warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Much like there are no true Scotsmen alive anywhere in Scotland or elsewhere.
Why aren't you all Communists?
- Thread starter inthesomeday
- Start date
- Status
Much like there are no true Scotsmen alive anywhere in Scotland or elsewhere.
Um different, even opposite, behaviours can be instinctive. The instincts will be triggered by different environments. Fight or flight is instinctive. Eye contact and downcast eyes are instinctive.
And yes, people's instinct towards property has to be accommodated. Or else you're filling mass graves in order to 'abolish' the behaviour.
inthesomeday
Immortan
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2015
- Messages
- 2,798
So it seems to me like, even despite my original attempt to dissuade this, capitalists have once again returned to the claim that human beings are inherently selfish, or that property is instinctive, two claims that are way past absurd to me.
As they're offering no evidence I'll continue to do the same and say "Nuh uh."
@warpus
I won't argue that the Polish communist party had as much right to call their system communist as anybody else. I will argue, however, that One State Communism is just as toxic as fascism because totalitarianism is a natural development. However, I don't think that Marx or most Communist thinkers today would agree that One State Communism is desirable or sustainable by any means. Internationalism, however, and the abolition of class systems, or any system in which people are economically elevated above others, is the true ideological ideal of Communism.
Is anyone here willing to say that they think hierarchy and division is good for society? Because the insistence of Communism remains to be only that people should be equal, that resources should be collectivized, and that there should be no sociopolitical constructs like nations, race, or gender roles, all of which inherently divide people.
As they're offering no evidence I'll continue to do the same and say "Nuh uh."
@warpus
I won't argue that the Polish communist party had as much right to call their system communist as anybody else. I will argue, however, that One State Communism is just as toxic as fascism because totalitarianism is a natural development. However, I don't think that Marx or most Communist thinkers today would agree that One State Communism is desirable or sustainable by any means. Internationalism, however, and the abolition of class systems, or any system in which people are economically elevated above others, is the true ideological ideal of Communism.
Is anyone here willing to say that they think hierarchy and division is good for society? Because the insistence of Communism remains to be only that people should be equal, that resources should be collectivized, and that there should be no sociopolitical constructs like nations, race, or gender roles, all of which inherently divide people.
I don't label myself as communist because I'm more interested in what can be realistically done (even if it is ambitious) in the next 10-20 years than about what (vaguely described) society we should go towards in a 100 years. I also don't care if some people get rich over the work of others, as long as most people live comfortably and no one lives in misery.
There are some ideas with clear communist roots like worker owned companies that I like, and the fact that there have been more worker owned companies in France since the economic crisis is a good sign. Turning ourselves towards things that are good is more important than being rigid about exactly where we want to end up.
I say 100 years because we won't get to communism soon without some kind of civil war (+ maybe international war). And I think it is reckless to try to make plans for more than the next 15 years due to not knowing how technological advances will change our society.
There are some ideas with clear communist roots like worker owned companies that I like, and the fact that there have been more worker owned companies in France since the economic crisis is a good sign. Turning ourselves towards things that are good is more important than being rigid about exactly where we want to end up.
I say 100 years because we won't get to communism soon without some kind of civil war (+ maybe international war). And I think it is reckless to try to make plans for more than the next 15 years due to not knowing how technological advances will change our society.
Lexicus
Deity
"We have all sorts of propensities. In any real-life situation, we have propensities that drive us in several different contradictory directions simultaneously. No one is more real than any other. The real question is which we take as the foundation of our humanity, and therefore, make the basis of our civilization.”
-David Graeber
El_Machinae said:
An equally absurd response would be: People's instinct towards holding things in common has to be accommodated. Or else you're chopping people's arms off and slapping slave chains on them when they fail to fulfill your gold mining quotas.
It was a socialist country ruled by communist government.
As far as I know, neither Polish nor Soviet governments ever claimed Poland and USSR were communist countries nor that their citizens live under Communism. Building Communism was declared goal, not achieved state.
Lexicus
Deity
The funny thing is that Lenin initially claimed that the revolution in the USSR wasn't about socialism at all, because Russia wasn't the advanced capitalist country and thus wasn't in a position to build socialism...the Bolsheviks initially saw themselves as involved in a 'holding action' for the real socialist revolution which was to take place in Germany.
Since the Bolsheviks wasted no time in suppressing the independent organizations of the working class and removing any semblance of worker control over production, identifying the USSR and its satellite regimes as "socialist" much less "communist" is at best laughable.
Since the Bolsheviks wasted no time in suppressing the independent organizations of the working class and removing any semblance of worker control over production, identifying the USSR and its satellite regimes as "socialist" much less "communist" is at best laughable.
We try. This is why national borders can exist. This is why tax deductions are given for charitable donations. This is why taxation is performed at different stratas of society. There are certainly mechanisms by which we try to encourage pro-social communal behaviour. And there are other areas where we tried, but then actually ended up stymying being able to do so.
Is North Korea a democratic people's republic?
No?
Then maybe you should consider that the CCCP wasn't actually communist.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Everybody in Poland called and continues to call the system of government we were under as "communist".
Which if course is nothing definite, but the argument of "Oh it's not REAL communism, that was just fake communism, we haven't had real communism yet" pretty much means we'll never have "real" communism.
And to me that's bollocks. I lived in a communist system and if you disagree you can get in a time machine and check it out yourself. But until then..
It's like pointing to a bunch of bananas and saying: "Those aren't *real* bananas, they don't perfectly correspond to the idea in my head of what communism is, so there's no way those are bananas, they must be something else"
You lived in a self-proclaimed socialist country ruled by communist government and communist party. In this sense, saying "under communists" would be correct.
But you can't say you've experienced communism or lived in a communist state, because such things were never implemented.
Referring to Soviet block countries as communist is common in Western discourse, but incorrect.
Simply recalling what USSR acronym stands for would be helpful.
Right.
Except I think that I'm saying exact these words pointing to a bunch of oranges.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Dunning-Kruger makes vanguardism hard to measure without a market mechanism to show who wins when the dust settles.
What a coincidence the vanguard revolutionary was the vanguard general was the vanguard party leader was the vanguard director of the dictatorship was the vanguard industrial policy maker was the vanguard agriculture policy maker..... implausible.
What a coincidence the vanguard revolutionary was the vanguard general was the vanguard party leader was the vanguard director of the dictatorship was the vanguard industrial policy maker was the vanguard agriculture policy maker..... implausible.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Yes, technically Poland was a Unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party socialist state. However, like you say, it was ruled by a communist regime, and historians refer to 1945-1989 Poland as "Communist Poland". It is accepted as historical fact that Poland was a communist country during those years we were under Soviet domination.
By some of the arguments presented in this thread, no country has ever been communist, and no country will ever be communist. Which seems kind of useless as a debating tactic.
I mean, by the same argument Canada is not a democracy. But.. .. ..
Lexicus
Deity
Correct, the US isn't a democracy.
inthesomeday
Immortan
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2015
- Messages
- 2,798
The problem, warpus, is that no "country" could ever really be communist. Communism is something that destroys the nation state.
Ok, so the Soviet Block countries were labeled as communist countries in the West, but called themselves socialist.
It's indeed a purely terminological argument and useless for the purpose of this thread.
Author seemingly refers to Communism as something else rather than the system which existed in the country where you were born.
- Status
