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"Compassionate" Communism
A big welcome to you, Elias.
It's lovely to meet you. I think it's great that you're a communist. It means you're a thoughtful and compassionate human being and I think that's wonderful, especially at your age.
I wanted to address this post without derailing the welcome thread.
Those who believe in communism may genuinely be compassionate people who simply want to give everyone an equal shot in life, but communism itself is not a compassionate ideology. For one, the person Brigid is welcoming to the board described himself as a "Leninist." Vladimir Lenin was a mass murderer. It's true he may not compare in sheer numbers to his successor Stalin, or to the Chinese communist Mao, but a mass murderer is a mass murderer. Then of course you have both Stalin and Mao who were the two worst mass murderers in history, and were both communists.
The problem with those who say that communism is actually a "stateless" ideology, is that it requires the force and power of the state to eradicate any opposition to communism and to relinquish everyone of their private property rights. It also requires some kind of a central authority to dole out what little goods are manufactured.
Not to mention that communism must always lead to shortages and rationing before it ultimately collapses, leaving the population of a communist country in poverty and nearly starving. Without a profit-and-loss mechanism a communist society has no accurate way of allocating resources because they're not relying on supply-and-demand. This leads to malinvestment and ultimately collapse.
Whereas capitalism and fairly free markets have led to the greatest increase in the well-being of mankind of any economic system.
There seems to be a very prominent anti-capitalistic mind frame on this message board, and I think it's because people simply don't understand the failings of socialism or communism.
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I agree. Anyone who still thinks highly of the Russian Revolution or Lenin should read the "Black Book of Communism" and see how compassionate he really was.
It's worth noting that wherever communism has taken power or tried to take over, there has been suppression and mass murder.
I've not read the Black Book but I've heard it's gruesome.
Haha-oh my god.
Just because I defined myself as a Leninist-Bolshevik(Trotskyist) doesn't mean I don't acknowledge the bad deeds Lenin committed. As for Stalin, I fiercely oppose Stalin and Mao, as they ruined the name of communism, and any hope it had in to take control in the West. Stalin was very evil, believe you me. But really, just because Stalin and Mao called them Marxists, does that make them one? Nope, especially when Marx preached against capital punishment. They were not communist and neither was the Soviet Union, East Germany, Yugoslavia, or any pseudo-socialist regime.
But to be fair, declassified Soviet files prove the amounts of dead are far less. Plus, all countries kill people. Think how many Native Americans died on the Trail of Tears, and other countless atrocities against American Indians by the USA and other European countries. Oh yeah, you remember Hitler's little anti-socialist regime? I'm sure you know what happened in that free-market country. Oh yeah, did I forget about Africa? That little continent that "the free democratic countries" such as United Kingdom carelessly exploited, which tortured Africans even after slavery was abolished? And now look at Africa, it's a mess. I go on for hours after how much evil and death capitalism has caused, but I'll leave you with this:
P.S. I don't know what they mean by plastic surgery and cancer.
Sadly, whenever a socialist regime pops up in Africa, some little asswhip takes all the power for himself, because unless a socialist revolution is the product of the proletariat(lower classes), it will never turn out right. The Soviet Union was state capitalist, there have been few socialist societies ever to exist. Only the Paris Commune could really be considered socialist.
Go ahead, call Stalin and Mao mass murders, I don't care, because they don't represent my beliefs as a communist. Also, This.
Extremely gruesome.
As for your post Coco Jambo, really? Of course there has never been a truly communist regime. Just as there has never been any truly capitalist or utopian society. Yet we still call people communists, capitalists, and utopians just the same.
Lenin was a communist and he was a thug. There's no getting around that. He more or less created the ghastly cheka, which at times and with conjunction with the Red Army, killed more civilians on a single day then the Czars had killed political prisoners in a hundred years. I think it's shameful that you would want anything to do with him.
I find it hilarious that your cutesy picture blames capitalism for the Korean War, considering it was the North Korean communists, with backing from from the Soviet Union, that invaded the South. Those greedy "capitalists" in America, Britain, and elsewhere sacrificed blood and treasure so that 50 million people in South Korea live in a free and democratic state today.
Yeah, North Korea is really communist, right.
Ah, your avatar is of a conservative candidate and so called "libertarian," you're still stuck in the McCarthy era?
Huh? Barry Goldwater was not a libertarian, and neither am I. Goldwater was an interventionist and a supporter of the draft, two very non-libertarian positions.
I frankly don't understand your question about McCarthy, so you'll have to explain.
As for North Korea, what else would you like me to call it? Communist? Orwellian? Stalinist? I hope for a future where that poor, slave state can enjoy liberty and capitalism someday.
The point being that "true" communism can't happen because without a strong central authority using their power to force it on the masses it will never happen on any large-scale. And how likely is this central authority likely to give up power once they have it? Not very, as Lenin's regime proved.
Even if it somehow could happen then it would still fail as an economic system. Without any way to rationally allocate resources it will lead to malinvestment on a massive scale, and make everyone forced to live under it much poorer.
We can certainly point to the crimes committed by any government, but my point in bringing up the crimes committed by the communist leaders is because that's how it always happens in communist countries. It's always an authoritarian.
I wasn't calling anyone out. I was merely pointing out that being a communist doesn't make one compassionate. It's never been anything remotely compassionate in history, and it's simply bad economics to boot.
Deflection.
I'm afraid as if it appears that you haven't given your communist leanings much thought beyond the typical platitudes. You haven't addressed how all communist governments have been authoritarian, and how communism fails as an economic system regardless.
Communist governments?
Must I explain what communism is again?
Also, I have given my communist leanings plenty of thought. I've been reading Marxist literature for about a year, I didn't just look at the Wikipedia article on Communism and said: "hey that's cool," I looked into it.
Capitalism is about putting the economy in the hands of as many people as possible(at least small scale capitalism). Capitalism fails because businesses will always be bought out. Monopolies are proof that competition isn't everything in capitalism.
Only a year? A year is barely enough time for most people to scratch the surface of economic theory. Are you sure you've done enough studying to solidify a well-informed opinion on the matter?
If you're open to further study, I'd recommend reading The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek.
You don't need to explain communism to me, I understand it well enough. My point was that there is no way to implement communism on a large scale without a central authority forcing it on the masses. A state is required, otherwise people will realize that communism is not in their best interests and move towards capitalism. This has been shown throughout history. The Russian Revolution is a perfect example.
Monopolies do not form on a free market, but as a result of government policies.
I found The Road to Serfdom to be very boring. I'd recommend Socialism by Hayek's teacher Ludwig von Mises.
I never said I knew everything about communism, I'm still learning, as with Buddhism.
I'm relieved to have read in your introduction thread that you are only 13 years old. That means you still have plenty of years to outgrow this nonsense before you reach adulthood.
Marx summed up once that communism entailed the abolishment of all private property. James Madison said that private property was the foundation of a free society.
What say you to that?
Or maybe it's that some of the people here understand the failings of capitalism and are interested in exploring alternative socio-economic systems. Nice singling out a new member (and an adolescent at that) to push your own libertarian views, though. Classy.
If I wasn't on my way to exploit my labour to survive, I'd write a longer reply and take on some of these arguments, but perhaps when I have the time I'll join the fray.
Well, if you're going for entertainment value something like Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand might be more entertaining. I personally didn't like the excess negativity, but it does make some interesting points and has a few modern-day parallels.
I'm not a die-hard libertarian, I just sympathize with some libertarian concepts.
Really? On the various Buddhism forums I've posted on, I usually only see capitalism-bashing and I rarely ever see any constructive criticisms. If you've managed to come up with a superior socio-economic system I'd love to hear about it. And I don't mean the neo-agrarian hobbit-in-the-shire fantasy, as that's not a realistic or valid argument.
That's good. All I'd ask is that you continue to learn with an open mind.
I didn't single out a new member, technically I quoted an established member of this board. Also, I was addressing anyone, such as yourself, that believes in the so-called failings of capitalism.
Well, there are a number of problems with capitalism. It is not a perfect system. The inequalities and basic problems that arise with price-based economic systems are well established. If you fail to recognize the problems with capitalism, then you are just burying your head in the sand. However, to date nobody has come up with a better system that actually works in the real world.
Likewise to fail to appreciate the accomplishments of capitalism is to put blinders on. To it's credit, capitalism has been responsible for bringing more people out of poverty than any other system. Capitalism has done more to lessen the suffering of billions of people than anything else. This alone makes it praise-worthy, but that does not mean it is the end-all of economic systems.
IMHO, maybe sometime in the future when our civilization achieves post-scarcity we will be able to move away from price-based units of value and transition to an energy-based economic unit. Something akin to what the technocrats have advocated, except without the crushing socialism of classical technocracy. Just my 2 cents.
What is freedom?
There will never be a "post-scarcity" period. There will always be scarcity, this is a law of economics. These inequalities are going to be in any system, because people are not perfect. However, capitalism makes it possible for anyone to succeed.
If you can't tell apart a state between a statless society, I doubt your knowledge of communism.
Socialism and communism aren't supposed to be implented on a large scale, that's how such regimes became degenerated in the first place. Worker's states(or stateless societies) should be connected through loose federation.
Have you seen, or at least heard of, Russia's condition post-Soviet Union? It's a horrible place under capitalism, both free market capitalism and state capitalism(aka pseudo-socialist regimes), but at least expected life rates were up, and there were thousands of more hospitals under the Soviet regime.
Ah, the relativist retreat.
The ability to buy property, to hold it without it being stolen or interfered with. The ability to express political views without arrest or persecution. Worship or not worship without arrest or persecution. Assemble and protest the government without arrest. The 1st amendment basically.
Do you know how rare the things I've mentioned are in history?
So Marx was wrong in saying that a communist revolution would ultimately take over the entire world after capitalism failed? And yes I understand what a state is, and what a stateless society is. It's simply never going to happen in communism.
Yes, any country under an authoritarian regime, the Czars, would not be a nice place to live. But free market capitalism? I'd suggest you don't know what a genuine free market is if you think Russia post-Soviet Union had a free market.
Can you see the future?
Never say never.
It's impossible. We as a people have unlimited needs and wants and only limited resources with which to acquire those needs and wants.
Humans have limited needs and unlimited greed. There is a difference between needs and wants.
We also have unlimited creativity and the ability to innovate. Harnessing new power sources, creating new materials, etc. Technological development trends towards post-scarcity. Should development continue, we will reach post-scarcity at some point.
There are a number of technologies under development that will lead to post-scarcity. Things like the RepRap have the potential to drastically alter manufacturing.
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Self-replicating machines that can produce nearly any consumer good that one desires. All that at only the cost of the input of raw materials and the energy to produce it. That seems pretty close to a functional post-scarcity of material goods to me.
Give it some time. We'll get there.
Actually, you did. You referred to Elias explicitly when you said, "For one, the person Brigid is welcoming to the board described himself as a 'Leninist'."
I hate to tell you this, but all socio-economic systems have their failings. And for the record, there isn't a "prominent anti-capitalistic mind frame" on this message board. I'm one of the few quasi-socialists here — at least one of the few who actively discuss politics — and even I'm not entirely "anti-capitalist."
A true communist society is also rare in history.
Also, your little Marx Vs. Madison argument was very basic. "oh hur hur, marx said a. well guess what madison said b. what now? lololol my logic iz better." That's what I got out of your argument.
Well, to tell you the truth, this a fairly moderate group. As I mentioned to Kevin, I'm one of the few quasi-socialists here — at least one of the few who actively discuss politics — and even I'm not entirely "anti-capitalist."
I guess you're right I did single him out. Oh well. Better to realize ones mistakes as early as possible.
Anytime I've seen mention of capitalism on this board it's been negative. There is certainly an anti-capitalistic mind frame here, whether it be for socialism or communism is another story. Of course all economic systems have their failings, as they're devised by humans. We're not perfect therefore we can't create a perfect system.
Cocojambo is 13 years old. You're feeling threatened because he has a different political view than you? He's 13 and he's already thinking about the welfare of the human race. That's compassion. How dare you denigrate his political views based on my post calling him compassionate.
He's certainly shown more compassion on this board so far than you have. Calling out a 13 year old? Really? To voice your own political views? Do you see how insecure in your beliefs that makes you look? You just had to respond? You couldn't allow an adolescent to identify himself with a political doctrine you don't agree with? You couldn't just leave it alone? You had to set him straight about what is right and what is wrong politically and economically? You just had to set straight all those on the board who don't share your views? You couldn't just let him be a 13 year old studying and learning about political/economic systems?
The attachment you have to your political views is something Buddhism addresses although I doubt you care since you think it's right to call out a 13 year old based upon my post in which I call him compassionate. You have a lot more learning to do than you think.
There may be a limited number of actual needs, but those needs remain unlimited. Such as food and water. Both are needs, and both are unlimited in the sense that there is never a point one can reach where they will never require them again. There is also limited wealth. We do what we can with our wealth creating a balance between what we need and what we want. But we can never fully satisfy all of those needs and wants. There will always be scarcity because we do not have unlimited anything. There isn't unlimited wealth, there aren't unlimited natural resources, there isn't unlimited time, and so on and so forth.
This is a discussion board is it not? Should we not discuss things that other posters reveal about themselves? I was not rude to Cocojambo in any way shape or form. I addressed his beliefs in a calm manner, and to his credit he hasn't responded in a rude manner. My interests include politics, economics, and history, and I responded to someone that mentioned a political and economic ideology. The same way someone with an interest in music might respond to someone who brought up their favorite band.
Now it's obvious that correcting me in my attachment to my political views is your way of getting back to me for "calling out" Cocojambo, since you did not see fit to correct him in his attachment to communism in the welcome thread. That's fine. I obviously have a lot more learning to do in regards to Buddhism, and many other things besides.
But let's not make this into something it's not. This thread is not an attack on Cocojambo. This is a thread to discuss communism, in response to his open support of communism and your calling communism a compassionate ideology. It's also a thread to discuss capitalism and free markets for those who wish to do so.
From my perspective, Ayn Rand's political philosophy can be quite seductive on the surface, but gets problematic on a deeper, more ethical level.
Jeff Walker, a biographer, found this entry in one of her personal journals: "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!" To me, that's the core of Objectivism. Of course, publicly she put it more poetically. In Atlas Shrugged, for example, she writes, "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."
Same idea, but the latter is far more attractive. Hell, I'd even agree with it if I didn't understand what it actually boiled down to!
I agree with Rand to a certain extent about personal responsibility and the idea that we're responsible for making good decisions and should reap the fruits of our labour. But I also think that, as a society, we have a collective responsibility to one another as well. We should work together in the spirit of social cooperation, helping each other make good decisions along the way in support of the common good.
For what it's worth, I don't see one political ideology as inherently right or wrong, I've simply sided with the one I think is geared more towards taking the needs of society as its primary focus. I used to be more of an individualist, but for whatever reason I found myself unable to not take the needs and suffering of others into consideration. Everyone's mileage may vary, of course.
Let me just start off by saying that I took issue with the OP for 2 main reasons: (1) making the assumption that most people here are only interested in communism/socialism because they don't understand the failings of socialism/communism and (2) singling out a new member who's only 13 in order to criticize his political views while his pushing own.
My major concern with issue #2 is that, as a community, I think we should at least making Elias feel welcome before his posts, political views, etc. are picked apart. As for issue #1, I understand that up to now communism has failed in comparison to capitalism; however, there are areas where capitalism itself has failed and that's what I started looking into alternative socio-economic systems in the first place. If that means I have "anti-capitalistic mind frame," then so be it.
Sure, every system has its flaws, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try new things if and when the old ones repeatedly fail to meet our needs. And, frankly, capitalism has hit a few rough patches in the last century (e.g., the Great Depression, Japan in the 90s, the current global financial crisis, etc.).
Cocojambo isn't starting political arguments and calling out people who don't share his beliefs. You're pushing a political agenda and you feel the need to straighten out everyone who doesn't agree with you.
You're making the same mistake again. I never said communism was a compassionate ideology. As Fivebells pointed out, there are no compassionate ideologies, only compassionate people. Don't put words in my mouth.
You're clearly oblivious to the point I was trying to make in my first post so I'm going to end it here.
Even though I don't consider myself a Marxist, I find myself defending Marx more and more recently. For one thing, there seems to be a lot of misinformation out there about what socialism really means and represents as an economic system, and this is especially true with Marx's writings. Many people who take issue with Marx appear to do so based upon his association with "communist" countries that supposedly put his theories into practice, but few of these critics seem to have actually read anything Marx himself wrote (there are exceptions, of course).
I think Marx was wrong about a lot of things, and I certainly don't agree with all of his conclusions, but I don't think he's the monster that many people often make him out to be. Reading things like The German Ideology and Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, for example, make it clear to me that Marx would be absolutely horrified by what authoritarian countries like China and Russia have done in his name.
To begin with, it's true that Marx wasn’t a big fan of private property. In fact, he advocated the abolishment of private property (and by "private property" he was referring to the means of production, e.g., in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Marx writes: "The character of private property is expressed by labour, capital, and the relations between these two") and the placement of the proletariat (i.e., the majority of the working-class population, not a single person and/or political party who simply claims to represent the proletariat) in direct democratic control of production.
And because of this, some say that Marx was simply a troublemaker—that the whole point was to convince the proletariat they'd be better off if they have a revolution, seize the means of production and institute socialism; that he wasn't appealing to their compassion for their fellow man and was essentially advocating strict authoritarianism with his "dictatorship of the proletariat."
Of course, a selective reading of Marx can support this, but I have to disagree that he was wasn't also appealing to their compassion for their fellow man, or that democracy wasn't a part of Marx and Engels' vision of socialism — the transitory phase between capitalism and communism — from the very beginning.
While encouraging a proletarian revolution was certainly one of things Marx was trying to do with his writings, he also stressed that he believed the self-emancipation of the proletariat would ultimately bring about the emancipation of all classes. In the words of Erich Fromm, "His concept of socialism is the emancipation from alienation, the return of man to himself, his self-realization."
According to Marx, all individuals in capitalist society are essentially alienated, from their labour as well as from each other. The reason Marx singled out the working class was because he saw in the working class the means by which capitalism could be transformed. It was his hope, however, that once this economic transformation was underway, the alienation of each individual would gradual be eliminated via a more socialized means of production, which, in turn, would sow the seeds for the "resolution of the antagonism between man and nature, and between man and man."
As Marx wrote in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844:
As for the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” it’s true that Marx did say that "the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat" and that "this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society." However, I still believe that democracy was a part of Marx and Engels' vision of socialism. For example, even though I'm sure there are things that can be found within Marx's numerous writings that can be used to contradict this view, Engels, in his 1847 programme The Principles of Communism (the precursor to the Communist Manifesto), writes:
He continues by stressing that, "Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat." In addition, Marx, in his 1871 pamphlet The Civil War in France, writes about the Paris Commune (notice the parts about "universal suffrage" and "revocable at short terms," i.e., characteristics of direct democracy):
Paris, the central seat of the old governmental power, and, at the same time, the social stronghold of the French working class, had risen in arms against the attempt of Thiers and the Rurals to restore and perpetuate that old governmental power bequeathed to them by the empire. Paris could resist only because, in consequence of the siege, it had got rid of the army, and replaced it by a National Guard, the bulk of which consisted of working men. This fact was now to be transformed into an institution. The first decree of the Commune, therefore, was the suppression of the standing army, and the substitution for it of the armed people.
The Commune was formed of the municipal councillors, chosen by universal suffrage in the various wards of the town, responsible and revocable at short terms. The majority of its members were naturally working men, or acknowledged representatives of the working class. The Commune was to be a working, not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time."
To which Engels, in his 1891 postscript to The Civil War in France, states:
So, from just these few references, it's clear to me that Marx had a great deal of compassion for his fellow man and that democracy was an essential part of Marx and Engels' vision of socialism, including the "dictatorship of the proletariat." Nobody would confuse Marx for the Dalai Lama, but his compassion definitely comes through in his idealism — as well as his hopeful vision for humanity's future — and it's hard to believe that he would approve of what authoritarian countries under the banners of "communism" and "socialism" have done in his name.
Why does it matter his age? For one, on the internet anyone can be any age they want to be. There's no knowing how old someone really is. Secondly, he chose to make his political/economic views public on a public forum.
Capitalism is not responsible for the Great Depression, Japan's lost decade, or the current global crisis. The business cycle, despite what Marx believed, is not an inherent part of the capitalist economy. Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek proved this with their Austrian theory of the business cycle.
His political beliefs are wrong, in the sense of communism as a political ideology. Communism has led to more manslaughter then probably any other ideology. The two greatest mass murderers in history were both communists. As an economic ideology, communism is wrong in the sense that it's impossible as I've already described in this thread. Where I'm from, mass murder and an economic policy that leads to starvation is wrong.
Yes, I've chosen to correct people where I feel they're wrong. But I'm open to discussion, which you are not interested in having.
You said that it's clear he's a compassionate person because he's a communist. How is that clear? As I said before, the two greatest mass murderers in history were communists. They certainly weren't compassionate because they were communists.
I compared two diametrically opposed views. You asked how I defined "freedom" and I answered you. I was asking which one you agreed with. The sanctity of private property or its abolition? Feel free to answer.
If you came on here proclaiming your admiration for Corporatism/Fascism, I would be arguing with you just the same. And I bet a lot of others on this forum would be as well. But I find both Fascism and Communism detestable.
I have read Marx, and, if I may toot my own horn, understood Marx. I agree with your notion that Marx would be horrified by the crimes of the Soviet Union or Communist China under Mao. Or any other number of communist regimes in the world.
However, as I've tried to point out in this thread, Marx's, and Plato's, ideal communist world is simply impossible. For one it goes against human nature completely. History has shown that no private property and simple communal property will lead to disaster. Some people may work more at first and receive less, whereas others will work less and receive more. That's certainly not equality. There are no incentives to work productively under communism. And as I've stated in this thread, even if this were not the case communism would still fail economically. You have to have a profit and loss system otherwise you can't rationally allocate resources. This is why communism and socialism fail. They ultimately lead to major malinvestment and the system collapses.
As for the stateless society that communism is supposed to be, Marx certainly intended it to be that way certainly. However, this is also a pipe dream. To relinquish everyone of their private property and install a communist system there must be a strong central authority to force it on the masses, otherwise it will never happen. Now how likely is this strong central authority to abolish itself once communism is established? Unlikely. It's never happened. Even if it were to happen the people would then simply turn away from communism because it isn't in their best interests.
Marx would be appalled at what the communists have done in his name, but this simply shows a lack of knowledge of human nature and economics on Marx's behalf.
That's laughable.
How so?
Capitalism, when left to it's own devices, places profit above all else, including the well being of others. One need to only look at the innumerable irresponsible, socially and environmentally damaging actions by various corporations to see this.