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YippySkippy
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30 Nov 2011, 12:33 pm

Communism is a lovely idea on paper.
Unfortunately, human nature cannot live up to its principles.
It seems to me that all forms of government eventually become corrupt due to human nature, and the better forms are merely those which impede or delay that corruption longest.



enrico_dandolo
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30 Nov 2011, 12:48 pm

Socialism (in its original sense) and communism were originally not ideologies, but inevitable marxist historical phases. What happened in Russia and the others was that they skipped the capitalist phase and the socialist phase and decided that they were establishing communism right away. Not that the theory worked or made much real sense anyway, as the lack of disorder in France, GB and the US, and the moderate character of German Revoltion shows.

Anarchy does not mean "no leader". It means "no power".



Awesomelyglorious
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30 Nov 2011, 1:22 pm

This isn't a misconception, this is a debate, and/or even a semantic splitting of hairs. Even if we say the USSR is not socialist, the ardent opponent is just going to say that it is a "failure to attain socialism and STILL a flaw in socialist ideas showing their unworkability". Definitional disputes often don't go very far anyway, because unless you really really alter vocabulary in the 1984 manner, most of the time ideas can just be reformulated fine to get the same end result.



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30 Nov 2011, 1:33 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
This isn't a misconception, this is a debate, and/or even a semantic splitting of hairs. Even if we say the USSR is not socialist, the ardent opponent is just going to say that it is a "failure to attain socialism and STILL a flaw in socialist ideas showing their unworkability". Definitional disputes often don't go very far anyway, because unless you really really alter vocabulary in the 1984 manner, most of the time ideas can just be reformulated fine to get the same end result.


I don't know about that. Most of the "failed attempts at socialism and then communism" were conducted in quasi-Feudal societies. Most of the people who engineered such experiments claimed to be inspired by Marx, yet Marx was pretty clear that Proletarian revolution would occur only in the most advanced capitalistic nations.

One could argue, I suppose, that central planning experiments flipped this logic on its head, as Soviet planning was effective at industrializing a semi-feudal society yet flopped when it came to managing said industrial society. Of course, most modern socialists tend to believe in decentralized, participatory planning as it's really the only way to ensure direct (economic) democracy.


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Master_Pedant
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30 Nov 2011, 1:49 pm

peebo wrote:
the forum seems to be awash with individuals passing comment on the failures of communism and socialism, to the point that it is completely counter-productive in terms of constructive debate.

i think it would be prudent for some level of consensus to be reached on this subject. communism and socialism have never existed. the failings of the soviet bloc, north korea, china etc. etc. have nothing to do with communism or socialism. yes, these nations claimed to be working towards such ideologies, but for varying reasons they never got past the first hurdle.

perhaps we could, in the interests of accuracy, rather than referring to communism/socialism in these instances, refer in stead to "authoritarian state capitalism"?


Perhaps it would be useful if you actually fleshed out, in concrete detail, what socialism is, rather than saying what it is not or citing vague aspirations ("workers (somehow) own the means of production").


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30 Nov 2011, 2:25 pm

DC wrote:
Given how terrible communism is, I do find it strange that many, many people who have lived under soviet communism and also under free market capitalism have very fond memories of how good things were back in the communist days.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -life.html

It is strange that pewglobal one of the world's largest social surveyors and not in the slightest inclined to take a political stance in favour of 'the left' have been doing surveys in the ex-soviet states since the break up and rather a lot of people seem to be quite miffed and think they are now worse off.


Image


http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/11/02/end ... ervations/



Of course if you ask an American who has never lived under communism you just get the usual conditioned Pavlovian style response of communists are evil, USA number 1, f**k yeah!

Odd that the only people with experience of both systems don't seem to agree...


I think Poland is the only country on that list that had experience regarding Capitalism prior to being taken over by the Soviets...

If you look into Hungary, I'm surprised they've forgotten about the slave labour under Soviet Occupation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/f ... 347146.stm

Ukraine was part of Russia, the Czech Republic, does that even exist anymore?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

It helps when you have people that understand how Capitalism works, if you have nobody that understands how it works and/or long standing ethnic hatreds that were present, you're going to simply see the situation devolve as people finally take out their longstanding grudges. I will say that these grudges may not have been as violent as they are now, cept the Soviets allowed people to seethe over their hatreds in order to prevent a coordinated opposition from taking root.



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30 Nov 2011, 4:59 pm

Speaking of misconceptions, it seems like a lot of Americans think
democracy=capitalism, with the result that any criticism of capitalism is seen as an attack against democracy.



JWC
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30 Nov 2011, 5:43 pm

YippySkippy wrote:
Speaking of misconceptions, it seems like a lot of Americans think
democracy=capitalism, with the result that any criticism of capitalism is seen as an attack against democracy.


Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. The USA is constitutional republic with a mixed economy, not a democracy. Our representatives are elected democratically, our political system is not run democratically.



enrico_dandolo
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30 Nov 2011, 8:27 pm

JWC wrote:
YippySkippy wrote:
Speaking of misconceptions, it seems like a lot of Americans think
democracy=capitalism, with the result that any criticism of capitalism is seen as an attack against democracy.


Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. The USA is constitutional republic with a mixed economy, not a democracy. Our representatives are elected democratically, our political system is not run democratically.

"Democratically elected representatives" is basically as close as you can get to democracy with 300 M people on the fourth landmass in the world. As I see it, the American politican system is certainly not fair, but it is still democratic -- and the economy is rather more unfair that the politics.



Awesomelyglorious
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30 Nov 2011, 8:38 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
This isn't a misconception, this is a debate, and/or even a semantic splitting of hairs. Even if we say the USSR is not socialist, the ardent opponent is just going to say that it is a "failure to attain socialism and STILL a flaw in socialist ideas showing their unworkability". Definitional disputes often don't go very far anyway, because unless you really really alter vocabulary in the 1984 manner, most of the time ideas can just be reformulated fine to get the same end result.


I don't know about that. Most of the "failed attempts at socialism and then communism" were conducted in quasi-Feudal societies. Most of the people who engineered such experiments claimed to be inspired by Marx, yet Marx was pretty clear that Proletarian revolution would occur only in the most advanced capitalistic nations.

One could argue, I suppose, that central planning experiments flipped this logic on its head, as Soviet planning was effective at industrializing a semi-feudal society yet flopped when it came to managing said industrial society. Of course, most modern socialists tend to believe in decentralized, participatory planning as it's really the only way to ensure direct (economic) democracy.

I said "the ardent opponent", so.... yeah.

Yeah... the problem with saying "Marx didn't predict this" is that Marx really didn't outline how the revolution was to take place, only that it would. Not only that, but Marxist predictions are just so unprovable that nobody even argues about them at this point. So, we really can't take the fact that this wasn't the "true Marxian prediction" seriously. Especially since, even further, these people WERE Marxists. They saw the opportunity, leaped on it, and hoped that the world would follow. (Now it is true that they didn't put a lot of faith in an immediate worldwide revolution, but that's beside the point) Their actions do follow from some interpretations of Marxist practice. (Even further, most Marxists don't follow dogmatically to Marx)

Yeah... I think the planning is where the flop comes in. I think the "decentralized participatory planning" point you're getting at is a REBUTTAL, but that the issue still isn't definition. So, one can easily say "Yes, the USSR was socialism, but its flaws were X, Y, and Z, and my model doesn't have those, so pointing to it has no impact on it". I think the real issue is still just a language failure, and not the USSR being socialist or not. (Though, to be fair, I do recognize that some uses of language, even with socialism, can distort the usage of terms a bit just for conveying concepts. I don't think this one really does though, especially given that a lot of people believed that the USSR was a socialist nation)



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30 Nov 2011, 10:18 pm

Politicians are two faced lying thieving scum bags.
one side they pretend to be honest hard workers who care about the community, business, workers and society as a whole.

On the other hand they routinely take bribes, kickbacks, rorts, sex scandals and get away with other criminal activities: racketeering, extortion, intimidation. In some cases rape, child molestation and even murder.

Politicians have immunity from prosecution: so long as the charges are less than 5 year maximum sentence for the offence. They would just get a slap on the wrist or a demotion from front bench to sit on the back benchers. If the crime carries more than 5 years, just do not get caught and deny all charges and plead innocence.

It does not matter if they are: Liberal, Conservative, New Liberal, New Conservative, Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Fascist/Extreme Capitalist, etc. They are all scum bags.



JWC
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01 Dec 2011, 12:20 pm

enrico_dandolo wrote:
JWC wrote:
YippySkippy wrote:
Speaking of misconceptions, it seems like a lot of Americans think
democracy=capitalism, with the result that any criticism of capitalism is seen as an attack against democracy.


Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. The USA is constitutional republic with a mixed economy, not a democracy. Our representatives are elected democratically, our political system is not run democratically.

"Democratically elected representatives" is basically as close as you can get to democracy with 300 M people on the fourth landmass in the world. As I see it, the American politican system is certainly not fair, but it is still democratic -- and the economy is rather more unfair that the politics.


Words such as democracy, capitalism and republic already have specific meanings; your opinion that it is 'close enough' does not expand the definition to include your interpretation.



Awesomelyglorious
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01 Dec 2011, 12:42 pm

JWC wrote:
enrico_dandolo wrote:
JWC wrote:
YippySkippy wrote:
Speaking of misconceptions, it seems like a lot of Americans think
democracy=capitalism, with the result that any criticism of capitalism is seen as an attack against democracy.


Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. The USA is constitutional republic with a mixed economy, not a democracy. Our representatives are elected democratically, our political system is not run democratically.

"Democratically elected representatives" is basically as close as you can get to democracy with 300 M people on the fourth landmass in the world. As I see it, the American politican system is certainly not fair, but it is still democratic -- and the economy is rather more unfair that the politics.


Words such as democracy, capitalism and republic already have specific meanings; your opinion that it is 'close enough' does not expand the definition to include your interpretation.

The issue is that our system is called a "democracy" often enough, and has enough similarity to democracies that it is "close enough". Language isn't some form of word logic, but rather it is a flowing, shifting, and evolving system. The real issue is whether calling this "democracy" actually distorts something significantly enough to be an issue.



JWC
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01 Dec 2011, 1:14 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
JWC wrote:
enrico_dandolo wrote:
JWC wrote:
YippySkippy wrote:
Speaking of misconceptions, it seems like a lot of Americans think
democracy=capitalism, with the result that any criticism of capitalism is seen as an attack against democracy.


Democracy is a political system. Capitalism is an economic system. The USA is constitutional republic with a mixed economy, not a democracy. Our representatives are elected democratically, our political system is not run democratically.

"Democratically elected representatives" is basically as close as you can get to democracy with 300 M people on the fourth landmass in the world. As I see it, the American politican system is certainly not fair, but it is still democratic -- and the economy is rather more unfair that the politics.


Words such as democracy, capitalism and republic already have specific meanings; your opinion that it is 'close enough' does not expand the definition to include your interpretation.

The issue is that our system is called a "democracy" often enough, and has enough similarity to democracies that it is "close enough". Language isn't some form of word logic, but rather it is a flowing, shifting, and evolving system. The real issue is whether calling this "democracy" actually distorts something significantly enough to be an issue.


Well then, you are nothing more than a chimpanzee. If 98% similarity isn't 'close enough', I don't know what is!



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01 Dec 2011, 1:21 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
The issue is that our system is called a "democracy" often enough, and has enough similarity to democracies that it is "close enough". Language isn't some form of word logic, but rather it is a flowing, shifting, and evolving system. The real issue is whether calling this "democracy" actually distorts something significantly enough to be an issue.



exactly. this is the issue with modern usage of socialism and communism.

i framed the discussion as misconception because i believe essentially it is. no nation that has been referred to as socialist or communist has been even close in terms of the original denotations of the terms. perhaps socialism is a less clear argument because the definition shifted around over the course of its use in the eighteenth century, but generally the abolition of private property, worker ownership of the means of production and abolition of the state were/are pre-requisites. communism is a bit more clear cut as we can simply refer to marx.

whether language has shifted over time or not, the modern usage of these terms betrays a fundamental flawed understanding of what they mean.




this thread has taken off a bit, and unfortunately when i don't have much time to be contributing to it.

master pedant has made some interesting and prudent points. i will attempt to return to the discussion tomorrow.


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Awesomelyglorious
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01 Dec 2011, 8:25 pm

JWC wrote:
Well then, you are nothing more than a chimpanzee. If 98% similarity isn't 'close enough', I don't know what is!

It depends on the context. Sometimes 98% similarity is close enough, and sometimes it is not. It really depends on the workings of language and the situation. Margin for error is empirical.