Communist Education?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by skywalker
Umm... I'm pretty sure gays in the Soviet Union were sent to the Gulag (forgot where I found that out),

That would be because Stalin outlawed homosexuality.

and I know that divorce was ALREADY legal.

For men. It was almost impossible to get a divorce if your were a woman.

And they provided free newsprinting for parties "that weren't in active revolt"? So, basically all the ones that disagreed with them

Actually, no. Only two minor parties that had virtually no representation to start with. The other socialist party, the Menshiviks, never took up arms. The Socialist Revolutionaries (the anarchists) did, but not becuase they were opposed to the way the Bolsheviks were running things, but because they wanted to take power for themselves.

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

Private property existed long before that. Nobles owned their land. That's private property. The Duma was only instituted, btw, after the 1905 Russian Revolution, which was lead by the Socialists.

The Provisional Government was elected - it was IIRC the Fourth Duma.

No, it was appointed by the Tsar's brother, the Grand Duke. No one who served in the Provisional government was ever elected. Furthermore, even if they had been appointed by the Duma, the Duma was a highly unrepresentitive body which weighted against the majority.

The Soviet was "elected" by the Communists.

The Communists didn't win a majority ni the Soviets until September. When the Soviets were created by the people of Russia, the majority party was the Mensheviks, who supported the Provisional government, with the next largest party being the SRs. The Soviets were directly elected by the Russian peoples. They held frequent elections and shared political power with the PG.

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

Then your book is wrong.

The military IS democratic - . That doesn't mean that it is ruled by those it its employ

That's a strange version of democracy, where the members of the organization have no say. But then, you think the Provisional Government was democratic too.

and the Israelis aren't "repressive" against the Palestinians in the same way that the Soviet Union was represssive.

Go live a week among the Palestinians. Besides, I was talking about the early revolution, not the thing it became under Stalin.

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.

Alien and Sedition acts, the Sedition Act of 1918, McCarythism, COINTELPRO, the suspension of habeus corpus by Lincoln, the Smith Act, etc. This government has been severely, even murderously, repressive when it felt it was necessary for its survival. The U.S. has never faced anything like what the Soviets faced. Oh, and the U.S. had to defend itself from its own people during the Civil War, or have you forgotten. The internment camps were shameful, but they weren't the worst.

BTW, when I was talking about terrorsts and sabotuers and spies and invasions, I was referring to outsiders. I think that should be kinda obvious.

[Kidlicious]

Yay, a new debate on economic systems.



Oh wait, it's the same old losers on the side of capitalism, and they don't have any better arguments.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ned
The homeless man is the true communist. He has no property, does not work and receives his needs from society!

Wrong. People who don't work have no incentive to become communists. You're missing something Ned, but again, I'm not sure what it is.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

So nice you could make it Kid. You being a teacher in an education thread and all.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
So nice you could make it Kid. You being a teacher in an education thread and all.

That's past tense, "having been a teacher."

[Saras]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


If you want to be worse educated, be my guest. It's just been my personal experience that most of the people from Communist countries were a hell of a lot more knowledgable about everything in general than my fellow countrymen or even other Westerners I met. But I know you hate everything that was the USSR, so I guess they must all have ben stupid.

Unlike YOU, I actually LIVED in the USSR and was educated until I was 13, in the USSR. My father was a teaching assistant, doctorate writer and finally associate professor in the Vilnius University. Do not try to push ME this BS, okay?

[Sprayber]

You can't argue with experience.

[Ned]

Kid, et al.

Im just going on the description of communism as defined by Che.

It seems to me that workers taking over the means of production, socialism, redistribution of wealth by force, has nothing to do with communism per se. What this is is an attempt to reshape society to look like communisim prior to that ideal state where productivity is so high that everyone is essentially wealthy. The problem this pantomine communism creates, though, is low and/or stagnant productivity. Thus, this pantomine communism is truly a mistake as it prevents true communism from ever coming into being.

[Saras]

Actually, workers owning companies can for some if not most industries be the best model.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
That's a mistaken view of our view. We believe two things are essential to human nature. One, humans are social creatures. In other words, we exist as ourselves only through our relationships with other human beings. We learn from each other, we need each other to fullfill psychological needs, and has society gets more developed, we depend increasingly more on each other for our own survival. Alone in the world, we are little match for the elements, preditors, and other groups of humans. We don't even have any instincts beyond infancy.

That's very true, as it has been further supported by research in modern OB (organisational behaviour), see particularly the Human Relations Movement.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
I don't think communist China was oppressed by anyone.

First, the Nationalists (KMT). Then the Japanese (though they oppressed everybody). Then the Nationalists again after the IJA was kicked out, with the US helping the KMT. Then after they fled to Taiwan, Mao did not see eye to eye with Stalin, so there was a lot of tension along the border, as the USSR did not give much assistance to the PRC. Then the Korean War came and McArthur threatened to invade. After that, there was embargo.

Originally posted by Ned
Allegedly, though, the ChiComs killed 35 million landlords. Why?

They did?

[MrFun]

it was more like 34,999,999 landlords

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sprayber
You can't argue with experience.

That seems to be a case of anecdotal evidence

[Agathon]

Originally posted by skywalker
[q] Originally posted by Agathon

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.

Oh I see, so the replacement of manufacturing jobs with service industry McJobs is so great. You are assuming a priori that labour is a commodity that will always be in high demand. That is an unjustified assumption. Devices that replace human labour at a low cost necessarily lower demand for it. That is certain. What is not certain is whether or not demand will increase in other areas. That is uncertain and another case of capitalism mortgaging our future on some ridiculous dream.

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.

Nope.

If you inherited the wealth as (66% percent of the wealthy in the US have done) then you don't have to work at all. You can hire an investment adviser to make your investments and sit on your arse as the money rolls in.

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?

But I'm not talking about things, I'm talking about people. If the price goes down to below a subsistence level then what happens?

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

To a large degree they are. This notion of all governments being corrupt is right win paranoia. Look at Canada's health system - people complain about it, but it is one of the most efficient in the world.

The "political" distributions of resources tend to occur because of capitalist intervention in the economic system and they also tend to be in the minority of resource allocations.

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.

Well if someone wrote it in the constitution it must be right. After all, didn't you guys only allow for gun possession to support a militia?

The market necessarily treats people as commodities (or their labour, or on the flipside their purchasing power) because that is all that matters to the market.

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.

The latter is highly likely.

You missed the boat on this one. The reasons why capitalism will collapse are fairly evident, it's disdain for the environment being one. But that particular argument is aimed at those who assume that what counts as "human nature" now is in fact human nature and not some social construct.

[Agathon]

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?

Again, you have missed the point of the argument.

1) It's a fact that advertisers attempted and were largely successful and continue to be at "creating demand" for products via the mass media.

2) The special case of "cool" things is a case in which people are engaged in what economists call a race to the bottom. They spend vast amounts of money and have little prospect of getting what they want. That's just dumb.