People almost automatically assume that communism is wrong even though it is probably the most fair from of society... Is it because all communist countries have for some reason been dictatorships. why is this?

I don't think that communisim has worked in any country anywhere.
Your question....Why is this? The leaders live in opulance while the general populace have what the're given.
To me thats not a fair system, mind you I'm not sure the way we have it now is fair either

Its probably because the country's who oppose communism convinced their population and their allies, and in turn their allies population that communism is bad. You know every form of government has positives and negatives, I mean nothing is perfect. I think its more a political tool used by leaders to draw support from their people and have the backing of their people when the leaders themselves oppose policies or even the people in power.

yet why do the leaders live in oppulence is that part of the communist theory. Can you please tell me. I don't really know much about it.

The problem with communism is that it works on paper, but people are vulnerable to greed. Folk get greedy and power mad, and that's why communism can't work. Good idea, but thanks to greedy people, (who would go right-wing if it benefited them) the idea of communism can't work.

Bolivia is socialist I think. That could be a successful socialist country.

Its fair to steal people's property and give it over to the state?? Its fair to pay people the same amount of money, regardless of the amount of work that they do?

Its fair to start a literal war between the classes and kill people, because "paying a wage is exploitation??


Communism requires a dictatorship, just that its 'a dictatorship of the proletariate", ie, a cabal that acts ostensibly for the masses of the people (though note, not in the interests of individuals as members of the country, but rather as "The People" as a block and only in those interests that they have as 'the proletariate').


Communism is most sensible struggled against because it requires starting a war in order to bring itself about. Therefore, nation is going to oppose it.

Nydan communsion does not need a war to bring it about. That was Leninism.
Also is it fair to steal people's property? Well what gives people the right to own private property, capitalism. So if capitalism is abolished then private property is also. A country is not a true communist country unless it has a socialist run ecnonomy. So its not "stealing" its called the re-distribution of wealth. I would love to see Murdoch, Gates, and Trumphs bank accounts, properties, and organization taken by the government and re-distributed through out the general populas.

Other than that most of the things here are right, communsion is great on paper but less effective in practice, greed of the dictators can add more corruption than free trade economies, and communsion was constantly trying to be stopped by capitalist countries. A.k.a. The cold war. When communsion was largely based on a global revolution, where communist countries would share resources with each other to build a large coallition of countries on socialistic economies.

I think that communism has failed for 3 reasons.

One it has been the aim of opponents of communism to see it fail of course.

Two communism has ignored human nature or weakness because it believes in social engineering which is supposed to perfect the human. This cannot work I believe for spiritual reasons eg. spiritual baggage if I may call it that. Furthermore, spiritual development needs or freewill require differing outcomes from each individual life experience and communism may not allow for all those experiences to exist as practiced to date.

Three communism could be the best system but it will never work in this realm due to the outside influences of the dark side which will intervene to insure that it fails. This is part and parcel of reasons one and two also.

All the same there has never been a true communist system and a capitalist system. We have been close but not there and all economic and value systems are mixtures of several other systems it appears.

This is the biggest arguement agaisnt communsion is the individual inside communsion. People see that without totaly free-will of the individual person that one individual can never fully grow. This is what was the biggest arguement agaisnt communsion by capitalists and liberals.

Now i can understand the liberal arguement but inside of communsion the individual still exists, but that individual is apart of a larger entity. The community.
So the individual exists on two levels, the individual and the social community they live in. Under communsion individuality is not abolished but the community aspect of life is heightend, making the individual seem less important than in a liberal government.

Now this to me seems very "different" but it could of been for the better.

Marx calls for class warefare as the way in which the people will seize the means of production. No violence, no communism. Its a radical movement, not a 'reactionary' one. It destroys the system, overthrows the elite, and installs a new system. It also requires that the workers in one country that have succesfully completed the revolution take it to other countries.



Capitalism is investing money into capital goods in order to see a return on their investment, almost allways hand in hand with a free market. Private Property does not extend out of capitalism, it pre-exists capitalism.



You are taking stuff that belongs to one person, forcibly taking it from them, in almost all cases killing them if need be, and giving it to other people and keeping some for yourself. Thats stealing.


Why? They made it, they worked for it, it belongs to them. No one forced anyone to give those guys their money in exchange for computers, apartments and TV ad space.


The individual physcially exists, but on the level of the state, its meaningless. They can't have anything of their own. They can't demostrate against the state, and they can only 'act' as part of the 'dictatorship of the proletariate'.


In practice it just doesn't seem to be able to be abolished. But ideolgocially, the idividual is destroyed and completely becomes an organ within the state, not even as an individual organ, but as part of "The Mass"; they exist only as "The Mass", the state controls everything for them, but only acts upon the characteristics of "The Mass", not the individual as an individual. Personal existence is 'moved beyond' in the communist system.


The complete subjagation of the self could've been better than having a personal life and a personal place in the world? Doubtful. Why be a zombie in a slave camp willingly?

Before I get into answering Nygdan, I think I should answer the thread question.

Why is Marxism so bad? Because it has proven itself wrong. Marx made certain predictions that have not come off, viz:

1. That society would polarize into two classes, the bourgeoisie or owner class and the proletariat or working class. In reality, we still have three middle classes in addition to these two: the petit-bourgeoisie or small business owners, the professionals, and the small farmers. These people are "middle classes" not only in terms of income (small farmers and small business owners are often quite poor), but mainly in terms of independence from wage slavery.

2. That the rebellion of the proletariat could only be resolved through revolution and a complete destruction/recreation of the system into a socialist economy. In reality, the rebellion of the proletariat was resolved (at least temporarily) in the 1930s by a set of reforms that recognized labor unions, increased wages, reduced working hours, and mandated safe working conditions and workers' rights. While this represented a significant gain for the working class, it fell far short of revolution.

3. That socialism and a classless society could only emerge from an advanced capitalist economy. In reality, NO advanced capitalist economy has EVER gone socialist, properly so called, although all have adopted socialist-leaning reforms. The only socialist economies have emerged from agrarian societies that had not yet industrialized and were not, in the sense Marx meant the word, capitalist.

Having made predictions that failed to come true, we have to conclude that Communism is a failure as a theory. We can at the same time recognize the validity of many of its criticisms of capitalism; however, Marxism does not provide a workable alternative.

Now, on to Nygdan.



Correct. Private property is an artifact of civilization dating from the emergence of the first settled agricultural communities. Precivilized forager/hunter societies had no private capital property; the band or tribe owned all means of production in common. Many agrarian societies, especially early on, maintained some vestige of this communal existence, but in general the ownership of land, though often disguised, moved into private hands.

Private property is not natural. It must be created by the collective force of society. But it does indeed predate capitalism, by thousands of years.



Well, at the same time we ought to recognize that property exists in the first place only because society says, "This stuff belongs to Mr. X, and if anyone else tries to use it without Mr. X's permission they will be punished." In origin, nothing belongs to anyone, or it belongs to everyone in common. So the very creation of private property is an act (or at least a threat) of violence. Wouldn't you agree that the violent correction of an imbalance caused by violence has some justification to it?



Actually, yes, they did. You're not looking deeply enough.

That Murdock, Gates, and Trump "owned" the labor and creativity of other people is part of the violently-created system that establishes the rules by which people "own" things. People had to go to work for these guys because the same system of ownership denied them the ability to create wealth on their own.

The same system forces people to buy computers, apartments, and TV ads, because they need these things and other people "own" them. True, Murdock, Gates, and Trump are not mentioned by name in the laws that govern these things, but they are clever men who have managed to exploit those laws and rules in order to amass ownership, and hence the ability to exert personal power over others.

As I said -- while Marxism is a failed theory and does not offer a good alternative to capitalism, its critique of capitalism is nonetheless well taken.

Its not a primitive cultural trait amoung humans, yes. But that doesn't mean that its not 'natural'.




I'd agree that that probably tended to be how society ultimately recognized it, but there must've been preceding periods where someone said 'this is mine', and then somene else tried to use violence to take it.


I wouldn't say that its fair to punish someone because of possible violence by their ancestors.


I'm superficial, what can I say.


But that system is merely people agreeing to trade their labour for cash. They're not being physically forced to, no one is preventing, say, a group of people from sharing anything that they have. THe only force comes into play is when someone tries to take something from someone else. Force gets used to take it, and force gets used to stop that taking of it.




Without the system they have no wealth of their own. In a 'primitive' (not using primitive in the ususal judgement sense) setup, no one has anything. If there is a food supply, anyone can take as much as they want from it. Everyone lives under the same thatched leantoo. If someone bothered to, say, gather up a large cache of gourds, everyone else would come along and take from it. So there's no ability ot create 'wealth' of your own. In the capitalist system, if you bother to do something, then its yours.



Most strictly speaking though, no one needs any of it. People choose to want these things. They could not bother with any of it, live in communal shelters, received common food, get free medical attention, etc. It won't be 'as good' as what the people who work 'within the system' get, but, heck, even then, its better than what the primitive pre-agriculturalists are getting.


Capitalism is in a sense a type of exploitation, certainly. Paying someone a wage is a type of exploitation yes. I am not so sure that private property is a type of exploitation though.


Indeed, capitalism has downsides. People too often discount marx, from an economic and even from an historical viewpoint. The guy wasn't stupid, he wasn't just saying 'hey man, it blows that we've gotta pay for bread, screw those city-people, with their fancy coats and top hats man!".

ahhh Nygdan helpful as always...

Thanks for the clarifacation it helped a lot. Now I can pretty much draw my own conclusions to the rest. Thanx again!

I disagree. It does mean that it's not natural, in the same sense that paper, clothing, the automobile, and computers are not natural. The distinction is between natural and artificial. Property is artificial.



No, I don't think so, or rather, that sort of thing is as old as humanity, but it doesn't predate the assignment of ownership by society. In precivilized times, while there was no formal government, there was still collective decision-making, and who owned what (people owned their clothing, tools, weapons, etc.; the tribe owned the land collectively; food was shared) was enforced by the group. So it was meaningful even then to speak of people who violated the rules of ownership as thieves. But it isn't meaningful to speak of a change in the rules themselves as theft; that's to suppose the old rules came from outside source, from God or nature as it were. And that's not so.



It's not a question of punishment, but of righting a wrong. Suppose my father falsified a title deed to vacation property and left it to me when he died. Then suppose the real rightful owners prove in court that the deed was falsified. I would lose title to the property. Am I being punished for my father's misdeed? No, I'm merely not being rewarded for it unjustly.



But force also was used -- and is continuously used -- to assign ownership in the first place. And because of that, the people are being forced to trade their labor for cash (although not to any particular employer -- that's one distinction between wage slavery and real slavery), because they have no other way to survive.

What I'm getting at here is that the way we do things, with private ownership of capital property, and rules of property rights and ownership and commerce that encourage the amassing of wealth, is not something that emerges from the primordial ooze. It's an artifice of civlilization, a collective decision of our ancestors maintained today because it benefits a powerful elite. Nobody has an absolute right to property. Property is produced collectively, and the rules of how it gets divided up -- who owns it once it is produced -- are not written on stone tablets by the hand of God.



Without SOME system they have no wealth of their own. Without THE system, however, they still would. And you're confusing a primitive system with lack of a system here. Humans have never lived alone; we have always lived in societies. Precivilized societies had their rules about property just as civilized ones have -- they were just different rules.



Society needs them to need it. If most people chose not to participate in the system, the system would collapse and most of us would starve to death.

No matter what system is in place, wealth is always produced collectively. Our system assigns ownership and control of what is produced to those who supply the capital, i.e., to those who already are rich and powerful. Everyone who participates in the system and is not rich and powerful is required by the system's rules to serve those who are, in exchange for a share -- sometimes a relatively lucrative share, more often a subsistence one -- of the wealth he or she helps to produce.

It is that assignment of ownership and control that I am calling arbitrary and the source of capitalism's ills. I do not believe that Marx proposed a workable solution to the problem. But the problem should still be recognized, and a solution sought.

Two Steps Forward, you do make a critical mistake.

Socialism and Marxism are in fact different theories. In fact, when Marx was born Socialism was already a stable theory. Many of the aspects now linked to Socialism, even by so called "experts" are in fact speaking of a completely different theory.

AS for the three things you speak of, that's very opinion based. One of my University Lecturer's an actual open Conservative and former member of the Tory Party under Thatcher once said something that was rather important. Marxist views on explotation, means that people work for less than they are worth. So say I am paid £80 a day, I earn for someone £200 a day. Meaning a total loss of £120 to me. That was the division that he was speaking of. So in reality, society is split between those who have and those who have not but now it is so much more hidden. The whole idea of the Middle Class, has done this to people. They honestly believe that they are paid what they are worth but no where near in fact.

The Trade Union's are still on going. Look at France, wait till this summer in the United Kingdom. to claim any problems were resolved were...lies. There have been strikes every few years.

Lastly, Socialism has never existed nor has Communism. No Society actually based itself around such a thing. It is like how in the U.K. many people claim we're a meritocracy, which is complete lies. It just makes people feel happy and safe and helps to create divide and "us or them" society. All you have to do is look through this forum and you can see the intense fear of Communism from people. The U.S.S.R, P.R.C, was run by people who desired to live like King's. They were not supporters of Socialism or Marxism, but rather evidently sociopaths who desired nothing more than control. It's an insult to the theory themselves, when they are evaluted against this. It is like comparing Nazi as true Capitalism, in doesn't give justice to the theory itself.

Edit:

However, how you evalute property is correct. Living in the U.K. you see this. I have to pay for the right to own a house, if diamonds, coal, oil, etc, is found under the house I own the Government have rights to it. If any Roman Treasure is, they own it. Lakes? Owned by the rich. Parts of the Sea? Owned by the Queen and the Lords. Why do they own the lakes? Because over 500 years ago it was decided. Is that fair on the people? Hell no.

[edit on 12/5/2006 by Odium]

got it thanks for the clarifacation. Soo... can you just list the differences in a graph or something please.

I am not making that mistake. This thread in the OP referred specifically to communism, which is usually understood to mean Marxism. That is why I referred specifically to Marxism in my answer to the question of why it is so bad. I do understand that non-Marxist socialist ideas exist. (I even subscribe to some of them.)

You, however, seem to be making a different mistake:



Socialism is not "a" theory. It is many theories, all classified under the general idea of government intervention in the economy for the public interest, especially the pursuit of economic equality, or lessening of economic inequality. Marxism is not something other than socialism, it is an example of socialism. That is, all Marxists are socialists, but not all socialists are Marxists.

It's also meaningful to speak of strong and weak socialism. Strong socialism is the idea that the state should own and control all, or nearly all, the means of production. In a strong socialist economy, there would be no private ownership of either companies or stocks in companies. Weak socialism stops short of government ownership and control of the economy, but sees value in a heavily regulated economy, with some portions of it (most commonly medicine) directly controlled by the state.

Marxism is a form of strong socialism. I am a weak socialist, myself; I do not trust any entity, including the state, with that much control over the necessities of people's lives, but I also don't want powerful, privileged individuals holding that kind of power without very strict checks on their behavior.



No, I'm sorry, but that is not what Marx was talking about. I used to be a believer and have read him thoroughly. I do understand the labor theory of value, but Marx did not simply assert this idea, he also predicted, on its basis, the disappearance of every class except the privileged capitalist and the exploited, downtrodden wage-slave. He saw some of this happening in the disappearance of the old landed aristocracy (remember that the stage supposed to precede capitalism was feudalism), and was encouraged to believe as he did. But he was wrong. The three middle classes (small farmers, small business owners, and professionals) are fundamentally different from either the bourgeoisie or the proletariat, in a way that is hard to quantify in terms of money (although certainly professionals at least tend to be a good deal wealthier than the working class), but is hugely important in terms of power. I am myself a member of the professional class. Do I own my own means of production? No. Am I paid the full value of my contribution to the collective production of wealth, with nothing siphoned off for my employer's stockholders? No. But I am so highly skilled, and those skills are so much in demand, that my employer cannot place me in a dependent position and subject me to its control. That is true of all professionals, and also true (for different reasons) of small farmers and small business owners. And it is dependence, subordination, subjugation, that define the proletariat in any humanly meaningful way -- not a calculated differential between what they are paid and what the labor theory of value says their work is worth.

I also think the labor theory of value itself is wrong. In addition to labor, the production of wealth requires natural resources, organization, creativity, and a stable societal climate. Capital is not a separate factor but rather a way of applying labor, natural resources, organization, and creativity. And to that extent, Marx was right; capital adds nothing in and of itself and a system that requires it is simply a way of protecting privilege. But just the same, there is no objective and self-evident way of assigning proper ownership of what is collectively produced. We may deplore the obscene wealth and income gaps that exist at present (much worse in my country than yours, but bad enough in yours), but let us be honest about the fact that this is a subjective value judgment, not an objective observation.

I have more to say but it will require a separate post.

When I said the problems were resolved, I didn't mean resolved forever and for all time so that everyone will get along henceforth. I meant that they were resolved in such a way as to forestall revolution, probably permanently. There is not going to be a revolution, because long before things get bad enough to allow one, reform will happen and the agitation will decline. This process is now institutionalized. And that's where Marx was wrong.

Strikes are coming in France and the UK, eh? Well, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see strikes in the U.S. and Canada, too. That's become normal. But what you won't see is armed security personnel (either private or police) cracking down on strikers violently. That used to happen. And you won't see people fired for union activities, at least not openly. That used to happen, too.

The difference is that today, it's recognized that workers have rights, and may have legitimate grievances, and have a right to bargain collectively, not just individually. Before the Depression, that wasn't true; the idea was very controversial. And that was the resolution of the conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat: the proletariat gained legitimacy for their needs and demands, and a way to pursue them within the law. And when people have that, they see no need to overthrow the state.



Communism has existed, but only in precivilized times. As for socialism, I think what you are saying is that no socialist society has ever met socialism's goals of a classless, egalitarian society with full and equal rights for all. That is true. But it does not mean no socialist society has ever existed.

If we define (strong) socialism objectively as an economy in which the state owns the means of production, then the Soviet Union had a strong socialist economy. I agree with what you say about its leaders wanting to live like kings, and exploiting the people worse than any capitalist. But what that tells me, is that socialist economy without democratic politics cannot achieve its goals; there is too much temptation for those who hold power to abuse it, if they are not held publicly accountable. (One could make the same argument in reverse, too, seeing the way U.S. elections are corrupted by wealthy campaign donors.)

I hear what you're saying about the Queen and the lords owning title to all kinds of goodies by entrenched privilege. But, before any of my countrymen here chime in all smug 'cause we managed to ditch that nobility folderol back in the 18th century, the tendency of society to see a corrupt, privileged elite emerge is universal. As you observed, it happened in the Soviet Union. And America has a class of nobles, too. The Constitution doesn't permit them to have the titles that used to go with that status, but they have all the other perquisites and powers.

Privilege is something that can never go away on its own, and must be constantly fought and restrained. Let down our guard, and things get worse.

He means true socialism which is what I'd reallly like to be living in... A kid can dream...

Tristan: I suggest reading on the subject. Animal Farm is a good book.