I want more a discussion on theory on why Communism has failed horribly in nearly every attempt to institute it in the world. There are only a few Communist nations in the world. Cuba (Which is hardly staying alive) and China. I want to know you fine Citizens view on why The Soviet example of Communism failed so miserably.
because we are so diffent from each other. how can we be: boy vs girl, rich vs poor, lazy vs active, smart vs dumb, black vs white, tall vs short, fat vs skinny, etc.. simply that how much you put in is how much you get out. There is also the problem with the absolute government authority involvement in everything you do! Also, what's better Freedom or Control?
The problem now specificly in Vietnam is that the government refuses the citizen the right to bear Arms and the right to travel outside the country! Addition to those right, the government controls the education system too. That's all you need to have a stable communist!
Have you ever tried to actually find out what communism means outside of your head?
>>67
I can beat that; >>65 needs to find out how to use a comma and the Shift key, not to mention how to type with fingers instead of his penis.
My opinion on why Communism doesn't 'work' is that it's essentially a closed system. Unlike in capitalist societies, innovation is not rewarded organically (i.e. by an almost Darwinian selection of technology) and thus Communist societies continually lag behind unless pushed forward artificially, such as in the Soviet Union during the Space Race and the Cold War when government research was the only research. This planned innovation is a drain on resources, expending when it could be generating revenue. Venture capitalism was responsible for the assembly line, lightbulb, alternating current, Windows, etc. In nature, any closed system tends towards entropy; from this entropy a more stable -- perhaps 'fit' -- system emerges: capitalism.
>>68
Innovation is awarded in capitalism?
Are you dumb?
First.. betamax
Second, capitalism = free market = competition = patents bad = innovation not rewarded, because someone else can just steal it
Russia has ALWAYS been behind the rest of the world. That was true even when they were not communist.
Communism Fails because of the lack of incentive to do more than the required, which is responsible fore all the inovations of man. Do you think we realy NEEDED to go beyond living in a cave and hunting with sticks and stones?
There are other incentives than money, you know...
It's noteworthy that people who are intrinsically motivated tend to be better performers in their area of interest than those whose motivations are extrinsic.
Having said that, there are jobs which nobody wants.
Yes, there are jobs which nobody wants, which is why we need a system in place to force those less well off to do them for us!
You don't need to force anyone. I failed highschool and I'm now in a fulltime job earning $45k AUD/pa. What do I do, you ask? I'm a cleaner. I average about $20AUD/hr, since it's loaded with penalty rates, and also because nobody wants to mop floors or clean windows that they pay so well.
>>73
That's what he meant. If you'd receive an impressive $0.00/hr for cleaning, would you do it?
No doubt. That also raises the question of what money is in the first place.
In an idealistic system with bunny rabbits and rainbows, I wouldn't feel too bad if I didn't get paid for my job. But lets say everything else is covered. House, transportation, food, toys, etc. So I don't get paid, but I get what I need, and sometimes what I want. It ensures that everyone is allowed the same quality of living. As for those who do "more", they'd be given more of what they wanted. But as far as what is "necessary" goes, everyone would have what they need.
It would also make those dead-end jobs like McDicks be less of a drag. Instead of knowing that those nine hours you worked today will pay for your basic-package phone service, you'll go home to a house, car, and a fridge with food. On top of that businesses wouldn't have such devistating power over the world, and profit would be marginalized in retrospect to worker and customer needs/wants.
The above is idealistic tripe.
In the "real world" I'd prefer the social libertarian system. Certain services are guaranteed by law. Healthcare and education are required services to effectively life in the "First World." Those two systems should never be run at a profit, as there is way too much potential for corruption and abuse. (Medical malpractice to ensure the patients keep coming back, schools who fail students to meet a quota of renewable profit.) I'd also like a system where corporations can't strongarm a country into going to War. The main reason America is in Iraq right now is to appease the neocons and their "Day Zero" conspiracy. And it's not as though it's the first time they've done it, either. Google for "I was a Gangster for Capitalism."
The current system is quite honestly what Marx was describing as the "bourgeois." Marx of course said he had nothing against business owners and true capitalists in general - the types who don't fuck over employees for a few bucks. But what we're seeing these days, and in the last 200 years is the strong pushing of propaganda to make people believe, from birth, that money is the only acceptable payment for a service you perform. And it isn't. They just want you to think that way, as you make you fearful of any viable alternatives
Communism, as an ideological umbrella, hasn't failed. Soviet Centralism (later known as Stalinism even though Stalin wasn't much of a theoretician) did collapse, miserably even, due to an insufficient quantity of ideal revolution at its start, which led to widespread corruption, lots of bad shit and about 50 to 60 million (estimates vary) people dead due to either de facto murder or gross mismanagement. That is to say, the so-called revolution was merely a "kill the royal family, take over the government" kind of deal instead of a "true" popular uprising. (the "true" uprising being rather bloody hard to arrange.) Same with the PRC though the actors were different. The same will likely happen in every country where an armed coup by a minority is dressed up in red and yellow.
Still, the USSR did cause the literacy rate in their populace to skyrocket right after the so-called revolution and brought a previously agrarian country to the industrial age at a near-breakneck speed compared to the time the west took. All the while crapping all over mother nature, which of course looks worse in the ex-Soviet Russia because one cannot simply dump decades' worth of nasty shit out there and expect it to disappear like it did in the US over a longer period. Same for the PRC, though their literacy campaign was "aided" by a relentless re-doing (some would say mutilation) of the writing system.
The USSR is long gone these days, first to space or not. The PRC's communist past is just a memory now, the country having reverted to a quasi-communist corporate fascism. They still have a nominally communist party and a governmental power structure that resembles the early days of a soviet-inspired communist state, but you'd have to look far and wide to see anything more than the least necessary lip service to old ideals in those who have actual power.
Me, I'm surprised that Cuba is still in a pretty good shape considering that the US has had a near total embargo on it, including medical supplies and the like, for the past sixty years. Probably has to do with Ernesto having been educated as a doctor. Still, that the nation hasn't totally collapsed gives hope that cooperation with the likes of Venezuela, Brazil and the other soon-to-be leftist states in latin america would give the Cuban populace those liberties back which they still lack.
In short, yeah, 1930s communism (what yanks usually mean with the word, generally for lack of knowledge) is pretty much gone except in the case of some very old stalinists. Then again, 1930s capitalism doesn't exist very much either, though its methods of exploitation are still as prevalent today as they were a hundred years ago.
The world has changed, generations have gone by and communism has changed with the times. Look, for example, to the anarchist movement (no, not the "anarcho-capitalists", they're just a bunch of wankers) and the modern vaguely European left for examples of what communism means today. Most of its proponents will shrink before the appellation, but it is inescapable that the modern left is the current incarnation of Marx & Engels' ideals.
What has become of capitalism and the so-called "liberal democracy" is a subject for a thread on communism's polar opposite, fascism.
Actually, to tell the truth, that wasn't exactly what I meant. I was making some sort of sarcastic allusion to the fact that capitalist societies tend to have an under-priviledged and poor working class which can easily be made to take shitty job at low wages just to get by.
>>73, however, is a nice example that cynicism does not always represent the real world, something a lot of people, especially in places like this, have a tendency to forget. GJ, >>73!
Because only coreans have the purity of spirit to practice it successfully.
Communism failed because it is lame.
If something fails, it is because it is lame.
Give it up hippies.
It is only lame because they didn't just drop nerve gas on them. That's what I would have done. You piss on us, we shit on you.
>>79
I don't know how you could possibly equate the 'modern left' with Marxism. Modern liberalism is based on the thinkers of the 18th century, who believed that all men have innate rights and are generally good beings. Marxism is based in economic principles such as that products have an inherent labor value instead of an artificial market value, something which all but hardline Marxists in this day and age reject as false.
Communism isn't an ideological 'umbrella'. If anything that term would apply to socialism, especially democratic socialism. DS is the ideology of the modern left throughout much of the world, not Marxism.
Moreover, your idea that the Soviet Union collapsed due to Stalin's crimes against humanity is completely false; the USSR lived on for several decades after Stalin's fall. It was the economic policies that doomed the nation.
>>86
I equate what communists in western countries advocate now with the modern left because I regard the social democrats of Europe as being nothing more than an old shell of antiquated ideology that bows down to the demands of right-wing capital in order to exist, and thus not worthy of being considered in the "left" except in the sense that they'd perhaps rather not entirely eliminate things like public health care and working-conditions laws. The real Left of today is in what the old farts of the soc-dem parties would call dangerous radicals, and what they advocate includes (surprise, surprise) planned economy and extreme everyday involvement in the political system for everybody. Also known as democracy to the ancient greeks.
As for liberalism? It can go blow my hairy white cock. Society is not best run by letting the omnipotent market roll some fucking dice, especially when in the real world those dice are most certainly loaded. You can see this for real in places like Bolivia where the previous government had given up control of critical infrastructure, such as water delivery, to private, foreign capital. Those yanks on this board who are in california can reminisce about the times when they didn't know the term "rolling blackout".
(I didn't imply that the collapse of the USSR was due to the bad shit that Stalin instigated personally. You're reading too far into my original comment. I was merely pointing out that the russian revolution wasn't the revolution that proper communism would've required. "I see your broken eggs, but where is the omelet?")
As it's been said already, Communism is Idealistic. I think that the only reason a Capitalist Democracy works, is because its not perfect and its pretty much built around greed and corruption. We may not like some of the aspects but its much more realistic than Communism.
I would like to thank >>88 for his useless comments on every thread.
It's a good thing he used a name, so that we will know in the future that he is an inane imbecile.
Your welcome Citizen, and I appreciate your insightful comments.
No lol.
>>97 is an "individual" and a "rebel" and is "sticking it to the man".
100GET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111
>>99
No, not rly. That stupid ascii shit just irritates me.
End thread. From this point on only trolls and trollees will reply:
communist is give great explain about how to rule the nation or organisation (for little)..
but in the communist there were a selfish emotion that destroy the chain betwen them.. Oh well that's why communist is fail.. but the real comunist is good..
the result as not as a book says right!!
The ideas of communism if I understood enough of it boils down to everyone is equal. Sameness does not work in a society where one of the biggest things that people crave is power. Others want to keep their power its a basic human goal. Communist would work in a perfect society but the sad truth is neither we nor the system or even the world we inhabit is perfect making communism absolutly worthless.
China has become extremely capitalistic. Health care and other social services have become privatized or requiring bribes to be paid. Also, many factory owners are profiteering off of workers working under unsafe conditions and extremely long hours.
As a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and a supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, I have a lot of thoughts about why the first wave of communist countries were defeated:
For one thing, I only consider the short-lived Paris Commune of 1871, the USSR under Lenin & Stalin, and China under Mao to have been the only genuinely socialist nations that have every existed; the rest were/are state-capitalist: socialist in name, but more or less just highly-centralized capitalism (the main difference between a capitalist economy and a socialist economy is that, in a capitalist economy, profit is what drives society, and in a socialist economy it is what best serves the people and brings society closer to a classless society).
The main reasons that the first revolutions were defeated were because of a few things:
1)Imperialist encirclement: There was a great deal of pressure from the outside capitalist powers that exerted a great amount of pressure that caused enormous strain militarily and economically on the socialist states, and in turn strengthened the support base of many revisionist (phony-communists) trends within the ruling Communist parties.
2)The weight of tradition: these societies were an extremely new thing; no one had ever done such a thing before! People were still figuring out how to genuinely direct this society, and at times the weaknesses and errors of the revolutionaries allowed the phony communists in the government to seize initiative. That's why there is a need for a constant revolutionizing of society in culture and in politics for a country to keep on the socialist road.
3)The nature of history: History moves in wave-like and spiral-like motions. Sometimes there a setbacks and crises in the march of history, and in fact during the transition from feudalism to modern capitalism, capitalism actually failed a few times itself! Take a look at the French Revolution: the French Republic was a very progressive thing that was overturned when Napoleon betrayed the Revolution and restored the monarchy. However, eventually, after a few more failed revolutions, the French nation was solidified as a capitalist republic in 1848. In a sense, in the BIG PICTURE of things (I'm saying this as a History major- I like to look at the big picture)... socialism hasn't ended, it's just getting started!
There were indeed serious errors that were made in the early USSR and early China that we must never repeat, and we must investigate on why they were wrong, but at the same time we must proudly uphold the good things of these past projects as powerful achievements of the international working class: the class that will free all of humanity. And indeed, there are still Communist revolutions happening in Nepal, India, the Philippines, and to smaller extents Peru and Turkey. And it is people like Bob Avakian, the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, that are bringing forward a new synthesis of Communism that sums up the good things and bad things of the past, as well as showing how communist revolution is still a very valid and possible thing in the U.S. and across the world.
For more info, check out:
Revolution newspaper: http://revcom.us/
Bob Avakian Online: http://bobavakian.net/
This Is Communism: http://www.thisiscommunism.org/
Marxists Internet Archive: http://www.marxists.org/
meh. I think if we talk about this, we have to make an important distinction between two very different things that have the same label.
There is communism definition 1, a sort of utopian agrarian anarchism that Marx talked about. Basically his idea seems to have been that one day in the far future, when society matured enough, was wealthy enough, was advanced enough, people would stop being such money-grubbing bastards and share with one another. The people have to choose it of their own free will. It can't be imposed from outside and it can't be imposed by force.
And there is communism definition 2. During the 20th Century it was fashionable for brutal, murderous totalitarian states to use Marxist rhetoric in their propaganda and claim to be "Marxist" or "socialist" or "communist." These societies were universally thugocracies straight out of the Dark Ages: peasants ruled by brigands, and when you look past the propaganda, were just the sort of brutal, unjust, unequal societies that Marx railed against.
Communism definition 1 has never been tried. Being a cynical and evil-minded old bastard, I suspect that human nature makes it utterly impossible on any scale larger than a single farming village, and won't work there either unless everybody there believes and works hard to benefit his neighbors. In other words, there has to be no dissent, because when the only guy in town who can fix tractors starts to resent the fact that he gets the same exact same bread ration as the lazy drunks and 'tards who are only good for pick and shovel work and only do that much when they know they're being watched, well--if he doesn't keep his mouth shut and keep on working, you're hosed and your agrarian utopia goes straight back to the Iron Age in a hell of a hurry.
Civic-spiritedness only goes so far. Even chimpanzees are able to sense the inherent unfairness. In recent experiments, it has been demonstrated that when you teach one chimp to do a trick and give him a banana, and then you get him to do the trick and give him a banana and let him see you give a banana to another chimp who hasn't done anything but sit there scratching his ass, the first chimp will go BERSERK. Communism definition 1 requires everyone to be dedicated to the idea and to hard work, or else it runs right smack into our old primate instincts: "that lazy bastard contributes less than I do, so FUCK him! Why should I bust my balls to feed both of us?"
In any event, communism definition 2 has caused people pretty much everywhere on Earth outside of Berkeley and perhaps North Korea to instantly associate the term with mass murder, torture, and secret police. This has pretty much ruined the respectability of the idea among just about everybody except neurotic self-hating upper-class white kids (from time to time one hears the claim that these beliefs are especially fashionable among Jewish kids, but I really don't know) who want to get back at Daddy for not buying them a pony for their ninth birthday, and maybe some of the more thoroughly brainwashed illiterate peasants who are forced to live in some of the more backward and benighted portions of the Third World.
My recommendation to those who have an interest in the definition-1 flavor is to change the name. Call it "communitarianism" or something like that, because otherwise people will instantly think of Pol Pot before you've been able to say five words. And if you're going to try it, keep us posted. I wish you well, even if I think human nature makes it unlikely that the definition-1 flavor can ever work for groups larger than a family.
I've always thought that the best answer was somewhere in the middle. Capitalism is good at bringing new ideas to market, but sucks at things like providing for the poor in any society. Communism 1 doesn't leave the poor behind, but it kills all incentive for innovation. Why invent a better mousetrap -- it won't make your life any better? But somewhere in the middle, about where Sweden is on the Left/Right economic scale, you get the best of both worlds. Inventing a new product does net you wealth, yet the safety net is big enough that poor folks don't need to worry about affording health care, food and shelter.
Of course there are trade offs. Sweden isn't a superpower, it doesn't get to throw its weight around and get its way in international meetings. The standard of living is less than that of the middle-class USA. But you do get a nice standard of living.
>>111, you say that the standard of living in Sweden is lower than it is in the US, at least for the middle class?
I'm intrigued by this. Leftists in the US traditionally hold up Sweden as a model and claim that the standard of living is higher there than in the US, not lower.
May I ask what your source is for that information? Thanks.