Is Communism Dead?

[Jedi Knight]

JK

 

[Bjorn]

Nice flame war guys. I wish I had read JK's post before it got edited. The fact that it was edited makes me want to know what it said whereas if it hadn't been I probably wouldnt have paid attention.

Hmmm - the problem with a post being deleted, even if I agree (with much doubt, I admit) that the one in question should have been, is that I can't quote it later to explain why.

And if one can't even PM the ones who are asking ....

 

[corplinx]

And if one can't even PM the ones who are asking ....

I usually turn off private messages on most forums I join. I get enough email and spend enough time reading forums as it is. I guess I'll gave and enable PMs on this board though.

 

[Jedi Knight]

JK

 

[corplinx]

First my post gets deleted and now it is going to make rounds to everyone via PM's? How very lame. Jesus that is lame.

JK

I'm not everyone. Cool down man, life is too short to get miffed by messages on internet message boards.

 

[Jedi Knight]

I am deleting all those posts I made because it was below me to get into that argument with the others.

JK

 

[Bjorn]

That is serious trolling. First my post gets deleted and now it is going to make rounds to everyone via PM's? How very lame. Jesus that is lame.

JK

Hehe.

1. I didn't copy your post in the little time it was available.

2. One should be able to explain what was wrong with it to people who ask.

3. You, yourself is 'explaining' what was in the post just here, 7 posts ago:

All that was in the post was what Fool said to me. Fool told me "your life sucks Jedi." I told Fool, "No, my life does not suck. I like my life." Then I told him that he should look in the mirror and examine his life, because he mentioned on the forum that his life does suck.

So, Jedi, you started this by 'telling' about 'all you said' - and now others can't correct you because that would be 'lame'?

Not very clever tonight?

 

[The Fool]

I am deleting all those posts I made because it was below me to get into that argument with the others.

JK

I am also deleting all my posts on this thread. Jedi and the fool have worked things out by PM..... It was also below me to get involved in a slagging session.
Apologies to rik for hijacking the thread......

 

[LW]

USSR was an oligarchy (gerontocracy, as some jokingly called it) with a mixture of socialist and state-capitalist features.

There's the old joke from late Breshnev times, I think:

What has four legs and 40 teeth?
- A crocodile.
What has 40 legs and four teeth?
- Politburo.

And nowadays it seems that Russia has moved into a kleptocracy.

And I even know one SSSR-era joke that is on topic for this discussion (and yes, this is really originally a Russian joke):

Why haven't we reached communism, yet?
- It turned out that Marx was wrong and the next step from socialism was not communism but alcoholism.

On more serious note, I agree with Victor on this subject: USSR was not communist by the definition of the word.

 

[rikzilla]

For rikzilla... I have been paying attention to the communist influence on organizing peace marches, and have vowed that they won't get a dime of my money. I really think that some of the people trying to attract my kind of people to these events are not nonviolent, civil-rights minded people. What do you think someone like me should do, in order to help clean house?

Gnome,

I wish I knew what to tell you. If I was of the opinion that this war was wrong I would contact my congressman and senator and let them know how I feel. If I decided to attend a rally I'd keep my eyes open and research the groups represented in the march. I wouldn't put my signature on any type of paperwork circulating at such an event as it would be very difficult to determine how and who would be making use of it.

That's my advice to you. Work within the system to make your voice heard, but be careful not to become a pawn of any group who's overall guiding philosophy is at odds with your own.

-zilla

 

[rikzilla]

I am also deleting all my posts on this thread. Jedi and the fool have worked things out by PM..... It was also below me to get involved in a slagging session.
Apologies to rik for hijacking the thread......

No problemo....I'm just curious...since this all happened when I was away. (Hey...yesterday was my anniversary...17 years...my wife sang to me in a jazz club...she's a peach)

So...what was all this about....someone PM me a clue.

-zilla

 

[Drooper]

On more serious note, I agree with Victor on this subject: USSR was not communist by the definition of the word.

I have yet to see a single definition of Communism. Look in a different dictionary and you get a different one. Hardly surprising because this is a political-philisophical area.

However, this lack of pecision does tend to make claims that this was or wasn't communism a bit difficult to support.

From all the dictionaries I have looked at, it seems to me that:

1. socialism allows private ownership while communism doesn't.
2. socialism alows some measure of freedom in labour market supply (meaning you have some choice about where you work), while under communism you go and do what you are told.
3. under socialism there is a greater measure of freedom in consumption (meaning you can decide what you want to consume), while under communism output is distributed according to a central directive.[/list=1]
   
   One interesting definition of socialism places it as simply the transitional state between "capitalism" and "communism". In which case socialism cover a wide range of states, while communism is a singularity, a nirvana, an ideal that could never exist in practice.
   
   Under those types of conditions and given what I said in the previous para. the USSR was probably socialist, but just about as close to communism as you would be likely to get.

 

[rikzilla]

On more serious note, I agree with Victor on this subject: USSR was not communist by the definition of the word.

So,

The deal is that communism is not communism because it never attained it's potential?? So how will we define "communism"?? As a utopian philosophy that cannot be adopted by any society without years of corruption, purges, etc. Also it seems to me that communism...(or more properly the socialistic pre-cursor to communism) is not compatible with democracy. I say this because only one example: Chile, has been put forward as having had democratically elected communist leader, but the US backed coup placing Pinochet in power took care of that. I do not disagree that US involvement in Chile was wrong,..nor do I think Pinochet was benevolent....but it is indeed possible that a budding communist dictatorship was nipped in the bud.

I say that because everywhere else I've looked for examples of pre-communist socialism I have found dictatorships. Perhaps if Chile had been given a chance it would have been the sole exception....but I'm not really that naive.

Vic, I understand that what I don't know about communism, or as you seem to prefer "pre-communist socialism" (PCS) would fill several books. I'm not a scholar. I've never been to university. I have a high-normal IQ, and an inquisitive nature...that is all. You seem to want to talk about what I don't know about PCS. Let me tell you what I do know.

What I know I've learned from experience. I was a US soldier in West Germany and made a few trips on the duty train from Frankfurt to Berlin. I've seen the Berlin wall...and witnessed the drab blankness of East Berlin. I've seen the old film clips of people braving barbed wire, mines, guards, and machine guns in order to escape the "paradise" of PCS East Germany. I remember the exodus thru Czechoslovakia in the late 80's as the Czechs abandoned the first section of the iron curtain. People from various eastern bloc nations abandoning cars and belongings to trek across the unguarded frontier border there. I met people in the early 80's who escaped communism...people who gave up everything to come west to freedom. Why do you suppose that was?

After Germany I went home to Florida. There I took a job in Ft. Lauderdale and began taking flight training. There at the North Perry Airport in Hollywood, FL I had occaision to train with and meet many of the pilots who formed the Cuban group "Brothers to the Rescue". They fly missions into the Florida Straits to pinpoint boat people escaping Cuba for the US Coast Guard. They have saved countless lives.

When I had occasion to talk with many of these pilots, they told stories of repression...much the same as those I'd met in Europe. Again I was confronted by the realization that these people risked jail, injury, and death to escape from a "worker's paradise". (And in the case of Cuba they are still coming) Some paradise.

My wife had to get her green card in Miami...and we were forced to stand in a very long line. She and I spent one warm summer night in such a line....all around us were Cubans who had been plucked out of the Straits. All night long they regaled us with tales of survival in rafts on the open ocean. Their shared hatred of Castro...and despair at ever getting their country back from the "communistas" driving them to risk death for freedom in Miami.
"Communistas" Vic,...their words not mine.

This is all I know of (PCS) communism Vic. All I know is two of the guys I trained with were shot out of the sky by a MIG. Let me tell you...a Cessna is no match for a MIG. A Cessna is no danger to a MIG either...or anyone else for that matter. I don't care if you want to call it communism or PCS...JK's right. It's evil. When you have to put up a wall to keep your people in...when you consider a Cessna with 2 guys dropping leaflets a risk to national security... when you lock people up because they don't toe the "correct" political line....it's evil.

At the risk of becoming a pariah for associating with JK...I have to tell you, in my opinion he's as right as rain about this subject. The only thing you have offered Vic, is semantics. If someone were attempting to defend Nazism based on the supposd fact that they hadn't attained "real" Nazism they'd be assailed on this forum....and yet it is ok to defend communism in this manner???

You're right man...I don't get it. Hell, I don't want to get it.

-zilla

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

aerocontrols

That you say the USSR never claimed to have achieved communism does not make the association utterly wrong. As you say, the Party running the country claimed to be communist.

True. However, this does not change the fact that communism did not exist in USSR.

Not just Americans, by the way.

yeah. In an article titled "We go with the Americans and the British". Furthermore, these articles were written in English, and thus largely for americans.

As you have said:

Yup. I did say that, and I stand by it. Meaning is determined by usage of the speaking population. The thing is that for specialized terminology, the 'speaking population' consists of specialists first, and everyone else second. "Communism" is a specialized term, having been given a specific and explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized in political science, and perhaps in economics.

At what point does a political philosophy become what those who profess it actually practice?

Well, their professing to practice it would probably be a good start. if even communists themselves never claimed to have built communism, then Rik has a problem, doesn't he?

 

[Kodiak]

Meaning is determined by usage of the speaking population. The thing is that for specialized terminology, the 'speaking population' consists of specialists first, and everyone else second. "Communism" is a specialized term, having been given a specific and explicit meaning by its creator, which meaning is widely recognized in political science, and perhaps in economics.

Vic, I would have better understood your position on the word "democracy" if you had posted this in our discussion a few months back...

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

LW

Why haven't we reached communism, yet?
- It turned out that Marx was wrong and the next step from socialism was not communism but alcoholism.

hey, that's a new one for me! I heard many 'socialism' jokes, but never this one.

How about an oldy-but-goody?

Communism is already on the horizon.
What is a horizon? Horizon is a line that can never be reached.

Or another:

Brezhnev: Under communism, we will have an abundance of everything!
voice from the audience: But will we?

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

Drooper

I have yet to see a single definition of Communism.

Try Marx. From the horse's mouth and all that.

socialism allows private ownership while communism doesn't.

neither socialism nor communism allow private ownership of means of production. Depending on who you ask, communism may or may not restrict private ownership of other types possessions as well (Marx for example saw marriage as an economic arrangement related to property, andd thought that marriage, and in fact, one-to-one pairing, would be abolished under communism).

socialism alows some measure of freedom in labour market supply (meaning you have some choice about where you work), while under communism you go and do what you are told.

Emphatically not so. The difference you describe is possible under certain specific cases of communism, but it's not necessary. This difference harks to the fact that socialism still permits a wide range of economic relationships (you could even have a form of free market under socialism), while communism, by separating reward from effort, is supposed to effectively obsolesce economics as we know it. Some took this to mean that comunism necessarily exists under planned economy, and some took that further to mean that it must be a dictatorship; but neither supposition is entailed by communism, they are optional (and quite distasteful IMO).

under socialism there is a greater measure of freedom in consumption (meaning you can decide what you want to consume), while under communism output is distributed according to a central directive.

Actually it's the other way around. I mentioned this before:

Socialism; from each by his ability, to each by his work
Communism: from each by his ability, to each by his need.

One interesting definition of socialism places it as simply the transitional state between "capitalism" and "communism".

Well, no. Socialism is indeed supposed to be such a transition, but being this transition is not its main, much less sole, defining characteristic.

In which case socialism cover a wide range of states, while communism is a singularity, a nirvana, an ideal that could never exist in practice.

Socialism does cover a wide range of possible political states, from anarcho-socialism to centralized planned state; but those possibilities have more in common than merely being stepping stones to communism. In fact, many socialists don't think communism is possible at all, and view some form of socialism as the end in itself.

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

rikzilla

The deal is that communism is not communism because it never attained it's potential??

No, the deal is that socialism is not communism, and that it's arguable whether USSR was even truly socialist.

So how will we define "communism"?? As a utopian philosophy that cannot be adopted by any society without years of corruption, purges, etc. Also it seems to me that communism...(or more properly the socialistic pre-cursor to communism) is not compatible with democracy.

That is not true. What might be true is that socialism and communism are not possible in a large, powerful state.

We can argue about the problems inherent in implementing socialism on a large scale; but before we can do that, you ahve to understand what socialism is and isn't, and what communism is and isn't.

I say that because everywhere else I've looked for examples of pre-communist socialism I have found dictatorships.

there is a very simple alternative explanations to that: socialism was first implemented in USSR (if socialism it was), and all further implementations of socialism were under Soviet influence.

There is in fact one other indisputable counter-example that I know of: Czechoslovakia. They built a humane, democratic version of socialism (and guess what? it ended up incorporating capitalist features), only to be brutally suppressed by USSR in 1968.

Vic, I understand that what I don't know about communism, or as you seem to prefer "pre-communist socialism" (PCS) would fill several books. I'm not a scholar. I've never been to university. I have a high-normal IQ, and an inquisitive nature...that is all.

Then take an opportunity to learn -- I, having lived both under socialism and under capitalism, and having studied both, can tell you more. But you have to start by tossing out your commonsensical errors about communism, just as you would have to start learning about relativity by dumping the commonsensical assumption that mass and space and time are absolute.

What I know I've learned from experience.

yes. You have seen what USSR-style distatorship leads to. that does not mean that yu have seen all there is to socialism, much less communism. You might as well say that you've been to the bad parts of NYC, and now know what capitalism is like.

Now mind you, i am not saying that socialism is necessarily good, or even possibly good. What I am saying, is that your specific experiences have no relationship to socialism in general, much less to communism.

I don't care if you want to call it communism or PCS...JK's right. It's evil.

Tyranny is evil, dude. That certainly implies that tyrannical socialism, or tyrannical communism, would be evil -- but not that socialism or communism are evil.

Do you know what many american socialists pursue? Anarcho-socialism. Do you know what that is? it's a state where the economy is free market, but all market partitipants are workers' cooperatives or individuals -- no central planning, no tyrannical state, no "we all own everything and therefore each one owns nothing" ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊, just people directly owning their fields and tractors and industrial machinery, etc. very similar to certain visions of libertarianism, in fact.

So when the question is asked, "is communism dead?", it greatly helps to understand what communism is, what socialism is, and how 2nd-world related to socialism in general.

When you have to put up a wall to keep your people in...when you consider a Cessna with 2 guys dropping leaflets a risk to national security... when you lock people up because they don't toe the "correct" political line....it's evil.

Indeed. And all of that has next to no relationship to the question of communism's death.

You're right man...I don't get it. Hell, I don't want to get it.

the former is normal; the latter is as great an intellectual sin as they come. Your choice.

 

[Kodiak]

...I thought we were an autonomous collective!...

 

[Victor Danilchenko]

Kodiak

Vic, I would have better understood your position on the word "democracy" if you had posted this in our discussion a few months back...

What, and spoil the fun I was having dismembering you after your "thus endeth the lesson" proclamation?