Why Communism Fails *insert eye roll*

[Vladimir I. Kropotkin]

This is from another message board i post at, :rolleyes:




Why Communism Fails

1> They didn't take the time to slowly transition from one economy to the other, thus the rapid change overwhelmed the people and caused their economy to fail.

and

2> Humans are naturally greedy, thus, a system of economy that limits humans from getting what they want is bound to fail.

3> Communism will never work unless it is run by emotionless robots who have no desire for anything.

4> Communism has never existed to the full idealistic extent of which is was supposed to.

5> Something about touching yourself after nightfall


Can anyone argue against this indictment? <_<

[MysticArcher]

um, point 4 is not a reason, it is a result of the other supposed arguements, the last part is ridiculous

as for the other seemingly more logical arguements,

point 2 capitlism also limits humans from getting what they want, by limiting what they can afford, the only people who actually get what they want (I mean like ridiculous extravagant stuff) is the richest 1%

point #1, just look at the Soviet Union, it&#39;s rapid change of economies worked fine, it was later when things fell apart, if the people had been "overwhelmed" then communism would have collapsed very quickly
granted it wasn&#39;t a &#39;true&#39; communism, but I think it&#39;s still a valid arguement

I&#39;m not sure how exactly to make an arguement for point 3, I&#39;ll let someone else answer that

[bush youth]

2> Humans are naturally greedy, thus, a system of economy that limits humans from getting what they want is bound to fail.
To say that people should stay greedy just because it&#39;s "natural" isn&#39;t good enough. Regardless of whether or not it is natural, it shouldn&#39;t happen, because it doesnt need to. Gift economies have worked in history and are still working today.

Greed also, isn&#39;t all nature, capitalism tends to create a whole lot of greed itself. It&#39;s created a dog-eat-dog scenario where if you&#39;re not not competitive/greedy you&#39;re going to "fail", right?


3> Communism will never work unless it is run by emotionless robots who have no desire for anything.no desire for anything... except for peace, freedom, equality, justice...

I don&#39;t exactly understand that whole "emotionless robot" concept. Is that because we&#39;re equal in communism? Like a little class division will spruce things up a bit?

Those workers in enclosed spaces pushing papers from one side to another aren&#39;t the ones full of livelihood and emotion

[praxis1966]

Since this dingleberry obviously so little about communist doctrine he thinks he can dismiss the whole of it&#39;s theories that simply, I think you should be equally dismissive. Ask him why he can&#39;t come up with some real agruments instead of 75 year old cliches. Ask him about his apparent complete lack of insight or critical thinking skills. Ask him if he&#39;s ever read Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto, Hegemony and Revolution, and Pedagogy of the Oppressed. When he says no (and I can almost assure you this dolt will), make sure to inform him he is no position to speak with such tones of authority since he has no idea what the fuck he is talking about.

[Hegemonicretribution]

There is little point in being blount, youmay as well try and educate him. Explain, with logical arguments, why his points are either not relevant, or nomore more relevant than they are in any current system.

As for emotional robots, it is impossible to be emotionless. Emotions are merely attributed as sollutions for the actions carried out by an individual. Even by being unemotional..you could have said to be acting on emotions. Furtherthis by stating that regardless of that communism requires a love of the proletariat and a hatred of the oppression of the bourgoisie. Without emotion there would not be desire, and without desire there would not be a revolution, communism requires desire ju8st as capitalism does, however it provides attainable rewards.

You could be really pedantic and argue that at the current trate of technmology the current robots lack the artificial intelligence required to plan out and carry out a revolution of their own accord.

[Vladimir I. Kropotkin]

thanks for the advice comrades, i replied to all of his points, now he says he was joking ;)

coincidence?

[Iepilei]

People tend to generalise too much when it comes to the aspects of Marxism on the whole. Of course, these are the same people who know very little about their own political doctrines - or are easily influenced by their peers, media, and conservative minded teachers.

My current political science teacher comes to mind.

Regardless, all of his points are easily debateable and have been since the notions of Marxism have been concieved (with Marx, oddly enough). It seems as if you have it under wraps, but if there are any more points brought up - don&#39;t be hesitant to bring them here.

[monkeydust]

Originally posted by Vladimir I. [email protected] 23 2004, 04:31 AM
This is from another message board i post at, :rolleyes:




Why Communism Fails

1> They didn&#39;t take the time to slowly transition from one economy to the other, thus the rapid change overwhelmed the people and caused their economy to fail.

and

2> Humans are naturally greedy, thus, a system of economy that limits humans from getting what they want is bound to fail.

3> Communism will never work unless it is run by emotionless robots who have no desire for anything.

4> Communism has never existed to the full idealistic extent of which is was supposed to.

5> Something about touching yourself after nightfall


Can anyone argue against this indictment? <_<
1.What an odd argument, he sems to be explaining why the USSR failed rather than why communism fails here. You can&#39;t really describe an ideology as &#39;they&#39;. I can see where he&#39;s coming from but point out that communism, Marxism to the word deems slow transitions between the ruling groups as natural and necessary, that you need not artificially go straight from a fairly Feudal to a socialist state.


2.Classic textbook argument, if you like bad textbooks. It&#39;s a bit pretentious of this guy to state &#39;humans are naturally greedy&#39;. Poit out to him how there is still much good is this world how some cultures in particular are very generous. Most Chinese people I have met, for example are generous whereas us British tend to be cynical and individualistic. If peoples &#39;nature&#39; is different in this way, how can he claim that it is natural to be greedy. Explain how much greed is imbued within Western society.


3.Like no.1 this is a terrible arguemnt, in fact it&#39;s not an argument at all. He&#39;s not explaining why communism must fail, merely repeating the fact in more presumptual detail. He&#39;s saying "Communism won&#39;t work because communism will never work" what a pile of poo. Anyway, ask him "Why?"


4.I agree but how does this prove that communism can never work?


5. He&#39;s got a strong argument here, I think I need to rethink my ideology.

[mia wallace]

i also think that a part of people wouldn&#39;t work real hard for something that don&#39;t own as for something they own. and if you want people to be equal by what they have, it would be fair if they would work equally hard.
then, we could say all the people who live in a country which has a comunist gov should like comunism cause that is the only thing which should probobly keep them working as hard as they can and i find it quite imposible that all people like comunism...
it&#39;s all about team work.
and cause of those who don&#39;t work for the system it is mostly easier for people to fight for themselfs (induvidually) and capitalism makes it even more easier cause people are used to it and it is quite hard to give up some habits... :unsure:
anyway, it&#39;s a pity :(

[Faceless]

Whilst I would entirely argue that there is much good left even in the despairingly entrenched capitalist societies, the fact that Capitalism has existed for only a couple of centuries before which, even in feudal and slave societies, there have been some communal attributes shoots number (2) straight out the sky. I do hate it when people use that crappy reason but buh, it keeps on coming up. Isn&#39;t this OI anyway?

[bubbrubb]

face it there will never be true communism mostly because of point 2.its just always going to be like that unless point 3 is put into action and thatw on&#39;t ever happen. the leader/leaders will always have better lives <_<

[DEPAVER]

Humans are not "naturally greedy."

The human nature argument is often posited to allegedly demonstrate that
an equitable society is impossible, due to some perceived inherent human
nature that prevents cooperative behavior.

This is much the same as quoting scripture to buttress a pre-conceived
position. One can dredge up any particular human behavior, call it human
nature, and use it to support any position.

In fact, there is no all-encompassing human nature that is adhered to by
all humans, not even by all societies. Human behavior varies across a wide
spectrum through time and space. One of the first things taught in
introductory anthropology courses is cultural relativism, the fact that
human behavior cannot be judged using cultural criteria from outside the
culture.

The society we observe today exhibits human behavior resulting from the
characteristics of the society we observe today. Were we to observe a
different society, with different cultural characteristics, we would observe
different behaviors. There is no inherent "human nature" that causes
specific human behaviors.

Therefore, we cannot say that humans are "too greedy, selfish,
apathetic...<insert adjective here>" for anarchism/socialism/communism
to work. We cannot anticipate the behavior of individuals in a decentralized,
anti-authoritarian, cooperative society by observing human behavior in a
centralized, authoritarian, competitive society.

[Xvall]

The only one even worth considering to be viable to argue with is the first one. Me, as well as countless others on this board, have argued over the &#39;Human Nature&#39; aspect thing a million times.

[Hegemonicretribution]

The only debates I am not quite sure how to refute, partly because I see where they are coming from and I don&#39;t know the answer myself is the von Mises /Lange one. We are in a constantly changing world, whether it is for better or worse and I don&#39;t know how a command economy can as efficiently adapt to this.