Moving Toward Communism

[David S]

Let me ask you the same question I've asked other communists on this forum: Where is the shining example of a successful communist nation? Where is the communist nation that has come anywhere near providing the level of prosperity, freedom and opportunity that our capitalist society provides for us? There are none!

Communism promises shared prosperity, but it only deliveries shared poverty and misery.

Freedom is also lost with communism since individual rights must be sacrificed for the common good.

Beyond that communists seem to have a nasty habit of murdering millions of their own people.

So where is the upside?

Where do you guys get the idea that communism is good?

[David S]

In fairness (and I'd like to point out that I am not a communist and never will be),  there has never been a true communist country because none of the governments we've seen have actually abided by Marx's principles.  Lenin adapted the theory into Marxism-Leninism, which is really a bastardization of the original.  Anywhere else that has tried has been stunted by civil war (Russia and China) or stunted by a foreign power (Cuba, Indo-China, North Korea, Eastern Europe - which was already destroyed by 30 years of war).

Well, I don't begrudge you for trying to be objective, but I think a real question is 'can Marx's version of communism actually be implemented?' I seriously doubt it, and it would still be pretty bloody and without freedom if it could. Let's face it - Marx was an idiot.

Taking Marx's theory literally, that remains to be seen.  The theory goes that capitalism eventually reaches its peak, and then the underprivileged underclass inevitably revolt and take over.  Every country that has so far had communist revolutions or imposed governments took place where capitalism was nowhere near its peak, and therefore there was no wealthy economy to take advantage of.  Hence why they all soon descended into economic chaos and corrupt dictatorships.

Sounds like you are saying that communism can only be successful if it can take over a successful capitalist system. Maybe I would agree with that, but I would add that such success would be short-lived. Communism will not remain successful for the same reason that it cannot become successful. It simply cannot achieve the efficiency or innovation of competitive free market capitalism.

The economic chaos you mentioned is an unavoidable outcome of communism, IMHO.

My advice to the forum communists is to stop thinking about how well communism should work and look at how miserably it actually works. Then bury that dead duck and get behind a system that really does work; free market capitalism.

[David S]

I'll curse Herbert Hoover the day the U.S. becomes a Communist Nation.

Can you elaborate on that one partner?

[David S]

I'll curse Herbert Hoover the day the U.S. becomes a Communist Nation.

Can you elaborate on that one partner?

Hoover lost to FDR, FDR started socialism in America, on and on we go

Hmmm. I think I'd have a hard time blaming that on Hoover.

[David S]

I'll curse Herbert Hoover the day the U.S. becomes a Communist Nation.

Can you elaborate on that one partner?

Hoover lost to FDR, FDR started socialism in America, on and on we go

There's an important distinction between liberal or liberalized socialism and Marxist-Leninist or communist socialism.

State-run education here is liberal socialism. Communist socialism implies a transitional alteration in the relations of production that is not present in the capitalist mode of production (according to the philosophy of dialectical materialism, this is determined by contradictions within the economic infrastructure between relations of production and productive forces).

The examples you give, by Marxist standards, function within and according to the logic of the capitalist mode of production, and thus are limited by the capitalist mode of production.

Two of the three people pictured in your signature were leaders, or should I say dictators, of communist countries. Which one was a success story?

When communists are confronted with the actual results of communism they usually find some detail which they claim is the reason for the failure. They can never accept the idea that communism itself is the problem.

I can't give you an example of a pure capitalist country because there are no purely capitalist countries today. But there is one which is still mostly capitalist. You're living in it. Opebo may tell you that most Americans are dirt poor beggars who are staring to death, but that's nonsense. Yes there are a few who are poor although not starving. But most Americans have comfortable lives. They have jobs that pay decent wages, live in nice houses, own one or more cars, have just about every available appliance. Some have second homes on a lake and a boat too. Where would you find that in China or the former USSR, or any communist country? Americans also have far more freedom than you would find in any communist country. Now Opebo may claim that America is not free because they don't provide free prostitutes to lazy derelicts who don't work, but I suspect you wouldn't get that in the communist countries either. More likely that individual will get sent to Siberia or hung.

You live in the freeist most prosperous country in the world. You have greater opportunity than you would find just about anywhere else. But you are not happy because it doesn't meet your idea of a socialist utopia, one that has never existed anywhere in the world. Wake Up!!!

[David S]

Let me pose a simpler and more direct question:
Would you be happier living in  Russia under Lenin, China under Mao or the USA under any president in its history?

Your poster child Lenin ran that country. Was he not enough of a Leninist to succeed? Was Mao not enough of a Maoist to succeed? Your heros produced only death, poverty and tyranny.

Communism has succeeded only in producing dismal economic performance and making the people slaves of the ruling elite. There are two types of people who support it: There are those who believe it can actually produce great benefits for the people, despite its history of doing the opposite. Those folks may be well meaning, but delusional.
Then there are those who know exactly what communism is and who intend to be among the ruling elite.

Which group do you fall into?