|
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On January 14 2014 11:21 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 11:14 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:58 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:54 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:27 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:04 Nyxisto wrote:On January 14 2014 08:34 WolfintheSheep wrote:On January 14 2014 08:30 Mercy13 wrote:On January 14 2014 08:22 WolfintheSheep wrote:On January 14 2014 08:00 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
Not to defend xDaunt here but this is a misunderstanding and xDaunt is right. He was talking about the Nazis as a standalone example of a group you wouldn't give another chance, not because he thinks socialists are Nazis (I hope). xDaunt is basically saying "if you know who the Nazis are it should be abundantly obvious that I didn't mean socialism when I said National Socialism", as far as I can tell. Well, when the entire discussion line was about how Communism is not directly Stalinism, saying "National Socialism obviously means Nazism" is pretty much repeating the problem. Which, again, kinda proves Shiragaku's point, that having a political ideological discussion is incredibly irritating when people latch onto "buzzwords" and immediately jump to the "popular" representations of that word (whether its applicable or not). But doesn't National Socialism actually mean Nazism? Or am I missing something... Not really. "Nazi Party" stands for National Socialist Party, but again, the name has as much relation to their ideologies as the People's Republic of China. Sorry but you are completely clueless and wrong. Key policies included nationalization of key industries, demanding profits of the heavy industries, excessive welfare and abolition of "unearned" income, such as land ownership. The party was heavily anti-academic and socialist. The way I learned it and still convince(and still believe it's true) myself that it's true is that - yes, there are quite a lot of similarities to an authoritarian communist regime, state control of basically all major institutions/means of economic production in society - "Gleichschaltung" or "cooptation", but when talking about the third reich/mussollini italy you call it fascism and definitely NOT "Socialism" per se. Fascists and Communists have a lot in common, but they are ideological archenemies. I think this voluntary misunderstanding happened because it was opportune for some Americans to have another arrow in the quiver in the neverending struggle against "Socialism". //edit: To make my point a bit clearer. Communists sought to unite the workers of the world in their struggle against all the bad capitalists etc. Nationalism oder nationality was of no concern. Fascists in the third reich wanted to enslave "everyone"(not accurate but you catch my drift) because they thought they were the master race. In this sense they are about as right wing as it gets, putting your "people", race before all others - based on ideology. I also haven't really heard of Euthanasia in a communist regime. Political oppression and gulag etc. yes, but wide spread organized mass murdering of the "unworthy" - mentally challenged, handicapped people - no sir, I don't think Communists ever did that. They let their people starve instead and called it the great leap forward. Communists in some countries were not much better, and were mass-murdering people in the name of ideology also. The issue here is that leninists and stalinists and ... used the term communism and now its meaning is mostly associated with them. Maybe people who call themselves "communist" should just create new name or something, but that seems to be too much work and frankly the communist idea was here long before it was co-opted by those mentioned above and seems unfair to be forced to abandon the name. In the same vein I could argue that moderate modern Christians should also abandon the name Christians. well don't they already call themselves trotzkyists or stalinists... does not change the fact that they are members of the same "family",communism. - ones seek their goals with nonmilitary means and the others are ready to take some more severe actions. On January 14 2014 10:56 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:51 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:18 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
If they said "we'll do it without the xenophobia, the invading Poland, the persecution of minorities and the creation of a dictatorship" then I wouldn't go "well, I heard you say it and all sounds are lies". Now maybe some of those things are intrinsically linked to national socialism but the traits of Stalinism are not intrinsically linked to communism, indeed they generally predate communist rule. I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious. That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. -mcc I do not consider ethics subjective so no  Or were you making some other point ? Or you could show me which part of core communist ideals is inherently evil ? My point was, sry if it was not clear enough, that some more freedom cherishing people will have a problem when a broad statement is made like " there is nothing inherently evil/bad about communism". Not really some communist movements have completely different ideas on how the state of communism should be reached. Some do not advocate the state route at all and are more akin to libertarians(the anarcho-capitalist variety). Some consider communism long term end-goal in "post-scarcity" society and in the meantime are more-or-less social-democrats. And so on. The core ideals involve equality on all levels of life (at least to some extent). They have problem with current incarnation of property rights and exploitation. Internationalism is also common theme. And end goal seems to be some kind of decentralized society with little-to-no state involvement. Unless you are some completely fanatical anarcho-capitalist I do not see how communist ideals in general are any antithesis to freedom ? Just to clarify, I am arguing about communists in general. The discussion started due to mention of communist partied in Europe, and if I limited myself to them I might actually agree with many of them being of the same vein as the ones that caused so much suffering in the communist countries. I like the very daring "equality on all levels!" and then in the bracket " at least to some extent" ^_^ I can see me agreeing on the exploitation methods and unsustainable economic logic we still apply to things. Equality on all levels howevery is rather utopian. I believe in equality of chance, not outcome. And I don't want to know how this "equality on all levels" would have to be implemented... I can see some people having a problem with that.
First to comment on the technocracy edit you made earlier. Soviet marxists considered state only temporary solution, end-goal was getting rid of the state altogether once people were ready. Communism was that future state and the current state was called socialism. Basically their idea was that people need to be "improved" before communism can be achieved. Ideologically communism was never achieved. Just clear up the notion that communists in the communist countries considered themselves as living in communism. Of course that is all theoretical and ideological part, in practice those in power had absolutely no wish to change anything. But it has bearing on what communism implies on ideological level.
The "at least to some extent" was added due to how varied communist movements are. Not all of them believe in complete equality of outcome as that is unrealistic requirement. Note that safety-net in modern countries is also basically application of equality of outcome principle.
Equality of chance is of course more important, but even that is vague term. And is very intimately linked to equality of outcome. For example do you think that social order should compensate for inequalities we are born with ? Because we are not born equal. Some people will never with any amount of effort be able to compete with others who won the genetic lottery. Should social order try to alleviate it ? Biology itself violates equality of chance. The only way we currently know how to balance it is with society implementing things that apply principle of outcome equality since we cannot (and probably would not even want to) fix the inherent inequality of chance.
Of course equality on all levels is utopian, but getting as close as realistically possible is not. The equality is ideal, communists just place high value on this ideal. Reasonable communists do not think it will be achieved, but think that while designing policy it should be considered one of the most important guiding principles.
I was just describing general core ideals of communists. Specifics of implementation and ideology differ, but the discussion was about communists in general and since the only thing they have in common are the general ideals and maybe few practical ones that is what is relevant.
|
On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:18 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 06:15 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:10 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 06:07 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 05:58 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
If they say it all the time then why could you not give an example of it when pressed. You argued that all Communists are basically Stalinists because anyone who says they're different has "been heard before" and everyone who has been heard before is a liar.
This is not how logic works Jonny. You can't go "they must be the same because they claim to be different and all people who claim to be different turn out the same". The burden of proof is on you. What really matters more in this instance? The logical reality or the statistical reality? The statistical reality is that the sample size is way too small, lacks control groups and can largely be explained by outside factors. Are you really trying to use a half dozen examples without any context to prove a point? I guess you're willing to give National Socialism another go, too, then? If they said "we'll do it without the xenophobia, the invading Poland, the persecution of minorities and the creation of a dictatorship" then I wouldn't go "well, I heard you say it and all sounds are lies". Now maybe some of those things are intrinsically linked to national socialism but the traits of Stalinism are not intrinsically linked to communism, indeed they generally predate communist rule. I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious. That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far.
Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital.
Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion.
Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates.
Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics.
|
On January 14 2014 11:51 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 11:21 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 11:14 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:58 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:54 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:27 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:04 Nyxisto wrote:On January 14 2014 08:34 WolfintheSheep wrote:On January 14 2014 08:30 Mercy13 wrote:On January 14 2014 08:22 WolfintheSheep wrote:
[quote]
Well, when the entire discussion line was about how Communism is not directly Stalinism, saying "National Socialism obviously means Nazism" is pretty much repeating the problem.
Which, again, kinda proves Shiragaku's point, that having a political ideological discussion is incredibly irritating when people latch onto "buzzwords" and immediately jump to the "popular" representations of that word (whether its applicable or not). But doesn't National Socialism actually mean Nazism? Or am I missing something... Not really. "Nazi Party" stands for National Socialist Party, but again, the name has as much relation to their ideologies as the People's Republic of China. Sorry but you are completely clueless and wrong. Key policies included nationalization of key industries, demanding profits of the heavy industries, excessive welfare and abolition of "unearned" income, such as land ownership. The party was heavily anti-academic and socialist. The way I learned it and still convince(and still believe it's true) myself that it's true is that - yes, there are quite a lot of similarities to an authoritarian communist regime, state control of basically all major institutions/means of economic production in society - "Gleichschaltung" or "cooptation", but when talking about the third reich/mussollini italy you call it fascism and definitely NOT "Socialism" per se. Fascists and Communists have a lot in common, but they are ideological archenemies. I think this voluntary misunderstanding happened because it was opportune for some Americans to have another arrow in the quiver in the neverending struggle against "Socialism". //edit: To make my point a bit clearer. Communists sought to unite the workers of the world in their struggle against all the bad capitalists etc. Nationalism oder nationality was of no concern. Fascists in the third reich wanted to enslave "everyone"(not accurate but you catch my drift) because they thought they were the master race. In this sense they are about as right wing as it gets, putting your "people", race before all others - based on ideology. I also haven't really heard of Euthanasia in a communist regime. Political oppression and gulag etc. yes, but wide spread organized mass murdering of the "unworthy" - mentally challenged, handicapped people - no sir, I don't think Communists ever did that. They let their people starve instead and called it the great leap forward. Communists in some countries were not much better, and were mass-murdering people in the name of ideology also. The issue here is that leninists and stalinists and ... used the term communism and now its meaning is mostly associated with them. Maybe people who call themselves "communist" should just create new name or something, but that seems to be too much work and frankly the communist idea was here long before it was co-opted by those mentioned above and seems unfair to be forced to abandon the name. In the same vein I could argue that moderate modern Christians should also abandon the name Christians. well don't they already call themselves trotzkyists or stalinists... does not change the fact that they are members of the same "family",communism. - ones seek their goals with nonmilitary means and the others are ready to take some more severe actions. On January 14 2014 10:56 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:51 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious.
That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. -mcc I do not consider ethics subjective so no Or were you making some other point ? Or you could show me which part of core communist ideals is inherently evil ? My point was, sry if it was not clear enough, that some more freedom cherishing people will have a problem when a broad statement is made like " there is nothing inherently evil/bad about communism". Not really some communist movements have completely different ideas on how the state of communism should be reached. Some do not advocate the state route at all and are more akin to libertarians(the anarcho-capitalist variety). Some consider communism long term end-goal in "post-scarcity" society and in the meantime are more-or-less social-democrats. And so on. The core ideals involve equality on all levels of life (at least to some extent). They have problem with current incarnation of property rights and exploitation. Internationalism is also common theme. And end goal seems to be some kind of decentralized society with little-to-no state involvement. Unless you are some completely fanatical anarcho-capitalist I do not see how communist ideals in general are any antithesis to freedom ? Just to clarify, I am arguing about communists in general. The discussion started due to mention of communist partied in Europe, and if I limited myself to them I might actually agree with many of them being of the same vein as the ones that caused so much suffering in the communist countries. I like the very daring "equality on all levels!" and then in the bracket " at least to some extent" ^_^ I can see me agreeing on the exploitation methods and unsustainable economic logic we still apply to things. Equality on all levels howevery is rather utopian. I believe in equality of chance, not outcome. And I don't want to know how this "equality on all levels" would have to be implemented... I can see some people having a problem with that. First to comment on the technocracy edit you made earlier. Soviet marxists considered state only temporary solution, end-goal was getting rid of the state altogether once people were ready. Communism was that future state and the current state was called socialism. Basically their idea was that people need to be "improved" before communism can be achieved. Ideologically communism was never achieved. Just clear up the notion that communists in the communist countries considered themselves as living in communism. Of course that is all theoretical and ideological part, in practice those in power had absolutely no wish to change anything. But it has bearing on what communism implies on ideological level. The "at least to some extent" was added due to how varied communist movements are. Not all of them believe in complete equality of outcome as that is unrealistic requirement. Note that safety-net in modern countries is also basically application of equality of outcome principle. Equality of chance is of course more important, but even that is vague term. And is very intimately linked to equality of outcome. For example do you think that social order should compensate for inequalities we are born with ? Because we are not born equal. Some people will never with any amount of effort be able to compete with others who won the genetic lottery. Should social order try to alleviate it ? Biology itself violates equality of chance. The only way we currently know how to balance it is with society implementing things that apply principle of outcome equality since we cannot (and probably would not even want to) fix the inherent inequality of chance. Of course equality on all levels is utopian, but getting as close as realistically possible is not. The equality is ideal, communists just place high value on this ideal. Reasonable communists do not think it will be achieved, but think that while designing policy it should be considered one of the most important guiding principles. I was just describing general core ideals of communists. Specifics of implementation and ideology differ, but the discussion was about communists in general and since the only thing they have in common are the general ideals and maybe few practical ones that is what is relevant.
I don't think so. There should be, as is the case in most western countries I know of, institutions led by private entities or the state - I really could not give a damn as long as they get the job done - that give people with a handicap the support they need, and for the lack of a better word, "subsidies" - tax breaks, wider safety net etc. etc. But other than that I don't think the state should interfere all that much in this regard. It's simply a matter too complicated and hard to solve.
Trying to make everybody happy is a futile endeavor.
|
On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:18 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 06:15 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:10 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 06:07 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
What really matters more in this instance? The logical reality or the statistical reality?
The statistical reality is that the sample size is way too small, lacks control groups and can largely be explained by outside factors. Are you really trying to use a half dozen examples without any context to prove a point? I guess you're willing to give National Socialism another go, too, then? If they said "we'll do it without the xenophobia, the invading Poland, the persecution of minorities and the creation of a dictatorship" then I wouldn't go "well, I heard you say it and all sounds are lies". Now maybe some of those things are intrinsically linked to national socialism but the traits of Stalinism are not intrinsically linked to communism, indeed they generally predate communist rule. I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious. That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics.
Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success.
|
On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:18 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 06:15 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:10 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
The statistical reality is that the sample size is way too small, lacks control groups and can largely be explained by outside factors. Are you really trying to use a half dozen examples without any context to prove a point? I guess you're willing to give National Socialism another go, too, then? If they said "we'll do it without the xenophobia, the invading Poland, the persecution of minorities and the creation of a dictatorship" then I wouldn't go "well, I heard you say it and all sounds are lies". Now maybe some of those things are intrinsically linked to national socialism but the traits of Stalinism are not intrinsically linked to communism, indeed they generally predate communist rule. I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious. That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success.
For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes.
|
On January 14 2014 12:20 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:18 KwarK wrote:On January 14 2014 06:15 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I guess you're willing to give National Socialism another go, too, then? If they said "we'll do it without the xenophobia, the invading Poland, the persecution of minorities and the creation of a dictatorship" then I wouldn't go "well, I heard you say it and all sounds are lies". Now maybe some of those things are intrinsically linked to national socialism but the traits of Stalinism are not intrinsically linked to communism, indeed they generally predate communist rule. I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious. That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success. For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes.
Mao was fantastic at suppressing dissidents and brainwashing China's youth. Happy?
|
On January 14 2014 12:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:20 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 06:18 KwarK wrote:
[quote]
If they said "we'll do it without the xenophobia, the invading Poland, the persecution of minorities and the creation of a dictatorship" then I wouldn't go "well, I heard you say it and all sounds are lies". Now maybe some of those things are intrinsically linked to national socialism but the traits of Stalinism are not intrinsically linked to communism, indeed they generally predate communist rule. I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious. That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success. For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes. Mao was fantastic at suppressing dissidents and brainwashing China's youth. Happy?
Oh I get it, the only freedom worth protecting is the right to a free market, and the only oppression that's not ok is that of the Communist Party.
Yep, no brainwashing going on in the good old US of A.
|
On January 14 2014 12:29 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:20 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 06:30 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I'm just talking off-the-cuff here, but it seems to me that inherent to any communist regime is a need to disregard the rule of law (the "revolution") so as to effect communist policy on the rubble of the previous system. How else do you get a communist redistribution of wealth and power without trampling the rights of those at the top (and the middle, and pretty much everyone else to one degree or another, but I digress...)? I know that it's rather cute to say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," but there is no communism without the wielding of that absolute power that stretches beyond the confines of traditional law. The inherent danger there is obvious.
That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist. And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success. For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes. Mao was fantastic at suppressing dissidents and brainwashing China's youth. Happy? Oh I get it, the only freedom worth protecting is the right to a free market, and the only oppression that's not ok is that of the Communist Party. Yep, no brainwashing going on in the good old US of A.
Mao destroyed China's economy and caused tens of millions to die. You're really defending the guy?
|
On January 14 2014 12:09 Doublemint wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 11:51 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 11:21 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 11:14 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:58 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:54 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:27 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:04 Nyxisto wrote:On January 14 2014 08:34 WolfintheSheep wrote:On January 14 2014 08:30 Mercy13 wrote:
[quote]
But doesn't National Socialism actually mean Nazism? Or am I missing something...
Not really. "Nazi Party" stands for National Socialist Party, but again, the name has as much relation to their ideologies as the People's Republic of China. Sorry but you are completely clueless and wrong. Key policies included nationalization of key industries, demanding profits of the heavy industries, excessive welfare and abolition of "unearned" income, such as land ownership. The party was heavily anti-academic and socialist. The way I learned it and still convince(and still believe it's true) myself that it's true is that - yes, there are quite a lot of similarities to an authoritarian communist regime, state control of basically all major institutions/means of economic production in society - "Gleichschaltung" or "cooptation", but when talking about the third reich/mussollini italy you call it fascism and definitely NOT "Socialism" per se. Fascists and Communists have a lot in common, but they are ideological archenemies. I think this voluntary misunderstanding happened because it was opportune for some Americans to have another arrow in the quiver in the neverending struggle against "Socialism". //edit: To make my point a bit clearer. Communists sought to unite the workers of the world in their struggle against all the bad capitalists etc. Nationalism oder nationality was of no concern. Fascists in the third reich wanted to enslave "everyone"(not accurate but you catch my drift) because they thought they were the master race. In this sense they are about as right wing as it gets, putting your "people", race before all others - based on ideology. I also haven't really heard of Euthanasia in a communist regime. Political oppression and gulag etc. yes, but wide spread organized mass murdering of the "unworthy" - mentally challenged, handicapped people - no sir, I don't think Communists ever did that. They let their people starve instead and called it the great leap forward. Communists in some countries were not much better, and were mass-murdering people in the name of ideology also. The issue here is that leninists and stalinists and ... used the term communism and now its meaning is mostly associated with them. Maybe people who call themselves "communist" should just create new name or something, but that seems to be too much work and frankly the communist idea was here long before it was co-opted by those mentioned above and seems unfair to be forced to abandon the name. In the same vein I could argue that moderate modern Christians should also abandon the name Christians. well don't they already call themselves trotzkyists or stalinists... does not change the fact that they are members of the same "family",communism. - ones seek their goals with nonmilitary means and the others are ready to take some more severe actions. On January 14 2014 10:56 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:51 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:
[quote]
That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist.
And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. -mcc I do not consider ethics subjective so no Or were you making some other point ? Or you could show me which part of core communist ideals is inherently evil ? My point was, sry if it was not clear enough, that some more freedom cherishing people will have a problem when a broad statement is made like " there is nothing inherently evil/bad about communism". Not really some communist movements have completely different ideas on how the state of communism should be reached. Some do not advocate the state route at all and are more akin to libertarians(the anarcho-capitalist variety). Some consider communism long term end-goal in "post-scarcity" society and in the meantime are more-or-less social-democrats. And so on. The core ideals involve equality on all levels of life (at least to some extent). They have problem with current incarnation of property rights and exploitation. Internationalism is also common theme. And end goal seems to be some kind of decentralized society with little-to-no state involvement. Unless you are some completely fanatical anarcho-capitalist I do not see how communist ideals in general are any antithesis to freedom ? Just to clarify, I am arguing about communists in general. The discussion started due to mention of communist partied in Europe, and if I limited myself to them I might actually agree with many of them being of the same vein as the ones that caused so much suffering in the communist countries. I like the very daring "equality on all levels!" and then in the bracket " at least to some extent" ^_^ I can see me agreeing on the exploitation methods and unsustainable economic logic we still apply to things. Equality on all levels howevery is rather utopian. I believe in equality of chance, not outcome. And I don't want to know how this "equality on all levels" would have to be implemented... I can see some people having a problem with that. First to comment on the technocracy edit you made earlier. Soviet marxists considered state only temporary solution, end-goal was getting rid of the state altogether once people were ready. Communism was that future state and the current state was called socialism. Basically their idea was that people need to be "improved" before communism can be achieved. Ideologically communism was never achieved. Just clear up the notion that communists in the communist countries considered themselves as living in communism. Of course that is all theoretical and ideological part, in practice those in power had absolutely no wish to change anything. But it has bearing on what communism implies on ideological level. The "at least to some extent" was added due to how varied communist movements are. Not all of them believe in complete equality of outcome as that is unrealistic requirement. Note that safety-net in modern countries is also basically application of equality of outcome principle. Equality of chance is of course more important, but even that is vague term. And is very intimately linked to equality of outcome. For example do you think that social order should compensate for inequalities we are born with ? Because we are not born equal. Some people will never with any amount of effort be able to compete with others who won the genetic lottery. Should social order try to alleviate it ? Biology itself violates equality of chance. The only way we currently know how to balance it is with society implementing things that apply principle of outcome equality since we cannot (and probably would not even want to) fix the inherent inequality of chance. Of course equality on all levels is utopian, but getting as close as realistically possible is not. The equality is ideal, communists just place high value on this ideal. Reasonable communists do not think it will be achieved, but think that while designing policy it should be considered one of the most important guiding principles. I was just describing general core ideals of communists. Specifics of implementation and ideology differ, but the discussion was about communists in general and since the only thing they have in common are the general ideals and maybe few practical ones that is what is relevant. I don't think so. There should be, as is the case in most western countries I know of, institutions led by private entities or the state - I really could not give a damn as long as they get the job done - that give people with a handicap the support they need, and for the lack of a better word, "subsidies" - tax breaks, wider safety net etc. etc. But other than that I don't think the state should interfere all that much in this regard. It's simply a matter too complicated and hard to solve. Trying to make everybody happy is a futile endeavor.
So you actually agree as tax breaks and safety net is exactly artificially increasing equality of outcome. And frankly most people agree with it, only the extent is under discussion. Communists just are closer to the one end of the spectrum. But even they differ on how much inequality of outcome should be prioritized.
|
On January 14 2014 12:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:29 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:20 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 09:28 mcc wrote:
[quote]
That is because you also confuse communism with part of the movement. Many communists do not argue for violent revolution. Many communist parties participate in democratic process as constructive participants. The fact that you do not know does not mean that it does not exist.
And if you change the rule of law by democratic process of changing the constitution there is no reason why nationalization and redistribution would necessitate breaking the rule of law or violence. I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success. For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes. Mao was fantastic at suppressing dissidents and brainwashing China's youth. Happy? Oh I get it, the only freedom worth protecting is the right to a free market, and the only oppression that's not ok is that of the Communist Party. Yep, no brainwashing going on in the good old US of A. Mao destroyed China's economy and caused tens of millions to die. You're really defending the guy?
No, I was criticizing him for trying to run communism as an alternative to capitalism without ever getting out from underneath the paradigm of constant growth and reproduction of capital. But you like to jump on the first unpleasant truth you find when trying to dismiss arguments wholesale.
3.1 million children die from starvation every year under a globalized neoliberal regime. But that's not Bill Gates's fault, because he's fighting malaria in Africa.
|
On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:
Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics.
And under what conditions would/could this possibly happen? Not just for a "new communism," but for any social order.
|
I hope we can all agree that Stalinism/Leninism/Maoism is really shitty as it basically devastated every country where it was practiced and did cost millions of lives in the process.
People are pointing that "true Marxism" differs a great deal from that and that is certainly true. There's no state involved in the classical communist utopia which makes it fundamentally different from everything else we have seen in history. But I do think it's highly unrealistic. We'd basically have to turn into a giant hippie society and I don't think that's happening.
And regarding Mao's "economic success". Even today China is sitting at a GDP of 6k/capita. That's only a fraction of what the average American citizen produces. China is still a developing country. At the point of Mao's reign I'd guess every policy that doesn't involve dropping nukes on your own country would guarantee rapid economic growth.
|
On January 14 2014 12:52 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:
Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. And under what conditions would/could this possibly happen? Not just for a "new communism," but for any social order.
I'm not sure what you are asking. What makes it so hard for you to imagine a sustainable economy of well-distributed resources?
|
so uhhh...is anyone talking about the company that poisoned the waters in west virginia to the point that 300 000 people didn't have water for 4 days (and expected to be several more)? How can people really believe this deregulation (or unregulation) actually improves quality of life or the economy?
As over 300,000 people in West Virginia face a fourth day without water, state environmental officials are now estimating that as much as 7,500 gallons of a chemical used to process coal — Crude MCHM — may have spilled into the Elk River. That number is a substantial increase from early estimates of 2,000 to 5,000 gallons.
The chemical leak, first reported Thursday, was at a facility owned by Freedom Industries along the Elk River, just 1.5 miles upstream from a major intake used by the largest water utility in the state, West Virginia American Water.
At a press conference Saturday afternoon, Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Company, said that it would likely still be “several days” before tap water in the nine counties affected would be safe for anything besides flushing toilets.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has set the standard of 1 part per million as a safe concentration of Crude MCHM in drinking water. Levels of the chemical must remain below this threshold for over 24 hours of testing before the water company can begin flushing the system.
At a press briefing Saturday evening, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s (D) office released the first results of the now round-the-clock water sampling efforts. While some tests are coming in below the safe threshold, the system is still far from clean. Eight out of 18 recent test results tested above 1 part per million. Some of the earliest tests showed concentrations as high as 3 parts per million.
“The reason the numbers are going down is we believe less of the material is getting into the water,” said Mike Dorsey, the chief of homeland security and emergency response at the State Department of Environmental Protection. “We have cut of the source of the leak, the tank. There is still material under the concrete and the soil. We’ve taken aggressive measures on the shore line below the site.”
A team from the Chemical Safety Board will arrive in West Virginia on Monday to begin the long process of assessing the cause of the spill. The CSB is an independent federal agency with the authority to investigate industrial chemical accidents. The agency issues recommendations for prevention of future accidents.
To date, FEMA has brought in 1.4 million liters of water for residents. An additional 1.6 million liters are expected to come in over the course of the weekend.
The New York Times reported Saturday that at least 122 people have gone to local hospitals complaining of nausea, vomiting, and skin and eye irritation.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/12/3151421/fourth-day-water-west-virginia/
|
On January 14 2014 12:54 Nyxisto wrote:
I hope we can all agree that Stalinism/Leninism/Maoism is really shitty as it basically devastated every country where it was practiced and did cost millions of lives in the process.
People are pointing that "true Marxism" differs a great deal from that and that is certainly true. There's no state involved in the classical communist utopia which makes it fundamentally different from everything else we have seen in history. But I do think it's highly unrealistic. We'd basically have to turn into a giant hippie society and I don't think that's happening.
And regarding Mao's "economic success". Even today China is sitting at a GDP of 6k/capita. That's only a fraction of what the average American citizen produces. China is still a developing country. At the point of Mao's reign I'd guess every policy that doesn't involve dropping nukes on your own country would guarantee rapid economic growth.
Everything you say here seems ill-conceived.
1) no one has said anything about "true marxism"
2) your conclusion is that "a giant hippie society" is unlikely to happen so fuck it, let's keep what we ahve
3) you assume that per capita GDP is a useful metric of China's economic success, China has more than 4x the population of the United States
4) you seemingly lump China in with "developing" countries like Bangladesh, despite it's status as a regional hegemon and rising power
Do you really think the planet could sustain a China that had a per capita GDP and consumption rate equivalent to the United States?
|
On January 14 2014 12:56 Roe wrote:so uhhh...is anyone talking about the company that poisoned the waters in west virginia to the point that 300 000 people didn't have water for 4 days (and expected to be several more)? How can people really believe this deregulation (or unregulation) actually improves quality of life or the economy? Show nested quote +As over 300,000 people in West Virginia face a fourth day without water, state environmental officials are now estimating that as much as 7,500 gallons of a chemical used to process coal — Crude MCHM — may have spilled into the Elk River. That number is a substantial increase from early estimates of 2,000 to 5,000 gallons.
The chemical leak, first reported Thursday, was at a facility owned by Freedom Industries along the Elk River, just 1.5 miles upstream from a major intake used by the largest water utility in the state, West Virginia American Water.
At a press conference Saturday afternoon, Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Company, said that it would likely still be “several days” before tap water in the nine counties affected would be safe for anything besides flushing toilets.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has set the standard of 1 part per million as a safe concentration of Crude MCHM in drinking water. Levels of the chemical must remain below this threshold for over 24 hours of testing before the water company can begin flushing the system.
At a press briefing Saturday evening, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s (D) office released the first results of the now round-the-clock water sampling efforts. While some tests are coming in below the safe threshold, the system is still far from clean. Eight out of 18 recent test results tested above 1 part per million. Some of the earliest tests showed concentrations as high as 3 parts per million.
“The reason the numbers are going down is we believe less of the material is getting into the water,” said Mike Dorsey, the chief of homeland security and emergency response at the State Department of Environmental Protection. “We have cut of the source of the leak, the tank. There is still material under the concrete and the soil. We’ve taken aggressive measures on the shore line below the site.”
A team from the Chemical Safety Board will arrive in West Virginia on Monday to begin the long process of assessing the cause of the spill. The CSB is an independent federal agency with the authority to investigate industrial chemical accidents. The agency issues recommendations for prevention of future accidents.
To date, FEMA has brought in 1.4 million liters of water for residents. An additional 1.6 million liters are expected to come in over the course of the weekend.
The New York Times reported Saturday that at least 122 people have gone to local hospitals complaining of nausea, vomiting, and skin and eye irritation. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/12/3151421/fourth-day-water-west-virginia/
CAFE standards lead to smaller cars that are less safe, meaning more people die. They also increase prices. How can anyone say increasing regulation improves the quality of life or the economy? http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/296998/cafe-standards-kill-deroy-murdock
I even have a partisan source, too!
|
On January 14 2014 12:42 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:29 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:20 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully.
That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success. For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes. Mao was fantastic at suppressing dissidents and brainwashing China's youth. Happy? Oh I get it, the only freedom worth protecting is the right to a free market, and the only oppression that's not ok is that of the Communist Party. Yep, no brainwashing going on in the good old US of A. Mao destroyed China's economy and caused tens of millions to die. You're really defending the guy? No, I was criticizing him for trying to run communism as an alternative to capitalism without ever getting out from underneath the paradigm of constant growth and reproduction of capital. But you like to jump on the first unpleasant truth you find when trying to dismiss arguments wholesale. 3.1 million children die from starvation every year under a globalized neoliberal regime. But that's not Bill Gates's fault, because he's fighting malaria in Africa.
You said Mao did a great job managing China's economy. That's laughably false.
As for starving kids - progress takes time. Let's not make things worse all over again please.
|
On January 14 2014 12:34 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:09 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 11:51 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 11:21 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 11:14 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:58 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:54 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:27 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:04 Nyxisto wrote:On January 14 2014 08:34 WolfintheSheep wrote:
[quote]
Not really. "Nazi Party" stands for National Socialist Party, but again, the name has as much relation to their ideologies as the People's Republic of China.
Sorry but you are completely clueless and wrong. Key policies included nationalization of key industries, demanding profits of the heavy industries, excessive welfare and abolition of "unearned" income, such as land ownership. The party was heavily anti-academic and socialist. The way I learned it and still convince(and still believe it's true) myself that it's true is that - yes, there are quite a lot of similarities to an authoritarian communist regime, state control of basically all major institutions/means of economic production in society - "Gleichschaltung" or "cooptation", but when talking about the third reich/mussollini italy you call it fascism and definitely NOT "Socialism" per se. Fascists and Communists have a lot in common, but they are ideological archenemies. I think this voluntary misunderstanding happened because it was opportune for some Americans to have another arrow in the quiver in the neverending struggle against "Socialism". //edit: To make my point a bit clearer. Communists sought to unite the workers of the world in their struggle against all the bad capitalists etc. Nationalism oder nationality was of no concern. Fascists in the third reich wanted to enslave "everyone"(not accurate but you catch my drift) because they thought they were the master race. In this sense they are about as right wing as it gets, putting your "people", race before all others - based on ideology. I also haven't really heard of Euthanasia in a communist regime. Political oppression and gulag etc. yes, but wide spread organized mass murdering of the "unworthy" - mentally challenged, handicapped people - no sir, I don't think Communists ever did that. They let their people starve instead and called it the great leap forward. Communists in some countries were not much better, and were mass-murdering people in the name of ideology also. The issue here is that leninists and stalinists and ... used the term communism and now its meaning is mostly associated with them. Maybe people who call themselves "communist" should just create new name or something, but that seems to be too much work and frankly the communist idea was here long before it was co-opted by those mentioned above and seems unfair to be forced to abandon the name. In the same vein I could argue that moderate modern Christians should also abandon the name Christians. well don't they already call themselves trotzkyists or stalinists... does not change the fact that they are members of the same "family",communism. - ones seek their goals with nonmilitary means and the others are ready to take some more severe actions. On January 14 2014 10:56 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:51 Doublemint wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:On January 14 2014 10:33 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
I'm aware that there are some communists who prefer to work through democratic channels to attain their goals. I just don't see them ever getting that far any time in the near future without a hefty dosage of abuse of power. At some point communism requires an abolition of the traditional western concept of property rights. That isn't going to happen peacefully.
The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. -mcc I do not consider ethics subjective so no Or were you making some other point ? Or you could show me which part of core communist ideals is inherently evil ? My point was, sry if it was not clear enough, that some more freedom cherishing people will have a problem when a broad statement is made like " there is nothing inherently evil/bad about communism". Not really some communist movements have completely different ideas on how the state of communism should be reached. Some do not advocate the state route at all and are more akin to libertarians(the anarcho-capitalist variety). Some consider communism long term end-goal in "post-scarcity" society and in the meantime are more-or-less social-democrats. And so on. The core ideals involve equality on all levels of life (at least to some extent). They have problem with current incarnation of property rights and exploitation. Internationalism is also common theme. And end goal seems to be some kind of decentralized society with little-to-no state involvement. Unless you are some completely fanatical anarcho-capitalist I do not see how communist ideals in general are any antithesis to freedom ? Just to clarify, I am arguing about communists in general. The discussion started due to mention of communist partied in Europe, and if I limited myself to them I might actually agree with many of them being of the same vein as the ones that caused so much suffering in the communist countries. I like the very daring "equality on all levels!" and then in the bracket " at least to some extent" ^_^ I can see me agreeing on the exploitation methods and unsustainable economic logic we still apply to things. Equality on all levels howevery is rather utopian. I believe in equality of chance, not outcome. And I don't want to know how this "equality on all levels" would have to be implemented... I can see some people having a problem with that. First to comment on the technocracy edit you made earlier. Soviet marxists considered state only temporary solution, end-goal was getting rid of the state altogether once people were ready. Communism was that future state and the current state was called socialism. Basically their idea was that people need to be "improved" before communism can be achieved. Ideologically communism was never achieved. Just clear up the notion that communists in the communist countries considered themselves as living in communism. Of course that is all theoretical and ideological part, in practice those in power had absolutely no wish to change anything. But it has bearing on what communism implies on ideological level. The "at least to some extent" was added due to how varied communist movements are. Not all of them believe in complete equality of outcome as that is unrealistic requirement. Note that safety-net in modern countries is also basically application of equality of outcome principle. Equality of chance is of course more important, but even that is vague term. And is very intimately linked to equality of outcome. For example do you think that social order should compensate for inequalities we are born with ? Because we are not born equal. Some people will never with any amount of effort be able to compete with others who won the genetic lottery. Should social order try to alleviate it ? Biology itself violates equality of chance. The only way we currently know how to balance it is with society implementing things that apply principle of outcome equality since we cannot (and probably would not even want to) fix the inherent inequality of chance. Of course equality on all levels is utopian, but getting as close as realistically possible is not. The equality is ideal, communists just place high value on this ideal. Reasonable communists do not think it will be achieved, but think that while designing policy it should be considered one of the most important guiding principles. I was just describing general core ideals of communists. Specifics of implementation and ideology differ, but the discussion was about communists in general and since the only thing they have in common are the general ideals and maybe few practical ones that is what is relevant. I don't think so. There should be, as is the case in most western countries I know of, institutions led by private entities or the state - I really could not give a damn as long as they get the job done - that give people with a handicap the support they need, and for the lack of a better word, "subsidies" - tax breaks, wider safety net etc. etc. But other than that I don't think the state should interfere all that much in this regard. It's simply a matter too complicated and hard to solve. Trying to make everybody happy is a futile endeavor. So you actually agree as tax breaks and safety net is exactly artificially increasing equality of outcome. And frankly most people agree with it, only the extent is under discussion. Communists just are closer to the one end of the spectrum. But even they differ on how much inequality of outcome should be prioritized.
Hm... "increasing equality of outcome". I don't like that wording at all to be perfectly honest. I would say people should have the chance to a decent life and get all the support you need if you got shat on by mother nature/got the short stick in the gene lottery. So I guess in this regard I would agree yes.
I like your thoughts as an inspiration and just to think about them, but I am not sold on them 
|
On January 14 2014 12:56 Roe wrote:so uhhh...is anyone talking about the company that poisoned the waters in west virginia to the point that 300 000 people didn't have water for 4 days (and expected to be several more)? How can people really believe this deregulation (or unregulation) actually improves quality of life or the economy? Show nested quote +As over 300,000 people in West Virginia face a fourth day without water, state environmental officials are now estimating that as much as 7,500 gallons of a chemical used to process coal — Crude MCHM — may have spilled into the Elk River. That number is a substantial increase from early estimates of 2,000 to 5,000 gallons.
The chemical leak, first reported Thursday, was at a facility owned by Freedom Industries along the Elk River, just 1.5 miles upstream from a major intake used by the largest water utility in the state, West Virginia American Water.
At a press conference Saturday afternoon, Jeff McIntyre, president of West Virginia American Water Company, said that it would likely still be “several days” before tap water in the nine counties affected would be safe for anything besides flushing toilets.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has set the standard of 1 part per million as a safe concentration of Crude MCHM in drinking water. Levels of the chemical must remain below this threshold for over 24 hours of testing before the water company can begin flushing the system.
At a press briefing Saturday evening, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s (D) office released the first results of the now round-the-clock water sampling efforts. While some tests are coming in below the safe threshold, the system is still far from clean. Eight out of 18 recent test results tested above 1 part per million. Some of the earliest tests showed concentrations as high as 3 parts per million.
“The reason the numbers are going down is we believe less of the material is getting into the water,” said Mike Dorsey, the chief of homeland security and emergency response at the State Department of Environmental Protection. “We have cut of the source of the leak, the tank. There is still material under the concrete and the soil. We’ve taken aggressive measures on the shore line below the site.”
A team from the Chemical Safety Board will arrive in West Virginia on Monday to begin the long process of assessing the cause of the spill. The CSB is an independent federal agency with the authority to investigate industrial chemical accidents. The agency issues recommendations for prevention of future accidents.
To date, FEMA has brought in 1.4 million liters of water for residents. An additional 1.6 million liters are expected to come in over the course of the weekend.
The New York Times reported Saturday that at least 122 people have gone to local hospitals complaining of nausea, vomiting, and skin and eye irritation. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/12/3151421/fourth-day-water-west-virginia/
Yeah, it's been posted a few times. What does deregulation have to do with it?
|
On January 14 2014 13:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2014 12:42 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:29 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:27 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:20 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 12:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On January 14 2014 12:06 IgnE wrote:On January 14 2014 10:55 xDaunt wrote:On January 14 2014 10:46 mcc wrote:
[quote]
That is completely another matter and rather subjective judgement. The point is that there is nothing violent or "evil" in the goals and ideas of communists in general. That cannot be said for fascists and especially not for nazis. There you have things that are inherent to the ideology that cannot be taken away without it stopping being nazism or fascism. You could maybe get the obviously ugly parts out of the way, but they are both based on tribalism and thus have inherent issues involved in it. When the means of implementing communism are functionally inseparable from the exercise of "evil" as I have pointed out, it can't be said that communism is inherently benign. Uncoincidentally, history has proven me right so far. Kwark focuses too much on the "autocratic" nature of Stalinism and Maoism, that was, admittedly, an aspect of the cultures from which they sprung. The real problem with Stalinism and other manifestations of communism in the historical record (excepting somewhat Cuba) is that they were all designed to compete with capitalism for the manufacture of things. Mao and Stalin actually succeeded somewhat on that end. Both totally revamped their industrial economies, willfully bringing both countries out of agriculture-based peasant societies, Maoism especially. The autocratic structure is not only a byproduct of the culture, but out of the necessity to try and compete militarily and economically with a capitalist system that has a huge head start in the development of capital. Unfortunately production per se does not correlate very well with the standard metric of economic success. Compare Germany at the turn of the 20th century to Britain. Germany was growing its production and trade capacity for real things at 6x the rate of Britain, and yet was barely making a dent in the economic GDP gap between the two countries. Capital owners in Germany fortunately found a use for all that production with the coming of WWI but sadly lost whatever lead they had hoped to gain by losing the war in devastating fashion. Likewise in China and the USSR, simply expanding production per se, implementing modern industrial techniques, and the like, did not help them close the gap in terms of sheer capital accumulation with the west. You have the fall of the USSR eventually, and China adopting a mixed command/liberal economy in order to compete. You do at least have to hand it to Mao for sparking the fastest economic growth and development the world has ever seen, even if his successors eventually decided to switch to a mixed system in order to continue accumulating capital at supra-Western rates. Any "new" communism would have to abandon the unsustainable constant growth paradigm. People like jonny are deluded into thinking that constant growth can be maintained, and so don't understand why anyone would want to vote/adopt/work for a "communist" politics. Yeah the Great Leap Forward was a huge success. For someone who doesn't give a shit about the human costs of neoliberal capitalism and prides himself on his business acumen I'm surprised you can't admit Mao's limited successes. Mao was fantastic at suppressing dissidents and brainwashing China's youth. Happy? Oh I get it, the only freedom worth protecting is the right to a free market, and the only oppression that's not ok is that of the Communist Party. Yep, no brainwashing going on in the good old US of A. Mao destroyed China's economy and caused tens of millions to die. You're really defending the guy? No, I was criticizing him for trying to run communism as an alternative to capitalism without ever getting out from underneath the paradigm of constant growth and reproduction of capital. But you like to jump on the first unpleasant truth you find when trying to dismiss arguments wholesale. 3.1 million children die from starvation every year under a globalized neoliberal regime. But that's not Bill Gates's fault, because he's fighting malaria in Africa. You said Mao did a great job managing China's economy. That's laughably false. As for starving kids - progress takes time. Let's not make things worse all over again please.
I didn't say Mao did "a great job managing China's economy." That's laughably false.
I said Mao's revolution sparked the eventual historic economic growth of China. He industrialized the country, freed hundreds of millions of peasants from the tyranny of petty warlords, improved healthcare and education, and all after centuries of Western exploitation. He was also really bad on a number of other fronts. But I guess you like your black and white absolutes don't you.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
