Communism - despite its honorable intentions - is a bad form of govrenment

[KitchenWitch]

I point you to the fall of the USSR, and the current situations in China, North Korea and Cuba.

[w13rd0]

1. Communism?

What's that? I thought communism was an economic system, one which really hasn't been attempted in any sizable nation in memory. Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism...those have been tried in the places you mentioned. Cuba might be closest in economic terms, might be.

[Catholic Sensation]

2. Semantics

and Communism is the umbrella underwich Maoism, Leninism, Trotskyism, etc. fall under anyway. Governments which have borrowed heavily from Marxist ideals have never been free anyway. The USSR, North Korea, China, Cuba, etc. all totalitarian regimes, none free.

[K-W]

68. That is absolute nonsense.

You obviously dont know what Communism is.

Nothing that happened in any of those countries falls under any definition of communism. At the very best they were attempts at creating communism that failed.

[LiberallyInclined]

75. all totalitarian regimes, none free-

and none truly communist either.

[H2O Man]

94. While there is a good deal of truth

in what you are saying, one might do well to examine some of the cases more closely. I will not take the weak stance of "But they are not 'true' communism!" .... which is bullshit and automatically identifies those who say it as shallow.

However, if we look at Cuba, most people would agree that the USA put significant pressure on their government. In fact, in many ways, it is still there. Rather than recognize the sovereignty of Cuba, there were influences in the US that desired to keep it a mafia paradise. We did not take advantage of the opportunity to be friends with Castro, even if the form of economic policies he instituted were different than our own. Still, if we look honestly at the medical and educational goals Castro met, I think that they are impressive indeed. Cuba's poverty and oppression have more to do with the oppressive nature of Washington than any failure of communism.

Two other interesting examples would be the Sandinista experiment in Nicaragua, and the extremely progressive Maurice Bishop in Granada. Again, in both cases, we see extreme military pressure from the USA interfering with what I believe were the best examples of communist governments. US paramilitary adventures in Central America forced the Sandinistas to over-react, which drove the Miskito Indians into the camp of the "contra guerillas" (as if they would recognize Native autonomy!) and this resulted in a loss of foreign sympathy and support for the Ortega brothers.

Personally, I believe that Maurice Bishop and Daniel Ortega were very progressive. I think that their goals were honorable, and that they would have been successful but for the United States. It may be that these smaller experiments in communism offered the greatest results -- except for US intervention -- and that Che's views on a communalism-communism, which was influenced by his contact with the Native Peoples of Central and South America, could also have succeeded.

China and the USSR might be viewed as proof that large states tend to oppress those outside the urban areas first. But this is not something that is found only in communist countries: it is part and parcel of industrialised societies. There can not be heavily industrialized urban centers without exploitation of the natural resources (including "man hours") of the outlying rural areas. When the rural people are of the same ethnic and cultural type as the city folk, the relationship tends to be better than when they are different. In both China and the old USSR, the people only appear the same to people with Bull Connor's insight. That playes a huge role in the problems.

[KitchenWitch]

3. Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism are technically forms of Communism

[punpirate]

4. Now, if you would...

... please explain why this prompted the United States to engage in the most expensive (and dangerous) arms race in the history of the world and to deceive its citizens about countless wars and incursions into sovereign states for political purposes and for economic advantage?

Communism is an economic ideology, not a threat to the existence of the world.

Leninism, Stalinism and Maoism had nothing to do with the economics of Marxism and much to do with the politics of maintaining the power of the state--much as capitalists have done for themselves in this country.

Cheers.

[Catholic Sensation]

6. why should she have to, it wasn't the point of the thread

she didn't say THE COLD WAR WAS NECESSARY! She pointed out that the government ideologies which fall under Communism are bad. You're asking her to explain a position she has not taken.

[punpirate]

7. Sophistry. n/t

[Catholic Sensation]

9. that describes your post exactly

you added to her original post of "communism being bad" with false assertions that she felt that the need for a nuclear build up during the cold war was necessary. You augmented her original idea with a false assertion, exactly as the definition of "sophistry" describes the word as being. Good work on describing your post in one word.

[punpirate]

12. BS,,..

Come down to earth for a moment. The post said "communism was a bad form of government." Communism is an economic system. Behind that economic system, enforcing it, are governments which are distinct from the economic principle itself. A beneficent government would administer that system beneficently.

Political turmoil and prior oppression encourage adoption of systems radically different than those in place, which had previously oppressed ordinary people.

The suggestion was that the economic principle was bad because the governments instituting it were bad--and she cited her examples--the governments of Lenin, Stalin and Mao, which had much more to do with political power than instituting an economic system.

My suggestion is that our system is not much better, because our current system of government favors capitalism, an economic system protecting and furthering the interests of the wealthy. That, whatever you may think, is not sophistry, by definition. It follows my original point.

Now, what would you care to argue about next?

Cheers.

[Catholic Sensation]

21. i'm not arguing whether communism is an economic system or goverment

i'm arguing about the fact you are asking for kitchen witch to defend or explain a position she did not take. your first sentence in your first post in this thread asked her to explain how to justify the cold war spending and weaponry build up.

[punpirate]

37. Quote:

"communism is a bad form of government."

That's what I was addressing. I did so by considering the response of a wholly capitalist economic system supported by this government of ours to the "threat" of communism.

There was no threat to us. We spent huge amounts of money defending ourselves from another "ism." That's what prompted her original mistaken remark about communism being a bad form of government. She believed what her government told her. She believed that communism was a political system, not an economic one.

And, you ignore my further remarks in that earlier post, which amplify and clarify my opening statement.

The intent of the original post was simplistic, and was intended to reinforce the general opinion that communism is somehow bad because of the excesses of tyrants, and that it is a political system, not an economic one. I sought to clarify the difference by describing, in part, our response to the political tyrants, not the economic system. (For the record, I think communism, economically, doesn't work well, but neither does unrestrained capitalism--both are destructive to society.)

In short, the initial statement was wrong. It made a common mistake in estimation by mistaking an economic system for a political system. The inference I took from that was that our system was somehow superior to those deficient political landscapes. After all, our government has been telling us precisely that for sixty-odd years now.

Cheers.

[Sparkman]

105. The worst wars were the civil war, and WW2, and Vietnam. Human costs.

[rman]

15. by that logic, technically Hitler was a socialist

For all i know Lenin was not half the tyrant that Stalin was, and it is for good reason that Trosky (Lenin's right-hand man) scoffed at Stalin's "state-capitalism".

In politics more then anywhere it is relevant to wonder: "what's in a name?"

[K-W]

108. And Bush is a liberatarian democrat.

He certainly talks about freedom and democracy alot.

[bloom]

153. Some might call him a neo-liberal

That is what they call Reagan's "philosophy".

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

[Mikimouse]

117. I applaud your ability to differentiate the various attempts...

and I couldn't agree more. Cuba, as the only close example of Marxist socialism, is right on the money. If one reads Marx, it becomes clear that Lenin, Mao, Stalin, and otehrs have interpreted Marxist theory for their own purposes and cherry-picked those parts that were individually beneficial. I am not an advocate of the style of communism practiced in those nations (my ancestral home country was behind the Iron Curtain and I saw firsthand what the soviet style had to offer), but I have the utmost respect for Marxist social/economic theory (with the exception of his notion of the community of women, which is nothing more that a product of the era in which he was writing). Cheers, and great post!

[Lecky]

5. No kidding...

I don't think you will find many communist advocates on DU.

[Catholic Sensation]

28. du can be a shocking place sometimes

[Endangered Specie]

137. Indeed, Ive seen many

pro communist, or people sympathetic to communism here

[Vladimir]

8. Liberal Democracy, despite its pretences,

is a cover story for racist imperialism. I point you to India, Kenya, Vietnam, Iraq, Chile, Algeria...

[Catholic Sensation]

10. and Soviet Socialism killed more people than the nazis

I point you to the USSR.

[Selatius]

14. That assertion strikes me as inappropriate

If you gave Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy as much time to exist as the USSR, there's reason to believe they would've easily rivaled if not superceded the death counts racked up by the Stalinists. You're comparing a phenomenon that lasted less than 20 years in Europe to a phenomenon that existed in the Soviet Union for most of the 20th century.

[Catholic Sensation]

17. my bad, you're not the marxist

6 million+ murdered by hitler
20 million+ murdered by stalin

i go by number dead totally, not how many killed per year. you're talking in hypotheticals, i'm talking stats.

[Selatius]

20. Noam Chomsky is a follower of Stalin? Is that what you are saying?

Noam Chomsky is the avatar I use. He is an anarcho-socialist, not a state socialist, and he is certainly NO ADVOCATE of authoritarian socialism. You honestly believe he agrees with what folks like Stalin did?

Also, you note what Hitler and his jack-booted thugs did to the 6,000,000 Jews in Europe, but you ignore his war machine that destroyed the lives of upwards of 50,000,000 people before that Nazi son of a bitch was dead in his bunker?

[Catholic Sensation]

22. i explained in my editted reply i thought you were the marxist

and how many people did the russian army slaughter for that matter?

[Selatius]

31. My mistake. I responded before your edit showed up. n/t

[julianer]

51. I am a marxist

but I'm certainly not a supporter of the USSR or Mao's China.

The sort of society Marx envisaged had nothing whatsoever to do with the monstrosities that developed in the USSR of China.

If you knew anything about Marx and about the history of the USSR you wouldn't make the connection.

Imagine if humanity's only experience of democracy was the sort that exists in the USA today. Would you blame your 'founding fathers' for imposing such a perversion on you, or would you blame the perverters of democracy for their own crimes? Would you turn your back on democracy in disdain?

[Misskittycat]

127. Agree. Communism was a gross perversion of Marxist theory,

with a totalitarian overlay that was never proposed by Karl Marx.

[JimmyJazz]

130. Nice post.

:thumbsup:

Well said.

[The Stranger]

99. A Red Scare breaks out on the DU boards.

Nice. Real nice.

[bloom]

159. I think your stats are wrong.

----

"Estimates on the precise number vary widely, although most experts calculate the full civilian and combatant losses at 55 million, including the estimated 11 million lives lost due to the Holocaust, consisting of 5.6–5.9 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews made up of Poles, Roma, homosexuals, communists, dissidents, Afro-Germans, the disabled, Soviet prisoners as well as others.

Specifically, Allied forces suffered approximately 14.2 million deaths, and Axis forces suffered approximately 6.8 million deaths, Germany specifically had 5 million. The Soviet Union had the largest death toll, suffering an estimated 20 million civilian casualties along with 8 million Soviet soldiers killed.

In total, about 12 million soldiers lost their lives in the Second World War along with about 45 million civilians."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World_War#Consequences

[Vladimir]

19. Which misses my point

its spectacularly easy to conflate the actions of certain governments with faults in the ideology - but if we are going to do it ad nauseam for communism, lets at least be consistent. Euro-American imperialism, conducted for the most part by demoracies or semi-democracies, has consistently engaged in slaughter of "others". As a matter of fact, I'd rather not engage in such generalisations at all, but some seem to insit on it...

PS I really am not going to engage in body counts anymore...

[Catholic Sensation]

27. i'm going to engage in generalizations when someone accuses

liberal democracies of crimes worse than the authoritarian leftism you seem to support.

[Vladimir]

35. Well, you are the one

who has constructed this scale of what crimes are worse and what crimes are better. The fact that our governments export authoritarian slaughter to largely non-white peoples outside our borders does not invalidate the crimes of Stalin or Mao, it just puts them in a bit of perspective...

[Catholic Sensation]

38. and your extreme leftist governments never exported any kind of

authoritarian slaughter. In areas that were influenced by the USSR and China the people were living in a socialist utopia where there was equal opportunity for advancement, and nobody was massacred in say, fields in Cambodia. For you to make the claim liberal democracies are worse than authoritarian leftism is wholely without merit. For every Pinochet you want to bring up, I can bring up a Pol Pot.

[Vladimir]

45. What, the Pol Pot the US government supported

because he was conviniently anti-USSR? You do realise the US government, under Reagan, was about the last country on earth to stop recognising Pol Pot's party as the legitimate government of Cambodia? LOL

Indeed some communist governments did export opression, but then again how long did it take for a democratic USA to give rights to black people? What about the health care 40 million of US citizens don't have? Is that not opression?

More to the point, should it prompt me to say, liberal democracies are bad? Or would that be a nonsensical statement? Now lets be consistent about this - there have been bad governments, governing under the supposed auspices of emancipatory ideologies, throughout history. To criticise them is correct, to criticise the ideology because of them is silly. That is all.

[DFWdem]

139. Show me the 40 million who don't have healthcare

You are confusing health insurance with health care. Anyone in the US can go to the ER at their local hospital and by law they must be treated. Claiming that 40 million people don't have health care because they don't have insurance is ridiculous.

[lastliberalintexas]

144. 50 million people- mostly children-

have no access to real, sustainable healthcare because they have no insurance. For you to argue that they can simply go to the ER is ridiculous. Why should they have to wait until their illness or injury is life-threatening?

"Anyone in the US can go to the ER at their local hospital and by law they must be treated."

You do realize that a hospital can refuse to treat an individual for minor, preventive care if they can't pay, correct? That a healthcare provider must only treat the individual to prevent death, and then can even release the patient once they are stabilized, right?

You've only pointed out a distinction without a difference.

[DFWdem]

152. Not just the ER

Every county (and most cities) has at least one health clinic as well. Granted, you won't get the same level of care as someone who goes to the Mayo clinic, but to say people do not have access to health care is false. How many people have you heard of in the US in the last 20 years who have died because they did not have access to basic medical care?

[lastliberalintexas]

154. It happens more than you know

But yes, there are actually many people who die in the US because they lack access to healthcare- especially children, the elderly and pregnant women. Do a google or other search- I'm sure you'll find plenty of studies. It's amazing, really, that in our country there really are people who die for lack of basic medical care.

[DFWdem]

157. Well, show me

You claim it's very easy to find plenty of studies, yet you didn't even provide one. Yes, I'm sure it happens, but I'm equally sure it is not widespread.

[DFWdem]

164. Well, i found one source

Don't know how accurate or definitive it is, but the report claims there are 18,000 deaths in the US each year due to lack of health care coverage.

http://www.ksgovernor.org/docs/HealthyKsFactsFigsFinal.doc

Go to page 88 of this CDC report showing all deaths in 2002 (not sure if link takes you directly to page 88)

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus04trend.pdf#hi

There were 2,443,387 deaths in the US in 2002. 18,000/2,443,387 = .7366% of deaths were due to lack of access to health care. I agree that this is still absurd given the country that we live in, but .74% is an extremely low number attributable to lack of access to healthcare.

[lastliberalintexas]

168. Any number is too high

Especially given our wealth as a country. I'm sure we can agree on that. :)

And welcome to DU. :hi:

[DFWdem]

174. Yes, we are in agreement on that

One is too many. Thanks for the welcome

[K-W]

124. This statement sums up your ignorance: "authoritarian leftism"

Leftism is by definition anti-authoritarian. That is what the Left/Right destinction means. Left is populism, right is authoritarianism.

So if a state is authoritarian, you can immediately conclude that it is not leftist regardless of what the propaganda it spews claims.

Communism as an ideology of empire is no more leftist than democracy as an ideology of empire.

[SidDithers]

52. And Canadian socialism created Medicare...

I point you to Tommy Douglas.

The system of government is not inherently bad, it is the government behind the system.

Sid

[LiberallyInclined]

76. and capitalsim has been responsible for even more deaths-

than soviet or any other form of socialism or communism.

[Blue_Tires]

172. thanks....i've been waiting for someone to point that out n/t

[Selatius]

11. I would argue those are grotesque examples of socialism

China, for example, is communist no longer. They are capitalists instead! The only thing that is the same is that they're just as authoritarian.

I would assert that state socialism as an end will end in failure. If I were forced into choosing state socialism, naturally, I'd gravitate to democratic socialism as opposed to the examples you chose: Authoritarian socialism.

You could've at least taken a note of Hugo Chavez and the People's Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela!

This is why I believe the long-term solution is a model closer to anarcho-socialism. People must stop relying on leaders to do things for them that they themselves always had the power to do themselves hand-in-hand together. They must stop relying on the state and start relying on their own power to cooperate and survive. Leaders come and go. States come and go. Empires come and go, but people have remained throughout it all. That is where you must start building.

People have the power to come together in their respective communities and determine for themselves collectively what should be done. They have always had that power. The only thing that is required is education, popular organization, and some responsibility for yourself, but for too many people, this seems to be asking far too much. The people in this country are simply not ready for it, not yet anyway.

My position on the matter of how socialism should come about is matched by what Eugene Debs said on the matter:

I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I lead you in, some one else would lead you out. YOU MUST USE YOUR HEADS AS WELL AS YOUR HANDS, and get yourself out of your present condition.

I believe it is possible to have a movement of leaders, not just a movement with many followers and a few leaders. It's easy to assasinate a sole leader (JFK, for instance), but it's difficult to assasinate an entire movement made up of leaders.

[rman]

16. likewise the US is a grotesque example of democracy

-

[Catholic Sensation]

18. because we're actually a republic

[NuttyFluffers]

41. it's also a grotesque example of a republic.

and a gross example of a secular state.

[rman]

48. Then what's with Bush's ranting about spreading democracy

in the middle east?

Are you saying the US is not or is not supposed to be democratic?

Does * think democracy is good for Iraq but not good for the US?

[cire4]

13. The current situation in China?

How, exactly, does the current situation in China show that communism "is a bad form of government?"

[KitchenWitch]

23. A high percentage of the Chinese people live in absolute squalor

Thousands of them were killed in Tiananmen Square when they protested the government and the conditions in which they lived.

Obviously the "form of government" is not working for the greater good of the people. These people are not free to protest, they are not allowed to participate in religion, in many cases, female children are aborted, just because they are female (since couples are only allowed to birth one child).

Yeah, communism in China is a glowing success.

[1932]

30. Read your Stiglitz. China is at the end of a 30 year project to transition

from communism to capitalism. They've reduced poverty dramatically in the last five to ten years and they have completely eliminated hunger (according to one popularly used measure).

Stiglitz says that China is the example that proves the craziness of the IMF shock therapy/washington consensus/privatize everything at once&and protect your currency version of economic development.

I believe that no serious economist considers the Chines model of switching from communism to capitalism as a failure.

China is the envy of all developing nations. It is a success story, and not a failure.

Its goal is not to make a few people rich. It's to increase employment at high paying jobs, and to maximize prosperity for the largest number of people (the consequence of which might be to make a few people very wealthy, but that isn't the goal).

[KitchenWitch]

34. Have you actually BEEN to China in the past 5-10 years?

I have. Visited Tianjin, it is filthy, there is much poverty and hunger.

The people are wonderful, but they are living in squalor.

[1932]

43. Stiglitz has. And he writes about it. China reduced the number of

people living on 1 dollar a day or less by between 100 and 200 million people down to the low 100s in the last five years, and they're going to continue doing that because they're graduating millions and millions of people from college, and when they're done taking all our manufacturing jobs, they're going to take all our high paying jobs, and they're going to make them available to everyone else.

I believe stiglitz also writes about the displacement of workers from the country to the cities because of the search for better jobs, which is probably why the city you talk about seems worse -- more crowded and diritier -- but that's probably a sign of improving situations, no decaying situations.

Incidentally, Naomi Klein in Fences and Windows cites a UN study (IIRC) which says that building dams is the largest cause of economic migration and population displacement in the world. I think the three gorges dam means 100 million people had to move. that might be another reason that city is crowded and dirtier. But once again, it's not an indicator of a decaying economic situation.

[Vladimir]

46. I'm wondering here, whose numbers do you use on

poverty in China? Because if its the World Bank, their methodology has been subjected to a fairly devastating critique recently. See the paper below, its long and technical but also very interesting and you may enjoy reading it:

http://www.columbia.edu/~sr793/count.pdf

[1932]

58. Siglitz's in Globalization and its Discontents.

But the World Bank agrees too:

World Bank Managing Director: China's Poverty Reduction Provides Lessons, Experience for Others

World Bank Managing Director Jeffery Goldstein said in Guangxi Thursday the achievements and experience of poverty reduction in a World Bank-sponsored development program in southwest China provides good examples for other countries.

...

In Guangxi, the number of people living under the poverty line was reduced from 8 million in 1993 to 1.5 million in 2000. In Du' an county, which has been listed among the poorest counties by the central government, the number of people living under the poverty line decreased from 265,000 in 1995 to 125,000 in 2001.

Goldstein said success of the project lies not only in enormous poverty reduction through economic growth, but also in developing a multi-sectoral approach of promoting integrated progress of agricultural production, education, public health, labor mobility, environment protection and community capacity.

http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/poverty/95871.htm

[Vladimir]

60. Yeah, and I expect Stiglitz references the World Bank

too, I hardly think he is measuring the numbers himself. But maybe he has a different source - I'd be interested to know. As I said, I don't accept the World Bank's numbers on poverty one bit... I really would strongly urge you to read the paper by Reddy and Pogge.

[1932]

67. Stiglitz acknowledges the $1 a day measure is not great,

but he's talking about tread lines. During the period of time he mentions, China moved over 100 million above that threshold, reducing the total by more than 50% (IIRC).

His point in his book isn't that those people are doing phenomenally. His point, and the point in this thread, is that China is increasing the wealth of people at the bottom.

Not mentioned in Stiglitz's book, but reported in the back pages of newspapers a year or so ago, was that China has totally eliminated hunger according to one popularly used measure of hunger.

So, disagree with GINI, disagree with the 1 buck a day measure, and disagree with the measure of hunger. Fine. But you can't ignore the fact that China's economy is improving conditions for people who were poor and hungry under communism.

[Vladimir]

71. Half the point of that article

is that it makes calculating "trend lines", i.e. judging whether poverty is increasing or decreasing, impossible.

[1932]

77. You pick a measure for China.

Your article's only comments on China is that it's not included in the baseline measure, and since the population is so big it would have an influence on the global numbers.

it doesn't make an alllegation about there not being decreasing poverty in China since 85 or 93.

Nobody is arguing that China is perfect, but I don't think even your article is alleging that transitioning away from a planned economy (which created all those poor people in China skewing global numbers) isn't improving the situation for China.

And remember, this article is meant to criticize the World Banks measure of poverty which justifies Washington Consensus economic policies, and I believe that people acknowledge that China is one of the few countries not following the Washington Consensus.

[Vladimir]

86. It makes a broader point

and that is that this measure is hopelessly inadequate for deciding whether poverty is decreasing or increasing. And as for China, that is not the point it is making. To quote:

It is important to note that the uncertainty emerges not only from changes in estimated PPPs over
time (as discussed in section 3.0 above), but also from the fact that PPPs for a very large number
of countries are based on interpolations rather than on observations of prices and quantities of
goods consumed in that country. For example, 63 countries participated in the International
Comparison Programme Phase V Benchmark Study in 1985.33 Relative prices levels for the
remaining countries were determined purely through regression estimates, involving predicting
real per capita income (and thereby PPPs) by exchange rate income and secondary school
enrolment ratio, supplemented by data on “post adjustments” for costs of living of expatriates
living in capital cities as collected by the UN and private sector consultants (Ahmad, 1992).
Although this method serves as a statistically significant predictor of calculated consumption
PPPs, the errors associated with it carry over to the resulting poverty estimates. The errors
associated with the PPP estimates for certain large countries may have important implications.
India participated in the 1985 but not in the 1993 ICP benchmark survey. China participated in
neither. Thus, PPPs for these two vast and heterogeneous countries with significant shares of
world poverty are based entirely on “educated” guesses. The consumption PPP reported by the
World Bank for India in 1993 is based on the updating of its assumed international price level in
1985 by domestic inflation, with some adjustment made for changes in post adjustments and
other data. The consumption PPP reported by the World Bank for China are based primarily on
an estimate of China’s PPP in 1986 produced by independent authors (Ruouen and Kai 1995)
through a bilateral comparison of prices in China and the United States. The construction of
China’s PPP on this basis is inconsistent in method with the manner in which PPPs are assigned
to other countries. More importantly, it is now substantially out of date. In addition, where the
state statistical bureau did not report national average prices for items, the authors undertook
price surveys in a limited number of cities (10) with no coverage of rural areas. Finally, the PPP
estimates derived from it are quite different from those proposed by others for China, which vary
dramatically. PPPs proposed for China vary by a factor of more than two, reflected in per capita
GDP estimates for 1990 spanning the range from $1300 (IMF), $1600 (Ruoen), and $1950
(World Bank) to $2695 (Penn World Tables)! (These different estimates and their differences
are discussed extensively in Heston, n.d.). Ruoen and Kai (1995) report that even within their
favored methodology, reasonable estimates for China’s PPP per capita income in 1991 vary from
$1227 to $1663. Obviously, the potential impact of adopting different PPPs on China’s poverty
line, and thereby on its poverty headcount, would be massive. The estimated level and trend of
global poverty would be consequently strongly affected. This extraordinarily important issue is
however never once mentioned in the Bank’s presentation of its global poverty estimates

i.e. the data on China is inconsistent with other poverty data, collected in a manner which excludes rural areas in some respects, out of date (as of 2003) and widely disputed. Its use in estimating trends in Chinese poverty is therefore questionable at best.

Reddy and Pogge do propose a measure, but I do not think anyone has tried collecting data based on it.

[1932]

89. How about the hunger measure?

We can google that, and we can get in a big discussion about that.

[NewJeffCT]

158. China has moved 300 million out of poverty in the last 25 years

According to Newsweek...

Have the ranks of poverty in the US grown or shrunk since Reagan came into office 25 years ago?

China is far from perfect, but they are headed in the right direction... I am betting they will move a lot more out of poverty over the next 25 years.

[Emerson]

167. Have you ever been to china?

I have and you would not believe the exploitation US corporations are pulling there.

[NewJeffCT]

173. Yes I have

Who is exploiting whom with regards to corporations? Chinese knockoffs of GM, Harley Davidson, VW, etc. abound. Is it that different than the US 100 years ago? Many US corporations grew in the late 1800s & early 1900s due to intellectual property theft from European corporations.

My wife is from China... see my post above about posting to DU from all over China. While China still has a long, long ways to go, the middle class there is growing rapidly while it is shrinking here.

Top Chinese engineers, scientists, etc that used to come here to study and then stay and contribute to the US economy are now going back to China to contribute there instead. I know a Chinese-American with a green card that has a prestigious research job in the US making a good $200,000 per year. He is going to quit his job here & move back to China for $80,000 a year. Granted, $80,000 in Shanghai is like $600,000 to $650,000 in NYC, but that was unheard of 10-15 years ago.

[cire4]

39. Have you read anything recently on China?

The Chinese economy is growing like gangbusters. Faster than any economy in the world, in fact. GDP per person has been growing almost exponentially since 1978. Some people's incomes are going up 50% a year. In some areas, living standards are quickly approaching Japan and South Korea standards.

American and other Western companies have been taking jobs, money, resources, capital out of their countries and pouring them into China faster than you can say 'outsourcing.'

China is booming and on-track to become the 2nd. superpower. China has won the 2008 olympics and the 2010 commonwealth games. Tourism is surging. Every year, a growing number of Americans/Brits/Aussies choose to make China their home as they pursue stints in teaching English. Other countries are sucking up to them more than the United States of America because they see the writing on the wall...

Anyone who takes a look at the 'current situation' in China may very well come to the conclusion that the job the government is doing ain't too shabby...

Now, I'm not supporting the Chinese communist government, but if you are going to make your argument by example, please be prepared to back it up. There's little about the 'current situation in China' that proves they have a bad form of government. It may prove that communism is a bad economic system (Hence, their switch to capitalism in the late '70s).

[yellowjacket]

65. Jobs aren't everything.

If you were in China right now, you certainly wouldn't be posting on this message board.

You value freedom of speech and everything, but only up until the point that someone posits that Communism isn't everything it's cracked up to be, then you claim everything's hunky dory in China.

The economic prosperity will distract your average Chinese for awhile, but eventually their lack of personal freedom (political, speech, press, etc) will cause them to demand more, or take it by force.

[cire4]

128. Actually, DU was accessible while I was in Beijing.....

And I believe I made one post there....

Anyways, I am not saying that freedom of expression isn't important. My point was that if you are going to argue against an authoritatrian/communist style government, you're not going to have much luck by alluding to the current situtaion in China. China is viewed, comparatively speaking, as a huge success out of the developing world. They are following in the footsteps of Taiwan and South Korea (who both had authoritarian governments) by imposing economic reform whether or not the people agree with it. And the results are astounding.

Like South Korea and Taiwan, the country will democratize eventually, but right now, its hard to argue that the current situation in China proves that authoritarian regimes are malicious and detrimental to their country. The period of authoritarianism in South Korea and Taiwan has always been viewed as beneficial by historians and economists alike and it will likely be viewed the same in China.

[NewJeffCT]

156. I posted a bunch of times on DU last September from China

In Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and some smaller towns & cities.

edit to add - it was around when Rathergate broke and CNN International & the BBC didn't really think it was big news.

[Emerson]

165. "live in absolute squalor"

Gee, do you think that could have anything to do with the american capitalists having them produce clothing and nice plastic things for wal-mart 18 hours a day at slave labor wages?

Naw couldn't be. It's communism. Must be.

Some people have yet to realize that when slavery became illegal in the US opeartions simply shifted some place else. China is the US corporations slave labor source. It's not a communist country - it's a fascist country that provides it's commoner as a capitalist slave labor source for wal-mart et al.

[1932]

24. A free, competitive market is a much better allocator of resources.

Joe Stiglitz and Robert Schiller both write in passing about this very briefly -- the problem with centrally planned economies (and with economies that display bubble phenonema at the other extreme) is that they're inefficient channelers of investment in development.

Stiglitz says that most economies are too large and too complicated and change too quickly for one central political aparatus or planner to decide how to allocate resources. Inevitably, you'll spend too much time, ,effort and money making things you don't need and too little making the things you do need.

A free market -- when there's actual competition between firms -- is much better at deciding where your resources will go and does a much better job of giving people what they need and want, which then helps society develop, move forward, increase happiness, etc.

I'll add that when you have a Republican government which serves the interests of large industries, that screws up competition too. For example, if the goernment does everything to keep house prices or prescription drug prices high, you suck money out of consumer's pockets and you give it to an industry that should otherwise be competing (by giving lower prices or new, better drugs).

[julianer]

26. Isn't it the 'free market' that has meant the migration

of millions of jobs and workers? Isn't it the present system of 'free markets' that has forced half the world's population into poverty?

What is the point of keeping the present mess?

If you are saying the market isn't free enough, how are you going to make it so without challenging the presently existing wealthy? They, at least, won't let you do it - the wealthy won't share.

Really we need to think seriously about our economic and democratic future rather than just say one system is inevitably good or bad.

We need to debate reality not the futile counter-positioning of two unworkable systems - state communism and capitalism.

We are human beings - the most creative and inventive creatures - surely we can construct a happy future?

[Vladimir]

29. Nicely said n/t

[1932]

33. The migration of jobs is due to the fact that the market doesn't take

seriously the competition between labor and capital. It tilts the field to favor capital which makes it very hard for labor to protect the value of their labor.

Furthermore, allowing capital to cross borders, but not allowing labor to cross borders further screws labor.

Stiglitz addresses this. His argument is abotu how globalizatioin without competitive marketplaces for goods, labor, etc., is bad development policy.

The problem isnt' that the markets need to be more free. The problem is that they need to be more competitve. We have to take governments finger off the board so they stop tilting it in favor of the biggest, most politically powerful firms. The government needs to go back to being the unbiased referee of all competiting interests.

[julianer]

49. Competition also destroys jobs

and the environment. It is driven by those who are the best exploiters. I cannot see how a broadening of competition between people will lead to anything but more wars. Wars are merely extreme competition for resources and markets.

We need to construct methods of trade that benefit everyone in the chain: labour, trader and consumer. We can't do that if it can be undermined by someone simply being willing to be nastier than their 'competitor'.

We also have to produce for need rather than profit - at present we destroy food if it has no market even though there are hungry people. Complete competition wouldn't change that.

We need the greatest possible democracy, not competition.

[1932]

61. Efficient allocation of resources creates jobs.

Good jobs, environmental protection and fair, competitve markets are not mutually exclusive.

A poorly planned, inefficient allocation of resources can be worse for the environment.

The USSR used to tell factories how much of certain things to produce, and often the got it wrong. How is it better for the environment to use up valuable resources and burn carbon-based fuels making products nobody will ever use, and then having to correct that mistake by making more of something else you wouldn't have needed if resources had be allocated efficiently in the first place?

It's not militaristic competition between people that markets need. It's competition between firms so that they're always trying to innovate and price compete and use their money wisely.

[julianer]

82. Can you really say that

we are making progress toward what you describe? Doesn't 'competition between firms' and trying to 'innovate and price compete' lead us to children in Bangladesh and China making your shoes for 80c per day? Doesn't it mean that your job is exported to China or India where you cannot compete with the povery wages?

Personally I don't use the Soviet Union as an example of anything and wouldn't want to reproduce it now it is dead. Please don't bracket the discussion in this way.

It is also not a defence or a rationalisation of existing circumstances to say 'they were worse'.

The fact is that capitalism has to take responsibility for the existing state of things. It is the only operative system. If it cannot be reformed (in fact we are experiencing counter-reform at the moment) what is it good for? Absolutely nothing...

[1932]

85. Child labor laws, unions, etc, should be part of the competitve market...

...place. They're part of a competitive market place for LABOR.

The problem now is that government has it's finger on the board helping capital. There's no competitive marketplace for labor.

[julianer]

91. But child labour laws etc

are what we are constantly encouraged to think of as 'constraints' to free markets.

If you pass a law banning child labour why shouldn't I allow it and take all of your jobs and money? You can only have proper competition between people following the same rules, but at the moment everyone is free to make up their own rules.

Isn't this why all your 'good jobs' are flooding out of your economy?

If we ever got into the position of mandating uniformity of behaviour in terms of restrictions on capital, it seems unlikely that we would allow unfair inequalities of wealth to happen at all. In other words, if we have to force the bastards to behave decently what is the point of them in the first place?

[1932]

93. Don't believe everything neoliberals and rightwingers tell you.

Suppressing the value of labor to maximize the profits of capital that relies on labor is not an intrinsic part of capitalism.

Henry Ford was no liberal, but even he knew that he had to pay his employees high wages (he would have to share with them the profits of industrialization) if he expected there to be a marketplace for his technology.

[julianer]

96. If capitalism was a rational system

you may have a point. But it isn't.

And I can't believe that you think cost of labour isn't an intrinsic part of capitalism. Profit is what Marx calls the realisation of surplus labour. Surplus labour is what a worker 'gives' to his/her employer above and beyond the labour necessary to keep the worker alive. If an employer can extract more surplus labour from the same worker more profit will result.

Obviously capitalism is a inherently contradictory system - workers have to be able to buy products but employers make more money if they pay badly. Today short term profits will be made from Chinese workers but, tomorrow, long term profits will decline because American workers no longer have jobs to buy the Chinese capitalist's products.

Your citing of Henry Ford is similar to the exception that proves the rule. Most capitalists are obliged by law to maximise profit for their shareholders. Anyone 'overpaying' workers (that is paying them the real value of their labour, or closer to it than a competitor) will not make any money and will go out of business.

[1932]

100. I didnt' say that labor isn't intrinsic... I said the value of labor...

...if it were set on a free market in a democracy where capital didn't buy political power, would be higher than it is in the US today, since the government is going out of its way to side with capital in the valuation of labor. And it would almost definitely be higher than in a planned economy where a bureaucrat is often making the wrong decisions about how to allocate resources.

[K-W]

103. In order to create a free market of labor,

labor would need to have the option, like capital to withdraw itself from the market.

As long as labor is forced to work to survive it will never be on a level playing field with employers who can choose not to employ people without starving.

We must create other options in our society before employment can ever be considered a free association and foster a fair exchange of value.

[1932]

104. It should have the option of working for itself or working as employee.

That's why Democrats actuallly fund the SBA and fund schools which train people to be things like doctors and lawyers, and other professions where you can go into business for yourself.

That's why Republicans defund the SBA and help banks and insurance companies make it hard for doctors to keep what they make, and why they want to make it harder for people to be any kind of lawyer other than a corporate lawyer, and it's why Republicans like Pataki try to turn the SUNY system into a feeder program for call centers and other low-paying jobs.

[DFWdem]

143. No and no

Workers migrate because they choose to migrate (unless forced to migrate due to say, a famine imposed by Stalin). Jobs migrate due to changing demographics and technology. The US is a post-industrial service economy, meaning we now use our brains to create products rather than our brawn, as was the case in the early to mid 20th century. Nobody now laments the change of the US economy from a largely agricultural one in the 1800s to an industrial economy in the 1900s, although they do lament the loss of manufacturing jobs now. The story will be different in 50 years.

As to your other point, capitalism has not forced half the world's population into poverty. Quite the opposite - capitalism has lifted nearly half the world out of poverty. It's not as though the poverty stricken regions of the world were wealthy until the bad ol' US of A came along. The vast majority have been poor for centuries and simply remain poor today.

[Selatius]

36. You'll never bring to reality true competitive markets

It exists in theory only. What happens more often is that you are more likely to see oligopolistic competition instead where you have a finite number of competitors in a market, and as time goes on, the competitors are driven out of business, consolidate, or are bought out. The existing parties then throw up barriers to entry to the market to make it that much more difficult for upstarts to penetrate the market late in the game. The end result is an ever decreasing number of competitors in the market. At the end, you end up with a monopoly or an oligopoly.

It is then that state intervention is required to protect people from exploitation, but we all know the problem with money and politics.

[1932]

42. This is where Venezuela is an appropriate example.

It's possible to have a government which represents the interests of the vast majority of people rather than the people with the most capital.

In fact, my prediction is that this is the inevitable arc of human history. We will have more and more governments that no longer tilt the board in the favor of the richest firms in society precisely because it promotes really inefficient allocations of resources that inevitably cause people to vote for government which represent their interests. This is the story all over Latin America, and if a good Democrat who doesn't suck neoliberal cock gets elected in 2008, that's what's going to happen in the US too.

[Selatius]

47. It's going to be a long struggle

Half the Democrats voted for free trade without also including protections for workers and the environment. So many of them take corporate cash to run their campaigns that it compromises them. There's got to be reform as far as elections go.

[1932]

63. Yet the person who was in the VP slot

had a record of voting against neoliberal trade agreements on the grounds that the foreign country didn't protect workers and the environment and had been the subject of criticism by the DLC for that very fact -- and when the presidential primary campaign turned briefly to a discussion of those issues in the Wisconsin primary, that candidate made up a lot of ground.

Furthermore, neither Democrat on the ticket took a single dollar from a PAC (and one of the two had NEVER EVER taken a dollar from a PAC).

The American people are obviously very receptive to an anti-neoliberal candidate on the ticket. I predict that if we see a presidental primary in 2008 that is an expanded version of the Wisconsin primary, the struggle might not be as long as you think. I think Wisconsin and the makeup of the ticket this year shows that America is just about ready for the kind of political discussion they're having all over Latin America and in Europe for that matter.

[rman]

70. Trade can be called "free" and still have centralized control

over resources, as it has been for a long time in most of the west, with the US as the most glearing example. It is very efficient at channeling profits to the same corporations that control the resources.
Wrt policies that enable and support this system, the difference between the Republican party and the mainstream of the Democrat party is marginal at best.

[1932]

84. That's what I'm saying. The way Republicans guarantee profits for drug

and oil companies actually has more in common with communist centrally planned economies than it has to do with free markets.

The communists used to make mistakes when they tried to tell factories how much of things they should produce. Then corruption set in, so that production got even farther from actual needs.

How is that different from Republicans legislating guaranteed-profits for their favorite industries?

[julianer]

25. Why? Because of the number of deaths

or the lack of 'freedom'?

If it is deaths. then we need to count all those presently dying needlessly and attach them to some political category, perhaps 'capitalism'. How does this stack up? Well if 30,000 are dying every day under capitalism it is obviously a bigger killer than 'communism'.

We need to reject both, it seems to me.

Behind your post is the idea that if humanity ever tries to get rid of capitalism or build a society based on cooperation, democracy and sharing then millions will die.

So, apparently, there is no hope and we must reconcile ourselves to the massive daily slaughter that is a by product of capitalism and the more concentrated periods when we kill 'enemies'.

I say - 'learn from previous mistakes' and don't give up on the idea that a better world is possible. Watch what is happening in Venezuela - a genuine attempt to move to socialism by extending democracy, wealth and power.

[1932]

40. Be careful of using Venezuela as an example -- they only want to...

...nationalize one industry: PDVSA -- the national oil company.

Chavez is no Castro when it comes to the marketplace. They believe that the government should provide services to make people happy, but they don't believe in state ownership of the means of production.

They are certainly partnering to create worker-owned industries where the private sector is abandoning production, but the goal is not to have a centrally-planned economy.

Here's an example of what the do: Chavez recognizes that Venezuela exports a great deal of aluminum which it then reimports because they have no, for example, airline manufacturers. So Chavez wants to encourage more manufacturers who sell products made out of aluminum. So, they'll invest in companies which do this. But the goal isn't to own these companies. The goal is only to get them rolling. So they'll enter into partnerships with worker-owned factories. No doubt that when the companies are big enough, they'll turn them over to the workers and leaving them to the free market so that the free market can decide how to allocate resources.

The only government intervention is to recognize the irrationality of being a huge aluminum exporter and a huge importer of products made of aluminum, and making the seed investments to correct that irrationality. The goal is not to have a centrally planned economy where the government decides how many aluminum frying pans are made each year.

[Vladimir]

53. We will see how Venezuela goes

but you are quite correct that at the moment it is by no measure a communist state. It is a pretty classic 1960s/70s Social Democracy if it is anything...

[rman]

57. Venezuela does a lot better then nations 'helped' by IMF, WTO;

ie Argentina, Indonesia and many others.

[Vladimir]

62. I meant in terms of long term

political stratgey - your point is of course completely correct.

[julianer]

59. Well I was using Venezuela

as an example of a society seeing the need to change and considering the best options to do so.

It is not relying on ideology or doctrine of some sort - it is spreading power and letting the people decide. That is what is good.

I agree that the idea of a centrally planned economy is a very bad one. A horizontal, dispersed planned economy is one I want to see. That is what guarantees dynamism and freedom.

[1932]

69. What is a horizontal, dispersed planned economy?

And before you answer that, perhaps it would be helfpul to consider that the best thing Chavez's gov. is doing politically is that they devolve a great deal of political power down to the people.

Now, when you think of capitalist markets -- once you make sure that nobobdy amasses great political power as a consequence of having great capital power -- what you have is an economy without central planning, much like the government Chavez wants -- you're leaving market decisions, like what you should produce, to people who are risking their own capital.

That's efficient. That creates wealth. That's the economic equivalent of a democratic government.

And the consequence of creating greater wealth is then convincing people that it's right to take some of the money created by doing that and using it to provide a good safety net for people who take chances and fail.

Once you have those elements in place -- greater wealth from efficient markets, prevention of capital being used as political power, and a sense that funding a safety net is what you owe to society for society helping you succeed -- then I think you got everything working properly.

who needs a horizontal, disperesed planned economy when you've devolved the economic decision making down to the people in the best position to make good decisions about how to invest their time and money, and they produce results? Just like with politics, nobody is going to make a better decision than the person who is directly affected by the choice. I think Keynes, Galbraith, Stiglitz and Chavez would all agree with that, even though Marx might not.

[Vladimir]

73. Its not the economic equivalent of a democratic governement

in a democracy it is one person/one vote regardless of how that vote is used. In any capitalist system, your choices directly affect your ability to make future choices, because the more capital you have, the more choice you have. And deconvoluting capital from political power - where has that ever happened? We notice that nearly the whole of once Social-Democratic Europe is not marching steadily rightwards, often under the guise of "left-wing" or "socialist" governments.

[1932]

106. Where has deconvoluting cap. from ec power happened? See above. VZ.

And a half dozen other Latin American governments are moving in that direction now that Kissinger is old.

[Vladimir]

110. Not really

Venezuela is doing a lot right, but its greatest successes have come about precisely because it (re)nationalised the oil industry, combined with where the oil prices are now, and because Chavez has quite sigle-mindedly decided to deliver state based health-care and education to the masses whatever the cost. It is true that in that sense he is pursuing social-democracy, and he may well have forced a long-term shift for the better in Venezuela, but one look at the ownership of private media in Venezuela, and their role in the coup and recall referendum, should tell you that no such deconvolution has occured.

[1932]

112. Chavez was doing right thing politically before 2003 when Venezuela was

losing money pumping oil. In 2001, oil prices were at historic lows, and Venezuela was taking a loss on every barrel of oil pumped out of the ground. Chavez was still "deconvulting" capital from political power and achieving good results.

Their windfall only began after 2003. Chavez was first elected in 1998. So it's misleading to characterize Chavez's success as having to do only with oil profits. In fact, you could argue that the desire to control the oil has made it harder for Chavez because there's a big prize for the oligarch who can unseat him.

Incidentally, PDVSA has always been a national oil company. There was a plan to privatize one small part of it, "the brains" of the operation is the way I think Chavez puts it in the Aleida Guevara book. At that point, they put in the constitution that no part of it could be privatized.

But even though it was always nationalized, it wasn't until recently that it was really run for the benefit of the people.

And when I say he's "deconvoluted" cap and pol power, I mean that despite huge disparities in wealth and a very rich oligarchy, the government has been elected six times and does what's good for the people.

[julianer]

78. What about the people who don't have any money?

How can they participate in any market economy?

Capitalism is a system of accumulation. Not everyone can accumulate, indeed accumulators have to build their piles by taking those of other people. Are you suggesting that capitalism can be reformed to provide for all? You say 'once you make sure that nobobdy amasses great political power as a consequence of having great capital power', but how are you going to ensure this? As soon as wealth is threatened things tend to get pretty violent.

We have to transend the idea of markets and competition if we want to see everyone fed, clothed, educated and treated when sick. Not to mention getting rid of the most extreme 'competition' - war.

I think I agree with you about planning. We don't have a centralised planning system at the moment - we have a multiverse of separate, centralised planning systems based around corporations. The idea of a horizontal, dispersed system of planning is that contacts should be made between the presently existing systems of production and delivery, remove the decision making from the centre to the places of production and distribution, and let it evolve in response to human need not the opportunity to increase your pile at the expense of someone else. It will take a while to settle down but it could hardly do a worse job in fairly allocating resources than capitalism, which doesn't even try.

[1932]

81. What about people who didn't have food, pots or shoes in a planned economy

?

I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be a social safety net. And I'm not arguing that soviet full employment wasn't a great thing. But it came at a great cost. A centrally planned economy is incredibly inefficient at determining where resources should be allocated.

I think a progressive tax code, campaign finance reform, and a committement to funding the social safety net would address your concerns much more effectively than a centrally planned economy, which I think it was your last paragraph is saying.

[julianer]

88. Please understand that I am not

a supporter of the SU. But if you compare like with like then obviously their planned economy did have many advantages.

The plain fact is that at the moment half the world doesn't have the things you castigate a planned economy for not providing.

I agree that the SU's planned economy was inefficient, but I would argue that was because the main tenets of marxism were overturned by Stalin and his successors - production was geared toward the military and meeting the needs of the bureaucracy. Marx envisaged worker's control of industry and a democratic system of planning - not the monolith that was imposed there.

So it is not a good example for how we should address our present problems but happily the choice is not restricted to what has previously failed or what is currently failing. We can make our own way forward.

Finally:
'I think a progressive tax code, campaign finance reform, and a committement to funding the social safety net would address your concerns much more effectively than a centrally planned economy, which I think it was your last paragraph is saying.'

I don't think capitalism can be reformed. For nearly all my life I've seen the reforms that my parents' generation won being destroyed. We are not even heading in the direction you want. And, once again, I don't support bureaucratic, central planning.

[1932]

92. I'm not trying to impute pro-SU on you. I only use it as an example

of a planned economy on a large scale.

Stiglitz points out in Globalizaiton and its Discontents that the larger the economy, the more difficult it is for central planning to allocate resources effectively. You have a problem making informed decisions. The closer the decisions are made to the people who have the demand for the product, the more accurate the choices are.

In the book Irrational Exhuberance the author talks about how the great tragedy of bubble economies is that a lot of resources get wasted on things that end up creating nothing of value. That's how capitalist economies waste resources. At the other end, is the planned economy where a bureaucrat makes a bad decision on how many shoes to produce. Somewhere in between, there's a very effective way to decide where money, time and effort should be invested, and that happy median is probably going to be a marketplace closer to one Galbraith would like than one that Marx would like (but, having said that, I bet a lot of rightwingers have seen a lot of Marx in Galbraith).

Incidentally, I think "castigate" is not a fair characteriization of what I'm saying. And I think an efficient allocation of resources could free more people from want without turning everyone into irrational acquirers of useless possessions.

One quality I think some liberals have that isn't so well-thought out is that they think they'd be happy with less, so they want a world where everyone has less without realizing that there a lot of people who need a little more to make their lifes less miserable.

And the SU didn't make mistakes in production just on military products. They had a very hard time deciding how many consumer products to produce. And it's not like, if they spent less on military things they could have just made too much of everything else and made people happy. That would have been a waste of resources too.

As for your last paragraph: I think FDR got us off to a very good start and Democrats lost the battle beginning in the mid 70s. I don't think it's too late to get back on the track that we got off of in the 70s.

[Selatius]

134. Actually, the planned economy in the USSR is NOT what Marx envisioned

The truth of the matter is that the Soviet command economy did not come about under Lenin. It came about under Stalin.

The original goal of achieving communism fell short under the Lenin years because of foreign intervention and the civil war had wiped out the middle class, which was supposed to be the foundation the new society was to be built upon.

The situation had fallen short of the goals. When Stalin grabbed power, instead of taking a step towards the goal, he took it backwards when he instituted his command economy, something even Lenin himself opposed. In fact, it was Lenin before he died who tried to warn people about Stalin's true nature.

To advocate socialism as an economic system does not necessarily equate to advocating a centralized, planned economy. You are not recognizing the differences within the school of socialism itself. In fact, you are only recognizing the branches of socialism that seek change through the organs of the state, not those who seek change without the state.

There are groups under the socialist umbrella that advocate a decentralized economy where decisions are made on the local or individual level as opposed to decisions being made in a centralized or national level. They seek change not through the state but change on the local or even individual level. Libertarian socialism is a form of socialism advocating not just mutual cooperation but the democratic control of the resources and the means of production for the wellbeing of everyone involved.

Rather than having a state bureaucracy (elected or unelected, democratic or authoritarian state socialism) making decisions as far as the means of production goes, libertarian socialists (a.k.a. anarcho-socialists) advocate instead a system that combines not only the tenets of socialism but also a form of decision-making radically democratic in nature, something resembling near direct democracy if not true direct democracy over the economic issues that affect everyone involved.

The argument they pose is "Why should people elect others to make decisions for them that they themselves have always had the power to decide for themselves in a collective fashion?" If people want to participate, then they should be given the choice to participate. If people do not want to participate, then they should not be forced into participating. This is not a choice given to you under state socialism be it democratic or authoritarian, but this is given to you under libertarian socialists.

When decision-making power is decentralized, it becomes that much more difficult to abuse power than it is if that power is centralized, as was the case in the Lenin years of the USSR and even more so under Stalin. It only took Stalin to come along before heinous abuses far beyond anything that came before took place.

In fact, this division between those who advocate change through the state and those who advocate direct action and direct organization stretches back to the arguments between Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin over how a socialist order can be brought about. Generally, Marx wanted to work within the system, use hierarchical organizational structures, and run people in elections. Bakunin hated these ideas, and predicted that if a revolution was won under a Marxist revolutionary party, they would end up being as bad as the ruling class that they fought against.

[ikri]

32. You have mistaken

Communism for all the forms of government that pose as communism.

Russia before Stalin was a communist state, once Stalin got his hands on it though it became a totalitarian dictatorship where the means of production were controlled by the top brass of the party, not the people. It wasn't communist.

China is most definitely not communist by any measure. Its a tightly controlled capitalist country now.

North Korea, see Russia post Stalin. Totalitarian dictatorship.

Cuba is and always was a socialist country. The communist label was applied by the US I believe, then Cuba decided to use the communist label to get aid from the USSR since they'd give money to turnips if they said they were communists.

Ironically its an idea that is probably 100 years ahead of its time, communism failed because of the power vacuum that is created that allows sufficiently charismatic people to take over. Today, in the age of instant communication via cellular phone, email & Internet communism might actually be workable since every member of the population could take control of their own interests instead of relying on charismatic leaders to do what's right for the people.

[K-W]

66. Russia was not communist before Stalin.

Russia was NEVER communist.

Communism was the goal, the promise. Once the revolution was over, and the worldwide revolution happened, then the USSR could develop its industry and work towards communism, but it never happened. The USSR was always a totalitarian control economy, it even had limited capitalism.

Lenin explained that the neccessities of securing the revolution required him to be a dictator until he thought the time is right to give freedom to the people. We all know how well he made that judgement.

[julianer]

90. You are nearly right, but not quite

All the leaders of the revolution, except Stalin, insisted that it couldn't survive on its own. If there was no revolution in Germany, in particular, the revolution was doomed to failure.

I don't think Lenin ever said he needed to be dictator until he thought the time was right for freedom. After the revolution and civil war the party was the only body still capable of running the country and it effectively usurped the role of the working class in running things. A rather stunted and ineffective democracy survived up until about 1928 when Stalin crushed it. Stalin introduced the totalitarian system you speak of and killed, imprisoned or exiled everyone who disagreed. His first victims were socialists like me.

What Stalin came up with has been variously described as 'state capitalism' or a 'deformed workers' state' but the only people to describe it as communism were stalinists and our own capitalist leaders.

[K-W]

95. You havent explained how I was not quite right.

" don't think Lenin ever said he needed to be dictator until he thought the time was right for freedom. "

I dont know if he ever said those words, but that was the gist of his argument. He claimed the strict control was neccessary to secure the revolution. He did, rather obviously, beleive that he knew what was best for Russia and should stay in power.

There is certainly a very large difference between Stalin and his predecessors, but as soon as the communists took control of the government, it became a totalitarian society.

Limited ineffective democracy is not democracy.

[julianer]

97. Don't we have a limited ineffective democracy?

Anyway we are arguing alongside each other I think. Certainly what pertained in the Soviet Union was not really democracy after the civil war.

You were not quite right in that Lenin didn't see things in terms of him being a dictator because he knew best. It was because the civil war had destroyed the small working class - the people Lenin envisaged running things. So the party 'substituted' itself for the working class and thus began the end of democracy when Lenin would have wanted it to spread.

The thing is that labels like 'totalitarian' and 'communist' don't really carry much information. They are like history's minor swear words that are rarely used to elaborate discussion - usually they are used to restrict discussion. So saying that 'communists took control' (there had been a popular revolution) and that 'it became a totalitarian society' (the country was invaded by all the western powers, including the UK and US, I believe, followed by a civil war) doesn't really tell the whole story about why the soviet union became totalitarian.

But of course this is the message we are supposed to get: 'communists' are bad people who want a 'totalitarian society'.

Edit for spelling etc.

[K-W]

98. However Lenin rationalized his being a dictator, he was still a dictator

you arent disagreeing with me. I know Lenin thought he was doing good, but in doing so he seized power and held it because he believed his particular vision of the future was right for Russia. He justified the power grab, as you said, because he thought that was the only way to create a workers paradise, but that doesnt change what he did.

"The thing is that labels like 'totalitarian' and 'communist' don't really carry much information"

Both words carry plenty of information when used properly, they wouldnt exist if they didnt.

Communism has become a useless term because most people are carrying a corrupted definition and understanding of it. It no longer means what it is supposed to mean and has become purely a propaganda term in most circles.

Totalitarianism, however I think is stilll fairly informative. It is an organization of society where all the power in society is centralized. Since all the power in revolutionary russia, economic, political, miliatary, etc was vested in the party it was a totalitarian society. I dont see how this is uninformative.

[julianer]

107. Well the word 'totalitarian' is

used in this case to imply that any attempt to go beyond capitalist production will end in totalitarianism. I'm saying that you cannot automatically assume that, and in the case of Russian, there were very specific circumstances that lead to totalitarianism - not least the devastating foreign interventions and civil war.

Lenin didn't seize power in the sense you that a military dictator might have done in latin America 20 years ago. There were two popular revolutions that brought first the soviets into existence and then transferred power to the soviets. Lenin was instrumental in the second revolution and did indeed solidify power around the soviets. It was only after millions had died in the wars that the party, and Lenin, took complete control of the soviets - mainly because the working class had been wiped out in the war.

So there was nothing inevitable about it, except that the capitalist powers were going to fight.

Later on, after Lenin's death, and after he had re-introduced a limited capitalism in order to boost industry, there were attempts by the 'Left Oppostition' led by Trotsky to re-introduce democratic control of society and get rid of the growing totalitarianism of Stalin. The left opposition were all executed, imprisoned or exiled by Stalin.

Stalin is the real villain of the piece.

[K-W]

111. I agree for the most part.

"used in this case to imply that any attempt to go beyond capitalist production will end in totalitarianism. I'm saying that you cannot automatically assume that, and in the case of Russian, there were very specific circumstances that lead to totalitarianism - not least the devastating foreign interventions and civil war."

That wasnt the context I used the word totalitarian in. The problem here isnt the word totalitarian, it is the absurd argument that communism=totalitarianism. It is communism that is being misdefined here, not totalitarianism.

"Lenin didn't seize power in the sense you that a military dictator might have done in latin America 20 years ago. There were two popular revolutions that brought first the soviets into existence and then transferred power to the soviets. Lenin was instrumental in the second revolution and did indeed solidify power around the soviets. It was only after millions had died in the wars that the party, and Lenin, took complete control of the soviets - mainly because the working class had been wiped out in the war."

Again, I dont disagree, but siezing power and holding it by force is seizing power and holding it by force. I am not trying to suggest that Lenin's intentions were anything but sincere or that he didnt do good in some cases, I think he just ended up being corrupted by the powerful organization that formed beneath him.

But I wont pretend that Lenin and Trotsky werent repsonsible for thier share of atrocities, nor that any hope of a true social revolution died on thier watch. They, not the people, determined the direction of Russia, and those who disagreed with them were suppressed.

[julianer]

118. Which atrocities were Lenin and Trotsky responsible for?

I don't think it is fair to only blame them for the failure of the revolution. There was a massive intervention that ruined the country.

If there hadn't been things would have turned out differently. But there had to be an intervention by the western powers or the revolution might have succeeded and been copied.

[K-W]

122. Violent strikebreaking, jailing and executing dissidants.

Their army was robbing, raping, and murdering all over the country.

"I don't think it is fair to only blame them for the failure of the revolution. There was a massive intervention that ruined the country."

I am not ONLY blaming anyone. But they were the ones in charge in Russia, so they do deserve a large share of the blame. Yes the massive intervention was wrong and was part of the problem certainly, and it played a large part in pushing Lenin and Trotsky to make poor decisions.

"If there hadn't been things would have turned out differently. But there had to be an intervention by the western powers or the revolution might have succeeded and been copied."

Agreed. The intervention pushed the communists to become more authoritarian and paranoid. The western powers do the same thing to nationlist movements around the world. You attack them and force the leaders to militarize democratic movements.

[julianer]

125. I don't think anyone has come close

to pinning any actual atrocities on either Lenin or Trotsky. I think Lenin wrote death and imprisonment sentences etc, but that was during the civil war.

Also, of course, socialist revolutionaries, mensheviks and anarchists were imprisoned. There were mass shootings on both sides, but that is more indicative of civil war than particularly or uniquely monstrous leaders.

Trotsky was the commander of the Red Army so I expect he did have more direct contact with fighting and any crimes, but I don't know of any details and all I know of him suggests he was a humanist, though by no means a pacifist or sentimentalist.

Anyone know any details?

[K-W]

126. How about the Krondstadt rebellion?

"Also, of course, socialist revolutionaries, mensheviks and anarchists were imprisoned. There were mass shootings on both sides, but that is more indicative of civil war than particularly or uniquely monstrous leaders."

No, it was not indicative of the civil war. There are two options.

Either Lenin/Trotsky were just so paranoid that they could not destinguish between dissident and counter revolutionary, because they saw all disagreement as opposition to revolution.

Or, they used the civil war as an excuse to eliminate dissidents.

The simple fact is that they went after dissidents who had nothing to do with the civil war, and any and all opposition to the party was seen as opposition to the social revolution.

[K-W]

102. P.S. Yes we do have a limited an ineffective democracy.

In fact we dont have democracy at all.

We have a formal representative republic where the representation is a joke, and I think it is obvious who the republic actually serves.

[eridani]

44. Not true--works fine in Kerala

Their secret is that the Communists behave like normal political parties--they leave office when unelected.

http://www.upsizethis.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=71860

A good illustration of how it is one-party states, not Communist ones, that are oppressive. In fact, since Kerala has two major Communist parties and a bunch of little ones plus other assorted leftie-greenie formations, you could say that Communist parties are so nice that the more of them you have, the better!

[Judi Lynn]

50. Y'know, I don't like the way this message board operates.

Too many of them lib'ruls. I'm gonna call them all out, and kick me some commie butt.



It's not as if I haven't seen THIS tired, somewhat overused useless act before. We have some semi-serious actual situations going on, presently, which almost might deserve some attention, concerning our filthy Neo-con administration.

[Vladimir]

54. No no no Judi

you go git yourself some of them commies, that's what crucial now! Yee-haw!

[Judi Lynn]

55. Why, thank you, Vladimir! Actually, one's GOT to have a little fun

now and then, right? Keeps you limber and alert in case there's an INVASION!

[Vladimir]

56. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

You evil evil person, I am in pain now.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[K-W]

64. None of the countries you mentioned were communist.

I think you should reexamine why it is important to you to believe this particular piece of conservative dogma.

Communism is a branch of philosophy, one that can inspire many numbers of different ideas about government.

Look at it this way, communism is like democracy, its a great ideal, its great rhetoric, but both will fail as long as power is centralized in the hands of the few, which of course is the social reality everywhere in the world.

But please destinguish between the actual ideas of communism and the actions of corrupt Communist parties, which are more related to the actions of corrupt parties of all stripes than anything resembling a real communist philosophy.

What we actually saw in those countries were failed revolutions, something hardly unique to leftist social movements.

[DistressedAmerican]

72. First, Why Are You Still Fighting The Cold War? Didn't Regan and The Pope

win that already?

Second, the United States bankrupted Russia with a nuclear arms race. You act like soviet "communism" just fell under the weight of "badness". Silly.

Please consider putting things in context. We bankrupted them by building a trillion dollar deficit. Just like the Mujahadeen did not defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, the United States did.

Your examples prove nothing other than the United States with its irrational fear of a competing economic system (not form of government), managed to destroy the soviet economy.

Oooh Capitalism is so GOOD! It destroyed the evil communist system. Well I guess God must be a capitalist?

It may well be doing just fine if we hadn't made it national policy of the US to destroy them...

Sorry but, this is an ill informed, poorly argued and baseless assertion on your part.

In short get over it, you and your capitalist buddies beat those "Bad" Commies! Hooo Rahhh! You won!

On Edit: This post sounds like something you would've read at freerepublic if it existed in 1985. Not much better than the jerks that call me a commie for putting anti-Bush flyers. The cold war is over.

[LiberallyInclined]

74. true Communism has never been tried.

state capitalism doesn't become communism just because people call it that.

[KG]

79. one of the most in-depth analysis of communism i've ever read!

:eyes:

[leesa]

80. I don't think there has ever been a pure form of communism, but I agree

it is equally as bad as unfettered capitalism. Both are impossible systems due to human greed.

[Minstrel Boy]

83. This is like saying capitalism is a bad form of government.

They're economic theories, and the distinction is not mere semantics.

[DistressedAmerican]

87. It Is. I Point To The Neo-Fascist United States As An Example!

[mmonk]

101. I'm not a fan of communism

I'm a believer in private property rights. My position is that without widespread property rights for the people, it can't be freedom in the real sense. That doesn't mean I support the republican perversion of our system. I believe governments should be separate of all interests except to provide for the general welfare of its people.

[Name removed]

109. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Deja Q]

113. Gee, China is lookin' good economically right now. Why isn't ours?

I mean, they are evil communists and we are good capitalists...

[JHBowden]

114. "But those aren't real communist nations!"

Commies sound like Ayn Rand fanatics who insist that the United States is a socialist nation and capitalism is some "unknown ideal."

[K-W]

115. So anyone who actually understands political economy is a commy fanatic?

Whilest those who would take the words of Stalin and Mao on the nature of thier socities are realists?

[leftofthedial]

140. goddam commies

why can't they be libertarians who worship property like right thinking good people?

[lastliberalintexas]

141. And right wingers of all stripes sound like Reagan fans

cheering on the demise of a system of government that isn't. What about "Communism is an economic system, not a political one" do you not understand?

It isn't simply a matter of saying that a true communistic system has never existed, since that is true of ALL systems of economy. No true market system has ever existed, nor can it. Same with socialism, command systems, etc. It's a matter of saying that the entire premise of the OP is WRONG.

[leftofthedial]

116. USSR and China were/are State Capitalism

North Korea and Cuba are cults of personality/individual dictatorships. They have more in common with absolute monarchy than anything else.

None of these examples is communism and indeed they are only marginally socialistic. Cuba comes closest to practicing socialism and they are working remarkably well, considering the US embargo.

It's like calling the bushgang examples of democracy.

Communism is an economic system, not a form of government.

A competing economic system, capitalism, has mustered its resources to thwart communism and other socialist systems every time they have been attempted. Part of this systematic opposition has been to use capitalist propaganda to confuse "form of government" with "economic system."

[bemildred]

Communism is not a form of government. nt

[patcox2]

119. Communism is not a form of government at all.

So I suppose it would necessarily be a bad one.

[bemildred]

120. Dang, you beat me.

:applause:

[Name removed]

121. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JimmyJazz]

131. and your post is equally so.

[indigo32]

123. I may be a pessimist

but I believe it is not in our nature to have that form of economy on any large scale. It requires too much control from the Gov overseeing it.

[Redstone]

129. You KNEW you'd get a lot of arguments with this,

didn't you?

But you won't get one from me. I agree. Communism has never been anything but a pretty fiction.

Redstone

[K-W]

133. As opposed to other philosophies of government that have created utopias?

Communism describes a certain strain of philosophical thought much greater than the various utopian conceptualizations of a communist society which, nobody would disagree with you, are pretty fictions like every utopian theory that has ever existed.

The idea that because communist utopia is unrealistic we should desmiss the entirety of the communist tradition is absurd. By the same logic we should desmiss all capitalist tradition and all liberal tradition since neither has yet produced its version of utopia.

[KitchenWitch]

135. Yes I did Redstone

Nothing like a lively discussion to get the ol' blood pumping. :evilgrin:

[Taverner]

132. Which Communism?

Marxist-Lenninist Communism? (like the USSR)

Marxist-Engels Communism? (the idea that we evolve naturally into communism)

Maoist Communism? (Mao's China, Pol Pot, Cendero Luminoso)

The communards of France?

[Endangered Specie]

136. Its a horrible form of government.

'bad' is too light a word

[lastliberalintexas]

138. COMMUNISM IS AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM

It is not a form of government, never has been, likely never will be- in anything other than the uninformed AMerican vernacular anyway.

The kinds of governments of which you are speaking are totalitarian, oligarchic, dictatorial or tyrranical forms of government. All are on the more extreme end of the RIGHT side of the political spectrum, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the *economic* system of Communism.

You might want to read up a little more on the subject before posting such anti-left/progressive drivel.

[Endangered Specie]

142. Bashing communism

is in no way being "anti-left", its more being, anti-extreme. This is, after all, not "Communist Underground"

In any event, Communism always causes "otalitarian, oligarchic, dictatorial or tyrranical forms of government" because its economic system has to be imposed on people, most whom are not willing. Central planning, means not only is the govt huge in its power to decide, but even larger in enforcement.

Name one democratic communist government.

[Mikimouse]

145. The same argument can be made for capitalism...n/t

[Endangered Specie]

147. this isnt about capitalism,

stop trying to turn this into a dichotic argument, and besides, Id much rahter have a capitalist than communist system.

[Mikimouse]

149. Then I suggest that you post problems that are uniquely associated with

communist economies, not problems that are equally well associated with capitalist economies. The tone is really not necessary either.

[Endangered Specie]

177. Hmmm, well,

We could start with how people under communist regimes starve on a regular basis (80 million in China, 10+million in Russia, unknown millions in North Korea etc etc...)


Seriously, if people think Communism is so grand, by all means, join the Communist Party :eyes:

[Mikimouse]

179. Sorry I missed your reply earlier...

:boring:

[lastliberalintexas]

150. It can't be done because there is no such thing

"Name one democratic communist government."

That's the entire point of my post- there is no such thing as a communistic government- only a communistic economy. You could find a democratic/republican form of government along with a socialist/communist economy (most of Western Europe, Venezuela). You could also have a totalitarian oligarchal government with a market economy (China). You could have a dictatorship with a socialist leaning economy (Cuba). You could even have a dictatorship with a command economy (North Korea). You could find a democratic republic with a market/oligarchic economy even (the US).

But you just simply cannot have a communist government. :shrug:

[Endangered Specie]

178. How do you intend to 'impose' a communist economy

without a government?

[Vuem]

146. I predict a lot of stupid, blathering replies, with nothing solved

And believers on both sides making zero progress.

[Endangered Specie]

148. Look folks, communism has only killed 120,000,000 people...

we need another 70million or so to work out the kinks, then it will all be great!
:sarcasm:

[lastliberalintexas]

151. You're confusing Communism with Stalinism

Or more accurately with Stalin's reign as the dictator of the USSR, or with the Khmer Rouge's reign in Cambodia, or with...

[Kathy in Cambridge]

160. But they never let reality get in the way of talking points

:hi:

Communism is an economic system. Many folks on this thread either need to take an Econ 101 course or a basic Western Civ class. I love that they throw up the old canard that communism killed X number of people, when communism in its true form has never existed. :eyes:

[lastliberalintexas]

162. Yes, our high school/college government and economy classes

seem to be failing people. I just don't understand why it is so hard for some people to grasp that little distinction between what is a political and what is an economic system.

:hi: Kathy

[Endangered Specie]

176. already done that

Communism in its 'true' form requires an authoritarian government, how else are you going to get the people to go by the centrally planned economy and police them into convincing them nothing is there own? :shrug:

If by 'true' form you mean a utopian world where no one has greed, ambition and property not only would that world suck, but it is very naive to think humans would ever go for it, with out some totalitarian persuasion.

Marxs ideas just wont work. sorry.

[cssmall]

155. If you want to prove something, then do some research. .

Maxism is a wonderful ideal, it's just the people that fuck it up, promise. Same with captialism. Just in case, you didn't know: Marx said communism would arise from the ashes of captialism. . .

[Emerson]

161. Socialism as it is practiced in western europe

is ideal.

Let's pretend you have four cows that you get milk to live on from.

Communism: Government takes all 4 of your cows.

Socialism: Government takes one of your cows and gives it to someone who has no cow.

Capitalism: You have 1000 cows and you make it your lifes work to get as many cows as possible from others while you make sure those with no cow stay that way.

[lastliberalintexas]

166. I know that is supposed to be a joke

But let me be the bad guy and point out that your example of Communism is actually what is known as a Command economy.

And Socialism might- or might not- involve the government. Just so you know. I know, I know- you'll tell me I need to lighten up! :)

[Emerson]

163. The USSR fell

largely because of ungodly high military spending. Sound like anyone you know? We outspend the entire world *combined* on military spending.

The USSR also didn't know how to properly run a state owned media.

The USSR thought you needed just one source of media in the nation - that you owned - and that's all you needed to do. Of course everyone knew the media was a lie.

The right wing in the US knows how to do it right. They realize that you need multiple sources of media that SEEM to the average citizen to be different and independently controlled... yet you actually control them all.

[manic expression]

169. You're wrong

Soviet Communism and the Authoritarians in China and NK do not represent Socialism, they are the opposite of what liberal socialists fight for.

Cuba is the perfect example of socialist success. The people are looked after well, there is almost no inequity; health care and schools are top-notch; people have what they need (as in food, housing) and this is provided by the government; there is more democracy in Cuba than in the US, as the people are more represented; there are many diverse parties in Cuba, and freedom of expression is very much tolerated.

Read, learn:
http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQDemocracy.html

Also, look at Kerala in India.

[cssmall]

171. If only we could get past. . .

the vilification El Che and Castro, then we would be better served. Obviously, these people are idiots in America, forgetting anything and everything the Communist Manifesto stated, and I paraphrase here: from a captialist background shall come the communist system. Cuba was the perfect place for communism to take root. And, you know what? It's fucking suceeding well. No thanks of course to our government which has tried everything to uproot it, even not giving them aid in vaccinations, emergencies and food.

[manic expression]

175. Exactly

Socialism is working magnificently in Cuba. People's misconceptions about Cuba are astounding. Not only has the US not aided Cuba, it has hurt it with ridiculous embargoes. What Cuba has achieved is absolutely amazing, and it provides proof and hope that other nations can establish similar feats of betterment.

We just offered Cuba $50,000 for the hurricane damage. That is a slap in the face. A medium priced car costs almost that much. Thankfully, Cuba rejected the offer, as they should.

[Beelzebud]

170. Communism: It sounds good on paper.

In practice. Not so good..