NationStates Jolt Archive

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

Meh... it's an ideology and religion, and as such dangerous. Not evil, just dangerous.

Yes, I cannot imagine anything more evil than a society based around cooperation.

Meh... it's an ideology and religion, and as such dangerous. Not evil, just dangerous.

Religion?

Yes, the vast majority of extremes suck. Communism is no different.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

Why?

Communism just means "you get what you paid for". If you worked hard paid your taxes, then the government will provide you with utilities and services - water, healthcare, etc. If you didn't, they won't. It's as simple as that.

There is no such thing as a truly evil ideology/philosophy/whatever, not even Satanism. Evil is, after all, only a subjective term.

Religion?

Some people have faith in it, without there being any evidence to base that faith on.

Some people have faith in it, without there being any evidence to base that faith on.

So all political philosophies are religions, now?

If you think that communism is evil, then you must also be open to the possibility that capitalism is evil. Either can result in suffering and death, the loss of freedom and the oppression of the majority at the hands of a minority.

On the other hand, both could potentially be very benificial, depending on the form and on the manner in which it is implemented.

Before Communism: "Bozhe, tsarya khrani" (God Save the Czar)
During Communism: The Internationale and The State Anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
After Communism: Russian pop music.

QED

So all political philosophies are religions, now?

Psychologically, many people treat them as such.

Psychologically, many people treat them as such.

So in your mind, hoping and aspiring towards a better future is "religious"?

It's not like democracy is perfect and uncorruptable.

What's wrong with communism, it's possible it could work with a decency. :confused:

Communism is not evil, even when thinking from a non moral-relavitist point of view. My only problem with classical marxist communism is the lumpenproteliriat (is that right?)

In the end communism actually becomes an anarchist society. It just has a lot more steps to reach the end result.

Regardless, whilst I don't actually like communism, anarchism or libertarianism I can respect the ones that actually are designed to try to increase the capabilities and quality of the entire population.

There are a fair amount of benefits to communism. Not enough thought was put into how to stop particulars of leninist-marxist communism from seizing power. That being said, Russia was a pretty bad place to start a communist place (due to very little processed resource capability and extreme hostility by the major powers of the day).

Why?

Communism just means "you get what you paid for". If you worked hard paid your taxes, then the government will provide you with utilities and services - water, healthcare, etc. If you didn't, they won't. It's as simple as that.

No, CAPITALISM is "you get what you "paid" for." In a communist society, everyone is equal. The doctor, the worker, my uncle who worked about two hours a week.

Before Communism: "Bozhe, tsarya khrani" (God Save the Czar)
During Communism: The Internationale and The State Anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
After Communism: Russian pop music.

QED
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to demonstrate here, but the Internationale is quite a cool piece of music.

It's s flawed political idea for dreamers with their heads in the clouds and psychotic nut cases alike, but I wouldn't go so far as calling the idea itself 'evil'.

practical "communism" = bad
ideological communism = good

will practical ever = ideological? maybe in the far off future...

is it evil? i don't think so. vastly less evil than the greed and lust for power that drives modern society in the west imo



edit: that said, its name has been used to do some truly evil things. as with many ideologies (christianity, nazism, islam, others i can't be bothered to think of)

is communism evil? no more so then capitolism.
i can only speak of the evils i know of, and the harm that makes them evil they have done.
other then to note in passing
every idiology is evil to some degree.
just like anything else that becomes an occasion for fanatacism.
it is actualy the fanatacism itself that is evil rather then the flavour of idiology any acutal government pays lip service to.
capitolism i have lived under, and i have seen it be less harmful when it was on a smaller and less fanatical scale.
perhapse every idology would work reasonably well on a small enough scale and well enough intigrated with at least two others.
fanatical corporcratic 'capitolism' has become a doomsday machine, destroying everything in its path, with no one in control, and no off switch.
eventualy it may eat something it will choke on. or simply expire of its own blindness. communism may have its own shortcommings.
both are ignorant of and indifferent to the simple reality of our utter and complete dependence on the web of life for the very air that we breathe.
the kind of socialized capitolism or capitolized socialism, as you will, that kept the trains running in europe from the 50s at least through the 80s worked and worked well. capitolism when it was mom and pop retailing and uniounised infrastructure worked reasonably well enough too. when fdr's 'socialism' and the post depression era's limitations on corporatocracy to prevent a repeat of it were still in place.
marx attempted to solve a puzzle to fill a real need. he left a piece or two out. the same pieces capitolism leaves out. but the need was real then and even more so now. a need created by idiological fanatacism rather then solved by it.

so it all depends by what you mean by communism.

i've heard everything that didn't kiss the ass of the circular illogic of little green pieces of paper CALLED communism.

is everying that is the abscence of one evil actualy another?

i'm affraid i don't find that proposition very convincing, whatever conditions may exist or have existed anyplace that paid lip service to its opposite.

=^^=
.../\...

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to demonstrate here, but the Internationale is quite a cool piece of music.I was going to leave it open to interpretation, and see what people assumed I meant. No one's biting. :(

But, I think it was mainly to show that the USSR had a cool national anthemn. I think Russia readopted the latter national anthemn in 2000.

No, CAPITALISM is "you get what you "paid" for." In a communist society, everyone is equal. The doctor, the worker, my uncle who worked about two hours a week.

A capitalist society doesn't mean you'll get shit for what you paid for. It means private interests control the economy, and they get to do what they want with their money. It means free enterprise.

And I have to hit the sack now. :( Goodnight.

So in your mind, hoping and aspiring towards a better future is "religious"?

Ritualising your philosophy, putting it in direct competition with traditional religions and using pseudo-religious jargon to promote your philosophy as happened in the former Sovjet Block is a way of turning it into religion.
I spent some years in what used to be Eastern Germany, and communism there was a religion or a substitute for religion for a very large part of the population there.

I was going to leave it open to interpretation, and see what people assumed I meant. No one's biting. :(

But, I think it was mainly to show that the USSR had a cool national anthemn. I think Russia readopted the latter national anthemn in 2000.
Come to think of it, there are a couple of good things about Russian pop music - Tatu. ;)

No, CAPITALISM is "you get what you "paid" for." In a communist society, everyone is equal. The doctor, the worker, my uncle who worked about two hours a week.

I'd like to see that capitalist society that actually fully compensates for the amount of work the individual puts in.
Mothers and housewifes, anyone?

It's s flawed political idea for dreamers with their heads in the clouds and psychotic nut cases alike, but I wouldn't go so far as calling the idea itself 'evil'.

Funny, I often think the same about capitalism.

Funny, I often think the same about capitalism.
In practice, capitalism seems to work a bit better than communism...

Psychologically, many people treat them as such.

Yep. That is one of the biggest problems - when people stop thinking and start believing.

In practice, capitalism seems to work a bit better than communism...

Until you fall on the wrong side of it.

I'd like to see that capitalist society that actually fully compensates for the amount of work the individual puts in.
Mothers and housewifes, anyone?

Hey, how does being a mother or housewife actually constitute WORK in terms of bettering and furthering society?

In practice, capitalism seems to work a bit better than communism...

That depends... some societies function better with more of the one, others with more of the other.
The only thing that we can say for sure is that NO society can function with only the one or the other.

Until you fall on the wrong side of it.

As opposed to communism, where you're always on the wrong side of it and liable to disappearing in the night.

Hey, how does being a mother or housewife actually constitute WORK in terms of bettering and furthering society?

Do it for a month, and then come back and ask again.

Until you fall on the wrong side of it.
Whereas everyone not in the Party is on the wrong side of communism. (in practice)
Hey, how does being a mother or housewife actually constitute WORK in terms of bettering and furthering society?
Oh dear.

As opposed to communism, where you're always on the wrong side of it and liable to disappearing in the night.

Oh, spot on! That's exactly what I think should happen!

:rolleyes:

As opposed to communism, where you're always on the wrong side of it and liable to disappearing in the night.

I think you're talking about totalitarianism here. Don't get the two mixed up, it's a very common mistake among the uninformed.

Hey, how does being a mother or housewife actually constitute WORK in terms of bettering and furthering society?

Indeed. Society would be stronger if children fended for themselves from birth.

Do it for a month, and then come back and ask again.

Again: how does being a mother or housewife better and further society? Who ASKED you have to kids or a family?

Well, since we all seem to be replying to Posi's post I got the impression that the context is communism in practice rather than as an idea, since he doesn't consider it wrong even though it may be flawed.

Again: how does being a mother or housewife better and further society? Who ASKED you have to kids or a family?

Society without children can't function for more than one generation. I would have thought that was obvious even to you :rolleyes:

Again: how does being a mother or housewife better and further society? Who ASKED you have to kids or a family?
Uh, yeah, it's not like the entire human race needs any children to survive or anything like that...

Also, last time I checked, you can't really choose not to have a family.

Whereas everyone not in the Party is on the wrong side of communism. (in practice)


But of course - by definition, in communism, there should be a monolithic party elite controlling all aspects of society.

Heh. You think all communists supported the policies of the bolsheviks and other such regimes? Plenty died standing against their taking power from the workers.

Hey, how does being a mother or housewife actually constitute WORK in terms of bettering and furthering society?Buh? Are you trolling or are you just ignorant?

I think you're talking about totalitarianism here. Don't get the two mixed up, it's a very common mistake among the uninformed.

Communism cannot exist without totalitarianism. In a pure communist society, there is no state, so who runs society? They could institute a government. But first of all, that would contradict communist ideals. Second, this HAS to be a totalitarian government, because when democracy meets communism, one the candidates ends up being a guy who would prefer not to line up for toilet paper.

Society without children can't function for more than one generation. I would have thought that was obvious even to you :rolleyes:

Plenty of people die childless. If you want to have children, fine, but it's not a real job.

But of course - by definition, in communism, there should be a monolithic party elite controlling all aspects of society.

Heh. You think all communists supported the policies of the bolsheviks and other such regimes? Plenty died standing against their taking power from the workers.
Which is inherently contradictory to freedom, isn't it?

Why do you hate freedom? :p

Plenty of people die childless. If you want to have children, fine, but it's not a real job.
:headbang:

Plenty of people are not doctors. Therefore, being a doctor is not a real job and society could function without them. :rolleyes:

most of you seem to be lacking information on this subject.

whether or not communism is evil is completely individual, and as such unimportant.
communism is an ideology based on sharing goods properly and equally among everyone, to put it extremely simply.

however, what you've been taught is communism is not communism. Stalin was never a communist, he was a Stalinist. The Stalinist communist society was based on fear, and was effectively completely nondemocratic. noone had any rights, and the government was controlled by stalin himself. this is not communism.
What pretty much happened was Stalin took over after Lenin died and fucked everything up big time.

if you want to know what communism is you should read up on Lenin, perhaps some Trotskij, too. Forget the USSR or China, they are not communist countries in a ideological sense, they have just corrupted the meaning of ideological communism.

On a side note, my opinion is communism would never work in societies containing more than 150-200 people who are closely knit together, not in states with several million people.
The only free way to live is in a world where radical individualism works well, and all modern technology is gone. i want to fuck my woman, kill my deer with a bow, and raise a family.

Which is inherently contradictory to freedom, isn't it?

Why do you hate freedom? :p

You do realise I was being sarcastic?

Ritualising your philosophy, putting it in direct competition with traditional religions and using pseudo-religious jargon to promote your philosophy as happened in the former Sovjet Block is a way of turning it into religion.
I spent some years in what used to be Eastern Germany, and communism there was a religion or a substitute for religion for a very large part of the population there.

Well that is not communism. Communism itself was designed from a more material world inquiry than supernatural thinking.

Communism cannot exist without totalitarianism. In a pure communist society, there is no state, so who runs society? They could institute a government. But first of all, that would contradict communist ideals. Second, this HAS to be a totalitarian government, because when democracy meets communism, one the candidates ends up being a guy who would prefer not to line up for toilet paper.

I would suggest you read this (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=165453) when you have the time, and before making yourself look even more uninformed here.
A government does not contradict communist ideals, nor does democracy. The idea of democracy is the basic idea of communism, projected not just on the political entities but on society on the whole.

You do realise I was being sarcastic?
um... *flees*

Again, in practice, were there any communist regimes ever where everyone not in the Party was screwed over for the benefit of its members? (possibly Cuba, since I don't know enough about it)

Well that is not communism. Communism itself was designed from a more material world inquiry than supernatural thinking.

That's true, and I didn't mean to claim that it was religious in its beginings. But it did turn into a religion or pseudo-religion for a good part of humanity over the years

I would suggest you read this (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=165453) when you have the time, and before making yourself look even more uninformed here.
A government does not contradict communist ideals, nor does democracy. The idea of democracy is the basic idea of communism, projected not just on the political entities but on society on the whole.

Nope. A government contradicts communist ideals. When true communism is achieved, the state is to fade away, and everyone lives in perfect harmony and equality.

Plenty of people die childless. If you want to have children, fine, but it's not a real job.

Nobody said anything about a job.
It's voluntary, but it is work. And awful lot of work. And work of which society directly profits, without recompensating the worker.

Nope. A government contradicts communist ideals. When true communism is achieve, the state is to fade away, and everyone lives in perfect harmony and equality.

And that's undemocratic how? :confused:

It's s flawed political idea for dreamers with their heads in the clouds and psychotic nut cases alike, but I wouldn't go so far as calling the idea itself 'evil'.

not entirely untrue of course. the misleading little detail not mentioned in this,
is that it is EQUALLY true of EVERY idiology.

the contribution, or potential contribution of mothering to society is entirely another subject but it is, if anything, the very foundation of continuation of cultural values.

likewise the cleaning of one's dwelling place, to prevent colonization by disease vectors, reguardless of gender, merital status, or whatever one does or does not otherwise do in one's life.

=^^=
.../\...

there never be true communism

Well, DUH. The closest we can get is socialism. And that worked out fucking well, didn't it?

Buh? Are you trolling or are you just ignorant?

i say both

And that's undemocratic how? :confused:

It takes a government to have a democratic government.

there never be true communism

That's the one big problem with communism and capitalism, and the one reason why neither can exist alone ;)

They both assume that human beings are responsible, intelligent, and not fundamentally egoistical.

It takes a government to have a democratic government.

It doesn't take a government to have democracy.
It takes a government to have a totalitarian regime, though.

You do realise that you just refuted your own argument, do you?

um... *flees*

Again, in practice, were there any communist regimes ever where everyone not in the Party was screwed over for the benefit of its members? (possibly Cuba, since I don't know enough about it)

Regimes? No. But I don't support the Marxist method anyway. You can discredit the bureaucratic systems all you like and it doesn't faze me since I never claimed to be a supporter of them. If you want to attack communism, attack it on its real basis - attack societies that have employed on a practical basis the concept of worker self-management and failed miserably without any outside intervention.

Go on.

Nope. A government contradicts communist ideals. When true communism is achieve, the state is to fade away, and everyone lives in perfect harmony and equality.
there never be true communism

It doesn't take a government to have democracy.
It takes a government to have a totalitarian regime, though.

You do realise that you just refuted your own argument, do you?

In communism, there is no state. The people are supposed to be leaderless, just sort of... KNOW what to do.

That's the one big problem with communism and capitalism, and the one reason why neither can exist alone ;)

They both assume that human beings are responsible, intelligent, and not fundamentally egoistical.

that they do

In communism, there is no state. The people are supposed to be leaderless, just sort of... KNOW what to do.

that bull shit
the party run the state, the armed forces served the state

In communism, there is no state. The people are supposed to be leaderless, just sort of... KNOW what to do.

Yes. As I just said, you successfully disproved your own point that communism would be equal to a totalitarian state and government.

Communism itself cannot be good or evil, but the attempts to implement it anywhere larger than a small commune are. Sharing is a good thing. Sharing at the point of a gun is an evil thing.

Well, DUH. The closest we can get is socialism. And that worked out fucking well, didn't it?
Scandinavia seems to do reasonably well.

Regimes? No. But I don't support the Marxist method anyway. You can discredit the bureaucratic systems all you like and it doesn't faze me since I never claimed to be a supporter of them. If you want to attack communism, attack it on its real basis - attack societies that have employed on a practical basis the concept of worker self-management and failed miserably without any outside intervention.

Go on.
I'm attacking communism on its practical basis, not its ideological basis. Although I may not agree with it, I don't have a problem with communism as an ideology, but I don't believe it can work without disastrous side effects.

That's true, and I didn't mean to claim that it was religious in its beginings. But it did turn into a religion or pseudo-religion for a good part of humanity over the years

Ahh, but that is not the fault of the ideology itself (or even the people that believeit, since most of the time it was propaganda) it is the fault of the soviet elites that propped up those people and allowed them to form a cult of personality around themselves.

Nope. A government contradicts communist ideals. When true communism is achieved, the state is to fade away, and everyone lives in perfect harmony and equality.

Actually a State contradicts the final result of communism. The anarcho-communist group functions more like a society wide council with everyone agreeing to policies that have been discussed (AFAIK).

Well, DUH. The closest we can get is socialism. And that worked out fucking well, didn't it?

Here I thought that Democratic socialism was going well, oh well :rolleyes:

That's the one big problem with communism and capitalism, and the one reason why neither can exist alone ;)

They both assume that human beings are responsible, intelligent, and not fundamentally egoistical.

That is the truth. Also a reason that it is so easy for freedom of information being ignored/subverted.

However with capatilism (modern big industry flavour) it is more relying on the fact that humans are egotistical and greedy.

Regimes? No. But I don't support the Marxist method anyway. You can discredit the bureaucratic systems all you like and it doesn't faze me since I never claimed to be a supporter of them. If you want to attack communism, attack it on its real basis - attack societies that have employed on a practical basis the concept of worker self-management and failed miserably without any outside intervention.

What is your opinion of co-gestion?

Argh, I can tell that this is going to turn into one of those gigantic threads where two or three people end up sustaining the argument for the last 40 pages.

Here I thought that Democratic socialism was going well, oh well :rolleyes:


so was i

that bull shit
the party run the state, the armed forces served the state

That reminds me of a (now capitalist in communist's clothing) PRC quote:

Our Principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

Argh, I can tell that this is going to turn into one of those gigantic threads where two or three people end up sustaining the argument for the last 40 pages.

Isn't that the best kind? It not only becomes more personal but it amuses all who do not actually participate.

I'm attacking communism on its practical basis, not its ideological basis. Although I may not agree with it, I don't have a problem with communism as an ideology, but I don't believe it can work without disastrous side effects.

Uh-huh, but see, i'm talking about the practical basis. The Soviet Union and the like did not allow the workers self-management. Dedicated communists within the Soviet Union stood against the policies of the Bolsheviks on this regard and paid for it in blood.

And just like back then, there are plenty of communists today who don't see the Soviet Union as the correct path a socialist revolution should take. Nobody has yet to conclusively prove that a truly participatory economy cannot work - if you want to try, you're free to point out examples right now.

But in my opinion, to blame the Soviet Union upon the ideologies of socialism or communism is akin to saying that democratic republicanism cannot last because Napoleon usurped the French Revolution (and many at the time did say exactly that).

What is your opinion of co-gestion?

In our current economic system? Well...in all decisions where employees and owners of capital must negotiate, those with money either already has the upper hand, or can manipulate external authorities to give it one (and you will note, with the current IR reforms in Australia, the government being consistently on the side of business is something that can be relied upon more often than not). Particularly if the workers are in a situation whereby they can easily be replaced.

That is the truth. Also a reason that it is so easy for freedom of information being ignored/subverted.

However with capatilism (modern big industry flavour) it is more relying on the fact that humans are egotistical and greedy.


Not entirely.. while there is no written theory of capitalism (that I know of, that is ;)), capitalism in its purest form would mean government only for external affairs, leaving all social welfare, environmental protection, medical care, schools and education, etc. up to the individuals and the private companies. And guess how well that works without a bit of socialism thrown in ;)

In our current economic system? Well...in all decisions where employees and owners of capital must negotiate, those with money either already has the upper hand, or can manipulate external authorities to give it one (and you will note, with the current IR reforms in Australia, the government being consistently on the side of business is something that can be relied upon more often than not). Particularly if the workers are in a situation whereby they can easily be replaced.

I think we should all follow Italy's example where it's illegal to sack workers just because they are on strike.

Uh-huh, but see, i'm talking about the practical basis. The Soviet Union and the like did not allow the workers self-management. Dedicated communists within the Soviet Union stood against the policies of the Bolsheviks on this regard and paid for it in blood.

And just like back then, there are plenty of communists today who don't see the Soviet Union as the correct path a socialist revolution should take. Nobody has yet to conclusively prove that a truly participatory economy cannot work - if you want to try, you're free to point out examples right now.

But in my opinion, to blame the Soviet Union upon the ideologies of socialism or communism is akin to saying that democratic republicanism cannot last because Napoleon usurped the French Revolution (and many at the time did say exactly that).

A truly participatory economy could very well work. The problem is that it hasn't really been implemented and that it's unlikely to be, IMO. The problem with communism.

Except that all communist states in existence are miserable failures (and generally were from their early stages): democratic republics are not.

That reminds me of a (now capitalist in communist's clothing) PRC quote:

Our Principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

ar has a point

I think you're talking about totalitarianism here. Don't get the two mixed up, it's a very common mistake among the uninformed.

QFT! go cabra!! :D :p

communism is like the most positive ideology ever how can it possibley be evil?...its jst people like stalin who gave it a bad name by claiming to be marxists when they weren't at all

snip
Unless they involve flaming, how can you find those amusing? The posts tend to be a page long and incomprehensible unless you read the previous ten pages.

Except that all communist states in existence are miserable failures (and generally were from their early stages): democratic republics are not.

The main reason that communist states failed (as far as I can see) is because of a) they were created/organised by the soviet union and like many of the U.S.A's interventions against the soviet union (the 1970's-80's ones) they were not there to make a communist area, just a satellite state. Hence they had a tendency to go belly-up.

The main reason that communist states failed (as far as I can see) is because of a) they were created/organised by the soviet union and like many of the U.S.A's interventions against the soviet union (the 1970's-80's ones) they were not there to make a communist area, just a satellite state. Hence they had a tendency to go belly-up.
China? NK?

A truly participatory economy could very well work. The problem is that it hasn't really been implemented and that it's unlikely to be, IMO. The problem with communism.

That's all very well and good, but you haven't really explained why. It's easy to say "Communism will never work" and point to the Soviet Union. But that doesn't really explain why a participatory economy cannot come into being, and why all socialist societies will go the way of the USSR.

Except that all communist states in existence are miserable failures (and generally were from their early stages): democratic republics are not.

My point is that two hundred years ago, Revolutionary France "proved" that democracy would fail, unless it was on a small scale...say, in a colonial society like America...but it would never happen in a high population, developed world power like France or Britain.

Yes. As I just said, you successfully disproved your own point that communism would be equal to a totalitarian state and government.

No, my point was that a leaderless, stateless communist society will never happen, and in order to prevent the people from just reverting back to bartering, and then to capitalism, a totalitarian state is required.

That's all very well and good, but you haven't really explained why. It's easy to say "Communism will never work" and point to the Soviet Union. But that doesn't really explain why a participatory economy cannot come into being, and why all socialist societies will go the way of the USSR.



My point is that wo hundred years ago, Revolutionary France "proved" that democracy would fail, unless it was on a small scale...say, in a colonial society like America...but it would never happen in a high population, developed world power like France or Britain.
Because people are greedy bastards?

Because people are greedy bastards?

I don't think of myself as such.

You've managed to take revolutionary France and miss the point entirely.

Uh-huh. How so?

No, my point was that a leaderless, stateless communist society will never happen, and in order to prevent the people from just reverting back to bartering, and then to capitalism, a totalitarian state is required.

Ah, you see, grashopper, there's the flaw in both the concept of communism and capitalism. Both assume that human beings are rational, intelligent, and not ruthlessly selfish. One assumes that they'll see what needs to be done and do it without expecting special recognition, the other assumes that people will not need social services as they will take care of each other naturally.
Neither work in pure form, as human beings are not rational, their intelligence is limited, but their selfishness isn't.

My point is that two hundred years ago, Revolutionary France "proved" that democracy would fail, unless it was on a small scale...say, in a colonial society like America...but it would never happen in a high population, developed world power like France or Britain.

You've managed to take revolutionary France and miss the point entirely.

No, it's not evil.

People are evil.

Communism on a large scale is just a pipe dream, and relatively stupid.

China? NK?

Well, NK will change, either just after Kim Jong-Il is dead or during his successor's reign.

China has changed into a new capitalist state.

I also said during the 1970's and 80's which seemed to be a time when both the U.S.S.R and U.S.A seemed to be a lot more shady and unethical on how they got countries to follow them.

I am not a communist but I wouldn't call it evil. Evil is just such an ambiguous and childish word.

Rev France was never a complete democracy. At best, only a small subset of the population (male, over a certain age, must be a landowner, so that rules out the bulk of the population) could vote, at worst, it was a Jacobin terror dictatorship.

Which is why it was thought that democracy could never work.
Russia was never completely communist, either. It turned out a Bolshevic terror dictatorship...

Uh-huh. How so?

Rev France was never a complete democracy. At best, only a small subset of the population (male, over a certain age, must be a landowner, so that rules out the bulk of the population) could vote, at worst, it was a Jacobin terror dictatorship.

*Massive snippity*

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of an autogestion kind of setup except they are partners with the state (the state as a semi-stockholder). The people at the company would be the joint capital owners.

The state would leave them alone for the most part but there would be some regulations and rules on how people are put in the upp echelons of the company (such as required degrees so that someone with no knowlege of the field they will be running will be elected).

I agree, those IR 'reforms' are complete tripe. Damn Liberal (*cough* conservative *cough*) Party.

Too bad the only large scale socialist uni lot are the Socialists Alternative (Marxist).

Unless they involve flaming, how can you find those amusing? The posts tend to be a page long and incomprehensible unless you read the previous ten pages.

Yes, I am sad to say I find it funny when people start to make it personal.

I am such a bad human.

No, it's not evil.
People are evil.

Even people are not evil unless they are seen by themselves as evil.

Communism on a large scale is just a pipe dream, and relatively stupid.

just like libertarianism.

Rev France was never a complete democracy. At best, only a small subset of the population (male, over a certain age, must be a landowner, so that rules out the bulk of the population) could vote, at worst, it was a Jacobin terror dictatorship.

Yes, it stands up poorly to modern democracies, as you would expect. However it was a republic and was nevertheless used as a critique of democratic republicanism at that time.

Which is why it was thought that democracy could never work.
Russia was never completely communist, either. It turned out a Bolshevic terror dictatorship...

Correct, hence my comparison.

Rev France was never a complete democracy. At best, only a small subset of the population (male, over a certain age, must be a landowner, so that rules out the bulk of the population) could vote, at worst, it was a Jacobin terror dictatorship.

Some U.S.A states do not allow people who have been in prison to cast a vote. Doesn't that mean the U.S.A is not completely democratic?

Universal sufferage is a relatively recent developement in democratic elections.

Which is why it was thought that democracy could never work.
Russia was never completely communist, either. It turned out a Bolshevic terror dictatorship...

Democracy is an end unto itself. Russia was socialist, as a stepping stone to communism.

Communism is a thorougly evil ideology.

Its founders Marx and Engels made it abundantly clear that once in power, all those not part of the proletariat would be mercilessly dealt with. Entire nations were supposed to disappear because of their 'inferiority'. Entire 'classes' were to be wiped out.

Lenin invented state sponsored terror on the scale we know it of the 20th century. He advocated hanging 100 kulaks (landowners) every time there was a disturbance.

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of an autogestion kind of setup except they are partners with the state (the state as a semi-stockholder). The people at the company would be the joint capital owners.

The state would leave them alone for the most part but there would be some regulations and rules on how people are put in the upp echelons of the company (such as required degrees so that someone with no knowlege of the field they will be running will be elected).

I suppose it would be an improvement, but I can't see the upper echelons accepting it.


Too bad the only large scale socialist uni lot are the Socialists Alternative (Marxist).

Too bad indeed (apologies if you are a member, I guess they're not so bad individually). What uni are you at?

Some U.S.A states do not allow people who have been in prison to cast a vote. Doesn't that mean the U.S.A is not completely democratic?

Yep.

Universal sufferage is a relatively recent developement in democratic elections.

And it's the only way. Unless every single being is allowed to vote, it's not true democracy.

And yes, I'm aware of the fact that minors can't vote. There will never be true democracy. This is about as close as we can get.

I believe there is a severe misconception about Communism and what it entails on this board. Severe, because many here fail to understand what Communism actually is and why the countries that you called Communist (i.e., The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR), the "People's Republic" of China, and the "Democratic People's Republic" of Korea) were never really Communist at all, or were in a socialist transition period to Communism, as they claimed they were.

Communism is essentially about everyone being in control of things that allow us to make the clothes we wear, the computers that we use, the nail polishes that we paint our nails with, the pens that we use to write upon and the paper that we use the pens upon. At this point in time, the majority of workers in both the industrialized and non-industrialized world do not control these means of making things. It is either the state, as in the Soviet Union or China, or a small number of rich families, as in the United States and the rest of the industrialized and non -industrialized world.

Because the heart of Communism is the idea that everyone should be in control, not the Capitalists, by default, it actually requires that a direct form of democracy (i.e., popular assemblies) has to be in place to allow the population properly administrate the political and social aspects of a society that is truly Communist.

You may say that Communists are therefore dreamers, but that does not negate a need for a society that is truly democratic in every aspect of life. Communism has a individualistic element, not just a social element, and the idea of Communism is meant to empower humanity and the individual through the abolition of private property, not hold it back with copyrights and laws that makes a fetish out of separating humans from each other through classes.

That never existed in the Soviet Union, except during the period of 1917-1921, when the soviets controlled the farms and the factories, that is, until Lenin and the "Bolsheviks" centralized power and took over the means of production from the workers and farmers. And also, another reason why the USSR did not become Capitalist is because it was a revolution in a underdeveloped country. If you want to be absolutely strict about this, Communist revolution has to happen in a industrialized country first.

And also, when we are looking at classes, we can not look at income, because income does not accurately depict where the real division between labor and Capital lies. It is only when you look at the relationship of the human to the means of production that you are able to see what is actually going. As I said on the Lyras thread, Capitalists and small Capitalists exist because they control the factories and the workplaces. Workers exist because they are the ones who have to work, because if they do not work, they won't get money from the bosses, and if they do not get money from the bosses, then they can not pay the bills and the rent, and they can not pay the bills and the rent, they will end up homeless.

There is no "low-income class". there is no "middle class". There is no "upper middle class". There is no "upper class." There is a Working class. There is a small Capitalist class and there is a Capitalist class.

Since the working class is the majority, according to the theory of Communism, it is the working class that would abolish all classes and private property in favor of true classlessness and social property; that means that everyone owns the land that you live upon and the means of production; that does not mean that they will own your personal affects or so on.

Democracy is an end unto itself. Russia was socialist, as a stepping stone to communism.Why is democracy a good end?

I'm tempted to pull a Godwin and put up pictures of the Reichstag and the Enabling Act.

Communism is a thorougly evil ideology.

Its founders Marx and Engels made it abundantly clear that once in power, all those not part of the proletariat would be mercilessly dealt with. Entire nations were supposed to disappear because of their 'inferiority'. Entire 'classes' were to be wiped out.

Marx and Engels did not speak of mass killings of other classes, they simply said they would disappear under communism.
Entire nations were not supposed to be wiped out. The nation itself was supposed to disappear as a result of international socialism uniting the working classes of all nations.

Lenin invented state sponsored terror on the scale we know it of the 20th century. He advocated hanging 100 kulaks (landowners) every time there was a disturbance.

Indeed, Vladimir Illych was not a very nice man. That was a local measure that you're talking about there, though, not a nationwide one (not that that makes it any less brutal). Lenin was in any case not really a pure Marxist; though he concealed it under Marxist dialectics, he was also heavily influenced by the Russian agrarian social-terrorist tradition, and some less left-wing thinkers including Machiavelli.

I suppose it would be an improvement, but I can't see the upper echelons accepting it.

Too bad indeed (apologies if you are a member, I guess they're not so bad individually). What uni are you at?

No apologies needed, not a marxist. I go to La Trobe University. Most of the SA that are there don't seem too well read on many socialist policies.

The point of the -gestion things is to allow the workers (in this case all members of that company) a say in how it is run; to try to break the stranglehold of power by executives/managers.

The only problem that I could see is that the state would need greater transparency in order to prevent corrupt practices (though for the most part they would allow the company to do its thing).

The entire company workforce would also act partially as a stockholder so that the people in power would be elected on not only how the company's capability is stable as well.

Only real question is how much company profit would be used by the government and how much would go as bonuses to all members (I would like a 60/40 or 20/80 relationship.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

Socialism is well-meaning but naive. Communism is evil.

Marx and Engels did not speak of mass killings of other classes, they simply said they would disappear under communism.
Entire nations were not supposed to be wiped out. The nation itself was supposed to disappear as a result of international socialism uniting the working classes of all nations.



Indeed, Vladimir Illych was not a very nice man. That was a local measure that you're talking about there, though, not a nationwide one (not that that makes it any less brutal). Lenin was in any case not really a pure Marxist; though he concealed it under Marxist dialectics, he was also heavily influenced by the Russian agrarian social-terrorist tradition, and some less left-wing thinkers including Machiavelli.

Exactly. The marxism of Russia failed due to it being a very hostile environment for anything but ruthless, uncontrolled authoritarianism.

Marx & Engels primary bad thing with their ideology was the lumpenproteleriat (the poor). Whilst not regarded as a class that was bad to the working class they were regarded as inferior.

Why is democracy a good end?

I'm tempted to pull a Godwin and put up pictures of the Reichstag and the Enabling Act.

Please don't, I like this topic (not much flaming) so it'd be nice for it not to have a premature death.

Socialism is well-meaning but naive. Communism is evil.

Please, no more moral absolutes.

Socialism is not naive for most forms currently in practice.

Democracy is an end unto itself. Russia was socialist, as a stepping stone to communism.

Is it? Total supression of all minorities in favour of the voting majority is something you'd strive for?

I wouldn't, but then I'm not striving for either communism nor capitalism, either. Extremes are for idiots.

Is it? Total supression of all minorities in favour of the voting majority is something you'd strive for?

I wouldn't, but then I'm not striving for either communism nor capitalism, either. Extremes are for idiots.
Capitalism isn't an extreme, isn't the extreme anarcho-capitalism?

Capitalism isn't an extreme, isn't the extreme anarcho-capitalism?

Capitalism in it's pure form (meaning a society with government onlt responsible for punishment and foreign affairs) is extreme, I think.

Capitalism in it's pure form (meaning a society with government onlt responsible for punishment and foreign affairs) is extreme, I think.
Certainly, but in context, when people say 'capitalism' it usually doesn't refer to it in its purest form. (right? right?)

Capitalism isn't an extreme, isn't the extreme anarcho-capitalism?

Capitalism in it's pure form (meaning a society with government onlt responsible for punishment and foreign affairs) is extreme, I think.

I'd have to agree that anarcho-capitalism would be the more 'pure' form of capitalism; A capitalist libertarian goverment would still have some effect (due to foreign policy and such) yet even with a libertarian government it would not fully control law, police army and (as they would be put under a tendering competition for everything).

Is it? Total supression of all minorities in favour of the voting majority is something you'd strive for?

I wouldn't, but then I'm not striving for either communism nor capitalism, either. Extremes are for idiots.

Extremism in those ideologies is a bit stupid if you try to bring it into practice, rather than working out an effective, sustainable way for it to be done.

The Tyranny of the majority is bad so I support representative government.

communism is a good idea, you know, based more or less on everyone being equal. Those who hate it either hold Russia as an example or are facist capitalists. Communism is not evil, or good, it is merely an idea that didn't work

Certainly, but in context, when people say 'capitalism' it usually doesn't refer to it in its purest form. (right? right?)

No, it usually refers to a mixture of communism and capitalism, depending on the society and traditional background of the people who use it.
But then again, most people don't refer to communism either when they use the word, but rather the totalitarian systems of the former Sovjet Block...
So, either we talk about the absolutes and ideals, or we talk about what people commonly misconceive as capitalism and communsim. Only I don't think there'd be much point to discussing the later, really... ;)

No, it usually refers to a mixture of communism and capitalism, depending on the society and traditional background of the people who use it.
But then again, most people don't refer to communism either when they use the word, but rather the totalitarian systems of the former Sovjet Block...
So, either we talk about the absolutes and ideals, or we talk about what people commonly misconceive as capitalism and communsim. Only I don't think there'd be much point to discussing the later, really... ;)
Isn't communism extreme socialism? Gaaaaaa!

So all political philosophies are religions, now?

Communism has a nasty bit of a deterministic, prophetic streak. Repeatedly throughout history the idealogues of communism have predicted revolution, and it never came, yet they continued to predit.

It's like the Seventh Day Adventists.

Isn't communism extreme socialism? Gaaaaaa!

You could say that I guess...

All right, I'll accept that. However, socialism is an impractical system with which to govern a large country. It can work well in small communes.

Depends on the degree od socialism you're talking about.
Germany, for example, has a lot of socialist principles included in it's current system and used to do fairly well with them, until Kohl made some very costly political decisions...

Please, no more moral absolutes.

Socialism is not naive for most forms currently in practice.

All right, I'll accept that. However, socialism is an impractical system with which to govern a large country. It can work well in small communes.

All right, I'll accept that. However, socialism is an impractical system with which to govern a large country. It can work well in small communes.

You're mixing socialism with communism.

Democratic Socialism/Welfare Socialism is currently in place with many european countries, some of them quite large (like Germany).

I don't hate the idea of communism but I know it can't work. I have a hard time believing that all leaders, that later turned corrupt and evil in the name of communism, didn't mean well from the beginning. But unlimited power corrupts and even if you are a true idealist you will slowly forget about it and turn corrupt if you gain unlimited power.

Neverteless, communist parties(or socialist) in democratic systems tend to be good.

The principle behind communism is questionable. The actual ecenomics behind communism is retarded.

Of course, because an ideology based on freedom and equality must be evil. :rolleyes:

Seriously, whats your deal with Communism? I bet all you've heard about is Stalin, and you assume that all Communist leaders are like that. Stalin wasn't even a Communist. He was a corrupt, despotic warlord who ruled with an iron first. Thats not Communism.

For me that's largely the point...

Communism is a utopia, and I would love to enjoy a communist life in Marx eyes. Stalin turned Communism into a Dictatorship. Communism is where everything is by the average person. no rich people in business suits deciding whats best for the person working at McDonalds and making best for the rich.

Marx's Communism I believe in. I trust the true word. Stalin... no.

Yet, to my belief, True Communism is just too surreal to think it will ever happen. So I choose Democracy. Democracy is possible.

government always depends on how the person runs it.

Well, DUH. The closest we can get is socialism. And that worked out fucking well, didn't it?

*looks at Canada and Sweden*

Yep.

The actual ecenomics behind communism is retarded.

Dee-dee-dee!

Dee-dee-dee!

eh?

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

I am a socialist, and at times, a borderline commie. Does this mean I'm evil because I would embrace a communist system?

The theory and concept of Communism was corrupted by Stalin and his cronies; the formed the practised is better known as 'Stalinism', and the Chinese too have also perverted the ideology. The only ones who are close enough in practice are the Cubans, but even then, they still violate one of the core tenets of the ideology of communism, and that is no man is to rule unjustly over another. Communism puts people on equal footing and none of the countries that have claimed to be communist have actually put true communism into practice.

Of course, because an ideology based on freedom and equality must be evil. :rolleyes:

Seriously, whats your deal with Communism? I bet all you've heard about is Stalin, and you assume that all Communist leaders are like that. Stalin wasn't even a Communist. He was a corrupt, despotic warlord who ruled with an iron first. Thats not Communism.


Communism was NEVER about freedom and equality.

It was about the destruction of people's ethnic and national identity and about imposing a 'communist' identity from above. It was about the elimination of all those who were not considered of the proletariat.

As for Stalin, he merely continued what Lenin had started.

http://marxwords.blogspot.com/
Note the open avowal of terrorism and open support for slavery

"As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. … Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance."
- Karl Marx
(Letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, December 28, 1846)

"… the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."
- Karl Marx
("The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, November 7, 1848)

"All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm… these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their national character… [A general war will] wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward."
- Friedrich Engels
("The Magyar Struggle," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, January 13, 1849)

"… only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we [Germans], jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution… there will be a struggle, an ‘inexorable life-and-death struggle,’ against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror - not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!"
- Friedrich Engels
("Democratic Pan-Slavism, Cont.," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, February 16, 1849)

"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
("Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 19, 1849)

"Psychologically, this talk of feeding the starving is nothing but an expression of the saccharine-sweet sentimentality so characteristic of our intelligentsia."
- V. I. Lenin
(Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow [London: Arrow Books, 1988], p234)

"... whoever recognizes class war must recognize civil wars, which in any class society represent the natural and, in certain circumstances, inevitable continuation, development and sharpening of class war."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p196)

"Until we apply terror to speculators - shooting on the spot - we won’t get anywhere."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p55)

"Let them shoot on the spot every tenth man guilty of idleness."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p55)

"Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the most cruel revolutionary terror?"
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p57)

"You can tell Ter [a local Cheka commander] that if there is an offensive, he must make all preparations to burn Baku down totally, and this should be announced in print in Baku."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p202)

"Merciless war against these kulaks! Death to them!"
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p197)

"... carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; unreliable elements to be locked up in a concentration camp outside the town."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p103)

"I am confident that the suppression of the Kazan Czechs and White Guards, and likewise of the bloodsucking kulaks who support them, will be a model of mercilessness."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p119)

"When we are reproached with cruelty, we wonder how people can forget the most elementary Marxism."
- V. I. Lenin
(Robert Conquest, The Human Cost of Soviet Communism [Washington: Committee on the Judiciary, US Senate, 91st Congress, 2nd Session, 1970], p10)

"... catch and shoot the Astrakhan speculators and bribe-takers. These swine have to be dealt [with] so that everyone will remember it for years."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p201)

"Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p203)

"Dictatorship is rule based directly on force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained through the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws."
- V. I. Lenin
(Stephan Courtois, "Conclusion," in The Black Book of Communism, ed. Stephane Courtois [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999], p741)

"I come to the inescapable conclusion that we must now launch the most decisive and merciless battle against the Black Hundreds clergy and crush their resistance with such ferocity that they will not forget it for several decades... The bigger the number of reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeois we manage to shoot in the process, the better."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], p227)

"But couldn’t this correlation [of political and social forces] be altered? Say, through the subjection or extermination of some classes of society?"
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p252)

"Do not believe that I seek revolutionary forms of justice. We don’t need justice at this point... I propose, I demand, the organization of revolutionary annihilation against all active counterrevolutionaries."
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(Michel Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power: A History of the USSR From 1917 to the Present [London: Hutchinson, 1986], p54)

"[The Red Terror involves] the extermination of enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or of their pre-revolutionary roles."
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p114)

"In not more than a month’s time terror will assume very violent forms, after the example of the great French Revolution; the guillotine... will be ready for our enemies... that remarkable invention of the French Revolution which makes man shorter by a head."
- Leon Trotsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenin’s Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p54)

"Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service..."
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], p213)

"We have to run a hot iron down the spine of the Ukrainian kulaks - that will create a good working environment."
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], p183)

"As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the ‘sacredness of human life.’"
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [London: New Park Publications, 1975], p82)

"The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish... the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie."
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [London: New Park Publications, 1975], p83)

"... the road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state… Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction..."
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [London: New Park Publications, 1975], p177)

"... the very principle of labour conscription has replaced the principle of free labour as radically and irreversibly as socialization of the means of production has replaced capitalist ownership."
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], pp216-7)

I'd more than happily live in a geuinely communist utopia, however, examples such as that of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and Romania lead me to a certain reservation for the manner in which it is approached.

As for me being born equal, what a load of bollocks that is. Certain people are simply born superior to others; whether it is an intellectual or physical superiority, it is delusional to contend otherwise.

1) how many here have actually read the communist manifeso and capital?
2) I think that communism would be great-if i could be achived. People assosiate comunists with the ussr and china, but they were communist in name only. True communism does not have a goverment; therefore no goverment on earth has yet to achive it. The path to communism is a difficult one because people natually want the aquire more, and once someone attains power it is difficult to give up. (I am speaking from the poor worker's perspective so you intellectuals do not have to assume what we here on the bottom rung feel)
TRUE COMMUNISM in itself is a noble goal. however, we come back to the question "do the ends justify the means?" I think not at all. The path to communism is dangerus if not impossible.

True communism does not have a goverment; therefore no goverment on earth has yet to achive it.

No government = anarchy = survival of the fittest = every man for himself

Suuurre, if only we keep trying it, it will work someday! :rolleyes:

There are 2 categories of poor, one where people cannot help it, and one where it is their own fault. Why should those who work hard and earn a bit more money share with those who did bugger all in school, don't work at all but instead sponge off welfare? Just how fair would that be?

As soon as everyone should be paid the same regardless, then I will stop working and demand to be paid the same as all others.

my 1st great uncle sponged of of welfare and is living in a rotting appartment, the 2nd worked his ass off and is now fairly wealthy. I work my ass off, and i do not appriciate those who sit around all day and take my money. i.e. I don't believe in welfare. Now the idea of communism is great but again do the ends justify the means? I do not believe that it can ever be achived so therefore, we must stop trying.

I wouldn't say I hate it, though I'm certainly not a fan.

I'd more than happily live in a geuinely communist utopia, however, examples such as that of the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and Romania lead me to a certain reservation for the manner in which it is approached.

As for me being born equal, what a load of bollocks that is. Certain people are simply born superior to others; whether it is an intellectual or physical superiority, it is delusional to contend otherwise.
Depends on how you define superior. I could never play football like Wayne Rooney, but (not being the sharpest knife in the drawer) I doubt he would be able to get good grades at A Level chemistry. I suppose it also depends of how you define equal too: equality of outcome, or opportunity?

The theory and concept of Communism was corrupted by Stalin and his cronies; the formed the practised is better known as 'Stalinism', and the Chinese too have also perverted the ideology. The only ones who are close enough in practice are the Cubans, but even then, they still violate one of the core tenets of the ideology of communism, and that is no man is to rule unjustly over another. Communism puts people on equal footing and none of the countries that have claimed to be communist have actually put true communism into practice.

If one looks at the history of the USSR all of it's leaders said the same thing of the last. When does it end?

No, CAPITALISM is "you get what you "paid" for." In a communist society, everyone is equal. The doctor, the worker, my uncle who worked about two hours a week.

Newsflash: Absolutely no one on the left has ever advocated making everyone "identical." The maxim of communism is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," not "to each equally." Each person is provided (within reason) whatever they need to live a free, productive and pleasant life provided that they contribute back to society.

1) how many here have actually read the communist manifeso and capital?
2) I think that communism would be great-if i could be achived. People assosiate comunists with the ussr and china, but they were communist in name only. True communism does not have a goverment; therefore no goverment on earth has yet to achive it. The path to communism is a difficult one because people natually want the aquire more, and once someone attains power it is difficult to give up. (I am speaking from the poor worker's perspective so you intellectuals do not have to assume what we here on the bottom rung feel)
TRUE COMMUNISM in itself is a noble goal. however, we come back to the question "do the ends justify the means?" I think not at all. The path to communism is dangerus if not impossible.

1) I have read both the Communist Manifesto as well as Das Kapital. I could only find volume one of Capital, unfortunately. What I get from it is that Marx really over analyzes the labor process, and his concepts of historical materialism are bogus. That's why I'm a communist-anarchist, not a Marxian communist.

2) I'm very working class, and I know where you are coming from. The problem with how most people conceive communism is that they follow the Marxist strain of communism, which is counter-intuitive. To achieve complete freedom and equality, Marx sought to centralize all productive and distributive forces in the hands of the "worker's state." The problem with this is that no matter how "red" the state is, it is still a State, and still perpetuates the inequalities of freedom that exist under capitalism.

In communism, there is no state. The people are supposed to be leaderless, just sort of... KNOW what to do.

There is no POLITICAL authority.

There is still ADMINISTRATION.

There is no POLITICAL authority.

There is still ADMINISTRATION.

I still don't understand why so many otherwise knowledgeable people conflate the two. You'd think with the very vocal anarchist community on NSG, they'd learn by now.

I'd draw a distinction between Communism and Stalinism for one. Stalinism could have the evil label stuck on it, but his regime was anything but Communist in the ideal sense of the system.

In a perfect world, a communist (note, not Soviet style) system would be the fairest way, but as people are greedy, power hungry etc, etc, there will always be those who corrupt the ideals and turn it into something much much worse.

1) I have read both the Communist Manifesto as well as Das Kapital. I could only find volume one of Capital, unfortunately. What I get from it is that Marx really over analyzes the labor process, and his concepts of historical materialism are bogus. That's why I'm a communist-anarchist, not a Marxian communist.

2) I'm very working class, and I know where you are coming from. The problem with how most people conceive communism is that they follow the Marxist strain of communism, which is counter-intuitive. To achieve complete freedom and equality, Marx sought to centralize all productive and distributive forces in the hands of the "worker's state." The problem with this is that no matter how "red" the state is, it is still a State, and still perpetuates the inequalities of freedom that exist under capitalism.

Is your idea of anarcho-communism administrated by any sort of authority at all? If not then how can you expect it to be possible? Where will the incentive to work come from?

I believe in a Welfare State very similar to the model employed by the Scandinavians, but far more restricted. It would allow state owned companies to operate as normal based on the profit motive like capitalism, but be taxed immensely by the state, everything would be. A large Government Regulatory body would allow employers from the companies to pay their workers set wages defined by the market etc, but that this govt body would assign 'social worth's to individual jobs and subsidize each workers wages accordingly, these subsidies would be paid via immense business and individual taxes, but the people wouldn’t really notice as their wages will be higher.

Over time the stigma associated with such jobs as Public Servants and the community jobs would be lost as they are paid more, because they put more into society, while more greedy workers would end up with far less, thus shaping the society slowly over times to the mindset of communism.

I am also very much against democracy, mainly because the greedy and not yet indoctrinated people would 'vote out' the socialist path to communism. So in the socialist transition period (may take many decades) a restrictive government will control the media and political stuff, etc. Of course consumer goods and the like will always be available for people to buy with their subsidized wages, and so people will try and help society more by better jobs of more 'social worth' to buy more consumer items.

This is using the capitalist mind frame of the population in the transition to produce a socialist and selfless result, and this will suffice until the population are more communist and less greedy, which will of course take a long time. I trust not the petty ever-changing whim of the 'mob' to simply vote out socialism, but I trust their deep aspirations, and so to do what is best for them.


I don't think Social Democracy should be classified as hopeless, it more refers to less radical social changes within an established pluralist democracy. In case point, Scandinavian state welfare socialism takes place within an immensely wealthy state with high taxes, but lots of welfare and social support. I support this mostly because there is, I think alot of things Marx did not predict about the future.

I am skeptical also about democracy and socialism, mainly because pro-business reactionaries can hijack the system and abolish state welfare. For this reason I do advocate authoritarianism so much as the socialist policies being constitutionally established and put in stone for good and enforced by the state.

It needs to be established that helping the poor, dislocated and marginalized of society is not controversial, and that national control of assets is best so that greedy exploitive firms at home and abroad cannot rob the people. In short there needs to be unassailable safeguards for social support within the mainframe of the state. That is of course the instrument of the state.

Is your idea of anarcho-communism administrated by any sort of authority at all? If not then how can you expect it to be possible? Where will the incentive to work come from?

from the community i guess.

from the community i guess.

What if the community does not want to impliment anarcho-communism?

What if the community does not want to impliment anarcho-communism?

yeah, that's quite essential with democratic ideologies isn't it? and there are probably people who can answer this way better than me.

yeah, that's quite essential with democratic ideologies isn't it? and there are probably people who can answer this way better than me.

I've asked this before many times with not a very satisfying answer.

eh?

In America, it means "retarded" or something to that effect. So basically, I was agreeing with you.

I've asked this before many times with not a very satisfying answer.

say you have a anarcho-capitalist society, how would you implement capitalism?

I believe in a Welfare State very similar to the model employed by the Scandinavians, but far more restricted. It would allow state owned companies to operate as normal based on the profit motive like capitalism, but be taxed immensely by the state, everything would be. A large Government It needs to be established that helping the poor, dislocated and marginalized of society is not controversial, and that national control of assets is best so that greedy exploitive firms at home and abroad cannot rob the people. In short there needs to be unassailable safeguards for social support within the mainframe of the state. That is of course the instrument of the state.

Effectively telling people they don't have to do a thing because you gonna provide a big fat welfare check for free is precisely why your system will never work. Keeping welfare low is done to stimulate people to go out and work, and not sit on their collective behinds because loafing around is profitable.

Oh, and high taxes aren't gonna be popular either. Companies would leave your country en masse if your system was applied.

They'll move to my country where taxes are low. And in my country only disabled people would get generous benefits, lazy people who CAN but WON'T work won't get anything.

say you have a anarcho-capitalist society, how would you implement capitalism?

By bending the laws of physics?

By bending the laws of physics?

no, actually this kind of interests me, how did they implement capitalism in the USSR for instance? just give away the factories to random people? first they were owned by the state, now not anymore, how did they do that?

There is no POLITICAL authority.

There is still ADMINISTRATION.

Then that administration, by definition, becomes the government.

Why do you think people would listen to administrators if they have been told there is no government in the traditional meaning of the word?

I would ignore the administrators and get likeminded people to do the same.

What would you do about my defiance?

no, actually this kind of interests me, how did they implement capitalism in the USSR for instance? just give away the factories to random people? first they were owned by the state, now not anymore, how did they do that?

Well i'm not exactly sure what you are asking? How would you impliment capitalism into anarchism, or how would you turn anarcho-capitalism into capitalism?

Then that administration, by definition, becomes the government.

Why do you think people would listen to administrators if they have been told there is no government in the traditional meaning of the word?

I would ignore the administrators and get likeminded people to do the same.

What would you do about my defiance?

they aren't necessarily against government, only against authority, wich they want to replace with direct democracy. iirc because i'm really no expert on anarcho-communism.

Well i'm not exactly sure what you are asking? How would you impliment capitalism into anarchism, or how would you turn anarcho-capitalism into capitalism?

hmm.

actually i was asking how they transfered the USSR into a capitalist nation. first the means of production were owned by the state, now they are owned by privat companies. i wondered how this was possible. they just distributed it to the workers or something?

also i think i misunderstood your first question, so please ignore my previous comments.*shakes fist at tower of Babel*

actually i was asking how they transfered the USSR into a capitalist nation. first the means of production were owned by the state, now they are owned by privat companies. i wondered how this was possible. they just distributed it to the workers or something?


Not so much distribute it but sell it I would expect.

Not so much distribute it but sell it I would expect.

probably, meh

*goes to sleep*

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

A-HA!

You're an atheist!

I'm reading The Jungle(as most of you probaly should) now and although I heard it wasn't the bestly written book, I love it.

Meh... it's an ideology and religion, and as such dangerous. Not evil, just dangerous.
Communism is not a religion. And please don't attempt pull the "I'm ideology-free" trick on us. From your posts you clearly adhere to the ideology of secular liberal humanism.

Hey, how does being a mother or housewife actually constitute WORK in terms of bettering and furthering society?
Without it there would be no society.

Communism isn't evil, but the "our ideology will fix the world" mentally that communists and many other have is flawed. Communists (rightly) believe that if humans were to cooperate more with each other that the world would be better. However, they mistakenly believe that governing by their ideology in an attempt to make people cooperate would fix the world.

I dont hate it...its just that Communism is basically a utopian idea and doesnt work if you introduce people into it >_>

Effectively telling people they don't have to do a thing because you gonna provide a big fat welfare check for free is precisely why your system will never work. Keeping welfare low is done to stimulate people to go out and work, and not sit on their collective behinds because loafing around is profitable.

Oh, and high taxes aren't gonna be popular either. Companies would leave your country en masse if your system was applied.

They'll move to my country where taxes are low. And in my country only disabled people would get generous benefits, lazy people who CAN but WON'T work won't get anything.

The fact that is works in the Scandinavian countries completely voids your point, these countries have sustained welfare taxes under the state for over 50 years. Plus if you read what I actually posted you'll know that I support 'market socialism'.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

There is a fine line between good commies and bad commies, or it means that EVERY thing is evil(capitalism/Fascism/Democracy/Republuc/Empire...etc) it all depends on how it's executed and by whom it's executed by, there are such things as "Nice Fascists" and "Evil Republicans" I mean, I'm a bit of a Fascist myself, but i wouldn't stritly follow Fascism, I'd view it more as... guidelines to be ignored or followed...

The fact that is works in the Scandinavian countries completely voids your point, these countries have sustained welfare taxes under the state for over 50 years. Plus if you read what I actually posted you'll know that I support 'market socialism'.

as a matter of fact it doesn't work. Slowly but surely all the guaranteed benefits are being undermined.

During the Persson government, Swedes lost their guaranteed generous state pension, which was changed to a system where you get more if you paid in more. And whats more, Persson isn't the PM anymore.

Ulf Jakobsson, director at the Research Institute of Industrial Economic in Stockholm, warned of a "harvest mentality" and the danger that "the self-congratulation has gone too far". Since January 1995 Sweden has adopted a more liberal approach to the economy. Telecommunications and electricity markets have been opened up; shop hours are among the most relaxed in Europe. Trades unions, seared by the dramatic rises in unemployment in the 1990s, have increased labour market flexibility significantly, arguably more so than in, say, Germany.

In Sweden there is massive abuse of the generous statutory sick pay system . The country has the highest absentee rate of any in the developed world, with 14% of the working population on sick leave or disability benefit at any time. And why shouldn't they? Employers can hardly throw them out, which is why they are hardly hiring permanent employees these days.

A high income tax rate can also be blamed for discouraging entrepreneurship in Sweden. All of Sweden's top 50 companies were founded before the 1970s.

Norway has oil and gas.

Communism is an ideal which states that every person is equal, and gets exactly the same. i can't think of this as evil really, so in my opinion the only thing "evil" about communism is the reputation it's gotten by the western world's propaganda, and people like stalin, who decided to call their dictatorship "Communism", while in fact they weren't communist states.
the only truly communists i know of were the ancient spartans, where everybody had exactly the same rights and riches (in their eyes, there were spartans, enemies, and slaves. The Spartans all were equal, the slaves were worth nothing, and the enemies were to be killed on sight). Their nation lasted for centuries, and they were the most powerful nation worldwide for quite some time, so in my opinion communism is not any worse than any other form of governing a country

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

Total agreement here.

Depends on how you define superior. I could never play football like Wayne Rooney, but (not being the sharpest knife in the drawer) I doubt he would be able to get good grades at A Level chemistry. I suppose it also depends of how you define equal too: equality of outcome, or opportunity?

Hence the distinction between intellectual and physical superiority. As for equality, whilst I do endorse equality of oppurtunity, I refute any suggestion of natural equality. Without advocating eugenics, I would suggest that the presence of downs syndrome and the like precludes any such contention.

Then that administration, by definition, becomes the government.

So? It still has no class character.

I would ignore the administrators and get likeminded people to do the same.

What would you do about my defiance?

It would depend on what your "defiance" consisted of.

People have the right to collective self-defense. This applies in communism as much as it applies anywhere else.

In answer to the thread title: Yes.

Communism is not a religion. And please don't attempt pull the "I'm ideology-free" trick on us. From your posts you clearly adhere to the ideology of secular liberal humanism.

I do? I don't even know what that is... :confused:

Not evil, no, but not my cup of tea either.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?I agree and disagree. I believe the revolutionary and organisational methodology Communism proposes, is pure evil and must die. Because it achieves the opposite of it's goal.

The double-think of claiming one can get rid of authority by replacing it with an even more violent and intrusive authority, is pure class. If people hadn't actually tried, it'd make me laugh out loud.

Communism doesn't work, it's a nice theory- if you're into that sort of thing, but like phrenology, it isn't a good way to predict human behavior.

The Cold War is over and I have no memory of it. Communism seems like something that people of older generations were paranoid over, like homosexuality, single parents or women working outside of the home. If it works for your country, go right ahead. Different systems work for different peoples.

The Cold War is over and I have no memory of it. Communism seems like something that people of older generations were paranoid over, like homosexuality, single parents or women working outside of the home. If it works for your country, go right ahead. Different systems work for different peoples.

Except for communism, which hasnt worked for anyone.

This past week the Chinese proclaimed a new law protecting private property.

Except for communism, which hasnt worked for anyone.

This past week the Chinese proclaimed a new law protecting private property.Implimenting communism hasn't worked for anyone. That those particular totalitarian regimes weren't/aren't very nice, doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with communism. Such states are never nice, no matter what they fail to achieve.

The fuck-up of communism, is that it calls for the creation of such a monster, and expects it to go away when it's done mauling things. Talk about suicidally naive.

Except for communism, which hasnt worked for anyone.

This past week the Chinese proclaimed a new law protecting private property.

People do tend to freak out when countries start to have socialist tendencies or when extremely left leaning parties come into power. But a country has a right to try out a system if the majority of its people support it. Who knows, with an actual democracy behind it, communism might actually work for some small country one day.

http://www.quaylargo.com/Transformation/McCelvey.html

This.

I wonder though. Suppose the USSR would've "won" the cold war? modern world history would be a little different, and the superpower currently invading iraq would be on the other side of the atlantic, apart from that there won't be much difference (exept of course that we'd be discussing whether capitalism is evil or not, and that everybody who dares answer no to that would mysteriously dissappear, or be hanged for things like tax-fraud whithin half a week ;))

I believe in a Welfare State very similar to the model employed by the Scandinavians, but far more restricted. It would allow state owned companies to operate as normal based on the profit motive like capitalism, but be taxed immensely by the state, everything would be.

How about the state companies give all ofthe profit to the state (as the statewould be the joint-stockholder with the workers in that company). That way you keep direct taxes low as an indirect tax is used. Indirect taxes are usually are more effective at extracting wealth from society to be reapplied elsewhere.

A large Government Regulatory body would allow employers from the companies to pay their workers set wages defined by the market etc, but that this govt body would assign 'social worth's to individual jobs and subsidize each workers wages accordingly, these subsidies would be paid via immense business and individual taxes, but the people wouldn’t really notice as their wages will be higher.

For wages ceiling and floor limits would work well. Watch out about the entire raising of taxes to increase wages philosophy. You might make a few capitalist libertarians angry ;) .

Over time the stigma associated with such jobs as Public Servants and the community jobs would be lost as they are paid more, because they put more into society, while more greedy workers would end up with far less, thus shaping the society slowly over times to the mindset of communism.

Or they could be have an increase to bring them in line with the rest of society (since by that point all of the 'private' jobs would be considered public jobs as well.

I am also very much against democracy, mainly because the greedy and not yet indoctrinated people would 'vote out' the socialist path to communism. So in the socialist transition period (may take many decades) a restrictive government will control the media and political stuff, etc. Of course consumer goods and the like will always be available for people to buy with their subsidized wages, and so people will try and help society more by better jobs of more 'social worth' to buy more consumer items.

It is not a question of democracy then; it is a question of informed democracy. The entire populace should be informed and almost complete transparency of government and state should be enforced. You are also forgetting how fast social change can be.

Media should never be hampered (except when you get gaudy tabloid 'articles'). The State should be different from the Government.

This is using the capitalist mind frame of the population in the transition to produce a socialist and selfless result, and this will suffice until the population are more communist and less greedy, which will of course take a long time. I trust not the petty ever-changing whim of the 'mob' to simply vote out socialism, but I trust their deep aspirations, and so to do what is best for them.

Less greedy, more aspirational, not communist.

I don't think Social Democracy should be classified as hopeless, it more refers to less radical social changes within an established pluralist democracy. In case point, Scandinavian state welfare socialism takes place within an immensely wealthy state with high taxes, but lots of welfare and social support. I support this mostly because there is, I think alot of things Marx did not predict about the future.

Social democracy is a reformist socialism. It works well enough. Marx lived in a time with very different technology and society. Many of his thoughts (such as communism working best in a surplus good environment) probably won't happen for fifty to one hundred years if it was taken global.

I am skeptical also about democracy and socialism, mainly because pro-business reactionaries can hijack the system and abolish state welfare. For this reason I do advocate authoritarianism so much as the socialist policies being constitutionally established and put in stone for good and enforced by the state.

You can still have restrained authoritarianism. Constitutions change all of the time. A multi-tiered constitution would work well (flexible or 'growing density' constitution).

It needs to be established that helping the poor, dislocated and marginalized of society is not controversial, and that national control of assets is best so that greedy exploitive firms at home and abroad cannot rob the people. In short there needs to be unassailable safeguards for social support within the mainframe of the state. That is of course the instrument of the state.

As long as we don't start calling the poor, dislocated and marginalized the lumpenproteliriat.

P.S: Hooray for Tasmania! With all the chocolate and greens!

The Cold War is over and I have no memory of it. Communism seems like something that people of older generations were paranoid over, like homosexuality, single parents or women working outside of the home. If it works for your country, go right ahead. Different systems work for different peoples.

Watch out, the old people might start calling you a Titoist ;) .

Is your idea of anarcho-communism administrated by any sort of authority at all? If not then how can you expect it to be possible? Where will the incentive to work come from?

Depends on your definition of "authority". The only authority in a communist anarchist society would be the people themselves. The community would have the power to decide through direct democracy only on the issues that affected the community. Incentive to work comes from both altruism and "rational self interest." The more efficiently someone works, the more the community can produce in less, time and the more goods the community can distribute amongst itself.

Depends on your definition of "authority". The only authority in a communist anarchist society would be the people themselves. The community would have the power to decide through direct democracy only on the issues that affected the community. Incentive to work comes from both altruism and "rational self interest." The more efficiently someone works, the more the community can produce in less, time and the more goods the community can distribute amongst itself.

yeah, but what if one is very lazy? what would happen then? are there some kind of sanctions?

yeah, but what if one is very lazy? what would happen then? are there some kind of sanctions?

Then we all become non-communist socialists.

Not all the pillars of discontent need to be abolished if everyone is unified you know.

yeah, but what if one is very lazy? what would happen then? are there some kind of sanctions?

Then they don't get as much back. They won't start, but they'll have less access to luxuries. Communism comes only at a point when fairness and equity are no longer issues in society. If we take a step back from communism, the collectivism that comes before it renumerates people based on the effort they put out at their work. Thus, it gives incentives to increasing personal performance, and doesn't reward mere genetic lottery. The idea is that after a period of time building solidarity, the equitable society of collectivist anarchism will transform into the humane society of communist anarchism.

Except for communism, which hasnt worked for anyone.

This past week the Chinese proclaimed a new law protecting private property.

The Communist Party in China isn't really communist at all. They're getting rid of even the basic pretenses of Marxist thought and are going to make a slow transfer into authoritarian State capitalism.

Then they don't get as much back. They won't start, but they'll have less access to luxuries. Communism comes only at a point when fairness and equity are no longer issues in society. If we take a step back from communism, the collectivism that comes before it renumerates people based on the effort they put out at their work. Thus, it gives incentives to increasing personal performance, and doesn't reward mere genetic lottery. The idea is that after a period of time building solidarity, the equitable society of collectivist anarchism will transform into the humane society of communist anarchism.

wow, a lot of hard words there.
firsly, in the second sentence, doesn't that have to be 'starve' or something because i honestly wouldn't know what 'starting' has to do with anything.
and a little bit further, doesn't that have to be 'remunerate'?
(sorry if i come of like a grammar nazi, but i don't speak English very well, and your post is quite hard to understand)

i still have a few questions.
how would you measure effort? i don't think this can be done efficiently. it's quite easy to fake effort, and mostly it's done by peforming your job not as good as you would if efficiency was measured for instance. wich leads to less inefficiency. wich is a bad thing.

also, i always thought that anarcho-communists were something different than anarcho-collectivists. the first relying on mutual aid and the later on collectivism.

The Communist Party in China isn't really communist at all. They're getting rid of even the basic pretenses of Marxist thought and are going to make a slow transfer into authoritarian State capitalism.

What is your opinion of State Socialism (I am not saying China is that)Trotskylvania?

I still have a few questions.
How would you measure effort? i don't think this can be done efficiently. it's quite easy to fake effort, and mostly it's done by peforming your job not as good as you would if efficiency was measured for instance. wich leads to less inefficiency. wich is a bad thing.

Well you could have labour currency where your job is rated by not only the amount of time you put in but the effectiveness of your work (so that you don't just wait around three times longer than necessary.

Also, I always thought that anarcho-communists were something different than anarcho-collectivists. the first relying on mutual aid and the later on collectivism.

Well for the most part anarcho-communists are people who want to 'Go to end of Communism, pass all stages'. Anarcho-Communism is the end result of Communism. Some Anarcho-Communists may want a more collectivist way, others may want something else.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

Agreed - any ideology that has resulted in the unnecessary murder of more than 100 million people should die.

Agreed - any ideology that has resulted in the unnecessary murder of more than 100 million people should die.

Considering that was more along the lines of an Authoritarian regieme. More than anything I would call it the fault of trying to set up a communist region in an authoritarian environment that was not in surplus of goods but in severe deprivation of modern goods (and poor economies usually result in government that do not care about their populace).

In the end then the fault of a communist region being set up in Russia was the fault of the Germans (Yet they still lost the war badly).

Well you could have labour currency where your job is rated by not only the amount of time you put in but the effectiveness of your work (so that you don't just wait around three times longer than necessary.

i don't see how this helps to rate the amount of effort you put in it. actually it still rewards genetic lottery.

imo it's a lot like how we do it now.
say you produce tables wich you sell for money (labour currency). if you work longer you produce more wich means more tables to sell. and if you work more efficient you can also sell more tables. so your work is rated by the amount of time you spend and how efficient you work.
of course this isn't totaly true because the amount of money you recieve isn't directly dependant on time and efficiency. it also takes the market value into account.

or did i miss-understand you? were you talking about mutualism and 'the labor theory of value' when you refered to labor currency?

How is the belief that all epopel are equal evil? Unless you truly believe that not all people are born equal, in which case you are the most horrible human being I have ever had the displeasure to meet. Although I understand if you do not like hte economic theory. With current technology and phsycology, a Communist utopia is impossible, humans are too fallible as eladers and predjudiced sentiment is too high.

Yep, I was trying to refer to the Value of Labour theory, but not advocating.

Whilst it would be acceptable to some anarcho-communists there would be others who would be opposed to it (due to the society aspect not being counted, thus making it also similar to fiat currency. I think. Also the market aspect in some cases). The more marxist anarcho-communists would be against it methinks.

About the mutualism for the most part that would be used with the above and agreed/criticised by the same groups.

It also is a bit boring to talk endlessly about marxist/leninist/trotskyist communism and not talk about the other socialist groups.

Bit like uni I suppose, with all the Socialists Alternative.

Yep, I was trying to refer to the Value of Labour theory, but not advocating.

Whilst it would be acceptable to some anarcho-communists there would be others who would be opposed to it (due to the society aspect not being counted, thus making it also similar to fiat currency. I think. Also the market aspect in some cases). The more marxist anarcho-communists would be against it methinks.

About the mutualism for the most part that would be used with the above and agreed/criticised by the same groups.


oh, i see. are there other ideologies that make use of the value of labour theory then? because i first heard of it when i read a little bit about mutualism.


It also is a bit boring to talk endlessly about marxist/leninist/trotskyist communism and not talk about the other socialist groups.


yes it is.


Bit like uni I suppose, with all the Socialists Alternative.


huh?

Agreed - any ideology that has resulted in the unnecessary murder of more than 100 million people should die.

100 million people, they died because stalin was tryign to root out subversives encouraged by the paranoid capatilists of teh west. Granted, Stalin's brutal methods were cruel and wrong, but as it has been stated before, he was not communist. He was stalinist

oh, i see. are there other ideologies that make use of the value of labour theory then? because i first heard of it when i read a little bit about mutualism.

There may be more than I have typed about. I am not that well versed on the subject as a whole so it'd be best if you found more for differing opinions on the subject.

huh?

They are a Marxist/Trotskyist communist lot. Not only is it bad enough that they are the only socialist group that I can find at uni but most of them know hardly anything about other socialist theories, denigrate most of the democratic socialist theories as 'state capitalism' and they like to use 'language enhancers' (a.k.a the mid-lower lot swear a lot). Even if they are the exception to the rest of the SA I still find it annoying that they are the only lot.[/QUOTE]

oh, i see. are there other ideologies that make use of the value of labour theory then? because i first heard of it when i read a little bit about mutualism.

There may be more than I have typed about. I am not that well versed on the subject as a whole so it'd be best if you found more for differing opinions on the subject.

huh?

They are a Marxist/Trotskyist communist lot. Not only is it bad enough that they are the only socialist group that I can find at uni but most of them know hardly anything about other socialist theories, denigrate most of the democratic socialist theories as 'state capitalism' and they like to use 'language enhancers' (a.k.a the mid-lower lot swear a lot). Even if they are the exception to the rest of the SA I still find it annoying that they are the only lot.

Before Communism: "Bozhe, tsarya khrani" (God Save the Czar)
During Communism: The Internationale and The State Anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
After Communism: Russian pop music.



Before Communism: "We fear not the your prisons!" (pre-revolution communist song sung by defiant students)
During Communism: The Internationale and The State Anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
After Communism: Communist rock music.

There may be more than I have typed about. I am not that well versed on the subject as a whole so it'd be best if you found more for differing opinions on the subject.

i don't really know a lot about it either, i wish i did though

They are a Marxist/Trotskyist communist lot. Not only is it bad enough that they are the only socialist group that I can find at uni but most of them know hardly anything about other socialist theories, denigrate most of the democratic socialist theories as 'state capitalism' and they like to use 'language enhancers' (a.k.a the mid-lower lot swear a lot). Even if they are the exception to the rest of the SA I still find it annoying that they are the only lot.[/QUOTE]

you have political groups on your uni?

i don't know if we have that. there is one Flemish-nationalist student corporation, but that doesn't really atract me. (actually i rather have no contact with them, like most people i guess)
are you a member of the socialist alternative then? what is it like?

I don't really know a lot about it either, i wish i did though

You know more than I do (didn't know that labour value and mutualism are used together). However that is how a good political discussion goes along. You find out something new then research it.

You have political groups on your uni?

It is political in nature but doesn't actually have a political party. Activism mainly and discussion.

We do have the Young Liberals and Young Labour (Labour and Liberals are the two main parties in Australia).

I don't know if we have that. there is one Flemish-nationalist student corporation, but that doesn't really atract me. (actually i rather have no contact with them, like most people i guess) are you a member of the socialist alternative then? what is it like?

I am not part of it (Ideological differences strike again!) but I do listen to some of the stuff they say. I disagree with some of the tenets of communism and they would call me a state capitalist (derogotory to them) if I declared my beliefs.

The ones at uni are a bit intolerent of other people's beliefs and there was only 2 people who actually knew a fair amount of other 'communist' ways (and only one of those remembered what autogestion was). Then again the group at uni is only about 50 odd people and I have only interracted with about 20 of them.

Communists = the hawt. :eek:

Why are communists hot?

It is political in nature but doesn't actually have a political party. Activism mainly and discussion.

We do have the Young Liberals and Young Labour (Labour and Liberals are the two main parties in Australia)

I am not part of it (Ideological differences strike again!) but I do listen to some of the stuff they say. I disagree with some of the tenets of communism and they would call me a state capitalist (derogotory to them) if I declared my beliefs.

The ones at uni are a bit intolerent of other people's beliefs and there was only 2 people who actually knew a fair amount of other 'communist' ways (and only one of those remembered what autogestion was). Then again the group at uni is only about 50 odd people and I have only interracted with about 20 of them.

i don't think it would interest me all that much. i think there would be a lot of debate, but not really anything usefull being said. it would be more interesting to have a group like that but with all kind of ideologies mixed, not only marxists. that way people could actually learn something.

what's your personal bliefs btw?

Communists = the hawt. :eek:

most hawt girls i know and have talked about politics with have been apolitical or non-communist.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

have you ever lived in a communist society?...communism, socialism, capitalism are just economic systems....what makes one system evil versus another is not economics but leadership...personally if I had to choose I'd sooner live a liberal communist system than a oppressive capitalist theocracy....

I don't think it would interest me all that much. i think there would be a lot of debate, but not really anything usefull being said. it would be more interesting to have a group like that but with all kind of ideologies mixed, not only marxists. that way people could actually learn something.

what's your personal bliefs btw?

It is nice to know about other peoples opinions. Allows for a more realistic discussion rather than petty ideological flames.

As to my beliefs:

Strong state, heaviest surveilance on the higher levels of government, extreme transparency of all state apparatus, non-unitary system, federal type government with a federal army and each statoid having an auxilirary army.

All companies owned by the state acting as joint stockholders with all the workers in the company as a co-gestion (run by workers and usually the state). Some limits as to what kind of person can be in higher positions (common sense, such as being an accredited accountant if you were being elected as the head accountant) as long as the person can pass an accredited course.

Large corporations have a more individualised approach when there are branches (to stop a monolithic monopoly forming).

Income tax is either given to federal entity and company profits are given to the statoid/municiple or the other way around.

Each person can vote (so long as they are mentally capable), compulsory political theory in schools (replacing religion and/or being an extra class). Major media broadcast should not be tabloid/gaudy style, have additional information if specific information is needed. Apart from that the media is not hampered and can examine any government or state action (due to transparency).

Executive branch is mainly used as a mediator.

Instead of jury you have a panel of judges. A group of jurers may exist as people from the area that knows the conditions leading to the crime.

Petty crime sentances are reduced, attempts to allieviate any social problems leading to a crime.

That covers quite a bit of it.

most hawt girls i know and have talked about politics with have been apolitical or non-communist.

Maybe thats why I don't have a companion....

have you ever lived in a communist society?...communism, socialism, capitalism are just economic systems....what makes one system evil versus another is not economics but leadership...personally if I had to choose I'd sooner live a liberal communist system than a oppressive capitalist theocracy....

Well, socialism covers quite a bit more and communism delves into the social side quite exstensively at times.

I like the idelogy of Marxism, however it is really no more than a fictional story. I prefer, in real sense Trotskyism/Democratic Socialism, a system which means everyone is worth as much as their fellow humans.However free enterprise is allowed to exist, just not to shaft poor people on a daily basis.

Maybe thats why I don't have a companion....

yeah, if you think that's important in a girl you might have a problem.

your personal ideology is quite interesting, quite radical, but not entirely utopian. aren't you afraid of corruption with all that state involvement in business though?
why not complete autogestion (that is workers self management or am i wrong?)?
and do you think your economic model would be possible? because it seems you would make a lot of people mad if you 'nationalised' some companies, due to globalisation and whatnot.

100 million people, they died because stalin was tryign to root out subversives encouraged by the paranoid capatilists of teh west. Granted, Stalin's brutal methods were cruel and wrong, but as it has been stated before, he was not communist. He was stalinist

Stalin did nothing that Lenin hadn't done before him....

The only problem with communism is that it is impossible to implement.

If I had the choice between a communist dictatorship (eg. USSR) and a right-wing dictatorship (eg. Nazi Germany), I'd go for the communist any day.

yeah, if you think that's important in a girl you might have a problem.

Hmmm, I haven't worded myself properly. What I mean is that if I want a companion my priorities are out of wack (by lack of spending time researching about politics, historical events of playing games).

What makes you think I am a guy?

your personal ideology is quite interesting, quite radical, but not entirely utopian. aren't you afraid of corruption with all that state involvement in business though?

Utopian usually would never get put in practice. Whilst radical it is pragmatic.

The corruption would (hopefully) be prevented by the almost complete transparency and surveilance of the people in power. Also to prevent the federal government from establishing a totalitarian regieme over the statoid each statoid has an auxillary army (best case would be 50%/50% between the statoids and the State). Also a much stronger police force based on the municiple level with a much smaller statoid and state force designed to allows the municiple to co-ordinate.

why not complete autogestion (that is workers self management or am i wrong?)?

Yep, autogestion is the production is run completely by the worker. The reason the state is involved is involved is so that the people in the company don't go by the tyranny of the majority in the company. It also allows the state to legitmately receive the profit of the company (barring bonuses to the entire workforce of course) without it actually being regarded as a tax.

In the co-gestion model the workers would have almost complete running of the company by themselves however the state would act as a pacifier and negotiator between different companies and would be allowed to impose certain restrictions (such as having people suited to the job). It would also help to create a feeling that everyone is part of the state, hopefully stopping a revolution from occurring.

and do you think your economic model would be possible? because it seems you would make a lot of people mad if you 'nationalised' some companies, due to globalisation and whatnot.

Hopefully it could become global (would be better but the design can stand in one country, unlike communism done in russia).

Whilst people from overseas might get angry about it they cannot properly commit a 'regieme change' as the backlash would be too great (considering this would be a first world country. Most people would not care about it as they would still have their jobs and the state would have even more capability to care for the people living in that region.

Hopefully a feeling that everyone is part of the same system would occur, allowing the peoples of the area to bond deeply.

Hmmm, I haven't worded myself properly. What I mean is that if I want a companion my priorities are out of wack (by lack of spending time researching about politics, historical events of playing games).

What makes you think I am a guy?



meh, i think by default that the people on the internet are guys. especially if they talk a lot about politics. don't take it as an insult, but most people i know who are on forums and into politics are male.



Utopian usually would never get put in practice. Whilst radical it is pragmatic.


yes, it's quite pragmatic, at least more pragmatic than most radical ideologies


The corruption would (hopefully) be prevented by the almost complete transparency and surveilance of the people in power. Also to prevent the federal government from establishing a totalitarian regieme over the statoid each statoid has an auxillary army (best case would be 50%/50% between the statoids and the State). Also a much stronger police force based on the municiple level with a much smaller statoid and state force designed to allows the municiple to co-ordinate.


wouldn't it be better if the federal government had almost no army? drop anything that doesn't have to do with self-defence and aid.

Yep, autogestion is the production is run completely by the worker. The reason the state is involved is involved is so that the people in the company don't go by the tyranny of the majority in the company. It also allows the state to legitmately receive the profit of the company (barring bonuses to the entire workforce of course) without it actually being regarded as a tax.

wouldn't it also lead to inefficiency because the state would pump money into unprofitable/unnecesary/inefficient factories to keep the people emloyed? and how will you make sure the government won't start to 'abuse' it's employees for 'the greater good' like in soviet russia.


Hopefully a feeling that everyone is part of the same system would occur, allowing the peoples of the area to bond deeply.

that would be nice, but isn't that a little bit utopian? has it ever happened?

wow, a lot of hard words there.
firsly, in the second sentence, doesn't that have to be 'starve' or something because i honestly wouldn't know what 'starting' has to do with anything.
and a little bit further, doesn't that have to be 'remunerate'?
(sorry if i come of like a grammar nazi, but i don't speak English very well, and your post is quite hard to understand)

i still have a few questions.
how would you measure effort? i don't think this can be done efficiently. it's quite easy to fake effort, and mostly it's done by peforming your job not as good as you would if efficiency was measured for instance. wich leads to less inefficiency. wich is a bad thing.

also, i always thought that anarcho-communists were something different than anarcho-collectivists. the first relying on mutual aid and the later on collectivism.

Sorry about that. I was in a hurry. That should have been starve, and the second question word was "re-numerate". Effort is measured by your co-workers in this case. At the end of each month, the workplace has a meeting and decides how to fairly distribute work credit. There's of course going to be some bitching, but from what I can tell workplaces know who does the work and who doesn't.

What is your opinion of State Socialism (I am not saying China is that)Trotskylvania?

I'm not a big fan. I don't think that state ownership will solve the problems of capitalism.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

I would rather go to church every day and live in a communist world. Seeing that I love the Lord, to worship him every day would be great, and, as communism, the true sort, is a people's society of peace and equality, one in which duty to the world and to my brothers and sisters would not require violence or anger. To be able to serve Lord, Earth, and People in happiness is my dream.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

better be careful what church you choose in that bargain

"All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need."

CCCP!

The actual ideology of communism isn't evil. itsactually the opposite. its bsically the people rise up and live in social harmony without currency or any business related stuff.

BUT

communism is easily currupted into something in which people take power and kill others ect. So really communism it self isn't bad its the people who try to lead that way:eek:

I don't hate it. It's like anarchy in that you seem to have a disproportionate number of people who are advocating it. As with anarchy, 99% of people in favor of communism don't know jackshit about what they're talking about.

I don't hate it. It's like anarchy in that you seem to have a disproportionate number of people who are advocating it. As with anarchy, 99% of people in favor of communism don't know jackshit about what they're talking about.

I beg to differ. The majority of the people who are actually vocal in their beliefs know exactly what they advocate.

The only problem with communism is that it is impossible to implement.

really? so what would you call the system typically called 'primitive communism'?

The only problem with communism is that it is impossible to implement.

If I had the choice between a communist dictatorship (eg. USSR) and a right-wing dictatorship (eg. Nazi Germany), I'd go for the communist any day.

Except that Nazi Germany was not a right wing dictatorship. An examination of their manifesto would eliminate any doubts that they were lefties, and even then, would you expect to find this in a right-wing government?

Animal rights enshrined in law
Vegetarianism encouraged as a lifestyle
Keynesian economic policies carried to their fullest extent
Government control over business

I don't think so. A better example of a right-wing dictatorship would be Pinochet's Chile.

Also, I was not just talking about Stalin when I mentioned the 100 million. I was also talking about Mao, Pol Pot, and so on.

Except that Nazi Germany was not a right wing dictatorship. An examination of their manifesto would eliminate any doubts that they were lefties, and even then, would you expect to find this in a right-wing government?

Animal rights enshrined in law
Vegetarianism encouraged as a lifestyle
Keynesian economic policies carried to their fullest extent
Government control over business

I don't think so. A better example of a right-wing dictatorship would be Pinochet's Chile.

Also, I was not just talking about Stalin when I mentioned the 100 million. I was also talking about Mao, Pol Pot, and so on.
And you're also quoting a disputed figure subject to wildly divergent claims depending on one's ideological axe to grind.:rolleyes: If you're getting that from The Black Book of Communism, I should remind you that Nicholas Werth and Jean-Louis Margolin (one-third of the book's six authors) have publicly distanced themselves from that maximum figure and the Stephane Courtois who pushed for it when researching the book; he arguably cherry-picking the most exorbitant claims of Communist/Socialist brutality, and ignoring more pedestrian/lower estimates. In particular, Courtois makes no distinction between deliberate deaths (war, executions, &c) and accidental ones (natural disaster, economic collapse, &c); presumably due to his seeming obsession with reaching the incendiary 100-million mark.
Werth also upheld the following key qualitative difference between Nazism and Communism in his criticism of Courtois' work: "Death camps didn't exist in the Soviet Union." Or rather, not death camps specifically as such like the Nazis pioneered, nor intended for extermination of enemies defined on a specifically racial basis as in the Nazist usage. I won't touch the Nazism left/right question; aside from my reminder that the Papacy and other definitely-conservative institutions were quite happy to buddy up with Hitler against Stalin before WWII, just as long as it was convenient for them (i.e., Germany/Italy/Japan were winning against Republican Spain/the USSR/Mao Zedong, and the Holocaust was still unknown or only rumored).
As regards the OP, my answer is simple: Hardly, at least in the philosophical sense; unless of course you regard equality and fairness themselves ("From each according to their ability; to each according to their need," and all that...) as "evil" for some reason. If you read Das Kapital, you'll notice that most of this monumental (size as well as importance) book is simply detailed case studies of working-class conditions in 1840s-60s England, and Karl Marx's/Friedrich Engels' own political conclusions derived from these; a work itself largely composed in that bastion of liberal (as in Adam Smith) thought, the Reading Room of the British Museum, where Karl Marx is estimated to have spent nearly half his life all-told.
Note however, that I do believe the corruption of communist philosophy started early; namely when Friedrich Engels had to pick up where Marx left off after his death in 1871, and devised a 'Marxist Theory of Nature' which applied dialectical materialist reasoning where it had no business being applied even back then in the 19th Century (such as Physics). Things only got worse from there, and only in China/Cuba/Venezuela is the intellectual flexibility to correct the problem being developed just lately (now that the USSR and its intellectual deadweight on Communist philosophy are gone) by the ruling parties.
If I were to follow the above line of reasoning you used when mentioning the "100 million", AP, Christianity could be regarded as fully 56% as "evil" as Communism due to the maximum estimated death toll nearing 56 million for it in turn (counting the late Roman-era religious violence by Christians against heretics or pagans, the Dark Ages, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the American Conquest and its aftermath, &c; M.D. Aletheia, The Rationalist's Manual, "The Fruits of Christianism," 1897). I don't make that accusation though, since there is every bit as little point in it as when such is done against Marxism/Socialism/Communism/&c; and since Aletheia's methodology is every bit as flawed as Stephane Courtois'. "Is" categorically does not equal "Ought" in logical argument; as derived by none other than renowned conservative David Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature (the irony, eh?;)), and called "Hume's Guillotine." Please do remember this, or at least try to...

Communism is not evil, even when thinking from a non moral-relavitist point of view. My only problem with classical marxist communism is the lumpenproteliriat (is that right?)

In the end communism actually becomes an anarchist society. It just has a lot more steps to reach the end result.

Regardless, whilst I don't actually like communism, anarchism or libertarianism I can respect the ones that actually are designed to try to increase the capabilities and quality of the entire population.

There are a fair amount of benefits to communism. Not enough thought was put into how to stop particulars of leninist-marxist communism from seizing power. That being said, Russia was a pretty bad place to start a communist place (due to very little processed resource capability and extreme hostility by the major powers of the day).

True. With Leninism (or Maoism, any of its derivitives), I think it comes down to the issue of corruption. If you have people genuinely working for the good of the nation running the state, then you'll be moving towards the 'anarchist', no-state end. If not, you essentially end up with 'state capitalism', where the people running the state drive the rest of the country into the ground for the benefit of the wealthy elite.

It's funny how people use the term 'communism' to refer to a one-party dictatorship ;o. I guess Marxism-Leninism is, but the end that it aspires to is in actuality, the ultimate form of democracy. Also, Marxism =/= Marxism-Leninism. The 'Communist' dictatorships of the last century, in fact were'nt. They were just really corrupt (as in Stalin's USSR), or really mismanaged (Mao's China), socialist dictatorships.

Except that Nazi Germany was not a right wing dictatorship. An examination of their manifesto would eliminate any doubts that they were lefties, and even then, would you expect to find this in a right-wing government?

Animal rights enshrined in law
Vegetarianism encouraged as a lifestyle
Keynesian economic policies carried to their fullest extent
Government control over business

yes. or, at least, none of that is counter to rightwing ideals

Strong state, heaviest surveilance on the higher levels of government, extreme transparency of all state apparatus, non-unitary system, federal type government with a federal army and each statoid having an auxilirary army.



I really like the idea of surveillance and transparencey, but who's going to do the monitoring, who's above the state here? Some kind of civillian watchdog group? Who's going to be monitoring them, making sure they're not being bought?

I really like the idea of surveillance and transparencey, but who's going to do the monitoring, who's above the state here? Some kind of civillian watchdog group? Who's going to be monitoring them, making sure they're not being bought?

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Sorry, I just like the phrase.:p

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Sorry, I just like the phrase.:p

Who doesn't? Very applicable here too ;p. This is, more or less, a problem with, well... EVERYTHING! Morality and dedication are the key to a successful and just system, I think. It's just ashame that they seem so hard to come by.

It really is ashame that either the wrong people end up at the top, or else they lose touch or lose their direction, and things stagnate. Castro is a good example ;/.

I dont hate it...its just that Communism is basically a utopian idea and doesnt work if you introduce people into it >_>


I bet they said the same thing about Democracy in 1775.

Do you believe in progress and bettering the world? Because if you do, there's no reason not to believe that there can be success in that progress. Perfect utopia no, but utopic nonetheless.

I really like the idea of surveillance and transparencey, but who's going to do the monitoring, who's above the state here? Some kind of civillian watchdog group? Who's going to be monitoring them, making sure they're not being bought?


Ideally, EVERYONE is watching EVERYONE.

Everyone doesn't have to ACTUALLY watch everyone, of course, so long as the capability exists so that everyone COULD.

The end of privacy - coupled with an appropriate liberalization of taboos and mores - could do wonders for the world, provided it is on an egalitarian basis - which is sadly unlikely. But imagine a world where ANYONE could watch ANYONE doing ANYTHING ANYWHERE. Shame would die in a generation... politics wouldn't be far behind.

Actually, my figures do not come from one source, they came from a variety. Based upon the book Mao: The Unknown Story, there were seventy million unnecessary deaths during his period in power. Based upon what I learnt in history, Stalin caused fifty million unnecessary deaths during his period in power. Already, we have covered the 100 million unnecessary deaths, and there has not been the inclusion of Pol Pot, and the other dictators that caused low level massacres.

Also, it would not be Christianity that would be blamed, but the Roman Catholic Church - the Protestant denominations have never caused the large scale murders that were committed in the name of Catholicism.

Also, Free Soviets, I have never found a Conservative that is in favour of animal rights or establishing vegetarianism as a lifestyle; in fact, these are policies you would expect from the Green Party, and they are lefties.

Also, Free Soviets, I have never found a Conservative that is in favour of animal rights or establishing vegetarianism as a lifestyle; in fact, these are policies you would expect from the Green Party, and they are lefties.

they are not defining features of either wing. more like completely tangential, really. we certainly can't hold that every single jain in the world is a raging left-winger on the basis of their vegetarianism.

Ideally, EVERYONE is watching EVERYONE.

Everyone doesn't have to ACTUALLY watch everyone, of course, so long as the capability exists so that everyone COULD.

The end of privacy - coupled with an appropriate liberalization of taboos and mores - could do wonders for the world, provided it is on an egalitarian basis - which is sadly unlikely. But imagine a world where ANYONE could watch ANYONE doing ANYTHING ANYWHERE. Shame would die in a generation... politics wouldn't be far behind.

I see where you're going with this. Although I do think that IDEALLY, everyone wouldn't HAVE to watch everyone. By allowing everyone to watch everyone wouldn't you just essentially be scaring everyone into thinking that they need to appear 'good', rather than people ACTUALLY being 'good'?

Although if all went according to plan, your end result would actually be what I stated as the ideal, right?

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the policy would be unpopular across the board, and there would be a harsh backlash ;/.

I really like the idea of surveillance and transparencey, but who's going to do the monitoring, who's above the state here? Some kind of civillian watchdog group? Who's going to be monitoring them, making sure they're not being bought?

The logs/records would be part of the public record.

True. With Leninism (or Maoism, any of its derivitives), I think it comes down to the issue of corruption. If you have people genuinely working for the good of the nation running the state, then you'll be moving towards the 'anarchist', no-state end. If not, you essentially end up with 'state capitalism', where the people running the state drive the rest of the country into the ground for the benefit of the wealthy elite.

Which is why you want almost complete transparencey and limits as to the powers of various state apparatus.

It's funny how people use the term 'communism' to refer to a one-party dictatorship ;o. I guess Marxism-Leninism is, but the end that it aspires to is in actuality, the ultimate form of democracy. Also, Marxism =/= Marxism-Leninism. The 'Communist' dictatorships of the last century, in fact were'nt. They were just really corrupt (as in Stalin's USSR), or really mismanaged (Mao's China), socialist dictatorships.

I know. Well, the soviets didn't seem that socialist but the chinese tried to do it but stuffed up.

Also, Free Soviets, I have never found a Conservative that is in favour of animal rights or establishing vegetarianism as a lifestyle; in fact, these are policies you would expect from the Green Party, and they are lefties.

If Britain had followed France's way with colonies after WW2 (holding onto them for as lopng as possible) then the anglicans may well have supported some nasty actions.

Nazism seems to be a mix of ethnic socialism and fascism. Leans towards the more right wing though.

Ideally, EVERYONE is watching EVERYONE.

Everyone doesn't have to ACTUALLY watch everyone, of course, so long as the capability exists so that everyone COULD.

The end of privacy - coupled with an appropriate liberalization of taboos and mores - could do wonders for the world, provided it is on an egalitarian basis - which is sadly unlikely. But imagine a world where ANYONE could watch ANYONE doing ANYTHING ANYWHERE. Shame would die in a generation... politics wouldn't be far behind.

Would be nice for that to happen (1st part). There of course would need to be a fair amount of the morals kept (so as to keep the society functioning) and the people in power would be held more strictly to them.

Actually, my figures do not come from one source, they came from a variety. Based upon the book Mao: The Unknown Story, there were seventy million unnecessary deaths during his period in power. Based upon what I learnt in history, Stalin caused fifty million unnecessary deaths during his period in power. Already, we have covered the 100 million unnecessary deaths, and there has not been the inclusion of Pol Pot, and the other dictators that caused low level massacres.

Also, it would not be Christianity that would be blamed, but the Roman Catholic Church - the Protestant denominations have never caused the large scale murders that were committed in the name of Catholicism.

*SNIP*
Good, glad to see some variety at least.;) Although note that from what I've read of it (mostly in connection with reviews), I also consider Iris Chang's work to be highly sensationalist as well; both it and the Black Book of Communism essentially twinking the body count upward by taking the maximum estimates of "unnecessary" deaths during the periods in question for regimes studied. And from what I recall, both she and Courtois essentially treat all the "unnecessary" deaths as ethically-tantamount to deliberate murder regardless of their actual provenance (itself so often and hotly disputed that objective opinion is virtually unheard of). Arguably, a differentiation between "mass murder" and "mass negligent homicide" might be more appropriate, yes? Dead may be dead in laymen's terms, but when you argue "guilt" or which ideology should "die" you cross the line from everyday into legal reasoning; and there is a definite difference between the two crimes in that regard since intent can be either a mitigating or aggravating factor in most legal systems (of any ideology).
Also, what of my point about "is" not equalling "ought?":rolleyes: There is a valid and nigh-inescapable distinction between the alleged "evil of Communism" as a philosophy and the documented deeds of individual or collective "evil communists" in the name of said philosophy. The first allegation I consider either ill-considered (when it doesn't take account of social constraints on the exercise of individual moral responsbility) or even simply elitist (the old "all men are not created equal," despite the logically non-zero if remote possibility that Stephen Hawking with an AK could pwn Chuck Norris under the right circumstances); but the second fact is so obvious that even I'll acknowledge such, openly and without impact on my own beliefs as a socialist aspiring to set a better example than that sort.
To your credit, you've documented your take on the proverbial "deeds of evil communists" well-enough for my tastes, since I neither care for a numbers fight nor delude myself into thinking we'd actually convince each other of anything If I did (given what we'd probably think of each other's sources and their respective motivations). Simple civility and interest compel I leave that particular irresoluble can of worms alone, but what about the philosophy?:confused: Again, IMO the old "Argumentum ad Consequentiam" (which is what Courtois/Chang essentially resort to AFAIK by emphasizing death tolls so much) has minimal-to-no bearing when it comes to deciding philosophical evil or good like the OP is talking about, since most of rhetoric still works on a deontological ethical basis last I checked. As pointed out by no less a conservative than David Hume and seconded by many others either liberal or conservative since (John Locke, Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, &c), arguing morality from material facts is essentially made of fail due to the inherent issues of individual bias and arguing two different things (metaphysical dogma versus physical observation). Do you affirm or deny this philosophical tenet?

Effort is measured by your co-workers in this case. At the end of each month, the workplace has a meeting and decides how to fairly distribute work credit. There's of course going to be some bitching, but from what I can tell workplaces know who does the work and who doesn't.


i see this system going two ways. the most likely is that they set up some kind of agreement wich describes how much one should earn, based upon the time he works there, how many children the person has etc.
the other one would be that it becomes a popularity contest.
the first one doesn't reward effort, and the second one is also a lottery. i could be wrong though, has anybody done any research into this system? it can't be to hard to find a group of people and tell them that they can distribute work credit after a week of working together.

Except that Nazi Germany was not a right wing dictatorship. An examination of their manifesto would eliminate any doubts that they were lefties, and even then, would you expect to find this in a right-wing government?

Animal rights enshrined in law
Vegetarianism encouraged as a lifestyle
Keynesian economic policies carried to their fullest extent
Government control over business

I don't think so. A better example of a right-wing dictatorship would be Pinochet's Chile.


isn't it so that the more authoritarian a state becomes, the more irrelevant stuff like that become? stalin, hitler and pinochet aren't that different, they all wanted as much power as possible, i don't think the economic system they used is that important.

It really is ashame that either the wrong people end up at the top

that's probably because you have to be ruthless to end up at the top. that way good people don't get there.

I will deal with Wagdog's thoughts in full later, however I would like to ask this question - how do you account for the anomolies with the censuses conducted in the PRC during the 1950s - the numbers simply do not add up, however, I would like you all to read a brief quote from here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1143131/posts

He had been something of a bohemian in his youth, and always regarded young people and their idealism as the key to progress and the overcoming of outmoded prejudices. And he was widely admired by the young people of his country, many of whom belonged to organizations devoted to practicing and propagating his teachings. He had a lifelong passion for music, art, and architecture, and was even something of a painter. He rejected what he regarded as petty bourgeois moral hang-ups, and he and his girlfriend "lived together" for years. He counted a number of homosexuals as friends and collaborators, and took the view that a man's personal morals were none of his business; some scholars of his life believe that he himself may have been homosexual or bisexual. He was ahead of his time where a number of contemporary progressive causes are concerned: he disliked smoking, regarding it as a serious danger to public health, and took steps to combat it; he was a vegetarian and animal lover; he enacted tough gun control laws; and he advocated euthanasia for the incurably ill.

He championed the rights of workers, regarded capitalist society as brutal and unjust, and sought a third way between communism and the free market. In this regard, he and his associates greatly admired the strong steps taken by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to take large-scale economic decision-making out of private hands and put it into those of government planning agencies. His aim was to institute a brand of socialism that avoided the inefficiencies that plagued the Soviet variety, and many former communists found his program highly congenial. He deplored the selfish individualism he took to be endemic to modern Western society, and wanted to replace it with an ethic of self-sacrifice: "As Christ proclaimed 'love one another'," he said, "so our call -- 'people's community,' 'public need before private greed,' 'communally-minded social consciousness' -- rings out.! This call will echo throughout the world!"

The reference to Christ notwithstanding, he was not personally a Christian, regarding the Catholicism he was baptized into as an irrational superstition. In fact he admired Islam more than Christianity, and he and his policies were highly respected by many of the Muslims of his day. He and his associates had a special distaste for the Catholic Church and, given a choice, preferred modern liberalized Protestantism, taking the view that the best form of Christianity would be one that forsook the traditional other-worldly focus on personal salvation and accommodated itself to the requirements of a program for social justice to be implemented by the state. They also considered the possibility that Christianity might eventually have to be abandoned altogether in favor of a return to paganism, a worldview many of them saw as more humane and truer to the heritage of their people. For he and his associates believed strongly that a people's ethnic and racial heritage was what mattered most. Some endorsed a kind of cultural relativism according to which what is true or false and right or wrong in some sense depends on one's ethnic worldview, and especially on what best promotes the well-being of one's ethnic group

Do you really think that this would be the description of a right-winger? I don't think so, it sounds more like the description of a left-winger - Hitler was no Conservative, he was a Socialist with a Nationalist streak.

I don't think so, it sounds more like the description of a left-winger - Hitler was no Conservative, he was a Socialist with a Nationalist streak.

why can't a socialist be a conservative? and why can't right-wingers be progressive?

A Socialist cannot be a Conservative (emphasis on a, they can be conservative) because they are polar opposites, when you speak of a Socialist, you are talking about a leftie, while when you speak of a Conservative, you are talking about a rightie. Vice-versa would apply

A Socialist cannot be a Conservative (emphasis on a, they can be conservative) because they are polar opposites, when you speak of a Socialist, you are talking about a leftie, while when you speak of a Conservative, you are talking about a rightie. Vice-versa would apply

wouldn't that depend on where you live though? a conservative in stalinist russia would probably be totaly different from a conservative in the USA for instance. and you can be morally conservative while you are economicaly left-wing. also i've never heard anybody call Hitler a conservative, most people tend to call them a nazi, fascist or national socialist.

No political system is evil. Each on has the potential for both. It all depends who's in charge. A democracy with a bad lader can be just as evil as communism with a bad leader. The problem with communism is that, when you get a bad leader, it's harder to get rid of him.

I will deal with Wagdog's thoughts in full later, however I would like to ask this question - how do you account for the anomolies with the censuses conducted in the PRC during the 1950s - the numbers simply do not add up, however, I would like you all to read a brief quote from here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1143131/posts



Do you really think that this would be the description of a right-winger? I don't think so, it sounds more like the description of a left-winger - Hitler was no Conservative, he was a Socialist with a Nationalist streak.
I'm not challenging the PRC census figures themselves, for I agree that they do not add up; and even if I didn't, I wouldn't challenge them anyway, since that destroys any threads like these instantly as civilized debates once the old body-count-godwin tangent starts.:rolleyes: I simply disagree with Iris Chang et. al. about what proportions of the census that "doesn't add up" are outright murder, what proportions simple negligence (I think we both agree Mao was notorious for this in his pseudo-economics), and what proportions the result of Acts of Nature beyond human control under any economic system yet conceivable. An example of the latter could include the Tangshan Earthquake of July 28th 1976, just at the end of the Cultural Revolution; leaving an official toll of 242,419 dead and 164,581 injured according to it's wiki article here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangshan_earthquake) Unofficially, the death toll could be three times the quote (again, your mileage has as much right to vary here as mine); but unless a government gives sufficient grounds for suspicion (the faulty census records, for instance), I personally apply the US Constitution's "full faith and credit" principle to their records. And I only apply such suspicion in the specific case it is warranted (again, the census records in the PRC's case), rather than across the board about a regime's supposed veracity or no. Frankly, I don't particularly buy Arendtian/&c Totalitarianism theory; least of all when it claims certain types of regimes are by nature 'incapable' of telling the truth, an IMO dangerous assertion which amounts to a mass ad hominem attack against an entire regime's members, since it denies the legitimacy of the other side and their claims out of hand simply by vice of what power structure they adhere to.
As for Hitler's supposed "conservatism" or no, I'll say this. He would not be considered a capital-c "Conservative" in the old-school Tory definition, focused on traditional authority legitimated by God/Providence and Heritage/Ascription (as in any monarchy or principality), for sure. In that point you are entirely correct.;) However, small-c conservatism (read: traditionalist populism) arguably evolved in a fascist direction early last century, once Mussolini abandoned the left-Socialist leanings of his World War I youth for radical nationalism when many Italian socialists denounced the war effort. Not least among the perceived advantages of this evolutionary "adaptation" of socialist methods onto "conservative" politics was to provide the international militant "Right" its own version of the Bolshevik discipline seen as so effective for the international militant "Left" in the 1920s-30s, and this proved a key reason many conservatives textbook or populist looked the other way regarding Fascism/Nazism; so long as it focused its wrath on the Bolshevik threat instead of liberals-as-such which included some of their own of course.
Also, whatever the definition behind "conservative", I believe I've studied enough about the Nazist period in Germany to say with confidence that Hitler would've considered your "left-winger" characterization of him (placing Socialist before Nationalist) as a grave insult. The NSDAP had a term for those types: "Beefsteak Nazis," or "Brown on the outside, but Red on the inside;" and it was among the worst ideological charges one Nazi could level against another. In general, Hitler was most interested in practicing "Socialism" (read: expropriation) against those he deemed of a "degenerate" racial background (notably Jewish businessmen as during Kristallnacht); and Hitler likewise considered German/Aryan "racial comradeship" as a (if not the) paramount part in his take on what constituted a valid "National Socialist" for him. In other words, his racial-nationalism came before his socialism however you slice it.
And in turn, Hitler's racial theories were ultimately derived from those of French conservative (old-school sense) Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau, where the "Aryan" usage employed by the Nazis (meaning "Germanic/Scandinavian") was originated to both claim and justify the French monarchist nobility's right to rule by their consitituting a separate "Aryan" race of Frenchmen descended from the Norman Vikings and Germanic Franks, distinct from and superior to the allegedly mixed-heritage (Gallic, Jewish, &c) and republican commons behind the Revolutions of 1789 on; as well as to back Gobineau's own claims to membership in such Norman/Aryan nobility. Again, ideologies evolve, and Fascists or Nazists of any sort would flinch at being called "liberals" or "lefties" by you, especially in the same breath as the Communists or assorted other Socialists they deem mortal enemies almost to the one among themselves. And not just flinch, but probably lash out in retaliation for said insult as well...

Communism is kind of unique among ideologies in that it is in itslf a utopian system that provides equality to all people that has never been used on any scale.

No political system is evil. Each on has the potential for both. It all depends who's in charge. A democracy with a bad lader can be just as evil as communism with a bad leader. The problem with communism is that, when you get a bad leader, it's harder to get rid of him.

I'd go a step further.

Communism in it's purest form does not acknoledge the need of leadership.

As a result, it has never been tried, and likely never will be tried.

You can call the PRC or the USSR communist, but then again you can call a mercedes a turnip if you really want to.

A Socialist cannot be a Conservative (emphasis on a, they can be conservative) because they are polar opposites, when you speak of a Socialist, you are talking about a leftie, while when you speak of a Conservative, you are talking about a rightie. Vice-versa would apply

Actually all a conservative has to be is trying to keep the status quo in the face of reforms that do not hold to their ideology or trying to bring back an ideology that existed for that region in the past (though you get the problem of some ideologies being in the past being considered progressive and others conservative, usually dictated by the more recent majority ideology being the conservative one).

I'd go a step further.

Communism in it's purest form does not acknoledge the need of leadership.

As a result, it has never been tried, and likely never will be tried.

You can call the PRC or the USSR communist, but then again you can call a mercedes a turnip if you really want to.

Mercedes makes trucks, so they could be aiding in the transport of turnips....

*Removes massive post (post #243) *

That was an exstensive and well back up argument.

Hitler himself had large political purges to eliminate the people who believed more in the socialism than the nationalism.

In his beliefs to the outside states he had a more ethic socialist/nationalist (both were mixed in rather well) beliefs that was heavily influenced by fascist beliefs. His interior policies followed those fascist beliefs but were tied to the ethnic socialism/nationalism, both feeding off each other.

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.


Good man! We should have a cup of coffee sometime...

Good man! We should have a cup of coffee sometime...

You are an interesting source of support. Is that due to a more moral relavist position or just the excessive nature of the OP?

I hate Communism, I truely do. I'd rather go to church every day for the rest of my life than live in a Communist society.

I believe that Communism is evil and must die.

Thoughts?

amen

First of all, Wagdog, I do grant that these missing people were not directly murdered, however, they were essentially murdered as Mao persued absolutely idiotic economic policies. Same with Stalin in the 1930s.

Also, I did research a couple of years ago in the Nazi German economy and found that followed policies that were far from Conservative. Back in the 1930s, Conservatives were generally opposed to any form of state intervention in the economy - they were the ones that criticised policies such as Roosevelt's New Deal. Yet, Hitler went beyond Roosevelt in his economic policies - he followed Keynesian economic policies with very strong vigour and would therefore not be economically Conservative.



Now that economic policies have been dealt with, why don't we look at Hitler's eugenics policy. Eugenics back in the early 20th Century were supported by none other than the

Progressives

The Progressives may have been founded by a Conservative, but it is very easy for people to use the mask of Conservatism to pursue some very left wing policies (take Muldoon in New Zealand and Nixon in America as some examples). A mere look at the party programme on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_%28United_States%2C_1912%29) will show that it was very left wing by the standards of their day.

A classic example of a left-wing eugenist was Margaret Sanger - in 1932 this is what she argued for

"A stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring"

Hitler praised this woman, in spite of the fact she was a socialist, as she said herself in What Every Girl Should Know.

Hitler's racial policies were not inspired by some French Conservative, but more likely, what was fashionable amongst the left during that time.



Now that we have discussed eugenics, how about Hitler's green streak. During his time in office, he was obsessed with creating national parks to protect Germany's "sacred forests." How about the fact that he made Germany the first nation to ban animal testing? How about his bans on smoking?

Hitler himself was an avid vegetarian and he was obsessed with homoepathic treatments. The Nazis were obsessed with organic farming and even Himmler was known to grow herbs on his organic farm to treat his troops.

This sounds far less Conservative to me and more like a modern day Green Party, less the peace cries.

Fact of the matter is that Hitler's policies went against everything that Conservatives stood for back in the 1930s and even today. Ultimately, it was probably one of the greatest Conservatives of them all, Sir Winston Churchill, that was the first to take a stand against Hitler



Now, I will close with a quote from Hitler himself

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions"

Sounds rather socialist, would you not say? Even sounds like something from Marx, or Lenin.