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On August 20 2017 22:40 Schmobutzen wrote:
Any ideology adopted by a state has to be enforced. Not everyone in a state wants to live under that ideology. Problems and violence follows. This, garnered with the usual greed und stupidity, makes a bulk of the casualties of communist regimes. They all tend to habe very violent side effects. For that, I can't take them for a benevolent ideology.
I don't know who said it, but paraphrased it goes like this, Communism is great, but not for humans, only for ants.
This is why governments ultimately need to be abolished and a system needs to be in place that can work autonomously. Trying to figure out how tyranny will lay dormant is a key feature of this.
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Norway28879 Posts
You really don't get to just split off the bad shit that happened under communistic regimes by calling them "stalinist" and "maoist". They're still communists, just shitty ones.
I find it baffling that so many people view communism, an ideology rather close to fascism, completely fine. Communism and Facism are almost exactly the same thing on different political spectrums.
By your measure it's actually entirely fine to be a fascist, as long as you make clear that you're "a mussolinist", not a "hitlerist".
I don't think it's entirely fine to be a fascist, but I think it's certainly much more fine to be a fascist than to be a nazi, and if someone tells you they are a fascist, I don't think it's fair to say 'oh, so you support killing jews, then'. This is not necessarily a part of fascism, but it is part of one particular implementation of fascism. A fascist does not have to own hitler's genocide, a communist does not have to own Stalin's various atrocities.
If you want to argue that a communist is like a fascist, that's actually entirely fair. But it's not like being a nazi - the communist equivalent of a nazi would be a stalinist or pol pothead.
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On August 20 2017 22:51 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2017 22:22 Jockmcplop wrote:On August 20 2017 21:49 Simberto wrote:On August 20 2017 21:28 m4ini wrote:On August 20 2017 21:23 farvacola wrote:
Though I feel like I plug her works all the time these days. I highly recommend Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, particularly with regards to attempts at drawing equivalencies between neo-nazis and antifa. Well, care to give a summary, because obviously no one's gonna go and buy a book now to argue. No self-identifying communist thinks stalin was a swell guy, and the incredible numbers of death associated with communism are perceived as part of the horrible implementation, certainly not as part of the goal. Bolded: you sure? Should not be possible to find one then, right? Italic: yeah, ahm, it doesn't really matter what it's perceived as, what does matter is what happened in reality. There's really not much perception there, communistic regimes deliberately killed millions, too. If you choose to ignore that, okay, but let me ask you this, would you let that argument count for a Nazi, if he says "well holocaust was shit" or even (since we're talking perception) "well holocaust never happened anyway"? We both know you (actually, we) wouldn't. Except i don't give a pass to any side. People who are communists today don't believe that stalinist atrocities didn't happen. They think that stalinist russia was not a communist nation. Their argument is that just because you call yourself something doesn't mean that you are that thing. This can easily be proven, too. If we take a countries claim of how they work as absolute truth, then you would necessary have to attribute all of the North Korean atrocities to democracy. After all, they are the "Democratic peoples republic of Korea". The resulting question is thus if something like stalinist russia is the inevitable result of striving for a communist society. Now, i personally am not a communist, i fit in more within the social democrats. Thus, i think that the best-working economic system that we know of is one of capitalism with a lot of governmental controls and safety nets to protect the weaker members of society from the excesses of the strong. I also see that historically, communist countries have had a tendency to turn out pretty shitty. I don't know if that is attributable to communism, but i also don't really see why communism should get ever more chances. Frankly, communism is based entirely on an outdated 19th century theory of value. I still dislike bad arguments. Stalinist Russia was ideologically communist, they enacted communism pretty strictly. I think the problem the modern day far left has with this is that they are unable to grasp the idea that their utopia could have extremely negative unintended consequences. The consequences of nazism were completely intended. I don't know if this makes one worse than the other, though, or which one would be worse. Being smart and thoughtful can be as important as being well intentioned. I think they heighten current societal problems so the "extremely negative unintended consequences" don't look to be much worse than issues now. It's gross negligence for societal health together with a misplaced belief that they can stop the slide if people take it too far. They didn't learn from 1960s radicals that are now professors and being attacked by their more regressive students.
If we had a time machine, I bet a bunch of 1960s radicals would rebel against their future selves.
On August 20 2017 21:48 m4ini wrote:
Problem being that i can't read e-books. If my local bookstore carries a copy, maybe, but e-books i just can't. I was a enthusiastic reader from childs age on, maybe that's why i despise e-book readers.
Physical books for life. E-ink is only good for news papers and essays.
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United States44262 Posts
On August 20 2017 21:59 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2017 21:49 Simberto wrote:On August 20 2017 21:28 m4ini wrote:On August 20 2017 21:23 farvacola wrote:
Though I feel like I plug her works all the time these days. I highly recommend Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, particularly with regards to attempts at drawing equivalencies between neo-nazis and antifa. Well, care to give a summary, because obviously no one's gonna go and buy a book now to argue. No self-identifying communist thinks stalin was a swell guy, and the incredible numbers of death associated with communism are perceived as part of the horrible implementation, certainly not as part of the goal. Bolded: you sure? Should not be possible to find one then, right? Italic: yeah, ahm, it doesn't really matter what it's perceived as, what does matter is what happened in reality. There's really not much perception there, communistic regimes deliberately killed millions, too. If you choose to ignore that, okay, but let me ask you this, would you let that argument count for a Nazi, if he says "well holocaust was shit" or even (since we're talking perception) "well holocaust never happened anyway"? We both know you (actually, we) wouldn't. Except i don't give a pass to any side. People who are communists today don't believe that stalinist atrocities didn't happen. They think that stalinist russia was not a communist nation. Their argument is that just because you call yourself something doesn't mean that you are that thing. This can easily be proven, too. If we take a countries claim of how they work as absolute truth, then you would necessary have to attribute all of the North Korean atrocities to democracy. After all, they are the "Democratic peoples republic of Korea". The resulting question is thus if something like stalinist russia is the inevitable result of striving for a communist society. Now, i personally am not a communist, i fit in more within the social democrats. Thus, i think that the best-working economic system that we know of is one of capitalism with a lot of governmental controls and safety nets to protect the weaker members of society from the excesses of the strong. I also see that historically, communist countries have had a tendency to turn out pretty shitty. I don't know if that is attributable to communism, but i also don't really see why communism should get ever more chances. Frankly, communism is based entirely on an outdated 19th century theory of value. I still dislike bad arguments. Except stalinist russia was indeed communist (with communist policies), where as you'll get no argument whatsoever anywhere by saying that north korea might not be that democratic (yeah..). If you look at the "endgoal" in terms of communism, and only go by that, sure. But that A: never happened, so the argument really doesn't count, and B: really doesn't get a pass in any discussion. It just wasn't the utopia people generally think off if they think "communism". I'm in line with your political ideology, as a sidenote. Show nested quote +You thinking I mean a guy or two when I say quite a lot is on you. You not understanding my argument is also on you. Nazis support hitler. They own everything he did. Communists don't support Stalin. They don't own what he did.
You really don't get to just split off the bad shit that happened under communistic regimes by calling them "stalinist" and "maoist". They're still communists, just shitty ones. I find it baffling that so many people view communism, an ideology rather close to fascism, completely fine. Communism and Facism are almost exactly the same thing on different political spectrums. By your measure it's actually entirely fine to be a fascist, as long as you make clear that you're "a mussolinist", not a "hitlerist".
I'm not a communist but communism is meant to not have a state at all. Stalin's totalitarian regime very much did have a state which oppressed the fuck out of the people. That's not very communist. If you showed it to Marx and asked him "what political and economic system is this?" he would not have said communism. They made up their own ideologies as they went along.
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On the other hand, if you were to point at Nazi Germany while talking to Carl Schmitt, he'd clap his hands and smile widely 
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On August 21 2017 00:41 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On August 20 2017 21:59 m4ini wrote:On August 20 2017 21:49 Simberto wrote:On August 20 2017 21:28 m4ini wrote:On August 20 2017 21:23 farvacola wrote:
Though I feel like I plug her works all the time these days. I highly recommend Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, particularly with regards to attempts at drawing equivalencies between neo-nazis and antifa. Well, care to give a summary, because obviously no one's gonna go and buy a book now to argue. No self-identifying communist thinks stalin was a swell guy, and the incredible numbers of death associated with communism are perceived as part of the horrible implementation, certainly not as part of the goal. Bolded: you sure? Should not be possible to find one then, right? Italic: yeah, ahm, it doesn't really matter what it's perceived as, what does matter is what happened in reality. There's really not much perception there, communistic regimes deliberately killed millions, too. If you choose to ignore that, okay, but let me ask you this, would you let that argument count for a Nazi, if he says "well holocaust was shit" or even (since we're talking perception) "well holocaust never happened anyway"? We both know you (actually, we) wouldn't. Except i don't give a pass to any side. People who are communists today don't believe that stalinist atrocities didn't happen. They think that stalinist russia was not a communist nation. Their argument is that just because you call yourself something doesn't mean that you are that thing. This can easily be proven, too. If we take a countries claim of how they work as absolute truth, then you would necessary have to attribute all of the North Korean atrocities to democracy. After all, they are the "Democratic peoples republic of Korea". The resulting question is thus if something like stalinist russia is the inevitable result of striving for a communist society. Now, i personally am not a communist, i fit in more within the social democrats. Thus, i think that the best-working economic system that we know of is one of capitalism with a lot of governmental controls and safety nets to protect the weaker members of society from the excesses of the strong. I also see that historically, communist countries have had a tendency to turn out pretty shitty. I don't know if that is attributable to communism, but i also don't really see why communism should get ever more chances. Frankly, communism is based entirely on an outdated 19th century theory of value. I still dislike bad arguments. Except stalinist russia was indeed communist (with communist policies), where as you'll get no argument whatsoever anywhere by saying that north korea might not be that democratic (yeah..). If you look at the "endgoal" in terms of communism, and only go by that, sure. But that A: never happened, so the argument really doesn't count, and B: really doesn't get a pass in any discussion. It just wasn't the utopia people generally think off if they think "communism". I'm in line with your political ideology, as a sidenote. You thinking I mean a guy or two when I say quite a lot is on you. You not understanding my argument is also on you. Nazis support hitler. They own everything he did. Communists don't support Stalin. They don't own what he did.
You really don't get to just split off the bad shit that happened under communistic regimes by calling them "stalinist" and "maoist". They're still communists, just shitty ones. I find it baffling that so many people view communism, an ideology rather close to fascism, completely fine. Communism and Facism are almost exactly the same thing on different political spectrums. By your measure it's actually entirely fine to be a fascist, as long as you make clear that you're "a mussolinist", not a "hitlerist". I'm not a communist but communism is meant to not have a state at all. Stalin's totalitarian regime very much did have a state which oppressed the fuck out of the people. That's not very communist. If you showed it to Marx and asked him "what political and economic system is this?" he would not have said communism. They made up their own ideologies as they went along.
Not to mention that the antifa isn't exactly big on authoritarianism and "tankies" are not exceptionally popular among them. Most nowadays seem to fall into some kind of Orwell / left-libertarian category
Where do you even find Marxist-Leninists these days?
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Canada11603 Posts
They think that stalinist russia was not a communist nation. Their argument is that just because you call yourself something doesn't mean that you are that thing.
Well, that's actually the problem. Communism has been tried. A lot. And not by fakes either- Lenin and Stalin were true believers. So were all the other leaders of the communist revolutions. And yet every time we end up with an oppressive dictatorship that kills millions of its people. I can't think of a single counter example of a communist revolution leading to anything other than a dictatorship. So it's been tried enough that I think we can conclude it's a bad idea, and not just a somewhat bad idea, but a murderously bad idea, a bad idea that leads to the gulags. It's been measured and found wanting. A communist who argues those regimes weren't real communism, mainly thinks they would do a better job if given a chance, and I don't trust that.
I've only read the first volume of the Gulag Archipelago, but it's been rather enlightening, seeing how far people go once you uproot and upend every so-called bourgesois system that was holding back human depravity through checks and balances. One thing the author kept comparing it to was that even the despotic and tyrannical Russian emperors were not so cruel... and in fact noted that even the Gestapo was still searching for truth when searching for traitors and spies- they actually released people because they had insufficient proof! The communists assumed guilt from the outset and so had nearly 100% accusation to conviction rate. Several Russians interrogated and released by the Gestapo, were then subsequently picked up, accused and convicted and sent to the gulags by the Bolksheviks. Fascinating stuff. But everywhere the biggest pattern was because it was revolution that brought down the entire system, human avarice and cruelty was unleashed everywhere. And then without any checks and balances, it was actually self-refuting: the commune farmer that was most on board with 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'- the ones most gung ho to work hard for the commune, were the first to get picked up for 'anticommunist behaviour' because they dared complain when corruption or incompetence led to five years of grain collection, but not a single bit of grain returning to the commune itself. But was that particular to Soviet Russia? By no means! Communism seeks to cut down every tree to get after the devil (the bourgesois), but in doing so leaves no protection for when the devil turns back on them. Its a revolutionary ideology that must do away with old system entirely. That is why it is an inherently murderous idea because in the process, it knocks out every limitation that would stop the murderer of accruing power and murder more (and the liar and the thief). We've seen this already, over and over. The data has come back; the great experiment is over; it works marvelously well to kill or imprison a lot of people and whatever benefit one gets out of it, is not worth the cost.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
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Marxist-Leninism is different to Marxism, Stalinism is different to Marxism. No nation has followed the path Marx described as far as I'm aware, but from what I know Marx's economic theory is seriously flawed anyway so it is likely no nation can follow that path. Anarcho-communists are just as insane as Libertarians, the difference is only one of these political groups is taken seriously in the US.
Also fun fact Thomas More wrote what is seen as one of the first socialistic utopian doctrines with 'Utopia', and also burnt people on the stake for heresy. I'm sure he could have been a capable NKVD director.
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Yeah, a lot of people like to skip over the whole burning people in Thomas More's history. His resume is weird.
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"Communism" is a term used universally despite its very large breadth of possible meanings. What we had back in the USSR is different from what the "Marxists" of today study, is different from the Chinese communist party, is different from any other possible interpretation thereof. They are used together as a blanket dismissal of something with a negative connotation, but seldom with a real explanation of what the term is actually meant to mean.
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Canada11603 Posts
@kollin
That's not from lack of trying. They collectivized the farms, the factories, etc.(Hell, it was a great excuse for guards to pilfer items from prisoners- we're all comrades now.) And then basically the slave trade where they would parade the women in naked, they pick out the best for themselves and the rest go off to the camps, while the men are also paraded in naked while the different camp bosses choose which are the healthiest they want to purchase. They tried to follow the path of Marxism, but reality is messier than ideology and theory and every time the path of Marxism has turned out to be a bloody and oppressive path. It happens so regularly and consistently that I don't see this as a bug, but a feature because it cannot stop the devil.
As for More, one can be correct on one front (or at least the movie version of More) while be absolutely incorrect elsewhere. But that section of the movie succinctly expresses a fundamental truth about what a system of laws does for society (I think.)
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weird thing about communism is it seems like all the places that tried it were peasant-agrarian societies, rather than the factory-based ones it was designed for. Also, how was this related to US politics? I'm pretty sure there was a relation, but I've been skimming and I don't remember it.
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for all this talk about internet "echo chambers" and the unholy threat of societal fragmentation, it seems to me (continuing the metonymy of that great thomas more quote from above) that these communities are all pretty "flat" intellectual spaces.
people need to read more books and stop playing these bastardized enlightenment equivalence games, where stalinists are maoists are postmodern deconstructionists are alt right are nazis are the devil.
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Canada11603 Posts
@zlefin
It's an offshoot of antifa beliefs and whether they are an inherently violent organization, but it is going down a bit of a rabbit trail, I'll grant you.
? Igne, it's precisely from reading a book (Gulag Archipelago) that made me think of the applicability of that quote. Was it the wrong sort of book?
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On August 21 2017 02:11 IgnE wrote:
for all this talk about internet "echo chambers" and the unholy threat of societal fragmentation, it seems to me (continuing the metonymy of that great thomas more quote from above) that these communities are all pretty "flat" intellectual spaces.
people need to read more books and stop playing these bastardized enlightenment equivalence games, where stalinists are maoists are postmodern deconstructionists are alt right are nazis are the devil.
Or they could read the wiki articles at the very least to get a basic gist of nuanced reality instead of plowing through thousands of pages of sec material only to be able to distill something that can be summarized in five minutes which will be dismissed anyway and never be talked about again.
@Falling: I think he was talking in general terms, not talking to you per se.
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United States44262 Posts
On August 21 2017 01:49 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +They think that stalinist russia was not a communist nation. Their argument is that just because you call yourself something doesn't mean that you are that thing. Well, that's actually the problem. Communism has been tried. A lot. And not by fakes either- Lenin and Stalin were true believers. So were all the other leaders of the communist revolutions. And yet every time we end up with an oppressive dictatorship that kills millions of its people. I can't think of a single counter example of a communist revolution leading to anything other than a dictatorship. So it's been tried enough that I think we can conclude it's a bad idea, and not just a somewhat bad idea, but a murderously bad idea, a bad idea that leads to the gulags. It's been measured and found wanting. A communist who argues those regimes weren't real communism, mainly thinks they would do a better job if given a chance, and I don't trust that. I've only read the first volume of the Gulag Archipelago, but it's been rather enlightening, seeing how far people go once you uproot and upend every so-called bourgesois system that was holding back human depravity through checks and balances. One thing the author kept comparing it to was that even the despotic and tyrannical Russian emperors were not so cruel... and in fact noted that even the Gestapo was still searching for truth when searching for traitors and spies- they actually released people because they had insufficient proof! The communists assumed guilt from the outset and so had nearly 100% accusation to conviction rate. Several Russians interrogated and released by the Gestapo, were then subsequently picked up, accused and convicted and sent to the gulags by the Bolksheviks. Fascinating stuff. But everywhere the biggest pattern was because it was revolution that brought down the entire system, human avarice and cruelty was unleashed everywhere. And then without any checks and balances, it was actually self-refuting: the commune farmer that was most on board with 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need'- the ones most gung ho to work hard for the commune, were the first to get picked up for 'anticommunist behaviour' because they dared complain when corruption or incompetence led to five years of grain collection, but not a single bit of grain returning to the commune itself. But was that particular to Soviet Russia? By no means! Communism seeks to cut down every tree to get after the devil (the bourgesois), but in doing so leaves no protection for when the devil turns back on them. Its a revolutionary ideology that must do away with old system entirely. That is why it is an inherently murderous idea because in the process, it knocks out every limitation that would stop the murderer of accruing power and murder more (and the liar and the thief). We've seen this already, over and over. The data has come back; the great experiment is over; it works marvelously well to kill or imprison a lot of people and whatever benefit one gets out of it, is not worth the cost. Show nested quote +
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Neither Lenin nor Stalin, nor any other Bolshevik, were believers in ideological communism. That's what separated the Bolsheviks from the Mensheviks and other communist groups. Communists believe in a natural process of class warfare through which the working class will rise up, seize the means of production, and displace the capitalist class. A classless and egalitarian society would follow. Meanwhile Lenin, Stalin and the other Bolsheviks believed that a revolutionary vanguard would be required to replace the existing elites and enact state control of the means of production as a proxy for worker control. To put it simply, in Bolshevism the state is now the factory owner, in communism there is no concept of a factory owner.
Bolshevism is an abomination, but it's not communism. Lenin and Stalin were absolutely fakes. Marx spoke of history as being largely inevitable, he didn't advocate for a communist revolution, he thought it would happen whether he advocated for it or not. A true believer in communism would have known that if you have to force it, it's not time.
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United States44262 Posts
On August 21 2017 02:03 Falling wrote:
@kollin
That's not from lack of trying. They collectivized the farms, the factories, etc.(Hell, it was a great excuse for guards to pilfer items from prisoners- we're all comrades now.) And then basically the slave trade where they would parade the women in naked, they pick out the best for themselves and the rest go off to the camps, while the men are also paraded in naked while the different camp bosses choose which are the healthiest they want to purchase. They tried to follow the path of Marxism, but reality is messier than ideology and theory and every time the path of Marxism has turned out to be a bloody and oppressive path. It happens so regularly and consistently that I don't see this as a bug, but a feature because it cannot stop the devil.
As for More, one can be correct on one front (or at least the movie version of More) while be absolutely incorrect elsewhere. But that section of the movie succinctly expresses a fundamental truth about what a system of laws does for society (I think.)
Replacing a capitalist landowner with the state does not make a communist farm. To get a communist farm you need to abolish the concept of land ownership entirely and have people voluntarily work together on the land that belongs to everyone and no-one for the collective good.
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Canada11603 Posts
Well alright, so the the 'real' communists are passive deterministic observers- which still means anyone who is actively trying to cause communism is doing something fundamentally dangerous to society.
As for the second- as as I'm aware they started with the abolition of property and ended with the state run farm. That speaks more to the untenability of abolishing property rights than any lack of true belief. (But maybe I'm wrong on that front.)
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Maybe instead of doing a "no true Scotsman" on communism we should try to analyze what "communism" means in context. It's become almost a catch-all term for any number of potential ideologies.
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EPT
