4 ms·

Because of the incredible harm to humanity done at the hands of communists over just the past 100 years alone

djsumdog 10y ago
When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. China, the USSA and Cuba were never communism. They varied between heavy socialism (also a pinical of all high income countries: roads, trains, parks, police, fire, airports) and fascism. A lot of people who just go on about communists, today, in 2016, seemed to have not learned that much of what we learned about the communists was mostly propaganda; same way the US creates enemies out of "terrorists" today.
- elcapitan 10y ago
  > When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up without trial because you are betraying communist ideals.
  - redial 10y ago
    Sure, communism might be a bad idea, but why is it so unforgivable? specially when is not your country? And it's not like nobody got locked up in the 50s without a hint of a trial just for the suspicion of being 'communist' and betraying the capitalistic ideals.
  - justicezyx 10y ago
    This is a good joke, but unfortunately, is not an accurate description of communism. As the parent comment suggests, there were no real communism nation on earth ever. """ In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6] """ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
    - elcapitan 10y ago
      That's like saying that there are no capitalist societies by claiming that capitalism is some higher, perfect ideal which has just not been implemented yet perfectly. Or calling the outcome of christian rule in the middle ages "not really christian" by comparing it to a biblical description of heaven. If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that.
      - runesoerensen 10y ago
        > If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that. That's not how it works; some terrorists may call themselves muslims and even form "Islamic" societies, but I hope you'll agree that muslims and Islam shouldn't be judged on their actions. The same goes for Christianity.
        elcapitan 10y ago
        I think christianity should be judged on having overcome those terrible crimes of the past. Islam should be judged on whether it can overcome islamism. And communism should be judged on having failed to deliver a society worth living in.
        grzm 10y ago
        This thread is going to get hot enough on politics alone. Perhaps we can try to leave religion out of it?
- bbcbasic 10y ago
  That sounds more like socialism from what I understand. Communism is more like you and your friends work on a farm, live off what you produce, all do some work, but you are not paid different or receive more or less food/accommodation/luxuries than each other. You are all equal. Now if one of you gets ill, or decides to slack off then that person will still be supported. If everyone slacks off then the society is f'd.
  - mememachine 10y ago
    Yep. Communism fails because people arent equal. same reason socialism introduces inefficiency
  - tekni5 10y ago
    It's more like everything is owned by society, people do what they can based on their ability & all their needs are met. The initial concept is very theoretical, there are many gaps left.
- akubera 10y ago
  I'd recommend reading the communist manifesto to understand the issue better. Buying beer and sharing with friends week after week is a good example of capitalism, as the bar owner is profiting so much from you and your friends buying all this beer. Communism (of the Marxist variety) would be you and your friends being allocated the same amount of beer by the state, which owns the beer (along with all goods), and deals out the same amount of beer to everyone, regardless of what they do (i.e. what would have corresponded to their class). I suppose there is another kind of communism where you and your friends live on a commune and some grow hops and some grow barley and some are in charge of fermentation vats and all just relax and drink their beer after a long day. That is, until the tax man cometh...
  - ant6n 10y ago
    Communism proposes to collectivize the means of production; there's still _some_ individual ownership.
    - bobwaycott 10y ago
      No, for Marx, there is no individual ownership, as the first, post-capital phase has removed private ownership of the means of production. There is social ownership only. There is individual participation as part of the social whole, but individual ownership and private property of any sort is abolished.
      - IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
        Private property does not include personal property, as Marxists understand it. The Marxian definition of private property is essentially capital.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    I'd recommend reading far more than The Communist Manifesto to understand the issue better. You're not describing Marx's conception and predictions of communism at all. And you seem to have misunderstood the Manifesto as the definition of communism. That was not its purpose. Its goal is to wake the consciousness of the working class to their condition, explain why this is important in simple terms, and suggest an immediate course of action for helping move society away from capitalism and toward communism. But the Manifesto was not a description of communism itself. For that, you must set the Manifesto aside and dig into Marx's other works. There is no state doling out equal portions of anything to anyone under communism—because, most critically, there is no state.
redial 10y ago
Every time I read a comment like that, I remember that history is written by the winners.
- mememachine 10y ago
  platitudes < arguments
tekni5 10y ago
Just want to mention that actual communism has never been implemented on any significant scale, the Soviet Union for example never reached communism, arguably never even really reached socialism. Marx suggested that communism will only emerge after the failure of capitalism. Every single communist regime has ignored this idea. While I agree that many countries who have followed communist ideas have done some horrible things, the same can be said for every other system, including the current system we have now. Furthermore pure capitalism has never really been tried either, because it begins to fail and government intervention is needed very quickly. Actual communism doesn't really mean dictatorship, I think we might see a comeback of ideas related to communism & command style economies in the future. Especially if we start implementing Strong AI to better manage resources and trade. I could see a future where free market may not exist in the form we have it now, instead there might be a system focused on harm reduction managed by various planning systems, better and more careful resource allocation, etc. Let's not forget that communist ideas also allowed many countries to industrialize rather quickly.
- nzmsv 10y ago
  What's even better is that the very same people who say things like "communism is inexcusable" support the idea of universal income.
- oblio 10y ago
  Theoretical communism is useless and this "no true Scotsman" argument is useless, at least for the foreseeable future. How is communism going to handle malicious parties, since there's no ownership? How is communism going to handle needs for abstract needs, such as those for services? Marx didn't really think things through. You don't need strong AI, you need the singularity to centrally plan humanity. Until then you need to allow freedom of action for individual actors, i.e. rule of law + market economies.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    Central planning is very hard due to hidden preferences. People aren't going to say "I want more loli hentai".
ant6n 10y ago
> Because of the incredible harm to humanity done at the hands of communists over just the past 100 years alone You're talking about dictatorships that called themselves communist. Some were economically communist, but the governance was never as Marx intended. Marx envisioned a system of 'councils' that would exist in many aspects of society (e.g. for each factory), each would send a representative to a higher level council. This is what 'soviet' refers to. This system was never really implemented. Economic system and governance are not the same thing. It's conceivable to implement communism using a proper 'soviet' (council) system, or maybe even using a parliamentary democracy. I don't quite believe this would work that well, but calling the belief itself 'unforgivable' is ...simplistic. Especially considering that many people who believe in communism do so out of a sense of idealism that is much less selfish than capialists; in some sense communist beliefs stem from a sense of empathy that is much more compatible with evangelical values rather than capitalism.
bobwaycott 10y ago
How do you feel about the incredible harm done at the hands of capitalists and liberal democracies over just the past 100 years alone?

When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. China, the USSA and Cuba were never communism. They varied between heavy socialism (also a pinical of all high income countries: roads, trains, parks, police, fire, airports) and fascism. A lot of people who just go on about communists, today, in 2016, seemed to have not learned that much of what we learned about the communists was mostly propaganda; same way the US creates enemies out of "terrorists" today.

elcapitan 10y ago
> When you buy a beer for your friends at a bar and maybe next week they buy a round, that's communism. Communism is a central part of western society. Communism is when you and your friends go to a bar and there is no beer, because there was not enough grain produced on command of the central planning committee 4 years ago. Now you and your friends are upset and complain about it, so you get arrested and locked up without trial because you are betraying communist ideals.
- redial 10y ago
  Sure, communism might be a bad idea, but why is it so unforgivable? specially when is not your country? And it's not like nobody got locked up in the 50s without a hint of a trial just for the suspicion of being 'communist' and betraying the capitalistic ideals.
- justicezyx 10y ago
  This is a good joke, but unfortunately, is not an accurate description of communism. As the parent comment suggests, there were no real communism nation on earth ever. """ In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is a social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money,[3][4] and the state.[5][6] """ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
  - elcapitan 10y ago
    That's like saying that there are no capitalist societies by claiming that capitalism is some higher, perfect ideal which has just not been implemented yet perfectly. Or calling the outcome of christian rule in the middle ages "not really christian" by comparing it to a biblical description of heaven. If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that.
    - runesoerensen 10y ago
      > If there are people who call themselves communists and they create societies, then "communism" should be judged on that. That's not how it works; some terrorists may call themselves muslims and even form "Islamic" societies, but I hope you'll agree that muslims and Islam shouldn't be judged on their actions. The same goes for Christianity.
      - elcapitan 10y ago
        I think christianity should be judged on having overcome those terrible crimes of the past. Islam should be judged on whether it can overcome islamism. And communism should be judged on having failed to deliver a society worth living in.
      - grzm 10y ago
        This thread is going to get hot enough on politics alone. Perhaps we can try to leave religion out of it?
bbcbasic 10y ago
That sounds more like socialism from what I understand. Communism is more like you and your friends work on a farm, live off what you produce, all do some work, but you are not paid different or receive more or less food/accommodation/luxuries than each other. You are all equal. Now if one of you gets ill, or decides to slack off then that person will still be supported. If everyone slacks off then the society is f'd.
- mememachine 10y ago
  Yep. Communism fails because people arent equal. same reason socialism introduces inefficiency
- tekni5 10y ago
  It's more like everything is owned by society, people do what they can based on their ability & all their needs are met. The initial concept is very theoretical, there are many gaps left.
akubera 10y ago
I'd recommend reading the communist manifesto to understand the issue better. Buying beer and sharing with friends week after week is a good example of capitalism, as the bar owner is profiting so much from you and your friends buying all this beer. Communism (of the Marxist variety) would be you and your friends being allocated the same amount of beer by the state, which owns the beer (along with all goods), and deals out the same amount of beer to everyone, regardless of what they do (i.e. what would have corresponded to their class). I suppose there is another kind of communism where you and your friends live on a commune and some grow hops and some grow barley and some are in charge of fermentation vats and all just relax and drink their beer after a long day. That is, until the tax man cometh...
- ant6n 10y ago
  Communism proposes to collectivize the means of production; there's still _some_ individual ownership.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    No, for Marx, there is no individual ownership, as the first, post-capital phase has removed private ownership of the means of production. There is social ownership only. There is individual participation as part of the social whole, but individual ownership and private property of any sort is abolished.
    - IslaDeEncanta 10y ago
      Private property does not include personal property, as Marxists understand it. The Marxian definition of private property is essentially capital.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  I'd recommend reading far more than The Communist Manifesto to understand the issue better. You're not describing Marx's conception and predictions of communism at all. And you seem to have misunderstood the Manifesto as the definition of communism. That was not its purpose. Its goal is to wake the consciousness of the working class to their condition, explain why this is important in simple terms, and suggest an immediate course of action for helping move society away from capitalism and toward communism. But the Manifesto was not a description of communism itself. For that, you must set the Manifesto aside and dig into Marx's other works. There is no state doling out equal portions of anything to anyone under communism—because, most critically, there is no state.

redial 10y ago

Every time I read a comment like that, I remember that history is written by the winners.

mememachine 10y ago
platitudes < arguments

tekni5 10y ago

Just want to mention that actual communism has never been implemented on any significant scale, the Soviet Union for example never reached communism, arguably never even really reached socialism. Marx suggested that communism will only emerge after the failure of capitalism. Every single communist regime has ignored this idea. While I agree that many countries who have followed communist ideas have done some horrible things, the same can be said for every other system, including the current system we have now. Furthermore pure capitalism has never really been tried either, because it begins to fail and government intervention is needed very quickly. Actual communism doesn't really mean dictatorship, I think we might see a comeback of ideas related to communism & command style economies in the future. Especially if we start implementing Strong AI to better manage resources and trade. I could see a future where free market may not exist in the form we have it now, instead there might be a system focused on harm reduction managed by various planning systems, better and more careful resource allocation, etc. Let's not forget that communist ideas also allowed many countries to industrialize rather quickly.

nzmsv 10y ago
What's even better is that the very same people who say things like "communism is inexcusable" support the idea of universal income.
oblio 10y ago
Theoretical communism is useless and this "no true Scotsman" argument is useless, at least for the foreseeable future. How is communism going to handle malicious parties, since there's no ownership? How is communism going to handle needs for abstract needs, such as those for services? Marx didn't really think things through. You don't need strong AI, you need the singularity to centrally plan humanity. Until then you need to allow freedom of action for individual actors, i.e. rule of law + market economies.
- witty_username 10y ago
  Central planning is very hard due to hidden preferences. People aren't going to say "I want more loli hentai".

ant6n 10y ago

> Because of the incredible harm to humanity done at the hands of communists over just the past 100 years alone You're talking about dictatorships that called themselves communist. Some were economically communist, but the governance was never as Marx intended. Marx envisioned a system of 'councils' that would exist in many aspects of society (e.g. for each factory), each would send a representative to a higher level council. This is what 'soviet' refers to. This system was never really implemented. Economic system and governance are not the same thing. It's conceivable to implement communism using a proper 'soviet' (council) system, or maybe even using a parliamentary democracy. I don't quite believe this would work that well, but calling the belief itself 'unforgivable' is ...simplistic. Especially considering that many people who believe in communism do so out of a sense of idealism that is much less selfish than capialists; in some sense communist beliefs stem from a sense of empathy that is much more compatible with evangelical values rather than capitalism.

bobwaycott 10y ago

How do you feel about the incredible harm done at the hands of capitalists and liberal democracies over just the past 100 years alone?