Why has Communism failed everywhere ? A chance for commies to explain

[Kidlicious]

Actually natural selection does not require stronger individuals to kill weaker individuals. The weaker individuals die off because they have been denied resources.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Flubber
Che I know-- But just because a marxist or anyone else chosses to use this ( in my view ) warped definition does not mean that I have to accept it. I will continue to refuse to accept it. My comment was not ignorance of kid's theoretical model but a rejection of it.

It's not a communist definition. It's the dictionary and accepted definition. It's very simple. If you possess the means of production for the mere reason of profiting from my work then you've expoited me.

ex·ploi·ta·tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ksploi-tshn)
n.
The act of employing to the greatest possible advantage: exploitation of copper deposits.
Utilization of another person or group for selfish purposes: exploitation of unwary consumers.
An advertising or a publicity program.

[Bosh]

Berzerker: voluntarism is a necessary condition for a good society, but its not a sufficient condition. I'm sure you can imagine plenty of theoretical voluntaristic societies in which you really really really wouldn't want to live.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Flubber
THis is what I don't get. No force is applied to anyone to make them work for a capitalist. Lots of people choose not to work at all and live off of the welfare institutions. Other people own their own business. Its called freedom and I like it.

I doubt people choose to be on welfare. I will believe that they can not support their families without welfare. btw, welfare is for children. It supports the parents, but only because of the children.

Welfare isn't all that you think it is, and that's putting it mildly. Work is a need. Welfare recipients are still denied all of their needs being met until they have a job.

Ethnic and national divisions predated capitalism and I find it humerous that you don't address the issue at all. Do people all magically hold hands and sing "kumbiya" on the day of the revolution.

They simple don't compete for resources anymore, which means that their babies aren't eaten by the evil capitalists anymore.

NO I work for a wage that is less than the value of what I produce. I have no problem with that since I see the other costs associated with my employment. Also I see that benefit that the firm has provided in obtaining large clients in the areas that I work. If my share of what I produce was insufficient I would leave my firm and go elswehere. We are actually currently in salary negotiations and bonuses will soon be paid. It actually a VERY good time.

Right now I employ no one myself.

But I do find that the current system works for me. Why? Because I am in a job that rewards skill and effort. But I believe in the system even when that is not the case like when one of my prior firms folded. I firmly believe that people that work hard will get ahead in the long run. Its a matter of perseverence.

You believe that people who work hard get ahead because you have gotten ahead. You really don't know about the other people. You just make an assumption that helps you see yourself in a good light.

[Urban Ranger]

Whaleboy,

I'll reply to your post later... maybe

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Of course, this ignores the fact that choosing socialism is a self-interested act, as well as one for the benefit of others.

That's very true. Rawls argued that anybody will pick a position that favours the most disadvantaged from the "original position" behind "a veil of ignorance." It seems reasonable that this argument can be extended.

[Whaleboy]

This disproves altruism how?

It means that the notion of selflessness is non-existent in the social sense, and that the "self" (for want of a better term" is always at a fundamental level, primary.

Because the supposition that alutrism doesn't exist is used as a proof that a society of sharing and rational planning can't exist either. Of course, this ignores the fact that choosing socialism is a self-interested act, as well as one for the benefit of others.

Good point. It doesn't disprove socialist economics, rather it says it is contextual... something to be picked up when the economic situation demands it and abandoned when the economy picks up. This hardly warrents die-hard advocacy.

I'm not talking about the unconsciousness. It exists in the consciousness.

I am talking about the unconsciousness. Our view of ourselves is not the same as others' view of us, or even our view of ourselves in the "retrospectoscope".

The idea that you are the only important thing in the universe is wrong.

How delightfully innocent!

The truth is that they universe as a whole is important. So it's not delusional when a person realizes that. When they can not realize it, that's when they are delusional. The problem is that they can't see the forest from the trees.

And of what is the universe comprised as far as we are concerned? And how do we view it? Do you think we can have an objective, categorical view of the universe (noumena) or that our view depends on our own subjective perceptions (phenomena). Your nice little tautologies are really just a shortcut to thinking, try harder.

It's not that at all. Whenever someone has such a warped view of the universe it will always draw attention. You're making a fool out of yourself.

Warped view = disagree with yours? This is a debate that has been raging for centuries involving minds far greater than you or I, so forgive me if I doubt that you have solved it, and solved it in an obvious manner with ridiculous profundities. Read Kant, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and then feel you have something to say.

You can have a democratic communism.

How exactly? How does that *not* revert to national socialism?

Of course you have to comply, just like in a capitalist system. You have to comply to survive. However, people shouldn't be shot for exercising free speech or freedom of association. No one here believes that they should be. You really need to understand that.

Superficial, sure I happen to agree with that, but we have different mechanisms behind the word "should". I ask you to clarify yours.

Actually natural selection does not require stronger individuals to kill weaker individuals. The weaker individuals die off because they have been denied resources.

Capitalist communism .

Welfare isn't all that you think it is, and that's putting it mildly. Work is a need. Welfare recipients are still denied all of their needs being met until they have a job.

WTF? If you take society and the requirement to function in it as given, the money is the need, balanced by other factors, but money is "what makes the world go round". If your logic was correct, crime would be a non-issue, as would people seeking new jobs.

They simple don't compete for resources anymore, which means that their babies aren't eaten by the evil capitalists anymore.

But people will always want more... your tellytubbies utopia would break down after 10 minutes!

You believe that people who work hard get ahead because you have gotten ahead. You really don't know about the other people. You just make an assumption that helps you see yourself in a good light.

You're sounding increasingly tenuous and defensively dismissive, both of my arguments and those of other people. I suggest you either take a break or learn to concede in the face of superior reasoning.

[Agathon]

Social Darwinism is about survival of the fittest which includes killing the competition. Libertarianism rejects this and embraces freedom and the autonomy of the individual - 2 principles (actually one) social darwinism rejects as can be seen by any nation-state incorporating it into their national ideology, like in Nazi Germany.

Libertarian motto:

"Why kill them, when you can let them starve to death."

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Flubber
Only in the kidaverse where I can be defined to be "exploiting" someone even if I pay them triple the pay they would get in a (presumably non-exploitive) state job. Labour standards and minimum wage legislation actually makes exploitation ILLEGAL.

This should be easy to understand.

A capitalist hires workers to make money for him. The money he makes comes from the surplus values the workers produced. If the workers were not exploited, there wouldn't be any surplus values, and the capitalist wouldn't make any money.

Minimum wage does not make exploitation illegal, it just decreases the amount of exploitation possible.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Social Darwinism is about survival of the fittest which includes killing the competition. Libertarianism rejects this and embraces freedom and the autonomy of the individual - 2 principles (actually one) social darwinism rejects as can be seen by any nation-state incorporating it into their national ideology, like in Nazi Germany.

That's a contradiction. If you embrace freedom (the sort of freedom Libbies espouse), you cannot reject the destruction of the competition - companies must be free to do what they want.

[Ned]

Two shoemakers, one with a machine that enables him to produce 10x the other worker. Both are paid the same wage. Communists call this "exploitation" only when the machine is provided by the employer, not by the party. When the party provides the machine, it is now "fair" to appropriate the value of 9x production attributable to the machine.

We saw the same example with the doctor-nurse case. It is OK to pay the doctor the same as the nurse in a communist society because the state paid for the education.

In real capitalist societies though, the shoe worker with a machine is paid a lot more than the shoeworker without a machine because of the increased production. The higher output is split between the machine owner and the worker. Ditto the doctor because the value of what the doctor produces is greater. The exact amount anyone is paid is determined by a market, not by some idealogue who has to coerce people into accepting universal unfairness that confronts people every day in communism. People who work hard are paid the same as people who don't. People who produce more receive the same. Everyone has the same small, decaying apartment regardless of their efforts to improve their lives.

Complaints land one in the frozen tundra. So people endure and hope only to end their misery in a vodka haze or an early death.

Communism promises paradise, but delivers hell.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Kontiki
From what I've read, he's also summed up your philosophy.

Minus the exploitation part.

It seems you guys not only aren't on the same page with respect to communism, you're not even reading the same book.

Would you rather we march in lock-step and all argue as if we were one person? I see the fact that we have differences as health, even if Kid and Odin are wrong when they disagree with me.

Minus the exploitation part? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're defining exploitation as the non-laboring owner of capital taking a share of the profits of production. I seem to recall Odin stating that he was a non-Marxist and approved of "co-ops and syndicates" running in certain industries.

And you don't need to march in lock-step and argue as if you were one person, but it might be a start if you could agree what communism is other than "it's better than capitalism" and "there's no exploitation". You, Kid, Odin, Spiffor and I'm sure many others disagree on what the fundamental tenets of communism are. People like me, Floyd or Flubber and even you have no disagreements on what capitalism is - it's an economic system where private owners of capital produce goods produce goods for exchange-value. We may disagree on finer details like taxes, regulations or government programs, but there is precisely zero dispute over private ownership of capital and discrepancies in income.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Spiffor

There is as much variety among Commies than among capitalists. Both you and Floyd are capitalists, yet you don't see us using the argument "but Floyd said something different! You capis are really never on the same page"

See above. Floyd and I don't disagree at all on what constitutes capitalism.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


No. Neither one of us wants an exploitive system. We have other differenses.

I'm sure you don't. The problem is you seem to be defining exploitation differently, just like you and I do.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kontiki
People like me, Floyd or Flubber and even you have no disagreements on what capitalism is - it's an economic system where private owners of capital produce goods produce goods for exchange-value.

Unless you're a libertarian, there is a fundimental disagreement with them over what capitalism is. For them, it's the free market, plus private property with no government interference. They would reject certain basic premises, such as capitalism being inherently violent, the cause of wars, etc. while most people would recognize the latter at the least, and when shown sufficient evidence, at least agree that the former has been true at times (if not fully agreeing with it in order to avoid drawing the logical conclusions resulting).

One of the reasons why commies tend to disagree is that communism is still theoretical at this point, despite the various experiments in trying to bring it about. It's easy to agree about what exists. It's much harder to agree about what should/may/will exist. In addition, we can draw different conclusions about the lessons of history. Spiffor and Odin are basically Social Democrats (as am I in a practical sense). Kid is close to what is called a council communist. I'm a Trotskyist (at least as regards theory), which is to say a Marxist-Leninist who rejects Stalinism. Serb, Vagabond, and others are Stalinists.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Two shoemakers, . . .

One Ned starts making things up on his own, twisting what others say, etc. No one pays attention to him.