Communism will not work in the U.S. because the innate system is to restrictive to personal initiative.
It rewards apathy and stifles the will to succeed.
Not the kind of thing that most Americans can stomach.
Communism as an ideology is one thing.
Communism as a real political system is another.
"Everyone gives according to his/her capacity and receives according to his/her needs" sounds good. Humane solidarity.
Marx thought this would happen in rich countries, where the development of productive forces and of social contradictions would make it happen. It would be a distribution of the plenty.
According to the Marxist theorists of the II International (mainly Germany's Karl Kautsky), Communism would be at the climax of social and economic development, and would be reached through reforms.
The II International exists today: the Socialist International. Among the members of the Socialist International, we have the Israeli, British and Australian Labour Parties, the German, Spanish and Scandinavian Socialdemocrats, the Canadian New Democrats, etcetera.
Communism first struck in a backward country, Russia, led by an originally fringe group who was bold enough to grab power in a middle of a crisis. The Bolsheviks gave a different interpretation of Marxism and founded the III International.
Their logic was to "burn stages" in development. To do that, they resorted -not after heated debates- to a centrally organized economy, which was the only way to exert, also, total political control.
This gave way to a very unhuman and inefficient system, which could never deliver what it promised.
It would be exagerating to say that the system did not take into account human nature. The greed of money was substituted by the greed of power and control. Fear, envy, the capacity to lie, the need of security: those human caracteristic well exploited for decades by the Communist leaders (and still are, in some areas of the world).
This inefficient regime is despised in virtually all the Western world, for the correct reasons.
In some Western countries, aditionally -and it is clearly the case of the US- anything resembling socialism is anathema: something not to be touched, mentioned or rationally critisized, but blindly hated.
Capitalism, if it fails will fail because those that can't make it, will take it.
Sounds like Enron to me.
I think the only real difference between Communism and Capitalism is the perception of monetary need, and who should be responsible for it.
cavfancier wrote:I think the only real difference between Communism and Capitalism is the perception of monetary need, and who should be responsible for it.
I think the difference is better stated as a question of who is best able to understand what my needs are, responsible for seeing that those needs are met, and is most likely to do so well and with the minimum negative impact on the needs of others; I or the State.
For me that's a no-brainer.
Agreed that each of us is the best judge of what his or her needs are, but what about those who can't meet their needs? How are they to manage?
Capitalism, in its pure form, doesn't answer that one. Communism, in its pure form, probably does. Of course, no such system ever existed. But neither does pure capitalism.
Fortunately.
I wouldn't really know much about either, I grew up in a social democracy.
Scrat wrote:cavfancier wrote:I think the only real difference between Communism and Capitalism is the perception of monetary need, and who should be responsible for it.
I think the difference is better stated as a question of who is best able to understand what my needs are, responsible for seeing that those needs are met, and is most likely to do so well and with the minimum negative impact on the needs of others; I or the State.
For me that's a no-brainer.
And I have no doubt of that, Scrat.
But can you at least consider the possibility that there are people, decent people -- not all lazy bums, for whom the answer to that question is a no-brainer in the opposite direction of the one I'm sure you are choosing?
Ah, sweet providence -- how those who find themselves above others are at least secretly bragging about it. Well, sometimes. Capitalism is the art of those with the most gold convincing those with less that they have the best of all possible worlds.
Which explains, to a great extent, the appeal of Republican candidates to working class voters!
Is there anyway that communism could become prevalent in the USA?
Neo-fascism is prevalent and even in control of the government - so I believe that Socialism could take hold.
My wish is that neither could be in power; but, alas.......
Fortunately, there is another election next year and this tide could be turned
If anything, we need to aim toward more democracy and less republic, our forefathers actually patterning the government after Sparta rather than Athens. One could call Sparta a military democracy.
I think Communism could eventually come to the fore. But only after the generations that have been programmed to hate Communism have passed.
Fortunately most western countries have Labour or Social Democratic parties which obviate the need for the extreme of communism.
gozmo wrote:Fortunately most western countries have Labour or Social Democratic parties which obviate the need for the extreme of communism.
I don't really think that this fact "obviates the need" - especially communists will see in these cases exactly THE need for it.
You are right Walter, communists will. I think others will not.
D'artagnan wrote:Agreed that each of us is the best judge of what his or her needs are, but what about those who can't meet their needs? How are they to manage?
Capitalism, in its pure form, doesn't answer that one.
Well, I suppose you could argue that humans acting only on capitalist impulses would serve only themselves, but most humans are a little more complex than that. There's this thing called charity.
