What exactly is wrong with Communism?

If communism means abolishing the class system in favour of equality, then what exactly is wrong with it? Up until now, communism has always been associated with poverty. What if, a world superpower say America for example (or China in the future) resorts to communism. If Britain joins them (and the Commonwealth countries do as well) and the EU then pretty much over half of the world will live in communism. As this spreads, poverty in Africa will be abolished, extreme wealth will be dissolved into the system and the world will potentially stop fighting over wealth and individual gain. The world will be driven by 'the system' and not the 'individual'. New countries will open themselves up to the rest of the world. Borders will be opened and everyone will live as one.

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.

if you're one of these far left nuts who thinks that's what communism will bring, you're wrong.
Communism brings poverty - look at how Russia has been left. Not to mention that it killed more of it's own people in ww2 than fascism.

But if communism was introduced on a global scale it would be different. If a first world country resorted to communism (and others subsequently followed) then the system would have far more power and the inequality leveled out. There would be no capitalist society capable of opposing it. This would not be poverty. It would be a first world lifestyle for everyone.

But if communism was introduced on a global scale it would be different. If a first world country resorted to communism (and others subsequently followed) then the system would have far more power and the inequality leveled out. There would be no capitalist society capable of opposing it. This would not be poverty. It would be a first world lifestyle for everyone.

Socialism is not exclusively left wing, it does NOT need to be aimed at for egalitarian purposes. Either you're going to have to invent a new word for the Nazi economic system (and if it includes the word "capitalism" then I'll say no more, you'll have completely discredited yourself and you'd expose your complete lack of understanding about how the system they had functioned), or accept that it was socialist.

Let's try this again, this time I'll break it down for you CGP stylie:

Wages are given to extent of contribution. (HINT: This means that you do not get money "regardless of quality" or for absence of productivity!)

People are paid, according to how much they labor.

The individual producer receives back from society -- after the deductions have been made -- exactly what he gives to it.


I know its very tempting to think you're the don after you've completed your AS level economics exam, but please do remember that some of us actually know what we're talking about (and have the sources to prove it).

As for the USSR, as I said here that example is null and void since "it was a dictatorial state where workers rights and the proletariat were trampled on by state bureaucrats who simply took capitalism out of the hands of private individuals, and put it in the hands of party apparatchiks".

"Jeez" read a history book

Because we are living in the era of capitalism. It's like asking a 13th century feudal peasant why they weren't living in a corporatist or capitalist society. We're just not there yet.



Leninism/Stalinism/State capitalism do not communist society make



China, that one party dictatorship which has been sharting on worker's for the past 60 years? Given that socialism and communism hold egalitarianism and the rights of the proletariat at their core, and the Chinese regime doesn't, the two are in fact diametric opposites and nothing even approaching similar.

China, the USSR, Cuba and all these other dictatorships can call themselves "communist" for all I care, just remember that North Korea calls itself "democratic". But I don't see you going off on misinformed rants about how democracy "doesn't work"

Because we are living in the era of capitalism. It's like asking a 13th century feudal peasant why they weren't living in a corporatist or capitalist society. We're just not there yet.

...most political philosophers and historians are utter utter morons and quite obviously so, ESPECIALLY in the mainstream. John Rawls, anyone?...

Proletariat (at least in Marx's day) = (made up the) majority of society
Dictatorship of the proletariat = majority rule.

Problem?

Given that communism and socialism hold egalitarianism to be paramount, discrimination of this sort would not be seen in a communist society...dividing people along the lines of class, religion, race, etc are hallmarks of fascism.

Not to mention that the transitionary socialist period would be a constitutional republic, hence the individual's rights are protected.

If communism means abolishing the class system in favour of equality, then what exactly is wrong with it? Up until now, communism has always been associated with poverty. What if, a world superpower say America for example (or China in the future) resorts to communism. If Britain joins them (and the Commonwealth countries do as well) and the EU then pretty much over half of the world will live in communism. As this spreads, poverty in Africa will be abolished, extreme wealth will be dissolved into the system and the world will potentially stop fighting over wealth and individual gain. The world will be driven by 'the system' and not the 'individual'. New countries will open themselves up to the rest of the world. Borders will be opened and everyone will live as one.

When people start calling major thinkers like John Rawls 'morons' I'm confident that what they have to say about philosophy, or history for that matter, isn't worth my effort.

If communism means abolishing the class system in favour of equality, then what exactly is wrong with it? Up until now, communism has always been associated with poverty. What if, a world superpower say America for example (or China in the future) resorts to communism. If Britain joins them (and the Commonwealth countries do as well) and the EU then pretty much over half of the world will live in communism. As this spreads, poverty in Africa will be abolished, extreme wealth will be dissolved into the system and the world will potentially stop fighting over wealth and individual gain. The world will be driven by 'the system' and not the 'individual'. New countries will open themselves up to the rest of the world. Borders will be opened and everyone will live as one.

Communism conjours images of the soviet union in people's minds even though this is not communism. Despite many attempts it has also never been successful and large scales and always descends into Tyranny.