Communist Education?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by MrFun
Some of the "achievements" of capitalist countries:

colonialism

I fail to see how a colony is in any way inherent to the concept of capitalism - in fact, in many cases it WASN'T capitalism.

genocide

How is this related to capitalism?

slavery

Again, not capitalism - in fact, it's what happens when you DON'T have capitalism.

repressive distribution of wealth within each country

Explain how a distribution of wealth is "repressive".

violent suppression of laborers and workers

Again, if you suppress unions et al then YOU DON'T HAVE CAPITALISM. This is a problem with NOT having capitalism.

anti-communist, puppet dictatorships forced on Third World countries

I fail to see how this in any way makes communism preferable - they did the same thing.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by skywalker
Well, I don't have much about the early Russian Revolution to go by except Nicholas and Alexandra, which I'm currently reading for school, and from it I feel that the Russian Revolution was ANYTHING but "not oppressive".

You shouldn't base your opinion on one book. Anyway, the early revolution allowed mutliple nationalitiies to cecede from it, made marriage and divorce legal, legalized homsexuality, provided free news print and printers for all political parties (that weren't in active revolt), and included multiple parties.

They overthrew the reforms (including private property ) that had started to bring (relative) prosperity to Russia and even what was (with the abdication of the Tsar) a democratic government and IMMEDIATELY became repressive.

There is little true in this statemen. Private property existed before the February Revolution. What reforms there were that made life more bearable for the people of Russia were orderd by the Soviets (which existed along side the provisional government). And the Soviet government did not become repressive until the Civil War.

The subsequent invasion by America and Britain was entirely justified IMO - the Communists were fighting a democratic government that was the US and Britain's ally.

By democratic you mean the unelected Provisional government not the elected Soviets which were attacked by the the US, Britain, France, Japan, etc. Furthermore, at the point of the invasions, the Provisional government had ceased to exist. The invaders fought on the side of the White Generals, who were elected by no one and did not seek to re-establish the Provisional government but to make themselves dicators.

Also, don't you think people are a bit justified in defending themselves against people who are trying to kill them and take all their property?

We didn't start out trying to kill capitalists. That has become a matter of self defense. Ever time were overthrow them and let them live, they start a civil war. If they succeed in winning, they slaughter the revolutions' supporters. That's like saying you have a right to kill a guy because he'd try and kill you if you were trying to murder him.

Also, I'd LOVE to see you make the case that the repression of the various Communist governments was somehow necessary to their survival

Why is there no democracy in the military? Also, do you not justify the repression of the Israelis against the Palestinians based on the fact that the Palestinians want to destroy them?

[q]any government that needs to be totalitarian to stay in power doesn't DESERVE to stay in power. [/QUOTE]

That may be a fair argument, however, when you are under seige, you may think certain ways of doing things are more condusive to staying alive and forget about such niceties as democracy and manners.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
3. Capitalism is an unsustainable economic system which relies on fostering expectations among the majority which can never ultimately be realized. It will destroy itself (or us) since it ignores certain fundamentals, like the limits of the environment, in order to sustain economic growth (on which the system depends to sustain itself). It also contains the seeds of its own destruction since the technologies it develops and spreads (such as IT and automated production) tend to undercut any stake the workers have in the system. In the one case by providing them with the capacity to effectively organize and share information outside of the control of the ruling class, in the other by rendering their labour superfluous and destroying their stake in the system.

You've missed something critical - such improvements in efficiency and so on DON'T undercut the system - they free up labor that can now produce entirely new products. The vast increases in efficiency since the turn of the century haven't increased the unemployment rate - because people now produce new things such as computers. And wrt the environment, I have yet to see "protecting the environment" as a key part of a communist economy

4. Capitalism tends to encourage people to live off capital rather than by working. In a sense it penalizes those who produce the goods we enjoy by rewarding people who do not work at all by means of an imaginary social convention called money. People who live off investments or rents do not contribute anything real to the economy and rewarding them is essentially giving them something for nothing.

Wrong. I, by giving you a loan, provide you with the means by which you can produce goods and make money. I had to do some work originally to make that money that I loan you, and I have to have some skill to choose who to give loans to to make the most profits.

5. Capitalism tends to produce massive inequalities because the working class have only their labour to sell and this is treated like any other commodity. The market does not care whether or not people starve to death or die young as long as there is labour to buy. The corrective mechanism for oversupply is obviously the elimination of workers by either death or reduced fertility.

Actually, the usual corrective method for oversupply is the price going down and companies producing less or going out of business - why should people be paid for making things that are worthless because no one wants them?

6. A communist system would attempt to correct for these failures of the market as best as possible - mainly by making decisions about the allocation of resources much more responsive to democratic decision making than private capital.

So you trust the government to be efficient and nonpolitical in this allocation of resources?

7. An social/economic system which treats people as commodities rather than ends in themselves, is by definition morally wrong. Democracy treats people as ends in themselves, capitalism as commodities since capitalism only recognizes workers as labour.

People are not treated as commodities - we have a constitutional amendment specifically enumerating that. Someone's LABOR is a commodity, which he or she is free to sell.

At some point in the development of capitalism the system will collapse under its own weight, just as previous forms of economic organization have done. At that point the rules will change since people will realize that the norms of the old system won't work. If you want to understand what this will be like consider how hard it was for Europeans to convince native peoples to regard land as a commodity and how natural it seems to us. If the point holds then there will come a time where people will regard the capitalist system as governed by superstition and will marvel at how people could have been so dumb. That is why the arguments that communism goes against human nature are flawed, since they fail to recognize that a great deal of what is natural to us is due to class consciousness (see 2.) If it is possible for pre-capitalist peoples to change their ways so radically, there is good reason to believe that capitalism can be overcome.

Because all previous systems have collapsed, this one will too? That's like arguing that since all previous scientific facts have been disproven, we must assume that the ones we believe now are false too.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
9. One way in which capitalism sustains itself is by creating demand for products that people don't really need.

Well, we "don't really need" computers, or cars, or televisions, or for that matter the wheel! You know what, all I REALLY need is some food and shelter.



The fact is, people WANT these things, and they enjoy their lives more (or think they do) with them. Why NOT let them have those things?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Engels wrote that the idea was to be so productive that theft would be a pointless waste of time. Why steal what is free? It's not an easy idea to get your head around as to how it would work practically. Ken MacLeod describes such a society in The Cassini Division, which takes place after Earth has finaly become communist (with little libertarian enclaves).

That book seriously sucked. It was crap SF

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned
I would also suggest that an communist regime errors if it places a higher priority on anything other than productivity increases.

But that is the porblem Ned, there can be no communist regime. Why do you think even Stalin said they were building socialism?

Communism can only come about, as Agathon and Che have stated, from the inherent contradictions built into capitalism, and after capitalism has achieved its end, which is, to be porductive enough to support communism.

[GePap]

Originally posted by skywalker


Well, we "don't really need" computers, or cars, or televisions, or for that matter the wheel! You know what, all I REALLY need is some food and shelter.



The fact is, people WANT these things, and they enjoy their lives more (or think they do) with them. Why NOT let them have those things?

Why lest people starve so others could have SUV's?

People want a lot of things- people want free time to spend with thier families, but if they also want an SUV, tough luck, buddy, cause you have to earn the money to buy the SUV that you will use only to drive to wrk, and maybe your 2 weeks of vacation.

The question is the allocation of resources.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by skywalker
That book seriously sucked. It was crap SF

You are entitled to your opinion. I rather liked it.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

You shouldn't base your opinion on one book. Anyway, the early revolution allowed mutliple nationalitiies to cecede from it, made marriage and divorce legal, legalized homsexuality, provided free news print and printers for all political parties (that weren't in active revolt), and included multiple parties.

Umm... I'm pretty sure gays in the Soviet Union were sent to the Gulag (forgot where I found that out), and I know that divorce was ALREADY legal. And they provided free newsprinting for parties "that weren't in active revolt"? So, basically all the ones that disagreed with them

There is little true in this statemen. Private property existed before the February Revolution. What reforms there were that made life more bearable for the people of Russia were orderd by the Soviets (which existed along side the provisional government). And the Soviet government did not become repressive until the Civil War.

Private property was instated IIRC with the Second Duma, and it IMMEDIATELY caused significant increases in food production and decreased famine

By democratic you mean the unelected Provisional government not the elected Soviets which were attacked by the the US, Britain, France, Japan, etc. Furthermore, at the point of the invasions, the Provisional government had ceased to exist. The invaders fought on the side of the White Generals, who were elected by no one and did not seek to re-establish the Provisional government but to make themselves dicators.

The Provisional Government was elected - it was IIRC the Fourth Duma. The Soviet was "elected" by the Communists.

Also, don't you think people are a bit justified in defending themselves against people who are trying to kill them and take all their property?

We didn't start out trying to kill capitalists. That has become a matter of self defense. Ever time were overthrow them and let them live, they start a civil war. If they succeed in winning, they slaughter the revolutions' supporters. That's like saying you have a right to kill a guy because he'd try and kill you if you were trying to murder him.

Hmmm... my take from the book was that it was the Communists who shot first

Why is there no democracy in the military? Also, do you not justify the repression of the Israelis against the Palestinians based on the fact that the Palestinians want to destroy them?

The military IS democratic - it is ultimately ruled by the people. That doesn't mean that it is ruled by those it its employ and the Israelis aren't "repressive" against the Palestinians in the same way that the Soviet Union was represssive.

That may be a fair argument, however, when you are under seige, you may think certain ways of doing things are more condusive to staying alive and forget about such niceties as democracy and manners.

Wait - so they had to defend themselves against their own people? At our worst point, with the internment camps in WWII, we at least pretended that we were only interning our enemies, and the "free press" that was forbidden was that which talked about critical military information.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Why lest people starve so others could have SUV's?

Me having an SUV doesn't make other people starve - in fact, it makes a few FEWER people starve.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by skywalker

Originally posted by MrFun
Some of the "achievements" of capitalist countries:

colonialism

I fail to see how a colony is in any way inherent to the concept of capitalism - in fact, in many cases it WASN'T capitalism.

genocide

How is this related to capitalism?

slavery

Again, not capitalism - in fact, it's what happens when you DON'T have capitalism.

repressive distribution of wealth within each country

Explain how a distribution of wealth is "repressive".

violent suppression of laborers and workers

Again, if you suppress unions et al then YOU DON'T HAVE CAPITALISM. This is a problem with NOT having capitalism.

anti-communist, puppet dictatorships forced on Third World countries

I fail to see how this in any way makes communism preferable - they did the same thing.

Which is why I noted that this viewpoint would distort the histories of capitalist countries.

The same way people claim that communism is inherently evil just because some past communist countries have committed the same atrocities I listed above.

[GePap]

Originally posted by skywalker

Originally posted by GePap
Why lest people starve so others could have SUV's?

Me having an SUV doesn't make other people starve - in fact, it makes a few FEWER people starve.

Nope. The people who made your SUV could have made a regular car, and the energy and resource differential could have been used in some other way.

The fact is that no one wanted an SUV until the car companies made them. The bigger problem with the consumer culture is that it does perpetuate desire (as the Buddhist say, suffering)- in a capitalist system you can never have enough, and nothing will ever b enough. you say why not let people have what males them happy- problem is, they think having an SUV will make them happy- it won;t. It will mean a hefty bill though, an expensive attmpt at fulfilment.

[Kuciwalker]

No, I claim communism is inherently evil because it makes me a slave (don't argue here, ok? I'm just explaining), and that it is practically evil because it seems to always be implemented in totalitarianism.

EDIT: re MrFun

[GePap]

Originally posted by skywalker
No, I claim communism is inherently evil because it makes me a slave (don't argue here, ok? I'm just explaining), and that it is practically evil because it seems to always be implemented in totalitarianism.

No one gets way with BAM's like that young skywalker.

But of course, Agy and Che have both writen long enoguh posts explaining the inherent problems wh your BAm, so I will just direct people to read those.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by skywalker
No, I claim communism is inherently evil because it makes me a slave (don't argue here, ok? I'm just explaining), and that it is practically evil because it seems to always be implemented in totalitarianism.

EDIT: re MrFun

Geez -- I'm not well-versed in communist ideology, and I'm not a commie myself, but now I understand much more clearly why Che, Monkspider, and others on here get really frustrated sometimes.


But I do know that communists interested in more equitable distribution of wealth are NOT advocating slavery.
Slavery is the anti-thesis to their ideology.