3 ms·

Mind experiment: In the last paragraph of dang's top post replace "communism" witch "nazism" and "Engels" and "Marx" with "Hitler" and "Mussolini". How would yo

by nec4b 6y ago

Mind experiment: In the last paragraph of dang's top post replace "communism" witch "nazism" and "Engels" and "Marx" with "Hitler" and "Mussolini". How would you feel about it? There are probably millions of people in the USA who barely escaped with their lives from vile communist regimes and yet the idea of communism is still entertained as some misunderstood noble thing. Until there will be "Nuremberg trials" equivalent for communism such ideas will unfortunately continue to propagate.

AzzieElbab 6y ago
Best explanation about popularity of communism among American elites that I have come across read is extremely banal, under communism everything is about status and nothing is about value. People who create no value are naturally going after status.
- MichaelMoser123 6y ago
  > under communism everything is about status and nothing is about value that is not quite correct: in socialist countries the elite had their own closed shops, a much higher salary and access to lots of material goods that mere workers just didn't have. These goodies were kept from the public eye, but most people knew about their existence, it was somewhat of an 'open secret'.
  - AzzieElbab 6y ago
    I am not sure this contradicts what I said. Those goodies were provided by assigned status.
    - MichaelMoser123 6y ago
      i just don't know if the actors were in for the status, or for the perks that went with it. Hard to tell what is primary and what is secondary.
      - AzzieElbab 6y ago
        Why is it hard to tell? If you only knew one path was available to fulfill your ambitions wouldn’t you take it?
charlescearl 6y ago
On the other hand, there are 40+ million U.S. citizens, of African origin, each with at least one ancestor at the bottom of the Atlantic due to the capitalist trans-Atlantic slave trade. Enslaved for four centuries, building capitalist America literally with their bodies as some of the first U.S. millionaires earned their millions from intercontinental human trafficking. There are roughly 5 million Indigenous U.S. citizens who were subjected to the continued oppression unleashed by an exploitive capitalist system. Can we talk about the 627,000 Vietnamese citizens brutally killed by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war? They didn't make it out alive.
- nec4b 6y ago
  What do you mean by: on the other hand? Are you saying that by not supporting communism one supports imperialism, slave trade and wars? And every time I write communism is bad, do I also have to put a disclaimer that a bunch of other ideologies are also bad? All the things you have enumerated have nothing to do with capitalism. Norway (or almost any other capitalistic country) is capitalistic and as far as I know it hasn't invaded or enslaved anyone for instance. You should also remember that the capitalistic north has defeated the feudalistic south (slave owners) in the civil war.
anoncake 6y ago
> Mind experiment: In the last paragraph of dang's top post replace "communism" witch "nazism" and "Engels" and "Marx" with "Hitler" and "Mussolini". How would you feel about it? Similarly to how I react to replacing "communism" with "[economic] liberalism" and "Marx" with "Rand" and "Engels" with "the Chicago boys". Unsurprisingly, changing the words in a text changes its meaning. > There are probably millions of people in the USA who barely escaped with their lives from vile communist regimes and yet the idea of communism is still entertained as some misunderstood noble thing. Until there will be "Nuremberg trials" equivalent for communism such ideas will unfortunately continue to propagate. What do you think are the ideas of communism and of Marx and Engels in general?
- nec4b 6y ago
  Communism and nazism (national socialism) are two sides of the same coin. Both rooted in the same collectivist ideology where life on an individual is meaningless, always ready to be sacrificed for the "greater good". Both have a class of people who are undesirable (nacism: inferior people, communism: rich and educated) and need to be exterminated. Nazism left behind millions of dead people and communism tens of millions of dead people. I have no idea how you can compare economic liberalism to either communism or nazism.

by nec4b 6y ago

AzzieElbab 6y ago

Best explanation about popularity of communism among American elites that I have come across read is extremely banal, under communism everything is about status and nothing is about value. People who create no value are naturally going after status.

MichaelMoser123 6y ago
> under communism everything is about status and nothing is about value that is not quite correct: in socialist countries the elite had their own closed shops, a much higher salary and access to lots of material goods that mere workers just didn't have. These goodies were kept from the public eye, but most people knew about their existence, it was somewhat of an 'open secret'.
- AzzieElbab 6y ago
  I am not sure this contradicts what I said. Those goodies were provided by assigned status.
  - MichaelMoser123 6y ago
    i just don't know if the actors were in for the status, or for the perks that went with it. Hard to tell what is primary and what is secondary.
    - AzzieElbab 6y ago
      Why is it hard to tell? If you only knew one path was available to fulfill your ambitions wouldn’t you take it?

charlescearl 6y ago

On the other hand, there are 40+ million U.S. citizens, of African origin, each with at least one ancestor at the bottom of the Atlantic due to the capitalist trans-Atlantic slave trade. Enslaved for four centuries, building capitalist America literally with their bodies as some of the first U.S. millionaires earned their millions from intercontinental human trafficking. There are roughly 5 million Indigenous U.S. citizens who were subjected to the continued oppression unleashed by an exploitive capitalist system. Can we talk about the 627,000 Vietnamese citizens brutally killed by the U.S. military during the Vietnam war? They didn't make it out alive.

nec4b 6y ago
What do you mean by: on the other hand? Are you saying that by not supporting communism one supports imperialism, slave trade and wars? And every time I write communism is bad, do I also have to put a disclaimer that a bunch of other ideologies are also bad? All the things you have enumerated have nothing to do with capitalism. Norway (or almost any other capitalistic country) is capitalistic and as far as I know it hasn't invaded or enslaved anyone for instance. You should also remember that the capitalistic north has defeated the feudalistic south (slave owners) in the civil war.

anoncake 6y ago

> Mind experiment: In the last paragraph of dang's top post replace "communism" witch "nazism" and "Engels" and "Marx" with "Hitler" and "Mussolini". How would you feel about it? Similarly to how I react to replacing "communism" with "[economic] liberalism" and "Marx" with "Rand" and "Engels" with "the Chicago boys". Unsurprisingly, changing the words in a text changes its meaning. > There are probably millions of people in the USA who barely escaped with their lives from vile communist regimes and yet the idea of communism is still entertained as some misunderstood noble thing. Until there will be "Nuremberg trials" equivalent for communism such ideas will unfortunately continue to propagate. What do you think are the ideas of communism and of Marx and Engels in general?

nec4b 6y ago
Communism and nazism (national socialism) are two sides of the same coin. Both rooted in the same collectivist ideology where life on an individual is meaningless, always ready to be sacrificed for the "greater good". Both have a class of people who are undesirable (nacism: inferior people, communism: rich and educated) and need to be exterminated. Nazism left behind millions of dead people and communism tens of millions of dead people. I have no idea how you can compare economic liberalism to either communism or nazism.