What exactly is wrong with Communism?

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Why is the Soviet Union "not communism"? I can understand that it might not look exactly like Marx's vision in the Manifesto, but it's still communism. It's a form of communism, based upon Marx's teachings. Do you believe that Marx's philosophy is pure and good and that it's just been the few, bad-apple dictators who got it wrong? If that's so, I'd urge you to reconsider. Communism can only work if everyone buys into it. That's how the structure has to be. Everyone has to comply with the terms of the state in order to make it work--you can't 'opt-out' without a communist state. Since you can't 'opt out', it is necessary to have a strong, centralized government that can regulate everything for everyone. This by nature makes the system vulnerable to totalitarianism.

No political system is going to work perfectly, and that's because human beings are messed up. We are all flawed, and vulnerable to temptations of power, wealth, etc. No system can completely safeguard against this, as all systems, being man-made, will have chinks and blind spots which make it possible for some humans to take advantage of things for personal gain, and the oppression of others. But Communism isn't even the 'better option'. There are no examples of Communism working out really well, anywhere. Capitalism has its flaws, too. There are certainly lots of examples of people abusing the system and oppressing others. However, in a conservative, capitalistic system, there is a higher emphasis on individual rights. If you safeguard individual rights (not collective rights), then freedom more often than not will follow in greater quantity.

I like this analogy:

In Communism, it's like everyone gets to play a sport, but you all have to play football. That's the sport that has been deemed appropriate for everyone, and there is no other option. There's a soccer field, and you're on it. That means you have to take the position you can/or have been assigned to within that game. If you don't play along, the team fails. If this happens, you must be removed from the team (however that may look, it's not pretty...)

In Capitalism, there's football, but there's also baseball, rugby, water guns, cricket, AND the option for you to create your own sport. You're all on a huge field that can accommodate different games, and you get to go where you are most able to succeed. It's true, there will be bullies on that field who come by and maybe smack your bottom with a cricket bat and make life difficult for you. But ultimately, you remain free and have SOME options.

A few points.

Firstly, you clearly have no or very little knowledge of theory if you claim that the USSR was communist; it wasn't even socialist. Despite the fact that the workers owned the means of production, it still had a capitalist mode of production (goods produced for exchange on a market, i.e. commodity production), meaning that, in contradiction of the Marxist definition of socialism, the law of value was still in play, all labour was not directly social (for use value), and so on.

As for your point that communism is inherently totalitarian, this, again, shows a lack of theoretical knowledge. Communism is literally stateless by the Marxist definition, as the state apparatus that is required to protect private property and the interests of the capitalist is no longer needed. Therefore, capitalism will always be inherently more totalitarian than communism as it is capitalism that requires a state to perpetuate itself, not communism.

You then go to on to post about '''human nature''', unaware of the way in which production shapes society and the social relations and characteristics thereof (read Althusser or Gramsci, or at least google 'base and superstructure' or 'ISAs and RSAs' :wink:

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Remove the last two sentences of your example of capitalism and then swap the places of capitalism and communism and it's just about accurate.

Reply 201

username3674016

Original post by limetang

Edison is overrated and shouldn't be compared to Fleming and Curie who were actually brilliant.

You are joking, aren't you? Alexander Fleming was (and is) the most overrated fraud to have ever graced the field of medicine. The properties of Penicillium mould had already been discovered long before Fleming was born, and it was Howard Florey and Ernst Chain who worked tirelessly throughout the second world war to make the particular strain of potentially useful Penicillium mould that Fleming had discovered (not through technical brilliance, I might add, but by pure accident) accessible in large quantities.

Despite all of this, and also the fact that he gave up on his research into what he had accidentally discovered because he wasn't skilled enough to do what Florey and Chain would eventually do, he is still co-credited with them for the discovery of Penicillin as we know it today. For shame.

Reply 202

SWCoffee

But Curie was just fine. Even died for her discoveries. Talk about martyrdom.

As for Edison, you're typing on an Edison machine. Specifically, anything related to video is Edison. I won't comment on his character.

This is an interesting aside.

Related.. Epic Rap Battles, Edison vs Tesla.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 203

Bored123456789

Original post by MTR_10

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.

It never works in practice.

History has shown it to be an utter failure.

Inb4 "true communism has never been tried" **** off

Reply 204

SWCoffee

Original post by Chaz254

Inb4 "true communism has never been tried" **** off

Untrue. But we're both bored.

Reply 205

username3674016

Original post by SWCoffee

I respect and admire both Edison and Tesla for their work as inventors, but I would say Tesla is definitely the greater of the two. The man was way ahead of his time. He was able to correctly predict, decades in advance, the emergence of mobile telephones, Wi-Fi and Skype calling. He was essentially the Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century.

Reply 206

sexilexi

Even in theory communism is horrible. Taking only what you need and giving away the rest??? Alright I guess that means no iPhones, no food except potatoes cos you can survive on potato alone. Also wear rags for clothing cos you don't need more than that amount of clothing to survive. Horrible system which would even in theory make everyone live horribly.

Reply 207

verier

Communism says that we are all the same. Sorry but we are not, so it's not fair to equalize everyone regardless of their skills, effort, etc.

Reply 208

Craig1181uk

After reading as many of the posts in this topic as possible, it seems that the main reasons people have for a Communist system not working are that there are examples of it failing in the past (...so it couldn't possibly work if tried again?) and that Humans are, inherently, too greedy to work hard and have an equal share.

When people talk about how Communism couldn't possibly work; are they saying that our current system of Capitalism IS working? I find that arguable. The primary influential factor in every decision made is - "MONEY" - and this often over-shadows Human health and well-being. Even stories of there being huge industries thriving thanks to terrible disorders like Cancer seem completely plausible under our current social system.

When you see people who are contributing NOTHING to society (reality TV stars, for example) and living like Kings which, along with politicians (a position of apparent servitude??) now living like celebrities and playing a global game of chess with innocent people being the pawns...it's incredibly frustrating. Especially when you see specialists like nurses getting their money reduced. Our planet is falling apart... I would argue that any consideration for an alternative should be open for discussion.

Our democracy is currently an illusion where the true influential parties directing Human society is predominantly made up of huge multi-national corporations because the politicians that we elect to serve us care more for their money than they do our combined desires. Money does not recognise culture, language, health, etc. and so how on Earth could it ever possibly respect those things?

I am hoping to advertise the idea of introducing some kind of 'profit cap' to corporations and individuals which would allow them to benefit from hard work, as they do now, but will be capped at a specific profit gain. All excess monies could be added to a public bank account which anyone could access on a simple app. Either way, I would hope that there would never be a situation where a political party could pull £1bn our of its ar*e to bribe another political party to form a coalition.

It's annoying that all these corporations / individuals who are driving / flying around in incredibly expensive cars / planes (and then in some cases campaigning that we should take global warming more seriously......) are spending their money like it was worthless. And it almost is: It's a generally-accepted fact that the more of something you have the less valuable it becomes.

Would this be the case in a Communist society?

Yes, Humans are inherently greedy and this could lead to a few trying to gain power, like in the past, but this is a problem that should be confronted head-on, just as it should be in our current system where a few live an incredibly lavish life-styles while millions of others die of starvation and poverty.

Bit of a disorganised rant here but I would certainly be interested in learning more about Communism and how it could be implemented successfully (if the day every came that our overlords and their super weapon - mass media - could ever be overthrown).

I apologise if my rant was misguided in any way, I attribute a lot to our current social framework which is built around money, and perhaps Capitalism isn't the enemy? I'm open to learn!