ForumsWEPRCommunism

86 26398
CapnCook
offline
CapnCook
15 posts
Nomad

What are your opinions on it? Chat away.

  • 86 Replies
VonHeisenbourg
offline
VonHeisenbourg
377 posts
Peasant

If I'm not mistaken about communism, communism is:

- A classless society
- Equality for all
- Jobs for all
- Everyone gets paid the same, including the lowliest secretary at a school and the Prime Minister of a country
- Same housing for all
- No favouritism at all
- No poverty
- No starvation
- No redundant jobs or stores

If my definition of communism is correct it seems like a utopia to me. It's a shame that there hasn't really been a true communist country to see if it would be a utopia (like others have pointed out calling yourself communist doesn't make you a communist).

nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

Only the first two are actual tenets. Also, it would be a stateless society.

VonHeisenbourg
offline
VonHeisenbourg
377 posts
Peasant

Only the first two are actual tenets

Incorrect.

In order for there to be equality (which you agree is a tenet) everything below that (except for no redundant jobs or stores) would have to be tenet. Equality for all go hand in hand with everything below except for the last point. How can everyone be equals if one man is starving and another is not, how can everyone be equal if some people are in poverty and some are not.
nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

It is not incorrect. Marx didn't explicitly state that each person has to have equality in everything, he proposed equality and a classless society; but that doesn't mean everyone had to live in exactly the same type of shelter or had the same type of food. Furthermore he proposed a moneyless society so saying everyone was paid the same is incorrect because salaries wouldn't exist. He proposed a society where material wealth was superabundant and anyone can have whatever he wanted. That's not the same as everyone having similar material wealth.

Lastly, tenets are different from effects spilling from the core principles.

sensanaty
offline
sensanaty
1,094 posts
Nomad

What does that have to do with children executing their parents?


I'd need a source on that one. (forgive me if it's already posted, too lazy to check back the pages)

So a large city has a lot of people in it....does that automatically mean the world is overflowing with people?


Again, you've obviously never been to a larger city in China.

Hong Kong is one of the most populated cities and are exempt from the policy.


Read what nicho said.

So???? Justifying the murder of females is OKAY for the sake of over population? Give me an effing break.


From my experience and my friends, the males are much more useful in society than females are.

China is by far the leader in genocide. During the Mao Ze-Dong era over ~78,000,000 were killed.


Most died from mistreatment.

China is communist. Sorry , your argument isn't convincing. All Communist countries at one time had a dictator and some still do.


Tito wasn't a dictator. Russians hardly consider Stalin a dictator. China was a pure dictatorship. The CCCP might have been kind of harsh on the population, but China was far worse than the CCCP(oh and btw, this is read SSSR, it's Cyrillic for all of you who don't know this)

Why all the communist countries failed? because USA fought them...


There was much more to it, the USA was just a fraction of the problem. The socialist countries fell apart due to their original leaders being replaced by ones that weren't as good(or bad, whatever, western media's bull**** anyways), so socialism fell apart. Kim Jong-Il's son (if that's his name) is too young, and North Korea'll die soon enough.

*And another thing, communism never existed in the real world. Anything that was considered/is considered communist is/was actually socialist. Communism is the final stage of socialism. And for communism to exist, the country has to be leaderless(and other things too, but this is the main point).
** Western culture and Eastern culture are completely different. I'd advise you study more on the topic. or visit the eastern countries for a little more than just tourism and vacations.It's much more beautiful than anything in the west, I assure you.
partydevil
offline
partydevil
5,133 posts
Jester

Kim Jong-Il's son (if that's his name) is too young, and North Korea'll die soon enough.


he is in his 30's
+ he has a load of advisers that also served kim jong.

how do you see it die soon?
partydevil
offline
partydevil
5,133 posts
Jester

my bad, he is almost 30

sensanaty
offline
sensanaty
1,094 posts
Nomad

how do you see it die soon?


He is unsuited to a lead a country. And he's 30? He looks like a 13 year old
VonHeisenbourg
offline
VonHeisenbourg
377 posts
Peasant

It is not incorrect. Marx didn't explicitly state that each person has to have equality in everything, he proposed equality and a classless society;

The way I construe that is that everyone has to have exactly the same type of shelter and the same food. How can there be equality and a classless society otherwise? The way I construe the meaning of equality and classless is the exact same of everything for everyone.

but that doesn't mean everyone had to live in exactly the same type of shelter or had the same type of food.

I believe you to be wrong. The definition of equal is according to google: 2. The condition of being equal in number or amount

Furthermore he proposed a moneyless society so saying everyone was paid the same is incorrect because salaries wouldn't exist.

There are other ways to be paid besides money, for example, being fed, or ration cards was the payment I was talking about. I do believe in this fellows ideal communist society everyone would be fed the same, and housed the same as long as they work. So their payment would be equality. No?

He proposed a society where material wealth was superabundant and anyone can have whatever he wanted. That's not the same as everyone having similar material wealth.

He proposed equality as you, yourself said. If people are just taking whatever they wanted from grocery stores and gas stations and leaving nothing for anyone else how would this be an equal society?

Lastly, tenets are different from effects spilling from the core principles

In some circumstances yes, but not this one. I was elaborating from how I construed what he meant by equality. Everything besides my last dashed point falls under equality. So you can effectively say everything but the last dashed point is a tenet.
nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

The way I construe that is that everyone has to have exactly the same type of shelter and the same food. How can there be equality and a classless society otherwise? The way I construe the meaning of equality and classless is the exact same of everything for everyone.


And yet Marx has never said that. He never did stress that we all had to conform towards such incongruous observance of similarly constructed lives. As you made it clear, that's what you envision.



I believe you to be wrong. The definition of equal is according to google: 2. The condition of being equal in number or amount


I scarcely believe Marx was bothered by what Google could tell him.
Indeed his famous slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is very telling in itself. He did not mean for Communism to develop into a concept where everyone had to live in an Orwellian dystopia of conformity masked as equality. In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist society will produce; the idea is that, with the full development of socialism and unrestrained productive forces, there will be enough to satisfy everyone's needs whatever these might be.

There are other ways to be paid besides money, for example, being fed, or ration cards was the payment I was talking about. I do believe in this fellows ideal communist society everyone would be fed the same, and housed the same as long as they work. So their payment would be equality. No?



In a Marxist society there would be no concept of payment, only that there would be enough for everyone as expounded in the Gotha Programme.

He proposed equality as you, yourself said. If people are just taking whatever they wanted from grocery stores and gas stations and leaving nothing for anyone else how would this be an equal society?


Worker cooperatives, Soviets, scientific planning. Natural resources and earth would become public property, while all manufacturing centres and workplaces would become owned by their workers and democratically managed. Production would be organised by scientific assessment and planning, thus eliminating what Marx called the "anarchy in production". The development of the productive forces would lead to the marginalisation of human labour to the highest possible extent, replacing with automated labour.


In some circumstances yes, but not this one. I was elaborating from how I construed what he meant by equality. Everything besides my last dashed point falls under equality. So you can effectively say everything but the last dashed point is a tenet.


Tenets are official principles and beliefs. Other than equality, Marx ne'er explicitly states the rest as conscious goals. These are effects from the main tenet of equality.
partydevil
offline
partydevil
5,133 posts
Jester

He is unsuited to a lead a country.


so are many more.
anyway this isn't really a reason why it will die.

And he's 30? He looks like a 13 year old

well looks doesn't say anything. madonna looks 30 but is nearly 80.
VonHeisenbourg
offline
VonHeisenbourg
377 posts
Peasant

And yet Marx has never said that.

He has said that, by saying he wants equality it means that,

He never did stress that we all had to conform towards such incongruous observance of similarly constructed lives.

What I said is certainly not incongruous. Quoting a definition of a word someone said is not out of place in determining what he wants.

As you made it clear, that's what you envision.

Not really, all I'm saying is that is what this guy wanted, it's not really what I envision,.

I scarcely believe Marx was bothered by what Google could tell him.

Probably not, but he said equality and that is the definition of equality. I do not think that the word equality in his mind is different from mine. You agree that this Marx guy wanted a society that was classless and had equality for all. Yet you disagree that he wanted everyone to have the same amount of things. Do you not see your flaw?

Indeed his famous slogan "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is very telling in itself.

1. Slogans are meant to be catchy and to get people to follow you. Not to be taken literally.

2, I do think that could mean if your ability to serve your country is good enough you'll get everything you need to survive. Just like everyone else.

3. There are multiple way to construe things a man says, so you probably shouldn't use such vaguely worded slogans with less than a dozen words in it to tell you exactly what a man thinks a government should be like

He did not mean for Communism to develop into a concept where everyone had to live in an Orwellian dystopia of conformity masked as equality.

What does this have to do with what we're talking about. I never said anything about creating an Orwellian dystopia masked as equality in the name of Communism.

However I do agree that is what "Communist" countries have turned Communism into.

In the Marxist view, such an arrangement will be made possible by the abundance of goods and services that a developed communist society will produce; the idea is that, with the full development of socialism and unrestrained productive forces, there will be enough to satisfy everyone's needs whatever these might be.

The arrangement of what? His view of an ideal country? Can you find me a link where it says Marx wanted to produce a country where everyone can go gallivanting through stores and gas stations taking everything they want with no consideration to other people's needs.

Remember just because there is an abundance of materials and supplies it doesn't make it infinite or never ending, no matter how fast a country can produce something there will never be enough if everyone is taking as much much as they want to. I think Marx would have known that.

In a Marxist society there would be no concept of payment, only that there would be enough for everyone as expounded in the Gotha Programme.

In a Marxist society what do you think would happen to the people that do nothing for their country, don't work, help no one and is genuinely useless and causing problems because he is stealing or killing?

Now what would happen to someone who is working for the good of the country, does what he is told and works in a factory.

Worker cooperatives, Soviets, scientific planning. Natural resources and earth would become public property, while all manufacturing centres and workplaces would become owned by their workers and democratically managed. Production would be organised by scientific assessment and planning, thus eliminating what Marx called the "anarchy in production". The development of the productive forces would lead to the marginalisation of human labour to the highest possible extent, replacing with automated labour.

This hardly has to do with what I said. I asked "If people are just taking whatever they wanted from grocery stores and gas stations and leaving nothing for anyone else how would this be an equal society?" and you answered with how stuff would be created. If people are taking whatever they want there would hardly be equality if some people just go around taking the best and leaving the scraps for others.

Tenets are official principles and beliefs. Other than equality, Marx ne'er explicitly states the rest as conscious goals. These are effects from the main tenet of equality.

Which effectively make them tenets... Even if they're not explicitly stated.
nichodemus
offline
nichodemus
14,981 posts
Grand Duke

He has said that, by saying he wants equality it means that,


Unless you can find an actual worded definition, no.



Not really, all I'm saying is that is what this guy wanted, it's not really what I envision,.

What I said is certainly not incongruous. Quoting a definition of a word someone said is not out of place in determining what he wants.


It actually is if you never do quote bits of evidence from Marx himself and only make empty assertions.

To quote the Soviet definitions of equality based on Marx, Communist equality has nothing in common with the crude ideas of equalization of individual capacities, tastes, and needs. Abundance and a high level of individual consciousness are precisely the conditions required for the full development of individuality and the discovery of all of the individualâs creative capacities. In the final analysis, Marxism-Leninism defines equality as the complete elimination of classes and the creation of the conditions for the comprehensive development of all members of society.

Communism for Marx was entirely against uniformity, in fact he dedicates a huge section of his work to alienation of man, not just from society but himself. Marx never specified which kinds of income Inequality would be abolished; Those arising from artificial man made stratification such as class, race, ethnicity would, yet he never claimed that income Inequality differing from physical and mental differences or acquired skills would be abolished wholly. 

To quote Eric Fromm's Article "Marx's Concept of Man" we can see rather clearly Marx's concept of communism and equality does not mean strict Orwellian systems:

Socialism is not a society of regimented, automatized individuals, regardless of whether there is equality of income or not, and regardless of whether they are well fed and well clad. It is not a society in which the individual is subordinated to the state, to the machine, to the bureaucracy. Even if the state as an "abstract capitalist" were the employer, even if "the entire social capital were united in the hands either of a single capitalist or a single capitalist corporation,"  this would not be socialism. In fact, as Marx says quite clearly in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, "communism as such is not the aim of human development."

Marx expressed the aim of socialism with great clarity at the end of the third volume of Capital: "In fact, the realm of freedom does not commence until the point is passed where labor under the compulsion of necessity and of external utility is required. In the very nature of things it lies beyond the sphere of material production in the strict meaning of the term. Just as the savage must wrestle with nature, in order to satisfy his wants, in order to maintain his life and reproduce it, so civilized man has to do it, and he must do it in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production. With his development the realm of natural necessity expands, because his wants increase; but at the same time the forces of production increase, by which these wants are satisfied. The freedom in this field cannot consist of anything else but of the fact that socialized man, the associated producers, regulate their interchange with nature rationally, bring it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power; they accomplish their task with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most adequate to their human nature and most worthy of it. But it always remains a realm of necessity. Beyond it begins that development of human power, which is its own end, the true realm of freedom, which, however, can flourish only upon that realm of necessity as its basis." 

Marx expresses here all essential elements of socialism. First, man produces in an associated, not competitive way; he produces rationally and in an unalienated way, which means that he brings production under his control, instead of being ruled by it as by some blind power. This clearly excludes a concept of socialism in which man is manipulated by a bureaucracy, even if this bureaucracy rules the whole state economy, rather than only a big corporation. It means that the individual participates actively in the planning and in the execution of the plans; it means, in short, the realization of political and industrial democracy. Marx expected that by this new form of an unalienated society man would become independent, stand on his own feet, and would no longer be crippled by the alienated mode of production and consumption; that he would truly be the master and the creator of his life, and hence that he could begin to make living his main business, rather than producing the means for living. Socialism, for Marx, was never as such the fulfillment of life, but the condition for such fulfillment. When man has built a rational, nonalienated form of society, he will have the chance to begin with what is the aim of life: the "development of human power, which is its own end, the true realm of freedom." Marx, the man who every year read all the works of Aeschylus and Shakespeare, who brought to life in himself the greatest works of human thought, would never have dreamt that his idea of socialism could be interpreted as having as its aim the well-fed and well-clad "welfare" or "workers' " state. Man, in Marx's view, has created in the course of history a culture which he will be free to make his own when he is freed from the chains, not only of economic poverty, but of the spiritual poverty created by alienation. Marx's vision is based on his faith in man, in the inherent and real potentialities of the essence of man which have developed in history. He looked at socialism as the condition of human freedom and creativity, not as in itself constituting the goal of man's life.

What does this have to do with what we're talking about. I never said anything about creating an Orwellian dystopia masked as equality in the name of Communism.

However I do agree that is what "Communist" countries have turned Communism into.


It does matter because to Marx, uniformity was abhorrable.

T
he arrangement of what? His view of an ideal country? Can you find me a link where it says Marx wanted to produce a country where everyone can go gallivanting through stores and gas stations taking everything they want with no consideration to other people's needs.

Remember just because there is an abundance of materials and supplies it doesn't make it infinite or never ending, no matter how fast a country can produce something there will never be



Arrangement of society. Read above and read above. His vision of equality is warped by our modern interpretations.

In a Marxist society what do you think would happen to the people that do nothing for their country, don't work, help no one and is genuinely useless and causing problems because he is stealing or killing?

Now what would happen to someone who is working for the good of the country, does what he is told and works in a factory.     


Marx delineated the specific conditions under which such a creed would be applicableâ"a society where technology and social organization hadsubstantially eliminated the need for physical labor in the production of things, where "labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want". Marx explained his belief that, in such a society, each person would be motivated to work for the good of society despite the absence of a social mechanism compelling them to work, because work would have become a pleasurable and creative activity. Marx intended the initial part of his slogan, "from each according to his ability" to suggest not merely that each person should work as hard as they can, but that each person should best develop their particular talents.

And yes, the slogan that is so called tailor fit to only rally people was part of his actual thought.

This hardly has to do with what I said. I asked "If people are just taking whatever they wanted from grocery stores and gas stations and leaving nothing for anyone else how would this be an equal society?" and you answered with how stuff would be created. If people are taking whatever they want there would hardly be equality if some people just go around taking the best and leaving the scraps for others


It is relevant. Your point was how resources would be distributed in a communist society. I have responded.

Marx made a distinction too about true and false needs based on his concept of man. To quote Erich again, 

Socialism, for Marx, is a society which serves the needs of man. But, many will ask, is not that exactly what modern capitalism does? Are not our big corporations most eager to serve the needs of man? And are the big advertising companies not reconnaissance parties which, by means of great efforts, from surveys to "motivation analysis," try to find out what the needs of man are? Indeed, one can understand the concept of socialism only if one understands Marx's distinction between the true needs of man, and the synthetic, artificially produced needs of man.

As follows from the whole concept of man, his real needs are rooted in his nature; this distinction between real and false needs is possible only on the basis of a picture of the nature of man and the true human needs rooted in his nature. Man's true needs are those whose fulfillment is necessary for the realization of his essence as a human being. As Marx put it: "The existence of what I truly love is felt by me as a necessity, as a need, without which my essence cannot be fulfilled, satisfied, complete."  Only on the basis of a specific concept of man's nature can Marx make the difference between true and false needs of man. Purely subjectively, the false needs are experienced as being as urgent and real as the true needs, and from a purely subjective viewpoint, there could not be a criterion for the distinction. (In modern terminology one might differentiate between neurotic and rational [healthy] needs).  Often man is conscious only of his false needs and unconscious of his real ones. The task of the analyst of society is precisely to awaken man so that he can become aware of the illusory false needs and of the reality of his true needs. The principal goal of socialism, for Marx, is the recognition and realization of man's true needs, which will be possible only when production serves man, and capital ceases to create and exploit the false needs of man.


Which effectively make them tenets... Even if they're not explicitly stated.


One of Romney's campaign tenets is a more anti homosexual stance. Does that make discrimination  tenet of his campaign? 
09philj
offline
09philj
2,825 posts
Jester

Stalin and lenin made communism up as they went along...

danielo
offline
danielo
1,774 posts
Peasant

To make things short, read "the animal farms". I recommand it.

Showing 61-75 of 86