[C_G]

Because Communism prohibits all forms of freedom. A man in a communist society is more a slave than a man in a Capitalist society.

[Fires]

(Original post by pollypix123)
Don't neg this, because I'm just curious...
Why does everybody hate communism so much? To me, it sounds a sort of good society, equal pay, equal cost of everything.... I know people will say 'oh but a bin man will get paid the same as a doctor' ... yes, but surely, a footballer gets paid more than a doctor in our society, so surely communism is a better society in that aspect?

Not everyone hates it. Rich people hate it (understandably) and they pay other people to run it down and they control media that attack it constantly.

It has proved difficult to construct a pure communist society in the past because many people are strongly motivated by financial motives and the societies did not work out how to reconcile that with a fair society.

I think one day it might be possible to have more fairness reconciled with the need to reward high achievers and everyone be happy - that might be close to true communism.

Be wary of being told that places like the Soviet Union were "communist" - they called themselves communist, but they were run as elite societies with a rich class of security state rulers and an exploited, impoverished workforce. In the case of Russia, that elite took power when it became "capitalist" - they are now the likes of Putin and the rich oligarchs who own the country.

[TheHistoryStudent]

(Original post by pollypix123)
Don't neg this, because I'm just curious...
Why does everybody hate communism so much? To me, it sounds a sort of good society, equal pay, equal cost of everything.... I know people will say 'oh but a bin man will get paid the same as a doctor' ... yes, but surely, a footballer gets paid more than a doctor in our society, so surely communism is a better society in that aspect?

I'll be honest and say I dont know all the ins and outs of communism, but in my opinion I'd say its far too idealistic, to the extent even that it defies human nature. Having collective strength and so on is fine, as is equal status for everybody and equal pay, but I think that people are naturally selfish and looking for personal advancement, and so the whole social order has to be to an extent forced upon people rather than taken up by them - especially with regard to property and life choices.

I think another thing which has given it a bad press is that wherever an attempt has been made to implement it (which so far, has always ended in failure) the result has almost always been an oppresive tyrannical government which simply oppresses it's people instead of freeing them - all the while claiming that said oppression is the will of the people or in the name of the people - the hypocrisy stinks.

If we take for e.g. The USSR (up to about Khrushchev - as that's as far as I've learnt about the USSR ), you have all the traits of an authoritarian state, centralisation, secret police, purges, oppression, little-no democracy and little-no freedom to ordinary people. The Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia also has similar traits, albeit in a more extreme form, with people literally being emptied from cities into the countryside in an attempt to get a kind of agrarian communism going, and in the process killing something like 1/4 of the population through violent purges and so on, and as you might expect on the agrarian side, failing miserably (because if you take a bunch of city-dwellers and tell them to suddenly start farming for a living when they have 0 experience in it, it's not going to work) - I think I read/heard somewhere to illustrate the point that before the Khmer rouge took over, Cambodia was an exporter of rice, and after the effects of the revolution were taking hold, the country was starving, even on imported chinese rice.

Back on the point of it being forced on people... I think in quite a few cases of leftist revolutions, you seem to have the situation of one fairly small idealistic group seizing power for themselves and then in the process of trying to make their society, turning into an authoritarian dictatorship... I mean if you look at Russia for e.g. The February revolution of 1917 was a mass movement, which overthrew the Tsar and was hoped to pave the way for what I think was going to be pretty much a republican democracy - however in October, the relatively small Bolshevik group took over in a second revolution and established themselves, after which followed a brutal civil war 'till about 1924 I think between the Bolsheviks (the reds), counter-revolutionaries (whites) some people who wanted to break away from Russia, Ukranians I think (greens) and some western troops too... and even after all this, the Bolsheviks still went through purges, terror and secret police - so yeah...authoritarianism.

-----------------

Hope I helped - it's been a while since I've done some of this stuff so it's bound to be a bit sketchy to say the least, but those are my thoughts on why Communism has gotten a bad press - because of the fact that revolutions inspired by it have always turned into authoritarian states who oppress their own people and offer no other choice of government.

[Alexandra's Box]

I think that it is right for people to earn different amounts of money - it is just natural to have more powerful people; it does not mean that the others are insignificant.
If you want better, you can work and get it if you are good enough! As long as everyone has food, education, shelter etc of good quality... it would be boring if everything was exactly the same.

EDIT - was that unclear? I think I failed to express my feelings properly! I don't support the vast divide between the extremely rich and poor, but some natural difference in lifestyle and earnings is going to happen.
Also, regarding celebrities, people often slag off the celebrity culture but without the media as it is things may change for the more tedious. The fact is, people like it. What's really wrong with it?

Sorry if this is still a load of crap. I'm not sure how to properly word it?

[pshewitt1]

because it;s used as a means for the strong to control the stupid and weak and fooling everyone into thinking that they are equal...

[TheHansa]

(Original post by A.J10)
Now I'm no expert, but can you clarify a few things for me.

Does communism explicitly ban religion?
Is your personal freedom restricted?
You cannot own property?

I know some of these have happened in the past, but is that communism or just corrupted attempts at communism?

Yes, it was believed to be something the rich used to control the poor apparently, really though communist dictators see it as a threat to their power.

No one can serve two masters.

See what I did there

Well the final target is a classless, moneyless society you can't allow personal property because this would create a hierarchy and create a society where some are more powerful than others, a society with class, so that has to go.

I'd say that abolishment of the right to property and a banning of religion as well as the interim dictatorship of the proletariat is all very restrictive of people's freedom, I mean what if people don't like the dictatorship? The dictatorship's purpose is to make the the people more class-concious until the state can be disolved and the final state of society is brought about, a sort of heaven on earth, but to make people more class concious I'd imagine anything which makes people disagree with the dictatorship would have to be banned, leaders of trade unions, socialists, capitalists, clergymen the leaders of all the things which communism is opposed to, would have to be either reeducated or failing that locked up or killed.

[larryb]

communism CAN work on a small scale a take in india uses communism and is working very well. But on a macro level it just isn't sustainable with the amount of corruption. But people don't like it because of the things it brings not because of the system its self.

[pshewitt1]

Also animal farm is a good book to read...

[TheHansa]

(Original post by Menefrego88)
Actually they shot him when he answered the door shows they couldnt fight him one on one anyway the red got killed by Gestapo. Anyway Die Fahne Hoch

I thought you were pro-Israel, unless you're anti-Israel and as such think the EDL are a left-wing organisation.

[pshewitt1]

(Original post by larryb)
communism CAN work on a small scale a take in india uses communism and is working very well. But on a macro level it just isn't sustainable with the amount of corruption. But people don't like it because of the things it brings not because of the system its self.

I dislike it because of the system..

[blueyes2091]

In Romania, it is not unusual to hear people saying it was better before, when we were a communist country. Before 1989, people wanted to escape from the closed world they were living in. Intelectuals had no liberty of expression; every book/newspaper/tv programme was controled; food was little (the state gave you only small portions of food, depending on how large the family was); disabled people were not giving anything to the country, so they were not taken into consideration; it was very difficult to leave the country and, of course, many other things were baned (ex. abortion, an interdiction which led to the death of thousands of women).

However, after the revolution, people began to feel the disadvantages of democracy. It's true, we are free to say what we think, to choose where to live etc. Still, before, everyone had a job and a house, a very different situation from what happens now... And there is some kind of paradox - in those times, we had money to spend but we were not allowed to leave Romania; today, we have to leave Romania in order to work and have money to spend...

[xander93]

(Original post by silverbolt)
Its not bad - on paper.

On paper communism is a great way of doing things

the problem is people - power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. communism can be benign and tolerant. the people who use it to run a country as a rule are not

This is a good explanation.

The problem is putting it into practice. The communist countries we currently see are not truly communist, they are just dictatorships operating under the guise that they follow the will of the people, when it is truly a small, select few who control power.

Also, as visible with Cuba, it generally has not seemed to work. This is perhaps because of trade embargoes with the USA, without which the country would be much better off, but until a proper first world country tries out communism we won't know for sure.

[Fires]

(Original post by TheHansa)
Well the final target is a classless, moneyless society you can't allow personal property because this would create a hierarchy and put some people in greater positions of power than others, so that has to go to hit this desired state.

I'd say that abolishment of the right to property and a banning of religion as well as the interim dictatorship of the proletariat is all very restrictive of people's freedom, I mean what if people don't like the dictatorship? The dictatorship's purpose is to make the the people more class-concious until the state can be disolved and the final state of society is brought about a sort of heaven on earth, but to make people more class concious I'd imagine anything which makes people disagree with the dictatorship would have to be banned, leaders of trade unions, socialists, capitalists, clergymen the leaders of all the things which communism is opposed to would have to be either reducated or failing that locked up or killed.

Actually if you take direct from Marx, he did not say that Communism should abolish private property, nor that it ended the class system - he saw it as an intermediate stage on that path. His main point was that production (eg, industrial capital) should be worker-controlled.

Many of the things done in Soviet-era states like the denial of private home ownership are not from Marx really.

Personally I think something like John Lewis/Waitrose is fairly close to an ideal communism - it is worker-owned but properly managed, makes a profit, cares about the community, sells good products and is highly efficient. The employees do well in good times, earning large bonuses.

[Nick100]

Because economically it doesn't work and it requires that the power of the state be massively increased. Communists generally claim that they believe in a stateless society although why they think a stateless society would be communist instead of anarcho-capitalist is unknown to me.

[A.J10]

(Original post by TheHansa)
Yes, it was believed to be something the rich used to control the poor apparently, really though communist dictators see it as a threat to their power.

No one can serve two masters.

See what I did there

Well the final target is a classless, moneyless society you can't allow personal property because this would create a hierarchy and put some people in greater positions of power than others, so that has to go to hit this desired state.

I'd say that abolishment of the right to property and a banning of religion as well as the interim dictatorship of the proletariat is all very restrictive of people's freedom, I mean what if people don't like the dictatorship? The dictatorship's purpose is to make the the people more class-concious until the state can be disolved and the final state of society is brought about a sort of heaven on earth, but to make people more class concious I'd imagine anything which makes people disagree with the dictatorship would have to be banned, leaders of trade unions, socialists, capitalists, clergymen the leaders of all the things which communism is opposed to would have to be either reducated or failing that locked up or killed.

You've effectively said it is implied that these things occur. Although I see what you're saying, does the commonly agreed definition of communism expilictly say these things.

[A.J10]

(Original post by TheHansa)
Yes, it was believed to be something the rich used to control the poor apparently, really though communist dictators see it as a threat to their power.

No one can serve two masters.

See what I did there

Well the final target is a classless, moneyless society you can't allow personal property because this would create a hierarchy and put some people in greater positions of power than others, so that has to go to hit this desired state.

I'd say that abolishment of the right to property and a banning of religion as well as the interim dictatorship of the proletariat is all very restrictive of people's freedom, I mean what if people don't like the dictatorship? The dictatorship's purpose is to make the the people more class-concious until the state can be disolved and the final state of society is brought about a sort of heaven on earth, but to make people more class concious I'd imagine anything which makes people disagree with the dictatorship would have to be banned, leaders of trade unions, socialists, capitalists, clergymen the leaders of all the things which communism is opposed to would have to be either reducated or failing that locked up or killed.

You've effectively said it is implied that these things occur. Although I see what you're saying, does the commonly agreed definition of communism expilictly say these things?

Would rep for the well written post, but I'm all out...

[cgraham15]

what gives the government the right to tell me that I can't achieve my dreams if I work hard?

[martin jol]

because of the human being's innate desire to progress! communism stagnates the populous, it's bad.

[Fires]

(Original post by A.J10)
You've effectively said it is implied that these things occur. Although I see what you're saying, does the commonly agreed definition of communism expilictly say these things?

No, it doesn't. The previous poster was describing what happened under Stalin, etc - those dictators more or less made it up as they went along and twisted the original vision. That's not to say that religion isn't seen in Marxism as an obstacle to human progress, but liquidating the priests and demolishing the churches wasn't in the original spec.

[Stevo F]

(Original post by pollypix123)
Don't neg this, because I'm just curious...
Why does everybody hate communism so much? To me, it sounds a sort of good society, equal pay, equal cost of everything.... I know people will say 'oh but a bin man will get paid the same as a doctor' ... yes, but surely, a footballer gets paid more than a doctor in our society, so surely communism is a better society in that aspect?

Communism, in practice, is really just a dictatorship or a democracy depending on who is running it. You can never have a true communist state as someone is always at the top in control. I dont think anyone can actually say communism is bad because it, in its intended form, has never existed and will never exist. The idea itself I don't think many people have a problem with.