Confusion About Communism (separation, employees, conservatives, economics)
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Part of the confusion about Communism is the left wing in this country feels that they do not know if it doesn't work because we haven't tried it here in America. We do not need to try it here because there are plenty of examples around the world showing that its a miserable failure.
No. Everyone knows that communism doesn't work. As you say, we have many examples: the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea. The left wing in America knows this, and are not advocating communism.
But everyone also knows that social democracy works well. We have examples: Canada, Norway, Germany, Japan. The left would like us to emulate those countries by adopting universal healthcare, free tuition, etc.
We already have that here. And that is part of the problem because the radical left wing in Congress wants to keep creating and spending on big government programs that do nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo58
No. Everyone knows that communism doesn't work. As you say, we have many examples: the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea. The left wing in America knows this, and are not advocating communism.
But everyone also knows that social democracy works well. We have examples: Canada, Norway, Germany, Japan. The left would like us to emulate those countries by adopting universal healthcare, free tuition, etc.
I really think that many young Americans look at "socialism" as a continuation of the idyll of their even younger days, when they didn't have to support themselves, and almost anything they did or said that wasn't gross or rude was superficially admired by adults.
It remains to be seen how the up & coming generations will feel about revolutionary socialism (hopefully non-dictatorial & democratic).
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The June poll updated results from their 2019 poll, and it built on questions asked by other pollsters such as Gallup, Fox, and YouGov. Results from all polls point in the same general direction: Americans view capitalism more favorably than socialism, but young people are more ambivalent.
All recent polls we’ve seen show younger Americans are more likely than older ones to warm to the idea of socialism.
Part of the confusion about Communism is the left wing in this country feels that they do not know if it doesn't work because we haven't tried it here in America. We do not need to try it here because there are plenty of examples around the world showing that its a miserable failure.
Every time I encountered that argument (highlighted) I responded that there is one successful Marxist society in the world, not just in America, and that is monastery which includes the nunnery. And it is not facetious.
Marx said: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
Remove Marx from the statement for a moment and insert religious figures like the Buddha or Jesus and the statement would be called 'noble' or 'worthy' of living. In the monastery, everyone is equal in the eyes of God. Everyone contributes his/her maximum but takes only the minimum to live. But the problem with the monastery is that everyone is a volunteer and this is where Leftists have a hard time dealing with. To volunteer mean there are choices and as long as choices exists, there will be many who will chose what Leftists do not approve.
So the problem is HOW to get from A to C, where:
A. From each according to his ability
B. How? Communism is the application of Marxism. Abolish property rights, for one example. Set price controls, another example. Collective farming, another example. And so on and on.
C. to each according to his needs
If you cannot change the people's minds to believe in 'C' via altruism like how monks and nuns chose to serve God, then affect the people's bodies or force 'C' upon them. All communist countries have their own variations of B.
From the scientific perspective, if you have 100 yrs of experimentation and each of them have varying degrees of failure modes until global collapse, and the word 'global' does not mean the world but only the experiment body itself, then it is wise to acknowledge that the idea itself is non-workable and stop further experimentation. The largest experiment to have its global collapse and breakup is the Soviet Union. China smartly avoided their own global collapse by allowing the Chinese people large measures of choices via capitalism and they did just in time. One can even say barely in time for China.
In the US, we have the Intellectual Left, the Political Left, and the Activist Left. What Marx said is religion for the Intellectual Left. Failures in Marxist experimentation do not deter the Intellectual Left. Never have and never will.
Down one level is the Political Left who uses Marxism to satisfy their needs for control. It is never about Marxism but about control. They live in governmental institutions, media, and academia.
Street level is where lies the Activist Left. ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, and Code Pink are some examples. Their goal is to disrupt the norms that governs daily lives. Make your bodies uncomfortable so that you will look one level up for guidance.
As a refugee from communism, I noticed there is one thing that made the US resistant to successful Marxist experimentation: the US Constitution. Am not saying that from a 'Right' perspective but from an engineer's perspective. There are mechanisms inside the US Constitution that make it difficult to implement communist, not Marxist, ideas on the global scale. That is like designing an experiment that excludes certain variables and/or factors. That certain rights came from God, whether one believes in God or not is not the point, and not from the State, is one such exclusion, so it became up to the Political Left to fiddle with the meanings of words and phrases to control those certain rights. Another mechanism is the separation of powers, so again, it rests on the Political Left to try to blur the lines between the branches of government.
Am not saying that having a constitution is the antibody for Marxism and communism. Many countries have constitutions but many of them failed in spite of having constitutions. The issue for the US is the US Constitution, nothing else should matter.
The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Communists were often referred to as “Reds” for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag.)
The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society.
Federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, investigated allegations of subversive elements in the government and the Hollywood film industry.
More on a little known topic that has had big implications.
Quote:
America's first Red Scare, an era of hostility toward perceived "disloyalty" — and relentless government repression of radicals and others — began in April 1919.
But the Red Scare's roots extended deep into the preceding years, almost to the day America entered World War I.
It remains to be seen how the up & coming generations will feel about revolutionary socialism (hopefully non-dictatorial & democratic).
They'll feel about it the same way all young idiots infatuated with socialism have for the last 100 yrs. It's the same dismal cycle. Idealism plus compassion plus lack of worldly wisdom plus lack of success makes them ripe for the picking by malicious Marxists embedded within academia. Strong independent critical thinkers didn't join Jim Jones' Peoples Temple Cult. Socialism/cult ... same things. A desire to be accepted and to belong coupled with a collectivist bent tells them safety lies only in mass mutual dependency and not in individual strength. I've given this subject more mental air-play than it deserves and I'm tired of putting a fine point on this pathetic trend in the young. F-ing losers at life with malleable young minds and a misplaced value for compassion and collectivism over achievement and personal freedom. We keep getting these every-other generational wave cycles of this garbage over and over. They never learn until they fail. They're making us fail now. Every single thing they stand for and voted for has failed. In the past they've eventually learned from their failures. They hit themselves in the forehead with the hammer enough times that the message of DON'T DO THAT finally got through. That and some wisdom of growing up sank into enough of them such that the hysterical fad of being a brave young socialist transforming the world died out in the youth culture of the generation.
Every time I encountered that argument (highlighted) I responded that there is one successful Marxist society in the world, not just in America, and that is monastery which includes the nunnery. And it is not facetious.
Marx said: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
Remove Marx from the statement for a moment and insert religious figures like the Buddha or Jesus and the statement would be called 'noble' or 'worthy' of living. In the monastery, everyone is equal in the eyes of God. Everyone contributes his/her maximum but takes only the minimum to live. But the problem with the monastery is that everyone is a volunteer and this is where Leftists have a hard time dealing with. To volunteer mean there are choices and as long as choices exists, there will be many who will chose what Leftists do not approve.
So the problem is HOW to get from A to C, where:
A. From each according to his ability
B. How? Communism is the application of Marxism. Abolish property rights, for one example. Set price controls, another example. Collective farming, another example. And so on and on.
C. to each according to his needs
If you cannot change the people's minds to believe in 'C' via altruism like how monks and nuns chose to serve God, then affect the people's bodies or force 'C' upon them. All communist countries have their own variations of B.
From the scientific perspective, if you have 100 yrs of experimentation and each of them have varying degrees of failure modes until global collapse, and the word 'global' does not mean the world but only the experiment body itself, then it is wise to acknowledge that the idea itself is non-workable and stop further experimentation. The largest experiment to have its global collapse and breakup is the Soviet Union. China smartly avoided their own global collapse by allowing the Chinese people large measures of choices via capitalism and they did just in time. One can even say barely in time for China.
In the US, we have the Intellectual Left, the Political Left, and the Activist Left. What Marx said is religion for the Intellectual Left. Failures in Marxist experimentation do not deter the Intellectual Left. Never have and never will.
Down one level is the Political Left who uses Marxism to satisfy their needs for control. It is never about Marxism but about control. They live in governmental institutions, media, and academia.
Street level is where lies the Activist Left. ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter, and Code Pink are some examples. Their goal is to disrupt the norms that governs daily lives. Make your bodies uncomfortable so that you will look one level up for guidance.
As a refugee from communism, I noticed there is one thing that made the US resistant to successful Marxist experimentation: the US Constitution. Am not saying that from a 'Right' perspective but from an engineer's perspective. There are mechanisms inside the US Constitution that make it difficult to implement communist, not Marxist, ideas on the global scale. That is like designing an experiment that excludes certain variables and/or factors. That certain rights came from God, whether one believes in God or not is not the point, and not from the State, is one such exclusion, so it became up to the Political Left to fiddle with the meanings of words and phrases to control those certain rights. Another mechanism is the separation of powers, so again, it rests on the Political Left to try to blur the lines between the branches of government.
Am not saying that having a constitution is the antibody for Marxism and communism. Many countries have constitutions but many of them failed in spite of having constitutions. The issue for the US is the US Constitution, nothing else should matter.
Very well said.
The entire premise of the OP is dead on arrival, as one can no more separate the financial from the political than you can separate a horse from hay.
It reminds me of the many people who consider themselves fiscally conservative while socially liberal. The two are totally incompatible and directly in opposition. Consequently, those making such declarations are confessing their own ignorance to what those two positions represent.
Communism has always sought to infiltrate by endearing itself to the worker class, promising to free them from the exploitation of the capitalist bourgeoisie. By doing so, it enlists them in participating in the systematic confiscation of wealth and property of their fellow citizens, who they have now been convinced are their true enemy. Once total authoritarian control has been established by the communist hierarchy, the desire to redistribute that confiscated wealth seems to disappear, and those who might then object to the bait and switch, are simply labeled enemies of the state, and dealt with accordingly.
This is as predictable as the sunrise, because it has been the same basic scenario for every society that have fallen for the scheme, without exception.
Those who control the narrative always write the history to their advantage.
The truth is, we have an abundance of historical documents and evidence showing that the “red scare” was absolutely well founded, yet McCarthyism was ultimately dismissed as paranoid conspiracy theory.
Nevertheless, what most will never even hear about, let alone taught in the leftist dominated education system is known as “The Reece Committee”, circa 1950’s which was a congressional investigation, led by lead investigator, Norman Dodd. The investigation centered on determining whether or not tax exempt foundations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, and the Carnegie Endowment were actively engaged in Anti-American activities. Upon completion of his investigations, the “Reece Committee Hearings” were held, but the plug was pulled, and the entire matter was tossed into the black hole of undesired history.
Here is a first hand interview of Norman Dodd, just before his passing. A most startling account of history that very few know about, and much effort expended to ensure this remains relatively secret.
This account by Mr. Dodd is first hand, as the lead investigator, and the information he reveals is earth shattering. It’s the missing part of history explaining why we are where we are today.
This interview starts out rather slow for the first 10 minutes going over Mr. Dodd’s early life in the banking system and Wall Street. But around the 19 minute mark really starts getting into the real substance. One of the most eye popping pieces of information came during a meeting between Mr. Dodd and Horace Rowan Gaither Jr., director of the Ford Foundation, where Mr. Gaither informed Mr. Dodd that the foundation was operating under directives it previously received from the White House, to use its grant money to secure control of the education system, and to reshape public opinions and perceptions to effect a successful merger between the United States and the Soviet Union, or more simply … the movement of American public political disposition toward communist/socialist compatibility.
So, indeed, McCarthy and the Red Scare was certainly right on target, though I doubt even McCarthy actually understood the depth to which this communist infiltration had already reached.
Communism and socialism are political and not economic systems: the first argues for the abolition of private property and the second for social ownership of property. That's because political power stems from economic power, such that even in a democracy the government will work for the rich.
Some additional points:
Capitalism is not a political system but an economic process: it refers to the use of capital to make things, and then sell them to pay for the capital goods and operating costs.
That said, Communism isn't against capitalism but bourgeois capitalism, where private owners own the capital. It wants state capitalism, where the capital is owned by the people.
Socialism prefers capital owned by people who work in businesses that use it, like cooperatives.
Most economies are mixed: they have public and private corporations, and some of the latter are owned by workers.
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