In theory, what is wrong with Communism?

[greblc]

Human nature seems to corrupt all forms of Government. Why is it that Communism equates evil? and Capitalism good?

I understand Cold War Propaganda has a great deal to do with our perception but both have flaws.

If Sloth is a factor in the failure of Communism couldn't Greed in turn contribute to the failure of our Capitalist Society?

[cestpaspossible]

1. It's in practice that it has been such a failure.

[greenohio]

14. Exactly. Communism works on paper.

It appears to "work" for a short period time, but almost always ends up in economic disaster. Some communist states allowed various forms of capitalism to avoid the disaster, but in then thats not communism.

Communism can start great with free education, healthcare, and retirement for everybody.

[Blue Wally]

85. Free education, healthcare, and retirement

These things are not incompatible with capitalism. The government in a capitalist economic system can develop a series of taxes either direct or indirect to porvide education, healthcare, and retirement. In the US, we have an excellent system to provide for free education from K-12 supported by taxes. We have a free retirment system supported by social security. We can have a free medical care system just by voting for it and developing a tax structure to support it. You could have free university education as well. Any state can crank up their income or sales taxes a couple of notches and say that state universities and Jucos are free of tuition for all state residents.

[greenohio]

93. Yes and no.

In a pure capitalistic society, nothing is free. When you have the government implement taxes to provide for those things, you begin to bridge the gap between capitalism and socialism. The more the government pays for, the more socialistic the society becomes. I'm not saying its bad per say. I'm just saying its not pure capitalism.

[Blue Wally]

225. I define socialism as owning the means of production

All governments provide benefits in one form or another paid by taxes in one form or another. In a capitalist economic system, the voters vote on how much they want to be taxed to provide a certain level of government services. Government is a parasite on the economy. How much can government consume without causing a deterioration in the health of the economy. A successful parasite draws maximum advantage from the host while not affecting the health of the host. Unsuccesful parasites draw too much and kill the host.

[lostinacause]

263. I think you fail to understand the reason for governments.

The goal of governments is to work to deal with issues where capitalism is inefficient or unfair. In terms of inefficiency there are a number of things that the government can do to make the system more efficient then if there was no government; Education (human capital development), infrastructure, environmental laws, standards, enforcement of property rights, providing information.

[rowire]

303. Free Everything Except For ................

the people. That has been the primary problem with Communist governments. In order to provide free things for people, they necessarily have to take away something from other people. It is a delicate balance and requires that all citizens be willing to give a little without the necessity for the government to start killing or those who are uncooperative ala Stalin.

[lostinacause]

138. It doesn't work on paper

Even under simple analysis there are issues with power, allocation of resources, and motivation/free riding.

[greenohio]

173. OK, I'll give you that. It doesn't even work on paper. -nt

[Darranar]

54. When has it been practiced?

What, in your view, constitutes "failure"?

[forgethell]

63. Well, there's

the Soviet Union for one. Then there's Castro's tropical paradise, Cuba. And of course, that peace-loving nation, North Korea.

[K-W]

81. None of the places you named have ever been communist.

Anymore guesses?

[greenohio]

111. I think your definition of communist and the rest of the worlds

definition of communist, aren't the same.

[K-W]

117. I think most of the world recieved inaccurate information.

Because communism became a global propaganda word for communists and anti-communists alike.

[greenohio]

127. I see. You're right and the rest of the world is wrong.

Fascinating perspective.

[K-W]

133. that isnt what I said, you are clearly not being honest here.

You are just trying to spin my words to smear me.

And by the way arguing that you are right because masses of people agree with you is completely fallacious.

[greenohio]

155. Arguing that the rest of the world is wrong because

they have received inaccurate information is delusional.

On this thread you have posted that:
Jesus was communist.
That there is private property in communism.
That there is no powerful central government in communism.
That no country has tried communism.

All of which are false.

Jesus wasn't communist.
There is no private property in communism.
There IS a powerful central government in communism. (Anarchism has no powerful central government.)
Communism has been tried repeatedly and failed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Communism_and_anarchism

http://www.studylight.org/desk/?query=mt+5:17&translation=nlt&st=1&new=1&sr=1&l=en

[K-W]

167. I never argued that so what on earth are you talking about?

You are lying about what ive said.

You made a completely silly argument that because masses of people agree with you you were right. I pointed out the obvious stupidity of this argument in that the masses arent neccessarily right, and in this case almost certainly arent because communism is a topic that is rarely discussed honestly because it has bee politicsized for so long and with such intensity by everyone involved. You are the one who argued from common knowledge, dont try to swing this around on me.

Jesus advocated communal living whether you want to admit it or not. Anyway, you cant call that false, it is obviously a matter of opinion, we cant go ask Jesus if he is a communist.

I never said there was absolute private property in communism. I said that some concept of private property needs to exist in communism, one that recognizes absolute communal ownership, but also recognizes the neccessity of identifying which things should be used by which person at which times etc.

There is no powerful central government in communism thats the whole damn point of communism. You are confusing communism and socialism.

No country has tried communism, some countries have lied about trying commmunism.

Why you choose to take Stalin and Mao at thier words I do not understand.

[greenohio]

179. The purpose of a definition is to have a common understanding

of a term. When you argue the definition of communism, the common understanding of it is right, and all other definitions are wrong.

Give me one passage where Jesus said to live "communally" or on a commune.

There is no private property in communism. Saying now that private property is "which things should be used by which person at which times" is NOT private property...and you know it.

[The Magistrate]

211. Several Small Points, Mr. Ohio

By the standards established in Marxist and Communist theory, the statement that "Communism" did not exist in the Soviet Union, or any other place, is correct. The Bolshevik and Communist Party was, by its own lights, striving towards that state, but had not achieved it, even according to its own lights. Communist factions and parties delight in proclaiming they are the nearest to true Communism, and their rivals the farthest things conceivable from it; slanging matches along these lines between, say, Khrushchev and Mao towards the end of the fifties, provide a good deal of entertainment.

As a practical matter, what existed in the Soviet Union was simply the highest form of monopoly capitalism, with the consolidations taking place at pistol-point rather than by financial legerdemain, and the consolidating entrepenuers acquiring the state for themselves into the bargain. The state, being the monopolist, was able to make the same attempt to dictate the market that any monopolist would attempt, and as the sole employer, had complete control over labor, and could sweat it as desired. It remained a money economy in all essentials, and the formulation that state ownership meant people's ownership, since the state was in the hands of the people via the vanguard party representing the people was a mere sophistry.

Marx's theory was the Communism would occur ineluctably in the most industrially advanced states, where there existed a surfiet of economic resources. He held it to be impossible where those conditions did not exist, and particularly impossible where pre-capitalist feudal economic and social structures were the order of the day. In such places, the social revolution, the sea change that overtook western Europe roughly between the Rennaisance and the French Revolution, would have to take place first, and then be followed by an interval of capitalist society, from the contradictions of which would eventually emerge Communism.

The great revolutions of the twentieth century in Russia and China were, regardless of what they may have called themselves, not Communist revolutions or the establishment of Communism, but actually social revolutions against feudalism, leading to the establishment of a state capitalism, and the creation of a modern industrial infrastructure. In both cases the authors felt they had reasoned some loophole through Marx's presecriptions by which they could force the process in a few years, but this was a delusion, in both Marxist and ordinary terms. They bear every pug-mark of the garden variety peasant revolt that has periodically shaken the ancient order since the record of history began, being distinguished only by their colossal scale, and success in actually expropriating the old land-owning governing elites. Both can be readily seen, today, to be sorting the resultant structure out into new ownership elites as the initial egalitarian thrust dissipates in the sustaining of a new order and governing class. This, too, is most typical: Chinese history in the current era is marked by at least a half dozen such episodes, the most recent prior to Mao being the establishment of the Ming dynasty.

"Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is the exact opposite."

[forgethell]

226. so this is your argument

Marx's theory was the Communism would occur ineluctably in the most industrially advanced states, where there existed a surfiet of economic resources. He held it to be impossible where those conditions did not exist, and particularly impossible where pre-capitalist feudal economic and social structures were the order of the day. ???

In the United States, surely, there are enough resources for communism to occur? It hasn't, in fact, it is totally discredited and laughed at by anyone of any intellectual capacity, except college professors, but I repeat myself.

It does not work, it cannot work, hence the theory is wrong. By the way, capitalism is not done at the point of a gun. That is thuggery.

[IntravenousDemilo]

237. On the other hand...

Capitalism IS thuggery.

[forgethell]

249. Oh?

[ashmanonar]

266. have you forgotten about the union-breakers of the 1900s?

ya know, the guys who would KILL and BEAT and BLACKLIST the people who tried to unionize big business...(the meat packing plants, the steel workers, etc)

incidentally, the people who tried to unionize were socialists.

[forgethell]

268. agreed, those were thugs.

I did mention that capitalism was not done at the point of a pistol. However, the unions (socialists) were also very violent.

That being said, the companies would be practicing capitalism if they busted the unions by non-violent means. Economic, for example. Lock-outs. Etc.

[ashmanonar]

290. yea, i know. it just seemed like you weren't calling

any of them thugs. which would be a lie, technically speaking.

[Igel]

276. I believe that in orthodox communist theory the state

would, of itself, wither away.

There would be no state. There would be no poverty. There would be no riches. All would voluntarily work as hard as they could for as much as they needed, and no more; none would shirk work.

If communism has not occurred in the US, the immediate conclusion is that the US is not sufficiently industrially advanced. (This quickly becomes unfalsifiable, and, as far as I am concerned, moves it from "theory" with consequence hypotheses subject to disconfirmation to "belief", which is not susceptible for being disconfirmed.)

[aneerkoinos]

284. Communist theory

IIRC the standard theory predicts that capitalism will have to reach it's inherent limit of growth of profit, before collapse and revolution can occur. The development of theories certainly didn't end with Marx, and central role of imperialism (new markets and resources to capitalize) to capilism have been given quite a lot of thought.

So capitalist globalization and capitalization of new areas ("intellectual property", patenting genes etc.) and corporate monopolism that we see are in full accorcance with the standard theory. Which would thus predict that capitalism will come to end only after it has used all expansion room available, full globalization.

The main line of thought amont the new global anti-capitalist movement (World Social Forums etc.) seems to support a constant revolution that would not repress fullest potential of human creativity, so not much effort has been put to thearizing about communist utopia, as common opinion is that formulating overall strategic goals would just confine flexibility and creativity. Tactical goals or "projects" are a different matter...

[The Magistrate]

288. My Argument, Mr. Forget Hell?

That is simply my explaination of what this particular argument is really about. Marx was an acute and valuable historian, but a poor eschatologist.

It remains to be seen whther some of the inherent contradictions of our current economic system play out as he predicted, or restore something analogous to a feudal order. The capitalist experiment is only several centuries old....

[forgethell]

313. Or continue to

expand as human creativity blossoms and makes more resources, and yes, even markets, available. Or something else that neither of us has yet thought of.

but I stand corrected. Thank you for the explanation.


:)

[no name no slogan]

351. One caveat-- communism hasn't happened YET

Our current industrial/post-industrial economy is in its relative infancy, if you consider the entire course of human history. It's still quite possible that a communist-esque society will emerge some time in the future.

But since I'm not a gambling man, I wouldn't bet on it.

[greenohio]

241. "the Soviet Union was simply the highest form of monopoly capitalism"

Mr. Magistrate, though some of your points are accurate, the conclusion that what the Soviet Union had, was any form of capitalism is, well, wrong.

[The Magistrate]

286. Unfortunately For Purists On Either Side, Sir

That is not the case. Ownership by the state, which in practice, save perhaps in the case of a genuinely democratic order, translates to ownership by a small clique, differs in no particular from "private" ownership by magnates. It is true there generally are competing magnates, but there are competing factions in state organizations, and there were competing factions even in Stalin's party. It is also the case that all magnates seek to put rivals out of business and establish themselves as monopolists, and generally seek some assistance from the state in doing so: mush of Mr. Smith's "Wealth of Nations" consists of describing and denouncing this tendency and practice. The Bolsheviks, and the order of the Soviet Union, can be viewed as simply pushing the tendency to its ultmate expression: from certyain angles, it ,akes little difference whether you dtive a fellow down by use of economic power to set prices he acnnot profit at, or by pointing a gun at him, with or without a kind word....

"Some men rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."

[klyon]

294. you are correct

There was no "C" in USSR there was an "S".

KL

[IntravenousDemilo]

275. If it's any consolation, I understand what you're saying.

North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Cuba have never really been communist countries, just totalitarian. The people who set up these totalitarian regimes dressed themselves in left-wing "communist" robes in order to get popular support for their revolutions. They promised pie in the sky, better living conditions -- in short, all the good things communism can bring to a populace -- and the populace were enthralled at the prospect of not having to live like rats anymore. After all, one certainly wouldn't expect a revolutionary to get very far with: "Hello, Mr Serf. I am a greedy dictator who wants to take things over and make your life a living hell." It was more like "Hello, Mr Serf. I notice you're eating rotten potato skins and making bread out of the dust you shake from flour bags. Here, follow me and you'll have plenty to eat, a warm place to live, and dignity."

It didn't turn out that way, of course. Castro, Kim, and any number of the Soviet leadership have lived high on the hog while their citizens have much less to show for their trouble. OK, maybe in Cuba they're a little better off than under Batista, but basically the people in these supposed communist countries, not knowing any different, just traded one form of serfdom for another.

Well, quelle surprise! Marx's big mistake wasn't the even now untried political system he advocated, but that he hadn't counted on the nasty, moderating effects of human nature to screw it all up. He didn't realize that a bunch of evil, rapacious dictators would call themselves communist and get his concept all dirty. Now communism is incorrectly termed a totalitarian system -- a case of guilt by association -- and the positive aspects of communism are completely discounted as a result (mainly by the ill-informed, who unfortunately number in the majority because that's how powerful capitalist propaganda can be).

Greed is bad, period. People are greedy, period. Until people can be improved, there's not much hope for communism, though it would be nice to take an objective look at it for a change.

[ashmanonar]

297. i think cuba has always been one of the better "communist" societies.

their problem is that the US is sanctioning them, for reasons i can't fathom...they could be an incredibly rich country, with their climate (can anyone say tourist attraction?)...and if they were truly communist/socialist, the wealth would be spread around a bit better than in most countries (even in the us)...

most countries around the world can't figure out why we still sanction them. they smoke their cigars and think "those americans are fucking crazy"...i think we must be...

[Tafiti]

346. Tsk, tsk.

The U.S. cannot allow a communist country to succeed. We need not put crazy ideas into the people's dirty little minds. Question the sanctity of capitalism? Away with you, miscreant!

Personally, I think communism could only conceivably succeed in a very small nation-state. As someone pointed out up-thread, greed will exist no matter what, and the larger the nation-state, the more corrupt it will be. There's no getting around that, and it's doomed to fail from the start in such a case. And it seems an island like Cuba would probably be an ideal place for pure communism to blossom.

[ashmanonar]

360. yea, pretty much.

the US has a vested interest in keeping Communism seem an evil thing...despite the fact that most of the EU is socialist, to some degree. if it's "evil", people won't ever learn that they could have better than the scraps they're getting from the corporations.

[MHalblaub]

349. This years summer holidays! ;-)

Anybody wants some photos from Guantanamo?


***Spelling corectet***

[ashmanonar]

359. lol.

not my idea of a vacation, thanks. i want to go surfing, not water boarding.

my point is that cuba is undeveloped and really unappreciated. it's in a very temperate climate, it could do well. and i think that if the distribution of wealth was fair, it'd be a fantastic place to see. i wouldn't want to see hotels cluttering up coastlines, but that's a fair price to pay for a country that ISN'T in poverty.

[forgethell]

120. That is incorrect.

They all did. The real communism, not the fairy tale that Marx wwrote about.

Facts, sir, not opinion is what is needed. Name the place where communism has been practiced, then. You cannot, because it cannot exist.

[K-W]

128. So real communism is when someone lies about trying communism?

You arent even trying to be rational here.

It cannot exist? I guess we will just have to take your word on it because you are some kind of magical psychic wizard who can know what is an is not possible in human culture.

[lostinacause]

149. Communism cannot exist until

people are near perfect, however when people are near perfect every system would look pretty much the same.

[K-W]

169. I will agree with that.

Hey, I dont think communism would ever work. But I think that using a communal approach to societies problems might give us some useful and novel ideas to integrate into a rational plan.

[Kinkistyle]

178. The Open Source Movement/Peer-2-Peer networking.

I think a good example of working models of "socialism" or "communism" would be the Open Source Software movement - Linux being the most prominent result of that model, as well as Peer-2-Peer networking.

They work on the basic principles of information and work sharing. P2P networking is especially interesting because at its basis it utilizes a reward-system that rewards people who share versus people who horde and leech only. The same I guess with concepts like community moderation and karma systems. I think the Internet and Online games, etc. might just well be the precursor to economic and social models for governments of the future.

[TR Fan]

206. P2P is certainly a perfect example,

in that most "real live" P2Ps do indeed reward people who "share." Unfortunately, in most cases, these "sharing people" are sharing things they did not produce. In fact, P2P penalizes those people who actually produced the items.

Yep, a perfect example of communism. (no sarcasm intended)

[lostinacause]

218. So then why...

...are you fighting so strongly for it?

[forgethell]

227. Well,

then, answer this: Why hasn't it been tried yet. Real communism, I mean? I say it has been, nobody hopped on board the train, so then the ideologues went to using force to "persuade" people.

Rationality? What do you know about it?

[forgethell]

257. It strikes me that

you are unable to name a place where communism has been successfully tried.

I just gotta ask: how many times does reality have to hit youover the head with a 2 x 4 before you buy a clue?

[GumboYaYa]

301. I think you are missing the point ...

If by communism you mean Marx' notion of communism, it is not something you "try." It is something that society evolves toward as resources to drive capitalism become more scarce. Under our current economic system growth is a necessity. Without growth over the long-term, the American economy would collapse. That growth will become impossible at some point as the competition for resources increases. Ultimately economics is a zero-sum game. The time table for reaching the point of unsustainable growth has been extended by the discocery of the hydro-carbon economy, causing some to forget the zero-sum nature of economics. At some point the continuing growth will become unsustainable and then we will see if communism works. I fear what will happen if it does not. As the Magistrate says, the alternative at that point is a feudal economy. In the 20th century some thought that they could force a society into a communist revolution and found out that this will not work.

[forgethell]

311. "Ultimately economics is a zero-sum game"

This is where you are making your mistake. This is an assumption, only an assumption, and I do not think a valid one. The discovery of the hydro-carbon economy was not just an accident of nature, but a triump of human creativity. There will be others, but not under a communist government or system.

But there is another assumption. That society will "evolve" towards communism. That, too, has not been demostrated. Every society that has been in a society that it, and others, called "communist" got there, not by evolution, but by having it imposed upon them by vile men who sought power for themselves.

[GumboYaYa]

322. I suppose that is really the question...

The hydro-carbon economy is also in the throws of turmoil because of an impending scarcity of resources. All one needs do is look at Iraq. We shall see if human ingenuity can deliver another way to power continuing growth and survive in an increasingly polluted environment.

[ashmanonar]

324. if it wasn't for capitalism we wouldn't have these hydro-carbon

economic problems...

the oil companies don't want alternative fuel research to go on, bc that'd cut into their piece of the pie. they've run interference before. in a more socialist world/society, this problem would probably have been licked by now. as soon as they realized the shortcomings of hydro-carbon use, they could start researching new technology.

[forgethell]

339. Nucleur power would help n/t

[Darranar]

131. So, basically, "communism" is what Stalin, Mao, and Castro consider...

communism, not what its first proponents considered communism?

So, by that logic, because Athens called itself a democracy, real democracy involves no suffrage for women and slavery?

[reallygone]

245. Somewhere in between...

Actually, the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba are socialist in the final transitional stage to communism based upon their own public statements (note that the Soviet Union has now reverted to to another model and calls itself Russia again). I kind of trust their evaluation in this.

Korea says it is communist, and it fits most definitions of communism as outlined by Marx and Engels. At the very least it is in the final stage of socialims and need only the leader to relinquish control to become communist (which he won't do)

Either way it doesn't matter much. It does not matter if "Communism" would work if you cannot navigate successfully to reach that state of Utopia. So far, no one has managed to get through socialism and have a successful communist state.

communism = mass suicide

[John BigBootay]

273. The fact the "communism" has failed...

in every instance to establish a viable and equitable form of government should be all the proof necessary to discredit any further attempts to ressurrect it.

Whether these past attempt are examples of "pure" communism is totally irrlelevant-- we have no examples of pure anything, be it communism, capitalism or socialism. Pureness of theory is critical only to academics who know nothing of real-world stresses.

Adaptation to new data, new stresses, new variables is the key to the survival and thriving of ANY order-- be it an ecosystem, a human being or a system of governance.

Take away that fluidity and it will certainly die. That is one reason why capitalism is so successful-- it lacks central planning favoring distributed planning.

And that is why "pure" dogmatic communism is even more apt to fail than the hybridized examples we've seen in the past and (unfortunately) the present.

[Darranar]

134. Okay. You named a few examples...

now, out of curiosity, please specify how those regimes were "communist." Or even better, define "communism."

I am assuming, of course, that you are relying on more than the rhetoric of their leaders.

[reallygone]

248. Levitation

Communism is kind of like levitation. No one has actually practiced it correctly, so that's why it is unsuccessful. If it was just done correctly, why we could all levitate. Think how much energy that would save!

[cestpaspossible]

79. Wow, two such broad questions.

And dripping with sincerity.

When I say that it has been a failure in practice, I'm referring to those regimes that are commonly referred to as 'communist'.

Similarly, I'm willing to accept the commonly understood meaning of the word failure.

[K-W]

83. Please prove that one of those regimes actually tried communism.

its like arguing that Germany tried to create a utopia and failed. Just beacuse they claimed they were building to a communism doesnt make it so.

[cestpaspossible]

115. I guess communism is something that can only exist in theory.

Like cold fusion, some claim it was more than a theory, others scoff, but the only thing definitive that can be said is that in the end, no good has come of it.

[Darranar]

124. So, say, democracy is responsible for Cuba torturing dissidents...

because Cuba claims to be a democracy?

[cestpaspossible]

145. What a bizarre statement. People are responsible for their actions.

What are you talking about?

[Darranar]

163. Of course they are. That was my point...

Regimes claiming to be communist do not, in claiming that, prove that communism is in fact evil.

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to argue against something you claim could only exist in theory by saying that "no good has come of it." How can no good come of something that doesn't exist?

[cestpaspossible]

175. Look, you obviously are arguing with someone else.

I never claimed communism is evil. I only said the things I said. And I was trying to echo the other poster with my rhetorical comment. I was not claiming that communism can only exist in theory, I was stating what I saw as the logical conclusion of the other posters argument. If in all the attempts in history to practice communism, it has never been practiced (that's not my point, it is the other posters point), it begins to beg the question if it is possible in practice.

I just think it is silly, just at it is silly to say, as I heard Norman Mailer say recently, that democracy has only been tried once, in ancient Athens. OK, fine, according to the narrow definition he's using. I prefer common parlance unless it is an academic setting. Otherwise it all just becomes a matter of definitions and semantics and it is a fruitless type of discussion, imho.

[Darranar]

186. Fair enough. Replace "evil" with "bad," "ineffective,"...

"unworkable," whatever.

My point still remains.

The rhetoric used by totalitarian regimes to justify their actions is very often devoid of much truth, so associating Stalinism with communism is somewhat inaccurate. The same principle applies in regard to Cuba: Castro says that it is democratic, which does not mean it actually is; his actions cannot, without demonstrating that Cuba is a democracy, be associated with democratic governments.

I am not a communist. Serious application would either require a large-scale bureaucracy, which inherently would be unaccountable, or a vast number of small-scale interacting communes, which just seems such a step from current society to be completely unfeasible. But both of those are theoretical arguments, not empirical ones; there simply is not enough information on the subject to come to a conclusion, because the times when it has been practiced have been few and in small-scale communities within larger nations, not a very good model for the national level.

I think there is a reason that communism and its close variants have never been tried beyond its ineffectiveness - it would mean that those in power would be devastated, and for that reason they have fought furiously against it. In order to combat this revolutionaries have often turned to strong leaders who, once taking power, have not quite been paragons of benevolence.

[cestpaspossible]

188. or some other thing I didnt say. I didn't say it, I won't defend it.

[Darranar]

193. Speaking of revisionism...

It's in practice that it has been such a failure.

What exactly did you mean by that, then? Did you intend to insert a negative in there somewhere?

[cestpaspossible]

196. I meant the words I used not the words you want to put in my mouth.

It isn't rocket science, you know. It's a simple concept. I'm responsible for what I say. I'm not responsible for the words you choose to put in my mouth in place of what I say.

[Darranar]

199. So you did not in fact claim that communism in practice was a failure?

What, then, did you mean?

[cestpaspossible]

202. I meant that in practice, it's been a failure.

So you can either argue it's never been practiced, a discussion that I would say is as pointless as it is theoretical, or point to some successes.

[Darranar]

203. So how exactly was I putting words in your mouth? n/t

[ngant17]

298. "So, say, democracy is responsible for Cuba torturing dissidents..."

Well, perhaps that could be rephrased to mean that the current US version of democracy has set a fine example in Cuba of torturing dissents in Gitmo/Guantanamo.

[cestpaspossible]

306. No, it is the people who are responsible. Starting with Bush,

Gonzales, Rumsfeld and the rest of the gang of criminals. They are responible for the criminal acts they committed, ordered, and allowed. It does perhaps point to flaws in the system, but it is wrong to hold a system responsible for a problem that does not appear to be systemic.

[K-W]

137. What are you talking about?

Nobody has ever tried creating a communist nation state.

So far it has only existed in small socities and in theory. Anyone who says it can only exist in theory is a liar. There is no way anyone could possibly know that.

[cestpaspossible]

165. OK

your rhetoric may not be persuasive, but your persistance at repetition wins the day.

[K-W]

172. What are you missing? This is really quite simple.

Communism is communal ownership. No country has ever tried this. the nations that called themselves communist had government ownership, not communal owenership.

Prove me wrong, I beg you. Find a country that has practiced communal ownership without relying on the obviously false idea that a non-democratic government can represent the people.

[cestpaspossible]

190. You

can't be proven wrong because you're always right.... but you knew that.

Prove me wrong.

lol

[Darranar]

118. So then you are ignoring the original question...

because I highly doubt the original poster was referring to, say, Stalinism.

It is remarkably difficult to find anyone these days who supports so-called "communist" regimes, even among those who call themselves communist, and for good reason.

[cestpaspossible]

139. Not exactly.

I'm challenging the question as invalid. I just think that if you exclude from the discussion of communism, any actual attempts at trying communism, you just end up arguing about the number of angels on the head of a pin.

[Darranar]

158. The regimes in question were not actually trying communism...

They were claiming to.

In the Soviet Union for instance, from almost the very beginning attempts were made by the so-called "communist" government to squash worker dissent and worker power, not because the government had any interest in communism, but because it did not.

[cestpaspossible]

177. Now we get to see another ism - Revisionism.

It is simply contrary to the facts of history to say that Lenin did not try to found a communist state.

[Darranar]

187. A Leninist would agree with you. I happen to not be one. n/t

[cestpaspossible]

194. I love unintended humor. nt

[Igel]

278. I'm not a Leninist. But I happen to think Lenin tried to found

a communist state. His problem was that he wasn't in charge of a country of communists.

This means he had to find a way of distributing living space, food, water, etc., in such a way to allow the proletariat to work (as is a good communists nature). Create the conditions, and people will rise to the challenge.

Communal eating, communal living, communal child care. All workers can work, guaranteed jobs for all.

A few years later he instituted the NEP in order to reinstate just enough capitalism to get the country moving again. Then it was abolished.

So he started purges to remove the recalcitrant citizenry. And the rest is history.

I think he actually believed the populace would become communist, and the state would wither away. It would be a tutor, and then vanish. It didn't happen, so the theory was adjusted to include an indeterminate period of socialism, to train the populace.

I think dear old Volodya also believed all other proletariats would see the wonders of the system run by soviets (= councils), and revolution would spread worldwide. The attempt in Germany made a big impression. But worldwide revolution didn't happen, and it was a major embarrassment after a few years.

Stalin had to introduce "socialism in one country."

[forgethell]

185. So how, exactly now,

do you get a communisst society started?? do you let the people who don't want in refuse to participate, or do you shoot them and seize their possession for the common good? If the latter, what makes you better than Hitler or Stalin?

[Darranar]

189. How about none of the above?

What do you do to people who don't want to participate in capitalism? The system offers them incentive to do so - namely, if you don't you starve on the street. If I were in charge I'd be considerably more humane, and in fact the welfare state constrains this tendency somewhat, but that is exactly what would occur in pure capitalism.

In communism, it would depend on the people and the government adopting it.

[cestpaspossible]

209. What?

If people didn't want to participate, they wouldn't have to? They get to keep their private property? Is that really what you meant?

[Darranar]

291. That is not what I said. n/t

[cestpaspossible]

305. Why don't you try restating it again to make it clearer, then?

The other poster asked:

So how, exactly now,
do you get a communisst society started?? do you let the people who don't want in refuse to participate, or do you shoot them and seize their possession for the common good? If the latter, what makes you better than Hitler or Stalin?

You answered:

How about none of the above?
What do you do to people who don't want to participate in capitalism? The system offers them incentive to do so - namely, if you don't you starve on the street. If I were in charge I'd be considerably more humane, and in fact the welfare state constrains this tendency somewhat, but that is exactly what would occur in pure capitalism.

In communism, it would depend on the people and the government adopting it.

I'll admit I don't understand what you mean by: "none of the above". That doesn't explain what you do with those who refuse to participate and willingly give up their property. And your digression into the flaws of capitalism does nothing to answer the question either.


So, could you please explain how this would be dealt with in your ideal. Thank you in advance.

[Darranar]

314. There are plenty of ways to deal with it...

Communism does not in itself demand one way.

Naturally, no one could be allowed to obstruct the economic system, any more than, say, theft is permitted in capitalism, but no nation of decency punishes theft by shooting people.

It simply is not a choice between the two.

[cestpaspossible]

317. How would you deal with it? Why duck the question?

How would you deal with people who did not want to participate? People, let's say, rich industrialists, who did not cooperate with the transition to the new system, and wanted to keep private control over the means of production, and all their riches and property.

In your ideal scenario, where you get to decide how to deal with them, how would you deal with them?

[Darranar]

321. I am not a communist. I believe I have made this clear before...

so this situation is not "ideal" in my view, nor is it how I would do things if I were in power.

If I had control of that matter and none else, then those who refused to cooperate with the law would be coerced into doing so by threat of imprisonment - exactly how it is done in the modern capitalist democracies of the Western world.

[ashmanonar]

325. one of the most ancient methods of ensuring group cooperation

was ostracism. someone obstructs the society: they are kicked out. marked or branded somehow, so noone else will take them in except the society's enemies. the obstructor can eke out a living in the wild.

unfortunately, idk how well that would work now. we don't live in a hunter-gatherer society.

[forgethell]

229. In communism, it would depend on the people and the government adopting it

Excellent!!!! My point is that they won't. At least they haven't yet.

[indigobusiness]

282. Is Capitalism wedded to democracy

and Communism divorced from it?

"Greed is good" gone bad seems as wrongheaded as totatitarian Communism.

Mybe some middle ground is healthiest?

[cestpaspossible]

318. Capitalism is certainly not wedded to democracy.

There is nothing incongruous or unlikely about capitalism thriving under a fascist state, for example.

[thereismore]

372. No. No. No.

It's not practice. It's the premise. The premise goes that the proletars are good. Buorgeois are bad. It's black-and-white. When you get rid of bourgeois, by force if needed, the good guys will be in power and everybody will be happy. There are no checks and balances anymore, because the communists are good by definition, therefore they don't need to be checked. You can fill in the blanks.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

2. Have you heard of Stalin?

On a side note -- what's wrong with Fascism?

[DireStrike]

11. Well that's a straw man.

Totalitarian leadership will screw up any society.

[TR Fan]

28. Show me large scale communism

that hasn't deteriorated (very rapidly, mind you) into totalitarian leadership.

[K-W]

53. Large scale communism has never been tried.

Neither the soviet union nor china, nor any nation has ever actually tried communism. Theyve claimed they were leading up to it, but it turns out they were lying.

[TR Fan]

66. Maybe because it doesn't work.

See also my post below. How many people would you have die in pursuit of a "theory" that you (seem to, at least) think will work?

[K-W]

76. We cant know it doesnt work.

So your argument makes no sense.

[forgethell]

146. Yes, we can,

because it has been tried, and didn't work.

[K-W]

152. Even if that were true(and it isnt) it still wouldnt come close to proving

anything.

All it would prove is that communism didnt work in those particular situations.

But contrary to your false beliefs, it has never been tried in a modern nation state, and it has been tried and worked in small communities throughout history.

[lostinacause]

213. Small communities and large countries behave differently.

The larger the scale the greater the benefit of free riding is. People also have less motivation to keep others in check so even the institutional part of the system is less effective as the size increases.

Another thing that is quite constant with what would be expected in theory and in practice (from the way people who work at government agencies) is that these communities generally are less productive and have less growth.

[forgethell]

228. You keep changing

what we are talking about. First communism, then "real" communism, now, "communsim in a modern nation state". Modern nation states don't need it.

Also, the small communities tend not to last for very long. People get tired of equal sharing, especially after they have kids. It was tried by the Pilgrim Fathers. that's why they nearly starved that first year.

[reallygone]

251. see Levitation above....n/t

[Econslave]

67. "large scale" may not be possible

Consider the need to specialize in labor now. Honestly I don't think you can have communism on a large scale. The largest communities that can definitively be said to have practiced any form of communism were maybe 100-200 individuals at their largest. And most of them lived hunter/gatherer level exisitances.

With today's technology and teachings which require up to 20 years of school and training (figuring from first grade), its just hard to picture any community able to meet the central tenet of communism "From each according to his skill, to each according to his needs."

[TR Fan]

71. Exactly...

and I think this has probably been true since the Industrial Revolution.

[K-W]

78. I dont agree.

Education and labor specialization are not only not against communism, they are absolutely vital to any industrialized communsit theory.

And yes, I agree, I think it could only happen if society became much more localized, but that isnt impossible.

[TR Fan]

86. Specialization in professions

is one reason communism will not work. People who spend 8-12 years training at their craft (e.g., doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc.) rightly expect to be compensated not by "their need" but by "their abilities." And, in point, of fact, most of the rest of us do as well.

[K-W]

91. That just isnt true at all.

Communal cultures have worked with specialization, and there is no communist theory that does not include specialization.

[DireStrike]

96. Are you saying a communal culture can field specialists

of the same caliber as a non-communal one? And in similar quantity relative to demand?

[K-W]

105. Of course it can.

the only reason you think it couldnt is because you are making the unjustified assumption that specialization is unique to competitive economy, it isnt, never has been and there is no reason to think it is.

[TR Fan]

102. Of course, the theory contains

specializations. But that's the theory, not the practice.

On a large scale, people who have worked at specialization, will simply not sacrifice their lives in the name of a theory. As an example, see other threads that note the alarming number of third world doctors, trained in their home countries, and yet leaving for better compensation in the West. These people are not evil nor are they being duped by false promises. They are simply making the best decision for themselves and their families. The same with nurses, dentists, IT professionals, etc.

[K-W]

108. You are just making this up as you go along.

It isnt physically possible to know the things you claim to know about communism in practice or human nature. Youd have to be a psychic.

[greenohio]

114. Uhh, no. Thats you. Communism means no private property.

Its been tried repeatedly. It failed. You refuse to accept this.

[K-W]

140. History disagrees with you.

It has been tried repeatedly, it has failed sometimes, it has succeeded sometimes. It has never been tried in a modern nation state.

You refuse to stick to facts and logic.

[DireStrike]

148. What large states have had successful communism? Curious.

Anything beyond a tribe?

[K-W]

159. None. None have even tried it.

Im not sure what you mean by 'beyond a tribe' Nothing beyond a relatively small community.

[greenohio]

170. Many have tried. The problem is the goal is unreachable.

Some believe that those that failed were just bad people and weren't trying at all. When in fact, many communists were trying to help their people by getting rid of capitalism, private property, and classes. What they discovered is that when your done, you don't have have a communist economy....what you have is no economy at all.

Smart people have tried to implement communism. It can't be reached, it doesn't work.

[K-W]

174. People have tried to create a communism, theyve never created one

(in a nation state that is)

so we dont know if it would work once it was created.

We do know that it cant be easily created.

that is all we can possibly know

We cant rationally know that it is impossible.

[greenohio]

181. Therefor ergo, communism has been tried.

And has great great cost in human lives. Why anyone would even want to start down that road with such a poor poor track record is either arrogant, or stupid.

[Econslave]

166. Communism is a new system

K-W,

Sorry, but until Karx Marx wrote his theories down there was no explicit description of what we would consider "communism" Before then there was no real economic system that would be put into place.

The modern economic systems. Capitalism, Socialism and Communism are all products of the Industrial Revolution. Before then economies were simple enough that trying to compare them with modern economies is like trying to compare high school football to the New England Patriots. the foundation might be there, but so much is missing that you can't build a clear picture.

Also before the industrial revolution which introduced factories and specialization of labor, most work was much simplier. Trades, like carpentry or smithing were controlled by families or sometimes guilds, most people worked as farmers, and a town almost had to be self sufficient because transport of goods was difficult and slow. Most trade goods were luxuries, or raw materials, and the vast majority of the people rarely possessed anything that wasn't produced in the town itself.

[TR Fan]

136. There's nothing "psychic"

about it. If you'd like, you can google the numerous articles relating to the facts I've laid out above (e.g., doctors, dentists, etc.), including those threads that have appeared in LBN on this site.

If you truly believe that humans don't respond faovably to being rewarded according their abilities and negatively to other people with lesser (even perceived lesser) abilities being rewarded on a par with themselves, then I really don't know what else to say.

[K-W]

147. the facts you laid out had nothing to do with communism.

You proved that in a non-communist global economy people will strive for wealth. Congrats.

I never said humans dont respond favorably to being rewarded. What on earth are you talking about.

You are just being incredibally ignorant and assuming that the only way to motivate people to work is to have them compete for power and material.

[DireStrike]

150. How would people be rewarded and motivated in a communist society

as you view it?

[TR Fan]

157. To what would they respond

in a communist global economy?

[TR Fan]

197. ok, let's try one more time.

I can't draw with crayons on this board, but let's try it very simply.

Posit the following syllogism:

A. Pure communism (not that trashy old stuff that Stalin used to massacre more of his own people than Hitler did) posits "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." This is a central tenet of communism straight from old Karl.

B. Humans naturally want to be rewarded according to their abilities, not according to their needs. You seem to agree with this tenet in the post above (albeit you caveat it with "in a non-communist society" -- although I bet we could all be re-educated to a "communist society").

C. There is a conflict between a central principle of "pure" communism and human nature.

That's about as simple as it gets.

And you're right. I am being "incredibally (sic) ignorant" spending my evenings trying to teach logic to the willfully uninformed.

[greblc]

200. Thanks for trying.

I think I'll eat some paste and go to bed.

[lostinacause]

216. I disagree with you statement about education

Education was originally part of the communist theory and it is possible that they could handle education much better then western nations currently do. (of course assuming similar motivation of students in the two systems)

[DrGonzoLives]

280. So your argument is

Since it didn't work anywhere, it hasn't really been tried.

Hmmmm, sorry, that just doesn't cut it.

[forgethell]

68. But communism

depends on totalitarianism. Can't work even as poorly as it does without it. Most people aren't just going to work to turn over their earning to total strangers who don't.


By the way, what communist society do you consider to be a success? and why?

[K-W]

87. Communism cannot exist with totalitarianism.

The two are mutually exclusive.

And turning over earnings is liberalism, not communism. In communism youd never be put in that difficult situation in the first place because you wouldnt have to sell your labor to capitalists to get resources to live.

[forgethell]

135. Communsim

is no different from Nazism, as far as their operational methods are concerned. Worse even. They killed so many more.

OK, tell me, how do you get people to go communist without killing many of them? C'mon, I'm waiting for a plan.

For over 100 years, people have been trying to create the communist utopia, all have failed or are failing. If it could be done, it would already have been done.

[DireStrike]

88. Read Marx. He even says it wouldn't work at first.

He said we would need a period of socialism (which I take to mean generations) to get people off the way of thinking about private property that we currently have.

That said, I'm not a marxist. I just happen to have discussed this in class the other day. =p

[forgethell]

125. I've read Marx.

What a crock.

[DireStrike]

130. I'm just saying he already addressed your criticism

Not that he did it satisfactorily.

[forgethell]

142. didn't he mention

that the "dictatorship of th eproletariat" would wither away? Somehow, I don't think he meant the utter, and humiliating collapse of the Soviet Union. Anyway, there is still government over that section of the planet.

[DireStrike]

154. Yeah, you're right

that's not what he meant.

[CatholicEdHead]

16. Stalinism is not the same as Communism

it was a form of totalitarianism.

[greblc]

19. Doesn't Fascism depend on despotism?

My question was on theory not execution. Stalin was an awful leader and our Allie.

[forgethell]

162. Theory must

match with experimental results to be any good. communism has failed the test. No more lives should be lost, through genocidal murder, to try once more to make it work. We have our answer.

[CindyDale]

3. What is wrong is that it's based on the concept

that history is a choice between one idea or another that proves to be superior.

This works great inside your head, but the world does not run on ideas.

Both cooperation and competition are part of human nature and are essential to our survival.

[bloom]

4. Seems like the trick

with either communism or capitalism is keeping the power in the hands of the voters.


We seem to be having a problem with that ourselves.

[Turbineguy]

5. Read some stuff about Marx

he was unemployable so he invented a system that would take care of him. He wasn't stupid, just useless.

[jdots]

37. read some more stuff about Marx

back to the question communisn was an over reaction that was put in place in desperation by desperados.
Marx's first book (the long and boring one) was number crunching,nothing more and nothing less,some people went nuts with it because it dealt with math and the pyamid scam which is what happens when capitalism isn't part of a democratic system.....sounds like neoconservatism to me.

[lostinacause]

219. He was university educated,

he made the choices he did in hopes that the world would be better off because of his actions.

[Kinkistyle]

6. Like pure Capitalism, it's too extreme.

FORCING people to share will never work because people are just selfish. Like in many things in life a good balance of Socialism and Capitalism in moderation is at the current time the most effective model of economy.

[K-W]

10. You misunderstand communism.

The idea of communism is that nobody has to be forced to do anything because we structure our economy in a way that encourages cooperation and community and discourages profitteering. That people are capable of living communistically if they feel secure that it will provide for them.

Marx would never have approved of a government trying to force communism on people and any communists that werent convinced before it was tried are pretty much convinced now.

[Kinkistyle]

38. I was referring to Big "C" Communism.

Like the forms employed by the USSR and China. I realize that those economic models differ from Marx's theory.

[K-W]

44. Big C Communism is a propaganda term.

Used by those nations and the US for differeing propaganda. Continueing to refer to those countries as communist only distorts history and reinforces the right wings successful marginalization of leftist ideology.

Nothing about the Soviet Union or China was communist. The people didnt own the means of production, corrupt governments did.

[K-W]

7. Nothing, and it even works in practice.

But so far only in small communities. But hey, the question of how to get people to see everyone as thier brother has been plagueing idealists for a very long time.

[greenohio]

132. Maybe it works in practice in your world,

but the rest of us have to live out here.

[forgethell]

168. Exactly!!

When you find out how to do it, maybe it would be safe to make another experiment with communism again. I'm not holding my breath.

By the way, how long do those small communities last, on average, do you suppose? I doubt there's more than 1 or 2 of the many communes of the 60s that still survive, if that. What about the communes throughout history? I don't know the actual number, either, but I think it wouls be significant if there were a number of truly long-term communistic societies.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. It goes against human nature. People want to own stuff.

People want to be able to excel and earn rewards from their work.

Communism, of all economic systems, is probably the one furthest polarized from human nature.

[K-W]

17. That is completely false.

Communism isnt about not excelling. It is about excelling in ways that dont give you the ability to control the resources we all need to live.

Communism is completely in line with human nature. If you have never in your life been motivated by something other than money, you are, I am sure, unique.

[TR Fan]

94. Of course it's not.

This is analogous to the argument that one should go to the track simply for the joy of seeing the horses run, not to bet. Well, you may, but, if you do, you're in the exteme minority.

Certainly, people are always motivated by other things other than money, but they are always motivated by money, and the things it can buy, as well. I can tell you, that if society dictated that I got paid on the same level as a street cleaner, I would quickly drop out of it and find alternate methods of making a living (stealing comes to mind).

[K-W]

100. People are always motivated by money? You are joking right?

You do realize that humans have existed for longer than money has dont you?

You obviously know nothing of what you speak of (psychology) and have taken your own personal gleanings of human nature as some kind of fact. Well, when people pretend they can magically know the nature of the world without scientific proof, I call them nuts.

[TR Fan]

104. When people don't know the difference (and similarity)

between the concept of "money" and the related concept of "compensation," such as more land, more wives, more food, etc., I call them stupid.

[K-W]

109. then why are you arguing they are the same?

Do you even need me in this conversation?

[TR Fan]

116. Not particularly, since your contributions seem to be semantic.

Especially, if you cannot see that I was using the term "money" in a generic sense, particularly relating to modern society. The argument still holds if you change the term to "compensation" to reflect historical societies, wherein the concept of money did not exist.

However, I think (not sure, I'd have to look it up) that money has existed in most western (and middle eastern) societies for 4000 years.

[Rabrrrrrr]

112. Humanity longer than money? HA HA!

No, I don't think so.

Money and humanity are just about the same age. Whether we consider money to be coins and paper, or think of it more rightly as any form of compensation or barter.

Think of it this way, in your perfect utopian communistic early human society: men go out to hunt. They bring back meat. The women stay home and make clothing and tend babies and cook the meat. The man who is the best hunter has one or more wives than the others, and a bigger hut, because he has a bigger family. The woman who can sew faster and make more blankets, has more blankets in her hut and/or perhaps she has more of the lovely copper jewelry that one of the other women makes so easily.

Do you see all the monetary exhanges that have taken place there?

If you don't, then you don't get what "money" means.

[forgethell]

171. Do you have a job?

Do you go to it when you'd rather be elsewhere? Good. Send me some of your money. My needs are great.

But what motivates you to go to that job when you'd rather be fishing, or something.

[ngant17]

300. Altruism is a basic human instinct

I think a large part of communist ideology will work based on the fact that altruism (i.e., the 'good samaritan') is a natural part of human actions. No one has to be forced 'to do unto others as you would have others do unto you'. It's just a logical way of doing things. The Golden Rule. In the long run, cooperative systems will outlast individualistic systems because there is strength in numbers and when people act in unison toward a common goal, it is much more likely to be achieved that when people are fighting against each other to try and acomplish the same basic things.

If you want to see an example of a communist society which dates back to the founding of the nation, read the book, "Shakerism: Its Meaning and Message" by Anna White and Leila S. Taylor.

[Rabrrrrrr]

326. Ah yes, the Shakers. Such an excellent example.

Now that they're all but dead.

Yeah, really brought in a lot of converts and flourished, didn't it?

And, of course, since they were "communist" (which, in truth, they weren't) we all know there was never one bit of conflict or disagreement or any bad feelings in the community because they were all so dedicated to the ideal of the community. Blah blah blah blah fuckin' blah.

And altruism is NOT a basic human instinct. If it were, the world would be a perfectly communist nirvana, wouldn't it? No, I think your statement is utterly false.

[IntravenousDemilo]

348. You say altruism is not a basic human instinct...

That sounds vaguely Randian. And I don't mean Randi Rhodes, either.

[Rabrrrrrr]

356. Well, by golly, I did - surprising even me now that I read it.

I *do* think it is a basic human instinct, though with limitations. I *don't* think it's a basic instinct toward outsiders, or The Other, though.

And I don't think it's strong enough to work on a mass scale.

It works in family units (sometimes), and that's about it.

Greed and self-preservation are also basic instincts, I would say.

We have basic instincts that work toward the good, and those that work toward the bad - and each of those instincts, depending on how they are used, are sometimes bad and sometimes good. Altruism can also be an evil, just as much as greed can at times be a good.

[reallygone]

333. Yeah! Just look at the pyramids

Oh so right! Look how great things like the pyramids and the Great Wall were built by having people work together without any expectation of compensation. I mean, that's pure communism at work and each of those societies lasted thousands of years compared to the US which is only 200years old!



Ooops! My bad. Those were societies based on slavery! Very similar to the (former) Soviet Union, China, and N. Korea, though.:puke:

[Lilith Velkor]

204. Question

If the street cleaner made as much as you, would you still take up theiving?

[Dr.Phool]

22. Not Necessarily.

Columbus reported in his journals, when he first observed the native population, they could not understand the concept of private property.

They lived communally, and shared everything.

[Rabrrrrrr]

123. And just how equally was it shared?

Yeah, lots of society didn't have the idea of private property - especially land - but they still had an idea of ownership. maybe it wasn't Running Eagle's land, but it sure as hell belonged to his tribe, and they sure as hell didn't share with every other tribe on the continent; nor, likely, even their neighbors.

I'm sure they were pretty close to communist - but not perfectly so.

[reallygone]

334. Communes

In the 60's, the hot thing to do was for people to set up "communes" based upon sharing of everything (child rearing, money, food, clothes, etc) based upon a "need" basis with everyone contributing to the welfare of all.

Very few of those still exist. Everyone sat around and smoked dope and expected someone to get it for everyone else to share.

[ashmanonar]

46. no, human nature doesn't cause us to want to own stuff.

socialized behavior makes us want to own stuff. ancient societies were often at least a dirty form of communism. they had to pool resources to survive. (of course, this was before a monetary standard: bartering)

communism doesn't work beyond a small society (a tribe or clan), bc of the increasing complexity of getting the people's vote on everything. there needs to be delegation, which leads to abuse of the system.

[DireStrike]

9. Mainly that it's infeasible(unfeasible?). Any extreme is.

Pure communism wastes skill; pure capitalism wastes life.

[kohodog]

12. Communism in it's ideal form is similar to Christianity

The new testament says that the church is a body and no part is more important than any other. What good is the hand without an arm, etc. (I'm sure someone can be more accurate). in Communism, the laborer was as important as the manager as what good is the head without the body. The problem is that as a species we don't seem to have the capacity to see every person as an equal, regardless of position, education or ethnicity.

[greenohio]

20. Some aspects yes. Other aspects no.

Much of Christianity is still based on owning property. From the ten commandments, coveting your neighbors assets and stealing are forbidden. Those things are only possible with private property. Giving to the poor can only be done if there are poor and if you have extra assets to give.

[K-W]

26. Christianity is not based on property ownership.

That is rediculous.

Jesus didnt base anything on property.

And stealing can exist without absolute property, communism isnt anarchy.

[greenohio]

30. How can you covet your neighbors assets

if he/she has no assets? Large portions of the mosaic law talks about property ownership. Christianity is NOT communist.

[K-W]

32. Why are you talking about something in the old testament

when talking about the roots of christianity. Please cite something christ said if it isnt too much trouble instead of relying on a commandment and your horrible logic.

Property is a construct, you are making the assumption that by thinking stealing was wrong the judeo christian tradition is endorsing absolute private property, that is silly. Just because I dont have absolute ownership of something doesnt mean it isnt wrong for someone to take it from me unjustly.

You can have property in a communistic society. I cant imagine how you could have one without it. There would just be no absolute private ownership.

[greenohio]

49. Uhh, because Christianity roots

are in the old testament.

Jesus:
"Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to fulfill them. " MT 5:17

[K-W]

61. Actually you are wrong, its based on the tachings of christ primarily.

Those teachings were of course made by a Jewish Rabbi, so obviously the old testament is a big part of the context, but to argue that jesus was capitalist because moses said people shouldnt steal is rediculous.

[greenohio]

84. Uhhh, Jesus was Jewish.

He believed in the law. He spoke of its importance. He also came up with ideas that were radical at that time. But he didn't speak against free markets, he didn't speak against private property, he didn't speak against lending (in fact he encouraged it.) You can not lend in a communist economy because you have only what you need. Besides, nobody needs to be lent to because they have what they need. Many, many parables involved investment, markets and trade. Jesus was not a communist.

[K-W]

95. I said he was a jewish rabbi in my post, did you even read it?

He didnt speak against free markets? lol, he didnt speak against gun violence either. So that must be very christian too? Your logic is horrendous.

You obviously had no clue what communism is, and thus this is silly. Yes christianity and what you believe to be communism are incompatable. But who cares?

[greenohio]

101. Communism means no private property.

I've done my homework. What is communism in your little world?

[RaleighNCDUer]

192. Communism is worker ownership of the machinery of wealth

creation. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

That doesn't mean no personal property. It doesn't mean no private property. It means one guy can't own a city block while his neighbor sleeps under a bridge.

Ideally speaking, of course.

[greenohio]

205. Here we go again. Stop making your own definitions.

As a theoretical social system, communism would be a type of egalitarian society with no state, no private property and no social classes. In communism, all property is owned by the community as a whole, and all people have equal social and economic status.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Communism_and_anarchism

If you have a problem with it, contact wikipedia.

[Rabrrrrrr]

207. And that means no private property

Oh, maybe small shit like shampoos and a TV and underwear. But it means no land ownership - it means the government lets you have a 6 bedroom house while you have your 8 children at home. But as they move out, and your needs change, you move to a smaller house. Until it's just you and spouse in a a bedroom apartment. You get one car. Yeah, it's sort of "yours", but you don't get two. And the government tells you what kind of car you can have.

Imagine, your whole life run by the corporation/government.

Want a hot tub? Sorry, not government approved.

Want a louder stereo? Sorry, government regulations state that the internal measurements of your house are adequately served by a 75 watt stereo.

Want to have a lobster and steak dinner one night? Sorry, you don't "need" lobster and steak. What you "need" is this cheap-to-produce-porridge and turnip soup.

[Rabrrrrrr]

103. Actually, Jesus did speak out against violence

not gun violence, specifically, but he did speak out against violence - and spoke of it in its absolute term, so that it applies to all violence: physical, by sword, by battering ram, by crucifixion, and, therefore, by gun, howitzer, or nuclear bomb.

He did not, however, speak against free markets. He spoke in FAVOR of justice and fairness, and of sharing, and taking care of the needy, but never spoke against or for any particular economic system, AFAIAC. Certainly he never preached that communism was the way to go. I doubt he even had the concept - certainly his listeners wouldn't - of that style of community.

Jesus never preached about what form of government is best, nor what kind of economic system is best. He spoke about loving your neighbor.

[greenohio]

110. Good post. /nt

[K-W]

113. You just made my point for me.

Just because Jesus didnt address something specifically doesnt mean we cant deduce what he might think about them.

Just because they didnt use guns or refer to free markets doesnt mean he would have liked either.

[greenohio]

119. You had a point?

Really I'm trying here. What was it again?

Cause now it sounds like you don't know what Jesus said about communism and capitalism.

[Rabrrrrrr]

151. No, I did not make your point at all. I showed your point is wrong.

Jesus SPECIFICALLY addressed violence. So we can easily overlay what he said onto every form of violence there is. But note, you could not say that Jesus would be against guns, because he never said he was against weapons. In fact, at one point, he told his disciples to put their swords ON. But we CAN deduce that Jesus wouldn't want us killing us each other willy nilly with guns.

Everything Jesus said about money has no direct correlation on any form of economic system. He wanted people to share in order to make sure no one was hungry, or homeless, or left in need.

But just because he said that, doesn't mean he was in favor communism. Nor does it mean he was in favor of captialism. Nor any other system. Nor does it mean he was against any of those. But, given the current economic climate he was in and the one he inherited through his relgiious life, and that he never spoke out against either of them SPECIFICALLY, there is a tacit approval, then, of both systems, both of which are marginally capitalistic.

The only economic process that Jesus spoke against was loving money more than loving God. He preached that, within whatever the given economic system was, that God-followers should be taking care of those who are in need. But that doesn't mean that Peter has to sell his house to help the homeless guy so they can each have half a house.

You absolutely cannot, at all, take Jesus teachings and say that he preached communism. It just ain't there, since he didn't preach about eocnomic systems at all.

[RaleighNCDUer]

195. Actually, there is some evidence that the Essenes, where both

Jesus and Jphn the Baptist came from, was a communitarian monastic sect. I think he would have been very familiar with the basic concept of communism.

[aneerkoinos]

232. Anti-capitalist

Jesus spoke against taking interest. That makes him radical anti-capitalist.

[Rabrrrrrr]

235. Can you cite where Jesus spoke against taking interest?

In my quick search, the only time he mentions taking interest was in the parable of the man who is going on vacation and gives money to his three servants to manage, and the two who increased the amount of money are rewarded, but the one who buried his money - and didn't even bother to put in a bank to earn interest - gets berated.

Jesus did not speak against taking interest, that I can recall.

And as to your other point - I don't see how speaking out against taking interest would in and of itself make him RADICALLY anti-capitalist, any way.

[aneerkoinos]

244. Sure

Gospel of Thomas, logion 95:

(95)
(1) "If you have money, do not lend (it) out at interest.
(2) Rather, give to the one from whom you will not get it (back)."

Radical means going to the root, so as there can be no capitalism without taking interest, taking position against interest means going RADICALLY to the root of capitalism.

[greenohio]

247. There is captialism

without interest. There is no capitalism without private property and trade. And there is no Gospel of Thomas in the Bible.

[Rabrrrrrr]

250. Thanks - you just said what I was going to say

No capitalism without charging interest?

How odd.

[aneerkoinos]

253. Your mistake

is that you equal market economy with capitalism. Capital, das Kapital, does not accumulate without some form of taking interest. No interest, no capitalistic capital.

[aneerkoinos]

254. Bible?

The discussion was about Jesus, not Bible. Gospel of Thomas just happens to be the historically most authentic source on Jesus' teaching - unless you are a fundamentalist Bible-worshipper.

[greenohio]

Christians unfamiliar with the Gospel of Thomas

are fundamentalist Bible-worshiper? Fascinating perspective.

You still avoid the question, can't you find anything in the Bible so others can check you? How is Thomas so accurate when it details things not confirmed by three other accounts as in the "fundamentalist" Bible the rest of use.

[aneerkoinos]

269. Blah

Stuff your strawmen where the sun don't shine. Ignorance is no sin, but taking pride in ignorance is.

Most academics today consider Thomas closer to the Q source than the three synoptic Gospels, and thus historically earlier and more reliable.

Bible is not fundamentalist, it is a certain collection of texts chosen for certain purposes. Taking Bible literally as the Word of God and as the only historical source on Jesus, that I understand to be fundamentalism.

[greenohio]

289. One would think you would at least look the stuff up before you post it.

wikipedia
"There is currently much debate about when the text was composed, with scholars generally falling into two main camps: an early camp favoring a date in the 50s before the canonical gospels and a late camp favoring a time after the last of the canonical gospels in the 90s. Among critical scholars, the early camp is dominant in North America, while the late camp is more popular in Europe (especially in the U.K. and Germany).... Proponents of the late camp argue that some of this secondary redaction created by Matthew and Luke shows up in Thomas, which means that Thomas was written after Matthew and Luke were composed. Since Matthew and Luke are generally thought to have been composed in the 80s and 90s, Thomas would have to later than that. Members of the early camp respond to this argument by suggesting that second-century scribes may have been the ones responsible for the Synoptic redaction now present in our manuscripts of Thomas, not its original author.

Both camps agree, however, that the fluidity of the text in the 2nd century makes dating the Thomas very difficult."

greenohio:This doesn't sound like MOST ACADEMICS to me. Q is a narrative, Thomas is a bunch of sayings. Where is this claim that Thomas is "closer" to Q than the synoptics? Considering at least the synoptics and Q are NARRATIVES and Thomas is not.

wikipedia
Modern scholars use three criteria to determine what the historical Jesus may have taught: multiple attestations, dissimilarity, and contextual credibility. Many modern scholars believe that the Gospel of Thomas was written independently of the New Testament, and therefore, is a useful guide to historical Jesus research.

By finding those sayings in the Gospel of Thomas that overlaps with Q, Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, and Paul, scholars feel such sayings represent

"multiple attestations" and therefore, are more likely to come from a historical Jesus, than sayings that are only singly attested,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_thomas

greenohio:
Quotes listed ONLY in Thomas are considered LESS likely to come from the historical Jesus, not the other way around.

I have no problem with the Gospel of Thomas. I do have a problem with people peddling it as though it trumps 4 gospel accounts. Especially when they do it falsely in the name of science.

[aneerkoinos]

299. Correction

"Q", if it existed, is presumed to be a "bunch of sayings", with no biographic info. The biographical stuff in synopticals is, in fact, quite standard hellenistic mythopoietic hagiographia, with little or no support e.g. in the authentic letters by Paul - or anywhere else.

On second note, the roots of Gnosticism most likely go before the 1st century, earliest Sethian Gnostic texts include only Jewish based mythology and no mention about Jesus or Christ.

[Rabrrrrrr]

327. OMG!! LOL!!

Sorry, that was just really ignorant. I had to laugh.

Gospel of Thomas just happens to be the historically most authentic source on Jesus' teaching - unless you are a fundamentalist Bible-worshipper.

Bwuhahahaha!

Anyway, thanks for some levity.

I think you'll find that even amongst us in the Jesus Seminar, that statement holds little, or no, water.

[aneerkoinos]

337. indeed

Mockery is such a strong argument. Well, it was revealed you have some personal problems with that statement...

[Rabrrrrrr]

341. I have problems with that statement because it's false.

That's why. It's not true.

It's not a personal problem unless we redefine personal to mean that a desire for truthful statements is some kind of psychological or emotional disease. And I don't think it is.

[aneerkoinos]

342. Again...

Extremely convincing argumentation. It's false because you say so!

Well guess what, I still stand by what I said, despite the emotional problems you suffer from having your unfounded belief system challenged.

[Rabrrrrrr]

347. Since you're All-Knowing,

exactly what "unfounded belief system" of mine is being challenged? I don't think anything is being "challenged". It could only be "challenged" if you were making an accurate or plausible claim.

I think you're making a false statement when you state that the Gospel of Thomas just happens to be the historically most authentic source on Jesus' teaching - unless you are a fundamentalist Bible-worshipper.

It's wrong, AND it doesn't make any sense. The Jesus seminar certainly aren't fundamentalist Bible-worshippers, and I don't think you'd find many, or possibly any, of them making the claim that the Gospel of Thomas is the historically most authentic source on Jesus' teaching.

[aneerkoinos]

352. I know this

You are one of those guys who instead of presenting arguments to support their unfounded claims just keeps repeating himself, and makes the other guy make all the footwork:

From the first Google with "jesus seminar Thomas":
"Anyone who thinks Gnosticism no longer has proponents should be advised that the truth is just the opposite. In fact, if the self–aggrandizing press releases of the Jesus Seminar are to be believed, the consensus of scholarship now believes that documents thoroughly influenced by Gnosticism, such as the Gospel of Thomas, from which the above citation is taken, are far more reflective of the actual teachings of Jesus Christ than the "canonical Gospels" familiar to most Christians — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
(emphasis mine)
http://www.equip.org/free/DJ222.htm

[forgethell]

344. Says who??? n/t

[aneerkoinos]

353. Says I n/t

[forgethell]

361. Do you have any qualifications

whatsoever? Or are you just shitting around?

[aneerkoinos]

367. Well

My academic background is in philology, that time and place, plus study of philosophy and religions as my long time hobby. If that is what you mean by qualifications.

[forgethell]

368. OK, then.

Now, could you give the the explanation as to why you believe that GT is the most accurate account of Christ's life?

[aneerkoinos]

369. No

GT is not an account of Jesus' life.

[forgethell]

370. I stand corrected.

I should have re-read your post.

. Gospel of Thomas just happens to be the historically most authentic source on Jesus' teaching - unless you are a fundamentalist Bible-worshipper.

What is it that makes you say this? Please don't bother with "the consensus opinion of experts", or something. What facts do they use to support that opinion?

[aneerkoinos]

371. Suggestion

If you are really interested in this very OT subject, I think it would be better for you to start a new thread in the Theology and Religion forum. It's a complicated issue and this thread with close to 400 posts is allready getting very heavy.

Should you start a new thread, I promise to contribute.

[forgethell]

373. Perhaps I'll do that.

First, I will just glance over GT, which, I believe, may be in my recently acquired copy of Lost Scriptures.

Still, while I am no expert, I have read a good amount of popular history, theology, and archeology about similar questions, and I have to say that there is a lot more opinion, in my opinion, than fact in many of the writers.

[K-W]

24. Jesus preached communism.

But back then communism was very common, because there was an abudence of small self reliant communities.

[greenohio]

27. The poor will always be with you.

There are no poor in communism. I think there are many passages and parables using business and investment as examples. Jesus was not a communist.

[K-W]

29. Yes he was a communist.

So he didnt think the world would ever be a communist utopia, what is your point?

He preached communal living, deal with it. Get the cold war cobwebs out of your head. Communism isnt a bad thing, it has exsited many times, and its a great ideal shared by basically every human being in some form or another.

[greenohio]

43. Jesus the communist. Whatever.

Coming back to reality, Jesus did not come to abolish mosaic law (which was firmly capitalistic) but to fulfill it. It is true that many in the early church read Jesus the same way you do. They lived in communes and shared property in common. And like all communist experiments, it didn't last. Jesus was not a communist.

[K-W]

48. You have shown that you dont understand communism or the bible.

I see no point in discussing this if you continue to believe in stupidly black and white generalizations of history that make moses a capitilist because he didnt think you should steal from people or want to steal from people.

[greenohio]

58. Laws on coveting, and laws on lending, and laws on paying interest

and laws on lending, and laws on weights and measures and laws on trading...laws on distribution of property...

As a theoretical social system, communism would be a type of egalitarian society with no state, no private property and no social classes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

[K-W]

65. Advocating communism is not the same as living it.

I would hope you can see the destinction. Nobody is arguing that the jews were communists. that is a straw man you have invented.

[greenohio]

73. Jewish law was capitalistic.

Jesus came to fulfill the law. Large portions of the law dealt with capitalism and private property. In communism, there is no private property. If you have a problem with that, take it up with wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

[Rabrrrrrr]

80. Yep. Moses absolutely was not preaching communism,

and neither was Jesus.

I would see the picture of self-governance that Moses offered as a psuedo-capitalistic psuedo-socialist not-very-but-somewhat-democratic theocracy.

Psuedo capitalistic because it has all the trapping of capitalism - property ownership, slave ownership, laws for restitution for stealing property, etc.

Psuedo communist because of the tithes to the priests, the sharing of resources, and also the fifty year jubilee in which all debts were forgiven and all lands reverted back to their original owners.

Pure communism, though? Even hints of a governmentally mandated form of communism? Not for a second.

Jesus neither - he certainly, as I see it, preached a lot that is in accord with communism: share equally with all people, take care of the needy, don't let anyone go hungry, etc. etc. etc. And the early church, in many places, tried very much to live the communist lifestyle of people putting all their stuff into the common pot and sharing equally. But, of course, that didn't last more than a few years because, as I said before, people like to own stuff.

And all those primitive perfectly communist societies? I don't think so. There were still tribal leaders, who took more than their share. There was in many of the traditions the rule of killing or casting out anyone who wasn't working hard enough or pulling their own weight. Poeple still had their own huts/yurts/tents/whatevers.

Was communism, in its pure form, ever achieved? I'm sure that, in the long history of humanity, yes it has been achieved on occasion. I would hazard very rarely, and that when it happened, it didn't last a generation or so.

It's too tenuous.

[aneerkoinos]

238. Mr. Ohio

In expressis verbis, not mincing his words, Jesus told not to take interest (Gospel of Thomas, logion 95 IIRC). There is no capitalism without interest; Jesus was radically anti-capitalist.

Also, don't equal capitalism and market economy, they are not the same.

[greenohio]

242. Whew aren't we stretching now.

Gospel of Thomas. Can't find ANYTHING in the Bible? Fascinating.

First of all, there is capitalism without interest, though its progress will be muted.

Second, it sounds like Jesus was saying not to charge interest when you lend (though I can't check since the Gospel of Thomas isn't in my Bible) You cannot lend in a communist society because

1)You have according to you needs. No more. So you have no extra to lend.

2)Everone's needs are met, so there is no need to lend.

[aneerkoinos]

260. Whew?

Again, there can be market economy without taking interest, but no capitalism. It is common parlour to equate those, but when attempting a serious and well informed discussion, the definition of capitalism as market economy is only misguiding. Market economy is mostly a descriptive term, capitalism is an ideology based on turning everything into private property, with plutocratic corporatism as natural implication.

And why such obsession with Bible, when the discussion was about Jesus, not Bible? Here's good source on Gospel of Thomas:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl_thomas.htm

[greenohio]

293. Now I've read the Gospel of Thomas

of which YOU are obsessed.

I found this passage interesting:

109. Jesus said, "The (Father's) kingdom is like a person who had a treasure hidden in his field but did not know it. And he died he left it to his . The son not know about it either. He took over the field and sold it. The buyer went plowing, the treasure, and began to lend money at interest to whomever he wished."

Jesus says that lending money at interest is like the Father's Kingdom. Why include the statement of lending money at interest if it is an evil and wrong act? Would it had made sense for Jesus to say the Kingdom of Heaven is like those who get a lot of money and use it to fulfill your sinful desires? No. If Jesus thought interest was evil, he would not have used it as an example of the Kingdom.

I believe Jesus's point on the passage about interest was that charity is as important or more important than business. I don't think Jesus meant, go and be communists.

[aneerkoinos]

302. Parable

Many parables, like this, are notoriously difficult to decipher. It is also quite possible that it has been corrupted during the process of translation and copying.

I haven't been arguing that Jesus was a communist, only that he was anti-capitalist, which follows naturally from the possibly most definitive his teaching, that if one is to find the "Kingdom", to gain full spiritual "wealth", one must become renounce earthly wealth and give up material possessions, to become free from being "possessed" by one's property.

[Rabrrrrrr]

64. Communism was common?

THe Romans and the Greek and the Hyksos and the Assyrians and the Persians and the Egyptians - these were all communist?

Communes, perhaps - such as the Essenes - that worked in a communist (sort of) way might have been somewhat, if marginally, sort of common.

But I don't know about communism as VERY common because of an ABUNDANCE of small, self-reliant communities.

Any community that was more than a few guys hanging out in the desert in a religious community was not self-reliant - it was watched under the eyes of the Roman Empire (in Jesus' time) or whatever the empire happened to be other times.

[K-W]

70. You seem to have read many things I did not say.

I never said any of the societies you mentioned were communist. Im not sure why you think I did. I think in Jesus' time communal living would have been a much less radical suggestion because of the divirsity of economic approaches amoungs various groups, tribes, cities, families, etc.

Yes, common is a confusing way of putting that, so I apologize, but you did make alot of even then unwarrented assumptions about what I said.

[Rabrrrrrr]

82. You are the one who said, and I quote,

But back then communism was very common, because there was an abudence of small self reliant communities.

And by "back then" you meant "the time of Jesus", since that was the subject of the thread to which your comment was a response.

[KingoftheJungle]

13. Communism is big brother socialism. What works is democratic socialism

Put equal power and equal resources into the entire population and what you get is an equal playing field and equality for all, brutha!

[K-W]

55. Actually its exactly the opposite.

commumism is the destruction of accumulated private power, private or governmental through localization and personalization of the system. In a true communism there is no powerful government. The idea is that if we had communism, we wouldnt need one.

[KingoftheJungle]

75. I thought the idea of communism was to put ultimate power into a party

Which is then given localized regions to govern. The local parties are controlled by higher echelons of the party in a hierarchical fashion, until it reaches a national level. I'm not a poli-sci major so I dont really know, but this is what I remembered from my comparative government class (wish I didn't sell the book back). Basically an environment that facilitates power consolidation at the top.

[Econslave]

97. No

What Karl Marx actually tried to say was not putting power into a party.

He argued that management was underpaying the workers and therefore "exploiting them". What he said was that the workers should rise up and claim the factories and other centers of production and run them communially without management. He then took this theory and said it should be spread out to cover a community.

It might have worked, but I honestly think that Marx missed 2 things which are rather important.

first - even in the industrial revolution the cost of starting most factories was high. There was a growing need for capital to provide the means of obtaining tools, machines and raw material, even before you made the first part and paid the first employee. This money had to come from somewhere. In a capitalist economy, there are usually wealthy individuals who if they feel that the chance of reward is great enough are willing to risk their money in the form of loans, or buy purchasing part of the company (stocks). A communistic society doesn't have this method of spreading around resources to start new businesses, and must rely on the skills of its people to determine what risks are to be taken. Bad decisions tend to be catastrophic.

second - Although managers seemed to be rather useless in Marx's day, even then they served a vital role by being the gatekeepers for resources to the factory. It was their job to be the conduit between the outside world and the factory, knowing the trends that people were buying to allowed him to adjust the factories work so that materials were not wasted, and also to deal with possible raw material shortages. Without a manager, companies often lack this vital position and you end up with either over production or under production. this was a problem in the old Soviet Union which had tales of shortages and overages depending on what factories were running.

[greenohio]

107. I see now. You have Anarchism and Communism confused.

A communist system is very similar to the kind of society that is advocated by anarchism. Both systems want to eliminate wage labor and give workers their "piece of the pie" instead. Both systems want to eliminate private as well as state ownership of the means of production in order to achieve a truly free and democratic society where people have control, not an elite of private or state owners. However, unlike most communists, they do not believe that a stage where the state exists owning and controlling the means of production is needed or desirable between capitalism and the society they want to establish.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism#Communism_and_anarchism

It is now apparent that you have no idea what you are talking about.

[Econslave]

129. *sighs*

I never said the "state" didn't have control. Think about what I pointed out

First - That the state isn't necessarily the most efficient at distributing resources. That's been proved in the former USSR, or even in current day North Korea (which has verifiable reports of massive famine). Neither of those are "anarchy" and are closer to communism than any Western economy.

Think about what happens when the people, the state as you called it, takes over the means of production, in communism. The people now have to manage it in some way. You seem to be assuming that they will simply take those old managers and CEO's and put them back in power, but pay everyone equally. I don't see that as likely. And having a council in charge would probably be much like anarchy. There is an old saying "Elephant - Mouse designed by commitee"

Second - Again, how is your commune moving forward with research and new factories? How is it getting the funds and resources it needs? You seem to think that the state, once a communism is set up has infinite ability to allocate resources to new ventures and will always do so efficiently. There are former officials of what was the Soviet Union who admitted that many of the economic decisions made by the Politburo were terrible and caused huge amounts of economic harm. Lacking the transparency and risk judgements created in a capitalistic society they took some unnecessary risks and avoid some risks that could have brought great rewards.

[greenohio]

141. " In a true communism there is no powerful government"

I was replying up the thread. You may have it right. It is the previous post that is off.

[aneerkoinos]

239. From your link

"For much of the 20th century, some countries were often called "communist states" by people living in other parts of the world. However those societies referred to themselves as socialist countries, and their ruling Communist Parties claimed to have established a socialist, democratic system, with the aim of eventually reaching communism."

"However, the term "communist state" is itself quite inappropriate. Besides the problem noted above (the fact that "communist state" is technically an oxymoron), there is one further issue with this term: there were (and are) many communists who opposed the governments of those countries and who argued that their ruling parties were communist in name only. The best known of these dissenting communists are probably the Trotskyists."

[Canuckistanian]

15. The problem is, Communism didn't anticipate dictators

There's nothing in communist theory that says you must have a strong, autocratic ruler. In fact, countries are supposed to be ruled by the Central Committee and only as an overseer.

The fact that Lenin, Stalin and Mao consolidated and wielded absolute power is a gross misuse of the communist ideal.

The true power was suuposed to be all the collectives working toward a common goal, where every worker had an equal share of the benefits of their work.

[forgethell]

176. then the theory failed to

correspond with the real world, and is useless as a scientific theory, which it claimed to be. Scientific thories can predict the results of their experiments.

It is based on lies, failed, and desrved to fail.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. It presumes that, if safe, people will still get out of bed.

Once there's no danger in life, far too many will do nothing at all. Coupling that with the lessening of rewards for great achievements, and you have a morass.

The perfectability of mankind was the principle at the heart of communism; we're as good and bad as we'll ever be, and that's that.

[Lilith Velkor]

208. What's wrong with doing nothing?

The biggest rewards these days go to the likes of Ken Lay. I'm sure you are familiar with his "great achievements," no?

Safe, well-nourished people get out of bed all the time. Criminy.

[DrGonzoLives]

281. If everyone stays in bed

Who keeps society running? The power plants, the factories, etc.

[Lilith Velkor]

328. Not implying that

The real dangerous shitty jobs could be done by robots. I'd get up to maintain them because not having adequate food/water/power/sanitation etc. would really suck. My hypothetical comrades (I ain't a Commie so this is all theory) would be educated enough to get that as well.

And if I kept secret the methods of maintaining them in order to wield the power of life and death over the others, my comrades would shoot me for the rabid dog I am.

[RaleighNCDUer]

21. In theory, nothing.

Of course, that theory would have to specify that all people will work for the best interest of the society over their own interests, that people will always treat each other fairly and compassionately, and that irrationality can be abolished.

Obviously, reality falls a little short of theory.

The reason capitalism seems to work a little better is that it assumes that people are greedy and selfish, and it uses those impulses in an enlightened way. Unless they get too greedy, and take control of the government, abolishing all restraints on capitalism. like Bushco.

[greblc]

31. That's kind of the way I see it.

My thought being that a Free Market has the potential to exhaust itself.

[K-W]

35. A free market is garunteed to exhaust itself.

It relies on growth of consumption to fuel distribution and development.

[greenohio]

69. Funny how Communist governments turn to free markets to save their

economic tails after Communism has wasted all of the reserves. If capitalism runs out of steam it is LONG after communism does.

[aneerkoinos]

243. Cuba

The socialist state of Cuba survived the post Soviet collapse and resulting severe energy and economy crisis (cf Peak Oil) by whole society adopting organic farming and ad hoc collective means of transportation. Cubans now enjoy probably the healthiest diet in the world, plus great communal feeling of togetheness.

Capitalism will not survive Peak Oil, as the system is based on premisse of continuous quantitative growth. US is allready more than half way into corporate fascist form of totalitarianism, and Mad Max society is looming just behind the corner.

[greenohio]

246. Coming back to the real world

I didn't list Cuba, you did. If Cuba was socialist, not communist, why did you bring them up? If Cuba wasn't communist, why list how healthy their diet is?

Meanwhile you take swipes at the US, which isn't purely capitalist.

The Mad Max society you describe is happening now in Cuba, in the name of communism (even with all the free oil they get from Venezuela.)

Those boat people must be insane to risk their lives leaving that paradise. The "great communal feeling of togetheness" must cross the ocean to Miami.

Whatever communism is, which apparently now is a form of anarchy, it has such a bad PR department, that even communist can't agree on what it is.

[aneerkoinos]

258. Obviously

You didn't read the wikipedia article, since you still attempt to talk about "communist governements" and "communist states", both of which are contradictionary terms.

All communists agree communism is an utopia. Socialism is not.

Cuba does not get free oil, it pays by aiding Venezuela to build functioning healt care system. Cuba exports doctors and well-fare, US violence and corruption and death and oppression.

And Cuba also exports petty criminals and other social misfits to Miami, where they can put their personal talents better at use in the service of Mafia.

Mad Max society means a situation where all the organized social structures have collapsed, a violent anarchy. Cuba with health care, agricultural and education systems far better than in US, most certainly has its social structures still in place.

[greenohio]

262. Your quotes aren't in my posts

Where did I post "communist governments" or "communist states?" Certainly not in the post you replied to. If you are going to quote me, at least get close.

Your contradictions are astounding. "Cuba exports doctors and well-fare, US violence and corruption and death and oppression." Then you list Cuba exporting criminals to the mafia. Whatever.

I must ask, since Cuba has all these wonderful features, is it communist? If not, why did YOU bring them up? If so, they have a state and a government....You have a real problem here.

[aneerkoinos]

272. Post 69

Check the title of your post 69, with the words "communist governements" in it. Earlier you have been arguing against communist ideology on the grounds of centralized socialist states ruled by communist parties, and calling them erraneously "communist states". Perhaps your opinion has now evolved so we can pass your mistake as momentary lapse.

I brought the example of Cuban socialism surviving Peak Oil to counter your implication that capitalist societies would have the best survivability rate.

Serious theoretical discussion about communism is something this thread has not yet entered, we are still at the stage of clearing up the common misconseptions.

[greenohio]

295. So communism is a form of anarchy?

Apparently you don't count many of the countries who have taken many many steps toward communism, as communist, because there still was a central state? Communism can't be reached till you have anarchy. Is this right?

So tell me, which country in recent history has come the CLOSEST to reaching true communism?

[aneerkoinos]

307. Ehm...

Yes, it would seem so, libertarian communism and anarchism are nearly synonymous.

I think the only correct answer is that no country has come close to reaching true communism, as the theory would seem to state that communist utopia can only be reached globally, not confined to any nationalistic boundaries. But I'm interested in the Makhno's Ukraine, since my personal sympathies lie with anarcho-syndicalism and participatory democracy, and share a strong antipathy towards elitistic vanguard communism.

[TR Fan]

23. What is wrong with 125M+ dead?

Ask the Ukrainians, with 8M slaughtered for not wanting to collectivize.

Ask the Eastern Europeans, with 50+ years of development stolen, sold out by one cripple and one spy.

Ask the Chinese with 100M starved in the Great Leap Forward, thanks to the great leader Mao.

Ask the North Koreans, with 2M+ starved in pursuit of the Workers' Paradise, led by a wannabee porn star.

Yes, I know. These were all "imperfect" realizations of the Proletariat Utopia. Why don't you just recommend killing another 100M so that we can perfect this wonderful economic system.

[greblc]

42. Once again my question was "in theory"

I understand in practice there have been miserable failures with human consequence. Those deaths are results of Bad/Evil leaders. The U.S. has killed people in the name of "Progress" as well. There are very few governments without blood on their hands.

[TR Fan]

50. I'm sorry, "miserable failures"??

We're talking about over 125M people, dead, dead, dead.

This is a theory that has caused untold suffering to hundreds of millions of people, and my numbers are conservative, in that they don't include peoples who have had their lives stolen from them in the name of this "theory" or many of the peoples "ethnically cleansed" by Papa Joe.

Rightly, it has been relegated to the "dustbin of history" and, hopefully, its practioners will rot in hell for all eternity.

[greblc]

99. with" Human Consequence".

I think there is room in hell for a lot of Histories leaders. Truman dropped a couple of bombs that in the eye's of our maker could find him a room next to Papa Joe. I don't know, I only have an opinion. It's not my place to fill the fiery depths.

[forgethell]

182. I am getting very confused.

What kind of evidence would you accept that communism was wrong? What do you mean wrong? Immoral? Mistaken? Doesn't work?

In the history of physics there are dozens of theories as elegant as any Einstein created. The difference is that Einstein's theories have repeatedly been shown to predict behavior in scientic experiments, hence "right". Although, someday some theory may supplant them, jsut as Einstein's theories supplanted those of Newton.

On the other hand, the theories of Marx have repeatedly been shown to fail to predict behavior in the "scietific" experiments, i.e, societies, where they were tested. Hence, the theory is "wrong". If you cannot accept this definition, give me one that you will, without trying to wiggle out of it when it is shown that communism is still wrong using your terms.

And while you are at it: what is wrong with Nazism, in theory only, of course.

[DireStrike]

47. What is wrong with non-slave societies?

How many slaves have been killed for not wanting to be slaves?

Obviously we should not fight to abolish slavery because it is hard and people will die.

[TR Fan]

60. I have no clue,

as to what you're saying.

"Obviously we should not fight to abolish slavery because it is hard and people will die."

Obviously, we should. That's why we should fight against communism (such as it is now).

Have you ever lived under communism? While I haven't, my wife grew up under it in Eastern Europe. The only good Soviet commie, is a dead one.

Without being too forward, I would suggest that all here who wish to experience communism might consider moving to a communist society. They do exist.

[DireStrike]

74. The comparison I was drawing

was that the current "slave" society would be capitalism. That communism would be some enlightened future without market based countries, and private-property based human societies.

Not that I buy it, mind you. It's simply that "it hasn't worked" is not really a good argument. It's still debateable to what extent democratic communism has even been tried. The "failure of communism" only proves that it is impossible to introduce communism into our current political situation, not that communism is impossible.

Impractical? I'd say so. Impossible? I'm not convinced.

[Grey Ranks]

25. I have yet to read Mr. Marx

If I am not mistaken while the premier is elected by a council, the council that elects him is not elected.

That is what is wrong with Communism.

[K-W]

40. Marx's communism was predicated on a global economic revolution.

An unlikely event for sure, but you shouldnt judge his theory without poiting out that it relied on a certain string of events to make it possible and to provide the context, and that those events have not happened.

[forgethell]

183. "those events have not happened"

Then what the hell use is Marxism? It is an acid dream.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Rabrrrrrr]

89. Communist!!

[Dark]

92. Freeloader! Go get a real job!

[Canuckistanian]

191. Capitalist Lackey of the Oppressor!

You and your running-dog proletariat, um, imperialist..... where's my goddam script

[hector459]

34. Noting except it ain't capitalism and just as corruptible.

Otherwise, in its perfect and pure state----it could even be better than what we have now.

[Gman]

36. Communism is a threat because it gives workers the ways to take control

of their own fate rather than be slave to the huge corporations. I don't see a damn thing wrong with that. In fact, I'd love to see it happen. But this is why Communism has been demonized.

[CHIMO]

39. Hard To Discuss

When one doesn't have a definition of Communism. Still worse when one doesn't have a definition of Capitalism.
If one thinks that what we have now is what Adam Smith talked about, then we have taken the Kool Aide.

[Econslave]

51. Adam Smith

Actually, if you study Adam Smith and what he talked about he was a firm believer in what would be called "Merchantism" for a long time.

Basically he saw the growth of such entities as the East India Trading Company, and it was his studies of the growth of these that formed the basis of some of his theories.

Adam Smith would not only not be surprised by the growth of the modern corporation, I doubt he would be against it.

[Econslave]

41. Nothing "InTheory"

In its most basic form Communism works great in theory.

However,

Communism is also based on some assumptions that don't always work, especially in a world where specialized labor has become the rule rather than the exception.

The problem is that in a true communism, where no one owns anything privately, people struggle to deal with specialized labor positions. How do you convince someone to train to be a doctor, when they know that while they will be working hard every day once trained, someone who's job it is to tend a farm will be working comparibly less. Also how do you determine who takes such specialized positions. In a capitalistic society those that are interested in the world and study will work towards those harder jobs, usually because they anticipate greater rewards, but in a commune since many people are going to look for the easiest path, you'll have trouble filling techinical positions. I've been to Russia and talked to people who lived there when it was still the USSR, and they all agree that getting things repaired was difficult partly because skilled repairmen were extremely rare.

I think it goes back to the statement I've read before "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." You could almost say "Capitalism is the worst form of economy, except for all the others".

[greblc]

62. Did anyone speak of Communism in altruistic terms?

Such as ,working for the commonwealth of the country? or was it dog eat dog survival?

[Econslave]

77. in Russia

They were all taught that all their efforts would be "working for the commonwealth of the country" However, it failed completely in practice. I was there back in 2000, and you could still see the effects on the economy. The streets were in terrible shape, cars that belched black smoke, buildings in such poor shape they'd be condemned in the US. Most of the newer buildings were built by european companies who came to the area looking for inexpensive labor from a labor pool that had some level of education.

[aneerkoinos]

261. In Russia

and some other parts of the former Soviet empire, the neoliberal economic dogma imposed on the post-collapse society has only made the situation worse for the majority of people.

[Az]

45. Tyrany of society over the individual

There is not an equal desire to contribute to society found in each person. Some already feel a part of society while others will naturally feel seperate from it. The needs of the society will be placed over the desires of the individual. And even if a person does not want to contribute they will be made to contribute or they will be made an enemy of the state.

Over time as the inefficiencies of production and distribution decrease the effectiveness of the workforce increased pressure will be placed on them to up the production. As the pressure is increased more individuals will become disenchanted with the idea of serving society. As this happens the effeciency decreases leading to more pressure.

[DireStrike]

52. Most people hear "communism" and think "national"

which explains a lot of the dynamics of the argument. Sometimes "communists" are talking about small communities.

It can work on a personal level, because people are tribal creatures. But once it starts getting outside your circle of friends and relatives, people generally don't see others as their brothers and sisters (barring some identifier.)

As to whether this way of thinking is absolute or ideological, it would take a lot of proof to show either. But right now, I think most people feel that it's natural. Marx said that this thinking was based on there being private property. We would need a large-scale, non totalitarian communist nation to test it. And probably several generations to cleanse the idea pool. And furthermore, interaction with market based countries would have to be cut off, or the countries destroyed. One market based country would provide an outlet for market based thinking, which would "cause" greed.

It just seems like an awful lot of work to me.

[greblc]

126. When you think of how a shared living arrangement works...

couldn't it be considered a communal enviorment? If so a great number of people been communists on a small scale.

[forgethell]

56. My guess?

The humongous number of people the Communists have killed. Far more than those pikers, the Nazis, whom they muchly resemble.

[Hell in a Handbasket]

57. because it always turns into authoritarianism when actually practiced.

it looks great on paper, though.

[aquart]

59. Doesn't it work on the premise that we'll all be cool if we have enough?

But "enough" doesn't take human anxiety and human greed and human obsession into account.

Also, it never understood that bureaucracy is a self-replicating organism which will fight for its own survival.

[TexasProgresive]

72. I'm no student of Marx and Engels

but I believe that they postulated that communism would rise from the ashes of capitalism. Capitalism would topple over from it's own weight and communism would naturally take its place. This means that it could only rise in what were fully developed capitalistic systems. That leaves out Tsarist Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba and all the rest.

Whether Communism as defined by Marx would ever work-we don't know and past history of "communist" regimes are no indicator since they were flawed from the beginning.

[Dark]

90. Communism is not congruent with human nature.

Human nature is to put one's own intrests first. Communism requires that one ignore this indelible trait.

That's like asking a gay man to ingnore his homosexuality.

Another major problem is that communism cannot function properly if there are too many bad apples (read: Bushes). And 'too many' is a very small amount.

[aneerkoinos]

267. Spiritual evolution

Talk about greed being definitive about "human nature" and basing fundamental social structures and values on that view, certainly produces greedy, selfish people. Petty and stupid people.

However, gradual spiritual evolution is possible, and indeed a fact proven by history.

[Strelnikov_]

98. Centralized Planning, Unmanageable On A Macro Scale

Had a course in Central Planned Economies 25 yr. ago in college. From what I remember, the Soviets put great effort into trying to be able to efficiently level resources, to little avail. I remember the Professor would spend 45 min. presenting a topic, then put his head down, shake his head, and say how it didn't work.

To me, a balance between central planned and market economies works best. For example, the government sets a limit on car MPG, and let the market sort out resource leveling. Public works is probably the purest form of centrally planned/market economic fusion. Government decides they want a new highway. Plans are developed and bids from private contractors are taken to construct the improvements. Again, the market works out resource assignment.

As for the argument that people are not rewarded for their initiative in a planned economy, I don’t agree. If you excelled, you would be promoted, just like an employee for any market company. Kinda like one big Ford plant.

What the Soviet planned economy did not allow for was entrepreneurial opportunities, with the resultant innovation and possibility of rapid attainment of wealth.

[DireStrike]

106. THE question getting brought up over and over in this thread

Is about whether communism goes against "human nature".

Marx argued that it does not; however, our current society needs time to evolve and reject the ideas of private property.

You must resist the urge to say "Well duh! That's how people are!" How are people, really? Do any of us know? How would we be if we lived in a different society? None of us knows. A society includes all inputs, all past ideas, current ideas, other countries. Communism has failed, currently, in our global societal context. There is no telling whether it would fail in any context, or even that it will not succeed at some point in our future.

To steal a quote from Silent Hill, "No matter how foul nor loathsome one's own life and existence may be, human nature is abiding."

And again I feel obligated to provide a disclaimer, as usual: I do not think this world will see any functional communism for a very long time, if ever. I am not a communist.

[Az]

121. I would say the problem

isn't that it goes against human nature. Rather that it expects all humans to have the same values and feelings about serving society. This is the killer in the mix. It seems to see humans as interchangable cogs in a system. But we are all geared differently.

[DireStrike]

143. Interesting point. Is there no universal value then, like, say Freedom?

Or any value you want, boiled down until it becomes unambiguous.

And if not, is that because of nature or nurture?

You can answer if you like, but somehow I doubt it will be authoritative. ;-)

[Az]

156. Not sure I understand your question

Each person is going to have their own individual sense of import for varying things. You may be able to boil some things down to a generalized sense of value. But unambiguous... not sure that is entirely possible. Each person brings a unique perspective to the venue. What I consider to be of import may not be the same as you.

[DireStrike]

164. I see. I just wanted a little clarification. -nt-

[greblc]

161. I agree.

I see our Government failing to see the same. In our free market society we all are considered to have the same ability to succed. Our leaders view themselves as self made men and assume that most everyone has that same potential. "But we are all geared differently."

[greenohio]

122. You mean, other than it doesn't work? /nt

[Astarho]

144. I think

As Americans this is a particularly hard question to answer since we were raised in so much anti-Communist propaganda. Just look at how many knee-jerk reaction posts have mentioned the atrocities commited by various Communist countries, which was not even the original question (and they would ignore many of our own greed-based atrocities).

The idea that with a lack of incentive the workers become lazy is true anywhere, not just communist societies. Just look at the American workforce. People with crappy dead-end jobs tend not to put their best effort into that job. A friend who worked for a store several years ago that the boss would make sure the employees knew that they were always replaceable and the employees would steal things all the time.

Another example is the notion that communism wouldn't work because people are greedy. Greed is endemic in American society, not necissarily endemic to all of humanity (not to say its not a problem). How many people want to quit their jobs and be a painter or a writer? Neither are big money-making careers.

I find it interesting that most of the Communist countries were basically agrarian before communism. Marx predicted the revolution would come in industrialized societies. It seems to me that many of these countries tried communism as a way of uniting society for a rapid modernization, which always failed.

Communism does have a few problems of its own, among them:
- The managers would exploit the laborer, and then the revolution would come. Yet the laborers, having been raised in that exploitation, would still have the exploitive mindset, and eventually new managers emerge to start the cycle over again.

- The aforementioned means of production and distribution. Until we have a form of unlimited power and/or replication technology a la Star Trek this will continue to be a problem.

[RaleighNCDUer]

180. Not to mention that Marx did not anticipate the power of

organized labor within the capitalist system. All his experiences with capitalism were with the unbridled capitalism of corporatism and the aristocracy ruling over a worker underclass. The idea of unionized labor mitigating the damage wrought by the ownership class while diffusing the wrath of the working class does not seem to have occurred to him.

There may be hope for him yet, though, now that the repubs are destroying the unions.

[EST]

153. In theory (simplistic theory) nothing

From each-according to his ability
To each according to his need
No "pure" system can work well for very long. No pure system can handle disrupters, and disrupters will always arise. Any pure communistic, capitalistic or socialistic system is too easily taken over to serve a disruptive elite. The only system that can remain workable, and be self correcting, is a system that combines features from all the systems and adds very strong strictures that include "consent of the governed."
This is (was) the system snvisioned for the US, and has served fairly well for quite some time.
The only way this system can be taken over is the very way that it has occured in the past fifty years, and that requires a populace not very interested in the workings of government, as well as having short memories. If the current contratemps can be maintained until most of the current forty and over citizens are gone, there will be no turning back.

If, however, enough people can remember that it used to be better, the self-correcting mechanisms will work, but not without a long, difficult battle and a lot of sacrifice. This probably means that most of the over forties will be dead and gone before America rediscovers itself as the moral leader of the world, but, at least, we may be able to leave our children's children a better place to live.

It may also include lots of bloodshed and small time "disrupters" right here in the good 'ol US of A, but the "patriots," or "insurgents," or "partisans" of the IRA, Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq have certainly shown how it's done. Their 'guided missles' and 'smart bombs,' consisting of a dedicated terrorist brain with a bomb on his back may be crude and low tech, but they are very, very effective.

[greblc]

184. Thanks for your post.

[forgethell]

160. Maybe in theory,

nothing. But we don't live in "Theory Land". We live in the real world. When I was studying for my PhD, I had to do a dissertation. I worked on a computer model of a physical problem, I won't go into details. However, the point is this: Once I had my model working, I conducted some actual physical experiments to see how well it predicted the mechanical behavior that I was modeling. The first 2 or 3 models did not give accurate results, so I had to rewrite parts of my program until it did.

They were beautiful models, too, and I had put a lot of effort, and even faith, in them. But they are on the dustbin of history, now, along with Marx.

Because in the real world experiments that have been conducted with communism, it failed to work as predicted.

[WillowTree]

198. Among the reasons why communism, in it's pure form....

....can't work is because it's all economic theory and does not take the human factor into account.

Once the novelty and initial idealism of "everyone working equally for the common good" wears off, a person wants....no, needs....the motivation of reward for his or her work. If all work is rewarded equally, then it is rewarded not at all. If person can live as well doing relatively stress-free unskilled manual labor as being a pediatric oncologist, few will be motivated to do the hard stuff. So those who have to do the hard stuff will do just enough to get by.

Rather than feeding creativity, it stifles it because people are not motivated. (Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all heard it before but the fact is that "the satisfaction of a job well-done" goes just so far, particularly when those who do just barely enough to keep their tails out of a sling lives just as well as the guy who busts his hump or goes the extra mile or comes-up with the great idea.) All work eventually becomes dull, gray drudgery when there is never a "more" to work toward. For that matter, life itself becomes dull, gray drudgery when there's no such thing as individual success. Because, when all is said and done, we ARE individuals.

Gratification, whether instant or long striven-for, is a basic need of the human animal and communism simply does not feed that.

[Lexingtonian]

201. ummm...its ideologues, and Modern times

In theory, what is wrong with Communism?

Well, subsistence-level societies practice an economics very similar to Communism. Future -advanced, civilized- societies in which wealth (which will be largely collectively held) far exceeds peoples' true material needs (and materialistic psychological needs are dealt with so as to be minimized) will function by a variant of Communism.

Communism fails in the present condition, intermediate between the two, in which the middle classes have large materialistic psychological needs. (E.g. lots of status objects and wasteful conspicuous consumption, and accumulation of wealth to no socially productive purpose.)

The problem is that of Modernity- which has been destroying the basis of hereditary class identity and roles. Ideologues on both sides failed, because Modernity is technically an anti-ideology. The ideologues on the Communist side simply failed more quickly because they started out with societies far worse prepared for Modernity- though, to be blunt, the choice of Communism itself was a reflection of starting off with more deeply medieval societies. For all its failures, the West began the fight with a head start- it accepted the Darwinian concept of adaptive selection far more thoroughly and the East stuck with a Lamarckian conception to its scheme of social and economic change. For all the pretenses to real social and economic progress, all Communist societies ended up bottling up social justice developments and progress at a level which was reached in the 1950s in the West.

On an ideological level, we can directly blame (1) the Marxist rigidity about wealth, which is too statically constrained in the ways it can achieve conversion from collective capital to individual consumption for the present condition, and thus (2) the problem of the managerial and political ruling classes in dealing with problem (1) and consequently failing/corrupting.

Human nature seems to corrupt all forms of Government.

Human politics deals with the memories of the past and the problems of the present, and Government reflects the immaturities and miseducation and other inadequacies of the people governed, and those governing, toward these problems.

Why is it that Communism equates evil? and Capitalism good? I understand Cold War Propaganda has a great deal to do with our perception but both have flaws.

Well, the truth about both is that each reflects a medieval imperialist form. 'Capitalism' as championed by The West is not the thing Adam Smith described, it is the colonialistic/feudalist economic system worked out in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. 'Communism' as championed in The East is not the thing Karl Marx described, it is the collective-based tribute/command economy of medieval Mongols and Tartars and Turks and medieval China.

The Cold War was The Latest Invasion By The Asian Hordes in the view of the West, and it was the New Conquest/Colonialization By The Teutonic Knights And European Colonialists in the view of the East.

Capitalism proper and Communism proper were never actually tried during the Cold War- and arguably, like genuine Christianity, they have never actually been tried by any state or large organization anytime within living human memory.

If Sloth is a factor in the failure of Communism couldn't Greed in turn contribute to the failure of our Capitalist Society?

Always has, always does, always will. Human needs and neediness have never fit ideological (properly spelled as 'idiot-logical') systems. In the end ideological systems always reflect a solution to a specific problem in a specific place and time, fallaciously generalized and pretended to fit other circumstances.

[lostinacause]

217. Impressive response n/t

[LynnTheDem]

210. In theory, nothing is wrong w communism; it's just another form of govt

Any & all forms of govt can be "evil"; it's not the form of government that determines "good" or "evil"; it's the people running the government.

[hughee99]

212. Greed vs. Sloth

IMHO, greed is less of an issue than sloth. It's easier for a government to structure things to contain greed and protect people to some degree from it (like Socialism). Greed can also provide some benefit to society, if there is a need or desire for something that is not being provided (for better or worse) someone's greed will find a way to meet that need or desire. This certainly benefits the provider, but it can also benefit the consumer. I haven't found any useful side effect of sloth, and it seems the only way to counteract it is to either offer incentives (appeal to greed) or institute some sort of punishment for "being lazy". One seems to defeat the purpose of Communism, the other (as we've seen in the past) is not an effective alternative.

[Lilith Velkor]

215. Robbery vs. Videogames

Youre whipping out some double edged swords here. Every Deadly Sin has costs and benefits. Sloth would do much damage to society, but the game's on, then it's time for a nap. :boring: ;-)

[hughee99]

220. Robbery is a product of greed

but it is not necessarily a product of Capitalism. Both Communist and Capitalist societies have crime issues. Just because a government is Capitalist, it doesn't eliminate the sloth inherent in the people, nor does a Communist society eliminate the greed. I'm just saying that given the choice between the two, greed is easier for a government to manage than sloth.

[Lilith Velkor]

221. Like they managed Enron?

I still don't understand how sloth is such a huge problem.

[lostinacause]

223. In communism one person's sloth affects everyone

In capitalism greed, so long as it is not associated with crime or externalities, benefits yourself and others. Greed is a loaded word, perhaps ambition may be better. Sloth is also a loaded word but I cannot think of a better one.

[ckramer]

255. Greed can kill people, Sloth doesn't.

Iraq war is the result of greed (of oil).



"Sloth is also a loaded word but I cannot think of a better one."

How about 'self-contented'?

[lostinacause]

264. Inaction can be the cause of an individual’s

or a society's downfall as well.

[hughee99]

270. Sloth doesn't kill people?

Tell that to people who die in accidents because the fire or building inspector didn't do their job properly (like The Station Nightclub Fire in RI). The man who did the inspections there wasn't incompetent. He's done his job for many years. He knew what he was doing, he was just to lazy to actually do it correctly.

If under a true communist system you were to tell a person that if they become a doctor, they will study for many years to go into a job with high stress and long and uncertain hours. For this they will be rewarded exactly the same as the 9-5 guy who works as a Walmart "greeter". How many doctors do you think you'll have? I'll bet it won't be enough. In the absence of any form of rewards, sloth can be a powerful factor in motivating people to do just enough to get by.

Is the Iraq war only a product of greed? Does Iraq have the worlds only source of oil? If we simply wanted oil, couldn't we have invaded other countries? Couldn't we have just bought oil from other countries? Venezuela, Russian Republics and Libya all have oil too. Libya would have been easier to invade, Venezuela is closer, Russia probably has more oil. Why Iraq then? Because * wasn't willing to do the political or economic things necessary to resolve this issue properly, and of all the available sources of oil, this was politically the easiest one to get to. It was too difficult to get the international community on board, so * didn't really try very hard. The American people (or at least the repuke base) doesn't want to hear about conservation, so * didn't try that approach either. Other countries are making their oil too expensive, and * didn't want to have to pay that much for it. It was EASIER to simply gin up a war and invade Iraq. Yes it was about greed, but it was also about SLOTH. Sloth isn't just a person playing video games in their free time, it's also a person taking the perceived path of least resistance even when it is clearly not the best option.

[lostinacause]

279. I agree with you that there are better

ways to get oil and based on what the administration should know about the costs and the result of the invasion that it is a poor decision based upon the risks involved and the expected payoff. There are certain "rules" that go along with oil extraction such as royalties that are expected to go to the local governments thus the oil contracts are not as valuable as they would appear to be. The war in Iraq, at least to me, seems to be about power and influence in the Middle East. This theory explains the 'diplomatic' steps that Bush took and why things like bringing 'democracy' and 'freedom' are being stressed so much.

Personally I see the war in Iraq helping their citizens in the long run and I am at no loss to see Saddam go. To see whether it is better for the average American will depend on one vary large assumption. The assumption that a ‘free’ Iraq will have some sort of influence on the rest of that region.

[Lilith Velkor]

315. How do you know he was lazy?

Did it occur to you that the inspector might have been paid to ignore the situation? And that that cost less money than making necessary adjutments?

BTW, thanks for the belly laugh about Iraq. No, we don't use Iraqi oil, Europe and Japan do. We just have to make sure they buy it through our oil companies, at prices we set, and they damn well better use dollars instead of Euros. THAT's why Iran is next.

EASIER to simply gin up a war--pfft!

[hughee99]

332. The inspector filed a report that

the building wasn't up to code. Under law, they have a period of time to fix it. They didn't fix it. The inspector didn't return at the end of that period of time and check it. Is it possible that he got paid? There's no evidence of it, and the official investigation found that there was no corruption, but it is still possible.

As to Iraq, I'm glad you enjoyed your laugh. Please accept my apology for insinuating that this administration may not be just corrupt but also politically lazy. I promise to never again accuse the * administration of being lazy in their pursuit of corruption.

We don't use Iraqi oil? In 2001 Iraq was the 6th largest oil exporter to the US at 780,000 barrels/day. It's total exports were 2 million barrels/day at the time, which mean that, before the war, the US was importing almost 40% of Iraqi oil. So while only about 8% of US crude oil imports come from Iraq, we were using a significant percentage of the oil they export.

http://www.cis.state.mi.us/mpsc/reports/energy/02summer/oilimports.htm

[Lilith Velkor]

363. I sit corrected.

My info on the oil was outdated. And I kinda see your point vis-a-vis political laziness. Them there neocons done read Mein Kampf too many times. ("It does not matter who is right, only who wins.")

>I promise to never again accuse the * administration of being lazy in their pursuit of corruption.<

Wise move. It's hard work takin' over the world with them moolahs kickin' up a fuss...

*slaps self* I gotta get some sleep. G'night.

[hughee99]

310. The government doesn't manage Enron...

Corrupt people manage Enron and corrupt people exist in any society. Sloth isn't a problem if someone chooses to "do nothing" in their free time, but in a society where everyone is told that they only have to do a minimal amount of work, a good majority of people will eventually only do that minimal amount of work. This dramatically reduces productivity. In a capitalist society, productivity is used as a means to the bottom line (usually financial). In a communist society, the "bottom line" is the benefit to the community. If it 10 workers can harvest enough food for 40 people under communism, and the same 10 workers can harvest food for 80 people under a system that rewards increased productivity, a society will have to divert more resources (people) to harvesting instead of having them work on other things. Also, what happens if they can't find enough people who want to be farmers, but the job needs to be done? In a capitalist society, they create a financial incentive for people to want to do this job. In a communist society, how do they "encourage" someone to do a job that they do not want to do? Not everyone can be motivated by "the greater good".

[Lilith Velkor]

316. They didn't stop Enron, and they could have.

Corporate charters can be revoked. But under this system, you can rob the public blind as long as the HNIC gets a cut.

There is no point in busting your ass if the reward is that the boss transfers all the profits to a bank on Grand Cayman and then files for bankruptcy. You could complain to someone, but they all have new Playstations, courtesy of the holding company.

As for the hypothetical farmers, well, what if a machine could do it all? Guess who has to use means fair and (mostly) foul to get the money to buy the food?

>...how do they "encourage" someone to do a job that they do not want to do?<
How about decreasing productivity so more people have time to enjoy life?

[hughee99]

331. Enron is a good example of the problems with greed,

But did all companies do what Enron did? Did most? As a percentage of the of all the companies that are out there, Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, etc, the "Enron example" is a very small minority. I'm sure that's no comfort to the people those companies screwed, but it's still a small minority. Is the government changing the rules to try to prevent this from happening again? Sure they are.

As for "hypothetical" farmers... Is there a machine that will do all agricultural work? I'm not aware of one. In any case, this is just an example of an industry, and can be applied to other jobs. What's the incentive to spend all the time studying to become a doctor, for example? You would end up with lots of work in a high stress job, and would receive no "extra" benefit for it. Could you see the possibility of worker shortages in high-skill, high pressure jobs?

If you decrease productivity so more people have time to enjoy life, wouldn't you need MORE people to do the job rather than less people? If you have 50 people doing a job that society requires, and you decide to decrease productivity on those 50 (by cutting their hours from 40 to 20 per week, for example) wouldn't you need 100 people working 20 hours a week to do the same job as 50 people at 40 hours. What if their job, though necessary, is unpleasant to most people (garbage man, undertaker, sewer treatment worker). How do you get enough people to want to do that job (instead of a more enjoyable job) to meet the common need? Does a person get to decide what job the do, or is there someone who assigns jobs whether you like it or not?

If some people are on their playstations some of the time, that's not a problem. If all people are on their playstations all of the time then their society will not last long.

[Lilith Velkor]

355. What if everybody...

...were motivated by different things at different times? That was my point.

From my perspective, most of the problems we face today stem from greed run amok. I agree with you in that greed can have positive aspects, as can all the Deadly Sins. (I wrote a paper on it in college.) :)

The Enron example, much like the Abu Ghraib example, is the tip of the iceberg. The government has the motivation to change the rules so it can look good, but they don't want to go around actually enforcing those rules too much, else they don't get their kickbacks.

I have never met a doctor who was motivated by greed. Most of those are screened out by the brutal manner in which they are trained (residency makes boot camp look like a frickin resort). I'd honestly say they are more motivated by pride. Social status would still exist, and only the most deluded commie ideologue would tell you different.

As I said upthread, the most dangerous and unpleasant work can be done by robots. There would be plenty of people to do human-work (such as maintaining the robots) because they wouldn't be starving, freezing, or otherwise dying off due to the greed of the overclass.

[hughee99]

357. Yes, people are motivated by different things

and doctors are not motivated for the most part by greed, but the financial reward is a factor. Doctors are willing to deal with the stress and difficult work, because there is also a reward. A doctor can make a good living. Do you not believe that many people who want to become doctor would be discouraged from doing so if you told them that they could have the exact same life-style (or even better since they wouldn't have all the stress, the long hours and the studying) if they were to work as at Denny's instead?

The Enron example that you cite (about the kickbacks) is not an example of greed, it is an example of corruption (though motivated by greed). And as I've said before, corruption does and will continue to exist under any society.

Do robots exist that can do the most dangerous and unpleasant work (bomb disposal, sanitation worker, the guy who picks up roadkill for the highway department)? While I'm sure some portion of their daily tasks can be automated, have we reached the point were it can all be done by robots? Also, what does it say about Communism if most of the unpleasant daily tasks have to be done by robots? I guess it wouldn't have worked 20 years ago, and may not be feasible for another 20 until people can figure out how to make robots that will do all of these things.

As to all the deadly sins having a positive aspect, I'm curious to know, from society's standpoint (and not just the standpoint of the individual) how does sloth benefit anyone else?

[Lilith Velkor]

362. OK

>Do you not believe that many people who want to become doctor would be discouraged from doing so if you told them that they could have the exact same life-style (or even better since they wouldn't have all the stress, the long hours and the studying) if they were to work as at Denny's instead?<

No, I don't.

>...have we reached the point were it can all be done by robots?<

We've passed it. We just haven't gotten past what to do w/the massive unemployment that would result, and the ingrained notion that everybody has to work for a living.

>Also, what does it say about Communism if most of the unpleasant daily tasks have to be done by robots?<

It says that human beings are valuable enough not to have to do it.

>...how does sloth benefit anyone else?<

In a Communist system, it doesn't. In a Capitalist system, it creates pizza-delivery jobs so that college students get vital nutrients. :beer:

[hughee99]

366. I see we disagree on the first two points,

so I'll just agree to disagree on those. Although I would say that the concept of communism seems to stress that everyone does have to work for a living. Whatever one's job may be, everyone has to contribute to society. Otherwise wouldn't the fact that those who don't contribute, and live off the labor of others, create a serious social problem in a communist society?

My point about Communism and robots is this. The concept of communism has been around for many years. If communism will only work if all the unpleasant work can be done by no one (robots) than communism hasn't been a feasible idea without the automation.

Is it sloth or greed that creates the pizza deliver jobs? The sloth creates the opportunity, the greed of the the people who own the pizza place actually creates the job. They don't hire delivery people just because people are lazy, they hire them because they can profit from people's laziness. I guess you can look at it either way, but the sloth alone doesn't create the job.

I also agree with you on the importances of getting your "vital nutrients"!

[Lilith Velkor]

374. Communism is a modern concept.

Marx wrote his books only 150 or so years ago, right in the thick of the Industrial Revolution. That was around when they built the early machinery that could do the work of many men and oxen. He saw the acceleration of technology coming, and his theory was based on the vexatious issue of what to do with all the displaced workers and craftsmen.

Do you seriously find anything wrong with living off the labor of robots?

I think we generally agree that deadly sins are sometimes appropriate. I'll ATD on the particulars.
If you'll excuse me, I'm about to go indulge in some gluttony now, so take care.

[UdoKier]

214. Communism is NOT evil.

Soviet "communism" was a mess, and Stalinism was certainly evil.

But Marxism/Leninism doesn't seem inherently evil to me at all. In all the forms it's been done in, however, it seems to be too rigid and lacking in personal freedoms and incentives to be sustained. Then there are the Chinese, whose "communism" is more akin to Mussolini's corporatism these days.


But unfettered capitalism is utterly and absolutely amoral, whereas communism is based on control of the means of production by the workers themselves, which is at least a noble idea.


BTW, I don't think "sloth" was a problem in soviet countries. What's the point of busting your ass when you get nothing for it? That's not laziness, that's common sense.

[Rabrrrrrr]

231. And that's just the definition of "sloth" I think the writer meant.

When you're in a situation that you will get 100 monies for busting your ass and being a high producers, or that you will get 100 monies slothfully doing the bare minimum, people will tend toward the more slothful state.

So then the gov. has to dissuade people from sloth through force or coercion, which is difficult.

Whereas greed (or ambition) is easier for a gov. to control and rein in and manage without having to use force and coercion. Sure, in some Enron cases, but not generally. If people get more reward for working harder, generally they will work harder.

If people get the same reward for working harder they get for working slothfully, they will work slothfully; so you have to hit 'em with cattle prods.

Think of slavery - slavery only works when you have a lot of security people watching over them.

Slothfulness becomes a problem because it drains the system, eliminates entrepreneurialship, and, I might add, will also levy a heavy burden on the healthcare systems.

[UdoKier]

256. I only raised the point because "sloth" implies a moral judgment...

as though the people in question were actually lazy. Who knows what they might do if they had some incentive to do it!


Hell, look how hard most Americans work just for lousy time-and-a-half!

Of course the wealthiest Americans don't have to work at all, their money works for them.

"Think of slavery - slavery only works when you have a lot of security people watching over them."

That reminds me of the ostensibly "free" countries where our little foreign slaves put together our $150 Nikes for $.50/hr., usually in crowded shop floors with locked doors and guards..

"Slothfulness becomes a problem because it drains the system, eliminates entrepreneurialship, and, I might add, will also levy a heavy burden on the healthcare systems."

I'm just saying I'd rather blame the lack of incentive than the "slothfulness" of people who are doing exactly what they should be expected to do without incentive - the bare minimum.


But none of this makes Soviet "communism" EVIL, any more than the various social ills and outrageous wealth disparities here in the land of predatory capitalism make capitalism "evil"

Things like progressive taxation, social safety nets and public infrastructure have done much to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism, which is what makes it really sad that we've utterly abandoned those ideas in the last 20 years.

To me, the only real failures of the New Deal and Great Society was the "Urban Planning" and all those horrible public housing developments that were built. Whoever thought that taking the poor and stacking them in spartan monolithic high-rises would help was pretty off-target.

[Rabrrrrrr]

323. Yes, I see your point - I wasn't using "sloth" as a moral judgment

but as a natural consequence of what happenes when there is no incentive to anything more than what is required.

I didn't mean it as lazy at all, and I don't think the person who originally used the word meant it in the sense of lazy. And as that writer said, there isn't a word for what we're really talking about, which is neither slothfulness nor laziness nor unwillingness to work, but the rather pragmatic and sensible realization of where the work-expended/return-earned curves intersect. Which in a perfectly and pure communist society is gonna be pretty low on the "work" side, since it's so low on the "return-expected" side.

And urban planning - I'm totally with you. Putting all the poor, destitute, drug-addled, uneducated people in one area all together was a huge, huge mistake.

And no, I don't think communism is evil, either; nor do I think capitalism as morally good.

[IntravenousDemilo]

350. The sad fact

...is that people under capitalism aren't paid commensurate with their actual labour. No one deserves to be paid a hundred times as much as another person. Anyone who puts in a full day of work, say as a bank teller, deserves to earn -- OK, I'll be reasonable here -- at least ten percent as much as the CEO of that bank. Anything less is a slap in the face of hard work, a mockery of earnest and time-consuming labour.

"Ah, but what about the decisions, the pressures, the millions of dollars in revenues that a CEO brings in?" I hear you saying. "Doesn't that merit an overwhelming amount of money, stock options, a company car or two, exclusive club memberships, and so on?" Well, no. The CEO brings in revenues only because he's in a position to bring in revenues. That's his job. He's not working any harder than the teller, and he probably makes a hell of a lot more mistakes. And he's probably not the one who'll be shot during a bank hold-up, either.

Socio-politico-economic systems of the left, whether they be communist or socialist, are merely trying to address this kind of inequality. The rich don't deserve as much as they have, and the poor deserve more. This is as opposed to the Republican philosophy that states that the rich aren't rich enough and the poor aren't poor enough.

[FreeTheUSA]

222. Everything. While the wealthy should SHARE their wealth...

Noone, NOONE should be FORCED to share anything.

[Strelnikov_]

252. Does Your Philosophy Include Taxes?

Are not taxes forced sharing?

[PowerToThePeople]

224. Oh my..

K-W, you are a good man/woman. There seem to be a lot of ignorant statements going on here..

The USA could become more "communist" if the dissolved the corporate structure, did 100% tax on assets remaining after death and used those resources to supply full education (as far as one wishes and can achieve), full health care, and a stable social net for downtrodden/retired. We could still have the same basic capitalist system, just with these few changes. I also see open-source vs. proprietary information as being able to add much to the system.

[Lilith Velkor]

319. My meme on this

How about capitalism for the rich and communism for the poor instead of the other way around?

What's your take on the open-source thing?

[IrateCitizen]

230. It's biggest problem is that it's a material dialectic...

... that attempts to confront a spiritual/metaphysical problem.

I've read my share of Marx, and while his theories were a very viable social discourse on the problems of the age of industrialization, they have many glaring faults today. Actually, Marx was much more on the mark in his earlier manuscript works than his later full theories. In his earlier works, he did not propose that property should be divvied up equally between all in society -- rather, he said that the benefits of productivity that resulted from industrialization should be given to the workers in the form of FREE TIME. He rejected the idea that because industrialization increased production, workers should be required to work MORE hours.

Marx initially proposed that this free time for workers would give them more opportunities to spend developing their communities, purusing the arts, and spending time with their families. The ability of workers to get more "things", outside of the ability to provide necessities for their families, was not discussed. In this sense, Marx's earlier theories were very similar to the kind of lives lived by the early Christians, who were communitarians. The primary emphasis of life is not materialistic, but metaphysical.

The problem arose when the theories of communism were developed, because then the focus shifted to a material dialectic. The problem is that communism is based on the same human value system as capitalism -- a value system that ascribes the highest priority to material wealth. If only those without it could be given it, communism says everything would work out all right. National experiments in this, such as the USSR, China, North Korea, and so on should prove that this is not the case.

Personally, I think that a materialistic dialectic of any sort, in this age of abundance for a few and poverty for the many, is a doomed philosophy. That is why both capitalism and communism, while possessing some positive aspects, are largely condemned to eventual extinction. It is not our duty to look for the answers specifically in these outdated philosophies, but instead to seek to rise above them and discover a new dialectic that speaks more to the metaphysical and less to the materialist. It is only through such a transformation and evolution that humanity will avoid killing itself off, IMHO.

[ckramer]

259. I think whatever -ism is about human right ultimately

The goal is treating everyone on this earth with human dignity. A 'xxxxx-ism' under which people die poor, or starve, or become homeless, go without health care and retirement is a bad or imperfect xxxxx-ism.

[fedsron2us]

312. Excellent points

Too many people make the assumption that communism must equal the Marxist materialist dialectic. It then ends up as an inverted image of capitalism. The sterile debate about how property should be divided up misses the point that both systems tend to enslave individuals to the industrial process. It is interesting that many of the radical ideas that fired the French and American revolutions emerged from an artisan class of weavers, printers etc who actually had some control over the means of production. This allowed them the freedom and the time to develop their thoughts. With the advent of industrialisation this group lost much of its economic and political independence. As a consequence society tended to polarise into a conflict between property owners and labour. In practise it did not matter which side won this battle because under both capitalism and communism real power tended to reside in the hands of a small 'vanguardist' elite. For people to be free some mechanism needs to be established to give people the chance to control not only the material aspects of their lives but how they use their time. Needless, to say this is not likely to occur until our current methods for organising our political and economic structure have brought man kind to the edge of extinction.

[No Exit]

233. I am so glad to see that someone else also asks this question.

Here's the answer: Communism is bad b/c we have been told all our lives that it is bad. Capitalism is good b/c we have been told all our lives that it is good.

Pure capitalism = pure predation. The strong prey on the weak, and engulf them.

In past times, the evils of capitalism were recognized, perhaps b/c the people then had actually had experience with societies that WEREN'T based on capitalism, and they knew that a society not based on capitalism was not necessarily the hellhole/failure/disaster that WE have been taught that it is.

I also have a very dim memory, from childhood, of how people used to deplore "commercialism" and the idea that EVERYTHING has a price--the idea that EVERYTHING can be reduced to dollars and cents. People used to make fun of the advertising industry over this point.

Sure, capitalism is great if you are the biggest, strongest predator (corporation). But it does not necessarily serve the little guy. (Certainly it never INTENTIONALLY serves the little guy.) That's why I feel outrage when I hear the red-stater little people--people who live solely on their paychecks, from their jobs which they hold only at the mercy of their big powerful employers--saying things like, "The free market is best", or "The government should leave businesses alone." Heh. Okay, little people... start your own business, go ahead! Start your own bank! Let's see what happens when you start your own bank! Oh... did you not know that a bank is a BUSINESS???

Any wage-earner who praises capitalism should, EVERY time he feels hungry, be required to go out and kill something, right then and there. Any wage-earner who praises capitalism should be required to get ALL his food this way. And no storing or trading or growing, either! Predation--and nothing but! Let's see how they would like capitalism if they really had to compete EVERY DAY with the big guys, rather than groveling for their little wage which their corporate master grants them.

[Arkana]

234. On paper, Communism works perfectly

The problem is, of course, human nature.

[IrateCitizen]

236. Simplistic answer that could as easily be applied to capitalism

After all, capitalism seems to be a major culprit as to why we're destroying our environment in the neverending search for "more". Therefore, human nature is the reason that capitalism is a disaster.

It's more complex than that. See my post #230, above.

[LilBitRad]

240. Kick for later read n/t

[goodhue]

265. Does not allow ownership of private property.

You can't own your home. That's my biggest problem with it.
Sloth is not so bad in my opinion.

[aneerkoinos]

274. Interestingly

Socialist Cuba has much higher percentage of home ownership than US. Naturally Cuban form of ownership is somewhat more limited than in US, home's are not market goods to be freely sold and bought (no capitalist landlords in possession of several homes), but they can be inherited within certain restrictions.

[Rabrrrrrr]

329. LOL!!

So they "own" their house, but they can't do anything with it that they might want to, like sell it.

If they're really lucky, they might be able to pass it on to their children.

Yeah, that's REAL fuckin' ownership.

So the government owns all these houses, and then offers them to the people with stupendously restrictive conditions, including the restriction that the government still owns it, and then claim that the home ownership in Cuba is higher than in the US.

Sure, and if I just redefine "female citizen of the US" as "slurpee machine", than the US has the most slurpee machines of any country in the world!

[aneerkoinos]

338. You just don't get it

And you have a dirty mouth.

No, the governement don't own the houses, people do. Homes are for meant for living, not for capitalistic exploitation. Homes are basic right, not something only for rich people. That's what socialism is about.

[Rabrrrrrr]

340. No, I'm using a definition of "ownership" that means that you actually

own it - which means that you can control what you do with it, such as sell it, give it to your children, etc.

Now, I know nothing about home ownership in Cuba except from what you said. And you said that there are restrictions, and that to give it to your children needs special permission.

To me, that ain't ownership.

That means the government is letting you use it, and declaring to the rest of the world "Our home ownership is very high!"

Much like how my dog "owns" his food bowl, until such time as I decide to take it away and/or give him a new one.

[aneerkoinos]

343. Ownership

Naturally, after a your life-long exposure to a certain ideological worldview, it is difficult to understand that your definition of consepts may not be the only correct ones. :)

Correctomundo, Cuban definitions and legislation conserning ownership are not same as capitalist definitions. But you show your narrow world view by assuming that capitalistic definitions are the only correct ones.

Perhaps according to your moral standards it's OK to have millions of homeless people while some people own dozens or hundreds or thousands empty homes the homeless people can't afford. I on the other hand don't think very highly of such moral standards that plase private property as the value that surpasses all other values.

[Rabrrrrrr]

345. So, you think that because I feel that a person doesn't "own"

something unless they actually have the power to sell or transfer that ownership, that I feel letting millions be homeless is morally acceptable and that I place private property ownership as the highest of all possible values?

Your "deductive" leaps are astounding. You should be a detective.

:silly:

:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:

[aneerkoinos]

354. Perhaps

you don't know the meaning of the word 'perhaps'?

What is
:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:
is your style of empty ad hominems and "sarcasm", neither of wich you show any talent for, not mentioning your total inability to make even one sound argument.

(And yes, in fact, it is relatively easy to make inferences based on few observations of what kind of opinions make you jump into very emotional responses... :))

[MissMarple]

271. Communism is utopian in concept, and it doesn't account for human nature.

It is just too idealistic to work on any practical level and is open to corruption.

[rman]

277. So is capitalism

It doesn't take into account that when you say to people that it's good to be greedy, that people then will in fact be greedy. Open to corruption indeed.

[MissMarple]

285. Of course, but it's not the philosophical basis of our government.

Regardless of what some of these libertarian, no government intervention or regulation folks would like us to believe.

[Radical Activist]

283. It's that whole "dictatorship of the proletariat" thing

Anytime you give all power to a small group of people, bad things will happen. They will not give that power up and it will be abused. That is the central problem with communism. All dictatorships breed evil, whether they are capitalist, socialist, fascist, communist or other. Sharing economic wealth is not the problem with communism. All the evils of the USSR resulted from the concentration of power in a few hands.

[reallygone]

335. Anybody ever read "Animal Farm"? You should! eom/

[DistantWind88]

287. Frank Zappa said it best:

"Communism will never work because people like to own stuff."

[PATRICK]

292. Systems don't kill people...

people... well, it's the same old story. You name the ideology or the socio-economic structure or government or religion and it looks great on paper. It can have periods of relative glory. People can opine and romanticize on the advantages and accomplishments. I bet the guys at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies have pin-ups of Thomas Aquinas in their bedrooms.

So what is intrinsically bad about Communism? it only tried to reduce the complaints and failures, answer the disillusionments and even take a stab at the real problem. Like all systems it did not put the main problem front and center but dealt with it later when time came to make a government to make it work. Namely, repress and control human nature. The main problem lies in ourselves and the lazy habits that lead to tyranny, repression, disintegration and the crudely effective leadership by vice.

After that it hardly seems fair to point out that it's particular flavor, Christian charity reformulated by an atheistic CPA can never quite rise above the typical of the get rich quick scheme crowds we see on infomercials. Pious selflessness in deference to the guru is only as sustainable as the material gratification.

So it is not about socialism which has been grafted onto many capitalist democracies but about casting stones. The stones that should be aimed against statism, totalitarianism, loss of individual rights, anti-democratic repression, restriction of the flow of information, etc. seem petty to aim at someone else's problem only. The UN and other feeble attempts to wrap around human optimism and reality should tackle the issue globally and headon. Always it is the deflected sidestep of the con and the sucker in denial.

First you have revolutionary principle then the revolutionary movement then the pinnacle at takeover and experimentation within a closed state system. Then comes the letdown and failure and the reliance on old devices of power maintenance. Anything valuable about the ideas and the rewards of liberty, socialism etc. does remain and even raises up the bitter enemies of progress willy nilly. So far at least. The old nostrums against communism are not nearly as important as the wagon feels finding the old ruts, plain and simple. The intention was nice, the contribution to economic justice immense, the foray into nation state competition horrendous.

Setting up new Communist states or whole cloth socialistic systems doesn't quirt have that ring of passion anymore. Amorphous capitalism hiding renegade plutocrat dinosaurs is a more venal and temporary fever that has also grasped more than the market can bear in human fallibility.

These disputes in ideologies are perhaps still, still beside the point. What next? Another ideology(I know! I know! I got it right this time!) or a grim hangover from history's stale brew, the idols of nation and Mammon, the supreme self-confidence not in humanity but in the systems humanity hides individual failure behind?

[cestpaspossible]

308. Hey great post, this one makes the thread worthwhile.

Nice writing.

[Redleg]

296. Communism is a form of economic relations, not a government per se.

Capitalism is also a form of economic relations, not a government per se.

[ngant17]

304. The Shakers were communists!

I posted this in another thread, but it bears repeating: if you want to see an example of a communist society which dates back to the founding of the nation, read the book, "Shakerism: Its Meaning and Message" by Anna White and Leila S. Taylor.

Or read up what you can on Shakerist Christian religious philosophy.

[Rabrrrrrr]

330. Ah, yes, the perfect society - that quickly atrophied and died

and didn't die just because the celibate members died, but because a shitload of members left as well because they couldn't handle the "perfect Nirvana" of "communism".

[Hugin]

309. The question in modern times really isn't Capitalism vs. Communism...

Now it's more of a question of pure Capitalism vs. Socialism.

My answer to this has always been...

Even the biggest Capitalist fish swim in a Socialist sea.

It's how things work.

[ChemEng]

320. Ask Valclav Havel (sp?)

Absolute power corrupts in ANY system (including capitalism, socialism, etc), but it sure sems like the commies have not had a good track record.

[sam sarrha]

336. Soviet Totalitarianism "WAS NOT COMMUNISM".. Marx was inspired by an

anthropological paper on the Iroquois nation, written in 1787 by Joshua Johnson. the paper was about how the culture supported the poor and indigent, how there was honor in feeding and providing for the needy. the emphasis of the culture was for the common good, which provided security for the individual.

the revolution was fought mainly by the communists, the White army, after the battles were won, The Red army, the Soviet "Mafia" Types destroyed the White army and ferreted out the origional philosophers a murdered them.

when the A-hole RepugNuts go off bashing Socialism.. simple Fascist Propaganda, they are talking about eventually privatizing the Police, Water treatment, water supply, fire department, Highway system, with Enron style corporations which we will subsidize at higher costs than the original taxes..for inferiour servises.

socialism is a necessary element of any civilized society.. This Facist government demonizes socialism because thet feel the people they disinfranchize and put out of work are on their own and deserve what they get for being lazy.. because 'anyone can get a good job' if they "Want" one and anyone can go to collage or university and work their way through on minimum wage taking a full class load..

[Stop_the_War]

358. Nothing wrong with Communism..the problem is the people that have

used it for less noble purposes, people such as Stalin.

I consider myself a democratic socialist.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

364. Communism is inherently unnatural.

It just goes against human nature. The idea that you can eliminate private property, and have everyone own everything equally is simply a utopian pipe dream, and will fail. Market forces exist, and if you ignore, or try to openly subvert them (sensible boundaries are fine, but you know what I mean), than you have problems. Big economy-destroying problems.

[Technowitch]

365. You said it right there. Human nature guarantees its failure.

All it takes is greed. Greed for power and wealth.