The back in forth in the other thread about Jesus being a commie got me to thinking about Communism in general.
What are your thoughts? Any Communists here? What strain do you believe in, if so? Anti-communist thoughts welcome, as well.
I remember when I was a kid and I heard about Communism and how evil it was, cause I lived in Florida and we'd hear about Castro from Cubans who moved there. And when I asked my dad what Communism was, he was like it's a system where everyone has the same amount of money, no matter what they do. And I was like really? That doesn't sound so evil. And he was like yea nah trust me it's bad. He wasn't a very political guy but he did grow up in the cold war.
It wasn't till years later that I found out more about the history of the Soviet Union etc. And even then, for years I didn't see the connection between a classless society and the kind of totalitarian madness that resulted in Communist countries.
I feel like now I do. It seems like the basic problem is something like this: Communism tries to replace Capitalism with something better. As such, they need some structure to replace “the invisible hand” of the free market. Which is an enormous responsibility, and extremely complex. Because of this, the government essentially owns everything and distributes it accordingly. For that to even happen the government has to be virtually limitless in its authority and power. Meaning civil liberties go right out the window, as do the right to any sort of individual concerns that are not in line with the official concerns of the state.
Once a regime reaches this level of totalitarian power, pretty much the same thing always happens. They fight desperately to maintain it, using whatever means necessary. Almost instantly, when you grant a state the kind of power a communist state wields, you can guarantee that “the needs of the people” are not their top priority. Their top priority is protecting, using and bolstering their own power.
This isn't unique to Communism, by any means. It's a basic property of totalitarianism in general. But this is the basic reason why I think every Communist state has gone down this totalitarian path. It's really hard to conceive how you would possibly have an entity on the scale of China or the Soviet Union which was organized voluntarily and democratically to share all of the resources of that society. That might not make it impossible, but it seems so politically infeasible that it might as well be. And as I've said, I think there is a good reason for the common path that actual Communist states have tended to take.
I know there are people who believe in anarcho-communism... Which doesn't seem like it has the same tyrannical structure. But it's also something that is basically non existent in terms of serious real world examples (please don't pull up some obscure commune, I'm talking about massive societies like Russia and China). And IMO it really strains credulity how any sort of anarchist society would really organize and perhaps more importantly, protect itself. But that's a different topic entirely.
Anyway.. what does KMC think about Communism?
Also, a bit of a semi related tangent... but I've been listening to podcasts/youtube videos with intellectual types in them debating this kind of shit and it struck me.. “bourgeois” is possibly the worst English adoption of a foreign word ever. The funny thing is when you hear some academic say it like they're trying to establish some sort of bond with the working class. Nobody poor says ****in “bourgeois.” It's not in the vocabulary. Except some blacks, who use a derivative term, “boojie.” Which basically means the same thing. Stuck up, orderly, middle class, etc. But even though they apparently like the meaning of the term, they still had to change the word to make it sound decent. There aint no ****in rappers coming out with a song that goes“My ***** Is Bad and Bougeois.”
I ask anyone to show me a successful communist country that wasn't horrible.
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And just in case anyone on here is from Antifa or something: Star Trek is not a valid example.
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I was once a communist for half a year. It was more of a Russian craze really. I was a 13 year old who didn't (and still doesn't) have their head on straight.
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I think Communism is not something that can really work at this point in time. I agree with Afro that right now totalitarianism is really the only way for communism to really function in any form, and totalitarian governments are always going to be doomed to fail.
That said I do think certain aspects of Communism, or Socialism or whatever you want to call it, will probably become the norm in the future. I think UBI is inevitable and will probably happen within most of our lifetimes. I also think something like money no longer being used as an exchange may happen, but probably not for a long time.
I can relate, I once saw an episode of Seinfeld where Elaine dated a communist.
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Communism would be acceptable.....if you take out the basic nature of human beings. Since you can't, it's a horrible pipe dream.
You will never be able to convince the majority to hand over their hard earned wealth to people who haven't earned it. You may be able to get them to help the needy, but not the entire populace. I'm a strong believer in working hard to get what you want.
You guys 'member Communism? From the 20th century?
I 'member.
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'member the death star?
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You 'member the guys Stalin took out of photographs?
Me neither.
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Has there ever really been a "Communist Country"? Most of the Shit Holes that The Left like to say are Commie are really Socialist. Big Diff between the two.
Heck the early U.S Colonies tried Commie-nism...They found it sucked Turkey Balls and chucked it for Capitalism and True Freedom. The Great Experiment. Too bad we got all the New Leftist Progressive Socialist Fascists here putting an end to it.
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Yeah, I imagine as society progresses, more aspects of "communism, socialism, or whatever you want to call it will be ingrained in society". There's already plenty of it ingrained in many developed countries. Universal health care for example.
We really don't have examples of a succesful communist country, the URSS being the most arguably succesful one and it ended up pitting itself against richer countries in a war on influence. People say that totalitarism cannot work... Except it did, for centuries, all over the world. Prosperity will make anything work, from universal healthcare, to gun owning, to having a frigging King. But of course, what prosperity represents can shift from in different cultures, so if freedom (for example) was considered a measure of prosperity, totalitarism would struggle to ever achieve it. This doesn't mean cultural values cannot change, maybe people will stop holding freedom so high in their values and allow themselves to be monitored and charged for internet services.
Communism is bound to change like everything else, so in that sense, it cannot be entirely succesful as something ethereal and eternal.
What is it with people 'thinking' communism and socialism is going to work? It never worked and never will work. Get over it and start working on something that works like real capitalism, something that doesn't kill and force anyone to do anything they don't want to do, that's freedom, I know what a revolutionary concept! Russia dumped it, the USSR was a dump because of it, and today Venezuela is suffering terribly because of it!
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Last edited by kevdude on Oct 24th, 2017 at 02:08 PM
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It was Stalin who came up with the concept of a "Communist Country". Before Stalin, Lenin and others believed Communism was impossible for one single country to adopt, and could only work if it was a globalist system.
One time I watched this documentary that said this one time FDR and Stalin laughed at the britishness of Winston Churchill and it made Churchill's face turn red.
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1. inimalist and I discussed this topic quite a bit. I could just repost our converstaion to cover not only my points but also his. But I am lazy and just don't want to make the effort.
2. NewGuy01 is correct with his rhetoric: from a technical point of view, no communistic country has existed, yet. Only socialist republics and states. Marxist Socialism is the first step to reach Communism.