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OgreOnAStick wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Hence why I used the term social democracies, which is different from a socialist country. They are a mix of capitalist and socialist systems that can work pretty well. Implementing socialist policies doesn't mean ending up as a hell hole like the quote from 1962 I responded to indicated.

Then why are you using social democracies as a defense for socialism when you know the relation is only tangential?

... Because it is not just tangential is it? On the sliding scale between socialism and capitalism nobody is purely capitalist. The US is closer to capitalism than many European countries, but they still have plenty of socialist aspects. Its proof that socialist policies aren't a bad thing to begin with, its the opression to force them through. Europe could easily institute more policies to ease the distribution of wealth if it wanted to do so witbout force or violence. How do you get to decide when its only tangential? Based on your comments you seem to have a different conception of socialism (i.e. historical versus theory). Not to mention social democracy came into being alongside communism in response to Marx as a non revolutionary approach.

Aye. Communism doesn't requires redistribution of personal wealth, it requires redistribution of collective wealth through a change in the ownership of the means of production. Basically, the idea is to redistribute wealth not by breaking into rich people's homes and stealing all their stuff (as some seem to think it is) but by transferring the ownership of the means of production (factories, farms, businesses) from an individual or shareholders to the employees who are actually generating the wealth. Basically, businesses will be run in a democratic fashion by their employees, instead of in an autocratic fashion by 'the boss'.
Wait... Didn't I say I would keep away from all this ignorance? God, I must hate myself so much...

Maybe is that where I live, the most succesfull business are all cooperatives, because they are from the primary sector (Fishing, Breeding of mussels, etc...) and they work and are organized in a very "socialist" way, with democratic elected presidents, etc... so my vision of a "business" owned by the workers and not by shareholders and "bossess" is more positive than most other people.
Basically everybody has his own sea-farms, they are the ones that work on them, and then they organice themselves to negotiate with other business for a fair price for their product, they put quotas to have a balance between the ones with more sea-farms and the ones with less, etc...

 Galas wrote:
Hmm... wasn't the principle of Comunism the nationalization of the means of production? Where this "Redistribution of Wealth" comes from? In Communism/Socialism everybody is free to make as much money as they want as long as they earn it without taking advantage of the work force of other workers.


And to be honest I don't understand why people uses today ethics to call Lenin and their revolutionaries a bunch of violent thugs. Wherent the French ones the same?
In that same year, in Spain we were under a dictadure, followed by a Republic, followed by a Civil War, and followed by another Dictadure. I know that in USA things wheren't as chaotic, but the 1910-1940 period was a very bloody period in most of Europe. Most of Europe was killing each other in that age.

I know, it could have been ideal if all revolutions in history where made Gandhi's style, but thats isn't how history works.
Personally, I'm totally opposed to the Ideology of Franquism, but I'm not gonna call the right-wing groups in 1920-1936 in Spain assasins, because both right and left wing, in that age, where literally killing each other on the streets.

Because it led to the murder of tens of millions of people.



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 Iron_Captain wrote:
Aye. Communism doesn't requires redistribution of personal wealth, it requires redistribution of collective wealth through a change in the ownership of the means of production. Basically, the idea is to redistribute wealth not by breaking into rich people's homes and stealing all their stuff (as some seem to think it is) but by transferring the ownership of the means of production (factories, farms, businesses) from an individual or shareholders to the employees who are actually generating the wealth. Basically, businesses will be run in a democratic fashion by their employees, instead of in an autocratic fashion by 'the boss'.
Wait... Didn't I say I would keep away from all this ignorance? God, I must hate myself so much...

Except the Bolsheviks did just that. Or in the case of the Kulaks, all of your food too. What you'll starve? Don't bother Dear Leader with capitalist nonsense!

Whenever two groups of people disagree about the nature of man, the more pessimistic group is correct.


If I say people will turn on each other during the zombie apocalypse and I'm going to get mine when that happens and you say they won't and we can work together and come out better for it I am right because I am unconvinced by you.

You would be right if you could convince me, and everyone else that you were right. But as long as the argument continues you are wrong. And you'll have to kill everyone you fail to convince. Edit: or just take their stuff.

That is communism.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Aye. Communism doesn't requires redistribution of personal wealth, it requires redistribution of collective wealth through a change in the ownership of the means of production. Basically, the idea is to redistribute wealth not by breaking into rich people's homes and stealing all their stuff (as some seem to think it is) but by transferring the ownership of the means of production (factories, farms, businesses) from an individual or shareholders to the employees who are actually generating the wealth. Basically, businesses will be run in a democratic fashion by their employees, instead of in an autocratic fashion by 'the boss'.
Wait... Didn't I say I would keep away from all this ignorance? God, I must hate myself so much...

Except the Bolsheviks did just that. Or in the case of the Kulaks, all of your food too. What you'll starve? Don't bother Dear Leader with capitalist nonsense!

Aye, they did that. And more. But it is not inherent to communism. They did it because the circumstances of the Civil War forced them to (they needed the food for the armies), combined with a lot of built-up resentment and hate (these people oppressed us for centuries and even now they support the enemy, let's go get them) and just plain selfish looting. They did not do it because of communism. It isn't like page 47, paragraph 3 of the Communist Manifesto states 'Thou shalt steal all of the rich people's stuff' or anything like that, but strangely enough a lot of (rich) people opposed to communism seem to think it does.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Aye. Communism doesn't requires redistribution of personal wealth, it requires redistribution of collective wealth through a change in the ownership of the means of production. Basically, the idea is to redistribute wealth not by breaking into rich people's homes and stealing all their stuff (as some seem to think it is) but by transferring the ownership of the means of production (factories, farms, businesses) from an individual or shareholders to the employees who are actually generating the wealth. Basically, businesses will be run in a democratic fashion by their employees, instead of in an autocratic fashion by 'the boss'.
Wait... Didn't I say I would keep away from all this ignorance? God, I must hate myself so much...

So instead of stealing their stuff, the communists steal their livelihood. That is not any better.
However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Galas wrote:Hmm... wasn't the principle of Comunism the nationalization of the means of production? Where this "Redistribution of Wealth" comes from? In Communism/Socialism everybody is free to make as much money as they want as long as they earn it without taking advantage of the work force of other workers.

Originated from Lycurgus of Sparta in the form of resource redistribution, which influenced Karl Marx (can't remember which book it was, it was either Critique of Gotha Program or in one of the volumes of Das Kapital) in the form of "to each according to his contribution" and taken to its logical conclusion by Lenin et co. by nationalizing pretty much everything. Modernly it is a viewpoint held by the anarcho-communists who make up a significant portion of the non-academic socialists.

Also, as written communism doesn't use money or have a state for that matter, which indirectly means no private property either as one of the functions of a state is to enforce property rights.

Maybe is that where I live, the most succesfull business are all cooperatives, because they are from the primary sector (Fishing, Breeding of mussels, etc...) and they work and are organized in a very "socialist" way, with democratic elected presidents, etc... so my vision of a "business" owned by the workers and not by shareholders and "bossess" is more positive than most other people.

That sounds a lot like (non-anarchic) syndicalist influence and I am unsurprised to see it function locally, as the problems tend to rise when socialism is taken to national level due to scalability issues.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

... Because it is not just tangential is it? On the sliding scale between socialism and capitalism nobody is purely capitalist. The US is closer to capitalism than many European countries, but they still have plenty of socialist aspects. Its proof that socialist policies aren't a bad thing to begin with, its the opression to force them through. Europe could easily institute more policies to ease the distribution of wealth if it wanted to do so witbout force or violence. How do you get to decide when its only tangential? Based on your comments you seem to have a different conception of socialism (i.e. historical versus theory). Not to mention social democracy came into being alongside communism in response to Marx as a non revolutionary approach.

Just because a capitalistic system has socialistic aspects does not make it socialism as socialism itself includes more than the economic system which is discarded entirely in order to form a social democracy. I do agree however that the scale isn't binary (and includes a centralized-decentralized axis or collectivist-libertarian if one prefers), Capitalism as a whole has evolved quite a lot since Marx' time to adress the issues raised by socialists, although many modern communists (especially anarcho variants) like to pretend it has not.
It has just become an annoyance on how often nordics (thankfully not in this thread) are used as poster children for socialism when they're free market capitalist nations who are wealthy enough to afford social programs (which I am not against unless they start incentivizing unproductivity). Amusingly enough, France is probably one of the more apt examples of adaptation of socialism to fit into capitalist systems needs.

OgreOnAStick wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

... Because it is not just tangential is it? On the sliding scale between socialism and capitalism nobody is purely capitalist. The US is closer to capitalism than many European countries, but they still have plenty of socialist aspects. Its proof that socialist policies aren't a bad thing to begin with, its the opression to force them through. Europe could easily institute more policies to ease the distribution of wealth if it wanted to do so witbout force or violence. How do you get to decide when its only tangential? Based on your comments you seem to have a different conception of socialism (i.e. historical versus theory). Not to mention social democracy came into being alongside communism in response to Marx as a non revolutionary approach.

Just because a capitalistic system has socialistic aspects does not make it socialism as socialism itself includes more than the economic system which is discarded entirely in order to form a social democracy. I do agree however that the scale isn't binary (and includes a centralized-decentralized axis or collectivist-libertarian if one prefers), Capitalism as a whole has evolved quite a lot since Marx' time to adress the issues raised by socialists, although many modern communists (especially anarcho variants) like to pretend it has not.
It has just become an annoyance on how often nordics (thankfully not in this thread) are used as poster children for socialism when they're free market capitalist nations who are wealthy enough to afford social programs (which I am not against unless they start incentivizing unproductivity). Amusingly enough, France is probably one of the more apt examples of adaptation of socialism to fit into capitalist systems needs.

Not necessarily, socialism comes in many forms. Social democracy versus communism was the socialist split of international socialism. Both are expressions of socialism, one just goes much further than the other. Yet even if social democracies aren't close to communism that does not men they aren't partly socialist in nature. There is a reason communists frequently kept referring to themselves as socialists and why they saw social democrats as traitors, because they had different views on socialism and how to achieve it, social democracy was removing the revolutionary potential.

So in that sense, yes Nordic states can be seen as poster children for socialism, the 'good' kind of socialism (not communism) in the form of a highly successful social democracy. They help their population while making it work economically, being free and democratic states. France is a slightly worse example of socialism, because while they have implemented 'more' of it, they don't have the finances to keep it running in the state that it is now. The way to make a more socialist state work currently is either live with the free market and capitalism or have a shift in the future (which history shows likely won't happen with political power/force). But the existence of a free market doesn't exclude socialism in that sense. Socialism comes in many forms, but too easily does it get used as nothing more than a buzzword/byword for communism.

Nordic states are advantaged by wealth coming from hydrocarbons, like the Gulf States. We'll see how they do when that runs out.

 Frazzled wrote:
Nordic states are advantaged by wealth coming from hydrocarbons, like the Gulf States. We'll see how they do when that runs out.

Wait, we have oil? Since when?

 Frazzled wrote:
Nordic states are advantaged by wealth coming from hydrocarbons, like the Gulf States. We'll see how they do when that runs out.

This is mostly the case for Norway, but Norway has already invested in the future knowing natural resources might run out. But there are plenty of social democracies who have done just fine without significant natural resources. Plus with a profound economic shift due to something like robotics, who knows what the future will bring for any Western state?

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Yeah... it is very harmful.

You will not get everyone to meekly submit.

Hence why communism is a failure.

 whembly wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Yeah... it is very harmful.

You will not get everyone to meekly submit.

Hence why communism is a failure.

By that logic capitalism is also a failure.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Yeah... it is very harmful.

You will not get everyone to meekly submit.

Hence why communism is a failure.

By that logic capitalism is also a failure.

Dunno how you can say that.

Much of the innovation and advances on our planet is driven by some sort of capitalistic system/endeavor.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Nordic states are advantaged by wealth coming from hydrocarbons, like the Gulf States. We'll see how they do when that runs out.

This is mostly the case for Norway, but Norway has already invested in the future knowing natural resources might run out. But there are plenty of social democracies who have done just fine without significant natural resources. Plus with a profound economic shift due to something like robotics, who knows what the future will bring for any Western state?

Very true. I am not knocking them.


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Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

There is always a ruling class.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Yeah... it is very harmful.

You will not get everyone to meekly submit.

Hence why communism is a failure.

By that logic capitalism is also a failure.

Ok. They both can be

 whembly wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Yeah... it is very harmful.

You will not get everyone to meekly submit.

Hence why communism is a failure.

By that logic capitalism is also a failure.

Dunno how you can say that.

Much of the innovation and advances on our planet is driven by some sort of capitalistic system/endeavor.

We had innovation and advance long before, without Capitalism. (And I'm not saying this to criticize capitalism, but I just hate the "Omg, if we have science now is because of capitalism!" argument)

 Frazzled wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

There is always a ruling class.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Rosebuddy wrote:

OgreOnAStick wrote:

However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

Well, yes. The point of communism is for there to not be classes anymore. Of course this would mean the redistribution of the colossal, incomprehensible wealth of the ruling class. "You're going to live like anyone else now" is not actually harmful.

Yeah... it is very harmful.

You will not get everyone to meekly submit.

Hence why communism is a failure.

By that logic capitalism is also a failure.

Ok. They both can be

Both are, both for practical reasons but only one in theory. Pure capitalism is both for practical and theoretical (as its just economic theory) reasons pretty flawed, because if money is the end all most would consider that pretty terrible. Communism tends to be a failure in practice because it is done by force, yet we have never seen a peaceful method to reach the theoretical stage. One could argue that 'pure' communism/socialism (end goal is the same) could be great (as it sounds in theory). As of now, all of communist history has told us that people seem to be unable to reach that theoretical point (technological developments not withstanding). People are flawed and if there is one thing 20th century communism has shown its that flawed people who think they know better and try to impose that by force tend to create terrible states. As Rosebuddy says, in 'pure' communism there aren't (or shouldn't really be) any classes anymore, yet all the communist leaders deemed fit to become the wealthy ruling class, to take that 'burden' off the people of course

No communist state has managed to move beyond the new communist ruling class, which is pretty ironic.

I believe in God-Level IA communism.

OgreOnAStick wrote:
So instead of stealing their stuff, the communists steal their livelihood. That is not any better.
However, once the communists start enforcing "To each according to his contribution" (as the borgeoisie haven't put in the perceived labour equal to their wealth) then they will come for borgeoisies stuff.

That's certainly a hyperbolic way of looking at it. Is it "stealing your stuff" when you have to pay taxes?

And it really says a lot that people are sincerely claiming that "you will live at the level of wealth of your common workers" is oppression and genocide and stealing livelihoods and all that. If that's really such a horrible level of oppression then what does it say about the wealthy under a capitalist system that they're willing to force others to live at that same standard for their own personal benefit? The more you argue that communism is oppressive the more you concede that capitalism and the people who benefit from it are guilty of the same oppression.


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OgreOnAStick wrote:
Then I'll just move the the carrot patch into a hypothetical location where there are no other people. The carrots are still form of wealth as I can attribute value to them by eating them. The presence of society is also irrelevant.

I don't think you understand what "wealth" means. A small amount of food is not "wealth", and it says a lot that this is the kind of example you have to resort to as supposed proof of self-generated wealth.

Your argument was that in X you are forced to work or starve. This is applies to both capitalism and socialism.

No it doesn't. Socialist states tend to have welfare systems and a belief that everyone should be able to get a basic standard of living, regardless of what work they do. Because, you know, we shouldn't just leave people to starve to death. Capitalism, in the absence of socialist beliefs modifying and restraining it, leaves you to starve (or to work in horrible poverty just to survive).

Your claim (see below) was that communism wasn't inherently tyrannical. You seem to be contradicting yourself.

What I described is not tyranny, unless you want to concede that the US is a tyrannical state. If you don't pay your taxes in the US you will get fined and owe the government even more. And at some point the government will take the money from you directly, and potentially arrest you for tax evasion. And if, when the police come to arrest you, you resist, it will be a case of suicide by cop. The principle is exactly the same as it is in a communist state, the only difference is what tax level is imposed.

It falls entirely within the definition of genocide (see below). There are no taxes in communism since private property is not a concept in communism and since (as demonstrated above) you are oppressing the bourgeoisie through jailing (people in prison don't breed) or killing them, yes the communists are waging a war of extermination on them.

That's ridiculous. It's like saying we're committing genocide against drug dealers and bank robbers in the US because we arrest them and send them to prison. There is no war of extermination required, the bourgeoise are free to follow the laws of society like everyone else and have the same life. The only violence applied to them is the same violence that every state applies to criminals that violate its laws.

OgreOnAStick wrote:
There are no taxes in communism since private property is not a concept in communism

Private property might not mean what you think it does. In a communist context, private property is the social relationship between an owner (employer) and the deprived (employees). Again, when communists are talking about abolishing private property, they are not talking about stealing all of your stuff, they are talking about equalising the relationship between employer and employees so that everyone becomes an owner.

Probably, what you think of as private property (your carrots or your money), is what is actually called personal property. Private property purely refers to the ownership of the means of production by individuals (and its resulting unequal social relationships) instead of the community as a whole.

 Peregrine wrote:

That's certainly a hyperbolic way of looking at it. Is it "stealing your stuff" when you have to pay taxes?

That would only be true in cases where you get nothing in return for your taxes. Just to name a few: Safety in the form of police and military, infrastructure in form of railways and... *cue screeching ancaps* roads, postal service, public schools, healthcare (in some countries) and justice system.

And it really says a lot that people are sincerely claiming that "you will live at the level of wealth of your common workers" is oppression and genocide and stealing livelihoods and all that. If that's really such a horrible level of oppression then what does it say about the wealthy under a capitalist system that they're willing to force others to live at that same standard for their own personal benefit? The more you argue that communism is oppressive the more you concede that capitalism and the people who benefit from it are guilty of the same oppression.

If I had the means, will and skill to live at a higher level of wealth and the state/proletariat forced me not to, then yes I would be oppressed by the state/proletariat as they are arbitrarily restricting my life choices.
Capitalistic systems minimize their oppressive behaviour to the absolute minimum in order to incentivise the citizen to be productive and better themselves in order to benefit from their productivity.

I don't think you understand what "wealth" means. A small amount of food is not "wealth", and it says a lot that this is the kind of example you have to resort to as supposed proof of self-generated wealth.

Literally anything that can be attributed value to is wealth. And please do attempt to refute the example if you think so lowly of it.

No it doesn't. Socialist states tend to have welfare systems and a belief that everyone should be able to get a basic standard of living, regardless of what work they do. Because, you know, we shouldn't just leave people to starve to death. Capitalism, in the absence of socialist beliefs modifying and restraining it, leaves you to starve (or to work in horrible poverty just to survive).

Except those who hold different ideologies (guilty of wrongthink), are too wealthy (borgeoisie) or refuse to work (parasites). Let me remind you of what Lenin cited as a core principle of socialism "He who does not work, neither shall he eat". Also the Ukranians might want to object.
There is no reason for capitalistic systems to intentionally starve their own workforce. Healthy workers are far more productive than those dying of starvation. Amusingly enough, capitalism seems to breed poor fat people more than starving ones.

What I described is not tyranny, unless you want to concede that the US is a tyrannical state. If you don't pay your taxes in the US you will get fined and owe the government even more. And at some point the government will take the money from you directly, and potentially arrest you for tax evasion. And if, when the police come to arrest you, you resist, it will be a case of suicide by cop. The principle is exactly the same as it is in a communist state, the only difference is what tax level is imposed.

Tax evasion is theft from the state as one benefits from the services provided by the state for which the tax provides the funding for.
I repeat: Capitalistic systems minimize their oppressive behaviour. State socialism does not as it seeks to control their citizens.
Also, the difference between the tax rates are massive, 12% (in US, unless it has changed over the years) taxation that is used to (mostly) benefit the payer and partially refunded vs. you don't pay taxes because you don't own anything and whatever you do possess can be taken at will to be used to the benefit of the collective.

That's ridiculous. It's like saying we're committing genocide against drug dealers and bank robbers in the US because we arrest them and send them to prison. There is no war of extermination required, the bourgeoise are free to follow the laws of society like everyone else and have the same life. The only violence applied to them is the same violence that every state applies to criminals that violate its laws.

Drug dealers and bank robbers are sent to prison because they are actually commiting a crime. They are not imprisoned due to their political views. You are comparing apples to oranges.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Private property might not mean what you think it does. In a communist context, private property is the social relationship between an owner (employer) and the deprived (employees). Again, when communists are talking about abolishing private property, they are not talking about stealing all of your stuff, they are talking about equalising the relationship between employer and employees so that everyone becomes an owner.

Probably, what you think of as private property (your carrots or your money), is what is actually called personal property. Private property purely refers to the ownership of the means of production by individuals (and its resulting unequal social relationships) instead of the community as a whole.

Only marxists make this distinction in definition. In colloqual language it is a distinction without a difference. Also, please refrain from redefining words as I am not interested in getting the conversation bogged down to an argument about semantics.
Equalization of the ownership of something is oppressive towards those who possess more of the ownership of that said something as he in effect owns less of that something. Holding shares in a company is an example. Owner x owns y shares in the company, thus giving him equal say about the company to that of the shares he holds. When these shares are then equalized he owns y/n shares where n is the amount of new shareholders who hold equal amounts of shares to x. As x now owns less shares in the company he holds less power over the companys direction. Unless x willingly agreed to the redistribution (as is his choices as an individual), he is being oppressed by the ones who forced the equalization upon the company.

 Skinnereal wrote:
India was part of the British Empire, Just to be picky The Empire collapsed into becoming the Commonwealth.
The points stated still stand, though.

One internet point to you, Skinnereal


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Rosebuddy wrote:
To say that communism is in part about a desire to control is trivially true but it's dishonest to not specify that it's about the desire for the working class to control the means of production.

Except that all the worker's committees that get set up just seem to keep on losing power and authority, as it is drawn up to the highest levels of power. If the primary focus was on maximising worker control then that should not happen. Because it happens every single time, if becomes pretty obvious that worker control of the means of production is not a genuine objective.

Capitalism is also about a desire to control, specifically the desire for the capitalist class to control the means of production.

The 'capitalist class' is a generalisation, a broad collection of people each acting in their own interests, generally in direct competition with each other. As individuals they desire more more power and more status, they do not seek as a collective to dominate. Making that claim would mean pretending that Bill Gates is happy when Mark Zuckerberg gains more power, because their class as a whole is now more powerful. It's a total fething nonsense.

In contrast, a group of communist revolutionaries are part of a single, unified organisation. Whether its Lenin's Bolsheviks, Mao's CCP or some other group, they are a single organisation which acts with group interests in mind. Now, it is hypothetically possible that a group may have goals beyond their own power, many political groups do. But it is simply not true of any major communist group we have seen in history.

That capitalism is fundamentally about a very small group controlling how resources are extracted, distributed and used has not and can not be mitigated. Social democracy is a compromise that can only come into existence when there is a strong workers' movement and that can only continue to exist when there is a strong communist power to show the capitalists and the workers that there is an alternative to capitalism.

Your first sentence claims capitalism's excesses cannot be mitigated. Your second sentence describes the exact process of mitigation we've seen in many countries.

And there most definitely are those who argue against capitalism being inescapably exploitative. Pick any free marketeer. We got one earlier in the thread.

I chose my words quite specifically; "this is widely accepted and barely argued against".

And no, finding some random on dakka who is willing to argue a position is not evidence of something being widely argued. This is dakka, and we all know the kind of stuff that posters here will defend.


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 Peregrine wrote:
They created something, but they didn't do it on their own. Take away the many supporting inventions, and their countless lower-level workers and they have nothing. Bill Gates is not obscenely rich without other people inventing the computer. Jeff Bezos is not obscenely rich without having tons of people working in his warehouses for poverty-level wages, allowing him to undercut his competition's prices.

Yep. Ask yourself if any wealthy person can personally build and combine all the parts needed for their Lexus, make and assemble all the materials that make up their six bedroom high spec home, and sew their own suits and silk ties. Obviously they can't. Wealth creation is a social process. That very heart of capitalism, seperation of specialties and trade, is a process that depends co-operating with other people in society.

Warren Buffet is the textbook example of profiting from the work of others. He didn't build anything, he simply directed money between people and took a share of the profits. He's a parasite on the economy, taking immense wealth while contributing nothing of value in return.

Okay but that's taking it way too far. While it is more than fair to say investment, financing and business management are way over-rewarded, it is false to claim they have no value at all. The allocation of resources to their most effective purpose is an essential part of any economy.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


Sigh, again there is a difference between famine in a communist and capitalist world, and deliberate famine in a communist country (or capitalist)... If capitalism gets blamed for not caring people starving to death than communism doesn't get a free pass either, what did the communist system do for China during the Great famine? I'm not criticizing communism as a system for causing famine, I'm criticizing communist governments (SU and PRC) for engineering them.

Again, you're taking about the whole system versus a single government. Its an important distinction, food aid is also a program driven by a capitalist system. Yes the capitalist world doesn't do enough to help prevent starvation, but its not deliberately engineering them either. I gave an example of an empire deliberately not shipping food to a starving population, the Bengal famine. Do you have any examples of capitalist countries that deliberately engineered a famine in their own country while exporting food?

Yes I'm talking about the whole system becuase in the real world there are more actors then just governments, and does it really makes a difference if there is a government bureaucrat or a CEO that deprives people of food? We produce more then enough food to feed everyone, yet people are deprived of it to the degree that millions die every year of it, how is that any less deliberate then what the USSR did?

The USSR also had food aid programs, does that absolve them of their sins?

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


There is a significant difference in the academic world. Its why they have developed terms such as neo-colonialism.

Not in any acedemic setting I have been in. But if you wanna go down that route that it wasn't your specific, infallible version of capitalism that starved millions to death, then I counter that USSR/PRC wasn't real communism, so communism hasn't killed anyone

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

Capitalism isn't a political ideology that deliberately runs on murder and genocide. It's an economic system that is chained to a free market that can be fickle in the best of times, and one that has a tendency to attract people whose view is too narrowly focused on "the bottom line"

Private enterprise does not make a habit of planning out genocide, famines, and mass murder on an epic scale. Communist regimes, on the other hand, have done so.

Your comparison of a profit driven economic system with a totalitarian and murderous ideology is dishonest at best, plain ignorant at worst.

So if the "free market" keeps food out of the hands out of starving people(When there is more then enough food for everyone) they aren't responsible when people starve to death? Are you sure that you aren't a Stalin apoligist?

And on the contrary starvation is a habit in capitalism because food is grown for profit rather then use, in 2006 alone 36 million died of malnutrion while we growed enough food to feed 12 billion people.

 Galas wrote:
And to be honest I don't understand why people uses today ethics to call Lenin and their revolutionaries a bunch of violent thugs. Wherent the French ones the same?

Yes, the French revolutionaries were also murderous, and their murders also failed to achieve anything that wasn't better achieved elsewhere . It was called 'the terror' for a reason. The existence of other murderous failures in history doesn't in anyway excuse the murders of Lenin & friends.

I know, it could have been ideal if all revolutions in history where made Gandhi's style, but thats isn't how history works.

Nehru is bizarrely written out of Indian history in the West. But he was the one who led Congress through the independence movement, it Nehru who drafted the declaration of Independence, it was Nehru's vision of a secular republic that was realised, and it was Nehru who became India's first Prime Minister. Nehru took Ghandi's message and made it a real, achievable thing. I'm not saying Ghandi wasn't a major part of Indian independence, but Nehru was at least as important and is now almost entirely unknown outside of India.

Anyhow, enough of that personal bugbear of mine. You are right that not every revolution can be as peaceful as India's, but the lesson there shouldn't be to accept that sometimes there's gonna be piles of bodies. The real lesson should be that for all the bodies, the Soviet Union is now gone. The French Revolution failed, replaced by a dictatorship. India's democratic state is still with us. And France's only built a stable democratic republic when it did so without a mass bloodletting. So maybe the real answer is that reform without carnage is the best way of getting something that might actually last.


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 Disciple of Fate wrote:
... Because it is not just tangential is it? On the sliding scale between socialism and capitalism nobody is purely capitalist. The US is closer to capitalism than many European countries, but they still have plenty of socialist aspects. Its proof that socialist policies aren't a bad thing to begin with, its the opression to force them through.

That's a bit like noting that there's arsenic in bananas and bananas don't poison us, therefore arsenic isn't inherently bad. It is the size of the dose that's the issue.

The analogy doesn't work completely because arsenic in small doses is harmless, whereas socialism in medium doses isn't just harmless, but essential. But its Friday afternoon and I didn't sleep much last night, so that's the analogy I'm running with.

Anyhow, the greater point is not just that once you get to a certain extent with communism it isn't just harmful, but that the people demanding that extreme level of communism have shown themselves historically to be motivated more by the appeal of authoritarian control than in actual equality. Afterall, if its equality your after then democratic activism has a great track record of improving lives. The people who ignore that with dreams of building their own communist states are... motivated more by the bit about 'building their own state' than the 'communist' bit.


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 Frazzled wrote:
Nordic states are advantaged by wealth coming from hydrocarbons, like the Gulf States. We'll see how they do when that runs out.

Okay, so Fraz thinking all Scandinavian states are Norway is no real surprise. The amazing bit is where he seems to either forget where Texas' wealth comes from, or alternatively forgets that he lives there.


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 whembly wrote:
Dunno how you can say that.

Much of the innovation and advances on our planet is driven by some sort of capitalistic system/endeavor.

Because your argument was that there will be resistance to communism that must be repressed. That's true, but also true of capitalism. As such, the fact that there's resistance that must be oppressed isn't a criticism of any one system, but a truism of any system.

Your second point, that capitalism has driven almost all our innovation and advances (in the last century), is a true and good point. But it is not related to your earlier argument.

OgreOnAStick wrote:
That would only be true in cases where you get nothing in return for your taxes. Just to name a few: Safety in the form of police and military, infrastructure in form of railways and... *cue screeching ancaps* roads, postal service, public schools, healthcare (in some countries) and justice system.

And you get something for your work in a communist system. You are disagreeing over tax rates, not making any fundamental ethical point.

If I had the means, will and skill to live at a higher level of wealth and the state/proletariat forced me not to, then yes I would be oppressed by the state/proletariat as they are arbitrarily restricting my life choices.
Capitalistic systems minimize their oppressive behaviour to the absolute minimum in order to incentivise the citizen to be productive and better themselves in order to benefit from their productivity.

Capitalism also reduces your ability to live at a higher level of wealth, the only difference is the degree to which that ability is reduced. Sometimes communism reduces it more, sometimes capitalism reduces it more. A former rich investment banker in a communist society will see their standard of living reduced, but someone who is born into crippling poverty in a capitalist system and is never able to get a university degree, better job opportunities, etc, will also see their ability to live at a higher wealth level restricted.

And I strongly dispute this idea that capitalist systems minimize their oppressive behavior, or care about citizens bettering themselves. In fact, capitalism requires a large pool of poverty-wage workers who will never be able to better themselves, and the system encourages the wealthy elite to exploit that pool as much as possible.

Literally anything that can be attributed value to is wealth. And please do attempt to refute the example if you think so lowly of it.

Apparently you didn't read your own definition very carefully, because you missed the key word: abundance. Wealth requires an abundance of a particular object of value, subsistence farming (or less, in your example) is not wealth.

Tax evasion is theft from the state as one benefits from the services provided by the state for which the tax provides the funding for.

And hoarding wealth in a communist system is theft from the state as one benefits from the services provided by the state for which the collectivization of wealth and industry provides the funding for. And you're ignoring the bigger picture of the example. Whatever you feel about the financial policy of a communist system, it's the law of that country. A person who breaks the law is going to be punished by the state, no matter what form of state you're talking about. The police using force against a criminal is not inherently oppressive, whether that crime is refusing to pay a 10% tax or refusing to pay a 100% tax. A communist state requires the ability to use police power to enforce its laws. It does not inherently require mass murder of anyone who has a dissenting opinion, but complies with the law.

Drug dealers and bank robbers are sent to prison because they are actually commiting a crime. They are not imprisoned due to their political views. You are comparing apples to oranges.

A person in a communist society who illegally hoards wealth is also guilty of a crime, beyond their political views. You may disagree with the argument that hoarding wealth should be a crime, but I could disagree with the fact that using various drugs that are illegal in the US is a crime. It is absurd to call the use of police power to enforce compliance with a law "genocide" just because you don't like the law in question.

Only marxists make this distinction in definition. In colloqual language it is a distinction without a difference.

Who cares about colloquial language? In the context of economic and government policy the distinction exists. There is a clear functional difference between personal property and capital. A communist state has no need to concern itself with personal property of minimal financial value. The police are not going to show up and steal your beloved childhood toy just to prove that property is not a concept anymore. Even in real-world communist countries personal property still existed, and your neighbor couldn't just take whatever they want from you.

 sebster wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And to be honest I don't understand why people uses today ethics to call Lenin and their revolutionaries a bunch of violent thugs. Wherent the French ones the same?

Yes, the French revolutionaries were also murderous, and their murders also failed to achieve anything that wasn't better achieved elsewhere . It was called 'the terror' for a reason. The existence of other murderous failures in history doesn't in anyway excuse the murders of Lenin & friends.

I know, it could have been ideal if all revolutions in history where made Gandhi's style, but thats isn't how history works.

Nehru is bizarrely written out of Indian history in the West. But he was the one who led Congress through the independence movement, it Nehru who drafted the declaration of Independence, it was Nehru's vision of a secular republic that was realised, and it was Nehru who became India's first Prime Minister. Nehru took Ghandi's message and made it a real, achievable thing. I'm not saying Ghandi wasn't a major part of Indian independence, but Nehru was at least as important and is now almost entirely unknown outside of India.

Anyhow, enough of that personal bugbear of mine. You are right that not every revolution can be as peaceful as India's, but the lesson there shouldn't be to accept that sometimes there's gonna be piles of bodies. The real lesson should be that for all the bodies, the Soviet Union is now gone. The French Revolution failed, replaced by a dictatorship. India's democratic state is still with us. And France's only built a stable democratic republic when it did so without a mass bloodletting. So maybe the real answer is that reform without carnage is the best way of getting something that might actually last.

Now that is something that I can totally agree with. Violent revolution never ends well. Sometimes there is no other option, but I have yet to see a violent revolution that did not simply result in another dictatorship. In fact, usually revolutions seem to follow an eerily similar pattern across nations. In the Soviet Union the revolution ended in the rule of Stalin. Still, for all its failure it did result in massive improvements that otherwise would not have happened, the foundation of modern Russia and a whole lot of stuff to be grateful for.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Dunno how you can say that.

Much of the innovation and advances on our planet is driven by some sort of capitalistic system/endeavor.

Because your argument was that there will be resistance to communism that must be repressed. That's true, but also true of capitalism. As such, the fact that there's resistance that must be oppressed isn't a criticism of any one system, but a truism of any system.

Your second point, that capitalism has driven almost all our innovation and advances (in the last century), is a true and good point. But it is not related to your earlier argument.

It is not entirely true though. A great deal of our innovation and advances in the previous century were made under fascism and communism. In fact, due to the costs that come with scientific research and little government contribution (which means scientists often can't do things for lack of money) and things like draconian copyright laws, capitalism is often more of a hassle for science than it is a boon. It is easier to be a scientist in a country where the government is really focused on scientific progress and will just pay any expenses, regardless of the political system. Although the countries in this last category often do tend to be pretty high on the authoritarian spectrum.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


Sigh, again there is a difference between famine in a communist and capitalist world, and deliberate famine in a communist country (or capitalist)... If capitalism gets blamed for not caring people starving to death than communism doesn't get a free pass either, what did the communist system do for China during the Great famine? I'm not criticizing communism as a system for causing famine, I'm criticizing communist governments (SU and PRC) for engineering them.

Again, you're taking about the whole system versus a single government. Its an important distinction, food aid is also a program driven by a capitalist system. Yes the capitalist world doesn't do enough to help prevent starvation, but its not deliberately engineering them either. I gave an example of an empire deliberately not shipping food to a starving population, the Bengal famine. Do you have any examples of capitalist countries that deliberately engineered a famine in their own country while exporting food?

Yes I'm talking about the whole system becuase in the real world there are more actors then just governments, and does it really makes a difference if there is a government bureaucrat or a CEO that deprives people of food? We produce more then enough food to feed everyone, yet people are deprived of it to the degree that millions die every year of it, how is that any less deliberate then what the USSR did?

The USSR also had food aid programs, does that absolve them of their sins?

Yes, and in the real world a government murdering its own citizens is terrible. It does make a significant difference if its a private or state actor that deprives people of food, because circumstances are entirely different. States are on an entirely different level of responsibility, because a state is in control of the lives of its own citizens. What CEO's contribute in lack of food or destruction of environment is terrible, but you can't point the finger at them and directly blame them for famines because the food is still being sold (granted its extremely troubling and should be tackled) to them, you can at a state if you look at policies.

The USSR might have had food aid programs, the key is they also deliberately starved their own people, so no it doesn't. Food aid was an example of how rich states try to help poor states (however little it does), it isn't an example of a rich state having deliberately starved its own people to death to then give food aid. How you can consider outside and non-state actors as responsible for famines as internal actors who knowingly caused them is just strange, as the level of control is a different scale. The 'ironic' thing is that the SU starved their people so it could sell food on the free market (capitalism!) to finance its industrialization.

 ulgurstasta wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


There is a significant difference in the academic world. Its why they have developed terms such as neo-colonialism.

Not in any acedemic setting I have been in. But if you wanna go down that route that it wasn't your specific, infallible version of capitalism that starved millions to death, then I counter that USSR/PRC wasn't real communism, so communism hasn't killed anyone

No joke, if your academic setting does not or cannot distinguish between imperialism and capitalism that's not a very good setting. Even Lenin distinguished between imperialism and capitalism, looking at imperialism as a way to maintain capitalism and not an inherent part of. That doesn't mean that you have to dump responsibility for suffering on one or the other, imperialism and capitalism both cause and caused suffering (such as famines). Sadly for you just as neither capitalism or imperialism escapes criticism, neither does communism escape for being 'specific', because second world communism clearly stated they wanted to move to the end goal of Marxian communism. Unless the crimes of capitalism are forgiven for not being 'pure' capitalism we can't forgive the crimes of communism for not being 'pure' communism.

OgreOnAStick wrote:
Only marxists make this distinction in definition. In colloqual language it is a distinction without a difference. Also, please refrain from redefining words as I am not interested in getting the conversation bogged down to an argument about semantics.

-"You're misunderstanding what communists say."
-"Only marxists talk like that. I'm not interested in knowing."


...



Communists generally use a marxist model to describe society. They generally used terminology based in the writings of Marx. So what "private property" means when discussed by communists is not useless semantics, it's actually critically important to understand.

OgreOnAStick wrote:
Equalization of the ownership of something is oppressive towards those who possess more of the ownership of that said something as he in effect owns less of that something. Holding shares in a company is an example. Owner x owns y shares in the company, thus giving him equal say about the company to that of the shares he holds. When these shares are then equalized he owns y/n shares where n is the amount of new shareholders who hold equal amounts of shares to x. As x now owns less shares in the company he holds less power over the companys direction. Unless x willingly agreed to the redistribution (as is his choices as an individual), he is being oppressed by the ones who forced the equalization upon the company.

It isn't oppression to redistribute wealth that has been gotten by plunder. It isn't oppression to make the economy more democratic. That is the opposite of oppression, that's justice. You might as well complain that kings are oppressed when people want a republic instead. Tell me, was the British Crown the target of oppression during the American revolution? Were slave owners the target of oppression during the Civil War?

I think now's a good time as any to say i have several co-workers that used to live in the soviet union.

Supposedly one of their sons working at my job said their dad managed to leave romania (under soviet control) before he could be taken in by the military and if they knew he would've probably been killed.

Another from Belarus said the punishment for not doing your time in the military as a soviet man during the time he served was several choices. You could take a pill that would ruin your mental capacity for life, go to a re-education or forced labor camp or something to that effect. So yeah once you reached a certain age military duty was pretty much mandatory if you were a man. They gave you other choices but they were awful. The guy from belarus also said men and women in his nation weren't allowed to be anything outside of their set roles. Supposedly women couldn't be in the military and such like. Also in the soviet union or at least belarus they didn't like gay people from what they mentioned. This is all fairly recent as far as soviet timeline goes as my co-worker from belarus talked about the chernobyl incident happening when he was doing his mandatory time in the military.

Anyway both of those co-workers are very republican. I dunno but maybe living under communism has that effect on people.