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Guitardian wrote:Our revered President Rutherford B. Hayes ordered federal troops to fire on a large group of striking railroad workers, killing about 70 people in order to stop a strike. There is a memorial to him at his childhood home in Ohio, where an orphanage was dedicated and founded in his name. I wonder where the orphans came from Mr. Hayes?

You're asking a 100 year dead man a question? You are insinuating the U.S. hasn't evolved to a point where shooting at strikers and killing 70 people wouldn't get someone in major trouble? I'll be the first to admit that there were and are some real bastards in U.S. politics, but no where close to what you'd see in Communist countries.

Gailbraithe wrote:

BearersOfSalvation wrote:You want me to post pictures of Soviet workers sent to a Gulag for trying to do anything in a union but agree with their bosses and turn people in? That's communism in action. Communist countries are far, far worse on labor unions than capitalist countries.

That's a ridiculous claim. Both communist authoritarian states and capitalist authoritarian states deal with unions the same way: through violent oppression. Neither is worse than the other. Labor unions in democratic countries do better than labor unions in authoritarian countries, but since there is no connection between democracy and capitalism, it is ridiculous to claim that capitalism is better for labor unions. America has a wonderful history of shooting innocent people for exercising their right to free assembly.

I'll show you one that started the revolution that started the downfall of the Warsaw Pact.
Poland.

In the US I can vote on whether or not to join the union and whether or not to strike. you Europeans have turned union striking into a pass time.
Do that in a communist country and you end up either dead or leading a revolution. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1983/walesa-bio.html

sebster wrote:A person is still paid according to the work they do in society. If a person is not able to get a job in his preferred position, he would still need a job in order to buy stuff he wants. This mechanism is the same whether the means of production are owned by private citizens or the state.

Contrary to popular belief, a doctor in a communist society was paid more than a street sweeper.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". If you pay people based on the work they do instead of according to need, you're doing the opposite of what communism says to do. The doctor being paid more than a street sweeper is just one of those things done temporarily while the revolution sorts out, it's not supposed to happen in the end result.

Orwell was a socialist himself. His criticism was of the anti-democratic tendencies common in communist movements. He himself argued for democratic socialism.

Democratic socialism is not communism, regardless of what propaganda against it said. Most notably, it actually has a track record of not killing off huge chunks of the population when someone attempts to put it into practice.

I like the of communism but I think it's downfall is human's faults rather than anything wrong with communism. Because of this I try to be slightly less extreme.

Yes in the recent past communism has commited some horrible acts but so have every kind of government it's just communism getting targeted and having it's faults magnified. Throughout history communism has done very little compared to other kinds of ruling. Communism has the biggest appeal for poorer countries where this kind of thing happens regardless of how it's run.

If people could follow the idea exactly as it's meant to be followed it would work but that is against huaman nature. You can get close but humans are too selfish for communism which I think is a shame as could see it solving a lot of problems.

4M2A wrote:

If people could follow the idea exactly as it's meant to be followed it would work but that is against huaman nature. You can get close but humans are too selfish for communism which I think is a shame as could see it solving a lot of problems.

So it doesn't work actually. Its a system for humans, not computers. If it doesn't work for actual humans it doesn't work.

It is an easy target. But how many people here bashing commie state atrocities are any denomination of Xtianity, the supposed mover-n'-shaker for our enlightened western ways? Do we really want to dig to deep into magdallan-stoning, witch-burning, inquisitorial 'trials', crusades, atrocities as a comparison? Xtianity has lumped itself upon western civilization as a moral imperative, whether you believe in it or not, the culture is laden with it. The way I see it they are both misled idealisms, but the former is a lot more vicious than the latter. It's just that commies have the disadvantage of existing post-technology so the capacity for harm was more obvious and documented. Next time all the commie bashers have their weekly day in church they should just think Torquemada, Cortez, Richard, and wonder why anybody buys into this tripe or that tripe in the first place. I don't see much difference between preaching 'love your fellow man' while burning witches, and saying 'all people are equal' while marching them off to the gulag. Hippocrasy all of it. Think for yourself. If you are a true communist (not the political party but the ideology), you help where you can and hope/expect others to do the same for you. That's all it is.

I would argue that The Enlightenment is the supposed mover-n'-shaker for our enlightened western ways, not religion.

Er, isn't one a religion, and one a political ideology?

Also you shouldn't push that Christianity is evil too shtick too hard. After all much, of the afterlife is akin to communist ideology.

Frazzled wrote:Er, isn't one a religion, and one a political ideology?

Also you shouldn't push that Christianity is evil too shtick too hard. After all much, of the afterlife is akin to communist ideology.

A lot of the bible is akin to Communist ideology.

Don't tell that to the Republicans though!

or Democrats

Frazzled wrote:or Democrats

Exactly.

Same thing, really.

Frazzled wrote:
Also you shouldn't push that Christianity is evil too shtick too hard. After all much, of the afterlife is akin to communist ideology.

One vision of Utopia is like another vision of Utopia?

Wow, its almost as if they were both Utopian!

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Also you shouldn't push that Christianity is evil too shtick too hard. After all much, of the afterlife is akin to communist ideology.

One vision of Utopia is like another vision of Utopia?

Wow, its almost as if they were both Utopian!

Is there a standardized definition of Utopia?

I mean, I know about Plato and all that, but surely there can be different flavors for different ideologies.

Yep

Monster Rain wrote:
Is there a standardized definition of Utopia?

Officially? No. But I think you would be hard pressed to find a lot of variance across the conceptual landscape.

For example Marx's Communism treats 'good' in the same way that Capitalist systems do, it just describes a different path to that good.

I dont even think communism is a good idea..... trying to achieve an end state where everyone is happy is absurd. people are by nature impossible to satisfy. they're born to be unhappy bc they want things they cant have, and when they get the things they want they grow out of old desires and learn new ones. people who cannot limit their desires - who cannot learn to be content - can never be happy. as this will always be most of the people in the world a state or economic system that attempts to erase their unhappiness is doomed to failure, no matter what particular strategy for the distribution of goods it employs.

Relapse wrote:

Tianamen square

Hungary

Chechoslavakia

Romania

etc., etc.

People stand up to Communist society, also.

Quite alto of the people in the Tienanmen square protests, were communists protesting the authoritarian government.

Albatross wrote:

Gailbraithe wrote:The UK is a modern liberal state, and the reasons it works and you like it have far more to do with the liberalism than the capitalism. That's my point. People give all the credit for the benefits of liberalism to capitalism, but without the liberalism you'd have laissez-faire capitalism -- and it would be as bad as communism.

I'm not saying that's preferable, I'm saying that modern capitalism allows for that balance between liberalism and capitalism and that I would rather live under that system than a communist system. I can't think of one communist regime which has achieved a similar balance. Probably because communism doesn't allow for it. You could argue that China is moving towards a balanced economy, but you could also argue that in doing so they are also moving away from communism.

Ah, see I think the bolded part is just a very poor description. I think it doesn't capture the reality at all. I think it would be far more to say that "Modern liberalism allows for a balance between the fascist tendencies of capitalism and the communist tendencies of socialism." When you say that "modern capitalism allows for that balance between liberalism and capitalism" you imply that liberalism is the opposite of capitalism, but it's not at all. Socialism, defined as worker ownership of the means of production, is the opposite of capitalism, defined as capital ownership of the means of production.

Marxist Communism seeks to use revolution to install a van garde (The Party) that will recreate the capitalist society as a socialist society, while Liberalism -- an outgrowth of Fabian socialism -- seeks to use pragmatic government policy to mediate the damaging effects of capitalism while maintaining capitalist property rights. Meanwhile Fascism is the most capitalist of all systems, as in a fascist government the state takes a direct role in promoting the interest and fortunes of the existing capitalist class. Some people will protest that fascists don't believe in the free market, which is true, but capitalism ≠ free marrket. Two very different ideas really.

This is basically the heart of my point. When people make the argument they would rather live in a capitalist country than a communist country, or some variation on it (such as the "Nobody shoots Americans trying to leave America" rhetoric), they are being a bit disingenuous, because America isn't actually a capitalist society. It's a liberal society with a mix of capitalist and socialist features.

A capitalist society -- one in which only capitalist conceptions of property rights were respected -- would be fascist, if history is any indication. Because all capitalist states that have made no concessions to socialist moral claims have been fascist dictatorships. And that have proven themselves to be every bit as violent, repressive, and bloodthirsty as their communist counter-parts -- though far less successful.

Well, I guess I'm just a better person than you, because I care about how my actions affect everyone they affect. I don't suddenly go blind at the borders.

In all seriousness, you may have a point. I'm an avowed pragmatist. I'm pretty happy with my life. If that means someone-else's life has to suck, then that's sad but so be it. I'm not running for pope here.

But you are trying to claim that the system you prefer is morally superior to this other system. That's kind of like running for pope. It's certainly claiming a moral high ground. It seems disingenuous to me to both claim a moral high ground and then offer up the weak defense that you're "pragmatic" and thus going to ignore the actual costs of the system you purport is morally superior.

Sure, and I would rather live under a democratic socialist system and have more choices, more power, and have less of my labor go to support asshats who don't see me as being any different than a dog.

So... France?

Honestly, I'm more a fan of Holland, Sweden and Norway. Too bad they don't like immigrants and have crazy rigid immigration laws, otherwise I'd move in a heartbeat. If my writing career ever takes off, I'm totally moving there. Or I might go back to Prague, but that'd be more for the culture and the people than the government. I freaking love the Czechs. They're great, really know how to live well.

Interesting. However, capitalist economies are older than the 1930s concept of fascism by about 25,000 years.

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I dont even think communism is a good idea..... trying to achieve an end state where everyone is happy is absurd. people are by nature impossible to satisfy. they're born to be unhappy bc they want things they cant have, and when they get the things they want they grow out of old desires and learn new ones. people who cannot limit their desires - who cannot learn to be content - can never be happy. as this will always be most of the people in the world a state or economic system that attempts to erase their unhappiness is doomed to failure, no matter what particular strategy for the distribution of goods it employs.

That's not the end goal we just think people would be happier with communism than without it. the same logic could be applied to any change in politics over the last 2000 years.

Kragura wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I dont even think communism is a good idea..... trying to achieve an end state where everyone is happy is absurd. people are by nature impossible to satisfy. they're born to be unhappy bc they want things they cant have, and when they get the things they want they grow out of old desires and learn new ones. people who cannot limit their desires - who cannot learn to be content - can never be happy. as this will always be most of the people in the world a state or economic system that attempts to erase their unhappiness is doomed to failure, no matter what particular strategy for the distribution of goods it employs.

That's not the end goal we just think people would be happier with communism than without it. the same logic could be applied to any change in politics over the last 2000 years.

And where have you seen this actually happen in the many times Communism has been applied?

Gailbraithe wrote:Marxist Communism seeks to use revolution to install a van garde (The Party)

Just a small thing. A revolutionary vanguard is never mentioned in Marxist writing, They came about through Lenin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Monster Rain wrote:

Kragura wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I dont even think communism is a good idea..... trying to achieve an end state where everyone is happy is absurd. people are by nature impossible to satisfy. they're born to be unhappy bc they want things they cant have, and when they get the things they want they grow out of old desires and learn new ones. people who cannot limit their desires - who cannot learn to be content - can never be happy. as this will always be most of the people in the world a state or economic system that attempts to erase their unhappiness is doomed to failure, no matter what particular strategy for the distribution of goods it employs.

That's not the end goal we just think people would be happier with communism than without it. the same logic could be applied to any change in politics over the last 2000 years.

And where have you seen this actually happen in the many times Communism has been applied?

Although every time it was short lived, Socialism has worked before.

Kragura wrote:

Gailbraithe wrote:Marxist Communism seeks to use revolution to install a van garde (The Party)

Just a small thing. A revolutionary vanguard is never mentioned in Marxist writing, They came about through Lenin.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Monster Rain wrote:

Kragura wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I dont even think communism is a good idea..... trying to achieve an end state where everyone is happy is absurd. people are by nature impossible to satisfy. they're born to be unhappy bc they want things they cant have, and when they get the things they want they grow out of old desires and learn new ones. people who cannot limit their desires - who cannot learn to be content - can never be happy. as this will always be most of the people in the world a state or economic system that attempts to erase their unhappiness is doomed to failure, no matter what particular strategy for the distribution of goods it employs.

That's not the end goal we just think people would be happier with communism than without it. the same logic could be applied to any change in politics over the last 2000 years.

And where have you seen this actually happen in the many times Communism has been applied?

Although every time it was short lived, Socialism has worked before.

This is a thread about communism. Again, where has it been enforced where the people like it better? By people lets just say majority of the population?

Frazzled wrote:Interesting. However, capitalist economies are older than the 1930s concept of fascism by about 25,000 years.

frazzled..... ummmm.... capitalism isnt quite the same thing as trade. capitalism refers specifically to a modern, industrial, lassaiz fair economy. trade may be 25k years old. capitalism is less than a few hundred. AF

AbaddonFidelis wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Interesting. However, capitalist economies are older than the 1930s concept of fascism by about 25,000 years.

frazzled..... ummmm.... capitalism isnt quite the same thing as trade. capitalism refers specifically to a modern, industrial, lassaiz fair economy. trade may be 25k years old. capitalism is less than a few hundred. AF

True dat. Of course thats way longer than fascism.

Frazzled wrote:Interesting. However, capitalist economies are older than the 1930s concept of fascism by about 25,000 years.

Capitalism developed in the late 18th and 19th century. I don't see how you can possibly hope to justify claiming capitalism has been around for 25,000 years.

Kragura wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:I dont even think communism is a good idea..... trying to achieve an end state where everyone is happy is absurd. people are by nature impossible to satisfy. they're born to be unhappy bc they want things they cant have, and when they get the things they want they grow out of old desires and learn new ones. people who cannot limit their desires - who cannot learn to be content - can never be happy. as this will always be most of the people in the world a state or economic system that attempts to erase their unhappiness is doomed to failure, no matter what particular strategy for the distribution of goods it employs.

That's not the end goal we just think people would be happier with communism than without it. the same logic could be applied to any change in politics over the last 2000 years.

I disagree. Marx and his followers talked about the utopia that was just around the corner from the 1st to the last day they were in power. It never got here. It cant get here. People dont want to be happy. They want what they want. There is no end state for growing, changing beings. AF

A lot of Cubans, when interviewed back in the 90s, seemed quite happy with their regime. Perhaps they only interviewed a priveliged minority, I don't know, but most people I heard on the 60 minutes special were glad that their state was run the way it was. Castro however has recently claimed that it was more or less steering a sinking ship. With all the sanctions and such there's no way they could have pulled it off in the long run, but for a while they seemed to be happy little commies.

Homeless tribes and Gangs and labor unions are all communistic in their outlook, as are shared housing roommates, the guys from 'accounting' versus the guys from 'HR', nuclear families, and so on. I got along fine in all of the above scenarios, but if the group in question grew too big so as to become impersonal, without a direct connection on a personal level to the person you are helping/being helped by, then the commune idealism starts to break down into resentment. If you work it on a very small level, it is a boon for all involved. Once it becomes state mandated Communism, instead of communalism, you get a mess, as we have seen in the previous posts examples of failed commie regimes.

China does seem to be a functionally growing superpower despite being commies with harsh treatment of dissenters. Will they just collapse and fall like the U.S.S.R. once they have reached the target mark of American TV commercials seen by their public? I dunno about you, but they seem pretty solid to me. We can denounce their harsh legal system and civil rights restrictions, but we can't say they are a 'failed' government when we are the ones borrowing money from them and buying stuff produced over there because its cheaper while we dont produce it at home. Not to say I really like china or anything, but so far, they have been a pretty successful commie establishment and I dont see them getting any weaker.

Not everybody is insatiable AbbadonFidelis, Buddhism has been around far longer than Christ, and their entire culture is based on a paradoxical want to not want.

Frazzled wrote:

AbaddonFidelis wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Interesting. However, capitalist economies are older than the 1930s concept of fascism by about 25,000 years.

frazzled..... ummmm.... capitalism isnt quite the same thing as trade. capitalism refers specifically to a modern, industrial, lassaiz fair economy. trade may be 25k years old. capitalism is less than a few hundred. AF

True dat. Of course thats way longer than fascism.

yes.

@ Guitardian

Your new Avatar rocks, man. Melikes.