Your thoughts on communism?

[Unitaristic Regions]

This is what happens, when people don't do their research.

Remember kids, proper research prevents misunderstanding base data and causing genocide.

A friend of mine once told me that Stalin became popular because the other candidates for Lenin's power were too intellectual, and no one could understand their difficult theories. Stalin simply took a book of Lenin's, and marked out what he didn't and did agree with .

[Arglorand]

Remember kids, proper research prevents misunderstanding base data and causing genocide.

A friend of mine once told me that Stalin became popular because the other candidates for Lenin's power were too intellectual, and no one could understand their difficult theories. Stalin simply took a book of Lenin's, and marked out what he didn't and did agree with .

He marked the words that had cognates in Georgian and went, "ისე, ეს კარგად არის, თქვენ ბიჭები."

[Unitaristic Regions]

A friend of mine once told me that Stalin became popular because the other candidates for Lenin's power were too intellectual, and no one could understand their difficult theories. Stalin simply took a book of Lenin's, and marked out what he didn't and did agree with .

He marked the words that had cognates in Georgian and went, "ისე, ეს კარგად არის, თქვენ ბიჭები."

[4years]

Hmmm... That'd mean accepting barter economy alongside gift economy...

That is why I say abolishing currency is pointless and ineffective, because people like myself will resort to barter and use that as a currency.

The trouble with that model is that no-one would have any incentive barter with you nor would you to barter with anyone else. The gift economy would prevent you from having access to resources unavailable to others, which is the fundamental premise of barter. The only bartering which would occur would be on the scale of you trading a painting you created for a homemade apple pie, hardly a subsitute for currency or reliviant to the wider economy; insofar as society is concern your neighbor could have painted and you baked. There is no motivation for barter because everyone has access to he same pool of resources.

[4years]

1. State control over all resources as is in communism is in today's world 2. a prehistoric idea! 3. People should be given the chance to set up and own industries otherwise growth will stagnate eventually!
Communism is stiffening and all in all a BAD IDEA!

1. There is no state in communism.
2. You do intend to demonstrate the prehistoric states existed and controlled all resources as opposed to the tribalism and primitive communism normally understood to have existed in prehistory, correct?
3. Citation needed, for individual ownership being necessary for growth.

[4years]

Spot on? But, now you're going for something else: the "humanity is not made for communism" argument, as in "Men are naturally selfish and communism is a distortion of human nature."

More like "animals are naturally selfish". As I said, humans have the ability to be selfless. I'd rather not go for that argument as it is an appeal to nature, which is a fallacy. Many who say that "communism is undesirable because it distorts human nature" are saying that "communism should not be implemented because it distorts human nature". Nowhere have I said that. I am saying that "communism should not be implemented because of attributes left into the human due to evolution or sin or whatever one wishes to call its cause to be that cannot be changed". It is a part of our biology and more specifically survival instincts to be selfish. It varies between people, however, since there is a specific part of brain that is the base of human altruism and egoism. Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7312004874

1. What do you mean cannot be changed? Give genetic technology some time to develop and it can easily be addressed.
2. Once communism has been achieved, it is in the self-interest of any given individual to retain the communist system. A selfish person in a communist society would be led by his/her selfishness to support the society's continued prosperity.

[Linux Universe]

I am anti-communist. I believe in third-way economics while leaving a little laissez-faire in some areas.

[Conscentia]

State control over all resources as is in communism is in today's world a prehistoric idea!

There were no states in prehistory. For 99.8 percent of human history people lived exclusively in autonomous bands and villages. They lived without states or classes, as these are inventions of the past 6000 years.

People should be given the chance to set up and own industries otherwise growth will stagnate eventually!

How would you know? What do you know about economics and the factors that influence economic growth?
Do co-ops not grow?

Communism is stiffening and all in all a BAD IDEA!

Communism is a socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production (ergo, not state ownership), as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order.

[Duvniask]

I am anti-communist. I believe in third-way economics while leaving a little laissez-faire in some areas.

Because? What do you have against communism?

[Conscentia]

I am anti-communist. I believe in third-way economics while leaving a little laissez-faire in some areas.

Elaborate.

[Baiynistan]

It's a wonderful theory that is impossible to put into practice while around 5% of the human population are sociopaths or psychopaths and many of those empathy-devoid, solipsistic people gravitate towards and thrive in positions of power.

Having a market, however mixed, does a lot of the anti-totalitarian work for us (if we are willing to look at it pragmatically), because it disperses power among state institutions and capitalist ones. Even if the system is crooked, an oligarchy still trumps an autocracy and it's easier to protect individual freedoms at their most basic, if someone has to answer to two bosses (the government and an employer) and belongs to two separate social systems as opposed to just one all-powerful establishment.

(That reads as being a lot more waffly than I was hoping for it to be, but I hope it makes some sort of sense...!)

[Linux Universe]

Should I elaborate? Is this a rule then? Very well.

I am anti-communism because, it's just not my preferred ideology.
Give me some time to research and then I'll talk.

[Conscentia]

It's a wonderful theory that is impossible to put into practice while around 5% of the human population are sociopaths or psychopaths and many of those empathy-devoid, solipsistic people gravitate towards and thrive in positions of power.

Why do people think communists stand for the abolition of policing? They do not.

Having a market, however mixed, does a lot of the anti-totalitarian work for us (if we are willing to look at it pragmatically), because it disperses power among state institutions and capitalist ones. Even if the system is crooked, an oligarchy still trumps an autocracy and it's easier to protect individual freedoms at their most basic, if someone has to answer to two bosses (the government and an employer) and belongs to two separate social systems as opposed to just one all-powerful establishment.

(That reads as being a lot more waffly than I was hoping for it to be, but I hope it makes some sort of sense...!)

I prefer the compromise of a single giant co-operative federation in which the constituent co-ops have a degree of autonomy. Those with the economic power would be kept in-check by the democracy inherent to co-operatives.

[Conscentia]

Should I elaborate? Is this a rule then? Very well.

I am anti-communism because, it's just not my preferred ideology.
Give me some time to research and then I'll talk.

You are anti-communism and you haven't even researched the matter yet? Let me guess what this research will be... Googling "why is communism bad"?

Vanilla is not my preferred ice cream flavour, i'm not anti-vanilla.

[Astograth]

Should I elaborate? Is this a rule then? Very well.

I am anti-communism because, it's just not my preferred ideology.
Give me some time to research and then I'll talk.

You are anti-communism and you haven't even researched the matter yet? Let me guess what this research will be... Googling "why is communism bad"?

Vanilla is not my preferred ice cream flavour, i'm not anti-vanilla.

You're an indoctrinated shill! Soft, delicate flavouring as is in vanilla ice-cream is in today's world a prehistoric idea! People should be given the chance to choose and decide on their own ice-cream flavours otherwise taste will stagnate eventually!
Vanilla ice-cream is stiffening and all in all a BAD IDEA!

Seriously now, Communism needs to re-do its marketing just because the very word carries such a historical (and to most people negative) stigma.

[Baiynistan]

Why do people think communists stand for the abolition of policing? They do not.
---
I prefer the compromise of a single giant co-operative federation in which the constituent co-ops have a degree of autonomy. Those with the economic power would be kept in-check by the democracy inherent to co-operatives.

I wouldn't think that a Communist society would be totally free of policing, but the kind of local militia/factory-to-factory democracy that seems to me to be the implicit end result of security in a classless, stateless society would, in my opinion, be hard-pressed to deal with destructively anti-social people without resorting to some kind of backwards exiling system or a resource-consuming enforced house-arrest. I think that's why we need a state built on tax revenue, no matter how minute, to extract these kinds of people (judicially or medically) from the societies they are unable to functionally contribute to.
I suppose its difficult to really imagine Marxism implemented in a Digital-aged society because the theory, I feel, relies heavily on proposing potential societal reconstructions limited in scope by the technology and infrastructure available at the time of Marx and Engels drafting their manifesto. I doubt they could have imagined the information power of the internet or the advances (and expense) of modern medicine and I think that shows in how irrelevant Marxist theory feels. At least the hypothetical/postulatory side of it, not the critiques and analyses.

Interesting ideas on the co-operatives thing though. I think any kind of non-market society would have to rely on an immaculately written constitution that clearly expresses the need for division of powers (akin to the US division between executive, judicial and legislative). Well, any society should strive to attain that kind of system, but it'd be particularly important when the only hierarchical ladder would be a governmental one.

[Arumdaum]

Let's see where this would fit in in human history. The first 1 is when the first humans were, the last 1 is us. The 1 in red is where money comes in.

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Okay, now mark the place where civilizations large enough to make direct trade unreasonable show up.

Why does that matter? It doesn't detract from my point in that it's relatively recent in human history.

[Shinpitekina]

More like "animals are naturally selfish". As I said, humans have the ability to be selfless. I'd rather not go for that argument as it is an appeal to nature, which is a fallacy. Many who say that "communism is undesirable because it distorts human nature" are saying that "communism should not be implemented because it distorts human nature". Nowhere have I said that. I am saying that "communism should not be implemented because of attributes left into the human due to evolution or sin or whatever one wishes to call its cause to be that cannot be changed". It is a part of our biology and more specifically survival instincts to be selfish. It varies between people, however, since there is a specific part of brain that is the base of human altruism and egoism. Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 7312004874

1. What do you mean cannot be changed? Give genetic technology some time to develop and it can easily be addressed.
2. Once communism has been achieved, it is in the self-interest of any given individual to retain the communist system. A selfish person in a communist society would be led by his/her selfishness to support the society's continued prosperity.

1. Fact is, it cannot be changed for now and we need to live here and now, not in the 'would be'.

2. That is not selfishness. That is selflessness. As communism complicates the accumulation of material wealth that is easy in capitalism and socialism with a currency implemented, which people love to do, it is harder for one to gather and keep material wealth in communism. Furthermore, if the Marxist version of communism is implemented, his idea of taking from those according to their ability and giving to those according to their need is not beneficial in a selfish person's eyes, as it completely defeats the idea to have more material wealth than ones neighbor, as well as having more than one needs.

Communism and anarchism have no way of protecting the power vacuum that is created after all power hierarchies including the state itself and classes have been abolished without becoming the ruling class or establishing some sort of formal or informal power hierarchy, thus defeating the ideas of communism and anarchism themselves. It is in ones self-interest to hold power and what better way to manifest ones power than through the pain and suffering of other people. Creation of a totalitarian government would be easy, as there is no ruling class or power hierarchy to stop the mob who is on their way to implement a tyranny.

[United British Union]

It is an evil, failing party which does not follow its own policy. It is intent in destroying the Upper-Class, something I find despicable. How can one follow a party that has failed so many times?
In the Russian Revolution, one can find the violence and murder that the Communists inflicted onto the Upper-Class.

[Nervium]

It is an evil, failing party which does not follow its own policy. It is intent in destroying the Upper-Class, something I find despicable. How can one follow a party that has failed so many times?

Ask the people who vote Tory.


Ouch.

[Shinpitekina]

How can one follow a party that has failed so many times?

One can go long ways with rhetoric and charisma.

[United British Union]

In any case, one must know how violent it was towards the Aristocracy. Simply frightful murders and ransacking occurred in the Soviet Union.

[Nervium]

In any case, one must know how violent it was towards the Aristocracy. Simply frightful murders and ransacking occurred in the Soviet Union.

I'm not a big fan of people who rule just because mom and dad happened to be blue blooded, and at the same while I condemn the Soviet Union, wich wasn't communist.

[United British Union]

In any case, one must know how violent it was towards the Aristocracy. Simply frightful murders and ransacking occurred in the Soviet Union.

I'm not a big fan of people who rule just because mom and dad happened to be blue blooded, and at the same while I condemn the Soviet Union, wich wasn't communist.

I think you shall find, sir, that they were. And blue blooded, sir?

[Charax]

Communism such a horrible word. Awful connotations.

I'm a Socialist, not a Communist. Therefore I'm sympathetic toward Communist economics, but feel as an ideology its usually ruined by awful people exploiting the system.