Shaihulud said:
Communism in the 20th century was an armed revolution against the normal political structure, in fact most of the present communist government started off as ragtag revolutionaries. You can understand from there why existing government would dislike communist, and why well to do people would hate the idea of communism.
Everyone living in the first world is living off the sweat off their predecessors, don't even think that everything you have is through your own sweat. Most of the existing infrastructure, government system, science, technology were there before you, so its arrogance that makes us think that we are the product of our own hard work. A rich kid living off his parents wealth is entirely normal.
I would agree with u entirely if I didn't get SO PISSED OFF whenever I see Paris Hilton on TV...
Of course every person has a right to be as rich as he or she wants, but I suppose we couldn't continue as the 'human race' if we let everybody get money however they felt like earning it. Similarly, if we allowed people to keep spending all their money on destructive activities, we can't possibly turn a blind eye hoping the 'market' will deal with all of this. Equally, imagining living in a country without a government, police or the army is somewhat foolish and naive.
Taxation is a way obviously to keep the government and the country running. So if we agree that we need a government, and each of needs to contribute to keep the government running, we have to then decide who pays how much. All of us paying the same amount is not going to be fair since all of us do not earn the same amount, and will hurt those who have less more than it hurts those who have more. So we pay a % of income as tax, either a flat rate or an increasing rate, based on income.
Communist, and even some 'socialist' countries, often tax the very rich disproportionately high rates. E.g. India, at one stage, had a 95% tax on any income above Rs.200,000. Clearly, this destroyed all incentive to try and earn more than Rs.200,000 or even if u did, to tell the government that u did so. Since most of us are afraid of a jail term for not paying taxes, we choose option one, see no incentive in trying to increase our salary beyond a limit.
I have given only one real example of why communism actually faces a sort of stigma as it takes away an individual's initiative or directs it towards law-breaking. It also puts enormous control of an individual's life in a government, not of his or her choosing. It may be argued that this may be so only in 'Western societies' given the importance given to the individual in such societies, but real life has also shown that the 'Eastern values' which were supposedly anti-democratic is a myth and respect and deference should not be construed to mean total and abject surrender of self to another.
Ultimately, whatever country or region communism has been tried, it has suffered from these two inherent flaws due to which it carries that stigma whenever one invokes its name.
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