BrownNoeser's forum posts
Communism is a fight against selfish impulses, to aim for the community. Shouldnt we embrace some of it. Maybe not go for the complete commy thing, but at least take one or two parts of it?rawsavonCommunism doesn't ask you to stop being selfish. It asks you to stop exploiting people's labour. Selfishness is not extinct in a Communist society, it's just that selfishness is no longer the rule of survival. So instead of selfishness, you are telling people they can't go far in this life of theirs? So inspiration, motivation, and the will to succeed are now abolished because no one has a reason to do any of it? What? Inspiration, motivation and the will to succeed are not abolished in a Communist society, they would obviously be encouraged. Communism doesn't restrict success, it just stops you from becoming wealthy by exploiting other people's labour. I will quote again: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Each person contributes according to their ability, this would be far more effective than a Capitalist society because many people are not able to work according to their ability.
[QUOTE="Hahadouken"][QUOTE="curono"] So being selfish is something we should abide to, because it is in our nature? Shouldn we try to progress?curonoWe have been trying for generations.Communism is a fight against selfish impulses, to aim for the community. Shouldnt we embrace some of it. Maybe not go for the complete commy thing, but at least take one or two parts of it? Communism doesn't ask you to stop being selfish. It asks you to stop exploiting people's labour. Selfishness is not extinct in a Communist society, it's just that selfishness is no longer the rule of survival. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_need
[QUOTE="rawsavon"] I assumed that is was widely accepted that Communism is the best THEORETICAL form of government, but one of the worst once implemented (due to human nature)
Give me one example where Communism has been truly implemented and has failed. I have one, the one that occurred in the Spanish Revolution. "Sam Dolgoff estimated that over 10 million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution, which he claimed "came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history." Orwell: This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags and with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senor' or 'Don' or even 'Ústed'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' or 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dÃas'. Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loud-speakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls or some variant of militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in this that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for...so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine." It failed not because it didn't work. It worked fine. It failed because it was wiped out by a stronger military force.That's exactly the point of my post.I didn't finish reading your post when I saw that you are taking what communism is meant now, and you brought Karl Marx into the conversation. The way Karl Marx saw communism and they way it was ran in USSR are two different things.
xscrapzx
Someone from the Middle Ages would say that Capitalism is impossible and impractical because they know nothing other than feudalism. You fail to provide any reason why Communism would be impractical, you just state it. The principle of Communism is that you control your means of production and the produce of your own labour rather than selling your labour to a Capitalist.That's true. Even democracy, as it was originally defined, isn't truly practiced anywhere. It just wouldn't work.Much like communism, looks good on paper in the writings of Marx, but in practice would be an impossible government to run.
DarthSatan
[QUOTE="rawsavon"]
[QUOTE="BrownNoeser"] "Concise" would mean that I haven't used more than was necessary to convey my point and I haven't. I've written the information I wanted to present in the most concise way I could.
Anyone of intelligence knows that the public conception of communism is not the idea penned by Marx.muthsera666My post is not for "anyone of intelligence" as you describe in an elitist manner. It is for everyone.
A lot of writing =/= not concise.Your very first sentence is mute
flordeceres
That argument is one of the most annoying I hear. The type of selfishness you speak of is not human nature it is the nature of a capitalist society where everyone's value is calculated by how much capital they produce, Marx points this out. Also: "The Bourgeois Darwinists proclaim that only the elimination of the weak is natural and that this is necessary to prevent the corruption of the race. On the other hand, the protection provided to the weak is against nature and contributes to the decline of the race. But what do we see? In nature itself, in the animal world, we can establish that the weak are protected, that they don't hold out thanks to their own personal strength, and they are not eliminated due to their individual weakness. These arrangements don't weaken the group, but confer on it a new strength. The animal group in which mutual aid is better developed is better able to look after itself in conflicts." -Antonie Pannekoek "The animal group in which mutual aid is better developed is better able to look after itself in conflicts" draws parallels to Socialism.It's funny, when I read about communism in history class in 7th grade or whatever it was, I thought it sounded like the greatest idea ever - everyone works together and shares their spoils, people are not motivated by personal greed...
It sounds great, and then you grow up and enter the "real world" and realize it would never, ever work in a million years. I feel like capitalism is in our very nature, it's a progression of Darwinism.
Hahadouken
I'm going to make this as concise as I possibly can. Today Communism (and Socialism) is a demagogical word (a word of prejudice). It has become a curse word which has nothing to do with it's original meaning. Capitalist societies, like the United States, have, through propaganda, convinced people that the Soviet Union was a Communist society. The Soviet Union itself used propaganda to convince people that it was a Communist society. This view is false. Capitalist societies persist to ruin the word "Communism" itself in order to convince the masses that Communism is harmful (as the Soviet Union undoubtedly was). The Soviet Union did so for entirely different reasons, it called itself Communist in order to gain support because in the early 20th century Communism was not a dirty word and was actually seen as morally desirable. Communism began as a political party in the 19th century and the main literature that defined it was written mostly by Karl Marx in collaboration with Friedrich Engels in a book called the "The Communist Manifesto." One of the main themes of The Manifesto is that of the proletarian revolution where the proletariat (the majority, the working class, those who sell their labour) overthrow the bourgeoise (the upper class, those who rent people for their labour) and in it's stead establish a state where the workers control their own production, where they do not sell the labour but in fact control the means of production and all the benefits of their labour. This is called a socialist state, or a "dictatorship of the proletariat". This state resolves the class imbalance inherent in past societies, leading to true equality and in turn true democracy, a democracy where the masses are actually educated and are involved in immediate decision making, not just one decision every four years. This would then, according to The Manifesto, become a stateless and classless society also known as a Communist Society. What actually happened in Russia was that in 1917 the Bolsheviks (the Communist party) led a revolution ("The October Revolution"). The revolution was a success and the Bolsheviks seized control of Russia. However, the actual revolution of the proletariat that it claimed to be was betrayed and the revolution, or rather coup d'état, simply led to the Bolsheviks becoming the new ruling class, becoming more and more authoritarian and corrupt until it took the form that it is remembered for, the totalitarian state of Stalin. This was acknowledged by the real Marxists, the real Communists, such as Antonie Pannekoek, who knew the revolution was betrayed. George Orwell was very aware of the danger that the leaders of the revolution would betray it and establish their own power (his book "Animal Farm" is a brilliant allegory for what happened in Russia). George Orwell also knew the danger of language to control the method of debate. He knew that people could use ambiguously defined words to make their arguments seem valid. "Newspeak" in his book "1984" represents the ultimate danger of this. Communism has become such a word, a word that in these days right-wing speakers (like those you hear on Fox News) use to inspire hatred and justify their arguments. Communism is not the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union is not Communism. Any society which has a state is not a Communist society. Any society where the workers do not control the means of production is not Socialist. Listen to Chomsky, he can perhaps illuminate more on what I have said: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Tq4VE8eHQ&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI&feature=related
someone half my age questioning my morales will never cease to amuse me.kate_jonesYes, my science teacher said that moral superiority is "directly proportional" to age and that the older generation *isn't* the most bigoted/racist :D:D:D:D:D
Exactly! Enforcing rules is not what matters. If a rule is bad it's the person who made the rules who is bad. The people who enforce them aren't even contributing to the problem :Lgamespot moderators don't make the rules. They just enforce them. Do police officers make the laws they enforce?
BumFluff122
Yes, if you don't like the rules you should leave :) Trying to make this a better forum is stupid, just leave if you don't like it xDIf you don't like the rules, leave.
Theokhoth
Those rules are very necessary.Travo_basicI know because if we didn't have them then everyone would be speaking their opinions and it would be such a mess :(
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