Communism.

[Guy Fawkes]

Its never worked, and I don't think it ever will. But that's my opinion, and I want yours. What say you?

[CubsFan1982]

1. It's a brutal, demeaning economic and governmental system.

And to see people defend it sickens me.

[FlemingsGhost]

5. See a doctor ... if you can afford it.

In Cuba, it's free.

[CubsFan1982]

9. Yeah, I can see a doctor.

But I can't speak my mind about the shitty service when I walk out the door.

[FlemingsGhost]

10. Sorry ... you lost me.

:shrug:

[CubsFan1982]

25. Let me elucidate.

I may be able to visit a physician for free, but I'm damned (if I'm lucky) if I criticize the service I receive from the government.

[FlemingsGhost]

29. Crippling bills, because of a lack of insurance, is a better system.

God Ble$$ America.

[CubsFan1982]

35. Maybe so.

But I can complain freely about my bills or insurance in this country. In Cuba, I cannot.

[FlemingsGhost]

42. Good thing you don't live there, huh?

That being the case, you probably shouldn't be sticking your nose in places it doesn't belong.

We are learning that lesson the hard way, in Iraq. Aren't we?

[LSK]

15. why not???

What does an economic theory have to do with free speech or quality of service???

[Union Thug]

55. You nailed it - and this is a powerful bit of propaganda used by the right

They try to make you believe that Stalinism (a moment in history political from soviet russia) is the same as a socialist or communist economic system.

Conversely, they then try to equate Democracy with Capitalism, when Democracy most certainly stands independent of either capitalism or communism.

It's a simple trick, but an effective one.

Here's an interesting site talking about a possible future communist economy..since we're on the subject

http://www.leninism.org/some/

Self Organizing Moneyless Economy.

[Spider Jerusalem]

38. You make the mistake...

of confusing the governments of totalitarian socialist states with the idea of communism. They are not the same thing. There's never been a truly communist government, and thanks to human nature, there probably never will. Lust for power and all that.

And as to "brutal and demeaning"...well, aspects of almost every economic and governmental system are. Ask a South American making $5 a day in a US-owned factory how he likes capitalism. Ask a detainee in Camp X-Ray what he thinks of our splendid American democracy.

[Mz Pip]

2. I agree.

Any kind of totalitarianism is evil, whether it be left or right.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[jsamuel]

3. Fascism --> I don't much care for it either

Hitler used people's fear of communism to drive them to support his fascist government. So, it is important to keep things in perspective.

[Kerebos]

4. Same goes for Capitalism

Unless you consider killing people we can't see kosher.

[Soup Bean]

8. Do you think that's necessary for Capitalism to work?

I think it's a perversion of Capitalism, or maybe it's Capitalism in its purest form....I'm not sure....

Communism, as popularly described and as seen in practice, seems to be devoid of any reason to be something other than a worker bee in a beehive. There seems to be no possibility of becoming greater than what one is born into.

At least with the Capitalism practiced in the USA, one can be born of humble beginnings, (e.g. Bill Clinton) and become the Leader of the Free World.

[Daphne08]

16. Capitalism has made this country great.

Unfettered capitalism may be its undoing.

[Soup Bean]

21. Hear, hear! n/t

[Jara sang]

46. I don't think this country really is capitalist.

Or I should say "free market" the government provides the infrastructure for capitalist to operate, oil, natural gas, and other mining concerns lease their rights to public lands from the government. And corporations rely upon huge government subsidies to operate. That sure as hell doesn't sound like capitalism to me.

[Soup Bean]

48. Nope. That's Corporatism. n/t

[Kerebos]

26. Yes I do

Capitalism can only work with a constant supply of "worker bees" to exploit.

As time has marched forward under capitalism so has the level of oppression needed to sustain it.

There is nothing in communism that suggests blue blood is required to excel or advance.

[Soup Bean]

44. Well, wars are always over resources.

Any system will collapse and lead to war and aggression with uncontrolled growth. Maybe some will collapse more quickly than others. It all seems very Darwinian.

[KingFlorez]

6. It's just an economic theory

Communism was used by dictators that used totalitarian practices.

[lvx35]

7. A lot would have to change, but it could work some day.

It would involve a radically different approach than any other used, and probably a society based on technology that does not yet exist. But could the Marxist idea of communism work in some abstract form? I think its quite possible, in the distant future.

Some sci-fi examples:
1) They say individual greed destroys it. A culture where all the people are genetically engineered and indoctrinated to depend on each other in such a way that they cannot be greedy.

2) They say power corrupts the government to become the new bourgeoisie. What if the government weren't human at all, but a vast computer system.

3) They say man won't work unless he has to, so capitalism succeeds. But what if we could really get to a point where man didn't HAVE to work?

All fantasies, but still examples of how things could change in 100 years.

[anarch]

34. just a thought about your 3rd scenario

It strikes me that man didn't "have" to work in, say, a hunting and gathering society, or even in a real free market, except as much as he would like to in order to really prosper and accumulate wealth. It's the armed theft and appropriation of real property (especially land) by the ruling class that makes people "have" to work.

Is it "communism" to think that the forest doesn't belong to anyone, and whoever wants to can go forage in it? I guess picking fruit or nuts off of trees, or otherwise just eating the abundant food that grows out of the ground (or runs around on it, if you are a meat eater) could be considered work, too, but it's not the same as being constrained to go sit in an office all day, or to in whatever way bust your ass for a pittance while the rich get richer and you get tired. Hell, neither is the sort of guerrilla farming typical of some primitive cultures, where river banks or fields are "farmed" without the all-out re-making (and fencing in) of the land that's typical of what we usually think of as a farm.

I realize my point of view is kind of ridiculous in this day and age, especially inasmuch as there isn't any abundance of food in nature anymore, since our society seems to be at war with the earth itself...but just sayin'...

[lvx35]

41. I agree, that's why I think some kind of change is inevitable.

Yeah, wow. I guess if you look at the early beginnings of Capitalism, I'm talking like 1700's, this propertarian view made sense...Because yes, there was LOADS of land that nobody owned, that you could go hunt in or eat off of, it belonged to nobody effectivly. In that environment, it made perfect sense for people to take a little square to call their own. But those are gone. And the system that made so much sense back then is increasingly absurd.

[LSK]

11. and what leads you to that conclusion? n/t

[Selatius]

12. Well, my views pretty much make me a socialist

However, Marxism is not necessarily synonymous with socialism. It is only one faction within the school, and there is conflict within this school. Contrary to what is taught by the corporate news media, I don't believe socialism automatically equates to the face of Stalin.

There exists democratic socialists (Hugo Chavez) as well as libertarian socialists (aka anarcho-socialists) as well as your more notorious authoritarian socialists (Stalin). H.G. Wells was a socialist of the democratic stripe, and he absolutely detested people like Stalin as well as people like Adolf Hitler. Noam Chomsky's ideas are a form of libertarian socialism, specifically anarcho-syndicalism.

The biggest division within the school of socialism is whether such an economic system should operate under the control of a central decision-making structure (the state) or whether socialism, as an economic model, should operate much more like the current model where most decisions are made at the local level without the central authority dictating decisions.

Both models have been tried. The most well-known is that pushed by Stalin: Forced collectivization and state control of the economy. The alternative method, which is not well known, is voluntary collectivization where most of the economic decisions are made at the local level in a decentralized manner close to the people.

H.G. Wells wrote about an example of the latter in his book Homage to Catalonia. Unfortunately, this more libertarian form of socialism came to an end due to attacks from factions in Spain supported not only by Nazi Germany but also those supported by the Soviet Union. Another example of a more libertarian form of socialism is the Bulgarian Uprising against Soviet occupation. For a while, the socialist economy operated purely by participation of the citizens without the central direction of the Kremlin. In effect, it was true socialism. Of course, that, too, came to an end under Soviet tyranny as Bulgarians were slaughtered or imprisoned for challenging authority.

[Beaver Tail]

18. Very well said

I would disagree on one point. I would consider Hugo Chavez and social democrat and not a democratic socialist (there is a difference).

I am a social democrat as well and believe in the social democrat system. Most democratic systems in Europe are social democracies to one extent or another. Unfortunately I see too much of a black/white view in US politics of either you are a capitalist or a socialist.

[Selatius]

32. Well, Chavez by his own words considers himself a democratic socialist

I can't remember the particular news article, but he stated to the effect that socialism is the only way.

However, examining what he has done so far, yes, I agree he resembles a true social democrat, but if what he says is accurate, it's a phase as he would try to transition all the way from a mixed economy to a pure socialist one.

The only thing I may disagree with Chavez is over the role of the state in such an economy. I believe he's a form of reformist state socialist. I don't believe an entire economy could be run by a centralized decision-making structure, a bureaucracy, in the name of the people because history has taught me that a state, regardless if it's a dictatorship, an oligarchy, or a representative democracy often times behaves against the interests of the people. As a result, I feel the economic decisions must be made at the local or even regional level by the people directly, not at the national level by bureaucrats elected or unelected.

[Beaver Tail]

36. Then in that case

he is a a democratic socialist. He certainly defined it quite well.

[EstimatedProphet]

60. Minor correction

Homage to Catalonia was by George Orwell

[teknomanzer]

13. Communism as such...

has never been practiced without interference. I think Chomsky mentioned somthing like anarchist collectives being formed in Spain that were beginning to work before other elitist starting taking over. The so called dictatorship of the proleteriate is just setting up a new class of elite. I really think its a pipe dream. Human nature, human consciousness needs a dramatic shift before anything system of equity can come into play. All institutions are subject to corruption so long as one person puts self interest above others. The best we can hope for is a few wise leaders who see the value of reform and creating a balance of power domestically and abroad.

[classics]

14. The workers paradise would be nice!

But like all governments, no matter how well conceived, it will eventually be bent and warped until it serves only the rich and powerful, at which point it will begin to slowly collapse.

The details of it really don't matter in the long run, even our beloved Capitalism will eventually degenerate into abuse and finally collapse under the twisted demands of the super rich for ever more power and control.

[ret5hd]

17. you and cubsfan are really on a roll tonite...

what's that style of fishing called where you just slowly putt along in a boat with the bait trailin' behind you? yeah, i can't remember either.

[SidDithers]

20. Glad to see someone else noticed that too...

I'm expecting a thread about what a bad guy "Paul" Pot was anytime.

Sid

[jonnyblitz]

22. I was thinking the same thing...

:eyes:

[CubsFan1982]

27. Truth hurts, don't it?

I hope you sleep well at nights knowing you support a system that deprives billions of the basic human rights we all take for granted (or forget we have).

[ret5hd]

28. go tell it to your co-counter-protestors

[CubsFan1982]

37. Maybe I should report this to my boss...

KARL ROVE!!!! HE'S BEHIND EVERYTHING!!!!!!

:eyes: :sarcasm:

[Kerebos]

43. Ask the people of Saudi Arabia, Jamica, Hati etc...

If Capitalism has brought them freedom and prosperity.

Capitalism does not equal democracy.

[Selatius]

49. You forgot China ;)

[Kerebos]

31. Well I like it

Had this OP not posted I wouldn't have had the opportunity to read the quality responses.

I think your post is more offensive than the OP because it stifles discussion.

[jonnyblitz]

56. no worries! one post won't stop people from posting and

speaking their minds. most of us aren't easily intimidated. I enjoy these threads, too.

[Festivito]

19. All systems become ripe for abuse.

Whether communal representatives choosing the leaders who offer the best kickbacks, or
everyone voting to choose the lesser of two overly hyped candidates,
either way can be manipulated.

Whether allowing the most connected and possibly most unscrupulous to control God given wealth of an entire nation, or
allowing do-gooders pave the road to hell with their good intentions because the "think" they found the best future for our collective resources,
either way becomes an insanity in and of itself.

My view of communism, democracy, capitalism, and socialism, in that order.

Here's to finding balance between the manipulation and the insanity.
:toast:

[melody]

23. What works is what will work

Above and beyond any ideology. God forbid we just do what makes sense.

[On the Road]

24. Communism Is a Good Option

for poor countries with abundant natural resources. Without a redistributive government, the country becomes a banana republic controlled by the rich in which the poor starve. Happened in every Caribbean and Latin American country.

Cuba and Vietnam are much better off for having chosen Communism, if that's what you call it, in spite of every American effort to ruin them economically. Nicaragua was better off under the Sandinistas and Haiti was better off under Aristide than they are now. Statistics show it. They were popularly elected governments put out by US interference.

Even the old evil empire took care of its citizens. When the Soviet Union was replaced by unrestricted capitalism, life expectancy plummeted. I heard Bill O'Reilly discuss this fact as if it were mystifying. It isn't.

[Guy Fawkes]

39. Even if what you say is true,

communism only seems to be an attractive option for those countries whose rulers wish to have total control. While communism is just an economic system, it might as well be a synonyme for totalitarianism. Besides, you can only have a working communist system if everyone involved is willing to practicaly work for free. Think about it- what's the point in being a neurologist if you get paid the same as a janitor? Only the most altruistic people would continue to do their jobs of their own free will.

[Kerebos]

47. lol

Neurologists are only motivated by money?

[On the Road]

50. Why Do You Say "Rulers"?

Ho-Chi Minh, Chavez, Ortega, and Castro were all popularly supported leaders. They were not "rulers" in the mold of their predecessors or US-supported dictators. It smack of the RW effort to personalize and demonize rather than discuss policy.

Freedom is never absolute. It never can be. If everyone has unlimited freedom, the rich or those best able to manipulate the system will come to control the entire system and deny everyone else's freedom. It has happened in every country the US has had sway over.

Totalitarianism is an issue. And it is not good. But it does not support neo-liberal economics over redistribution.

[Selatius]

51. Not necessarily true

The only reason why totalitarianism became a problem is because of centralization of decision-making power. This is what you get when you try to use the state as a vessel to transition to socialism. Would you want elected politicians making decisions over how much food you should get each year? I wouldn't.

The only safeguard against such a danger is decentralization of decision-making power. A person who runs a restaurant is free to make decisions over how much stuff to procure and how many people he can handle each day in our current economy. Likewise, that should be the case in a socialist setting. The only limiting factor is the limit on how much food can be grown and how much other items needed to run a restaurant can be procured. Rather than food being distributed according to ability to pay, food would be distributed according to how much the farmers are able to grow for each individual. The same would apply for other goods.

[Mythsaje]

30. I think it can be argued

that communism and socialism can work very well on a small scale, but on a large scale requires too much bureaucracy which, again, puts too much power in the hands of too few, allowing corruption and graft to take deep root.

I think capitalism can work well if it's generally acknowledged that success in a capitalist environment requires the active participation of everyone, and should be used to benefit everyone who participates. Collectively owned businesses in which the employees have a stake in the success of the business allow a socialist expression within a capitalist structure and usually do quite well.

edited for a typo

[ZombieNixon]

33. Communism is great in theory...

life is not theory. There will always be people who will usurp the otherwise noble goals to their own selfish ends, and everyone else suffers as a result. And woe betide you if you ever question the revolution.

Ever read Animal Farm? 'Nuff sed.

[Guy Fawkes]

40. Sadly, Animal Farm is completely lost on my generation...

a review by one of my classmates read, "Animal Farm is funny because animals talk and stuff."

[ZombieNixon]

45. You're a senior in HS, right?

I'm one year older than you. Only on idiots is it lost.

[jonnyblitz]

59. I am glad to see high school folks on here jumping into the fray.

so many your age are apathetic about all of this. You seemed older to me in your posts. Don't take the heated debates and criticism personally, it can get pretty snarky, but, in the end, you learn and are better for it. :thumbsup:

[Union Thug]

52. It's never been tried, so how would anyone know? WARNING - LONG

State Capitalism does not equate to workers owning the means to production.

Further, it is impossible to provide the kinds of services intended by the soviet system to the the people when you are at the same time engaged in imperialist adventures that suck your economy dry.

Curiously, many of those around Lenin insisted it was too early for Communism. It's time had not yet arrived. I think Marx even said that Capitalism would produce the preconditions for Communism and only after those conditions were met would the revolution come.

But on the other hand, democratic socialism has been very successful in Scandinavia.

I'm beating a dead horse with this, but my wife grew up in Soviet Russia and hates what the New Russians (read Capitalists) have done to her country. She remembers a year paid child leave from work after the birth of her child, free university education (which translated into two masters degrees for her here in the states), and other positive things about her life in Kamensk Uralsky.

For an interesting read on the comparison between the US and Soviet systems, look at this book -

Discovering America As It Is by Valdas Anelauskas

From the website: http://www.efn.org/~rolanda/discovering/america.html

Valdas Anelauskas is a Lithuanian journalist and former anti-Soviet dissident who was expelled from the USSR for his human rights activities. He was received in the U.S. as a high profile political dissident, and initially even addressed American audiences alongside powerful right-wing American politicians like Newt Gingrich. While many anti-Soviet human rights activists turned to the United States to champion their cause, and many even emigrated to the USA, few have publicly exposed their view of human rights as practiced in the United States. That fact, in itself, would make DISCOVERING AMERICA AS IT IS an important book, coming as it does from someone of this background.

Ten years of observation of American reality has led Anelauskas to conclude that the U.S. extreme capitalist system represents an even greater threat than Soviet mock-communism to the well-being of the world. He paints an extraordinary portrait of the America he discovered -- the true America, as it exists in actuality, for most Americans. His book explores with shock and indignation the lot of vast millions of ordinary people in the richest country in the world, which surely could treat its citizens at least as well as other industrialized nations do, but refuses to. Thirteen highly documented chapters -- on poverty, crime, health, education, homelessness, income inequities and the replacement of welfare by "workfare" (which appears to be reintroducing slavery to America) -- detail the public disarray which results from an unfettered system of great wealth where the rich determine the social priorities. This is hardly the America of the movies and the slick magazines which bedazzle the world with images of American prosperity.

This blistering reality is not "one man's opinion," but rather has been scrupulously culled -- in nearly 600 pages with literally thousands of citations -- from the very latest researches by international organizations, domestic and international NGOs, independent U.S. think tanks and experts, and even from American government and business sources. While most critiques focus on one social sector or another, Anelauskas' multidimensional study brings them all together, and the impact is staggering. What this book enables us to grasp -- both intellectually and emotionally -- is the predatory and wasteful operation of unbridled capitalism as practiced in America, and the needless, preventable injury it is wreaking upon millions.

Anelauskas' study makes detailed comparisons between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, and also, even more tellingly, with the capitalist countries of Western Europe. What people need to consider is: Does capitalism have to weigh upon people so mercilessly -- or is the American version more extreme, more pitiless than that of other industrialized nations? Anelauskas found the U.S. shockingly deficient in the areas of economic and social human rights, and extensively documented the extent to which citizens of all other industrialized countries generally fare far better than, actually, most Americans.

So... how long will the relative prosperity of the citizens of other industrial nations be able to continue, in face of the extension of the American model? Truly, should the countries of the world be rushing to follow the American example -- or rather, moving strenuously to protect their social structures from the future that America seeks to impose, as forewarned in Anelauskas' final chapter, "The New World Order Takes Shape." This culminating chapter provides a clearer understanding of the true source of America's "know-how" as it relates to accumulating wealth and to maintaining it. From the expropriation of Indian lands, and the exploitation of African slave labor, to a taste for empire which spread to the continental rim, then jumped across many waters in a hundred-year history of invasions all around the globe, culminating at last in the hegemonic military-economic grip on the world by what many in the world view as a Rogue Superpower -- from the loot of domestic colonialism to that of colonialism, then neocolonialism abroad -- this is America as it is.

Perhaps the popular vision of America has been wrong for a very long time, as the book's Foreword by international legal specialist, Y.N. Kly, suggests?

Famous American historian Howard Zinn (Professor Emeritus, Boston University and author of A People's History of the United States) wrote about this book as follows: "This is an extraordinary book, especially startling not because it is a diligently researched and scathing critique of contemporary America, but because it is written by a Soviet dissident who arrived here with great expectations and discovered a sobering reality. The scope of the book is breathtaking, a sweeping survey, factually precise and philosophically provocative, which deserves to be compared to de Tocqueville's 19th century classic. I hope it will be widely read."

According to David Gil, Director of the Center for Policy Change at Brandeis University, Anelauskas' book is "a veritable tour de force... a rich source for understanding the forces which shape the quality of all our lives."

Well-known American Indian author and activist, Ward Churchill, writes: "If just one-in-ten lifelong Americans had ever bothered themselves to learn as much about their country as has this recent Lithuanian immigrant, the horrors he writes about would never have existed. This is must reading for the entire population."

[Union Thug]

58. I take it back, the Diggers tried...but

were soon crushed by the elitist landowners...

[tom_paine]

53. Agreed, Guy...Bushevism and Bolshevism are really two sides of the same

coin.

Bushevism is Free-Market Bolsehvism, if you catch my meaning. The same toadying devotion to the Party Lie Machine (indeed, there is so mcuh in common between the Bushevik Propaganda Machine of the 00s and the Soviet Machine of the '60s & '70s that very little seperates them besides economic philosophy and the fact that Bushevism is tailor made to crush the American Mind and Spirit of Freedom, while Bolshevism was tailor made to crsuh the Russian Mind and any shred of resistance.

But they are essentially the same and people like O'Reichley could serve equally well in ANY Totalitarian Regime, Left, Right, or in between, and all it would take was a minor adjustment in rationales.

[Astarho]

54. Hard to say

Communism failed because the workers were still raised in system of greed driven capitalism. To simply take power from the owners and give it to the workers without any other kind of adjustment will end up with, essentially what they got.

Communism will work when techology catches up with it. Someday, we have nanotechnology or replication technology a la Star Trek (which was essentially a communist society BTW) as well as unlimited renewable energy. When that happens things would lose their value, and we no longer have the need to work for them. Then where will we be? Probably not what Marx described, but something he might recognize.

[many a good man]

57. Still searching

Authoritarian command economies don't work because 1) the lack of freedom poisons the human spirit and 2) economists will never be more efficient than the market.

I was taught Marxist theory in college in the 80s by a visiting Economics professor from Poland. It was in the middle of the Solidarity movement. He left his job as an economist working for the communist government. The Party didn't like him because he pointed out the weaknesses of central planning. The Solidarity people didn't like him because he opposed "shock therapy" -- rapid conversion to laissez-faire capitalism.

The answer lies somewhere in the big wide middle. We have to be smart about how we carefully mix private incentives and social welfare. We should err on the side of humanity and the general welfare, not on the side of greed and power.

We must put aside ideology and patiently search for the best path.

[Crunchy Frog]

61. I think it works very well

for ants, bees, termites, and other social insects. I don't think it's workable for human societies though.

[vision]

62. the first Christians were Communists

The radical right are trying to rewrite history and say that Jesus was a Capitalist. I have a hard time reading this in everything that he said. The early Church held everything in common. That certainly sounds like a Communist society to me.

I see myself as a Democratic Christian Socialist. Taking care of the infirm and old is not a Capitalism, after all if they can not compile capital than what use are they? Christianity and Socialism on the other hand is seems to care more for the weaker members of society.

Communism has rarely been practiced successfully except for in small groups. In large areas i.e. Soviet Russia and China it is more about a small elite being in control than the workers themselves.

[Solon]

63. And your point is what?

Socialism works, in limited quantities, Capitalism works, in limited quantities, both destroy themselves in "pure" forms. Just need to find the right balance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

64. It's never actually been implemented

but it was used in a variety of countries as an excuse for dictatorship.

For example, one of Marx's tenets is that the workers should own the means of production. This would seem to favor family farms, self-employment, and worker cooperatives. Yet all the Communist governments that I know of banned the first two types of economic structures and sometimes forced workers into the third.