Misconceptions About Communism

[The Intransigent Faction]

Okay, like anyone who's been growing up in Capitalistic Western society, I've come across many misconceptions about Communism. This is not surprising given the misinformation campaign. Still, sometimes I come across serious questions, some stuff that borders on nonsense, and some claims so deep into the realm of the absurd that they're hardly worth a response. This last one was so absurd that I just HAD to post it somewhere.
"You are so off base. China and N Korea ARE communist. Look at how jacked up their countries are.Look at the USA compared to any communist country out there. Every single one receives HUGE amounts of foreign aid from the US. They would amount to nothing without USA. Communism was created by the bourgeoisie to maintain power. If you live in the USA then GET THE FUCK OUT! Go to some communist country, then you might quit bleeting like a sheep. And open your eyes."
Anyone with more experience and knowledge than me at this point want to take a crack at this nut job, just follow the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30-2sPGNGEw

As someone who has often been caught by the lure of a troll, I must ask, what are some ways to determine when a discussion about Communism with a reactionary is productive and when it's time just to let it drop?
Anyone else here who has run into some crazy misconceptions about what Communism is, go ahead and post them and hopefully they'll all be cleared up.
This represents almost a textbook example of some reactionary nonsense and so I'd like to take the opportunity to go through it point-by-point.
1.) You are so off base. China and N Korea ARE communist.

-North Korea relies on a fascist state based on a personality cult of the dictator, Kim Jong Il. I couldn't give an exact figure on the spot but it's safe to say that Kim Jong Il controls far too ludicrous an amount of the nation's wealth to be considered a Communist by any stretch of the term. A bourgeois man leading a fascist state just screams everything contrary to the term "Communist". He sits around on his ass while the workers toil day in and day out to scrape by making a poor to mediocre living. That hardly signifies liberation of the proletariat. Wealth is ridiculously centralized in North Korea and in China, well..the business ties to Capitalist countries that the government uses to export the products of Chinese labour to Capitalist nations are just one major issue there.

2.) Every single one receives HUGE amounts of foreign aid from the US. They would amount to nothing without USA.

-Even the Libertarian Ron Paul has recognized that the United States has resorted to borrowing money from China to help pay for the imperialist war in Iraq. So even if one claims that China is Communist, that is just not true. Cuba is another example. I'm not aware of any foreign aid that's been handed over to the small island nation by the capitalist behemoth of America.

3.) If you live in the USA then GET THE FUCK OUT! Go to some communist country, then you might quit bleeting like a sheep. And open your eyes.

-First off, I don't live in the USA. For those of us here that do, why should a difference in political opinion be a reason to insist that someone leaves a "free country"? Happening to be born and raised in a Capitalist country--even choosing to stay when one could perhaps leave, is not equivalent to supporting the current political direction of that country.
If we're going to use analogies involving animals here, one might as well compare the Capitalist to a parrot echoing bourgeois propaganda lines about the Capitalist version of "freedom", that is to work in a factory for minimum wage or be fired..to be born into a rich family and live comfortably merely because of this..to be taught that we must compete as private individuals to survive rather than working to support the community. That parroting is the true danger here.
EDIT: I realize that it is not as simple as "work for minimum wage or be fired". It just takes less space than explaining how the bourgeoisie pay the minimum which they can get away with to sustain and satisfy the worker in order to keep them complicit.

4.) Communism was created by the bourgeoisie to maintain power.

-This, I just had to save for last. I've talked to neo-Nazis. I've talked to corporate fascists. I've even talked to die-hard Libertarians, and NEVER have I come across such a far-out claim about the nature of Communism.
Presumably that comment is referring to the "Communism" of the oppressive state. How could an ideology based on the concept of liberating the proletariat be created by the bourgeoisie to "maintain power"?

If anyone wants to add anything I'd appreciate whatever suggestion is made.

So:
Based on the above, would I simply be wasting my time arguing with this guy?
What is the most ludicrous of misconceptions which you've faced about Communism in general? Hopefully this will be good practice in refuting reactionary slander.

[gla22]

i always get

So communism is totalitarian.
You cant own anything in a communist society, you have to share your car.
There is no incentive for working.

[nvm]

would I simply be wasting my time arguing with this guy?
Yes. don't try to convince every retard you find about communism. It does not work that way. For people to stop thinking like retards there needs to e a workers movement that is going to sweep away all old thinking and people (even present-day reactionaries) will be swept in the workers wave. Of course not everyone is going to be swept in the movement but that is the job of the people's militia:D
My point is that you need to talk about socialism and communism with people already sympathetic to the left wing(social - democrats etc) or open-minded people. Those you need to convince. also workers and working class people that feel the effects of capitalism on their backs. That's what you re supposed to do. :D



What is the most ludicrous of misconceptions which you've faced about Communism in general?

That Russia is still communist , but only secretly :S
It doesn't make sense but whatever the person was a retard :lol:

[#FF0000]

That Russia is still communist , but only secretly :S
It doesn't make sense but whatever the person was a retard :lol:

Oh god. I've heard this same thing.

That means that there's more out there...:eek:

[nvm]

Oh god. I've heard this same thing.

That means that there's more out there...http://www.revleft.com/vb/../images/smilies/eek.gif
hahaahaha wow I thought only one retard like that existed in this world,unless it s the same peson:lol:

[AGITprop]

It's never a waste of time, trying to explain socialism to someone. (Though I wouldn't bother with capitalists)

If you are going to have a decent conversation go ahead. For those who are simply going to be unreasonable and spew non-sense from their mouths, you should care little about.

Trying to explain to your school-buddy what socialism is about is about a productive as squeezing water from a rock. Trust me, I've been there. As nvm said, approach those already sympathetic to the left.

The most important thing is that we as communists can relate to workers, but this cannot be accomplished by pouring propaganda down their throats. I comes with time by supporting their causes and trying to explain that economic problems actually deeply rooted in the flaws of capitalism.

A great book to read is the Transitional Program by Trotsky. If you have a chance look it up, its real short.

[#FF0000]

Oh, I never have a problem talking to kids at school about the Left. I've got a little book of Marx's collected works, and I break that out when I feel like starting a discussion.

Kids see you reading and ask "why are you reading?"
Kids see you reading Marx and ask "oh so you're moving to North Korea?"

From there, I go on and explain the basics. The kids at my school are generally pretty open-minded and actually get something out of the conversation. Just don't talk down to them if they ask or say something stupid, and don't use jargon. I've never had trouble talking about socialism with kids around here.

[AGITprop]

Oh, I never have a problem talking to kids at school about the Left. I've got a little book of Marx's collected works, and I break that out when I feel like starting a discussion.

Kids see you reading and ask "why are you reading?"
Kids see you reading Marx and ask "oh so you're moving to North Korea?"

From there, I go on and explain the basics. The kids at my school are generally pretty open-minded and actually get something out of the conversation. Just don't talk down to them if they ask or say something stupid, and don't use jargon. I've never had trouble talking about socialism with kids around here.

Your lucky, but I guess it depends on the society where you live. In my neighbourhood, kids were just idiots. Not that it was their faults, but they are socialized to be become propagators of decadence. Most of them were from petty-bourgeois families and didn't have much care about anything in the world.

[Post-Something]

That communism only works in theory.
It takes you twenty five years to earn anything under communism.
It will never happen.
No human rights, no freedom. Dictatorship.
Some Von Mises in there.
People wouldn't work.
You need a state.


Yeah, those are pretty much all the arguments I've been faced with. Pretty typical, eh?

[Holden Caulfield]

my favourite question to be asked by dumb cappies...

why should a bin man get the same as a doctor?

coz a bin man is a person too, coz bin men keep the place sanitary so you dont have to see a doctor with out bin men doctors would be swamped and pretty useless etc

too easy..

[Plagueround]

I talk to people all the time about communist theory. They generally agree and thing it's the greatest idea ever until they slowly realize you're talking about communism, then they take that knee jerk reactionary stance and start rattling off a good number of the generalizations listed above.

[Kami]

why should a bin man get the same as a doctor?

I get questions like this all the time; I find it best to answer with the following question;

Why should [poorly-payed job] be punished for performing an undesirable role necessary to society?

[The Intransigent Faction]

i always get

So communism is totalitarian.
You cant own anything in a communist society, you have to share your car.
There is no incentive for working.

My apologies for the delay. By the time I could get back online yesterday I was ready to fall asleep on the keyboard.
I did try to post a reply but I don't think it went through, so:
-Communism liberates the worker from wage slavery. If by "totalitarian" they mean that it takes away the "freedom" of the bourgeoisie to exploit the workers by paying them as little as they can get away with while keeping them complicit with their position, then yes. If they mean that it takes away the "freedom" of the bourgeoisie to hoard the means of production, then yes.
A controlled market allows more freedoms collectively than a "free" market ever would. This isn't as well articulated as what was originally meant to be posted but oh well.
In any case, the truly free society looks out for the rights of the people. I mean, a while back, Ron Paul supported an end to the federal ban on unpasteurized milk. What's more important, the right of the owner of the supermarket to have unpasteurized milk on its shelves, or the right of the people to have something more sanitary to drink? The argument would be that if most people want pasteurized milk, the market will supply it.
However, it certainly matters that their ultimate motive for doing so is profit. The labour theory of value is certainly more fair than allowing the bourgeoisie to buy cheap goods from manufacturers and sell them back to those workers at higher prices.
-Of course, private ownership is founded on greed. When someone poorer does the labour of actually building the parts for the car, why should only the rich be able to afford them. The argument is essentially that personal ownership of goods is earned on the basis of one performing enough labour to put into the market a labour of the same or greater value than what they took out. However, in a Capitalistic society this is hardly true. There are numerous cases where people strike it rich without actually performing serious labour. I also don't see how motivated the poorest of us would be when we are made to work in wage slavery.
-No incentive for working? Besides, say, collective survival? The less you labour, the less there is of the products of labour--and that means there's less for you, too. Critics might say that some of us will simply sit back and let others do the work, then collect enough from the collective pool to live in relatively the same level of comfort as everyone else. Again this rests on the argument that we are lazy by nature. I'm sure that many of the workers recently left unemployed by GM layoffs, for example, were not all simply "lazy". I sincerely believe that motivation for labour throughout society in general would increase when the means of production are owned by the workers. Without that collective ownership, a small percentage of the population sees a greatly disproportionate amount of the products of labour.

Some of that might be a bit sketchy the second time around and I'll look back over it later when I'm in a clearer state of mind, but the "High School Commie's Guide" thread on this site answers each of those concerns more than adequately.

[Dust Bunnies]

My dad thinks that Sweden, Norway, Canada is Socialist. Got any dictionary links or anything that proves my point of that income is equal in a Socialist society? When I say about Socalism and equal pay he calls it Communism. When I say Communism is a stateless society he says thats according to my radical ideas. *sigh* Well he's a Democrat, a supporter of the bourgeoisie who supports some kind works just to make themselves feel better.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I get questions like this all the time; I find it best to answer with the following question;

Why should [poorly-payed job] be punished for performing an undesirable role necessary to society?

I like how you responded to that..I'll have to keep that in mind.
Our Comrade "RedStar" also had a very thorough answer:


Do you think it's fair for a doctor to be paid the same as a janitor?

Why not? If there were no janitors, housekeepers, sanitation workers, what would happen? You'd either have to do all that clean-up yourself or things would get filthy, germs would breed, you'd get sick and die.

As a matter of fact, death rates started to decline in the second half of the 19th century...when medicine was still mostly quackery. Why? Because major European cities started building sewer systems and people stopped living in their own shit.

We see the unpleasant results of living without such labour in incidents like a strike in waste management or public transportation.

[gla22]

Brad, those ae good responses. One thing I find useful when "converting" people is to avoid words like "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" and the USSR.

[Dhul Fiqar]

My dad thinks that Sweden, Norway, Canada is Socialist. Got any dictionary links or anything that proves my point of that income is equal in a Socialist society? When I say about Socalism and equal pay he calls it Communism. When I say Communism is a stateless society he says thats according to my radical ideas. *sigh* Well he's a Democrat, a supporter of the bourgeoisie who supports some kind works just to make themselves feel better.

Those countries have a welfare system, thanks to socialism/communism. A lot of self-righteous right-wingers like to say that capitalism works just fine along with the welfare system but forget that it was people LIKE THEM who opposed the introduction of welfare and socially responsible legislation to begin with. They lost that battle, now they're all for it.

It was the same with slavery and segregation, the right was against it but they lost. Now, in retrospect, it's all good.

We need to keep winning these kinds of battles, but not only that, we need to start reminding people of WHO is winning these battles for them and who will continue to fight for them.

We have minimum wage, publicly funded healthcare, welfare for the disabled and countless other vital elements in modern democracies ONLY because of the contribution of socialism and the threat of revolutionary communism. The bourgeouis would never have given up anything if it wasn't for strikes, more strikes and the threat of revolution.

[erupt]

I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about how doctors get paid an unreasonable amount and the laborers who make the tools the doctors use get paid way too low. I explained how if there was no-one making surgery tools, tweezers, etc., then the doctor couldn't perform the duty to save another life. He agreed and said, "That reminds me of the socialism we were learning about in history a few months back." I replied by saying, "Yeah, I know, and I'm a socialist." Curious as to what he'd say next (since my and my friends usually don't speak about politics, economics, etc.) he said "I guess I am, too."

I was siked I converted somebody..

[The Intransigent Faction]

My dad thinks that Sweden, Norway, Canada is Socialist. Got any dictionary links or anything that proves my point of that income is equal in a Socialist society? When I say about Socialism and equal pay he calls it Communism. When I say Communism is a stateless society he says thats according to my radical ideas. *sigh* Well he's a Democrat, a supporter of the bourgeoisie who supports some kind works just to make themselves feel better.

Sounds stubborn..
As a Canadian I'm..skeptical to say the least.
Here are some reasons why:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Harper
Sure we have public health care and welfare..so do many other countries. That alone doesn't make any country Socialist.
Communism (in Marxist theory): the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.
"“To each according to his need” has been a frequent battle cry of socialists, but many of them would in fact settle for a society in which each would be paid in accordance with his contribution to the commonwealth, provided that society would first assure all citizens minimum levels of housing, clothing, and nourishment as well as free access to essential services such as education, health, transportation, and recreation."
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109587/socialism
Socialism, as far as I know, is really the transition stage. So it's not Communism in and of itself.
As for equal benefits, though, I would simply say "So what?". Kami had a great rebuttal/question in response to that.
I'm not sure..
He doesn't seem to have much of a rebuttal to your statement about the definition of Communism.
It's tough to talk to someone like him who has apparently never read any of Marx's works about the definition of Communism. To be honest, though, my sympathies lately haven't quite been anarcho-Communist. I've got to get in some more time to research this.
I have admired Noam Chomsky, though. I'm sure he has something to say about that.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about how doctors get paid an unreasonable amount and the laborers who make the tools the doctors use get paid way too low. I explained how if there was no-one making surgery tools, tweezers, etc., then the doctor couldn't perform the duty to save another life. He agreed and said, "That reminds me of the socialism we were learning about in history a few months back." I replied by saying, "Yeah, I know, and I'm a socialist." Curious as to what he'd say next (since my and my friends usually don't speak about politics, economics, etc.) he said "I guess I am, too."

I was siked I converted somebody..

Good work, Comrade.
Keep spreading the message! :D

[The Intransigent Faction]

Brad, those ae good responses. One thing I find useful when "converting" people is to avoid words like "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" and the USSR.

Thanks very much..and yes that's true. I've seen many a knee-jerk reactionary hit back hard when those terms were used. It pretty much triggers a mental defense mechanism.