If America Should Go Communist

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
121

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
pookie wrote:
Communism doesn’t reward competition. There’s no incentive to try and do better, so less people will be motivated to do so. Even if you bust your ass, work 16 hour days, 7 days a week, come up with a bunch of new ideas, you get nothing more than your fellow. Maybe the “community” would profit, but there aren’t that many people willing to bust their asses day in, day out for others to profit.

I don’t have time to respond to the entire thread but just wanted to comment on this piece.

Communism does reward competition. The group competes within the industry; the group succeeds; the group gets rewarded. Communism does not reward individual effort since there is no such thing as the individual.

This is a philosophical “truth”. Individuality does not exist out side our own minds. Everything is symbiotic. Your thoughts are the only thing that are individual to you–and that?s not always the case because we have to answer the question as to how those thoughts came to be there in the first place.

The question that should be asked is what philosophical basis exists to argue individuals should be rewarded for their own productivity when it is impossible to be productive as an individual?[/quote]

How many people are in your group, what has it done successfully and how were you rewarded?

My Uncle was a medical doctor in Cuba, he didn’t even make enough to feed his own family. We nasty disgusting captitolists had to support them or they would have starved. It’s a great system. He has escaped to South America a couple of years ago, problem sovled.

122

[quote]JD430 wrote:
I couldnt be bothered to waste my time arguing with any defender of communism. Any thinking man in 2007 realizes what a failed idea it is, complete with mountains
of real world proof.

Now I am going to start a thread about the world being flat…[/quote]

I bow to the Budda in you…

123

[quote]Sloth wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Communism does not reward individual effort since there is no such thing as the individual.

That’s the scariest thing about communism. Once you accept the above as fact, how the heck are you going to turn around and protect individual rights. If the individual is not recognized, what is the argument for his rights?

No, the “Party” will eventually need to, and justify, stamping out rights which lead to individual based expression, thought, and action. Are you an individual? Or, just some cog in the machine?
[/quote]

That was the Soviet justification for murder. It was for the good of the community, after all there are no individuals. So it was like exfoliating the community with a loofah. Worked for Stalin.
Eliminiating the individual can lead to all kinds of dangerous behaviors. Because you’re no longer killing a person, you fixing a communal problem.

124

[quote]Sloth wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Communism does not reward individual effort since there is no such thing as the individual.

That’s the scariest thing about communism. Once you accept the above as fact, how the heck are you going to turn around and protect individual rights. If the individual is not recognized, what is the argument for his rights?
[/quote]

They are not individual rights. The word individual implies that only one person has a right to them. This is the thinking that we need to get away from. Everybody has a right to liberty. There is no such thing as individual liberty. What you perceive as individual liberty is in fact a group endowed concept. You only have these rights because a community of individuals was strong enough to stand up for them against an individualistic authoritarian dictator in the first place. Try to fight for some perceived right by your self and you will fail every time.

Under a real communistic society real democracy can be followed. You cannot keep arguing about authoritarian dictatorships and blaming communism when communism is nothing but economic principles whereby no single individual, group, or entity can own the means of production–this includes the government in question.

Communism is a very abstract idea. You have to look at it more like a co-op type situation. In a communistic society the government could not own the means to production but would merely act as a regulatory agency to ensure maximum fairness as defined under democratically established laws. Democracy is to government what communism is to economy. It cannot be forced it has to be established by consensus.

125

[quote]orion wrote:
It is not impossible to be productive as an individual.

If we both go hunting I might be better than you.
[/quote]

Do you manufacture your own rifle; do you manufacture your own bullets? Do you mine the materials out of the ground to manufacture these products? Do you hunt by means of spear or rock–if so where did you learn your skills?

If all we did was devote our time to growing potatoes how would we survive? We cannot live on potatoes alone. We would surely need to rely on others to produce our other needs for survival, no?

Survival is not coerced. If you do not want to live you do not have to work or be productive–within ones own abilities of course. The fact is we cannot exist without a community of support. Even if you were a hermit in the wild you would still require the economy of the wild to subsist.

What you are arguing about here is fairness and mixing definitions. There is also a market in communistic societies. Markets exist where ever needs exist and are irrespective of the philosophical economic principles n place.

[quote]
Seems to me that capitalism and trade in general encourages civilized manners while making allmost everybody better off and what is even more important, it works with the people we have instead of shinynew ones we first need to re-educate. [/quote]

Trade in general will always encourage civilized societies to come together in the spirit of human interest. This is also irrespective of the philospophical economic principles in place. Who cares how or what means were used to produce usable goods if they are quality and usable? Even here in America we do not care if our shoes were stictched by some 7 year old at gun point in a “free-market” economy.

126

[quote]pat36 wrote:
How many people are in your group, what has it done successfully and how were you rewarded?

[/quote]
The entire population of the world is in our group. What hasn’t it done successfully? Why do we need to be rewarded for the survival of the species?

127

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
pat36 wrote:
How many people are in your group, what has it done successfully and how were you rewarded?

The entire population of the world is in our group. What hasn’t it done successfully? Why do we need to be rewarded for the survival of the species?[/quote]

It still seeks it’s own destruction. That’s what the world has collectivly failed at.

128

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Every country communism was tried was a complete failure. It cannot work. It crushes the human spirit. It must be imposed at gunpoint.[/quote]

Your next trick should be to find your ass with both hands and a flashlight.

[i]Even more provocatively, Fukuyama called the Standard’s editor, William Kristol, his ideological sidekick, Robert Kagan, and their neoconservative comrades who led the drive to war in Iraq “Leninist” in their conviction that liberal democracy can be achieved through “coercive regime change” or imposed by military means.

“[T]he neoconservative position articulated by people like Kristol and Kagan was… Leninist; they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will,” according to Fukuyama. “Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States.”…

In a December 2002 Wall Street Journal article, he warned that “the idealist project” of transforming the region may “come to look more like empire pure and simple” and that “it is not at all clear that the American public understand that it is getting into an imperial project as opposed to a brief in-and-out intervention in Iraq.”…[/i]

129

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

This is a philosophical “truth”. Individuality does not exist out side our own minds. Everything is symbiotic. Your thoughts are the only thing that are individual to you–and that?s not always the case because we have to answer the question as to how those thoughts came to be there in the first place.

[/quote]

Who taught you this shit? They should be shot. Birds don’t cripple their babies’ wings, but professors cripple our young minds. Sad…

You don’t digest with a collective stomach, but you might get to watch bums swallow the food you produced. You don’t get to have collective aching feet after standing at a job all day, but you do get to stand and watch legalized looters drive away in the limosine you provided. Is that individuality enough for you?

Damn, kid, you’ve got a lot to learn. They have made you into a milch cow.

And I’m NOT flaming you, btw.

130

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
orion wrote:
It is not impossible to be productive as an individual.

If we both go hunting I might be better than you.

Do you manufacture your own rifle; do you manufacture your own bullets? Do you mine the materials out of the ground to manufacture these products? Do you hunt by means of spear or rock–if so where did you learn your skills?

[/quote]

What did the hunter add that was not there before?

131

[quote]pat36 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
HH,

I think you are wrong here. Communism isn’t “simply slavery with a new name”. How can you argue that community doesn’t exist? The notion of community is very abstract; it involves everything from our neighbors to the people who produce the goods we use on a daily basis. You can make a rhetorical argument about “commune-ism” but it doesn’t do anything for the fact that you rely on community for survival. Where does your petrol come from? Where does your food come from?

The idea of pitching in to help the group is as old as humanity itself. Not only was it the preferred way to live it was the only way to live–survival required it. The real trick is that individualism has led the modern capitalists to believe that there is no other “truth” than the ego. I agree that we owe much of the greatness of our modernizations to the human ego but it does no good to for me to act purely out of self interest.

I no more agree in the socially-imposed morality that communism lends itself to than I believe in the selfishness of individualism. The pure fact of the matter is that humans are social animals and in order to live with each other have to learn how to reconcile individuality with community.

There is a huge difference between pitching in the help your community and having your wealth redistributed into it; be held back in material achievement so that you cannot have more than you fellow man. It is not incumbant on the government to provide for people. It is incumbant on people to provide for themselves. Doing for yourself, is in a sense helping the community because then they don’t have take care of your sorry ass too. Governments should not be in the charity business.
Like you said, community is an abstract concept, you cannot legislate community anymore than you can legislate love. That’s why it takes the end of a gun to make it work. Again, if you want to see it in action watch Venezuela, it is changing from a democracy to a socialistic dictatorship. Next on the agenda, wealth redistribution.

You want to live here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/31/chavez.venezuela.ap/index.html

BTW, most opponents to Chavez don’t live very long. But Venezuela is a beautiful country and the meat is top notch, so I think you’ll like it there despite the ever increasing oprresion. Fortunately, I was there when Chavez was first “elected”, so it wasn’t an American hate-fest just yet. Acutally they were relying on the Americans for aid at that time because of the December 1999 flood that killed 30,000 people. I was “fortunate” enough to have been there right when it happened. I got to sleep on a cement bench at the airport with, no food, no electricity, no running water, no phones, no english and very bad spanish, and no way out. I did eventually get out, though.[/quote]

as to your question “why do people leave cuba?” it is for the same reason that people leave mexico and all other poor latin american countries. it is for that reason, because they are poor and they are poor because of U.S. foreign economic policy.

as to your claim that most opponents of chavez dont live very long, it is incorrect. on of the leaders of the coup’ attempt in 2002 (backed by the CIA) still lives in venezuela with the consent of the chavez government. others involved in the coup’ have been provided exile in the U.S. chavez has the support of the people and the people were the main reason why the coup’ was unsuccesful. venezuela has a presidential recall referendum which can be enacted at any time provided that enough signatures are acquired. the chavez opposition was able to call such a referendum (the opposition which receives millions of dollars from the U.S. illegally). when the time to vote came the people voted in favor of chavez staying in power by a margin of almost 2 to 1. chavez has given the control of venezuelan oil back to venezuela where it belongs. he made U.S. corporations pay taxes (which they were supposed to be paying all along but didnt)and with the increased revenue he raised the minimum wage. he has dramatically decreased illiteracy, he has improved education and he is incouraging participative democracy.

132

[quote]orion wrote:

this is why capitalism is dangerous. because it makes the worker think only about themselves as an individual. why do you only worry about your welfare? what about the rest of your country or the rest of the world. why work as an individual to attain individual wealth when you can work as a community to attain the wealth of the community. Please do not think only of yourself. work for the betterment of everyone not just yourself.

No, this is why capitalism works.

Everybody takes care of himself and tries to better his situation and an invisible hand turns all that work into the common good.

What you call communism is just a desire for a closed society, collectivism if you will, where the horde rules and the individual means nothing.

Interesting that most talented people have to be forced at gunpoint to join such a system.

Plus, you are aware that you are basically talking about a religious belief, while the free market, private property, i.e capitalism was an emergent structure, meaning it developed because people are what they are and not what you would like them to be.[/quote]

where is the work of this invisible hand when U.S. corporations go into foreign countries and pay slave wages. they prohibit workers unions and they do not follow envionmental laws and they dont pay taxes. when transnational corporations flood developing countries whith cheap products and they leave millions of people unemployed, where is the invisible hand then?

people are not what they are, people are influenced by their surroundings which is why you are the way you are. you believe in persuing self interests because that is the invironment that you live in. if society were taught to work for the good of the group then they would belive that ideology to be true just as you believe in belive in capitalism.

133

[quote]pat36 wrote:
gladiatorsteer wrote:
no one has died because of communism. communism is a social economic theory in which the workers control the means of production, in a true communist nation there would be no “state” meaning no government agencies which hold power over the people, which is why there has never existed a communist country.

Ideally under communism, the people would organize themselves in order to have decision making processes concerning their city, state, country, etc. For this reason a lot of people argue that communism is more democratic than capitalism.

What are you fucking 12? You sound like my son “You didn’t say hangmy jacket, you just told me to put it in the closet.”
Thanks for the refresher in high school political science.

The U.S. is not a democracy and pure capitolism exisits only in the black market. I hope you feel better now that we have cleared that up. Most of us already understand that socialist leaning, goverment centric governments are not pure communism. They just have communist leanings.[/quote]

i think you fail to understand the basic concept of communism. the end goal of cummunism is a stateless, classless society. how can you say it doesnt work if it hasnt existed?

i cant say that i agree 100% with every theory of communism, mainly i dont agree that the worker should have complete control, i believe that every member of society should have input. however i do belive that communism is a better alternative than capitalism. capitalism by nature is self destructive and undemocratic. in the U.S. we do no see the destruction that capitalism has caused because the corporately owned media refuses to show us. the poverty in latin america and africa has been caused in large part by capitalism. please research the economic and political history of latin america and africa.

oh, and let us not forget the U.S.’ most memorable example of capitalism: slavery.

134

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:

This is a philosophical “truth”. Individuality does not exist out side our own minds. Everything is symbiotic. Your thoughts are the only thing that are individual to you–and that?s not always the case because we have to answer the question as to how those thoughts came to be there in the first place.

Who taught you this shit? They should be shot. Birds don’t cripple their babies’ wings, but professors cripple our young minds. Sad…

You don’t digest with a collective stomach, but you might get to watch bums swallow the food you produced. You don’t get to have collective aching feet after standing at a job all day, but you do get to stand and watch legalized looters drive away in the limosine you provided. Is that individuality enough for you?

Damn, kid, you’ve got a lot to learn. They have made you into a milch cow.

And I’m NOT flaming you, btw.

[/quote]
The beauty of living in a “democratic” society is that my opinions are just that.

I do not believe in any way that I am being flamed–even though the use of the word “kid” is somewhat patronizing. I have differing opinions about many societal issues–therefore, I understand that people will often disagree. Martin Luther experienced the same thing. I like that people are interested enough in the debate (not necessarily what I’m saying) to take the time to reply to it. This is real dialog.

To answer your question, this is not an idea I was taught but one that I merely came to from observing both nature and humans–yes, individualistic thought brought about by the culmination of the symbiotic act of observing. I am fully aware that there are many phenomena left unanswered by my ideas. This is further proof that one single individual cannot be his or her own benefactor.

Who is the “they” that have supposedly made me into a “Milchkuh”?

Btw, communism has nothing to do with any of the arguments you make about fairness. Communism has never been observed in a fully functioning modern democracy so we cannot make value judgments on the “suffering” it causes under authoritarian governments and expect the same results under said democracy. I completely agree that it cannot be forced anymore that democracy can be forced.

Why do you argue that people who do not work get “rewarded” under a communistic system? If people do not remain productive they do not live.

135

[quote]gladiatorsteer wrote:
as to your question “why do people leave cuba?” it is for the same reason that people leave mexico and all other poor latin american countries. it is for that reason, because they are poor and they are poor because of U.S. foreign economic policy.

as to your claim that most opponents of chavez dont live very long, it is incorrect. on of the leaders of the coup’ attempt in 2002 (backed by the CIA) still lives in venezuela with the consent of the chavez government. others involved in the coup’ have been provided exile in the U.S. chavez has the support of the people and the people were the main reason why the coup’ was unsuccesful. venezuela has a presidential recall referendum which can be enacted at any time provided that enough signatures are acquired. the chavez opposition was able to call such a referendum (the opposition which receives millions of dollars from the U.S. illegally). when the time to vote came the people voted in favor of chavez staying in power by a margin of almost 2 to 1. chavez has given the control of venezuelan oil back to venezuela where it belongs. he made U.S. corporations pay taxes (which they were supposed to be paying all along but didnt)and with the increased revenue he raised the minimum wage. he has dramatically decreased illiteracy, he has improved education and he is incouraging participative democracy.
[/quote]

Along with your inability to Capitalize at the beginning of a sentence you just believe everything you?re fed by the propaganda machines of those countries.
I know families who until recently lived in Venezuela. One guy who was kind enough to tour me around Caracas a few years ago, left because he was being threatened and harassed by police. His best friend was abducted the next day and never heard from again. They were vocally opposed to Chavez. This guy lives in Texas now.
My family is from Cuba, asshole. They didn’t leave it, they escaped from it. Not only was everything taken from my family in Cuba, but they were also persecuted for being Catholics. I never met my grand parents because of your friend Castro. I could never go. They are dead now and the rest of my family escaped just recently.

You sir, are an idiot. There is nothing nice or legitemet about these regimes.

136

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Martin Luther experienced the same thing.
[/quote]

Martin Luther had a legitamate gripe.

137

[quote]gladiatorsteer wrote:

oh, and let us not forget the U.S.’ most memorable example of capitalism: slavery.[/quote]

The capitalist portion of the USA eliminated slavery, an institution of the ‘aristocratic’ agrarian South.

138

[quote]pat36 wrote:
My family is from Cuba, asshole. They didn’t leave it, they escaped from it. Not only was everything taken from my family in Cuba, but they were also persecuted for being Catholics. I never met my grand parents because of your friend Castro. I could never go. They are dead now and the rest of my family escaped just recently.
[/quote]

Your complaints are valid and understood but what does it have to do with communism? Again, Castro and the government he represents is fascist. What else do you expect from dictatorial regimes? Castro is no more a communist than Lenin or Stalin was. We judge people by thier actions not by the titles they give themselves.

139

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
gladiatorsteer wrote:

oh, and let us not forget the U.S.’ most memorable example of capitalism: slavery.

The capitalist portion of the USA eliminated slavery, an institution of the ‘aristocratic’ agrarian South.

[/quote]

Ummmm, no. Capitalists had nothing to do with it. The northern states couldn’t compete with free labor. Believe me, if more African slaves had landed in Boston instead of New Orleans and the port of Charleston slavery wouldn’t have ended so soon.

140

[quote]pat36 wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Martin Luther experienced the same thing.

Martin Luther had a legitamate gripe.[/quote]

The legitimacy of a particular complaint is judged by history. My point was that all counter-culture ideas face harsh judgement for merely not being the status quo.