Communism the Unworkable Idea

[Moskitto]

I got this email from someone trying to tell me how unworkable communism is.

------------

Dear Richard,

Hear are some arguments against communism that I and My Dad thought
up:-

1. It goes against man's natural instinct to look after himself and to
share
things.

2. People don't want to be the same as their neighbours and don't want
to
have rules put on them by the state.

3. You get enormous inefficiencies of state bureaucracies. Usually
involving
shortages of basic materials and queues to obtain basic food stuffs
which a
capitalist state would supply on demand e.g. Bread.

4. Despite the military power of the state Communism has been
overthrown by
the people in the majority of countries operating it. Only China and
Cuba
maintain a high degree of Communism and both these countries are
considered
economically backward compared with other countries in the world.

5. I understand that a short book by George Orwell called Animal Farm
is a
thought provoking book.

James

------------

Bear in mind that him and his dad are right-wing conservatives who fear communism in every way and won't awnser questions like "Do you think everyone should be equal?" incase they give the communist awnser.

[RedCeltic]

Hmmm this reminds me of something Napolian said... while it was refering to his right to rule as an emperor and not refering to capitalism... it's relevent... he said that if you took a group of people and put them on an island, left alone for a few years... when you came back you would find that there would be a ruling class with the majority of possesions, and ruled by one truly powerful individual. In this Napolian was trying to say that exploition, and monarchy (or dictatorship) is human nature... that some people are naturaly more powerful than others and will always rise and rule over the weaker people.

You know I don't belive in this rubbish, but some people do. But it's part of the ammunition used to say that Communism isn't natural, that people are ment to be unequal.

[Moskitto]

No i don't think that if a load of people were left on an island there would be a ruling class and one overall dictator.

When we did an english project on serviving on desert island (I don't know what it has to do with english) the only way you could servive was to co operate with the others eg. Communism

anyway I can think of more than 5 reasons why capitalism is bad.

[Chief Rebel Angel]

communism, i think, seems so unworkable because the ppl r so used to capitalism that the idea of cooperation sounds so hard to apply... i mean that if ppl were so used to communism instead, then the idea of capitalism would sound just as hard to apply... ppl do what they could to prevent change...

[drunktank]

You could answer him
that in Orthodox monasteries
there is perfect communism.

[Nickademus]

Quote: from Moskitto on 3:17 pm on Sep. 1, 2001
1. It goes against man's natural instinct to look after himself and to share things.

many people believe that man's natural instinct is not to look after him/herself. how many people have gone back into burning buildings (risking their own lives) to save others (not always relatives)? how many people dedicate their lives to human right causes, such as amnesty or the red cross (and i'm not referring only to those donate money).

2. People don't want to be the same as their neighbours and don't want to have rules put on them by the state.

people want to be the same as their neighbours. that's why capitalism is so effective. you see your neighbour has a dvd player and you only have a vhs, so you have to have a vhs too. and don't deny that most people are like that.
second of all, rules are already placed on people by the state. have these people not heard of the law?

3. You get enormous inefficiencies of state bureaucracies. Usually involving shortages of basic materials and queues to obtain basic food stuffs
which a capitalist state would supply on demand e.g. Bread.

okay so in capatilist society there isn't homelessness and people don't starve to death on a regular basis?

4. Despite the military power of the state Communism has been overthrown by the people in the majority of countries operating it. Only China and Cuba maintain a high degree of Communism and both these countries are considered economically backward compared with other countries in the world.

the only reasons china and cuba are considered economically backward is because they don't adhere to capitalism to the same extent as other countries. and they aren't overthrown by the majority of the country, the are overthrown by the few powerful.

5. I understand that a short book by George Orwell called Animal Farm is a thought provoking book.

this isn't an argument at all.

i hope this gives you some ways to counteract the arguments that these two obviously didn't think about a lot.

ciao

[RedCeltic]

I'm playing my hand at devil's advicate here a bit... just so you know... I had always thought that if a random group of people ended up in such a situation, that they would create a sort of communal society eventualy. Maybe the indocrination of capitalism may take some time to be unlearned... but i think eventualy they would revert to a primitive form of communism.

Or... do you think the movie.. "Lord of the Flies" was a better example of what would hapen? Many people I've talked to about this subject have used that as an example, saying that the movie proves that it's human nature to be either ruled or ruler... "Some people are natural leaders why others are simply ment to be ruled" is the common phrase used.

I think that it is all a responce to a lerned condition. If in a situation like this, institutionalized individuals (the institution being capitalism) would seek to create the system that they most know. However, if these individuals where to be raised in an envierment alianated from any kind of political system at all.. which system do you think they would most likely resemble if left to create one?

[pce]

i don't know about the movie, but i've read the book and i've unfortunately always agreed with it. this is one of the things that has always plagued my belief in communism.......i don't know

[DarkBrown]

In a perfect world there would not be a need for government, regardless of it being founded on communist or capitalistic ideals. However, people are naturally selfish and possesive. Hence the need for government to protect your rights against infringement, and vice versa. If a person values something, he or she is going to defend it. The only difference between a capital-type government citizen and one from a communist one is that in the capitalistic world, many people own resources over others. In a communistic one, its the same principle but with less people. People do not have more than others in communist countries because they simply cannot.

[Nickademus]

Quote: from DarkBrown on 11:52 am on Sep. 2, 2001
In a perfect world there would not be a need for government, regardless of it being founded on communist or capitalistic ideals. However, people are naturally selfish and possesive. Hence the need for government to protect your rights against infringement, and vice versa. If a person values something, he or she is going to defend it. The only difference between a capital-type government citizen and one from a communist one is that in the capitalistic world, many people own resources over others. In a communistic one, its the same principle but with less people. People do not have more than others in communist countries because they simply cannot.

but are people naturally selfish or have they been taught that? possessions have always been important to individuals because society has made it so. if we could erase thousands of years of history we may find that people aren't naturally selfish

[RedCeltic]

Yes Nickademus you see my point... I think being selfish is a learned response, I don't think people are born that way. In studying cultural anthropology I have learned that humans are born with only one instinct, and that is the ability to suck. (in the literal sence) that is how an baby can feed without first learning to feed. Therefore I disagree that some are born natural leaders, and that in any society an "elete" group would rise above the rest.

Many things are diffrent now since the early stages of man. In the era of the clovis hunters we saw small bands of humans who hunted for survival. There was no need for epheses on breeding, because the more people you had, the more you needed to feed. There was no place for a lesure class because everyone pulled their own weight. However there was also no need for those who where too old, or handicaped in some way and unable to contribulte.

With the introduction of agriculture society changed rapidly. Now there was a need for more people. There was more food available, and even more with more workers. With the creation of a surplus in resources there was also the creation of a lesure class. So the atitude of a need for a lesure class, or a ruling class, or rather a "capitalist" class stems not from society as a whole, nor instinct ingraned in the human dispsition, but in a learned responce to society that has been passed down from agricultural society.

Do I think we need to go backwards in time to acheive a foward movement of society? No this is simply an example to show that these atitudes are not part of the human disposition but part of the human experience.


(Edited by RedCeltic at 1:07 pm on Sep. 2, 2001)

[Nickademus]

you're right redcelt that's why i think the revolution starts as a revolution of the mind

[RedCeltic]

You know it. That's what I'm getting at.

[MattTheCat]

I noticed that the original post talking about the flaws of communism used the book Animal Farm as a point of argument. Ironically enough, George Orwell was a democratic socialist. His book Animal Farm was criticizing totalitarian governments as a whole and, more specifically, Soviet communism. I don't believe that communism is a plausible system as people recieve based on need. Socialism, however, could be plausible in that people still recieve income from deed. The UK seems to be doing alright in such a system (not to say that British socialism is the kind that I would envision, they have a monarchy after all). What I see as the inherent problem with the Cuban and Chinese governments is that they are not democratic. Despite what some might think I feel that communism/socialism cannot be put into proper practice under one all powerful individual(or several individuals). A final thing you might want to note is that Americans tend to be fond of pointing at that communism has failed in so many countries that have tried it. While I'm not so sure communism is the right system I'd say we definetly have not had a fair trial run. We have done everything we could to ensure communism's failure, not to mention that a country really true to the communist/socialist ideal hasn't really existed yet. Thats my two cents.

[RedCeltic]

He was a Socialist, and much of his work was bent on underlying socialist ideals, while preaching against toliterianism. 1984 was another of his major works in this theme. Big brother and the thought police who tried to control people's minds, and wipe out memory is also relevent.

I am a socialist, and also am not convinced that communism is the right system to go with. However, I can't judge it by any atempts to implement it, because they have all been falable, and it has not been given the proper time and resources to test the theory. I have said before, I think communism in theory is an evelutionary step up from capitalism. Testing it in Russia that had just recently come out of the fudal age and into the industrial age was an atempt to fastfoward to a better system. I think the system was ment to be tested on a fully industrialized nation with plenty of resources... Marx being German in origin, and living in England, I think he would have envisioned Germany to be the first to have it tested on. And yes... there is no supprise communism failed when the west did everything in it's power to ensure it did.