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Communism refers to at least two separate things, though (in Western Europe). - a theoretical economic model that is opposed to capitalism - the atrocious reg
by jraph 3y ago
Communism refers to at least two separate things, though (in Western Europe).
- a theoretical economic model that is opposed to capitalism
- the atrocious regimes of the 20th century calling themselves communism you are referring to that have vanishingly few things to do with the first.
Vanishingly few people in Western Europe support these atrocious regimes. And therefore, communism the way you are using it. What's more, there's not much propaganda for communism here (I believe there was propaganda in the past, though). The confusion is usually here and people mostly don't see communism with a good eye because of the confusion (or because they are knowledgeable and oppose the theory - which is a better reason to be against it). Now, it's true that we have weaker feelings about it than in the US (and, I guess, the parts of the words that suffered from the atrocious regimes).
(The usual response to this is that theoretical communism invariably leads to these atrocious regimes, but I believe we don't know this - invariably, it seems they've been set up by possibly sadist assholes with huge egos and thirsts for power, we haven't tried without - as well as we don't know if it would work. I don't have any further useful point to make in this discussion so I probably won't engage in it.)
- sdfghswe 3y agoCommunism refers to at least two separate things: the theory and the reality. That's basically what you just said, right?
- jraph 3y agoNo. This is a very bad summary of what I carefully tried to make, that completely misses the point. I'm sorry I was not clear enough, but I'm afraid I won't be able to express myself better so I'll just leave it at that. You are free to make this point if you want, just don't make it look like it comes from me because it doesn't.
- sdfghswe 3y agoCool I'll make the point then. I've learned about communism from two types of sources. Philosophy books and history books, and the takeaways are quite different.
- jraph 3y agoYes, so you conclude that theoretical communism leads to these horrible regimes. It's a reasonable hypothesis, just not the only one. This week I only saw white people in the streets. I could conclude all people walking in my city are white. But that's false.
- sdfghswe 3y agoCounter example please?
- jraph 3y agoWe don't have any counter example. But I'd say we don't have any example neither: regimes from your history books weren't "communism" we find in your philosophy books. You can see it if you read both carefully enough. (and again, I'm not stating communism can work, because we don't know that). But even if we assume both "communisms" are the same: you are saying "Communism has failed N times, therefore it will always fail". You don't know that (though I would admit it's quite solid evidence in this case) We don't know. And I'm not arguing for or against communism here neither.
- sdfghswe 3y agoRiiiight. So would you agree with the statement that all attempts failed? You see, you're mockingly presenting me as simply going "never happened therefore can't happen". I would say that you're the extreme opposite where you're going "what happened doesn't matter, we learned nothing from it". You know, we can reason about the future past the data...? There's a reason why communism failed all attempts. That reason is something which apparently you're missing, but I'm using to support my prediction that it can't work.
- jraph 3y ago> So would you agree with the statement that all attempts failed? Yes, to the extent there were none, really. And if we consider all the regimes calling themselves communism, yes, sure, failed in every possible ways too, of course. > you're mockingly No no no, I wouldn't dare making fun of you / mocking you. I have no interest doing so and I would not find this funny. I'm sorry I made you feel I'm mocking you, in any case that was not my intent. > There's a reason why communism failed all attempts. You didn't address the hypothesis I exposed in my first comment and that I will restate: any regime calling themselves "communism" were set up by huge assholes using the noble name to call their totalitarian views and misusing the concepts to make it look more legit. Maybe they even liked the idea but still wanted the power. I feel like I won't convince you and that's fine. On my side, I haven't discarded the hypothesis that communism can't actually work. We don't know either way.
- zajio1am 3y agoThese eastern european regimes implemented alternative economic model opposed to capitalism. Even if we look away from the atrocities / human rights violations and just consider economic reality of communist countries, then the economic model of communist countries caused lower GDP growth rate, falling behind comparable western countries. E.g. in Czechia, after 40 years of communism, we ended with about half of GDP/capita than neighboring Austria, which has comparable GDP/capita before.
- jraph 3y agoI don't think GDP growth is an end in itself. A means, at best. Well-being would be. Though they failed in that regard too I think.