As i have said in numerous other posts...

COMMUNISM NEVER EXISTED (as Marx put it anyway)!!!

There was Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism... etc.

Communism was a blaket term used by the US to cover all examples of "it".

The anti-socialist/communist vibe in the US is left of from McCarthy. In my Tennessee high school, a boy was suspended for running for class president on a "communist" ticket (even if only in name).... that was only 5 years ago. McCarthy's legacy lives on. I'd say this also has something to do with why the southern states often prefer conservative economics--even though its against their financial interest.

I think ideas on a thing like communism are much more likely to be taken in from school or the television than from the child's own analysis of his family life. Furthermore, in true communism (that is the communism of Marx), I'm pretty sure there's no figure with as much power as the parents.... like someone else said, more like a social monarchy.

Though a Marxist communism hasn't even existed where the workers take the factories, could we call the native Americans' tribal lifestyles regionalized (Jeffersonian? haha) communism?

Originally posted by cyberdude78
I think that this is one of the reasons for the widespread hatred of communism.

I think people hate it, and rightly so, because its demands violent overthrow and radical destruction of everything that exists in order to create a 'utopia' where no one is allowed to be different and no one is allowed to act on their own initiative and a 'dictatorship of the proles' exists. Why the heck should the proles be in charge anyway? Why shouldn't people be allowed to have personal property? Why shouldn't one person be allowed to work harder than the rest and be more successful?

That's why the western powers hated the communists, back when they were just radical socialists and indistinguishable from the anarchists on the street. Then russia became a soviet union, ostensibly a communist country, and the 'danger' become exceedingly real. So there are those who hate marx's ideology and those who loathe soviet imperialism and they're both under the 'banner' of 'hating communism'. I don't think any sort of freudian appeal to family structure need be made to explain it.

Originally posted by drfunk
Marx had many brilliant ideas and many things that are now standard rights in our society we have Marx to thank for.

Like what? Didn't most employee benefits programs start in Kaiser ruled Prussia? One company in particular started offering the employees benefits and such? Might've been because of 'marxist' agitations, but that would be a reaction to it, not an actual outgrowth of it.

What were marx's great social ideas, other than public ownership of factory and plants? Can 'redistribution of wealth' be said to have come from marx? Isn't marx more about 'destruction of wealth' and, effectively, money and profit? Not really distribution?

Originally posted by Nygdan
Why shouldn't people be allowed to have personal property? Why shouldn't one person be allowed to work harder than the rest and be more successful?

im sorry, is that how you see capitalism working? what do you consider work? do the richest people work harder than factory workers? My problem with capitalism, is that almost everyones circumstances are dictated by chance. If your parents are rich, you will likely be better educated, etc etc. If you are born stupid, is it your fault? It's obvious that in the past it was easier to invent something, yet, do you choose when you are born? we're not meant to have governments, they are ideas we created, therefore its unlikely that any of them will work perfectly. but i think what some of these people are saying is true, we have not tried everything.

Originally posted by afklop

Originally posted by Nygdan
Why shouldn't people be allowed to have personal property? Why shouldn't one person be allowed to work harder than the rest and be more successful?

im sorry, is that how you see capitalism working?

No, thats what communism denies.

what do you consider work? do the richest people work harder than factory workers?

I don't doubt that many of the very rich don't work at all. But then again, if it was so easy to become rich, then why doesn't everyone do it? its because they can't. Its not easy to build a fortune. So yea, Paris hilton is a waste of oxygen, and didn't work for any of her money. And its unfair that she has so much.

My problem with capitalism, is that almost everyones circumstances are dictated by chance.

I agree, its a problem.

If your parents are rich, you will likely be better educated, etc etc. If you are born stupid, is it your fault?

"Born stupid"? How is that a failing of capitalism?

It's obvious that in the past it was easier to invent something

What? Since when? It was easy for those people? Is that why there are more inventions made faster now than there were in the past?

, yet, do you choose when you are born?

Thats not a problem specific to Capitalism either, it'd still exist in a communist society

we're not meant to have governments

Says who? By man's nature the existence of government is assured. Its practically a trait amoung all primates, let alone hierarchical chimps and then man. No type of society exists(or at least has been found) without some form of governement. And is this supposed to be a problem with Capitalism? Capitalism doesn't require government. Capitalism is all about governement staying laissez faire, not becomming more invovled. Heck if government didn't exist, capitalism wouldn't even notice it. Whereas under communism, governement is what everything is.

Capitalism in this sense is sort of like what winston churchill said about democracy. its the worst system we have, except for all those other ones.

Having said that, I would not argue for completely unregulated untempered unrestrictde 'true' laissez faire free markets. The US's take of a 'mixed economy' seems to work quite well, and the 'european' welfare state system also has had good successes in moderating businesses excesses and whatnot.