Why is Communism bad?

[preoQpydDlusion]

Im serious. i think we should start adopting some communistic policies in this country. these are some of the things i heard teachers say in school when they talked about communism. (they were always preached out like a anti-drug lecture or a prejudice rant.)

1: communism sucks because the government chooses your occupation. you can't "be what ever you want to be when you grow up" so you would hate your life. (well i dont know too many people who are happy even though they supposedly had a choice of what job they got.)

2: communism sucks because without the competition of the free market, industrial and commercial innovation would be uncommon. if you work harder youll get paid the same amount of money, so whats the point? (a horribly greedy ideal to teach kids in my opinion. i dont believe this would be true. the simple gratification of a hard days work would drive most people to do their best. ((plus, blind patriotism has made people in this country buy millions of miniature car window flags and thousands of roles of Osama toilet paper. im sure people wouldnt mind busting some ass simply to make Uncle Sam proud.)))

right now, we're overpopulated, we are destroying the environment, we're making our foreign relations even worse, and nobody outside the top 15% of the nation is actually gaining from it. (didnt there used to be a middle-class?) kids are starving, the mentally ill and physically addicted roam the streets, and young men and women are supporting a war for college tuition.

if anybody tries to tell me that this is a free country ill probly laugh in their face.
im kinda losin my train of thought here, it feels good to rant from time to time though. so yeah, what do you guys think about Communism?

 

[Weedhound]

And none of these problems are happening in communist countries? Wake up.

 

[medicineman]

And none of these problems are happening in communist countries? Wake up.

The problem with the perception of communism is the perception it'self. The capitalists in this society(the ones that really run things, like the Government, the banks, the corporations etc.) make it sound like you would be a prisoner on a work farm. The cold hard truth is no-one really knows what a true Communist society would be like as it has never been done, mostly due to the Human greed factor. People would have to live and work for the betterment of the society as a whole instead of the football mentality now present in this society. This society promotes competition. Competition basically puts people in the role of adversarys, pitting individual against individual, basically the law of the jungle, where only the strong attain success. So if you are a strong "A" type of personality, your chances for success are much greater. This also promotes a class separation and a better than thou mentality. the weak or underfunded, are left to their demise! I believe the perfect society would be a pure communistic social environment, but will never be achieved because of the aforementioned "Human greed factor"!

 

[preoQpydDlusion]

Wow, im really surprised Med supports communism (at least theoretically) but,

"This society promotes competition. Competition basically puts people in the role of adversarys, pitting individual against individual, basically the law of the jungle, where only the strong attain success."

only the strong attain success? its safe to say that a majority of the "successful" people in this country have either stole or inherited their money. in the jungle, animals cant leave their horded wealth for their offspring to benefit from.

 

[ViRedd]

I'm just gonna sit back and watch where this thread goes. It should be quite entertaining, to say the least.

For those of you who didn't pay attention in school, or who were victims of revisionist history taking place in our government monopolized school systems today, you'll be suprised to learn that pure communism was tried, and did exist in this country back in the colonial times.

As far as I'm concerned, this forum is about learning. So, I'm happy to provide this link:

http://www.ccsindia.org/ccsindia/people_rw_when_us_tried_communism.asp

Enjoy ...

Vi

 

[Dankdude]

I think I will watch it as well, I think that the entertainment Value alone is worth staying out of the fray...

 

[420penguin]

+rep to MedMan for an on target analysis of the situation.

While Vi makes an interesting point about possible success of colonials once they were freed from their debts it completely fails to address the fact that slaying of another civilization was necessary for this alleged socialist success to occur.

This is a really easy conversation if you're American and don't dig the set up. There's lots of socialist nations. Some are easy to get into(Canada). Some are hard(generally European). All of them have REALLY HIGH TAX RATES FOR EVERYONE. By high I mean 50%+ for everyone. So you get lots of cool services and everyone gets them but they all pay for them. There's nothing wrong with that and if you dig it, head to the places that embrace it.

But America has always been a country of ladder climbers. That doesn't exactly embrace those ideals. Try to change it if you like. I'll stick to easy stuff like making it legal to catch a high. Getting people to care about one another and then pay for it...that's a really big job and I'm not up for it.

 

[medicineman]

Getting people to care about one another and then pay for it...that's a really big job and I'm not up for it.
__________________
And obviously, no-one else in this country is either. Dog eat Dog is the prevailing conscientious awareness, and the poor be damned. There's only one solution and I'm not going to lay it out for you. The solution involves raising the conscienceness of the whole country, and that my friends is beyond mortals. so all you big dogs, eat shit as far as I'm concerened, just don't come around my domain and try and eat me, for I'll bite back!

 

[ViRedd]

Hey, Med ...

Have you given that extra blanket to that homeless alcoholic who sleeps behind the card club yet? If not ... why not?

Oh, and one more thing, Med ... How much did the private sector contribute to the victims of Katrina ... any idea?

Vi

PS: And the colonists in Jamestown where communism was tried, for the most part, starved to death. They went to a free market just in the nick of time and the few remaining prospered.

 

[medicineman]

PS: And the colonists in Jamestown where communism was tried, for the most part, starved to death. They went to a free market just in the nick of time and the few remaining prospered.
Bullshit!How do you know this, the word communism hadn't been invented yet, Check your glasses!

 

[ViRedd]

PS: And the colonists in Jamestown where communism was tried, for the most part, starved to death. They went to a free market just in the nick of time.
Bullshit!How do you know this, the word communism hadn't been invented yet, Check your glasses!

Its in the history books, Med. Oh, sorry ... it WAS in the history books, but probably not in the revised history books of today. After all, how are we gonna wipe those collective minds clean unless we teach the horrors about what all those dead white men did to plunder the country?


It was in Jamestown, Med. All the citzens worked for the collective. All farm production was put into a colllective, and each citizen took out what he/she needed for personal use and survival. So, the theory was: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." It didn't work in Jamestown back in the 1600s, it didn't work after Marx used that quote in the Communist Manifesto, its not working in Cuba, its not working in North Korea and it didn't work in China either. Hundreds of millions of misled people have discovered the result of communism since Jamestown ... and the results, everytime, was starvation under the iron fist of a totalitarian government.

Vi

 

[Wavels]

Here is some info.......



When US tried Communism

The Himalayan Times, 24 Jan 2005
Rakesh Wadhwa

I write this especially for our Maoist brothers. While the US is commonly vilified as the bastion of capitalism, it is little known that the US too has tried communism. It was only when communism failed that property rights and capitalism took hold.

Let us go back into history and see what lessons America learned from its relatively short dalliance with Maoism much before the ‘great leader' himself was born.

The year was 1607. The first 104 settlers had arrived from Europe in Jamestown in the Virginia Tidewater region of the US in May. They found soil which was fertile beyond what they had seen in the lands which they had left. Fruits were abundant. Wild game such as deer and turkey were everywhere. There was no shortage of fish and other seafood. And yet within six months 66 of the original Jamestown, Virginia settlers had died. Only 38 survived.

Another 500 settlers were again sent to settle in Virginia in 1609 and within six months 440 of these too died by starvation and disease. This was called ‘starving time' and one eyewitness described it in English of those times, ‘So great was our famine, that a Savage we slew and buried, the poorer sorte took him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs.'

How could this be? How could there be such death and starvation amidst so much plenty of meat, fruits, and fish. The fault as the witness said lay not in the ‘barrenness and defect of the Countrie' but in the ‘want of providence, industry and government'.

What caused this lack of ‘industrie'? Were the Virginian settlers lazy and indolent? It could not be. People who were sent there were the chosen ones – the very best of men.

The problem was that all the men who were sent were bonded labourers. They had no stake in what they produced. They were bound by contract to put all they produced into a common pool to be used to support their colony as a whole. This was communism in its purest form. Everyone was supposed to work according to ability and take according to need.

As so frequently happens with present day government policies, the results were the opposite of what was intended. Since hard work was not personally beneficial for the settlers they responded by stopping work.

Phillip A. Bruce, a late 19th century US historian, wrote of the Jamestown immigrants, “The settlers did not have even a modified interest in the soil … . Everything produced by them went into the store, in which they had no proprietorship.” The result as Bruce wrote would be what anyone who has any knowledge of human nature would expect, men, even the most energetic, refused to work.

This is what happened in Mao's China and in Soviet Russia on a grand scale. In America a few hundred deaths stopped the communist experiment, in China and Russia, millions had to die before these nations abandoned the principles of Marx, Lenin, and Mao.

Jamestown changed course just two years later in 1611 with arrival of the ‘high marshall' Sir Thomas Dale from the UK. He understood the problem, freed the settlers by abrogating communal ownership. Each man received three acres of land and, other than a lump sum tax of 2 ½ barrels of corn, did not have to contribute anything to the common pool. The colony immediately began to prosper. It prospered because each individual directly benefited by his labour and knew that he would also bear the full consequences of any reduction in output. Private ownership and capitalism worked.

Communism doesn't work because it destroys the reward and work nexus. Communism doesn't work because the absence of property rights heralds the end of all incentive to produce. Communism doesn't work because humans do no wish to sacrifice themselves to the common good.

I do not know or care about the political philosophy of the Maoists. I would, though, like to know what their economic policies are going to be. Do they want to take back Nepal to what America experimented with almost 400 years ago? Nepal lags behind the US in economic development, but is it to be put back by four centuries?.
::Welcome to CCS::

 

[Dankdude]

All I can say on the subject is the only place pure communism has ever worked is in China and only after they mixed in just enough capitalism to boost the economy. Now they are the fastest growing economic force on earth... The problem with an economy growing so fast is that sooner or later the bubble will burst and the economy will spiral into recession.

Now I'll go back to watching this thread for the entertainment value.

 

[ViRedd]

Well, "pure" communism doesn't include any capitalism. Being a little capitalistic is kinda like being a little bit pregnant.

Recessions are part of the natural business cycle. Where countries get into problems is when the government tries to "fix" it. We had that experience in spades back in the late 1920s.

Vi

 

[medicineman]

its not working in Cuba, That may be due to a long enforced trade embargo with Cuba. Also I've seen programs done by cubans that pretty much extoll the virtues of communism. There is like 0% illiteracy in Cuba. Their Medical program is on par with the finest in the world, they have more doctors per capita than any 1st world country. The average school achievement level for college age studernts far exceeds the US, and the dropout rate hardly exists at all! If the US would quit beating them up and open their tourism up, Cuba would be a very nice place to live!

 

[Dankdude]

I will agree with you on those points Med, what you are saying about Cuba is true. And I will go even farther, a 46 year embargo is a bit ridiculous.

 

[preoQpydDlusion]

so if cuba aint doin too bad, dispite us having a trade imbargo on them, then that shows, to me, that as long as you have enough natural resources to support your people, communism is the answer. if we control our population and take care of the environment (more specifically, stop nuclear pollution and start using recycled shit) this country should easily be able to support us all.

how much is the u.s. in debt?

 

[420penguin]

it's only America that won't trade with Cuba. Cuba has a great tourist sector but it still isn't enough to prop up a way of government that just goes against human nature.

As for comments about their level of education. Sure, they'll send people to medical school. But the doctors don't get paid crap so they all end up taking jobs running small shops selling to the tourists. So you have to find better metrics(ways to measure quality of life.) Just because they may have a ton of doctors doesn't mean that they actually help increase quality or length of life.

 

[preoQpydDlusion]

ey penguin, whats ur definition of human nature?

 

[Dankdude]

Raul Castro is trying to make amends with the United States since his brother is out of the way... It looks like Communism in Cuba will fall with in the next Ten years....

preoQpydDlusion, Read History, Communism doesn't work. It sounds good on paper having read the communist manifesto, but the Human equation always screws it up. They get power mad (just like the present US administration) and see themselves as kings. (just like the current US administration.)