumstances, and think that if the working class could rule itself and set its own standards, it would be much better. I didn't say it would be 'glorious'.


But since the job wouldn't exist for the laborer without the risk undertaken by the inventor/entreprenuer, it seems fair that he should reap the greatest benefit. I do think it is easy to go get another job, or quit one you hate, or at least flook for another job while working at the crappy one. I've done all three.
Please read earlier posts where I outlined Marx's idea that workers are underpaid relative to the value they add to commodities by their labour. It's not voluntary, as not working and starving is no choice. Most people hate their work and think they're underpaid. I repeat, what kind of choice have kids in the third world made when they sit at a sewing machine for 14 hours a day? For most people in the world they can't just take up another job whenever - even Europe has over 10% unemployment. You don't seem to realise that most people do 'crappy jobs' since a society where everyone is an accountant wouldn't be a productive one.
I have also already described that the capital which an entrepreneur invests itself derives from capitalist exploitation


I mentioned my mother and her story before. She never had a friend in the ruling class to hand her money. She earned and saved her money, by working hard, making wise investments and not spending excessively. Now she has the necessary capital to not only create a business that will pay her very well, but to provide good paying jobs to many people in Mexicali.
So if everyone saved their money, they could all employ other people! Hooray! Oh, wait, they couldn't all be employers. Did your mother start out in a middle class family or did she work in a sweatshop as a kid? Thought so.


You say that pure communism rejects the state. If that is the case, then you would have to accept that some people would make different choices about how to run their lives and economic affairs. If they diverged from communism, you'd have to accept that. To do otherwise would bring about the Stalinist oppression you say you abhor. Well, they could diverge from communism if most people wanted, yes. The whole point of democracy is that it is unconditional. But since they wouldn't be allowed to employ other people and make capital (in communist society, after all), I wouldn't see why individuals would bother trying to break from society.

Hmm. My grandparents were Korean. When the Communists invaded, they rounded up the teachers in the village, tied their hands with barbed wire, and shot them in the head.

My grandparents were teachers. The Party man who made the announcement just before the shooting said that they were being executed because they were enemies of the Communist ideals.

So, I'm more than willing to hate them. And whatever they stand for.

Mostly, people hate communism because they've been told to for so long and they're too fucking stupid to question what they've been told.

BUT...as good as it sounds on paper (or in a computer simulation), EVERY SINGLE real-world communist country has become more or less a hellhole with no respect for individual rights. Centralization of power happens every time, with ensuing corruption, and the leaders then decide that the violence phase continues until the whole world is communist.

The divide between rich and poor in the USSR made today's U.S. look closer to the actual communist ideal of equality.

But look here for an interesting branch:
http://www.nestormakhno.info/index.htmToday's Russia is certainly worse than the USSR in the 60's.

Today's Russia is certainly worse then the USSR in the 60's.
That's because the economy was so totally destroyed by the Soviet Union over the years.

That's because the economy was so totally destroyed by the Soviet Union over the years.
Sure. A world superpower with full employment and a 100 years technological advance. When compared to Russia during the Tsars' time, I don't really see what they have destroyed.

Sure. A world superpower with full employment and a 100 years technological advance. When compared to Russia during the Tsars' time, I don't really see what they have destroyed.

At a terrible human cost, the Bolsheviks transformed Russia from a backward, agrarian society into an industrialised superpower capable of competing with the United States. That is undeniable.

Sure. A world superpower with full employment and a 100 years technological advance. When compared to Russia during the Tsars' time, I don't really see what they have destroyed.
They were able to compete with the US simply because of their vast numbers and vast territory and total disregard for safety, the environment, and quality of life.

I want to know why it was Communist policy (and don't tell me it wasn't because my grandparents were murdered as a result of that policy) to kill all the teachers and educated people whenever a Communist force defeated or occupied a non-Communist region?

What is it that they have against the educated? Why shoot them? Why make it a public spectacle? Why with such astonishing regularity across so many countries?

They were able to compete with the US simply because of their vast numbers and vast territory and total disregard for safety, the environment, and quality of life.Funny.
The environment, you mean like when you pollute and stuff? And about quality of life, what do you mean, is it about free time, holidays, security and stuff?

I want to know why it was Communist policy (and don't tell me it wasn't because my grandparents were murdered as a result of that policy) to kill all the teachers and educated people whenever a Communist force defeated or occupied a non-Communist region?

What is it that they have against the educated? Why shoot them? Why make it a public spectacle? Why with such astonishing regularity across so many countries?
It was in Korea, but I suppose it was because they were considered the voice of capitalist propaganda and had to be replaced by socialist teachers?

It was in Korea, but I suppose it was because they were considered the voice of capitalist propaganda and had to be replaced by socialist teachers?

I've heard the same thing directly from people in the Phillipines and Vietnam and Poland and the Ukraine. So it seems to be a really basic part of the strategy.

It especially comes into play when an area just seized may not fall permanently under their control - where re-education camps may be used and you'll only have to shoot those who aren't scared witless. If it's an area that may not hold, they shoot every education adult on the spot.

I've heard the same thing directly from people in the Phillipines and Vietnam and Poland and the Ukraine. So it seems to be a really basic part of the strategy.

It especially comes into play when an area just seized may not fall permanently under their control - where re-education camps may be used and you'll only have to shoot those who aren't scared witless. If it's an area that may not hold, they shoot every education adult on the spot.Actually there is no strategy book for that, but I suppose you hear more about spectacular events.
In France, the revolution was about human rights but you hear more about the guillotine than human rights.

Have been going through my Political Theory course notes and found a nice quote from our friend Karl....

"Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it" - Karl Marx

So please, one last time, can I make the point that no totalitarian regime of the 20th century was communist. Thankyou.

I want to know why it was Communist policy (and don't tell me it wasn't because my grandparents were murdered as a result of that policy) to kill all the teachers and educated people whenever a Communist force defeated or occupied a non-Communist region?

Anyone who tries to claim that mass-murder is endorsed by Marxist theory is wrong and anyone who tries to defend mass-murder is a lunatic.

Thats like saying white people are richer than other minorities; so no white people are poor.

Karl Marx wrotethat you need to overthrow the government in order to achieve what you need to.

Finally, how can a society advance, how can humans have more technology, reign in IQ, and just learn more in general, if you don't get anything out of it? If I were in a communist nation, I wouldn't go to college, etc because I know that no matter how much I learn, I wont become successful.

To quote Ronald Reagan "Communists read Marx and Lenin, Anti-Communists understand Marx and Lenin"

To quote Ronald Reagan "Communists read Marx and Lenin, Anti-Communists understand Marx and Lenin"

What ignorant bullsh*t I wonder how much Marx Reagan bothered to read. And I'm not even a Marxist - I just believe in reading stuff and making my own opinions rather than just agreeing with what it generally accepted.

communism is inferior to capitalism because it kills incentive for people to be the best they can be.... it's like if you were a kid in a school that had a "socialist" grading system and you got straight A's. they'd take half of your A's away and give them to kids who did not or cannot do as well as you. what does that do to your will to study hard and do well????? that's why communism is crap thank you

Communism sucks, ok. I'm sorry if you are a deluded idiot who believes that communism is the solution. But this is absolute truth. Communism will never come to power. Marx is wrong. Your ideals are held by a tiny minority of morons. You should shut up and get over the fact that your ideas are wrong.

communism is inferior to capitalism because it kills incentive for people to be the best they can be.... blah blah blah...
So how do you explain the successes of the students educated in a communist society then? Are you saying all Chinese students are "average"? Are you saying that the only decent engineers and scientists of the Soviet Union were spies who learned their trade under the Western system?

Seriously, I'm very interested to read your reply. No, really.

Your ideals are held by a tiny minority of morons.
Like the Chinese? :rolleyes:

What ignorant bullsh*t I wonder how much Marx Reagan bothered to read. And I'm not even a Marxist - I just believe in reading stuff and making my own opinions rather than just agreeing with what it generally accepted.
You'd be surprised...

jako, I've talked to too many first hand witnesses to the slaughter of educated people by communists.

too many can recount the speeches that were given as the victims were shot to death, or in some cases, hanged.

the ukrainian I talked to found the atrocities to be far worse than those inflicted by the Germans when they drove through.

Like the Chinese? :rolleyes:
Well, the Chinese government is held militantly instead of democraticly, so the world may never know

Well, the Chinese government is held militantly instead of democraticly, so the world may never know
No, I mean... all Chinese are morons? That was what the poster seemed to be implying with their reasoned argument. :rolleyes:

But in a just society surely the freedom of any one individual should not be allowed to infinge upon the freedom of another?

How does "not infinging upon freedom" fit in with banning private ownership and trade?

i was using the educational system as a fictitious EXAMPLE. i'm sure chinese and russian kids got to actually keep their own grades. i'm just saying if you know that you can work half as hard and still get the same rewards (food shelter etc) you aren't going to work as hard. period. and if everyone is doing their work in a half assed manner, nothing gets done. that's why there's so many communist success stories.

jako, I've talked to too many first hand witnesses to the slaughter of educated people by communists.

too many can recount the speeches that were given as the victims were shot to death, or in some cases, hanged.

the ukrainian I talked to found the atrocities to be far worse than those inflicted by the Germans when they drove through.

Of course it's happened and I am wholly sympathetic to your personal loss.

But I stand by my argument that whatever those murderers call themselves, they were not following the teachings of Karl Marx.

"The true revolutionary is always guided by feelings of love" - Che Guevara

The problem with Communism is that it, like any form or government, is administrated by people. As long as you have people in charge of other people, there will always be an enormous cost where personal freedoms are concerned. I feel that cost is just too much to pay.

i'm sure the great engineers and scientists of the USSR did great things because they were well taken care of by the government along with their families. that is called INCENTIVE. which the average joe did not have. and they had to work their butts off or else they'd have to farm along with the rest of the serfs.

The problem with Communism is that it, like any form or government, is administrated by people. As long as you have people in charge of other people, there will always be an enormous cost where personal freedoms are concerned. I feel that cost is just too much to pay.

Exactly. Government needs to leave us the hell alone. That includes letting us keep our property. And letting us earn whatever we're able to, not what they tell us to. Communism is a punch in the face to freedom.

Just talked to some Chinese people in the office here. They said that their parents and nearly all intellectuals in their village were shot during the Cultural Revolution. Nice Communist idea - shoot anyone who knows anything about the past. That's two people who were orphaned that I can talk to and ask about atrocities as the result of Communist policies.

Just talked to some Chinese people in the office here. They said that their parents and nearly all intellectuals in their village were shot during the Cultural Revolution. Nice Communist idea - shoot anyone who knows anything about the past. That's two people who were orphaned that I can talk to and ask about atrocities as the result of Communist policies.

Blaghhhhhh! Mao was a Marxist-LENINIST which was an authoritarian perversion of Marxist theory.

Blaghhhhhh! Mao was a Marxist-LENINIST which was an authoritarian perversion of Marxist theory.

Perversion or not, it's Communist, and you can't deny it.

How does "not infinging upon freedom" fit in with banning private ownership and trade?

Well, the idea is that collective ownership of the means of production has the result that nobody is exploited. The wealth of one man need not result in the poverty of another. And the whole idea that property ownership = freedom is just a bourgeois delusion.

Perversion or not, it's Communist, and you can't deny it.

It's a strand of socialist theory that people like me want nothing to do with. Just like the majority of right-wingers would not want to be associated with fascism.

Blaghhhhhh! Mao was a Marxist-LENINIST which was an authoritarian perversion of Marxist theory.

You guys really aren't convincing when you dismiss every communist failure as "not the proper thing".

One of your arguments against capitalism is that people like Bill Gates don't do much work. Oh yeah? Well Bill Gates is a GATESIST-CAPITALIST, so he doesn't count!

Well, the idea is that collective ownership of the means of production has the result that nobody is exploited. The wealth of one man need not result in the poverty of another. And the whole idea that property ownership = freedom is just a bourgeois delusion.

That's an appauling response. Can you honestly deny that ALLOWING somebody to do what they want with their property is a right?

The struggle of class against class is a *what* struggle?

People get killed in class struggle. Can't be avoided. So if you advocate overthrow of the ruling class, you're advocating violence, and very probably murder. Can't be avoided.

That's an appauling response. Can you honestly deny that ALLOWING somebody to do what they want with their property is a right?

I was telling you what a Marxist would say...to give you a Marxist response....because obviously you can't be arsed to read any of his works yourself and I don't want to have to copy and paste all of the Commie Manifesto

I was telling you what a Marxist would say...to give you a Marxist response....because obviously you can't be arsed to read any of his works yourself and I don't want to have to copy and paste all of the Commie Manifesto

I know all about the principles of communism. I was asking if YOU could accept Marx's ridiculous stance on private ownership.

Communism is a system of government in which people are entirely represented, classes (poor-middle-rich) are non-existent, pacifism is encouraged, education and health care are free for everyone, and freedom is valued. Why would anyone hate that system?

The essence of communism is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." As a person who possesses enough ability to take care of his needs and have extra I resent the idea that I should serve those who lack ability just because I possess ability. Communism demands that the individual exist not for his own sake, but for society's sake. I care nothing for society as a whole, only for certain individuals -- and I put myself first.

The struggle of class against class is a *what* struggle?

People get killed in class struggle. Can't be avoided. So if you advocate overthrow of the ruling class, you're advocating violence, and very probably murder. Can't be avoided.

Now see here Mr.Browning, what Marx said was that "all history hitherto is the history of class struggle".

It's not open, blatant violence. It's not the shooting of teachers. It's contested economic and political power struggles through the differing forms of the state. Once upon a time there was feudalism, and the class struggle was between the aristocracy and everyone else. Over the course of hundreds of years the bourgeoisie (the middle-class) were victorious over their feudal lords - bye bye monarchies, hello parliamentary democracies and liberal property ownsership. Sometimes this class struggle was manifested in violent revolution when feudalism refused to make way (i.e the English Civil War, the French Revolution, the American War of Independence). But on the whole it was a very gradual process.

Marx predicted that the next logical step in the class struggle would be between the now dominant bourgeoise and the next class down - the workers. He thought that industrialisation would make the workers' exploitation so obvious to them that they would soon join in a socialist revolution....but for various reasons that prediction was wrong.

People like Lenin and Mao saw themselves as leaders of the workers' revolution. Their movements would force the class struggle to become violent and immediate; overthrowing the bourgeoisie and welcoming the advent of a socialist state.

All I'm saying is that while Marx, Lenin, Mao etc were clearly wrong about proletarian revolution, it does not neccessarily mean that class struggle is non-existent and will not continue in the future.

I have noticed a lot of hatred towards communists lately. Being a communist nation, I want to know why other nations hate communism.
Communism is a system of government in which people are entirely represented, classes (poor-middle-rich) are non-existent, pacifism is encouraged, education and health care are free for everyone, and freedom is valued. Why would anyone hate that system?

I am also a Communist nation, and a Communist/Socialist in real life and I think the hatred of Communism in the world today is really two fold.

1. People are legitimately scared and repulsed by Soviet Communism; I am too, but most people either refuse or do not know how to differentiate between a very benign form of Marxist Communism which appeals to most of the working class, and the staunch excesses of Authoritarian Soviet Communism which is every bit as bad as Facist predatory Capitalism. No extreme is good. The task then becomes for those who profess to hate Communism to distinguish between Marx and Stalin.

2. Misinformation. The powers that be in the western world have done all they can to scare the living crap out of people when it comes to Communism...lies, exaggeration, and outright falsehoods have been used to convince the public that a bomb throwing commie hides behind every dark corner. The reason for this is ridiculously simple: Communism is just plain bad for big business and the elite; it empowers the worker and makes it harder to grind the underclass to death on the wheel, thats why they hate it. Plain and simple. And to those ends, the elites will tell you that Communists are coming to kill your family and crucify your cat if they think you'll believe it.

If you are a member of the working poor, educate yourself about Communism, and then we'll see how much you really hate it.

I would agree that the nature of the problem exists, but no one has a good solution.

Perhaps the assumption that people have intrinsic, moral worth is wrong.

I know all about the principles of communism. I was asking if YOU could accept Marx's ridiculous stance on private ownership.

I'm not sure. I'm quite well-off and so have interests in maintaining private property, but at the same time I am disgusted by the inequality of the world around me. If me being forced by the state to relinquish some of my property rights results ingreater social equality I am fine with that.

Both collective and private ownership have the advantages and disadvantages. I don't have an especially strong opinion - I've got an open mind about it. But I am very sceptical about whether private property is necessarily a sign of freedom and happiness.

If you are a member of the working poor, educate yourself about Communism, and then we'll see how much you really hate it.

I was one of the "working poor" all through college, and I was sickened when I read the works of Marx and Engels. Again, Communism demands that the individual serve the greater good. I say to Communism what I say to Fascism, American crony-capitalism (free market my ass!), and Religon of all kinds:

NON SERVIAM! I will not serve!

isn't private property a human right?
So is equal opportunity.....


And I think most people(Americans atleast) have a grudge against Soviets, not communism. But it was easier to blame a flawed political system, then a totalitarian leadership.

So is equal opportunity.....

By what standard? And does your right to "equal opportunity" outweigh my right to do as I see fit as long as I do not initiate force or deal with others by means of fraud or coercion?

Also, what about the difference between negative rights and positive rights?

I don't like communism because I don't want to give up the economic freedoms capitalism gives me.


Is it economic freedom when a corrupt CEO trashes a corporation, bails out with a fat golden parachute and avoids any prosecution or punishment while the workers in said corporation are left with no life savings, no jobs, no health care, etc etc?

Economic Freedom is only economic freedom to those high enough up the class ladder to weild it. THose in the lower classes are as economically free as the peasants of mideival times or the farmer/workers of stalinist USSR.

What you mean by economic freedom is economic greed. You don't want to give up the ability to buy anything you want without being reminded of the guy down the street that can't afford to take his kids to the hospital when they are sick or can't afford to "put food on his family" as a certain President might say.

It's the Achilles Heel of capitalism. It works fine for awhile but greed becomes part of the system. The push to comsume becomes part of the government's propaganda to prop up the system when it starts to fail (see post-9/11 urges to the people to "go shopping" when the debt of the average American was and is already at record levels)

Not saying communism is good either. It, like capitalism, looks great on paper but when you put actual people in charge of it the one consistent human trait kills it. Greed.