Communist Revolution in Canada?

[Patroklos]

It is.

I will remember this when you try and disavow China and Soviet Russia as being systematic of communism because they are not "real" examples of it.

If communists states have in every instance required conflict to repulse outside aggression for their survival, then the data supports it is indicative of the movement.

The Nazi's vs. Russia, Japs vs. Chinese, US vs. Vietnam are going to happen in every instance, and if your movement requires it then the war dead is added to communisms total, as well as others.

I am happy to be proven wrong

You have actually been proven absolutely right.

Not really. Those who start an aggressive war are responsible.

Combined with...

just think that the capitalist will initiate violence [in refernece to your violent revolution]

Makes this...

Hitler is to blame for all those deaths

A hypocritical statement. Nazis start a war it is their fault. Communist revolutionaries start one it is the capitalists fault.

when we come close to our goals peacefully, and that will necessitate violent self-defense.

So when they respond to your hostile takeover with violence in DEFENSE, and how do attempt you make a capitalist give up legally protected property and political power with anything other than force, again how is violence the capitalists fault?

[chequita guevara]

Arguing with you is like arguing with a parrot. No amount of reason is going to make you say anything other than what you are trained to say. You seem to be congenitally incapable of understanding a line of reasoning, and instead fall back on the closest default position you know.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Free market != capitalism

Yes it is... do you accept Stalin as communism? If not, then you can't accept the actions of some under a capitalist system contrary to the capitalist founders' ideals.

[chequita guevara]

What capitalist founder? No one founded capitalism. Adam Smith wrote a book describing a society he saw around him and made some recommendations on how it could be made better. He did not create an idea for a new society and present it to the world fully formed. If you'd actually read his book (which I have) you'd know that. There was no a priori attempt to define capitalism (especially since it ante-dated him).

As for Stalin, I accept that he was a Communist and a socialist and even a Marxist. I just think he was a bad one, and criminally responsible for a lot of bad things. The USSR never made the claim that it was communist, so why should I be forced to defend a position even they didn't take. I do accept that it was a socialist society, albeit a degenerated one.

There was an attempt to define what a socialist society would look like before it was created, starting in the 1820s, with the utopian socialists Fourrier and Saint-Simon. Marx, largely, tried to avoid making predictions as to how socialist society would appear. But creating a blue print or template for such a future society would be unMarxist.

As Marx wrote, the future society will be shaped first and foremost by the concrete circumstances underwhich it arose. Each society will have its own forms and features which conform to the level of political, social, and economic development previously occuring.

In other words, as I have stated previously on numerous occassions (having changed my initial position), it is disingenuous to simply dismiss the USSR by definition. IF one does so, it should be with the explanation that it is a simplistic answer in the place of a complex one. It is easier to say that the USSR wasn't socialist rather than explaining that it was, but ... (with all the complex causes and effects that changed the USSR into its opposite). One is substituting a simple, formal explanation for a complex, dialectical one. It's pollitically and intellectually lazy as well as unMarxist.

[Imran Siddiqui]

What capitalist founder? No one founded capitalism. Adam Smith wrote a book describing a society he saw around him and made some recommendations on how it could be made better. He did not create an idea for a new society and present it to the world fully formed.

Oh come on, Smith, Ricardo, all those thinkers described a system of economics vastly different than the mercantalist policies in place.

I know your agenda is to link mercantalism with capitalism, but it doesn't fit and the original capitalist thinkers were writing in response to mercantalism and forged forth with a new economic system.

As for Stalin, I accept that he was a Communist and a socialist and even a Marxist.

When he didn't hold to any of Marx's basic ideals? Its silly. He simply adopted Communist rhetoric to his own, seperate goals. Claimed or not, they made plenty of reference to Marxism.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Oh come on, Smith, Ricardo, all those thinkers described a system of economics vastly different than the mercantalist policies in place.

It's no accident that all these early capitalist theorists were British. They were analysts who were describing the society they saw around them, one emerging from the ancien regime, still as yet not fully formed. Mercantilism is no more a seperate form of society from capitalism than Keynesianism is.

Rather, it corresponds to the technological and social methods of production existing at that time, small artisanal production for mercantilism, the beginings of industrial capitalism for the classical political economisits, Taylorist and Fordist methods of organizing production for Keynesianism, etc. It is the forms of society that drive the ideas, not the other way around, i.e., ideas arise that correspond to the way people are organizing their lives.

Even Marxism and its variants are linked to specific forms of the organized society. Scientific socialism as an idea only arises in response to industrial capitalism, even if various utopian communalist ideas had existed before: Shey Beddredin in the Ottoman Empire, Thomas Munzer and that Anabaptists, Winstaley and the Diggers, etc.

I know your agenda is to link mercantalism with capitalism, but it doesn't fit and the original capitalist thinkers were writing in response to mercantalism and forged forth with a new economic system.

It's not my agenda. The commonly accepted date for the begining of capitalism as the dominent form of social relations is 1500 AD. Those who have a political agenda to define capitalism to narrow, libertarian positions disagree, but they came up with their definitions only in the 1950s and later.

As for Stalin, I accept that he was a Communist and a socialist and even a Marxist.

When he didn't hold to any of Marx's basic ideals? Its silly. He simply adopted Communist rhetoric to his own, seperate goals. Claimed or not, they made plenty of reference to Marxism.

I don't disagree that in his hands, Marxism became a religion, but not knowing his mind, I'm not ready to say that he was entirely cynical in his Marxism. At one time, he was certainly a true believer, and I'm willing to accept the possibility that rather than being supremely evil, he was stupid, though I consider it exceedingly unlikely.

It is possible that he considered his methods necessary not merely to secure his own position but also to defend the revolution. That he may have identified the revolution with his own person doesn't necesarily mean he was simply interest only in his own power. What I think, however, is that his personal motives are not relevent in understanding what he did and why he did it. I think that more important are understanding the social relations within the USSR, as well as internationally between the USSR and the imperialist powers.

It's fun to speculate and gossip about the personally pecadillos of various leaders, but it doesn't really help us to fully or even largely understand why the tide of history occurs the way it does. It might help us understand why particular events happened they way they did, such as when a mistake changes what "should" have happened or when a particularly bold move does the same, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.

[Patroklos]

You seem to be congenitally incapable of understanding a line of reasoning, and instead fall back on the closest default position you know.

Did that just come out of the mouth of a communist?

HAHA! Priceless!!!

[Patroklos]

The commonly accepted date for the begining of capitalism as the dominent form of social relations is 1500 AD

Besides your ass, care to find a source that commonly accepts that?

[Imran Siddiqui]

It's no accident that all these early capitalist theorists were British. They were analysts who were describing the society they saw around them

Not really. The small shopkeepers and whatnot in the UK were not that much different than the continent. These theorists saw errors in the mercantalist society and proposed capitalism as a rectification. If some of that was coming into society, it was very pell-mell and not organized in the slightest. Countries were still hoarding gold at the time!

The commonly accepted date for the begining of capitalism as the dominent form of social relations is 1500 AD.

Bull****. Cite?

There is a reason that the 'common accepted' nickname for Adam Smith is the "father of capitalism".

It is possible that he considered his methods necessary not merely to secure his own position but also to defend the revolution.

Now I think you are simply defending Stalin to defend him. I think it's clear that he didn't give a damn about the revolution. He wouldn't have declared a fatwa (so to speak) against Trotsky if he did.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Oh come on, Smith, Ricardo, all those thinkers described a system of economics vastly different than the mercantalist policies in place.

None of them described the system that they were advocating as a new system called capitalism. Stop being obtuse.

[Imran Siddiqui]

None of them described the system that they were advocating as a new system called capitalism.

So? That's irrelevent.

They were advocating a different system, we decided to give it a name.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

None of them described the system that they were advocating as a new system called capitalism.

So? That's irrelevent.

They were advocating a different system, we decided to give it a name.

Too bad. The term was defined by communists. You're too late.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Too bad, it means something else entirely different today than the Communist definition of the term.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Too bad, it means something else entirely different today than the Communist definition of the term.

Only in your little world. Free market is a subset of capitalism.

wikipedia

The first use of the word "capitalism" in English is by novelist Thackeray in 1854, by which he meant having ownership of capital.

Capitalism has been defined in various ways (see q:Capitalism). In common usage it refers to an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are owned by and operated commonly for profit.

Capitalism contrasts with socialism and communism, where the means of production, and the resulting products, are owned and used by the state or by the community collectively, and it contrasts with feudalism, where land may be privately operated, but is owned by the state and held in fee. Some authorities regard fascism as being distinguished from capitalism by extensive statist intervention in an economy, whereas capitalism is usually defined in part by as a system where economic decisions are made privately in a idealized "free market". According to this view, a fascist regime's use of force to arbitrarily distribute wealth is not consistent with how capitalism is ordinarily defined. However this distinction is disputed: critics point out that all modern economies experience state intervention to varying degrees, including the use of force for the benefit of individual capitalists, and that private proprietors continue to benefit from economic activity under fascism, as is the case with capitalism per se.