Woberts
The Perfumed Seneschal
There's a pretty famous quote from Ronald Reagan.
"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
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Why aren't you a communist?
- Thread starter Woberts
- Start date
"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Well, if Ronnie said it...
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Alright, it's time for another fringe ideology: communism!
It has had its ups and its downs over the years. (That's a mild way of putting it.
So, why aren't you a communist?
I think in principle, communism is a wonderful vision. Unfortunately, human nature is not taken into account and the doctrine assumes a 100% percent benevolent population.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
I am interested in exactly how you came to be a Hindu and to believe what you believe, if you care to share. Not interested in debating your position as good or bad, just interested in the path you took.
Thanks.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; any system that claims central dictatorship as a necessity, will inevitably be corrupt and bad for most people, most of the time. That alone is enough reason to not be one.
Audie
Veteran Member
Alright, it's time for another fringe ideology: communism!
It has had its ups and its downs over the years. (That's a mild way of putting it.
So, why aren't you a communist?
Because I got lucky. A lot of my family got
trapped in Mao's China.
Alright, it's time for another fringe ideology: communism!
It has had its ups and its downs over the years. (That's a mild way of putting it.
So, why aren't you a communist?
Mostly because it is a system were value is artificially determined. It gives the government a lot of control over value determination. It takes away the right of the individual to determine value for themselves.
Community may work fine in small communities where there is little diversity. With diversity people attach different values to different things. So large scale communism would need a governing body enforcing a artificial value system on it's citizenry. Diversity would need to be squashed.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Man, if you think politics in the USA are weird, just wait until you learn about communism's forms. There's Marxism, Marx-Leninism, Stalininsm, Trotskyism, Pol-Potism (which is essentially fundamentalist Marxism, but with some twists), Maoism, Luxemburgism, and Dengism.
And that's just what I thought of off the top of my head.
I will have to look up some of those isms. I didn;t know they existed as such.
That's because they never implemented true communism, of course.
The problem I have with ideals and ideology is that they are ideas. When it comes to implementation, it's a different matter.
Being in the IT world for decades gave me a first-hand view of what happens when an ideal gets implemented and users are exposed to it. Let me just write to no one's surprise that the result is not pretty.
Duke_Leto
Active Member
I know you're being facetious, but that isn't true. Much of Marx's writing was directed against so-called utopian socialists.
True socialism took place in Italy in the 20s where in few years our Duce built hundreds of factories, hospitals and school, annihilating a banking and financial èlite
Why aren't you a communist?
I think you may be jumping to conclusions, tovarisch.
I think you may be jumping to conclusions, tovarisch.
Aup isn't the only atheist Hindu on these threads.
Exactly why communism promotes decentralization and self-determination; government run as a co-op, with everyone participating.
Wu Wei
ursus senum severiorum and ex-Bisy Backson
Because it sounds so much better on paper than it is in actual application....
and there is also this
and there is also this
Yerda
Veteran Member
I've never seen an example of communism that isn't either horrifying or impractical. A communist tribe might work and if I lived in a small tribe I might be a communist. Beyond that my imagination doesn't stretch as far as seeing a communist system providing the necessities for the 60 million or so people who live in the UK.Alright, it's time for another fringe ideology: communism!
It has had its ups and its downs over the years. (That's a mild way of putting it.
So, why aren't you a communist?
There are things I would like to see happen (like a real and stable commons, public ownership of certain industries etc) that many communists would support, I expect.
AFAIK, some of the Kibbutuzim in Israel are operated this way, and a few others scattered around. Most places where it has been declared to be the economic and political model, they have focused on the dictatorship of the proletariat rather than on anything resembling the decentralized self-determining cooperatives. They have been dictatorships that have rewarded the few, and punished the many, and certainly did not act in the interests of the people.
dianaiad
Well-Known Member
Alright, it's time for another fringe ideology: communism!
It has had its ups and its downs over the years. (That's a mild way of putting it.
So, why aren't you a communist?
'cause it doesn't work unless one can 'opt out.' As soon as someone ELSE is in charge of deciding who gets what and why, it becomes something else. Communism only works when capitalism can support it...when the communist can say 'this isn't working for me....' and can leave, well....the commune.
However, we HAVE had groups that have made communism work...the purest sort, that is, but only in a broader context where the disaffected and unhappy can find 'another home.'
........There was one group that made it very well (three generations...70 years) until the government instituted the income tax. (grin) That's ONE thing that will absolutely kill communism.
As for me, if I could be as rewarded for doing what I love (knitting, quilting and reading) as the oncologist who has been fixing it so I CAN knit, quilt and read for some while longer, it sounds good.
I don't think the oncologist would agree with me, though. Would you?
dianaiad
Well-Known Member
Uh....no. It's not. Some of the most successful communist groups have been religious.
Modern communism....forced upon the people by the government, tends to be anti-theist, but that's more because it's totalitarianism rather than communism.
that's the PROBLEM with communism. It's sort of like 'cult.' it's a word that everybody hates, everybody uses as an insult, and nobody really knows the definition for.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
Why aren't you a communist?
I think you may be jumping to conclusions, tovarisch.
Aup isn't the only atheist Hindu on these threads.
Exactly why communism promotes decentralization and self-determination; government run as a co-op, with everyone participating.
I’m sure he isn’t the only Hindu on here. But I confess a lack of understanding about that religion and particularly atheistic Hinduism. I was curious if he was born surrounded by Hinduism, or picked that religion out of the blue, or what.