Political Crossfire Forums

[emmorris]

Anson wrote:

Communism and the USSR are not interchangeable words. I'd be careful with how you use them in each context. Furthermore, the high murder totals during the Soviet years in Russia do not reflect anything about communism, it moreso points to the fact that Russia was not exactly the most progressive nation prior to the 1917 revolution as far as humanitarian rights are concerned, and this trend continued after the revolution.
I understand the distinction between communism and the USSR, but show me one communist country that hasn't committed these crimes against their people. North Korea? China? Cuba? These high death tolls reflect that communism works in theory, not in practice.

[Anson]

emmorris wrote: I understand the distinction between communism and the USSR, but show me one communist country that hasn't committed these crimes against their people. North Korea? China? Cuba? These high death tolls reflect that communism works in theory, not in practice.

Show me one communist country that has (had) gone communist when it was already a socially progressive nation. All of the countrys that went communist were living in very conservatively tradionalist societys before the people made the switch. It's not communism that has led to the high death tolls, it's the countrys themselves that already had records of humanitrian injustices. And I think it's safe to say we are both using the word 'communism' very loosely here as it is hard to describe any of the forementioned nations as actually being communist.

[smirnoff]

Actually communism that Marx foresaw has never happened.

Marx said that capitalism will eventually fail, at which point the mass of the proletariat will be discontent, and overthrow their bourgeois counterparts. All that has happened so far in countries like the USSR and N.Korea has been where a group of elites initiated the revolution and thus created an authoritarian state under the guise that it was "for the people." Thus incorrectly bypassing the capitalist phase and negleting the very first principle that Marx set out.

True communism will come about once (and if) capitalism fails (and not a fascist failing way). Marx never predicted the social democratic state he was however right about many things, namely that the financial gap will continue to increase to a level where once again there is a ruling elite (something that has to the largest extent already happened). Marx predicted that people would rebel against been turned into loyal obedient workers and not take any satisfaction in their repetitive job (think about it, how many people actually enjoy their jobs).

Marx never predicted that a social democratic state (e.g. Scandinavian socialism) would exists, thus rendering communism avoidable if you move to the left. However if you keep moving to the right fascism would be the end result.

[Anson]

Those are some good points Smirnoff. In this article Howard Zinn talks about a lot of the issues you described.

[renwan]

1. Death Tolls? go watch FOX tv, i alreayd told u the pop of USSR and that accoridng to your death tolls children under 6 fought the nazis, right?
2.Cuba, Cuba pisses you off because you have in 70 miles from Florida and is standing there with honour against your bulls**t capitalism. I been to cuba and lived there, and i never saw anyone bitching about anything like deaths, comeone dude you can do better than that.
3.China? China is not communism since Mao, it is nothing but fascist Capitalism and opression.
4.North Korea, don't speak about it, you know s**t about it, your info comes from western media which is banned there so it has no credibility, and the so called refugees are all fake, NK ahs no identification signals in official buildings, so noone knows where the ministries are, if they were real NK they would know where they are, where the controlls are, they would have their IDs and passports to rpoove it , And NONE of them ahs, so rpetyt much bs.

I wont continue cuz u were all brainwashed since u were born and i aint losing my time speaking with you when you believe FOX before someone who lived here over 40 years, so piss off.

[Achilles The Myrmidon]

emmorris wrote: Anson wrote:

Communism and the USSR are not interchangeable words. I'd be careful with how you use them in each context. Furthermore, the high murder totals during the Soviet years in Russia do not reflect anything about communism, it moreso points to the fact that Russia was not exactly the most progressive nation prior to the 1917 revolution as far as humanitarian rights are concerned, and this trend continued after the revolution.
I understand the distinction between communism and the USSR, but show me one communist country that hasn't committed these crimes against their people. North Korea? China? Cuba? These high death tolls reflect that communism works in theory, not in practice. :clap: :clap: :clap:

[emmorris]

Anson wrote: emmorris wrote: I understand the distinction between communism and the USSR, but show me one communist country that hasn't committed these crimes against their people. North Korea? China? Cuba? These high death tolls reflect that communism works in theory, not in practice.

Show me one communist country that has (had) gone communist when it was already a socially progressive nation. All of the countrys that went communist were living in very conservatively tradionalist societys before the people made the switch. It's not communism that has led to the high death tolls, it's the countrys themselves that already had records of humanitrian injustices. And I think it's safe to say we are both using the word 'communism' very loosely here as it is hard to describe any of the forementioned nations as actually being communist.

I completely agree that no country has yet to institute communism as designed by Marx, although policies such as a heavy graduated income tax, universal education ... are all central to Marx's thesis and are used in many countries around the world, including the US.

However, has the question been posed that the problem with communism has as much to do with its basic flaws as with its implimentation? Communism, as Anson pointed out, is usually a reation to autocratic conservative governments. It is a reactionary philosophy, not part of the evolution of human beings. Communism is a theory that has yet to be proven, and so far all experiments show the problems with such an idea.

-It assumes something about human nature that has yet to be proven, namely that people are willing to work hard simply to meet their needs and not be rewarded for do more or doing a better or more difficult job.

-That a large State will simply dissolve. Has this ever happened? A large powerful government returning freedom to the people?

As smirnoff said, the capitalist age was brought to an abrupt end by various dictators, but could this be a sign that capitalism works and will only fail when disrupted?

[Anson]

emmorris wrote: I completely agree that no country has yet to institute communism as designed by Marx, although policies such as a heavy graduated income tax, universal education ... are all central to Marx's thesis and are used in many countries around the world, including the US.

However, has the question been posed that the problem with communism has as much to do with its basic flaws as with its implimentation? Communism, as Anson pointed out, is usually a reation to autocratic conservative governments. It is a reactionary philosophy, not part of the evolution of human beings. Communism is a theory that has yet to be proven, and so far all experiments show the problems with such an idea.

-It assumes something about human nature that has yet to be proven, namely that people are willing to work hard simply to meet their needs and not be rewarded for do more or doing a better or more difficult job.

-That a large State will simply dissolve. Has this ever happened? A large powerful government returning freedom to the people?

Good points Emmoris, some I agree with and some I don't. It's hard to argue the fact that in most of those countries that turned to communism were already in oppressive government regimes, but that does not give any indication that communism may not be part of the social evolutionary process. I think that points to the fact that communism was not necessarily the next step for those countries to take; that is if we even argue the fact that they went to real communist style governments, which is hard to accept.

And as far as true marxism being impossible to ever occur, it's worth noting that a few hundred years ago in Europe there were many people who believed that a republic could not ever work because it goes against the demands of God; the idea of a republic was illogical because it went against the institution of a monarchy, which of course was a very godly institution for obvious reasons. People really believed that. So anyway, my point being is that a lot of people today believe that marxism is impossible because it goes against the human will, but I'm arguing that that is because of the way the modern society and system works, our mindsets are to believe that marxism is impossible to achieve.

emmorris wrote: As smirnoff said, the capitalist age was brought to an abrupt end by various dictators, but could this be a sign that capitalism works and will only fail when disrupted?

I don't see any validity in that statement because if we look at eighteen and nineteenth century France, it's not hard to find instances of when the monarchy worked its best; and that of course is when the people kept their mouths shut and did not question the will of their King. But once people became aware of the injustices of that system they stood up against such oppression, and as time went by the monarchy (or despot in the case of Bonaparte) became more and more weakened until the 1870s when the Republic took over for good. So that could be a sign that monarchys work and will only fail when disrupted.

[emmorris]

Anson wrote:

Good points Emmoris, some I agree with and some I don't. It's hard to argue the fact that in most of those countries that turned to communism were already in oppressive government regimes, but that does not give any indication that communism may not be part of the social evolutionary process. I think that points to the fact that communism was not necessarily the next step for those countries to take; that is if we even argue the fact that they went to real communist style governments, which is hard to accept.

Agreed, and it isn't as though the idea of a utopia is new. However I think Marx's biggest mistake was creating this timeline and assuming certain things about capitalism and the world economy that were un-founded. It is understandable why Marx would create such a philosophy, given the Industrial Revolution and the condition of factory workers, but I think he failed to see that things would get better. For instance, much of the work in factories, in free countries, is done by machines. This removes the factory working class that Marx was trying to empower/protect. Also, I doubt Marx ever imagined that his ideas would be twisted to cause the destruction they did.

The biggest difference between the attempts at communism and Marx's plan is that the USSR, China, North Korea... all replaced the bourgeoisie with the communist party leaders. And the same struggle arose between people who wanted freedom and the leaders who wanted control.

Quote:
And as far as true marxism being impossible to ever occur, it's worth noting that a few hundred years ago in Europe there were many people who believed that a republic could not ever work because it goes against the demands of God; the idea of a republic was illogical because it went against the institution of a monarchy, which of course was a very godly institution for obvious reasons. People really believed that. So anyway, my point being is that a lot of people today believe that marxism is impossible because it goes against the human will, but I'm arguing that that is because of the way the modern society and system works, our mindsets are to believe that marxism is impossible to achieve.

Which is a good point, but it assumes that people are solely a product of their environment. However dictators have risen in every culture and society, and the only common link seems to be humans. While I wouldn't rule out the idea that it could change, I think it will take a long, long time.

emmorris wrote:
I don't see any validity in that statement because if we look at eighteen and nineteenth century France, it's not hard to find instances of when the monarchy worked its best; and that of course is when the people kept their mouths shut and did not question the will of their King. But once people became aware of the injustices of that system they stood up against such oppression, and as time went by the monarchy (or despot in the case of Bonaparte) became more and more weakened until the 1870s when the Republic took over for good. So that could be a sign that monarchys work and will only fail when disrupted.

Not necessarily. The economic damage caused by monarchies was immense. And it is probably safe to say that people were discontented for a while, but lacked the strength to make their feeling known up until that point.

The "injustices" of capitalism are well known, and thus far no truely capitalist nation has turned to communism. Has Russia not been ruled by an autocrat out of touch with reality it might have been possible for Russia to eventually move to capitalism. Maybe. WWI and Russia's other problems would have been a significant barrier, but one wonders how different the world would be today had things been allowed to progress naturally rather than by force.

[Anson]

emmorris wrote: Agreed, and it isn't as though the idea of a utopia is new. However I think Marx's biggest mistake was creating this timeline and assuming certain things about capitalism and the world economy that were un-founded. It is understandable why Marx would create such a philosophy, given the Industrial Revolution and the condition of factory workers, but I think he failed to see that things would get better. For instance, much of the work in factories, in free countries, is done by machines. This removes the factory working class that Marx was trying to empower/protect. Also, I doubt Marx ever imagined that his ideas would be twisted to cause the destruction they did.

The biggest difference between the attempts at communism and Marx's plan is that the USSR, China, North Korea... all replaced the bourgeoisie with the communist party leaders. And the same struggle arose between people who wanted freedom and the leaders who wanted control.

Again, I really like what you have written here emmorris :) . It would have been near impossible for Marx to see that a lot of the factory jobs that would eventually turn into machine jobs though. And there are a lot of the same problems that he described for his time that are going on throughout the world today that we here in the Western society are a part of; a lot of our clothes and products are made at the expense of people doing near slave labour in third world nations like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, or Malaysia to name a few. But even here in North America the gap is growing between the rich and the poor; one would assume that eventually the number of poor people will get so large that major reconstruction of our society will be necessary.

emmorris wrote: Which is a good point, but it assumes that people are solely a product of their environment. However dictators have risen in every culture and society, and the only common link seems to be humans. While I wouldn't rule out the idea that it could change, I think it will take a long, long time.

It's safe to say that for a large part, people are a product of their environment. Look at our society, we are free to critisize our leaders in government, while say people in Saudi Arabia would not dare do such a thing. But like you said, the idea of having dictators in every society could change, but it will take a long, long time.

emmorris wrote: Not necessarily. The economic damage caused by monarchies was immense. And it is probably safe to say that people were discontented for a while, but lacked the strength to make their feeling known up until that point.

The "injustices" of capitalism are well known, and thus far no truely capitalist nation has turned to communism. Has Russia not been ruled by an autocrat out of touch with reality it might have been possible for Russia to eventually move to capitalism. Maybe. WWI and Russia's other problems would have been a significant barrier, but one wonders how different the world would be today had things been allowed to progress naturally rather than by force.

That's true, but the people in Russia were very discontent at the start of the century. And with so much worker discontent in the capitalist nations of the time like France, Germany, and Great Britain, the leading intellectuals wanted to take the ideas of Marx, which they believed to be the next step after capitalism, and enforce them on the people. But it was kind of hard to do that with a country that was used to being ruled by a brutish tsar while the people were kept uneducated and poor.

[emmorris]

Anson wrote:
It would have been near impossible for Marx to see that a lot of the factory jobs that would eventually turn into machine jobs though. And there are a lot of the same problems that he described for his time that are going on throughout the world today that we here in the Western society are a part of; a lot of our clothes and products are made at the expense of people doing near slave labour in third world nations like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, or Malaysia to name a few.

I agree to a certain extent, however Marx was writing primarily to address the issue of the factory works who were forced to take extremely low paying jobs as a way to survive. While in some cases this may have resulted in forced labor, it was not true in the majority of cases. However, the slave labor being used in countries in SE Asia or Africa is often the result of political or religious persecution. In that sense these countries are more like the traditional and conservative countries that forced Communism, rather than countries in Western Europe that gradually found a balance between the needs of workers and employers.

While it came across as a minor issue, the problem of whether or not to trade with these countries has both moral and economic concerns. Morally, I'm sure we would all rather not trade with countries that enslave their populations, but in many cases this has only turned the population against the US. Trade embargos have enjoyed extremely limited success, and so we are left with the problem of whether or not to take place in something that would be going on anyway.

Quote:
But even here in North America the gap is growing between the rich and the poor; one would assume that eventually the number of poor people will get so large that major reconstruction of our society will be necessary.
But that assumes that the gap between the rich and poor is solely a product of capitalism and not other factors such as taxation, education... I'm curious to understand what you mean by "reconstruction". Is it something as radical as abandoning capitalism or would it move towards socialism?

Quote:
It's safe to say that for a large part, people are a product of their environment. Look at our society, we are free to critisize our leaders in government, while say people in Saudi Arabia would not dare do such a thing. But like you said, the idea of having dictators in every society could change, but it will take a long, long time.

"Nature versus nurture" is central to any political philosophy. While Communism uses the idea that competition is forced on us by society, capitalism holds that it is inherent in human nature.

However I disagree on the issue of Saudi Arabia as an example. It is impossible to separate whether or not someone does not speak out against the government because they fear for their lives or because it is not culturally acceptable or because it is not in their nature. Communism proposes that people will not want or need to compete with each other once capitalism falls.

emmorris wrote: That's true, but the people in Russia were very discontent at the start of the century. And with so much worker discontent in the capitalist nations of the time like France, Germany, and Great Britain, the leading intellectuals wanted to take the ideas of Marx, which they believed to be the next step after capitalism, and enforce them on the people. But it was kind of hard to do that with a country that was used to being ruled by a brutish tsar while the people were kept uneducated and poor.

In all fairness to the Russians, they have had much to be discontented about. Russia seems to have been one of the last of the truely autocratic nations of Europe, and the czar was completely out of touch with his people. To what extent the situation with Rasputin and Alexandra heightened the hatred agaist the czar is hard to tell, but it is safe to say that Nicolas made many mistakes as Czar that made a terrible situation that much worse. WWI excaberated all the problems Russians faced, and therefore it isn't shocking that the Communists were able to take advantage of the situation. IMHO, the reason Russia was the nation to turn to Communism was mainly due to these circumstances. Communism was attractive to a people who had been oppressed and they seized the oppurtunity.

[smirnoff]

Quote: It would have been near impossible for Marx to see that a lot of the factory jobs that would eventually turn into machine jobs though. And there are a lot of the same problems that he described for his time that are going on throughout the world today that we here in the Western society are a part of; a lot of our clothes and products are made at the expense of people doing near slave labour in third world nations like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, or Malaysia to name a few. I agree. However wouldnt people like machine operators take even less pride in their job? For most of us in the capitalist world, our jobs are still repetative and are at times not paying high enough.

Quote: I agree to a certain extent, however Marx was writing primarily to address the issue of the factory works who were forced to take extremely low paying jobs as a way to survive. While in some cases this may have resulted in forced labor, it was not true in the majority of cases. However, the slave labor being used in countries in SE Asia or Africa is often the result of political or religious persecution. In that sense these countries are more like the traditional and conservative countries that forced Communism, rather than countries in Western Europe that gradually found a balance between the needs of workers and employers. Again, none of us really toil in industrial-age factories, but do we really get less repetative jobs and more work satisfaction. On the large part, I dont think so. Communism in Marxs' sense however is dead, but some countries like the scandinavian nations I would would think have taken what was useful out of the manifesto and used it. A light brand of socialism with a capitalist market economy and democracy seems to be a very successful concept.

Quote: While it came across as a minor issue, the problem of whether or not to trade with these countries has both moral and economic concerns. Morally, I'm sure we would all rather not trade with countries that enslave their populations, but in many cases this has only turned the population against the US. Dont feed the dictators :P Not like they were anything close to communism anyway, more like fascists using it as cover. I am a firm believer that a population of a country will overthrow an oppressive government in the end (afterall there are alot more people then there are dictators and soldiers).

Quote: Trade embargos have enjoyed extremely limited success, and so we are left with the problem of whether or not to take place in something that would be going on anyway. Hrmmm but what about the USA's trade embargo on Lybia, that seems to have worked well.

Quote: But that assumes that the gap between the rich and poor is solely a product of capitalism and not other factors such as taxation, education... In that case shouldn't we blame Bush for throwing it even more off balance by cutting the taxes on the rich. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, think about this in these terms ... can a poor family afford good education/lifestyle/housing for their children? No, and it also renders them disadvantaged from the very start, and thus this cycle (aside from a few minor exceptions) continues. Whilst the children of the rich continue to acquire larger and larger proportion on money. This has been preogressing slowly for the past 50 years in countries like the USA and Britain ... whereas in the scandinavian countries the gap has been closing, though slower and slower every decade ...

Quote: I'm curious to understand what you mean by "reconstruction". Is it something as radical as abandoning capitalism or would it move towards socialism? I dont know what he means either. But I would support reconstruction into a fabian (scandinavian) style democracy any day.

Quote: "Nature versus nurture" is central to any political philosophy. While Communism uses the idea that competition is forced on us by society, capitalism holds that it is inherent in human nature. Neither of which are really right or wrong ...

Quote: However I disagree on the issue of Saudi Arabia as an example. It is impossible to separate whether or not someone does not speak out against the government because they fear for their lives or because it is not culturally acceptable or because it is not in their nature. Communism proposes that people will not want or need to compete with each other once capitalism falls. Completely agree.

Quote: In all fairness to the Russians, they have had much to be discontented about. Russia seems to have been one of the last of the truely autocratic nations of Europe, and the czar was completely out of touch with his people. To what extent the situation with Rasputin and Alexandra heightened the hatred agaist the czar is hard to tell, but it is safe to say that Nicolas made many mistakes as Czar that made a terrible situation that much worse. WWI excaberated all the problems Russians faced, and therefore it isn't shocking that the Communists were able to take advantage of the situation. IMHO, the reason Russia was the nation to turn to Communism was mainly due to these circumstances. Communism was attractive to a people who had been oppressed and they seized the oppurtunity. Also very true ... but ... there wasnt a direct switch from the autocrats to Lenins state overnight. I think that without the high concentration of commies the short lived parliamentry republic of Russia would have thrived, the poeple were never given a choice, the choice was made for them by revolutionary elites, which is just a for of dictator-like imposition.

On the other hand not many in-the-middle governments really made it that far, Weimar in Germany was destroyed by the far right, so I suppose the russian republic would have been destroyed by the the far left ... who knows ...

[DCanaley]

Back to Kazakhstan......

Hasn't Nazarbayez positioned his daughter to take over the reins once he steps down (whenever that is)? That's too bad......unless she's a Benazir Bhutto-type, that country won't see reform anytime soon, as her fathers establishment will still be well entrenched, and authoritarian tendencies will likely stay in place.

Central Asia in general is in desperate need of democracy and reform. Niyazov, Nazarbayez, and Karimov......the 3 stooges of international politics.

[Anson]

emmorris wrote: Anson wrote:
But even here in North America the gap is growing between the rich and the poor; one would assume that eventually the number of poor people will get so large that major reconstruction of our society will be necessary.

But that assumes that the gap between the rich and poor is solely a product of capitalism and not other factors such as taxation, education... I'm curious to understand what you mean by "reconstruction". Is it something as radical as abandoning capitalism or would it move towards socialism?

I wouldn't say that capitalism is the sole reason for the large gap; in those so called communist countries there were huge gaps, as with former fascist nations. Left leaning countries like Sweden and Norway try to limit that gap and have done a decent job in comparison to a lot of other western nations. And when I said reconstruction, I meant that our society is making that gap between the rich and the poor so large that the poor people will eventually stand up against this and demand change. If things continue to get worse and worse perhaps capitalism will be overthrown (not in the near future however), I haven't ruled that possibility out. What would be reconstructed would be the several institutions and laws in our society that heavily favour the rich and allow them to maintain all the power and wealth.

emmorris wrote: "Nature versus nurture" is central to any political philosophy. While Communism uses the idea that competition is forced on us by society, capitalism holds that it is inherent in human nature.

However I disagree on the issue of Saudi Arabia as an example. It is impossible to separate whether or not someone does not speak out against the government because they fear for their lives or because it is not culturally acceptable or because it is not in their nature. Communism proposes that people will not want or need to compete with each other once capitalism falls.

Yeah that may have been a poor example but I heavily favour the idea that a person's environment shapes them more than the nature aspect. We can take a look at the crime in the US as an example. There is far more violent crime poorer neighbourhoods than in rich or middle class areas. I don't think there are too many people who would disagree that the environment is the primary reason for so much violent crime in these poor areas.

The parts I didn't comment on I basically agree with.