This discussion is now closed.

Check out other Related discussions

What exactly is wrong with Communism?

Scroll to see replies

No, love, empathy and compassion are humans most basic emotions, whereas greed, anxiety and hate are only created by the world around them.

We are fundamentally community orientated people corrupted and by the system we live in.

think we should agree to disagree here, im a cynic your naieve and niether of us will convince the other

Reply 161

cometgirl

You have an incredibly romanticized view on Communism.

Reply 162

Oswy

Original post by silverbolt

think we should agree to disagree here, im a cynic your naieve and niether of us will convince the other

Your longstanding presence here is good evidence of your community orientation, no? TSR is, after all, an internet community.

Reply 163

MTR_10

Original post by silverbolt

think we should agree to disagree here, im a cynic your naieve and niether of us will convince the other

The concept of communism is nothing new.

The problem I have with saying that we are all evil, competitive, hateful and just generally hostile to one another is that all these things are just what the system teaches us. Once we look and think outside of the current system, we see great things. Like Oswy said above if you put animals in cages, then what can you expect?

If there were true freedom in the world (and lets not kid ourselves that winning the game of capitalism ie. making lots of money gives us freedom) then we would all be happy and dare I say, content. Once that happens and we are truly free, the dominant emotions (love and compassion etc) will prevail.

Sometimes we just need to take a step back and ourselves what it is that we are fighting/ competing over and is there an alternative for a better world? It is not naive to believe that people can live peacefully together.

Reply 164

David Markham

For all communism is largely impractical and I would never envisage a move away from capitalisim Cuba has managed pretty well as a communist state. Despite American strangulation Cuba is not a hugely impoverished nation and can claim to have some of the best dental care in the world. Communism would mean a better world, but the mistakes of past "communists," such as Stalin will never allow it to become popular.

Reply 165

silverbolt

Original post by Oswy

Your longstanding presence here is good evidence of your community orientation, no? TSR is, after all, an internet community.

Agreed but you may have helped prove my point to a degree, look at the amount of sniping, trolling, viciousness genuine anger and cruelty that goes on here.

Reply 166

Nepene

Original post by Oswy

Animals in cages behave, unsurprisingly, like animals in cages and to communists and socialists, capitalism is man's current cage. Maybe we could do away with the cage? Maybe we could, at least, make the cage less cage-like?

Do you have evidence that capitalism decreases the amount of empathy, or that competing for resources makes people behave worse?

Perhaps socialism is the cage, imposing regulations and unjust levies on the common man to fulfil the interests of small and loud groups. Perhaps when freed, people would behave better due to their inherent goodness. Take away the chains and we can fly.

Reply 167

Hy~

Original post by jismith1989

It was a top-down socialist model (e.g. significant public building programmes, state pension plan, nationalisation of many industries), with strong free-market tendencies within that (e.g. low income tax, low inflation, anti-union/ban on strikes). A little like how Hitler would hand-pick men to be his underlings, but would then have them fight against themselves for the top positions, so that, as he saw it, the best man would take the job. In a similar sense, there was a competitive capitalist economy within a centralist, socialist framework. So to say that just one label adequately characterises the Nazi economy doesn't capture the reality very well. Much of what they did was Keynsian.

Your examples of "free-market tendencies" are not at all characteristic of a free market with the exception of "low income tax" which is hardly meaningful when your income is entirely controlled by the government anyway. And competition is not a feature exclusive to capitalism, I'm not sure if you're actually serious in saying because the Nazi party was competitive that this means that there was "a competitive capitalist economy within a centralist, socialist framework".

A lot of their planning was quite Wilsonian in nature, btw, not Keynesian.

Reply 168

Hy~

Original post by Oswy

[sigh].

Socialism is most centrally 'about' organising society in a way that is substantively egalitarian, whether in political, social or economic terms. On this basis socialism needn't involve a 'state' at all. The extent to which the state is an element in socialism is only instrumental (by which I mean as an instrument to that end). It is a sophomoric error to equate socialism with statism. So, no, Nazism was not 'socialism' in the least, it did nothing with an aim towards, or result in, egalitarianism, whether political, social or economic.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that I was comparing you to Hitler :confused:

That's just standard leftism, the most I'll grant is that probably the vast majority of socialists are leftists but they are not the same thing. Your attempt to equate the two is a poor attempt at making socialism as "argument-proof" (or fallacious, take your pick) as any political position is. Ironically, you're the one committing your "sophomoric error" by equating socialism with the left.

There can be right wing socialists and the Nazis ARE an example of this. Contemporarily, the BNP is another example.

Reply 169

Oswy

Original post by Hy~

You're just trying too hard to rubbish socialism by associating it with Nazis and it doesn't fly. Not even among the mainstream of political philosophy or political history will you find many, if indeed any, who think that the Nazis were interested in core socialist aspirations, which, as I've already pointed out, are about the egalitarian organisation of society; political, social and economic. So stop humiliating yourself dude. Even a more narrowly economic reading, if you prefer, has socialism as production, distribution and exchange being under the collective power of the people, or community, as a whole. And that definition is pretty close to the Oxford Concise offering; look it up if you don't believe me. Either way, Nazism's stark political and social anti-egalitarianism along with its economic arrangements squarely focused on the interests and objectives of the (essentially military) regime and its leadership, destroy your position.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 170

Oswy

Original post by silverbolt

Agreed but you may have helped prove my point to a degree, look at the amount of sniping, trolling, viciousness genuine anger and cruelty that goes on here.

Sure, but we are mostly raised and live under the influence of capitalism's behaviour-shaping power, hence, as Marx would say, the contradiction.

Reply 171

Don John

Original post by Democracy

No genius, did you even READ what I posted? It quite clearly shows that a communist society wouldn't reward laziness :facepalm:

Yes they do, by definition of a communist system they reward all production, regardless of quality. It happened in the Soviet bloc. When they shifted to capitalism, there was a massive drop in the already-low economy since workers with no skills were still in employment. Journalists would often find people unemployed in the countries because they had a lack of skills, yet they had a job under the communist system. Jeez take an economics class.

Reply 172

Oswy

Original post by Nepene

Capitalism offers up wealth and poverty normatively, if offers up the idea of multi-billionaires owning stupid-size homes, several homes often enough, and hundreds, thousands or even millions of acres of land at their disposal, as golf courses or just something 'to have' and all next to widespread poverty, grime, unemployment and malnutrition as 'normal'. Capitalism's ideological force drugs us, even some of among us who are on, or sooner or later likely to be on, the losing end, into thinking 'this is fair', 'this is how things should be'.

Reply 173

Bumbl

If you are genuinely interested in the topic I would suggest you read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom which, while it definitely gives room for criticism, attempts to explain why communism as a form of the collectivist school of thinking inevitably has to lead to a totalitarian regime.
Written during World War II it was one of the most influential books of the 20th century.
Here you can find the Reader's Digest version of the book which boosted its success http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/upldbook43pdf.pdf

Reply 174

Luizio

It simply wouldn´t work because the "not good workers" would relax hopping that the "good workers" could work for them. They wouldn´t need to worry because the income would be "equally" divided. everything I could do would be divided by everyone, even trough those who don´t deserve it. And when the "good" workers realise that, they will also become "bad workers" and the system will colapse

Reply 175

ElectricWizard

It wouldn't work because all these neo-cons and Republicans are too busy being mesmerised by the new world order propaganda, pro-capitalism forces are everywhere and will shut you down before you can even express your feelings. Human rights are a façade and we all live under the pro-capitalistic regime of the new world order.

30,000 CHILDREN DIED AS A DIRECT RESULT OF POVERTY TODAY, AMERICA **** YEAH!!

Reply 176

Nepene

Original post by Oswy

You're making a vague attack on capitalism, but not answering my question. So you don't have evidence that, say, billionaires make the world a worse place.

Socialism and communism have a terrible record for dealing with poverty. Poverty is the intrinsic state of humanity, and hard to stop. Capitalism is much better at allocating resources to them.

Reply 177

Dahut

Original post by slavetosociety

Tienanmen Square?

In 1989 China was nothing but a state capitalist, authoritarian regime. That is certainly not communism.

"If communism means anything at all, it means the radical eruption of democracy. Bursting its present narrow political confines, where it is allowed to hold truncated and partly illusory sway, democracy is to engulf all spheres of social life."-Moshe Machover

Communism is all about freedom and democracy!

Reply 178

Oswy

Original post by Nepene

...Poverty is the intrinsic state of humanity, and hard to stop. Capitalism is much better at allocating resources to them.

I'm sure it used to be argued by those with something to defend or gain that slavery was 'intrinsic' to humanity, yet it is today a much marginalised, if not eradicated, phenomenon. Capitalism actually generates widespread poverty, indeed it generates the huge populations which are subsequently destined for it. The very term 'unemployment' is one of the capitalist era and it is the era of capitalism that has used the ideology of private property to funnel land and resources into the hands of the few to the alienation and exploitation of the many. Common usage and customary usage of land and resources be damned!

Capitalism takes the land and offers a crumb, and is shocked that the crumb is resented!

Reply 179

Nepene

Original post by Oswy

I'm sure it used to be argued by those with something to defend or gain that slavery was 'intrinsic' to humanity, yet it is today a much marginalised, if not eradicated, phenomenon.

Modern slavery, where people are sold for cash, is a huge industry. It's hardly been eliminated. And socialist countries are certainly not immune to it.

Capitalism actually generates widespread poverty, indeed it generates the huge populations which are subsequently destined for it.

Before capitalism poverty was almost universal. People relied on subsidence farming. Capitalism raises the majority out of that state. My experience with socialist countries is that they don't.

The very term 'unemployment' is one of the capitalist era and it is the era of capitalism that has used the ideology of private property to funnel land and resources into the hands of the few to the alienation and exploitation of the many. Common usage and customary usage of land and resources be damned!