I realize that communists don't like the fact that Cuba ain't exactly a place where freedom rules king, the fact that North Korea is an utter failure, the fact that the soviet did sent opponents to communism die in Siberia (when it wasn't downright murdering) and the fact that Che Guevara was an homophobic and racist schizophrenic slaughterer...
Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.
And it's only since we can write that China is "communist" between quotes that they're starting to escape poverty. And people in small villages in China are still not exactly living on very high standards so...
| the fact that Che Guevara was an homophobic and racist
| schizophrenic slaughterer...
You're making an assumption that: 1) I am a supporter of Communism and 2) I'm a supporter of Che Guevara. I'm not really seeing where you're getting this idea from.
You're also seemingly making an argument that communism is bad because Che Guevara is bad.
| Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery
| and poverty.
Care to expand on this for us with some analysis? References to articles / papers by others would be acceptable too.
| And people in small villages in China are still not
| exactly living on very high standards so
- Did these villages have a high standard of living prior to Mao's revolution? If not, do you view the failure of communism as a failure to raise their standards above the previously low levels? If so, then what do you feel are the causes (related to communism) for their drop in standards?
- India is full of examples of abject poverty. Do you view India as a failure too?
I hear this all the time, but in virtually all situations its irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Historically, communist countries have had terrible standards of living; this is extremely well documented; some (actually, just china as far as I know) have stepped away from an entirely government controlled economy to a government directed economy, and that seems to be working out for them pretty well.
Being a democracy doesn't mean you'll have a great economy and a high standard of living. There are plenty of examples of that not working as well.
...but we've got a few more examples of that working out, than we do of communist regimes working out, historically. You think perhaps there might be a bit of causation there?
Certainly, and importantly, this is totally irrelevant to India.
never existed. The USSR, China, Cuba, North-Korea: none of those countries is, or has ever been, communist. If they called themselves communist, it was to legitimize themselves.
> Certainly, and importantly, this is totally irrelevant to India.
India is a huge (by population) with a similar start point to china also a huge (by population) country, they have some similarities in their culture, but a large defining difference is their way of government, and there reactions to "The West". It isn't totally irrelevant, and meaningful comparisons can be made, but they must be considered.
> Historically, communist countries have had terrible standards of living; this is extremely well documented
You mean "Historically (Except China)"... That's like excluding the US when talking about Democracy.
> ...but we've got a few more examples of that working out, than we do of communist regimes working out
Actually I think you'll find the poorest nations are mostly democratic (of some form). [1]
> That's like excluding the US when talking about Democracy.
Speaking of which, western countries, with very few exceptions, aren't democracies. They are representative governments. Well, that's if what I call "democracy" is what the Athenians had in mind a few millennia back. Remember, the custom there was for citizens to vote for their rules, not their rulers. Some people did take charge sometimes, but they had to be picked by random trial, not elections.
Come to think of it, Alan Kay did not have Java in mind when he coined the term "OO". And Karl Marx certainly did not have USSR nor North Korea in mind. And so on.
You're all agreeing on the facts here, which are: every government that have thus far claimed to be "communist" where mostly dictatorships where only the establishment had any wealth to speak of. And this outcome is undoubtedly very different from the ideals of those who used the term before that.
The only contentious point here is the definition of the word "communism". Does it apply to the ideal, or to the outcome? Well, who cares?
Unless…
…someone is trying to push arguments behind our back by using a definition over the other. The actually important question is not a matter of definition, but a matter of prediction: what chance do we have to properly implement communism-the-ideal, while avoiding communism-the-outcome?
Choosing a definition for "communism" does not help us on this one. It only shows our respective opinions.
> India is full of examples of abject poverty. Do you view India as a failure too?
India's poverty exists because of the massive corruption & inefficiency in various levels of the government. For eg: Tons of grains rot in government storages. Not many in the public service are held accountable.
The Government theoretically allots for those below the Poverty line, but they never get the aid they're supposed to get.
India is far from a failure. Because Information/Education is not limited nor restricted.
restricted or not, as long as there are still 1.5 million kids < 5 years of age dying every year, its still a failure[0]. Sure, things may be getting better, but you have to acknowledge the present for what it is.
> Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.
Capitalism has created dangerous situations for workers worse then slavery! Countless people (including children) have died of work related injuries in capitalist societies throughout history.
When a slave dies well working, the master is disappointed that he just lost a valuable piece of property. On the other hand, a capitalist boss doesn't give a fuck if one of his workers dies, he can just pay someone else to do the job for the same price.
In 1833, the city of Lancashire reported deaths of a total of 401 workers under the age of 11 and 2,292 child laborer’s between the ages of 11 and 16. Factories were hot, crowded, and distracting with no safety regulations or protective equipment and child workers would frequently get caught and die in machines. The capitalist bosses didn't give a fuck that children were dying in their machines, children are replaceable.
This was the reality in the 19th century, before there were any safety laws whatsoever, and when Marx was analyzing these things. There wasn't any sort of socialism in North Korea, Cuba, or China when Marx was alive so they cannot be used to criticize his original ideas.
Yes, I do. Should we start with the first revolutionary socialist, Babeuf, who was executed by the guillotine or should we go all the way back to the primitive communist tribes that existed before states and classes that were massacred and enslaved by invading armies?
From what you say, you obviously have no idea what communism is. Not USSR, nor Northern Korea, nor China, etc.. they were never communist countries, not even a "form" of communism. Communism, in its origin form, means no government, gift-economy, direct democracy(as opposed to representative) and workers controlling the means of production.
"A communist society would have no governments, countries, or class divisions." [1]
> Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.
i don't think you can blame the problems faced by those countries to communism. The idea of communism is a good one, but the execution is always poor - reason being that at some point, someone is going to be able to grab power, and the whole system filled with corruption and/or systemic mismanagement (again, due to some form of corruption). Plus, communism sounds like a better name than tyranny, and so the tyrants call themselves communists.
"real" communism, one which is say, managed my an AI, with no one small group of humans in power, is probably going to be fair and equal. I'd like to see if that could work.
> "real" communism, one which is say, managed my an AI, with no one small group of humans in power, is probably going to be fair and equal.
Any rational agent, whether biological or artificial, A) possesses a set of preferences, and B) seeks to maximize its preferences. If an AI obtains its set of preferences for maximization from a group of privileged programmers or creators, then a small group of humans is still in power in your scenario. If the AI is responsible for deriving its own set of random preferences, then it is effectively operating as another individual in society with no deterministic guarantees on behavior, and to grant it governing authority is equivalent to unchecked dictatorship.
Our AI programs don't need to have their own preferences. Each rational agent can be assigned an assistant AI which will derive its preferences from the agent's already existent preferences.
> "real" communism, one which is say, managed my an AI, with
> no one small group of humans in power, is probably going to
> be fair and equal. I'd like to see if that could work.
The problem with communism is the idea that there is a set of objectively ideal decisions that can be made to the greater good of everyone, be it by some AI or a committee.
It's not only impossible to find these ideal policies, they don't exist. Policy is always a compromise between different competing goals, progress is made in small steps and adjustments.
There is no great ideology from which perfect decisions can be deducted, there is no perfect system. The assumption of a perfect system leads to the idea of sacrifices on the way to it, which leads to a lot of suffering.
The ability to incorporate different preferences and different means of achieving them is the major advantage of open societies.
>Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.
This statement is at best unprovable and at worst meaningless. Communism is a theoretical form of economic/social organization (like capitalism) and has never been purely implemented (like capitalism). The aim of communism is to create a completely classless society in which private ownership is not a thing, i.e. the concept of slavery wouldn't make sense, impossible by definition. Unless you have a society without stratification, you do not have a communist society.
You should revise your statement to something like "some societies partially implemented elements of a communist philosophy and ended up impoverished, with some members of said society ending up enslaved".
> Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.
I think you are confusing communism with capitalism... The nations that at any point had slavery, were capitalist. Capitalism itself can only exist in "surplus value" scenario, meaning someone/thing is being exploited.
abject poverty, only exists because abject wealth exists. Abject wealth is a result of capitalism.
Well, they certainly weren't communist, in any case. By definition slavery cannot exist in an actual communist society, since such societies are completely classless and the only form of ownership is common.
Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.
And it's only since we can write that China is "communist" between quotes that they're starting to escape poverty. And people in small villages in China are still not exactly living on very high standards so...