"Communism trends towards dictatorships and authoritarianism"

[Catmatic Leftist]

Socialism's spectacular failure on the world stage has left me with the comforting reassurance that we probably will never have to deal with that nightmare in the developed world. Maybe a Third World banana republic could fall to that, but we've seen the negative effects that Socialist revolutions have on countries. You might say that these were never truly Socialist states, but that's okay... we still see the end product of a Socialist revolution. If Socialist revolutions have been tried over and over, and reach the same authoritarian, statist, Big Brother ending, then perhaps we can assume that Socialism just isn't going to work. What was it that Einstein said, that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? If we are to hold to empirical, scientific logic (which I hope we will), then we know where Socialist revolutions will take us. When a nation is dominated by Socialist ideals, they tend to have a very unfree society, usually with Cuba or Soviet Russia-style State Run media designed to squash any dissent. When they begin to trend toward Capitalism, free speech rights and human rights generally tend to improve.

This is generally accepted because it is correct. Socialists often remind me of a guy, trying to nail a hammer into a piece of wood, who always seems to hit his thumb. After trying it over and over, breaking his thumb every time, he says "Trust me, hand me that hammer and I'll do it right this time!" Very few people are going to fall for that.

The amusing part is, the same criticisms of Capitalism can be applied to Socialism. People say that Capitalism eventually leads to corporate cronyism because people are too greedy to have the kind of control that corporations have. But Socialist governments are in a position to encourage cronyism far more effectively than corporations. If Capitalism is destined to decline into corporate cronyism, then Socialism is destined to decline into that even faster.


Communism is inextricable from authoritarianism because, even though it may be claimed that certain countries did not properly implement Socialism/Communism, an authoritarian dictatorship is the inevitable result of the initial Communist/Socialist uprising. The idea behind Socialism/Communism is admirable, but ultimately, it leads to bad consequences.

People are reluctant to trust Socialism/Communism, and it's understandable why they would be. Every time people have been promised equality and freedom under Socialism, they have been given authoritarian and murderous regimes. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

Any good counter-arguments that don't employ No True Scotsman?

[Susurrus]

All "communist" regimes that lead to dictatorships were governed by Leninist theory and its derivatives. The record of one school of communism(if you call leninism that) cannot speak for the entirety of it.

[o well this is ok I guess]

Ask if he uses empirical knowledge to figure out how many unicorn you will have if you take two of them and another two and put them together.
Or you can ask what sort of political structure the Paris Commune had.

[Jose Gracchus]

Since he's fond of pop-quotes from Einstein as authority, why don't you introduce him to Einstein's essay advocating a totally socialized and planned economy?

[CHE with an AK]

Since he's fond of pop-quotes from Einstein as authority
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate the grave evils of capitalism, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society."


--- Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?, 1949

http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism

[tbasherizer]

Separate what you advocate from the word "socialism". Then ask him if the USSR, China, etc. were modeled on that.

You could also use a historical materialistic to make him realize that whether we 'try it again' or not, the direction of human development points to a more democratic and free means of managing human affairs, and he can call that whatever he likes- you just like the word 'socialism'.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Any good counter-arguments that don't employ No True Scotsman?

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

That's a pretty good description of capitalism... No, there won't be a bust this time, no we solved that problem, we'll all be rich in no time.:rolleyes:

[Thirsty Crow]

Any good counter-arguments that don't employ No True Scotsman?
NTS is hardly necessary when it comes to arguments of this kind.

First. let's ransack the text paragraph by paragraph:


Socialism's spectacular failure on the world stage has left me with the comforting reassurance that we probably will never have to deal with that nightmare in the developed world. Maybe a Third World banana republic could fall to that, but we've seen the negative effects that Socialist revolutions have on countries
Wow, nice covert (or not so covert?) racism and chauvinism. But this implicitly recognizes the effects of capitalist development on a world scale, and if it turns out that the person rejects this interpretation, I'm afraid that he or she will be left with nothing but racist arguments when forced to account for the gross gap between parts of our planet.


When a nation is dominated by Socialist ideals, they tend to have a very unfree society, usually with Cuba or Soviet Russia-style State Run media designed to squash any dissent. When they begin to trend toward Capitalism, free speech rights and human rights generally tend to improve.You should force the debate to head into the territory of the concrete.
For instance, I don't think it's true that China, an emerging imperialist power and a thoroughly capitalist country, sees free speech rights and human rights on the rise. And that's not to speak of labour relations and the impact of Chinese international economic operations (you can try to google the role of Chinese capital in a recent Somalian famine).
But, most probably the person will try to argue that China is not capitalist since its political structure does not conform to the notion and practice of liberal democracy. That's where you should grab him by the metaphorical throat and show the utter lack of understanding on her/his behalf.

Also, I'm sure hat you are able to point out how capitalist states function with regard to free speech and human rights. Just concentrate on the dispersed mechanisms of control backed by the force of organized violence which is clearly visible in its brutality in decisive moments of class struggle. You can use the example of Darcus Howe and BBC (related to the riots in Great Britain) to show just how free speech functions.


The amusing part is, the same criticisms of Capitalism can be applied to Socialism. People say that Capitalism eventually leads to corporate cronyism because people are too greedy to have the kind of control that corporations have. But Socialist governments are in a position to encourage cronyism far more effectively than corporations. If Capitalism is destined to decline into corporate cronyism, then Socialism is destined to decline into that even fasterThe amusing part here is that this represents an awfully selective attitude with respect to the broad range of criticisms directed at capitalist rule. Corporate cronyism is hardly the crown jewel argument against capitalism put forward by radicals, and even if it were so, the person in question does a terrible job at explaining what exactly is meant by "corporate cronyism" (which people want to have the control that corporations have? high functionaries of the capitalist state - that makes no sense whatsoever).

Just point out that this does not even resemble an argument.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The most serious problem lies in the implicit methodology (if the term can be used here) of the person in question since she/he practically views communism as a national affair, from the standpoint somewhat resembling the socialism in one country argument.
Don't have the time to go into it right now, but I'll be back.

[aplparks]

Separate what you advocate from the word "socialism".I know anarchists have a lot of fun throwing this around, but it helps no one's causes. This is a total dodge, and I know I am frustrated to no end when reactionaries tell me "their" capitalism is oh so different and special from "predatory capitalism" like the US.

You don't win an argument by pretending the argument doesn't exist.

[tbasherizer]

I know anarchists have a lot of fun throwing this around, but it helps no one's causes. This is a total dodge, and I know I am frustrated to no end when reactionaries tell me "their" capitalism is oh so different and special from "predatory capitalism" like the US.

You don't win an argument by pretending the argument doesn't exist.

I appreciate that, but we really should be arguing against our opponents' actual ideas. If my opponent and I both do away with semantics, we could use the encounter constructively. We could invite them to call their ideology 'x' and ours 'y', outline them, and then suit up for battle. Once I oppose their ideas for their substance and not their labels and they do likewise, we might actually arrive at a real conclusion.

Addition: The argument exists- I'm not pretending it doesn't. This might actually strip away a layer of make-believe.

[CAleftist]

"Communism trends toward dictatorships and authoritarianism"

And capitalism doesn't?

[Delenda Carthago]

Funny article posted the same month that one 11 year old is being called for explains by the UK police, another one is being trialed for promoting water fight at the same country and Israel("the only democracy in Middle Eastern") has toped its underaged prisoners while it executes people almost daily. In Greece 15 days ago 2 20 year olds went to jail for many years on the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire situation, even though there is NO evidence at all that they were involved. And dont get me started on how capitalism is working under a dictatorship like the ones in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Chile etc. or under an islamofascist goverment like Iran.

See what I did there? I didnt even mentioned Hitler and Mussolini fascism as capitalist economies...

[Delenda Carthago]

And btw, USSR until 56 was the top of political and economical freedoms this country had in its history. Its a dialectical thing. Everything you analyse, you have to do it in comparising to what it was before and what became after. Was Russia a democratic country before? No. Was it later? declining again no. What is the conclusion?

[Zealot]

Important thing to remember is that pretty much every socialist revolution was based on the soviet model

[Susurrus]

Important thing to remember is that pretty much every socialist revolution was based on the Leninist model

fixed.

[Tim Cornelis]

Communism is inextricable from authoritarianism because, even though it may be claimed that certain countries did not properly implement Socialism/Communism, an authoritarian dictatorship is the inevitable result of the initial Communist/Socialist uprising. The idea behind Socialism/Communism is admirable, but ultimately, it leads to bad consequences.

People are reluctant to trust Socialism/Communism, and it's understandable why they would be. Every time people have been promised equality and freedom under Socialism, they have been given authoritarian and murderous regimes. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."

He doesn't even give arguments to back up his claim!

[Tim Finnegan]

Point out that this:

If we are to hold to empirical, scientific logic (which I hope we will), then we know where Socialist revolutions will take us.Is contrived, ahistorical nonsense, which attempts to lump a huge variety of distinct and complex historical episodes together as a caricature of Red October labelled "socialist revolution". Even setting aside the deficiencies of Marxism-Leninism altogether, it should be entirely obvious to anyone advocating "empirical, scientific logic" that the simple presence of certain ideas among leading political cliques does not dictate the course of history, but that is the product of the intersection of a myriad of complex intersecting factors, material as well as ideological; if he accepts this, then interrogate him as to what more objective strands connect these many varied events, and if he does not, then he's a pompous tool who cannot be reasoned with.

[The Stalinator]

I'm far from an expert on this, but I think it has more to do with the method of revolution than the political ideologies that are put in place -- it's not like all post-revolutionary dictatorships were left-wing, eh?

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

Obviously the dictatorship of the bourgeois is so much better than the dictatorship of the proletariat. My sweat shop peeps know what I'm talking about. What's up Hiroshima? What's really good Somalia? I think it's a bunch of semantics and bourgeois propaganda really. I would also throw in a, do you honestly think you're free under capitalism? The illusion of choice blinds you from the fact that you're really in chains.

[Tim Finnegan]

I would also throw in a, do you honestly think you're free under capitalism? The illusion of choice blinds you from the fact that you're really in chains.
And if you're a Marxist-Leninist, make sure you have a response prepared to the rather obvious come back to this.

[Misanthrope]

Capitalism\statism is authoritarian and a dictatorship.

[gendoikari]

I skimmed over the thread... has no one pointed out that capitalism has ALREADY created a form of authritarianism? The new aristocracy if you will.

[piet11111]

And the current slavery of entire nations to the financial aristocracy is not a dictatorship or authoritarian ?

Just look at Sarkozy and Merkel trying to set up a super government that can dictate the EU finances and will be accountable to no-one and be able to overrule long standing financial set ups like minimum wage or even go as far as to entirely abolish social security and pensions if they deem it necessary.

How can he seriously say Capitalism offers freedom while Greece is getting raped ?

[Azula]

Any good counter-arguments that don't employ No True Scotsman?

Every democratic socialist experiment have been smashed because of the weakness of Democracy.

Democracy means that you have to listen to the opposition, make concessions, compromise.

It is impossible to compromise with people who allow tens of thousands of children to starve to death every day.

The Bourgeois don't give a damn about starving children as long as the starving children cannot be used as a propaganda tool against Socialist/Anti-imperialist/Anti-western societies.

They want their foreign-funded media and think tanks to flood the aethers with propaganda about the government which is learning kids and adults to read, giving prostitutes and drug-addicts a future and build self-sufficiency to achieve real national independence.

If dictatorship is what takes to achieve national liberty, then by all means we should have a dictatorship. A dictatorship of the proletariat.

[Tim Finnegan]

I skimmed over the thread... has no one pointed out that capitalism has ALREADY created a form of authritarianism? The new aristocracy if you will.
Several times, yes, including the post immediately preceding yours.