What is your opinion about Communism?

[vulcanlogician]

Communism was designed to be introduced in a fully  first world country, the ideal at the time he wrote it would have been Germany or England. Unfortunately its only ever been tried in agricultural and struggling nations.

Like trying to cross the sea on a small inflatable giraffe. It may take you some of the way but its not really what it was designed for.

A lot of people press this point. But, I'm curious. Do you think that the Leninist model, if it was applied to a fully industrialized nation, would fare any better? And what about East Germany? I think that Karl Popper was on point when he accused communists of moving the goal post. If Marxism is a science, it has failed to make accurate predictions.

I agree with Peter Singer that communism is a political ideology based on values-- ie. it is not a science. He pointed out that in its day, Hegelian philosophy presented itself as a science (and that this notion kind of rubbed off on Marx). How many of us today would consider Hegelian philosophy to be a science? So it is with Marx.

[The Grand Nudger]

The difference is of course communism is an artificially constructed and defined ideology called Marxism first, around which various practices claiming fealty to or inspiration from the ideology, and lumped under the catch all term of communism, then arose to take advantage of the appeal of the ideology to segmrnt of the society.   Therefore it is possible to assess how closely each instance of the practice adhered to the original ideology, and also to evaluate whether the ideology itself on the whole have succeeded in inspiring sound and beneficial practices.

Capitalism was a pragmatically and organically evolved and continuously growing set of practice first, before various academics and opinion makers attempted to fit ideologies around different portions of it.  Therefore it is not do meaningful to say whether a actual instance of the practice fit the ideology of capitalism, nor whether the ideology of capitalism inspired sound and beneficial practices.  The practice were there before there was any ideology and arose independentky of the ideology.   The practices generally predated and always arose independently of ex post classificatoon.

That's an impressive bit of revisionist history of capitalism.  Communism as an ideology is no more or less organic or pragmatic..and it seems silly to insists that the public ownership of the means of production didn't preexist it's codification as a political ideology.  It was the natural state of human beings for so long that it became entrenched in our sipirutal ideologies...simply awaiting revival and exploitation.

If the above can be used to defend capitalism gone wrong..it can just as easily defend communism gone wrong.

Personally, I;m not interested in defending one ideology over the other. I don't think it can be done, all things considered. I suspect that we'll see our love of capitalism as a temporary and unsustainable fetish in the not too distant future. I think, between the two, -as another poster touched upon...we have to determine what it is we value about some x to determine which tool is best suited to the job. There are already things that we don't think capitalism is the best answer for, even in our deeply ideologically friendly country.

[brewer]

Yeah, sure. Why do I not believe you? Oh, I know, you don't speak like a subordinate.

Where exactly did this female go?

Maybe 'subordinate' is not exactly the right word.  But I'm not allowed to do anything in 'their' kitchen.  Each according to their ability etc.

She moved in with a friend of hers.  I gave her few tips on tactical relationship management so she should be OK.  

And she's much less muslim than when she arrived... so not a complete waste of time.

Yeah, what you're talking about is a damn roommate agreement (pay rent, don't cook) So basically you're full of shit. Communism my ass!

[Anomalocaris]

That's an impressive bit of revisionist history of capitalism.  Communism as an ideology is no more or less organic or pragmatic..and it seems silly to insists that the public ownership of the means of production didn't preexist it's codification as a political ideology.  It was the natural state of human beings for so long that it became entrenched in our sipirutal ideologies...simply awaiting revival and exploitation.

If the above can be used to defend capitalism gone wrong..it can just as easily defend communism gone wrong.

Personally, I;m not interested in defending one ideology over the other.  I don't think it can be done, all things considered.  I suspect that we'll see our love of capitalism as a temporary and unsustainable fetish in the not too distant future.  I think, between the two, -as another poster touched upon...we have to determine what it is we value about some x to determine which tool is best suited to the job.  There are already things that we don't think capitalism is the best answer for, even in our deeply ideologically friendly country.

Really?

There is no such thing as the natural state of human beings. Natural states of human being are all states in which any human manage to find himself.  One might say a more typical natural state would be a state which occurs with greater frequency in a particular condition.  Typically states which occur with greater frequency are those in which larger societies tend to find itself because that state arise from a more competeive social structure that have out competed other alternative possible structures.  The state of collective ownership is uncommon amongst Iron Age cultures or later, which implies it is uncompetitive and therefore less typically natural in the post Iron Age environment.

In so far as it is “entrenched” in our “spiritual ideology”, the spirit stems from the awareness that most people have a below average share of the total society’s resource, and ideology says “I’d be richer now if everything is shared evenly”.

[DLJ]

Maybe 'subordinate' is not exactly the right word.  But I'm not allowed to do anything in 'their' kitchen.  Each according to their ability etc.

She moved in with a friend of hers.  I gave her few tips on tactical relationship management so she should be OK.  

And she's much less muslim than when she arrived... so not a complete waste of time.

Yeah, what you're talking about is a damn roommate agreement (pay rent, don't cook) So basically you're full of shit. Communism my ass!

Bingo!

Now extrapolate the notion of cohabiting, non-blood related units, based on ability / need rather than market rate, to larger and larger groups.

As someone I admire has said...

...  It would work if people played nice and shared stuff, and if they did do that it wouldn't need to be politicized.

As alluded to earlier...
Communism (in 'governance' terminology) is about principles/policies/framework and culture/ethics/behaviour not organisational structure.

[ErGingerbreadMandude]

The whole government in a capitalist state is bought off by the way. It's not of the people, by the people, for the people..it's of the capitalists, by the capitalists, for the capitalists...

[Aegon]

...
What matters to me is what the communist system becomes in practice, most notably the stripping of rights and personal freedoms.

... which happens in all social systems. Not exclusive to Communism.

So I'm thinking that perhaps what matters more is how those rights and freedoms are stripped or curtailed. Correct?

Yeah. My rights are EXACTLY the same in the capitalist Democratic republic I currently reside as it would be in a communist state. You got me.

[Anomalocaris]

... which happens in all social systems.  Not exclusive to Communism.

So I'm thinking that perhaps what matters more is how those rights and freedoms are stripped or curtailed.  Correct?

Yeah. My rights are EXACTLY the same in the capitalist Democratic republic I currently reside as it would be in a communist state. You got me.

On the other hand, in many communist states, you had the right to health care, and the right to social welfare.  You don’t have that in the US.

Communists tend to think of right in terms of the right to.  Where as libertarian concept of right popular in the US is more a freedom from.

[Aegon]

Yeah. My rights are EXACTLY the same in the capitalist Democratic republic I currently reside as it would be in a communist state. You got me.

On the other hand, in many communist states, you had the right to health care, and the right to social welfare.  You don’t have that in the US.

Communists tend to think of right in terms of the right to.  Where as libertarian concept of right popular in the US is more a freedom from.

Uh. I still choose the US today over any communist state ever. Also countries around the world already have those things without having to starve their people or send them to camps.

[Catholic_Lady]

What? No North Korea?? Lol