What is so good about Communism?

I understand that the majority of this country (more than 50%) is under 30yo. They do not remember the Cold War. They have learned what little they know about it from the Common Core history books. I, however, am from the generation that did fight Communism. I have definite beliefs about it.

I am seeing more and more people join the Socialist Party. This morning I read an article about the growing Communist Party in the US. I am very confused. What is so good about Communism and/or Socialism?

I really want to know. I am not trying to start a flame war. I don't see any chance at converting me to a believer, but I cannot fathom why anyone would sign up for this voluntarily, especially watching the news and the serious issues that the people in these countries face.

 

Personally I can't see anything good about Communism. It has been one of the most destructive and murderous ideologies of all time. It is inherently anti-democratic and Communist regimes are notable for extreme repression, mass murder on a grand scale and economic failure.

 

It may not be the Communist party as such but a growing belief that conservatives care for nobody but themselves and their desire to maintain and improve on a lifestyle at anyone's expense, other than their own.

There will be a chorus of disapproval from this predominately conservative forum, but if members here are indicative of general GOP thinking, you only need to spend a few hours on reading posts on a variety of subjects to form a view that may be similar to mine.

 

Your criticism of US conservatives (not quite the same as Conservatives in a philosophical sense) may or may not be accurate, but it doesn't answer the question about Communism (which has a proven track record of making everything much worse for everybody).

 

Take a look at America today and compare it to the Bush era, prior to his declaration of two wars and the economic crisis which originated at the end of his term.

 

What is so good about communism? It's great if you're a loser, you get to give up your liberty in exchange for government taking care of you. And the best part? Some other sucker picks up your tab. Now what liberal wouldn't go for that?

 

Communism is a form of direct democracy and with parliamentarism going down it looks like a possible choice . Representative systems are no longer sufficient to serve the needs of modern societies plus they are highly corrupted.
Direct democracy says : how about removing the whole government concept and run the place ourselves ? (through referendums)
Communism adds : what if in addition to that we also ban private ownership of capital and waged labor so everyone gets the whole value of his/her work ?

I guess like many others OP is confusing communism with USSR and the rest of the atrocities but those things are dead for good and none is askingfor them to return .

 

More dishonest representations. I merely want to be left alone to live my life in peace, without government telling me which health insurance policy I have to buy, or that I have to keep paying more to support losers who choose not work, like liberals and other losers who care for nobody but themselves, and desire to maintain and improve on their lifestyle of food stamps, unemployment and other freebies at anyone's expense but their own. Thanks for providing some content for my rebuttal, yours only needed be directed at the right people.

 

No, they are not dead and gone, and no one is asking for them openly at this point. But that is where communism and filth like Obama will almost always ultimately lead. Hell, we're talking about a guy who wouldn't even vote to protect babies born alive and outside of the womb from being thrown out with medical waste. If you think that he's going to somehow come to respect life once he gets the power to silence his opposition, you don't understand communists like Barack Obama.

 

Can I invite you to take a look at the mass graves and concentration camps that are thev legacy of Communism throughout the World, Then maybe you can point me to an American mass grave or concentration camp.

 

Well for one you can commit mass murder and genocide and never (at least very very rarely) have Hollywood or education highlight these atrocities......hmm why is that i wonder. Since the perpetrators of these vile acts are never highlighted or never held to account, as a new generation yuppy you can hide your dislike for your country, its culture, its people and capitalism behind it safely. Meanwhile the anti communism ideology that rises to protect its people from these inhuman acts gets demonized. More than a few words have been written a country too white could turn fascist so mass immigration to eliminate that threat has been a good thing, fits right in with hatred of a country/ its people.

Apart from that i cant think of anything good about giving away your freedom to corrupt elites. Sounds like a fast track to serfdom / slavery.

 

Communism is anti-democratic and anti-human at its core.

 

I respectfully suggest that you (America) never fought Communism, you fought Russia Nationalism with American Nationalism. If the USSR had a different political system, I don't think the Cold War itself would have necessarily been any different, only the propaganda.

Well, they're two very different things (arguably more than two to be honest). I personally don't think there is anything especially great about either. Like most political concepts, they're generally positive in principle but flawed in practice. It isn't as if the Capitalist Free Market alternative we have hasn't been without it's downsides and disasters and it's also not as if we (in the West in general) haven't successfully integrated elements of socialism too.

As with so many things, I think the real problem has always been arguing and labels and presenting false binary divisions rather than considering everything and constructing a solution uniquely suited to the hear and now.

 

Playing Devils Advocate here so don't kill the messenger but what's so good about Democracy?

 

Its naive and unrealistic, with a faulty understanding of human nature, but its not anti democratic and anti human.

 

Socialism and Communism are quite different.

 

But not that different. they can be grouped together, especially when its socialists as compared to social democrats. The latter, that's a different thing.

 

Communist parties generally take things much farther than socialist ones.

While both initially favor state intervention in industry, they each have very different long term goals.

Communism in its purest form is similar to anarchy, whereas socialism is statist.

 

I thought socialism was just a phase on the way to communism characterised by common ownership of the means of production, and the produce to be distributed to everyone according to each's own effort. Whilst communism would the the final stage -a classless, stateless, moneyless, property less society wherein the means of production are still in common hands but the production is distributed 'from each according to ability, to each according to need'.

So socialist and communist isn't really much more different other than that socialists perhaps want to stay at the socialism stage, or maybe not rush the transformation to communism. and a social democrat would be one that sees democracy as the tool for achieving socialism, as opposed to using revolution.

atleast, that's how I see it.

 

That's true to an extent, but socialism as practiced in most societies is a hybrid of pure socialism and capitalism.

Then again, most "Communist" movements devolved into nationalistic totalitarian systems.

You're correct that socialism is essentially a stage of Communism that develops before the abolition of the state, but socialists clearly have no intention of ending the state.

Granted, very few Communists with any significant power decided to end the state either.

 

Socialism and Capitalism are polar opposites and you know it.

 

What is there not to love?

You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. ~Karl Marx

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." ~Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Revolutionaries will come who will sing the song of the new man and woman in the true voice of the people. A new generation is being born. The party is a vanguard organization. It is made up of the best workers, who are proposed for membership by their fellow workers. It is a minority, but it has great authority because of the quality of its cadres. Our aspiration is for the party to become a mass party, but only when the masses have reached the level of the vanguard, that is, when they are educated for communism. ~Che Guevara

"As long as we have one million left, that will be enough to make the new man." ~Ieng Sary, foreign minister of Camodia Khmer Rouge

The Soviet man is forced to spend a great deal of time participating in a variety of political events: demonstrations, rallies, festive and less-festive get-togethers and public meetings, "volunteer" work on weekends, political study groups, amateur artist activities, or is sent to work at produce warehouses, sovkhozes, office building construction sites, DOSAAF (All Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the USSR Army, Air Force and Navy) and MPVO [local air defense] training, "druzhiniki' or volunteer teams helping the police patrol the streets and are encouraged to take up sports. All this is seen as developing in him qualities which will make him a new Soviet man, a man who will work even better, a man who will be selflessly devoted and ready at a moment's notice,., etc. At first they thought they could do all this outside of working hours, but it was beyond them. Now he does all this at the expense of his job, generating in him a profound sense of pointlessness and secondary importance of the work he is being paid for. That's one of the reasons why Soviet industry and agriculture are extremely unproductive and why products are of such depressing quality. ~Sergei Khodorovich, 1987

"If I were asked the difference between Socialism and Communism, I could only reply that the Socialist tries to lead us to disaster by foolish words and the Communist could try to drive us there by violent deeds." ~Winston Churchill

 

That doesn't exclude them from being mixed.

Most of the world's major economies are mixed. They implement elements of socialism and capitalism. Where they fit on that spectrum is what defines the differences between countries.

 

No, where they fit on a leftist's spectrum is what defines the difference between a thriving Capitalistic economy and a failing socialist economy as we are currently struggling with.

 

Ah! I get it. You don't like my view of your view of capitalism.

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Mass graves don't exist from drone strikes. There are only body parts left.