Can Communism work?

@DRgenius21,

Bush won the popular vote in 2004, DT.

As for communism, it certainly DOES work on a community scale in the kibbutzim in Israel.

At a national and international level, capitalist democracies have been more durable and have protected individual freedoms better and with fewer abuses than in communist governments.

The problem with political communism at a national level is that it requires a central government with FAR more power over its people than in a capitalist democracy.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Bush won the popular vote in 2004, DT.

Did Governor Bush win the popular vote in 2000? No.

Aedes wrote:

At a national and international level, capitalist democracies have been more durable and have protected individual freedoms better and with fewer abuses than in communist governments.

And as I said, the durability of communist nations has been not only handicapped but at times made impossible by the intervention of relatively democratic-capitalist nations like the US.

As for abuses, well that all depends. Capitalist-democratic nations tend to abuse their own people less, but said nations also tend to abuse foreign people a great deal and with intense brutality. The citizens of the democracy might endure less abuse at the hands of the government, but foreign citizens beware. The history of capitalist-democracy is one of exploitation - they rely on exploiting foreign people. The US is no exception, the US is the great example of exploiting foreign peoples.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Did Governor Bush win the popular vote in 2000? No.

You said Bush is not democratically elected, because he lost the popular vote. That was true of his term that ended in January of 2005. He WAS democratically elected by this criterion in his current term, and whatever hypothetical you might offer about contingency of his 2004 election on the outcome of 2000 is immaterial. No one disputes the legitimacy of the 2004 election. Furthermore, the dispute about the 2000 election's legitimacy really has nothing to do with whether or not he won the national popular vote, which has never been a criterion for presidential election in our country. The legitimacy solely has to do with the involvement of the Supreme Court in the Florida ballot -- and if you take that seriously as an argument, you cannot simultaneously make a big point about the national popular vote because the Florida vote is only meaningful in the context of the electoral college.

Finally, if irrespective of election law, we are to regard democratic election as solely the result of popular plurality, then you could just as easily argue that our country never in its history had a democratically elected president until women's suffrage was established and minority voting rights were protected.

Quote:

And as I said, the durability of communist nations has been not only handicapped but at times made impossible by the intervention of relatively democratic-capitalist nations like the US.

What meaningful intervention did we have in East Germany, Romania, or Yugoslavia? What meaningful intervention did we have in Tajikistan, Kyrgistan, and Azerbaijan? And as for developing countries, these nations were subject to just as heavy intervention by the USSR, including assassinations and armament of puppet regimes. Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, Vietnam, Korea, El Salvador, etc -- they were pawns of both the US and the USSR. You really think that Jonas Savimbi and Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Seku cared about Marx versus Locke? They just cared about getting guns.

Quote:

said nations also tend to abuse foreign people a great deal and with intense brutality

That is very true. But you know I have a hard time looking past Soviet actions in occupied Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and their broader sphere of influence, including forced famines (most notably Ethiopia in the 1980s and Ukraine in the 1930s), mass arrests, devastating environmental destruction, and cultural genocide against religious groups and minorities, and seeing how American actions are even remotely in the same conversation. Democratic countries never produced a Mao or a Stalin -- each of whom can take credit for tens of millions of civilian deaths in their own countries. Even idealistically goateed Lenin had more civilian blood on his hands than Franco and Mussolini combined.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

You said Bush is not democratically elected, because he lost the popular vote. That was true of his term that ended in January of 2005. He WAS democratically elected by this criterion in his current term, and whatever hypothetical you might offer about contingency of his 2004 election on the outcome of 2000 is immaterial. No one disputes the legitimacy of the 2004 election. Furthermore, the dispute about the 2000 election's legitimacy really has nothing to do with whether or not he won the national popular vote, which has never been a criterion for presidential election in our country. The legitimacy solely has to do with the involvement of the Supreme Court in the Florida ballot -- and if you take that seriously as an argument, you cannot simultaneously make a big point about the national popular vote because the Florida vote is only meaningful in the context of the electoral college.

Why is his 2004 victory being contingent upon the 2000 victory immaterial? That bit of fact seems entirely relevant to me - he stole the first election and, with the extra leverage of incumbency, was able to win a second term.

I'm familiar with the election process. My point regarding his losing the popular vote in 2000 is that he was not democratically elected. That's all.

Aedes wrote:

Finally, if irrespective of election law, we are to regard democratic election as solely the result of popular plurality, then you could just as easily argue that our country never in its history had a democratically elected president until women's suffrage was established and minority voting rights were protected.

Well, yes, and that argument would be sound and would reflect reality. Even after women's suffrage, there is still the issue of minority disenfranchisement. So, no, we have never had a democratically elected president. I'm not in favor of pure democracy, but the fact remains....

Aedes wrote:

What meaningful intervention did we have in East Germany, Romania, or Yugoslavia? What meaningful intervention did we have in Tajikistan, Kyrgistan, and Azerbaijan? And as for developing countries, these nations were subject to just as heavy intervention by the USSR, including assassinations and armament of puppet regimes. Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, Vietnam, Korea, El Salvador, etc -- they were pawns of both the US and the USSR. You really think that Jonas Savimbi and Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Seku cared about Marx versus Locke? They just cared about getting guns.

What meaningful intervention did the US have in South America? Oh, that's right... Come on now, Aedes, you know better.

Oh, and Vietnam was not a pawn of either the USSR or the US. Vietnam just took weapons, food and a little money from the USSR and China. That's the end of the involvement - pawns the Vietnamese were not. Heck, Vietnam was closer to China than the USSR, and China is the last nation the Vietnamese are going to bow to having fought off Chinese imperialism for a thousand years.

The USSR also intervened in foreign affairs, there is no doubt about that. But the fact remains that the US made a point to derail communist nations at every opportunity. Both nations had pawns, and both nations committed atrocities. But the US is not excluded, and the US did remove democratically elected communist leaders, fund terrorist groups in communist nations to fight the reigning regimes, not to mention US invasions and bombing campaigns.

As I said, the USSR failed because it was economically weaker than the US. The economic warfare between the two super powers caused the collapse of many nations - and communist nations were disproportionately hit by this economic warfare because their economies were weaker than the western powers.

Aedes wrote:

That is very true. But you know I have a hard time looking past Soviet actions in occupied Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and their broader sphere of influence, including forced famines (most notably Ethiopia in the 1980s and Ukraine in the 1930s), mass arrests, devastating environmental destruction, and cultural genocide against religious groups and minorities, and seeing how American actions are even remotely in the same conversation. Democratic countries never produced a Mao or a Stalin -- each of whom can take credit for tens of millions of civilian deaths in their own countries. Even idealistically goateed Lenin had more civilian blood on his hands than Franco and Mussolini combined.

Me too, it's impossible to overlook those atrocities. Similarly, it is impossible to overlook the millions of civilians killed in Indo-China, the millions dead as a result of forced famine due to the US's refusal to trade and so forth.

At the end of the day, the vaguely capitalist-democratic nations have less blood on their hand - but so what? Both sides claimed tens of millions of lives. Both sides are guilty. I do not give either a pass. Nor am I going to engage in the revisionist history that so many Americans and westerns demand out of national pride.

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@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas;40769 wrote:

Why is his 2004 victory being contingent upon the 2000 victory immaterial?

Because if the legitimacy of his 2000 election were anything more than a technical (and controversial) question, then he would not have been electable in 2004. I can't stand the guy, but 1) I don't think he (or his brother) manipulated the 2000 election in any way even remotely comparable to Gore's ridiculous underachievement as a candidate (plus the Nader factor), and 2) the Supreme Court's review of the election was not especially controversial at the time. The fact that they upheld the Florida vote may be due to the political constitution of the court, but seeing as the previous 32 years had been 20 Republican and 12 Democrat, it's no surprise that the court was made up that way.

Rather than go point by point with you, which will probably lead to us agreeing on facts in the end but having different senses of culpability, all I'll do is share your admonishment of the west's manipulative and destructive interventions whether to oppose communism or for other causes. I think facts would bear out that the amount of direct bloodshed that you can credit to the west is a trifle compared with what happened in the Chinese Revolution alone, not to mention the Soviets' crimes. But the thing about the west is that our self-righteousness has blinded us mainly to destructive policies that are NOT outright bloodshed, and that do not have a clear cut right and wrong answer. Our domestic farm subsidies are a good example.

I would contest your point about Vietnam, though. Ho Chi Minh was utterly in the pocket of the Chinese and their military, and he had personally met with Stalin and Mao to secure their support.

Now, I think most communist regimes in poor countries didn't come into being because there was much idealogical commitment to communism among the revolutionaries -- because communism's model of a centralized state was very easily made into a facade for military dictatorship, and to preach communism was to get planes and guns from Stalin or Kruschev or whomever. It's not that self-proclaimed democracies have been any more sincere, but the difference is that we would more easily see them as just corrupt dictators and not as communist idealogues.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Because if the legitimacy of his 2000 election were anything more than a technical (and controversial) question, then he would not have been electable in 2004. I can't stand the guy, but 1) I don't think he (or his brother) manipulated the 2000 election in any way even remotely comparable to Gore's ridiculous underachievement as a candidate (plus the Nader factor), and 2) the Supreme Court's review of the election was not especially controversial at the time. The fact that they upheld the Florida vote may be due to the political constitution of the court, but seeing as the previous 32 years had been 20 Republican and 12 Democrat, it's no surprise that the court was made up that way.

You will have to forgive me if the above seems to reinforce the notion that the 2004 victory was dependent upon the 2000 electoral victory. Because it was a technical question, because he slipped out of the 2000 controversy with image intact, Bush was able to win in 20004.

Some people at the time recognized that the man was pretty well worthless. Took the rest of the country another 4 or 6 years to realize this.

Aedes wrote:

Rather than go point by point with you, which will probably lead to us agreeing on facts in the end but having different senses of culpability, all I'll do is share your admonishment of the west's manipulative and destructive interventions whether to oppose communism or for other causes. I think facts would bear out that the amount of direct bloodshed that you can credit to the west is a trifle compared with what happened in the Chinese Revolution alone, not to mention the Soviets' crimes. But the thing about the west is that our self-righteousness has blinded us mainly to destructive policies that are NOT outright bloodshed, and that do not have a clear cut right and wrong answer. Our domestic farm subsidies are a good example.

Absolutely right. I think Stalin is responsible for between 30 and 60 million dead - imagine that, the estimates have a give or take of 30 million souls. Brutal.

Yes, the west has become desensitized to destructive policies, some of which are not physically violent, like farm subsidies for the largest commercial farming enterprises. But we are equally desensitized to bloody practices - very few seem to care that half of a million Iraqi civilians have been slain in this current war.

Aedes wrote:

I would contest your point about Vietnam, though. Ho Chi Minh was utterly in the pocket of the Chinese and their military, and he had personally met with Stalin and Mao to secure their support.

He did depend upon military aid from the larger communist states, but I'm fairly confident in my earlier claim. I'd probably back down on the issue, but I took the point from the book America's Longest War.
Amazon.com: America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 with Poster (4th Edition): George Herring: Books

You are right that the North Vietnamese depended upon Chinese and Soviet aid, but I do not think the Vietnamese government was beholden to either nation. Vietnam has a long history of independence - and of fighting for independence. It's kinda like Afghanistan - the Taliban used to take US aid and weapons, but the Taliban was never beholden to the US despite their reliance upon US aid. The Afghanis were going to fight on with or without US aid - and the Vietnamese would have fought the US until the death, with or without Chinese and Soviet aid.

Aedes wrote:

Now, I think most communist regimes in poor countries didn't come into being because there was much idealogical commitment to communism among the revolutionaries -- because communism's model of a centralized state was very easily made into a facade for military dictatorship, and to preach communism was to get planes and guns from Stalin or Kruschev or whomever. It's not that self-proclaimed democracies have been any more sincere, but the difference is that we would more easily see them as just corrupt dictators and not as communist idealogues.

I'm not sure we can just ignore the ideological aspect of communist uprisings. There is no doubt that access to Soviet aid and the ability to use the communist model to create a functioning state were appealing to third world leaders, but the force of the ideology should not be overlooked entirely. Figures like Che Guevara were chin deep in the stuff.

Also, I do not think the communist regimes who were communist simply for pragmatic reasons (guns and functioning state) were any easier to spot as military dictatorships that the supposed democracies which were, in reality, military dictatorships. Going back to the example of Vietnam, essentially every observer who was not paid by the government to report otherwise recognized that regime after regime in South Vietnam were nothing more than corrupt military dictatorships. It's that self-righteousness, that basic assumption that all communist regimes are inherently evil, these national mythologies that play on the minds of the public and leaders.

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@DRgenius21,

Here are my two cents on communism....

The only way it could work is in much the same way that anarchism could work. It would have to be both intentional and local. Communities could easily spring up that were both communistic and anarchistic, but trying to do so at a state level may prove to be too much.

A community could easily spring up that pooled resources for the common good with common goals, but still functioned as legal entities within states. But these communities would probably be forced to be rather small and selective to avoid bad apples souring the bunch.

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@DRgenius21,

DRgenius21 wrote:

The idea of communism is, in my opinion, not so bad. The idea of a stateless society, no class difference, a social Utopia, the perfect society, it sounds great; however, every government that has tried it has failed(miserably if i must say). So is the idea of communism, whichever you pick(marxism, lenism, taoism...) is it impossible? Cuba tried it...FAILED. Any others i'm pretty sure failed too, so can this type of government be succcessful?

I believe that the success of any form of government (including communism) is wholly contingent upon the extent to which it's implementation jives with the existing 'nature' and habits of the people with whom its concerned; and since such existing 'natures' have a habit of shifting now and again, it'd also be dependent on time-and-place.

Communism, I think, has a better chance in those situations where the tenor of the people leans more towards a desire for community, 'imposed equality' and self sacrifice just as Democracy wants to flourish in those situations where the desire for the perception of majority-rule is strong.

Ultimately, I believe almost any form of government will fall on its face; factors like individual preference, the propensity towards dissent, disparate ideas of 'what's right' and 'what's good' along with other destructive aspects of human behavior all conspire against any 'system'. Add into the soup other dyanmic behavioral aspects like religion, value-shifts and relative levels of apathy and lassitude and what you end up with is a soup whose taste is never the same from one moment to the next.

How might any single form of government last without morphing, shifting or flat-out failing? Look at any form of government that's been in place for any respectable length of time, and I think you'll see that what's enabled its survival are a series of changes that make it something than it professes to be (or started out 'as'). For example; lasting socialist systems become slightly democratic or autocratic - enduring democracies become slightly socialist, etc. Adjust or perish; self-mitigate or fail trying to hold onto a pure form.

I guess the short answer, for me, would be: I dunno, it'd be nice though (there are many aspects of 'pure communism' that appeal to me).

Thanks

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@Khethil,

As Mao would say, its too early to tell. See Fabian Socialism.

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@DRgenius21,

Nothing will work if people will not accept it.. Clearly, they already accept some form of Socialism...They are the key...If they need socialism they will accept it...If they think they can do better without it they will resist it...Part of the problem of ever having communism is that we have a philosophy of the individual, as no primitive communist would have...Their identity, and their character came from their communities... We can conceive of ourselves completely apart from our communities...It is false, but only possible because we are no longer surrounded by enemies...We don't see our communities as defending our lives...Instead we see families all the way up to our nation states as feeding off us, -the self important individuals... We never understand that society is all teat, and no teeth...

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

If they need socialism they will accept it...We can conceive of ourselves completely apart from our communities...It is false... We never understand that society is all teat, and no teeth...

*If they think they need socialism they will accept it. Also, if they don't know what socialism is, they will accept it, so long as someone tells them it is good.

Moron: "O, the government is going to help us and solve the problems"
Idiot: "Man our leaders used to be dumb, why didn't anyone think of that before?"

*Why don't you go enjoy our life then as an abstract concept? What are our favorite foods for our mouths? Hope you like sackcloth...

:nonooo:

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@DRgenius21,

You cannot have socialism except by choice, and then the people can decide what they need and what they can afford, even what level of socialism they want or require... If people could afford socialism when they had no technology they ought to be able to afford chrome plated socialism with diamonds.. And consider; all our problems are the result of inequality, and injustice, but that a democracy is not a government apart from the people.... So when the people say the government they will say WE can help ourselves, and WE can solve our problems...Now, government alienated from the people is not government, certainly not self government; but is only some form of tyranny... And not better with a more communistic economy than a capitalist one... What ever people desire is what they will make work, if it can work.. But still, unless you are going to selectively eliminate people like the poor, or the old, your society has to support all the people...And it has happened that to have luxury people like the Roman and the Greeks, and now the Europeans depopulated their lands, disposing of more people, and not having children so that the could afford one more party for the rich...I'll bet you see our population decline if the economy survives... Who can afford children if you can't keep yourself alive...

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@Fido,

Quote:

You cannot have socialism except by choice

That is true if you are talking about the ideal of socialism, but in that case, you can't have socialism at all. In practice, socialism has very often been imposed from above, either by a sitting government or a revolutionairy party. Do I need to give examples; we all know them. If enough people keep thinking like you, we'll have first hand experience soon enough.

All of our problems are not the result of inequality. Inequality, to the extent that it is not a purely natural phenomena beyond our control (short of eugenics), is the result of our problems. What are our problems? At the moment, socialism in practice: i.e. internationalism, fabian socialism, corperatism...idealistic ObamaYouth among others.

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@DRgenius21,

Ideals are tyranny... Reality is what it is until some smart ass starts to believe people have to live by some abstract derivitive notion of Good... People can work that out for themselves... Doing it for others is a guarantee of misery...It does not matter what forms people have as long as the forms work harder for them than they work for the form... You have to get more life out than you put in...

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@Fido,

Umm yes, I agree. That is why I desire free market capitalism within a limited, federal, constitutional republic. I say...I say you just contradicted yourself my boy...:bigsmile:

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@DRgenius21,

I don't think I have ever said people should be made to fit some ideal; but I suppose you have said why you like a set of ideals, none of which work, or can be made to work, though I notice they are good at turning people into slaves, and making folks miserable..Oh and good for blowing resorces and killing people with wars...Oh, and putting people in jail for crimes against property, and denying them justice... Did some one invent that of did they find a pile of trouble and slap a defense on it...

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@Fido,

Quote:

Ideals are tyranny... Reality is what it is until some smart ass starts to believe people have to live by some abstract derivitive notion of Good... People can work that out for themselves... Doing it for others is a guarantee of misery...

I agree. There are only two alternatives aren't there?
(1) Anarchy, no ideals or principles for societal organization
Or, (2) a system that allows for maximal individual freedom and hence prevents 'some smart ass' from forcing people to live by 'some abstract derivative notion of good.' What is tha called...hmmm.

Fido wrote:

I don't think I have ever said people should be made to fit some ideal; but I suppose you have said why you like a set of ideals, none of which work, or can be made to work, though I notice they are good at turning people into slaves, and making folks miserable..Oh and good for blowing resorces and killing people with wars...Oh, and putting people in jail for crimes against property, and denying them justice... Did some one invent that of did they find a pile of trouble and slap a defense on it...

My mistake, I just assumed that someone who likes to make long lists of the ills of capitalism (or ills he thinks derive from capitalism) prefers the obvious alternative, some form of collectivism. I suppose if you have no ideals and yet complain, you must be a simple pessimist. You have no preferences, no interest in the form of government under which you live? Why are you even involved in a thread on political science?

On the other hand, your previous posts reveal your philosophy, at least in part.

Quote:

We can conceive of ourselves completely apart from our communities...It is false...we see families all the way up to our nation states as feeding off us, -the self important individuals...

That sounds like antipathy toward individualism per se. Maybe I'm crazy. :whistling:

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@DRgenius21,

I wonder what Marx would think about fully automatic production facilities?
Is it time for the worker to take over and replace his/her workstation with a robot and then retire to a sunny beach?

Fully automatic production facilities or capitalism!

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@Ola,

Ola wrote:

I wonder what Marx would think about fully automatic production facilities?
Is it time for the worker to take over and replace his/her workstation with a robot and then retire to a sunny beach?

Fully automatic production facilities or capitalism!

I believe Marx believed that the capitalist push for efficiency through technology would annihilate capitalism. To him capitalism was facilitated by the appropriation of excess labor. The more automated and less human production processes become, the less room for exploitation of the worker can be managed. The capitalist ruins his own source of wealth.

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@Mr Fight the Power,

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

I believe Marx believed that the capitalist push for efficiency through technology would annihilate capitalism. To him capitalism was facilitated by the appropriation of excess labor. The more automated and less human production processes become, the less room for exploitation of the worker can be managed. The capitalist ruins his own source of wealth.

Absolutly correct; but the more technology increases the closer humanity grows to an effortless and socialist existence... But in the meantime, capital needs consumers as well as producers, and when that production is handed to robots they trade a long term profit for a short term profit... Ultimately they cut themselves out of profit as everyone else catches up, laying off more and more workers, adding to the overhead of society as they reduce their own overhead... It is the law of diminishing returns, and we are reaching that point... We have overproduction, and people who want and need; but no one has the money, except the people who need nothing... If I was the rich I would be thinking about going to war, because war justifies any government expense... And it gets rid of the overhead, the excess population....

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Can Communism work?

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