Why are and should communism and capitalism inherently be at war????

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Fair enough. Then let's start with the basics. It wasn't communism vs capitalism. It was the central banker backed colonial empires & former empires vs communism. Communist groups literally worked to arm and empower the exploited workers and farmers (which are represented by the hammer & sickle) with the end goal being revolutions against their colonial masters.

It's not a coincidence that the former imperial powers in Europe and the former imperial power Japan were on the "capitalism" side. Once they could no longer rule the world through empire, they decided to do it through trade & central banking. And, after Bretton Woods during WW2, the US basically took over the UK's global banking "policeman" responsibilities.

When the Soviet and Chinese communists refused to accept "Marshall Plan"-styled aid programs in return for allowing the Western central bankers to control their domestic politics, the "Cold War" began. The Cold War was literally a global series of proxy wars between "1st World" factions (members and allies of the imperial/"capitalist" powers), "2nd World" factions (members and allies of the communist powers), and "3rd World" factions (countries, political parties, ethnic groups, and other influential factions that were neutrals).

For context w/examples, China was carved up by Western countries after the 2 Opium Wars in the 1800s (remember, they were still monarchies and/or imperial powers back then). They forced through something called the "Unequal Treaties" which were domestically enforced by their pro-Western govt. The Communists armed & empowered the impoverished Chinese lower class, which fought off and kicked out the pro-Western puppet leaders, who would then flee to Taiwan. From what I can see, China's ruling party is still pissed about those treaties.

Almost all of Africa was conquered by those same Western imperial states in the late 1800s during the "Scramble for Africa". After WW2, the decolonization efforts forced them out, too. Communists played a huge role in the decolonization efforts in many of those countries, including in Angola, Ethiopia, and South Africa. In fact, some of the African nations gained independence and somewhat favorable relations with their former colonial rulers specifically to keep the communists from gaining influence there.

Imperial Japan, which was backed by Wall Street bankers like Jacob Schiff, had conquered a large portion of Eastern Asia pre-WW2. After losing in WW2, they retreated from Indochina, which was previously a French colony. The French (who were backed by the US) tried to reclaim Indochina as a colony but were stalemated by the communist revolutionaries. The US and its allies then jumped in to suppress the communists in what is called both the "2nd Indochina War" and the "Vietnam War".

The same stuff happened all over Europe, South America, and Asia during the Cold War. That's why "Operation Gladio" and "Operation Condor" are so important; they were US-led initiatives to suppress the anti-colonial communist movements on their respective continents (I don't know the name of the Asian version). We also ran "The School of the Americas" which trained right wing death squads, future dictators, and a bunch of other anti-left wing actors throughout Latin America at this time for the same reason.

Even some American civil rights groups like the original Black Panthers were pro-communism, which is one of the reasons the "Red Scare", FBI, & COINTELPRO aimed to crush the civil rights movement. And Malcolm X was assassinated after he left the Nation of Islam, traveled throughout Africa, and met with various decolonization leaders. He'd started organizations to link the African American struggle for equality with the global struggle against colonialism & colonial powers (remember, this was while the US was still forcefully segregated by race, like Apatheid South Africa).

There are 2 other angles to it, too.

1) The Nazi's biggest enemies were the communists, not the Jewish people in general. Some of their biggest & earliest domestic purges were against communists, and their entire Eastern war in WW2 was meant to be a war of annihilation against the communist Soviet Union.

2) The Western powers in WW2 were mostly still imperial powers that were against the rise of global communism. They wanted to protect their empires, which was the opposite of communism's goal. So right as WW2 was ending, they allowed thousands of Nazis to flee to safety, some to the US & others to various countries in South America (look up "Operation Paperclip" & the "Ratlines" to learn more). Remember, the US acquired a lot of Nazi personnel & technology after WW2, and the precursor to the CIA and NASA were manned by former Nazis.

This is why the US allied with Japan instead of with China even though the Chinese communists fought against the same imperial Japan that we were fighting. And this is why we took up the Nazis' anti-communism war of annihilation, even though the communist Soviets were technically our WW2 allies while the Nazis had killed millions of our Western allies (and tens of thousands of American soldiers).

So no, it's not really "capitalism vs communism". Even many of the countries that fought against the global spread of communism gladly adopted socialist programs. It's really a war between the former colonial powers and the anti-imperial, pro-worker communists. There's also a racial element to it, since most of the Western imperial powers were proudly white supremacist during that time period. But we can save that for a future discussion.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

People who criticize communism know practically NOTHING about Marx's ideas. Here is a very good introduction:



Marx had very profound criticisms of laissez faire capitalism. Billions of people experience endless amounts of suffering so a tiny few can have the most extreme wealth and privilege. People really have no idea just how bad wealth inequality has become:



I would hope that at some point we have political economic political system that takes the best qualities of both systems. I would prefer to see people have the resources they need to live their lives with a descent standard of living including retirement and healthcare security.

We have so much automation productivity not everyone needs to work. We need a way to have economy without so much poverty. We need different mechanism for appreciating people participating in the culture. There's just way too much inequality. I don't have a problem with having a society where a small group of people have a much greater wealth and privilege. It just would be nice if we had a little more equality and security for the common man.

a reply to: JoshuaCox
You need to understand that communism was not invented in 1917. It goes back at least to 1848, when it was announced by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto as an an attacking force against the governing systems of the day. "The spectre of communism is haunting Europe".
As I said, you do need to be well-read in History to understand this question.

a reply to: makemap

That is the propaganda definition of both.. all economic systems are a mix..


Some 30% socialism/ 40 % capitalism/30# communism..

Exc. exc.exc

a reply to: enlightenedservant

So then you agree it is really all about whatever “social classs” that runs society being afraid of some other social class taking the reins from them..

That was my guess as well..

I know the thought that an economic system is inherently evil (sans slavery.. that is evil lol) just breaks my logic centers lol..

a reply to: DISRAELI
Your “because they wanted to destroy capitalism “ screams the political propaganda answer..

You don’t create an economic system to attack a foreign economy, when your home nation is in the middle of a revolution/civil war...

Deciding to base your economy around “hurting someone else’s ecomony” is ridiculous..

That is like saying Muslim terrorists hate Americans because “we are free!”..

That is just blantantly the politician’s propaganda answer..


I have no problem with the logic behind those communists countries being “this is the more logical economic system, So it will destroy those other capitalist economies.”

That makes sense from the communists pov..

But “let’s risk it all on a less efficient economic system, just so maybe we will get lucky and it will destroy capitalism..”

That is the cart before the horse.. times a thousand..

a reply to: dfnj2015
I’m not trying to have this be a debate on the benefits/negatives of each system..

That is an old hat..

I am asking why the political classes swear up and down that capitalism and communism cannot coexist.

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
You don’t create an economic system to attack a foreign economy, when your home nation is in the middle of a revolution/civil war...

I've already tried to explain to you that the Bolsheviks did not invent the economic system. Karl Marx did.
Read the Communist Manifesto.
Google the theory of "Permanent Revolution".
Read some history books.

The argument that communism and capitalism cannot coexist comes from the communist side. It is the central plank of their philosophy. If you don't like it, you need to direct your criticisms against Karl Marx.

a reply to: makemap

You forget we have history to judge from..

There have always been warlords, when there was no government and quite often the warlord leads the government..

Historically if a group has the power to rape and pillage, it dies rape and pillage..

a reply to: toysforadults

Idk.. I think we finally have the technology to track every dollar and end corruption completely...

So now what do the politicians want to do??

Destroy the government because it’s getting too risky to steal that way..


So government became the problem and cutting their taxes became the new tax scam..

a reply to: DISRAELI

"Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man.
Communism is the other way round".

Such brilliance!

a reply to: DISRAELI

The argument that communism and capitalism cannot coexist comes from the communist side. It is the central plank of their philosophy.

Is it?

Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!

...

The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.

Karl Marx

It's not a war on capitalism, but rather a decleration of war on greedy capitalists.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight
I must confess to not being the author of that epigram. It's an old joke of the Cold War period. I may even have picked it up from Readers' Digest.

a reply to: PublicOpinion
I'm not sure the two things can be separated. "Capitalism", by one definition, is the fact that capitalists exist. The practice and implied theory of capitalism is what makes capitalists possible.They go together, and the attack of communism is necessarily directed against both of them. Communist theory becomes a political tool.

a reply to: PublicOpinion


But is the WAR part in “ war on greedy capitalists” the symptom or the disease??

Did they create the system to hurt capitalists, or did they create it with the intention to help their people and since in their view it was more efficent, It would end/combat greedy capitalism??

Imhoit seems like a cart before the horse to say they created communism , not fit their own economy, but to interfere with foreign economies..

That is like saying a man got married because he no longer wanted oral sex. Hehe

Though he might predict she will stop giving him oral sex, I doubt the fact he would stop getting oral sex was the reason he asked her to marry him in the first place..

a reply to: JoshuaCox

But is the WAR part in “ war on greedy capitalists” the symptom or the disease??

Good question. History presented us with the fun-fact, that "communist" oligarchs and "free market" philanthropes combined their efforts during the liquidation of our good old UdSSR. They obviously never really succeeded in creating a communist society then, did they?
Also, how much quantitative easing do we need to call it a centrally planned economy? Lines start to blur already, I'd reckon that all this political theory from the last century is probably not the best place to look out for solutions.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

So then you agree it is really all about whatever “social class” that runs society being afraid of some other social class taking the reins from them..

Partially. Economically, Marx and Engels were describing the overall shift from feudalism to capitalism, from capitalism to socialism, and then from socialism to communism. But socially & politically, they were anti-colonialism. They have another jointly written book called "On Colonialism" which states "the so-called liberty of English citizens is based on the oppression of the colonies."

And in practice, the major feudalist countries were the colonial and imperial powers. So naturally, the individuals who wanted more power and rights for the farmers and laborers were the poor farmers and laborers. What slave owners, aristocrats, "Robber Barons", bankers, and occupying armies wanted their exploited work forces & literal slaves to have more rights, shorter work hours, and joint ownership in their business ventures?

Remember that the Communist Manifesto was written in 1847. Continent-wide slavery still existed in North America & the South American colonies; the Western powers had just won the first Opium War in China; the Indian Removal Act of 1830 had just authorized the US govt to commit literal ethnic cleansing against the Native Americans (while slavery was still rampant here); etc. The term "eugenics" hadn't even been invented yet, it would be another decade before Darwin released "On the Origin of Species" (as in, this was also before "Social Darwinism"), and Nietzsche's "ubermensch"-inspiring books like "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" hadn't been written yet (in fact, Nietzsche was only 3 yrs old at the time).

The point I'm making is that the colonial and imperial powers actually became even more oppressive in the decades after the Communist Manifesto was written. People tend to overlook the fact that European empires had almost conquered the entire world leading up to WW1. White supremacy was a global doctrine, ranging from the European-controlled colonies in Africa to the Australian's treatment of the Aboriginals, to the 3-4 legally enforced racial classes in their South American & Caribbean colonies.

So after the communists gained control in Russia, communism started spreading as both an anti-economic exploitation movement and as an anti-white supremacy/pro-equality movement (anti-theocracy, as well). This should explain why so many conquered "people of color" from around the world took on communism to fight off their imperial masters. It should also explain why the Nazis & much of the West fought so strongly against the spread of communism, even though they adopted many socialist programs for their own 1st class citizens (2nd class citizens typically didn't have access to those programs, like how FDR's New Deal programs largely excluded black Americans).

a reply to: DISRAELI

I remember the Readers Digest monthly little mags - such good articles at the time

a reply to: JoshuaCox

Seems to me more likely those who championed it were saying “communism WOULD destroy capitalism” assuming it was more efficient and thus superior..

Communism is state capitalism. communism NEEDS big .GOV. Then there are those BIG .gov Enterprises.TBTF. That's it. Of course there are varying degrees into which the State owns the means of production.

-There are private and public partnerships (PPP)
-The US Federal Government has on the books some laws that allow it to put all means of production under it's command. That is a defacto totalitarian ANTI capitalist body of legislation, effectively nationalizing the means of production for national security reasons.
-The draft is one such example. If you feel you own yourself, draft is impossible to honor. And despite the fact your country may be at war, there should be no force/ duty/ to report for military service, if self ownership is REALLY foundational to the laws of your country.(right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) ......Unless of course you more or less "freely" engaged in state religion by pledging implicitly such bond, such duty, that you repeated from childhood because everybody did it .... and it is politically correct to do so.....
-Nationalization transfers ownership from private to public. See Venezuela ....
- Regulation and licensing.

All these ideas stem from one basic premise: as guardians (by Gods grace) we must mold society for the betterment of everybody.

Every country on earth has had to solve or is in the process of solving the issue of private ownership and public interest. And private ownership is losing if the UN is to be believed ....

a reply to: Yvhmer

Not asking for a definition..

Asking why they cannot coexist.

Should they inherently be in conflict?