[JustCharley]

(Original post by cgraham15)
what gives the government the right to tell me that I can't achieve my dreams if I work hard?

There is no government in a true communist society... don't base what you think a communist society is on North Korea's or Stalin's interpretations. Base it on what Marx & Hegel wrote. In a true communist society, there is no state as they have no role.

[blueyes2091]

(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?

I know that in Romania a lot of priests were arested and tortured. Communists burnt down many churches and monasteries; for them, the religion of the people had to be the communism itself.

Also, from what my relatives told me, you could have the house given by the state but if it was to big (ex. a family of 2 in an apartment for 3), they used to give the extra room to a single person in need of a home. So, there was no "my house" because was not yours, it was of the state...

[cgraham15]

(Original post by JustCharley)
There is no government in a true communist society... don't base what you think a communist society is on North Korea's or Stalin's interpretations. Base it on what Marx & Hegel wrote. In a true communist society, there is no state as they have no role.

I know that, but no such communist society exists. I'll rephrase. What gives anything the right to say that I am unable to fulfill my dreams if I work hard?

[FDR]

(Original post by xander93)
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.

Communism as a system doesn't work, lets make no mistake about that.

However, you must admit, Cuba has actually been quite successful in social terms under it's 'state socialism' model - Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than in a number of developed countries, including the US. Cuba has a highly literate and well educated poplace, and has low crime rates. Cuba definitely isn't the bogey man when it comes to Communism/State socialism, as it's actually provided it's people with a high standard of living, and I imagine that, you would be better off being born in Cuba than being born into one of the poorest households in the US.

I don't often post videos on here, but I strongly recommend making some time to watch this one:

[TheHansa]

(Original post by Fires)
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.

I find the waitrose thing amusing for obvious reasons, but they don't care about the community

(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.

As the other guy I quoted says, Marx was more concerned with the means of production rather than personal property but once the world has undergone the final transition to statelessness I'm not sure how any sort of poperty rights could be enforced, you come home to find a stranger sleeping in your house one day, but without the state it's not your house, it's just a house, and you've got yourself a new BFF.

Marx saw religion as a symptom of the worker's suffering and a tool of the elite so I suppose rather than having believers killed like the USSR did, he would most probably have assumed that once the workers are class-concious and that their lives have improved enough, they would simply stop believing.

[TitanicTeutonicPhil]

It's bad because being smarter and working harder than others does not get rewarded.
The incentive system is all wrong and does not promote the kind of growth and development
that brings the world ahead.

[JustCharley]

(Original post by cgraham15)
I know that, but no such communist society exists. I'll rephrase. What gives anything the right to say that I am unable to fulfill my dreams if I work hard?

Just quickly gonna point out that I don't support communism :P No such communist society exists because none of them have gone through the stage of socialist society that Marx first intended. Stalin, NK etc. all just abused the communist system in order to have totalitarian control.

I think you'll find that some people disagree with you, and that some people feel a greater obligation to progress society than to personally progress. The point they try and make is that if all inequalities in opportunities and education were erased, then everyone could fulfil their dreams and all work hard, just like you want to. I'm sure that part of your dreams is not to reinforce inequality or just to be better than everyone else - human beings are by nature more social than this.

My point of view is that I think there needs to be as equal level of opportunity as possible. We can do that by a state run education system whereby every child gets the chance to experience the teaching that private schools hand pick before the other teachers have to get all the teaching qualification they need to teach in state schools etc. I also support the NHS completely and a benefit system which helps to maintain everyone living at least just adequately. I also think that things like water, electricity and heat should all be centralised so corporations can't make big profits from stuff which is required to live adequately.

I think the education is the most important part of the equal level of opportunities. Most people who manage to "fall in love with learning" through good teaching turn out like you do, with great individual ambitions. I think people should be able to pursue these ambitions, but I don't think it will create as much divide as we have now because of the regulations of stuff that everyone needs and the education they've had. In order to maintain the platform of equality of opportunity in the first part of life, I also believe in inheritance tax.

[xander93]

(Original post by FDR)
Communism as a system doesn't work, lets make no mistake about that.

However, you must admit, Cuba has actually been quite successful in social terms under it's 'state socialism' model - Life expectancy in Cuba is higher than in a number of developed countries, including the US. Cuba has a highly literate and well educated poplace, and has low crime rates. Cuba definitely isn't the bogey man when it comes to Communism/State socialism, as it's actually provided it's people with a high standard of living, and I imagine that, you would be better off being born in Cuba than being born into one of the poorest households in the US.

I don't often post videos on here, but I strongly recommend making some time to watch this one:

Oh no I wasn't suggesting that Cuba was really awful, only trying to say it could be a lot better. My old history teacher visited Cuba on a study trip, and said that whilst
nobody was in abject poverty (thanks to a good welfare state), most people were quite poor relative to western standards. Apparently professionals and the like were not as common because the pay is much lower too.

[redvinoandambien]

It completely removes all that makes us human. It removes any desire to grow and would leave us like empty robots. Life isn't fair, and that's how it was meant to be.

[AspiringGenius]

In all fairness, communisms image has been irrepairably damaged by "communist" leaders such as Stalin, Mao the Kim dynasty etc.

[soempty]

It proved to not work given our current state.

[Fires]

(Original post by redvinoandambien)
It completely removes all that makes us human. It removes any desire to grow and would leave us like empty robots. Life isn't fair, and that's how it was meant to be.

I'm not clear why "it was meant to be" not fair? There seems to be a strong human innate desire for fairness that permeates almost all human discourse and activity - hence our elaborate rules, structures, law courts, justice, etc, etc. I think you mean that it often pans out as unfair - but is that how it's supposed to be? Most people rebel against that idea, even if they don't call themselves "communists" because the corrupted states that tried communism gave it such a bad name.

[FDR]

(Original post by xander93)
Oh no I wasn't suggesting that Cuba was really awful, only trying to say it could be a lot better. My old history teacher visited Cuba on a study trip, and said that whilst
nobody was in abject poverty (thanks to a good welfare state), most people were quite poor relative to western standards. Apparently professionals and the like were not as common because the pay is much lower too.

Yeah, that sounds about right - you won't strike it rich in Cuba, but you'll certainly be looked after. A lot of Cubans do choose to leave Cuba in search of better (Miami has the largest community of Cubans outside of Cuba), but a lot are also satisfied with their quality of life.

It just seems a lot of people are hugely misinformed about Cuba, particularly Americans, who really do believe that Cuba is comparable to North Korea, which of course, isn't true. Like I said before, a lot of poor americans would happily swap their freedom for a higher standard of living.

[Fires]

(Original post by xander93)
Oh no I wasn't suggesting that Cuba was really awful, only trying to say it could be a lot better. My old history teacher visited Cuba on a study trip, and said that whilst
nobody was in abject poverty (thanks to a good welfare state), most people were quite poor relative to western standards. Apparently professionals and the like were not as common because the pay is much lower too.

Cuba was also economically blockaded by the US for the last 50 years. A blockade so extreme that many US citizens are in rebellion against it, demanding Cuban cigars for example and trading them against the ban.

It's very difficult to point to those countries like Cuba that have "tried communism" as examples of what Communism is in abstract, since they have all been either harshly attacked or they have been subjected to dictatorship.

Some people argue that Communism inevitably leads to dictatorship, but I don't think that's proven yet, it's just that the ideas of Communism often founder in the light of economic realities dictated by a capitalist world.

[Iron Lady]

Everybody has the right to be unequal. No-one, thank heavens, is quite like anyone else.

[theonefrombrum]

It's just basically a system of ideologies posited to coutner capitalist ways, not just work around them and keep elements of it that works and throw to the curb that that doesn't. It's like the creators of communist ideologies were trying to postulate that it should work because it's so extreme and so different to capitalism, like they were seeing the negatives of capitalism and deciding that altering it in its current form wasn't merely enough; something completely new has to be introduced.

To me the concept is just plainly stupid. There has to be an incentive to work in certain professions and while a passion for that particular career path plays a role in many people's decisons to go for it, money and having lots of it is also important. Losing that value and knowing that you could be getting the same things that your money buys if you did a much lesser job would be horrible for a lot of people. There's also things like if we were to share everything equally, a lot of jobs would simply disappear as everyone, deserving or not, will just get a mercedes etc. It's just so flawed and i know that it will never be the way of life in the West. Capitalism to a degree is fine, there's things that clearly need tweaking but politicians should only ever focus on that, never on potentially introducing a new and crippling way of having the world operate.

[972]

Basically, someone has to oversea that communism is in effect, therefore that person is more valuable to society and communism has destroyed itself.

[xander93]

(Original post by Fires)
Cuba was also economically blockaded by the US for the last 50 years. A blockade so extreme that many US citizens are in rebellion against it, demanding Cuban cigars for example and trading them against the ban.

It's very difficult to point to those countries like Cuba that have "tried communism" as examples of what Communism is in abstract, since they have all been either harshly attacked or they have been subjected to dictatorship.

Some people argue that Communism inevitably leads to dictatorship, but I don't think that's proven yet, it's just that the ideas of Communism often founder in the light of economic realities dictated by a capitalist world.

I know it's way back in time relative to internet minutse, but I did say stuff similar to that

>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.

[punkski]

it's not. it's not bad.

[MrHayden]

Not only is it in contrast to human nature, but it is the exact opposite of how we as a species make progress. A successful company doesn't do a great job and provide excellent services for the general good of humanity - it does a good job because it wants to make people happy in order toget money. This way we make progress and reward those who achieve progress. If there was no economic reward for success, there would be no competitive drive outside the world of academia.

Note- I don't think modern capitalism is all good, as the current mess we are in demonstrates. It just works in this regard, and a lot better than Communism ever can!