What is communism, can we separate it from the horrors of Stalin & what about capitalism's crimes?!

[whitehall]

I would humbly submit that just because a utopia isn't possible, doesn't mean we need to sleepwalk into a blade runner style dystopia wirher- which is frankly where capitalism seems to be taking us right now.

It ain't hard to list the atrocities of Stalinism and later the Iron Curtain and the post war socialists who shot innocent Germans in the back for the crime of crossing the Berlin Wall. Chairman Mao probably murdered as many Chinese people as Stalin did. The Rev. Jim Jones was the modern liberal socialist leader in the U.S. during the 70's. California liberals loved him and he was photographed with everyone from pot head Jerry to the mayor of San Francisco.. How did the people's paradise in Guyana work out? What are "capitalism's crimes" again?

 

[basquebromance]

in a big Russian opinion poll from a couple of years ago, Stalin was voted the greatest Russian of all time, while Lenin was nowhere to be found!

Stalin is not celebrated today as a communist, but someone who made Russia Great Again after Lenin's anti-patriotic "deviation"

 

[bripat9643]

in a big Russian opinion poll from a couple of years ago, Stalin was voted the greatest Russian of all time, while Lenin was nowhere to be found!

Stalin is not celebrated today as a communist, but someone who made Russia Great Again after Lenin's anti-patriotic "deviation"

Tyrants are always popular with the dumb masses. Lincoln is our most popular president, and he was our first dictator.

 

[basquebromance]

the joint efforts of the workers of all advanced countries are need for the victory of socialism

 

[MarathonMike]

Communism is bad mmkay? Don't do Communism.

 

[basquebromance]

communists who have no illusions, who do not give way to despondency, and who preserve the strength and flexibility to begin from the beginning over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed, and will not perish.

communists who are doomed are the ones who imagine that it is possible to finish such an epoch-making undertaking as completing the foundations of a socialist economy without setbacks.

 

[saveliberty]

And you're an ignorant twat since I said nothing about "Mennonites" or "Quakers". Only a profound idiot would plug in terms that weren't even there.

The Hutterites however have been doing it for five hundred years. And have never fought in anybody's war --- which is why they've had to pull up roots over and over and migrate. Including from here, when a couple were tortured by the US Army and died at Leavenworth.

Tribal or familial base groups are not true communist organizations now are they?

 

[Bush92]

I would humbly submit that just because a utopia isn't possible, doesn't mean we need to sleepwalk into a blade runner style dystopia wirher- which is frankly where capitalism seems to be taking us right now.

It’s a crime for people to be rewarded for hard work?

 

[Bush92]

communists who have no illusions, who do not give way to despondency, and who preserve the strength and flexibility to begin from the beginning over and over again in approaching an extremely difficult task, are not doomed, and will not perish.

communists who are doomed are the ones who imagine that it is possible to finish such an epoch-making undertaking as completing the foundations of a socialist economy without setbacks.

Communism is a 100% systemic failure.

 

[Bush92]

The state owes me nothing but a national defense...and I owe the state to serve in the military.

 

[Lakhota]

Socialism is alive and well - and growing!

Relax, Boomers: Socialism Is Good Now

Why capitalism won’t survive without socialism

75 Ways Socialism Has Improved America

 

[Pogo]

And you're an ignorant twat since I said nothing about "Mennonites" or "Quakers". Only a profound idiot would plug in terms that weren't even there.

The Hutterites however have been doing it for five hundred years. And have never fought in anybody's war --- which is why they've had to pull up roots over and over and migrate. Including from here, when a couple were tortured by the US Army and died at Leavenworth.

Tribal or familial base groups are not true communist organizations now are they?

I done tole you in the other thread, I cited no "tribal or familial base(d) group".

Your concession has already been accepted. Your confirmation number is Post 16.

 

[basquebromance]

the fall of communism should not blind us to American injustice of capitalism. we cannot allow all radicalism to be dismissed as "communist". that is just suppression of dissent and diversity.

 

[basquebromance]

the way to crush the bourgeoisie is to crush them between the millstones of taxation and inflation!

 

[Godboy]

I would humbly submit that just because a utopia isn't possible, doesn't mean we need to sleepwalk into a blade runner style dystopia wirher- which is frankly where capitalism seems to be taking us right now.

Capitalism is the best thing that ever happened to the human race. How fucking ignorant are you?

 

[basquebromance]

profitability is like a cocaine high, it feels amazing while it lasts, but its potentially deadly

 

[basquebromance]

DEREGULATION? Jeez, can you imagine Tony Soprano in a world of deregulation?

 

[Some Guy]

The crimes of capitalism are tough to quantify, and i'll explain that in a minute. But let's say for the sake of argument that we're talking about things like reckless disregard for the environment which could include poisoning the air, drinking water, creating conditions which can contribute or lead to people's homes being destroyed, or losing their lives. It could also include mis-treatment of labor, via unsafe working conditions.. or collusion to suppress wages and other things of the like. If i'm missing anything then please let me know.

All of these are driven by greed, according to anti-capitalists. If it wasn't for capitalism then these rich assholes wouldn't have a reason to engage in nefarious business practices. It's that profit that's driving them to cut corners, screw workers and such so they can make some extra money for themselves. That's a fair criticism as cutting costs does mean higher profit for those who own/run the company. The system itself didn't compel them to poison the drinking water but it certainly didn't discourage it.

But, let's say that the company's consumers knew that they were doing that? Would they continue to purchase the product/service from that company? Quite likely, no, so long as an alternative exists or can be created. These corporations or people with a lot of money don't inherently have any more rights than anyone else, and they're subject to public opinion and laws as well. A combination of visibility by consumers and a corruption-resistant law enforcement arm can mitigate the impact by these types because they don't inherently hold any rights that other people don't. Capitalism doesn't automatically imbibe someone with rights under the law that someone else doesn't have.

Conversely, socialism or communism doesn't respect someone's right to realize the fruits of their own labor. It says that whatever you earn is put into a pot to be re-distributed to everyone equally. It's what nuclear families do really: mom and/or dad work to support everyone, and kids realize the fruits of mom and/or dad's labor without actually doing the work themselves, and that's great.

But who makes the decision on how things are to be re-distributed, and who actually carries that out? Who collects everything in their big bag of money and who actually tosses out dollar bills? By virtue of saying that everyone owns that wealth, you've inherently said that everyone is entitled to it, but that wealth has to go through some process by which is gets re-distributed, and therefore someone has to do that. It would be the same for anything: money, health care, education, etc. Any good or service that has been deemed to be "socialized" needs some aggregation and distribution mechanism to it, and that falls on some authority delegated by the collective. This is called "government." Naturally, when all of something is first aggregated through one central source before it's distributed out, that aggregating authority is in control of a WHOLE lot of wealth/power.

So, socialism doesn't itself compel government to become corrupt but it certainly sets the table just perfectly for it by funneling all that given wealth through government. All it takes is one or a small group of assholes to suddenly go "yea, all that money you just earned... it's mine/ours now and you'll take what i give you or else." When that happens, the people have two choices: accept it or speak up as dissidents. Dissidents are troublesome for a system predicated on everyone pulling on the same end of the rope, so they become inherently dispensable because we've already established that they share equally in the benefits that the system provides even if they don't contribute to it.

Looking at the fact that both systems are comprised of flawed humans, the negative view of both systems would consist of the following:

1. The system encourages distributed instances of malice and malfeasance varying in size and scope of people impacted when certain groups of people (corporations) get quite large by virtue of having wealth/product/service held by individual parties unequally.
2. The system encourages a single instance of malice and malfeasance that impacts everyone equally and totally by virtue of having all wealth/product/service held by one single authority charged with distributing said wealth/product/service.

 

[basquebromance]

"how do you tell someone is a communist? its someone who reads Marx & Lenin

how do you tell someone is anti-communist? someone who understands Marx & Lenin" - Saint Ronald Reagan

 

[basquebromance]

every single kid who comes out of college comes out hating corporations. there's a reason for that