Is communism making a come back in Europe?

Original post by Jebedee

How old are you exactly? I seriously doubt if you were alive during those times you would support communism at all.

I am in my 20s. I was not alive back than but I listened to people who were. And no, I am not advocating the back of communism, let alone the western european left have nothing in common with the old guard communists; in fact I am more sympathising with the modern right-wing.

what the modern right-wing and old guard communist have in common is the hatred toward the neo-liberal system.

Human nature is to do the minimum amount of work for maximum pay.

Yes, and in the East block this was the case. Regardless how much work you invested so you would give the same amouth of pay as the others. So, why to compete with others? There is no reason to do so.

[video="youtube;8qWnnuaSS4k"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qWnnuaSS4k[/video]
LOL. Even this shows I was right. The worker did not compete.

If communism was so great then how do you account for economic growth in post communism European countries?

The most former communist countries have nostagic for the old times. And having in mind the living standard neither of them do have with the exception of the visegrad group.

especially the 90s were shitty. To use a banal example use Bulgaria. In 1990 Bulgaria had a population of 9 million. Now, in 2016 it has 7 million. This only shows what the Bulgarians have to suffer of.

Or Russia. The vast majority of Russian would like the Soviet Union back if they had an easy possibility to do so.

And do you know the reason why the Visegrad group are the only who realtivly are better off? It is because they ignore the advices of the west and their neo-liberals approach. They oppose the EU, so no wonder Orban and his counter parts in Poland are hated by the West.

P.S: The older generation will ALWAYS say they prefer the old days. It doesn't matter if they played with rocks in the woods and had an apple for christmas, it is human nature to idealise your youth.

Yes, and I kept this in mind. But the most people could indeed argument better than use emotional reasons.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 62

Thomb

14

Original post by Tempest II

Communism (or leaders/organisations that claim to want Communism) have been responsible for the deaths of 100 million people in the 20th century. The USSR, China, Cuba, DPRK, North Vietnam, etc have all butchered people that don't believe in Communism & for that reason alone.

"In introducing the Black Book, lead author Stephane Courtois, Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, offers the following rough breakdown of the numbers of people that communism killed:
USSR -- 20 million
China -- 65 million
Vietnam -- 1 million
North Korea -- 2 million
Cambodia -- 2 million
Eastern Europe -- 1 million
Latin America -- 150,000
Africa -- 1.7 million
Afghanistan -- 1.5 million
Communist movements, parties not in power -- 10,000"

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4230/so_how_many_did_communism_kill

The whole notion of Communism seems to go against human nature. Our survival mechanism believes in self preservation - water, food, shelter etc & naturally you want as much of that as you can. Yes humans can share but only in small groups where people on the whole know & trust each other. On a large scale Communism is a total disaster.

True but isn't that why you love it!

Reply 63

Original post by Bob's Your Uncle

You're 100% right

Surely your comment here and your support for leave are directly at odds with appearing to support Labour?

Reply 64

Bob's Your Uncle

Original post by The_Opinion

Surely your comment here and your support for leave are directly at odds with appearing to support Labour?

I'm a supporter of Old Labour, the Tony Benn variety

Reply 65

username521617

17

Communism and socialism are represented as supposedly moral systems (that I once bought into). But both involve the use of state sanctioned force where individuals are made to surrender their property to a so-called 'greater good' under threat of imprisonment.

Capitalism lifted more people out of poverty than it put in it. It spurred industrial and technological progress, and it dramatically increased standards of living and life expectancy. Nations that shunned capitalism struggled in these areas until they at least partially embraced it.

Now people complaining about income inequality. But so what if the '1%' have most of the wealth? They still create more wealth for society than you do, they pay a lot more tax than you do, and they give a lot more to charity than you do (on average). And now you feel entitled to their capital by the mere virtue of being? Now you blame capitalism for your misfortune and lack of opportunity?

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 66

Original post by Bob's Your Uncle

I'm a supporter of Old Labour, the Tony Benn variety

The old Labour used to care about Britain (they even opposed the EU), but the Labour party today Is more anti Britain by the day, so I am surprised that you are using your current picture, as it looks like you are a supporter of the modern day party.

Reply 67

DJKL

17

Original post by slaven

Regardless how much work you invested so you would give the same amouth of pay as the others. So, why to compete with others? There is no reason to do so.

.

Because money is not the sole goal in life: anyone who has worked in a position for a number of years will know that a working day spent striving to complete something or achieve something is a day that flies past, there is a satisfaction leaving work and mentally ticking off the days achievements, effort tends to make work enjoyable and any sort of eureka moment, however limited, can create happiness.

If you strive to improve, learn something new every day, it can make life far more interesting.

Reply 68

Bob's Your Uncle

Original post by The_Opinion

The old Labour used to care about Britain (they even opposed the EU), but the Labour party today Is more anti Britain by the day, so I am surprised that you are using your current picture, as it looks like you are a supporter of the modern day party.

No, I'm a supporter of Old Labour. However, I still will vote for Labour because my MP is Denis Skinner. I'm still going to vote leave.

http://www.labourleave.org/#numberblock

Reply 69

Original post by Bob's Your Uncle

No, I'm a supporter of Old Labour. However, I still will vote for Labour because my MP is Denis Skinner. I'm still going to vote leave.

http://www.labourleave.org/#numberblock

But by voting for him, aren't you supporting New Labour on a national level by default?

Reply 70

Bob's Your Uncle

Original post by The_Opinion

But by voting for him, aren't you supporting New Labour on a national level by default?

But he is an old labour man

Reply 71

KimKallstrom

14

Original post by slaven

Well I live in Eastern Europe and from experiance every person that it is in his 50s and 60s, also person who have experiance from both systems said they would prefer the old system.

It would apply to everybody because the old system required less stress and personal energy to invest. As said in capitalist system you need to charm your boss and be better than the other. In the old system it was not the case. You had a daily routine regardless of how a person worked; everybody was equal. Maybe if your parents worked in the communists system I would wished to know if they held the same opinion.

There is one more point. There was no immigratiob and the system preversed monoculturalism.

So it only helped the lazy, unambitious, non-dynamic and non-innovative? Tremendous. I can't possibly imagine why such a system failed.

Reply 72

Rakas21

21

Outside of Greece the left have had no real major success although France in 2017 is probably the best bet (National Front). Looking at Spain, Poland and Hungary i'd say the biggest trend is to keep the center right but elect a much more authoritarian government.

Reply 73

Saoirse:3

19

Original post by Rakas21

Outside of Greece the left have had no real major success although France in 2017 is probably the best bet (National Front). Looking at Spain, Poland and Hungary i'd say the biggest trend is to keep the center right but elect a much more authoritarian government.

National Front? Left? I don't think it's really appropriate to just look at it in economic terms when you're dealing with a "far-right" party, it may make academic sense but just confuses any real political discourse. They have very little in common with any self-proclaimed leftists.)

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 74

KimKallstrom

14

Original post by Jebedee

Because you have to be mentally ill to be pro-communism.

Not true. Communism is great.............if you love bread lines and red terrors and hate success and innovation.

Original post by DJKL

(Life expectancy is a pretty good non financial indicator on the long term success of capitalism)

Yeah I hear countries like Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Austria, Norway, Germany etc don't have very high life expectancies at all..............

Reply 75

Rakas21

21

Original post by Saoirse:3

National Front? Left? I don't think it's really appropriate to just look at it in economic terms when you're dealing with a "far-right" party, it may make academic sense but just confuses any real political discourse. They have very little in common with any self-proclaimed leftists.)

There's a fair claim not to ignore the primary motivation of its supporters but it's very appropriate to keep its economic arguments in mind. There'll be more Socialist voters headed for the National Front than there will be from the UMP.

Reply 76

George VI

5

I hope not, this country does not need those who want to promote their own particular brand of hatred 'class hatred'.

Reply 77

Saoirse:3

19

Original post by Rakas21

There's a fair claim not to ignore the primary motivation of its supporters but it's very appropriate to keep its economic arguments in mind. There'll be more Socialist voters headed for the National Front than there will be from the UMP.

I think there's a difference between appealing to working-class voters who previously supported left-wing parties (much as with UKIP and Labour in Britain), and actually being left-wing. The main issue for me is that the left foolishly assumed to begin with that working-class voters were supporting them because they were left-wing and socialist, rather than just out of tradition or lack of choice and would eventually look to an alternative if they were disenfranchised.

Reply 78