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Opinions about Communism?

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Original post by Mathemagicien
But Nazism doubtless thought they were improving the world too


That's true, but whereas the object of Nazism was to exterminate the lesser races that supposedly made the world bad, the object of communism is to distribute the world's resources fairly and make sure everyone has enough to get by. There is a pretty obvious difference in attitude and worldview.
Original post by Ambitious1999
Many youths and students in Czech Republic are supportive of communism, many youths wear Che Guevara T shirts and Mao Zedong T shirts and also read Marx and Lenin. They are a generation that has suffered under capitalism and the Great Depression of 2008. Its no wonder they long for a system their grandparents enjoyed where university and health care was free and benefits were generous if you were jobless. Now all they see is cuts and charges for everything.

I'd say that Titoism is probably the best kind of communism, it worked well in Yugoslavia and wasn't as draconian as the Russian or Chinese model.


It's hardly a coincidence that the the only people who yearn for communism are those who have no experience of the real world.
Original post by Mathemagicien
Communism has killed more people than Nazism, despite everyone being equal

Perhaps everyone is equally expendable?


I'd say that people who kill in the name of communism aren't actually communists. Communism hasn't killed more people than Nazism - people unintentionally or purposefully misinterpreting communism have killed more people than people following Nazism. It's important to remember that ideas don't kill people at all - people kill people.
Original post by otester
How did you come to that conclusion?


Oh please don't tell me that our medicine and technology are the result of natural law. Natural =/=best. Humans are always improving on what nature has provided for us and Communism is the next logical step.

Like how we did not give up airplanes because some of the first models crashed, we should not give up on the Communist ideal just because some of the early proponents were fascists.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Mathemagicien
'Fairness' is subjective. I imagine the Nazis thought their treatment of inferiors was fair


You can say "Morality is subjective" as an argument for or against any moral precept. At some point we have to make a decision about what is right and what is wrong.
Original post by Mathemagicien
Communism has killed more people than Nazism, despite everyone being equal

Perhaps everyone is equally expendable?


'Communism' hasn't killed anybody, communists have. The ideology itself isn't murderous, Nazism is.
Glancing over the "main" ideas of communism it is like Yeah woo go equality that will make everyone equal and we will all be happy.
Putting it into play is another matter as it will probably never work and creates more bad than good.
Communism is like a pyramid scheme, it seems good until you look at what actually is going on.
Its one of the greatest ideas of all time on paper and I'd support it if it worked.

In reality it doesn't work as it goes against human nature, without motivation people don't do any more than the bare minimum and everything stagnates. Forgetting about the young wannabe commies, if you actually talk to people who lived in the Eastern Bloc most have no desire to turn the clock back.
Original post by Mathemagicien
Fine; everyone is not equal, so distributing wealth equally is not fair.


That's sort of true, but not exactly. Everyone is not exactly the same, so distributing resources exactly equally isn't fair in that it simply doesn't make sense. There is the phrase, "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." What matters isn't that every person receives exactly the same amount of everything, it's that each person is given the opportunity to receive what they need. This is still an equal distribution of wealth.
Reply 49
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Josb
6
Communism was the plague of the 20th century.
Original post by Mathemagicien
Still not fair. People who work hard subsidise those who don't.


I for one would rather work hard and perhaps subsidise others than work hard for merely my own benefit and know people are starving on the streets. That is an unfairness that I can accept.
unfairly dismissed without consideration by most people
Original post by Mathemagicien
You are ignoring the fanaticism that ideologies bring. Perhaps communism is weaker than fascism in this regard, but similar to religion, which is very good at maintaining order and control, and motivation.


It depends if you've had the ideology forced upon you or not.
Original post by Mathemagicien
No true scotsman


The world is full of people who claim to be things, but are not those things.
Reply 54
Avatar for Josb
Josb
6
Original post by lolakirk
'Communism' hasn't killed anybody, communists have. The ideology itself isn't murderous, Nazism is.


The "dictatorship of the proletariat" sounds very bloodless indeed.
Original post by Mathemagicien
So is fascism - what is your opinion regarding that?


can't say I've researched it enough to have a strong opinion. I feel like we're educated to have visceral reactions against things without understanding why, and until I've educated myself on the issue I'm not confident in my ability to have a view towards it
Original post by Mathemagicien
So is fascism - what is your opinion regarding that?


Strange as it may sound, I find the fact that fascism is dismissed without any consideration by most people to be unfortunate. People should learn more about a wide range of ideologies so that they can make a better informed decision about which to follow and so that they can more easily recognise the less savoury ones.
Original post by Hydeman
I take back my previous comment. You're beyond hope.


The Arab spring resulted partly from the mass unemployment, poverty and debt in Arab countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Syria that resulted from the global recession of 2008.

Jobless youths were told by extremists to blame everything on their leaders such as Gaddafi whose Arab socialist system ironically was the best in the Middle East and Africa. Instead Al Queda leaders told the youths that their poverty was because of their leaders and not the bankers in Europe and America who in 2008 wrecked the economy and caused the worst economic depression in history.

The youths would be encouraged to rebel force out their leaders and leave behind a power vacuum that would allow the growth of extremism and eventually ISIS in countries affected by the Arab spring.
Original post by Josb
The "dictatorship of the proletariat" sounds very bloodless indeed.


The problem with Pol Potism and the Khmer Rouge is that it was a bizarre mixture of communism but also xenophobia and an historic obsession to recreate the glory days of the ancient Khmer empire. To do that the country had to be rid of any foreign influences, even wearing glasses was considered intellectual and such people were thought to be polluted with foreign influences and thus murdered. To that extent the Khmer Rouge was more like nazism in trying to create an ethnically pure Cambodia.

The communism side of things came from the old days of French Indochina and the Viet Minh. They created the anti-French Indochinese communist party in North Vietnam of which the Khmer Rouge became an off shoot mostly doing nothing other than occupying areas of jungle in Cambodia.
Pol Pot meanwhile had been educated in Paris when Stalinism was popular amongst leftwing student groups so perhaps that's where his extremism came from.
During the Vietnam war the Cambodian communists or Khmer Rouge aided the Viet Cong in supplying their insurgents in South Vietnam while the Cambodian leader. Prince Sihanouk turned a blind eye. As a result the Americans got rid of the prince which united people behind the Khmer Rouge until its victory and subsequent genocide.
Oddly enough one of Pol Pots closest allies was the mildly communist Yugoslavia who sent technicians and aid to Cambodia.

Shortly after the defeat of the KR by Vietnam which was condemned by the west the KR gave up communism as an ideology to gain popular support from Britain and America against the so-called illegal soviet backed Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.
(edited 7 years ago)
Very little of this is anything more than the ramblings of somebody who has, at best, been conned by ideologues. But I'll humour you this once...

Original post by Ambitious1999
The Arab spring resulted partly from the mass unemployment, poverty and debt in Arab countries such as Libya, Tunisia and Syria that resulted from the global recession of 2008.


In very small part from that, yes, and even then only on the principle that most events have knock-on effects, however small. Not nearly enough to justify your original statement that the Arab Spring was caused by the financial crisis.

And, of course, you're completely wrong to assume that 'mass unemployment, poverty, and debt' in Arab countries was wholly, or even largely the consequence of the global recession as opposed to economic mismanagement by their own governments. And that's before we get to the original grievance: repressive dictatorship (although Tunisia is something of an exception to this) which did not tolerate peaceful demonstrations for reforms. But I suppose reality is less important to you than explaining all the problems of the known universe in terms of the evil bogeyman of capitalism.

Jobless youths were told by extremists to blame everything on their leaders such as Gaddafi whose Arab socialist system ironically was the best in the Middle East and Africa.


Nobody who knows the history of Libya under Gaddafi's final years would describe it as 'socialist.' Unlike places like China, that no longer operate under Communism in practice, Gaddafi had long ago abandoned any pretense to socialism and had developed his own political philosophy and published it in his The Green Book (although it contained very little serious argument or proposals).

Instead Al Queda leaders told the youths that their poverty was because of their leaders and not the bankers in Europe and America


Evidence? I have to say, you're sounding like a very naive, brainwashed idealist, given the huge, inaccurate claims that you're making. That you seem to think that all the economic woes of the world can be blamed on the banking sector of Europe and America doesn't suggest that you know anything at all about nuanced thought.

You seem to have taken into account nothing of the pre-Arab Spring state of affairs in the countries in question, nothing of the religious sectarianism that bubbles under the surface of civil society in many peaceful Arab countries, and nothing of the actual Spring itself. The certainty with which you make these false claims indicates quite a degree of naivete and having memorised an explanation of something that you don't really understand.

who in 2008 wrecked the economy and caused the worst economic depression in history.


The Great Depression was worse.

The youths would be encouraged to rebel force out their leaders and leave behind a power vacuum that would allow the growth of extremism and eventually ISIS in countries affected by the Arab spring.


Again, big claims, zero evidence. The 'youths' rebelled of their own accord, starting with peaceful demonstrations, and escalating into armed conflict when those demonstrations were shut down by force.

It really is telling, the extent to which you think every problem can be explained with incoherent diatribes about bankers and capitalism. Having had a few previous encounters with you, it seems to me that you really do not bother thinking for yourself and absorb whatever unsubstantiated propaganda reinforces your embryonic worldview (assuming, of course, from the 1999 in your username).
(edited 7 years ago)

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