[Smko]

If done correctly , it the best thing! Its the Way forward! Sadly no country seems to get it perfect hah!

[FrogInABog]

(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.

To quote from The Communist Manifesto:

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

The whole John Lewis thing makes me laugh... A company that makes the majority of its money from 'petit bourgeois' middle and upper class customers can hardly be considered communist, regardless of its ownership structure!

Anyway, communism is ridiculous because it ignores a fundamental principal of life: if working harder does not yield personal reward, why bother working? The thought of the benefits of one's hard work being spread amongst everyone may appeal to some, but I (like most, I suspect) have a natural instinct to provide for myself and my loved ones first. Communism would deny me this right.

[monk_keys]

(Original post by FrogInABog)

Anyway, communism is ridiculous because it ignores a fundamental principal of life: if working harder does not yield personal reward, why bother working? The thought of the benefits of one's hard work being spread amongst everyone may appeal to some, but I (like most, I suspect) have a natural instinct to provide for myself and my loved ones first. Communism would deny me this right.

You could say the same thing about wage labour.

[Fires]

(Original post by FrogInABog)
To quote from The Communist Manifesto:

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

The whole John Lewis thing makes me laugh... A company that makes the majority of its money from 'petit bourgeois' middle and upper class customers can hardly be considered communist, regardless of its ownership structure!

Anyway, communism is ridiculous because it ignores a fundamental principal of life: if working harder does not yield personal reward, why bother working? The thought of the benefits of one's hard work being spread amongst everyone may appeal to some, but I (like most, I suspect) have a natural instinct to provide for myself and my loved ones first. Communism would deny me this right.

There's nothing like a selective quote out of context, is there? Marx was talking about *Bourgeois Property*, eg, factories, stately homes, landlord tenements etc. He did not mean small private houses or cars, but since neither basically existed (houses did, but they were mainly rented out) in his day, it wasn't something he mainly addressed.

Proper quote from the Manifesto:

"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products, that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few."

He was talking about the factory system, the industrial proletariat and the rigid, harsh class system.

John Lewis, despite trading in a capitalist sea, surrounded by middle-class property, is actually a great example of a worker co-op (there are many others) and this shows one road to a fairer system of ownership.

The Capitalism/Marxism debate is not really about (from an economist's point of view) the ownership of trivial private property like clothes, cars, houses and holiday homes. It's about "productive capital", eg, who owns the stuff that makes money.

Many, many people are confused on this point though (including the people who ran the Soviet "communist" states) and assume it applies to trivial ownership.

[Captain Haddock]

Sigh. Same old clichés in this thread I see.

Confusing statism with communism
Confusing private property with personal property
'Nice on paper but not in practice'
etc. etc. etc.

Never once seen a decent informed discussion of communism on this board.

[Stiff Little Fingers]

(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.

In fairness, how much of that could be attributed to the US's embargo on Cuban products?



Nice to see people mixing up communism and what they think is communism mind.

[yugiohtheawesome]

I'll tell you why it's bad. Because I have a massive exam on the history of communism. It's not fun learning about all that crap, when all I want to do is eat popcorn and sleep. If I had Lenin or Stalin here right now, I'd gladly shoot them, and then rip the Soviet flag into tiny pieces. Screw communism.

[cl_steele]

because the human condition prohibits us from it, people are selfish and as Giant described it its a perfect system in an imperfect world.

[King_Arthur]

communism is actually a good system the problem is finding the proper head
if properly implemented it would quite well balance the society maintain discipline and values (as modern society seems to be loosing the humane aspect of being human and going astray )

but as i said before the problem is the head, cause once a person has such immense power he tends to get corrupted thus leaders such as Hitler and so on...... resulting in much worse results

[ZOMFG_it'sCaiters]

"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others'

[redvinoandambien]

(Original post by Fires)
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.

Firstly I don't want to offend anyone or come across badly by what I'm saying - it's just my personal opinion. I understand what you mean, but personally I believe that inequality is the basis upon which society is, and has always been, structured. I'm not saying it's morally right - but it's definitely there. Looking back through evolution, where those most suited have survived, to me it's clear that life is not fair and this is the natural way of the world. In every situation there will always be someone who comes off better than another, and it is my belief that it is the bad things in life that add value to the good. Now, clearly this can't be applied to situations such as where people only experience, for example, horrific poverty. However whilst communism would, in theory, limit the negative aspects of capitalism, it would leave no room for things like the development of character. Personally I believe we all should find our individual meaning of life and learn to work with what we naturally have - we may not have had the perfect upbringing, or we may be worse off than others, but we can all try to make something of ourselves. Sorry if I offended anyone with my views.

[rawkus]

(Original post by cuckoo99)
IT DOESN'T WORK. There will always be someone who has more power than everyone else in the group, Its just nature.

Thats amazing how you have managed to solve a query that centuries of philosophical speculation and anthropological research has strived to answer in mere seconds. If only Bakunin or Kropotkin had met you, they could have been set right..............

[SFsucks]

(Original post by pollypix123)
I know people will say 'oh but a bin man will get paid the same as a doctor'

Because a doctor has to have many many years of training in which the job is much demanding and many more hours involved, if a system was run like this I don't think there be that many doctors in this country, why work your arse off when you could just collect rubbish for the same money.

[Fires]

(Original post by SFsucks)
Because a doctor has to have many many years of training in which the job is much demanding and many more hours involved, if a system was run like this I don't think there be that many doctors in this country, why work your arse off when you could just collect rubbish for the same money.

To be viable, a really workable communist system would have to reward people differently for different kinds of work. At the moment, a combination of the capitalist labour markets and trade union activity broadly dictate labour rates (with some government interventions), not the "demands" of the job, the length of training, the moral worth of it to society, etc. A doctor to many people is worth more than a city trader, but the latter generally gets paid far more. Doctors might be worth ten times a nurse, but others think not - in many countries for example the difference between a GP's pay and a nurse's pay is less extreme than here. It isn't logical - GPs earn huge amounts in the UK - it's to do primarily with their market power and with the need for the governments to "buy them off".

We don't live in a pure capitalist system, so making comparisons is difficult.

[DeadGirlsDance]

(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?

That's the main idea of it. However, it usually is never like that. Look at North Korea, it's not equal at all. People who are lucky enough to live in Pyongyang have decent working conditions and nice houses because it's used as the perfect city to showcase to other countries. People who live further out struggle everyday because in North Korea's case, communism doesn't work. This only works because the people in North Korea have no access to the outside world so think that their way of life is normal (unless they live near the Chinese border). The dictator, the Korean Workers' Party and other high up people are much better off than the rest of the country. Basically communism doesn't usually work because most people are greedy.

[Menefrego88]

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

Who said im pro Israel I am not. The EDL are a good organisation for White nationalists to galvanise support from and educate them that to be a real WN you can't be pro Israel.

[TheHansa]

(Original post by Menefrego88)
Who said im pro Israel I am not. The EDL are a good organisation for White nationalists to galvanise support from and educate them that to be a real WN you can't be pro Israel.

My mistake.

So are you saying that in spite of the claims of the high up EDL people they are in fact a white nationalist organisation?

[WillowLeaves]

(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?

Religion isn't explicitly forbidden if you look to Marx, for instance. He calls religion "the opium of the masses" because it takes people's minds off their suffering g and oppression; therefore, when those have been eradicated, there will be no need for religion. Marx doesn't really write that much about religion as he thinks it's just a by-product of capitalism.

Private property is allowed in terms of things like your own shoes and such, but not in terms of owning land, businesses, real estate etc. This is obviously necessary in order for the state to carry out its central planning and generally maintain centralised power.

You lose your freedom by, for instance, not being able to choose your job (ie. the state determines X engineers will be needed this year, so only X people can qualify), not being able to express opposition to communism (ie. no freedom of speech) and obviously a lot of other things.


This was posted from The Student Room's iPhone/iPad App

[pokemontah!]

Communism is Bad because it murdered over a hundred million people last century.

Its the ultimate totalitarian ideology.

[Menefrego88]

(Original post by TheHansa)
My mistake.

So are you saying that in spite of the claims of the high up EDL people they are in fact a white nationalist organisation?

They most likely have WN members but then again so will the Conservative party, Labour and Lib Dems. So its up to youll own personal opinion what is a WN organisation most of EDL are not WN though I would estimate.