Communism. Good or bad. What do you really know about Communism?

[brk549]

Why would anyone be so willing to give up any of their freedoms.He doesn't have to go back in time,he can go spend a few days in prison were they tell you what to do when to do it and how to do it and also what to eat and when to eat which is what he seems to want.I think the story is he wants that for everyone but him.

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by brk549

Why would anyone be so willing to give up any of their freedoms.He doesn't have to go back in time,he can go spend a few days in prison were they tell you what to do when to do it and how to do it and also what to eat and when to eat which is what he seems to want.I think the story is he wants that for everyone but him.

In some ways capitalism can become as oppressive as communism especially if the capital has access to the political system.

[brk549]

Yes but we change leadership every so often and once in a while we get leadership that's there for the right reasons and not for themselves.I'd still rather have freedom even with the self serving leaders we've had in the past.

[AmateurEmale]

@bowlinggreen: Now you sound like Ayn Rand in a bad mood, maybe when she was an "illegal immigrant" living in Chicago or Los Angeles in the Red Decade of the 1930s?

Seriously, I know more about the USSR because of Rand's works and she was more convincing to young people reading her in the 1990s than Limbaugh or Buckley, or even Reagan...

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

If I could, I would build a time machine and send you back to 1930s Soviet Russia so you could experience true Communism firsthand. I'd drop you right into Comrade Stalin's lap.

At first he'd probably be interested in hearing your tales from the future. But later on he'd grow tired of your pseudo-intellectual babblings and realize you were just another deviationist wrecker and saboteur.

Not long after that you would find yourself a zek in a Siberian camp, or perhaps a shock worker laboring on the White Sea Canal.

More likely xyzde69 would receive a bullet to the back of his head a la Emmy Noether's brother Fritz

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by brk549

Yes but we change leadership every so often and once in a while we get leadership that's there for the right reasons and not for themselves.I'd still rather have freedom even with the self serving leaders we've had in the past.

We change leadership in the political realm but given capital's role in the system politic's relevance diminishes by the cycle as capital sets the parameters. If all canindates are beholden to money who do the canindates have to listen to?

[Roubignol]

Originally Posted by diamelsx

In some ways capitalism can become as oppressive as communism especially if the capital has access to the political system.

Aha!
You are the first one who seems to understand my point of view.
I don't say that you share it at 100%, but at least, it's like if bowlinggreen & Co believe that actual Capitalism is the best system ever and Communism can't be improved.

That's a very bad process to say that Communism = Stalin or NK president.
Their Communisms were or are nothing else as a form of dictature, like the actual Capitalism (in the way that you have to make money by every way in order to... survive).
That's nice to read the bowlinggreen's childhood, but he was lucky to live the golden years of the Capitalism.
Now in his country, there are 46 millions people living under the line of the poverty and about 10 "Gigabillionaires" who don't like to pay taxes and nobody can assure you that you could not be poor in the next 10 years.
Apart that an average Occidental citizen need 5 planets...

So I'm sorry but I don't believe that Liberalism will match peacefully very long with the next challenges that will concern ALL the humanity.

By the way bowlinggreen also forget to mention that before the ugly Stalinism there was even worse, there was the Tsarism.
I had a ex-monk teacher who taught me German language at school and I remember that one day he said: Communism was not a good thing, but the Russian people suffered even more from hunger and poverty under the reign of their Tsars.

It was not the fact in America. Your ancesters arrived in a huge and wild country in which they had every opportunities to create almost what they wanted.

That's maybe why the Anti-Communist propaganda that you had in the US was so strong.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by AmateurEmale

@bowlinggreen: Now you sound like Ayn Rand in a bad mood, maybe when she was an "illegal immigrant" living in Chicago or Los Angeles in the Red Decade of the 1930s?

I'm just annoyed at xyz's fanatical promotion of a system which has never worked out for mankind on a long term basis.

[bowlinggreen]

Originally Posted by Brian249x

More likely xyzde69 would receive a bullet to the back of his head a la Emmy Noether's brother Fritz

Mmmm, this is likely true. Comrade Stalin wouldn't want xyz telling tales about the future to his fellow zeks. ESPECIALLY the one where the Soviet Union collapses in 1991.

Communism... failure.

As an aside, if my posts look weird, I apologize to the mods in advance for any double post. the quote thing hasn't been working right for me the last few days (no text appears in the box) and my last post, which I intended to multi-quote, didn't appear at all. Forum is being kind of weird.

EDIT: NOW it shows up. What the hell...?

[diamelsx]

Originally Posted by AmateurEmale

But I'd rather live in a country where businesses compete for my money and my allegiance as a worker, rather than the Soviet Union or Red China where all political power (as Mao said) "comes from the barrel of a gun" and "He who does not obey, does not eat." Or worse (as Mao also said): "Not only do you have no right to speak, you have no right to think!"

A couple of things

1. Competitions are better when they have rules
2. Competition always end
3. The ultimate competition is for your money

Capitalists will always sing the virtues of competition in the marketplace, and yes it is a good thing, the thing that never gets addressed is what happens when the competition ends as all of them do. They never talk how the good times for the consumers and labor end when the competition does. You can look at industries like media, health insurers, or airlines and see how service falls and prices rise as the competitors either merge or disappear thus trapping consumers and labor. Yeah capitalism competition is good on the front end you just wish people would discuss what happens on the backend.