Why is it considered "moral" to be communist?

[Jack V Savage]

One thing that always fucks up these discussions is that we use the same term to refer to anarchists that we use to refer to people who favor a monstrous increase in state power. Whatever your thoughts on either group, it's clearly a mistake to group them together. And to make matters worse, "anarchist" and "libertarian" also now often refer to what FDR called economic royalism, which is also as far from actual anarchism and libertarianism (which necessarily is communistic) as Communism is.

 

[ultramanhyata]

That's some chutzpah for you to accuse someone else of the No True Scotsman fallacy. Why isn't Bakunin counted as a communist by you despite the fact that he clearly was (and an early and politically active and influential one)? No reason other than that it doesn't fit with your dishonest approach here, no? And the first person to call himself a communist is generally considered to be Victor d'Hupay. Didn't build any state of any kind. Neither did Marx, BTW. And I already mentioned Bakunin. And there's Joseph Déjacque. You're speaking as if you know the subject, but you're either very unfamiliar or you're lying again.

I remember being a kid, learning about the Soviet Union, seeing people living under a brutally repressive and autocratic regime, and wondering what kind of psycho would ever want to be a communist.

I was taken to church most Sundays as a kid and had to sit through what I considered a painfully boring one plus hour service.

But no one ever told me to believe that that was what heaven was going to be like.

But that's sort of what Western Cold War propaganda did with communism. And it was very, very effective. As a thread like this demonstrates.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

The predictable attempt to redefine the communist society.

I'm not redefining communist society. I'm defining it the way the communists defined it. They talked incessantly about centralizing power in the vanguard of the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They talked incessantly with disposing of notions like justice and individuality and rights.

In previous generations there were plenty of liberals like Truman and JFK and Orwell who recognized the intrinsic tyranny of the communist model. Today leftists refuse to judge communism by the actual rel world models and instead want to treat it as a rarefied theoretical construct. But even if it is such a perfect construct, the inability of regime after regime to realize it and instead plunging into economic chaos and democide shows that the theory itself is flawed and too dangerous to attempt to put into practice.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Perhaps a flip side would be agricultural societies had to quickly industrialize to prevent themselves from succumbing to conquering forces at the time, like Japan who was trying to expand, and European powers already with a history of carving up under-developed nations, at times with genocidal impacts.

The great nations that had a huge technology edge as a result of the industrial revolution largely violently invaded other nations since they had the power to do so, and were competing with other nations. I believe Lenin's work hinted at something about imperialism being the highest form of capitalism. If you think about what things were like at the time (and at the time is an important point), militarily taking over other countries, subject people to slave labor, and returning the spoils to royalty or elites across the world, it's a tough argument to call that a humane system.

Anyhow, China and Russia had to industrialize in a crazy short period of time to ensure their survival from foreign invaders. That was impossible to do without domestic fallout and atrocities and famines undoubtedly took place, but the broader context is minimized given we traditionally compete against Russia and China since WW2, of course our genocide of native people of north america isn't deemed a failure or result of brutality of capitalism. Much like Haiti''s economic failures aren't blamed on capitalism, but Cuba's economic failures are. So, despite the tragedies under Mao and Stalin, there is another side of the story that isn't very popular to bring up in pop culture.

You are no doubt correct that breakneck industrialization was a big part of the carnage of various communist regimes. And yet in the western world we decry the far lesser costs of industrialization under capitalist systems far less, even though that system performed far more admirably in a similar context, whie refusing to criticize the awful failures of the USSR et al.

For all the communism rhetoric about workers, workers were treated as far more expendable under communist regimes. The death count shows it.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

You are no doubt correct that breakneck industrialization was a big part of the carnage of various communist regimes. And yet in the western world we decry the far lesser costs of industrialization under capitalist systems far less, even though that system performed far more admirably in a similar context, whie refusing to criticize the awful failures of the USSR et al.

For all the communism rhetoric about workers, workers were treated as far more expendable under communist regimes. The death count shows it.

Perhaps.
But correlation does not necessarily mean = causality. Lot of different variables going on.

 

[JonnyRingo84]

Communists, Antifa rallies, Bernie supporters and pro socialists love to claim that they are "morally" superior to others. As if owning private property is somehow "evil".

Philosophically, true communism means that you don't even own your own hands or body. Everything is property of the state.

In our society, your own body is your personal "means of production". If you were born with a good body, and train and put the work in to become a good basketball player, then surely you deserve to make as much money as you can. Similarly, if you are born with a good brain, surely you have the right to use that brain to better yourself?

It's crazy that you can have a communist flag, show pictures and placards of Stalin, Mao and Marx proudly and not get called up on shit. These people killed way more people than Hitler ever did.

If you March down the streets with Hitler placards and swaztikas, you would be arrested and deemed immoral and evil by everyone. Yet, antifa march with hammer and sickle and Stalin posters and claim to be more "moral" than everyone. No-one ever calls them up on it. It's bullshit.


This is London, 1st of May, 2017

How is this cool?? How is this even possible??

Imagine people doing the same with Hitler?? The media would brandish them immoral and evil, yet the same media are cool with Stalin ... Why??

doesnt every fringe political group attempt to claim morality over their opposition?

communists and the like feel as though theyre being moral because of their goals. their goals may end in disaster, but most would claim theyre attempting to do a good thing. make sure no one has way more than they need, and others arent starving on the street. so from their point of view, how is it moral to let one person own 6 houses, while there are little kids living in garbage dumps?

 

[HunterSdVa29]

communism if it was ideal i.e. the way Marx described it in his Manifesto is nowhere near as corrupt, and just generally ate up as the systems in the real world have shown, so i somewhat understand where people can still make claims to it being beneficial, especially to the lower classes of society.

That's just not reality, ever. The intelligentsia and the people that actually have wealth are never going to voluntarily give that up, and it's from those classes the people generally come from to run the communist system. Then resources are not truly being split properly, certain people still have private possessions, infrastructure and medicine and education tend to be messed up as there's no profit incentive I.E. the people it's actually designed to help it never really does.

had society never been capitalist in nature it would be different, but that's not the case. Which is why the nordic socialist model seems to be the more optimum real world solution that tries to accomplish many of the same things.

 

[brothir]

Social democracy was conceived, in part, to provide an alternate way into a communist society compared to, say, the Stalin method. Then wealth grew greatly from capitalism, and was distributed heavily, and the idea of communism was largely abandoned.

Hence why, even in one of the most socialist countries on the planet, communism is not widely considered a relevant political ideology.

 

[Greoric]

Perhaps.
But correlation does not necessarily mean = causality. Lot of different variables going on.

The causal link isn't immediately obvious to you that the more power people gain the more likely they'll abuse it?

 

[Greoric]

Social democracy was conceived, in part, to provide an alternate way into a communist society compared to, say, the Stalin method. Then wealth grew greatly from capitalism, and was distributed heavily, and the idea of communism was largely abandoned.

Hence why, even in one of the most socialist countries on the planet, communism is not widely considered a relevant political ideology.

So instead of an oligarchy making blind decisions about the means of production for all of society's goods and resources, it should be the vote of a fleeting majority... excellent idea.

 

[ReAnimator Reagan]

doesnt every fringe political group attempt to claim morality over their opposition?

Why don't you answer it yourself?

See the thing with Marxism that it was made by one man (well 2 if you include engels) and he claimed moral superiority.

communism if it was ideal i.e. the way Marx described it in his Manifesto is nowhere near as corrupt

Bullshit. Marxism called for the genocide of the bourgeois. And that is what happened as a MATTER OF FACT.

From the ASSHOLE'S mouth directly:
Marx states in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. (Published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973 edition, page 66)

I will post further about how fucking ridiculous Marxism is---the greatest fairy tale ever told.

I remember being a kid, learning about the Soviet Union, seeing people living under a brutally repressive and autocratic regime, and wondering what kind of psycho would ever want to be a communist.

I was taken to church most Sundays as a kid and had to sit through what I considered a painfully boring one plus hour service.

But no one ever told me to believe that that was what heaven was going to be like.

But that's sort of what Western Cold War propaganda did with communism. And it was very, very effective. As a thread like this demonstrates.

I remember Stalin murdering 20 million. I don't remember anyone getting murdered in church on a Sunday. (well maybe by some Muslims)

One thing that always fucks up these discussions is that we use the same term to refer to anarchists that we use to refer to people who favor a monstrous increase in state power. Whatever your thoughts on either group, it's clearly a mistake to group them together. And to make matters worse, "anarchist" and "libertarian" also now often refer to what FDR called economic royalism, which is also as far from actual anarchism and libertarianism (which necessarily is communistic) as Communism is.

What else messes these conversations up for Marxists is that their religion has led to tens of millions of more murders than EVERY other religion combined.

 

[RubberGuard5]

Communism will never work because one of its fundamental assumptions is empirically shown false, that being the malleability of human nature.

People are motivated by self interest. Nothing will change that. Best we can do is create society where it will be in our self interest to provide the best goods and services possible. Adam Smith was a genius for understanding this. That's why capitalism won.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

Why don't you answer it yourself?

See the thing with Marxism that it was made by one man (well 2 if you include engels) and he claimed moral superiority.




Bullshit. Marxism called for the genocide of the bourgeois. And that is what happened as a MATTER OF FACT.

From the ASSHOLE'S mouth directly:
Marx states in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:

You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. (Published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973 edition, page 66)

I will post further about how fucking ridiculous Marxism is---the greatest fairy tale ever told.




I remember Stalin murdering 20 million. I don't remember anyone getting murdered in church on a Sunday. (well maybe by some Muslims)

that has to be taken in the context of the times, in which aristocracy's or flat out monarchies ruled the vast majority of the world, directly or through Imperialism. not like you could vote in policies to help workers....

 

[EmpireShallFall]

Bullshit. Marxism called for the genocide of the bourgeois. And that is what happened as a MATTER OF FACT.

Good.

 

[brothir]

So instead of an oligarchy making blind decisions about the means of production for all of society's goods and resources, it should be the vote of a fleeting majority... excellent idea.

Not really sure what you're referring to here. Social democracy generally contains representative democracy, so it's not the voters making the decisions, it's the elected parliament/government.

 

[Greoric]

Not really sure what you're referring to here. Social democracy generally contains representative democracy, so it's not the voters making the decisions, it's the elected parliament/government.

That's exactly why its a horrible idea. A majority wouldn't know how to distribute and coordinate the means of production anymore than it could tell you which way a fart blew.

You basically want the lowest common denominator to make decisions for where resources should go, how they should be made, and whom should get them....

 

[Liquid Smoke]

It's easy to be moral with other people's money.

 

[brothir]

That's exactly why its a horrible idea. A majority wouldn't know how to distribute and coordinate the means of production anymore than it could tell you which way a fart blew.

Insert famous Churchill quote.

 

[Greoric]

Insert famous Churchill quote.

He wasn't talking about having them decide on the means of production. That's an absurdly stupid arrangement.

 

[Greoric]

It's easy to be moral with other people's money.

And apparently people love to call themselves moral for doing it.