Questions for communists

[Spiderman]

I'm wondering what you think should be the consequences of peacefully resisting the Government? Gulags? Reeducation camps?

Also, what do you think of that hermit nation, North Korea? Would you prefer a world that was under that Government as oppossed to how the world is now?

 

[Kirran]

I'm a communist. I am anti-government full stop.

 

[Spiderman]

I'm a communist. I am anti-government full stop.

I don't understand how communists could be anti-Government. Communism is the epitome of Government! The type of communist utopia you seem to be in favor of looks like heaven

 

[Kirran]

I don't understand how communists could be anti-Government. Communism is the epitome of Government! The type of communist utopia you seem to be in favor of looks like heaven

I think when someone is not a communist tries to tell a communist what communism is, something has gone wrong.

There is authoritarian communism and there is libertarian communism or anarcho-communism.

 

[Spiderman]

I think when someone is not a communist tries to tell a communist what communism is, something has gone wrong.

There is authoritarian communism and there is libertarian communism or anarcho-communism.

Thank you! It was hard for me to see anarcho-communism as communism. Thank you for teaching me a lesson.

 

[Spiderman]

Oh, another form of communism is religious communities where the monks or nuns all take vows of poverty. Everything belongs to the community. Nothing belongs to the individual. That is a type of communism. Maybe I am a bit of a communist!

 

[Kirran]

Oh, another form of communism is religious communities where the monks or nuns all take vows of poverty. Everything belongs to the community. Nothing belongs to the individual. That is a type of communism. Maybe I am a bit of a communist!

I shall be living at a monastery from summer onwards. It is essentially in line with how anarchists advocate communities be run, yeah!

 

[Spiderman]

I shall be living at a monastery from summer onwards. It is essentially in line with how anarchists advocate communities be run, yeah!

That is terrific! Grow spiritually through leaps and bounds!

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I don't understand how communists could be anti-Government. Communism is the epitome of Government! The type of communist utopia you seem to be in favor of looks like heaven

There are a number of different kinds of communism, which includes anarcho syndicalism and other anarchic systems--not that any have been implemented anywhere on anything but a local scale. The very nature of "nations" requires there to be governments; but some of us idealists would like to do away with them...and any other large organizations...

 

[Spiderman]

There are a number of different kinds of communism, which includes anarcho syndicalism and other anarchic systems--not that any have been implemented anywhere on anything but a local scale. The very nature of "nations" requires there to be governments; but some of us idealists would like to do away with them...and any other large organizations...

Yeah...I was wondering how on earth anarchic communism could ever survive on any large scale or where it has been practiced. Do you know where it has been practiced?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Yeah...I was wondering how on earth anarchic communism could ever survive on any large scale or where it has been practiced. Do you know where it has been practiced?

The kibbutzim of Israel are examples, although the ideology may not match up completely these days. The Mondragon Corporation, in the Basque Region of Spain has been more blatantly Communist. There have been a number of other "communes" over the years; I think that "The Farm" is still active in the US.

 

[siti]

Yeah...I was wondering how on earth anarchic communism could ever survive on any large scale or where it has been practiced. Do you know where it has been practiced?

In Fiji, traditionally, land (and other resources - fishing rights, forest etc.) were held in common by tribe and clan (yavusa and mataqalli) rather than individually. Of course the delineation of property rights between tribes and clans was fluid (although British colonial rule stabilized boundaries to some extent after the 1870s) and often bloody. More than 80% of the land in Fiji remains under traditional land-owning units and is held in common among them. Where such land is leased (the sale of native land is prohibited by law), the returns are (at least in theory) shared among the members of the clan. From a western point of view, the land is underutilized and the potential economic returns are not realized. From a traditional Fijian point of view - so what? We've got everything we need. But the western economic world continues to exert its overpowering capitalist influence and the Fijian's satisfaction with 'everything we need' is being eroded by preoccupation with 'everything we want', fuelled, in part, by the success of ethic Indian business people whose forebears were brought in a century or so ago by the British to grow sugar cane precisely because the native Fijians couldn't see why they should slave away under the hot sun day after day for a few pennies when they already had everything they needed. Anyway, the point is, their kind of "anarcho-communism" worked for about 3000 years until we came and stuffed it up for them.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I'm an anarcho-communist. Gulags and such are reprehensible and North Korea is a hellhole. The Kims should be executed for extreme human rights abuses, the government overthrown and replaced by democracy.

 

[Spiderman]

maybe im an anarcho-communist...if so, I just realized that today...I admire how monasteries are run

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Corporation
More blatantly communist

Um...?

You know anything about them? Or the conditions (in Fascist Spain in the 1940s) in which they came into being? And the challenges they faced in their first four decades under Franco?

Did you know that nonprofits--many of which are not capitalistic at all, but collectivist--are also corporations. A corporation is simply a legal classification for organizations.

 

[Laika]

I'm wondering what you think should be the consequences of peacefully resisting the Government? Gulags? Reeducation camps?

Also, what do you think of that hermit nation, North Korea? Would you prefer a world that was under that Government as oppossed to how the world is now?

The question implies "choice" and the soverignty of the individual. I don't speak for the other communists on RF but from a Marxist-Leninist perspective that is like asking about if you want water to boil at 5 degrees celcius or if the law of gravity should only apply at the sub-atomic level. They don't view natural and social pheneomena as seperate (much like social darwinists). Its hard to explain just how alien these views are- but I hope that illustrates it.

I would NOT prefer to live under a north korean style government. But the nature of marxist-leninist theory is that the form of government is not the choice of the individual but the result of socio-economic evolution based on objective laws independent of the will and choice of the individual. They'd probably say the idea of "government by consent" is an illusion: as you can only choose the persons with power in an election, not the necessity for the existence of the state (whether it is democratic or not). This sort of makes the concept of individual dissent futile and alien to the marxist-leninist psyche because individuals are "powerless" to resist the laws of history as it is the masses of the people who make history-not individuals.

Personally, I think North Korea is probably socialist- though its current ideology "Juche" is peculiar by historical standards of marxist theory. But its an area where I have to admit my ignorance although it seems to be an ideological decensent of Marxism through Maoism (like the Khmer Rouge- which was also weird and peculiarly destructive by communist standards).

 

[siti]

I suppose my example (Fiji) should more appropriately fit under the label of "primitive agrarian communism" - it was/is not the industrial means of production that is owned collectively but the land itself. In a sense, there was no "proletariat" - and although there was a "noble" class, land-ownership was common and no-one (of the same clan) was to be denied a fair share - their certainly was no bourgeoisie to be got rid of. There is now of course, but unfortunately that has evolved in such a way that it is inextricably linked to ethnicity - unsurprisingly because, for the most part being unable to 'own' land of their own, people of non-native descent had only their own industry with which to raise themselves from poverty - and some were so successful that they ended up owning the "capital" that drives the economic progress and prosperity of the nation. But they still can't own the land. The native Fijian, on the other hand, owns the land (in common) but has very little of the capital. Odd - and almost universally perceived as 'unfair' one way or the other.

In the Mondragon case, it is the "capital" that is worker owned, but (as Noam Chomsky noted) the corporation is fully embedded in a(n otherwise) capitalist system - so in reality, whilst ensuring (as it seems to do) a more equitable share of the proceeds of the worker's labour than most other corporations, it remains entirely at the mercy of the "free" market rather the needs of the workers (let alone the people generally) - IOW it still exploits as much as it emancipates its employees.

I think both of these examples illustrate the difficulty with communism (not that I don't agree with the ideal) - but unless it is (somehow) imposed universally, it eventually just gets subsumed into the capitalist über-system (I think I just made up a German word but you know what I mean) and even a country that imposes it on itself, in terms of the "world economy", just becomes a giant worker's cooperative - and, being on national scale, probably not that efficiently run at that - which wouldn't really matter in economic terms if everyone were doing it but they're not.

 

[Stevicus]

I'm wondering what you think should be the consequences of peacefully resisting the Government? Gulags? Reeducation camps?

In the sake of fairness, I suppose the consequences could be the same that communists (or suspected communists) received when they resist(ed) non-communist governments. I'm not saying I would condone any of it, but I can also see that, considering that the Tsars were the ones who originally came up with the idea of sending dissidents to Siberia as a punishment, the revolutionaries who suffered under that government might have thought "since they did it to us, now we're going to do it to them."

I'm not saying that it's right, but it seems common in times of post-revolutionary fervor and the angry desire to take revenge on one's former oppressors. But when it turns into an unrestrained blood-letting of innocent people, then it's unjustified and unforgivable.

Also, what do you think of that hermit nation, North Korea? Would you prefer a world that was under that Government as oppossed to how the world is now?

Actually, setting aside the kinds of governments they have, I do have some sympathy for Korea, both North and South, since they were turned into pawns and their country made a battleground by larger powers. It was through no fault of their own; just the bad luck of geography and being ruled by other nations. If they now have a chip on their shoulder and a "screw you" attitude towards the rest of the world, I can't say that I blame them.

I don't think they're entirely a hermit nation, though. They do have relations with some countries; they're not entirely alone.

I don't know if I would prefer any kind of "world-wide" government of any type. As for how the world is now, I'm not sure about that either. When I consider the geopolitical situation and ongoing worries about North Korea, Iran, and other such "rogue nations" and "hot spots" around the world, it's kind of strange. It's all spilled milk now, but a lot of these situations could have been avoided if our nation's leaders had not been so myopic.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

My understanding of Mondragon is a company which owns worker cooperatives.
Having workers self-management does not make them "more communist".

Unless there is something I am missing.

You are.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I suppose my example (Fiji) should more appropriately fit under the label of "primitive agrarian communism" - it was/is not the industrial means of production that is owned collectively but the land itself. In a sense, there was no "proletariat" - and although there was a "noble" class, land-ownership was common and no-one (of the same clan) was to be denied a fair share - their certainly was no bourgeoisie to be got rid of. There is now of course, but unfortunately that has evolved in such a way that it is inextricably linked to ethnicity - unsurprisingly because, for the most part being unable to 'own' land of their own, people of non-native descent had only their own industry with which to raise themselves from poverty - and some were so successful that they ended up owning the "capital" that drives the economic progress and prosperity of the nation. But they still can't own the land. The native Fijian, on the other hand, owns the land (in common) but has very little of the capital. Odd - and almost universally perceived as 'unfair' one way or the other.

In the Mondragon case, it is the "capital" that is worker owned, but (as Noam Chomsky noted) the corporation is fully embedded in a(n otherwise) capitalist system - so in reality, whilst ensuring (as it seems to do) a more equitable share of the proceeds of the worker's labour than most other corporations, it remains entirely at the mercy of the "free" market rather the needs of the workers (let alone the people generally) - IOW it still exploits as much as it emancipates its employees.

I think both of these examples illustrate the difficulty with communism (not that I don't agree with the ideal) - but unless it is (somehow) imposed universally, it eventually just gets subsumed into the capitalist über-system (I think I just made up a German word but you know what I mean) and even a country that imposes it on itself, in terms of the "world economy", just becomes a giant worker's cooperative - and, being on national scale, probably not that efficiently run at that - which wouldn't really matter in economic terms if everyone were doing it but they're not.

I disagree; if people start forming effective collectives--such as Mondragon, or the Kibbutim--they will effectively start to change the nature of capitalistic societies.

Marx was all about thesis, antithesis and synthesis--supposedly capitalism is the thesis, communism the antithesis--and the synthesis is what happens when the two blend together to create a new thesis.

That a bunch of Russian power-hungry idiots in the early 1900s decided to use Marxism as their justification for establishing a state-centered personality-cult dictatorship has little to do with the actual social and personal changes that true communism calls for.

There is absolutely no necessity of top-down, state-sponsored imposition of communism--in fact, to my mind at least, that pretty much ensures that "communism" in that sense will fail.

Small collectives can show that they are a better way of organizing a community and businesses than traditional private enterprises...or not...but it's not ideology but pragmatism that should decide.