Communism: Good or Bad?

First off all there seems to be some wrong ideas of what communism is on here, allow me to give my definition. Communism is an international, conspiratorial drive for power on the part of men in high places willing to use any means to bring about their desired aim, global conquest. It is not the masses rising up against their oppressors, or a bs excuse for a phony workers paradise. Communism in the USSR was created and subsidized soley by American bankers. The USSR could never at one point remain independent without American support. They were incapible of doing ANYTHING on their own. It is said because of all the American money put toward the Soviet Union that "the USSR was made in the USA"

could you really call the USSR comunism?
i dont really think you could personaly.
the whole money thing is a factor.

Well devil lets try to figure that out. USSR- Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. Personally I always had a hard time understanding the differ of the twain. Communism is where everyone owns everything (God knows how that could work?) and therefore no need of gov't. Socialism on the other hand is where the gov't owns everything (well the big stuff anyway) so if the USSR was socialist, then what is the differ between that and Canada?

I think the communist theme was used by the russian party's as a way to connect the common people to the cause,to give them a mantra.
kind of like hatred for jews and extreme nationalism was used on the germans.
It's obvious that the soviet government gave little thought to the little man.
The biggest difference between communist socialist and democratic socialst is where they draw their power from.while popular support was an ingredient in USSR,it wasnt by any means necessary.in a democracy power cant be gotten WITHOUT popular support,thats why we see so much money and time put into manipulating our opinions here.
USSR wasnt a true communist country.it was a militant regime that used communist rhetoric.
China's not a true communist country either.

[edit on 21-11-2004 by Samhain]

In theory, Communism is good. The second stage of Communism is to gradually give more and more freedom, so as that all workers become middle-class citizens and the worker class exists no more.

But in practice, any system is as good as its people are. Communism failed because it was turned into a dictatorship.

One of the basic tenets of Communism is community ownership -- which, for all practical purposes, means State ownership. In theory, communism is based on the phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Think about this for a second. As a high school dropout, I need the same stuff as an orthopedic surgeon does -- a place to sleep, clothing, food, etc. Since my ability is pretty close to zero, I'm going to provide almost nothing. The orthopod, of course, is going to contribute a whole lot more than I am, yet -- in theory, anyway -- he gets jack.

And this is the basic theoretical flaw of any forced wealth re-distribution scheme, whether "communism", "socialism" or whatever: it punishes people who produce something valuable, because their property is always lessened; while it rewards people who don't produce anything, because their property is always increased.

Now if you are a careful observer, you will notice that the people who are in favor of forced re-distribution of wealth are not going to say something like "Yes! We're in favor of stealing from the producers and giving to the parasites!" -- even though that is what they are proposing.

Instead, they will try to convince you that having wealth that you earned by hard work is bad. The give-away comment that marks the government-thief is usually something like "you don't need that much money" or "What are you going to do with three houses, anyway?"

What these parasite-enablers are doing, of course, is trying to convince themselves (and you) that being rich is bad and needs to be punished, while being poor is unfair and should be "fixed" by the State -- usually by stealing from the producers.

Obviously, the very existence of the government-thieves is a good reason for the producers to either stop their hard work (since they know their wealth is going to be stolen from them) or else leave the country or go underground.

Communism is the epitome of the victory of the government-thieves and, instead of "sharing the wealth" really "imposes the poverty" on all.

And what really confounds me is that so many people on this forum -- who claim that they distrust the government -- do their very best to empower the government we already have right now with more power and more abilities so that it can steal from the producers, give to the parasites, and impose a moral and financial poverty upon us all.

Other from that, though, communism is just fine.

.
Communism is sort of like white bread or white sugar, it sounds all sweet and nice, but in fact is not very healthy on a sustained long term basis. To a starving person though it does sound darn good.

Communism implies that we are all clones. We all want to live in the same place with the same funishings, food etc.

It is based on the idea of monoculture.

It IS idealistic. It has the sweetness of a child. It is bland, It is sterile.

It is I suspect non-dynamic. That is to say it lacks the seductive inducements to motivate people. Economic activities of Razzle-Dazzle and even fraud and chicanery are part of the working guts of capitalism. The savy, cautious and stratigec thinkers tend to do better in a capitalistic system. The gulible and naive tend to not do well.

If you want a 'perfect' controlled still-born world that doesn't breathe then communism is just the ticket. If you get tired of the constant chaos and work it takes to survive in a purely capitalistic system It is understandable why you might think you want communism.

Stalin may have given it a horrible name, or maybe it is so counter to human nature that it took millions of casualties to enforce it.
Also if you look at the churning nighmare of historic Chinese communism you begin to believe it is just a flawed idea.

Think of small businesses and individuals with pockets of wealth as the various micro nutrients in a cell. They are necessary ingredients in a healthy cell. Variety keeps life interesting and challenging.

Capitalism has to worry about the other extreme of being so lurid and corrupt that it loses all structure and human empathy. That is when to avoid total anarchy some imposed order may be required.

What is funny is that some religious thinking has a great deal in common with communism, that is, there is one way to live and everyone has certain functions to fit into. They both emphasize social values at the expense of individual initiative. They both tend to have dogmatic recipes for how to live.

If you wanted to create a genuinely workable communism, you would probably do well to merge it with religion. Where people would willingly 'do the right/fair things' to make it operate according to the prescription.

**footnote to ArMaP, That has happened before, currently I can't see Powerlite's posts either.

Slank says:

"Stalin may have given it a horrible name, or maybe it is so counter to human nature that it took millions of casualties to enforce it."

Of course. If you have an economic system that is predicted on the State stealing the wealth of the people who work for it, then you will need a mechanism to do it, and that mechanism is force.

Sooner or later, socialism must devolve into a dictatorship.

If you examine neosocialist entities, like Sweden today and New York City in the 1970s, you'd see that the producers (industrialists in Sweden, and manufacturers in NYC) moved away to escape the increasingly high taxes that plagued them. This was the reason NYC almost went bankrupt in the '70s.

But if you have a State that insists on taking the money from the producers, as well as taking away their freedom to leave, you will need a horde of policemen to carry out the threats. And a State with hordes of police running rampant is called ... hold on, it's coming to me ... ah, yes.

A Police State.

Well this statement was true until Bush got elected.

Communism could have worked but Karl Marx just picked the wrong species. He should have picked ants or bees,They are the closest thing to a working communist society is an ant or bee colony.

Ants practice perhaps the purest from of Communism. They depend on one another, and are unable to survive without the aid of one another. Any ant left by itself will die, as no single ant is able to survive without the help of the rest of the community.There is no competition between the ants in a colony.

Ants have been using Communism long before humans were even around.

Shadow, I think this comparison is a little irrelevant. Communism has existed in communities throughout human history. Isolated villages in almost any culture feature some communist traits. Actually, communism can exist anywhere where capitalism doesn't take root.

True Communism has never existed in the human world, Perhaps some aspects have been used during human history. But when you compare it to form of capitalism they are dwarfed.

True Communism goes against most of a humans basic instincts.Because we have repro­ductive independence, and we get maximum Darwinian fitness by looking after our own survival and having our own offspring.

Its basic human nature to have your own survival and that of you offspring as top priority over everything eles.

As long as that is the case humans will never have Communism in its truest form.

"As long as that is the case humans will never have Communism in its truest form."

Thank God for that!

If I wanted Communism, I'd got to a place where it works -- a termite-mound.

It seems that quite a few people have sympathies to communism, and would give it a chance if the violence/murder were taken away. Well I have to say that I hope people to more research on it. Any form of collectivism is the equilivent of slavery.
Communism is an institution in which a person doesn't own the house they live in or the shoes they walk in, one could say the individual is also property of the state. Karl Marx did not even come up with modern communism/socialism, Adam Weipshat (mind the spelling) of the illuminatti devised the sinister concept. Also, whenever A steals from B to give to C (or any order) it is theft period. Re-distribution of wealth is the ultimate form of legalized theft.
Does anybody know what the #1 killer was during the 20th century? Demoncide-murder by one's own gov't, but yet some people will still trust gov't with unliminited powers and expect them to do the right think. Anybody who has sympathies with collectivism, I invite you to go visit our neighbor Canada, where some people have to wait over a year to see a doctor because socialized health care sux. Long live Capitalism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What does it have to do with Communism? US Marines are now dying in Iraq despite all that survival instinct and seems like that they have other priorities.

And of course any sweatshop in Cambodia or Indonesia is a shining example of freedom. They are sewing Nike's sneakers after all, right?



You are right about the house and wrong about the shoes. Plus the medical care and education are all free, so the individual is even more the property of the state. On the other hand, when kids here in the US join the army because there are no other venues for social advancement, then go to Iraq and lose a limb, that really means that there were not property of the state and exercised sovereign freedom as they should.



I'm lost here, are you talking about Capitalism?

The thing that always strikes me about communisim or socialism is the suspicion I have that those who support it are doing so from a lack of confidence (admitted or not) that people (including themselves) can take care of themselves, or a desire to prey upon those foolish enough to be taken in by what I see as political cult.

Left to it own, the Universe will quickly do away with things that can't take care of themselves. Those that prosper in the long term are the strong, the smart and the clever. Capitalism approximates this and functions under the same principles as natural law (competition! incentive to win!), which our instincts are still tied to. Communism is contrary to the way things work in the universe at large. It is unnatural for our species. It is counter to the way we think and our existance as individual entities.

I beg to differ with the statement that the universe quickly does away with those incapable of supporting themselves. The human race is a prime example of this individualy we are barely capable of surviving on our own. In primitive times being outcast was often the equivalent of a death sentence. The only way we got to where we are now is through collective effort not through rugged individualism.

communism is nearly dead....however many would rather look at the negative impact it had than the positive..which to me is unfair....the idea of Marx,is rather useful tu humanity...but all the critics see only the bad side...communism could work for the whole world if only the leaders whi implement it dont become power-hungry dictators who onlyh care about themselves...this can be seen in many African countries....i say go communist

I can tell you once bullets start flying at you those instinct is in full effect. The troops you serve with become your family and their survial is top priority. Military training works very hard to surpress some of a humans natural instincts. When someone is shooting at you the natural response is to duck and keep your self safe not to shoot back. But training can help to overcome this.

But even in combat the human survival instinct is very strong. Religon can also have power over a humans base instincts. Like the old saying goes "There are no atheists in a foxhole" Training and Religon in combination can help to surpress even basic human instincts to a degree.