Communism is the solution for America's problems

[Gandalf]

Marxism is illegitimate? Compared to what? What criteria are you using? And so on.

[loomer]

Even if that’s true that doesn’t make Marxism more legitimate. K A Pital ignores this, as well as the fact that communist economies have universally been disasters or that the ussr did its own share of atrocities in the Cold War.

It's not an 'even if'. It is true - something anyone with even the slightest actual knowledge of the subject, for or against, knows. And I notice you didn't answer Gandalf's question on how to reconcile the various revisions, reforms, and experiments made with Marxist theory since. For instance, what do you think of the Derridean New International?

[Darth Yan]

Derridean New International identifies the problems with capitalism but seems to assume communism will work. If Capitalism is bad junk food than communism is the idiotic fad diet.




As for Gandalf.....Communism as a whole has been a failure no matter how much its evolved. He's defending a dream that will never work so I don't really feel the need to discuss the new reforms. Just look at every attempt to put communism in practice to see that it's a painfully stupid ideology that while having some salient points can't really be put into practice no matter how hard it's drooling idiot fanboys argue

Marxism is illegitimate? Compared to what? What criteria are you using? And so on.

As a solution to capitalism's flaws it's illegitimate because it will NEVER work. That Capitalism has flaws has become increasingly obvious. But Communism is as I just mentioned the bad fad diet that won't really work

[loomer]

Derridean New International identifies the problems with capitalism but seems to assume communism will work.

Does it? I'm sure you can provide a quote showing that Derrida uncritically assumed that communism was viable.

If Capitalism is bad junk food than communism is the idiotic fad diet.

More empty, poorly considered rhetoric, as usual from you.

As for Gandalf.....Communism as a whole has been a failure no matter how much its evolved. He's defending a dream that will never work so I don't really feel the need to discuss the new reforms. Just look at every attempt to put communism in practice.

I see. So in other words, you feel that the failure of earlier experiments means that no future experiments can be undertaken? What a tremendously foolish view. It would be quite alright if you just said 'I'm not familiar with them, so I can't comment' - indeed, it would be laudably honest to admit that ignorance, since we all have a great many blindspots. Instead, you take the frankly idiotic view that 'communism didn't work then, therefore communism can never work', which relies on the presupposition that all communist theories are the same and that no reform can significantly alter it. This is, to be entirely blunt, utter shite. There are theories of communism that are radically different from those that have been attempted in the past which you are thus arguing you are free to ignore - some fifty odd years of various developments that have never been put into practice, drawing expressly on the failures and successes of the past, with express provisions to try and work through, around, or avoid the pitfalls prior attempts fell into. I'm sure you of course apply this same standard to capitalism, democracy, electricity, heart surgery, structuralist literary analysis, post-modernism, the Enlightenment, medicine in general, humanism, and all the other theories and practices that have had a variety of false starts, horrific interludes, and major failures.

The sheer hubris of deciding you can ignore not just the modern literature but indeed pretty much all the theory work from the beginning - and that's what your reliance on Wong's very short overview of the Communist Manifesto, itself a very short overview, signals - is staggering. You are not merely an intellectual lightweight - you are a vacuum, utterly devoid of meaningful rhetoric, knowledge, and wisdom. You scrabble to point to the failures of history, but can you identify why they failed? Can you explain what part of the theory failed in its exercise? Can you demonstrate what element of this is unaddressed in modern post- and neo- marxist thought?

[Elfdart]

I reject communism and Marxism for the reasons I stated: because I believe that your ideology is predicated on violence and dictatorship without sufficient willingness to acknowledge the consequences of those actions, because I believe that dictatorship and socialism are contradictory ideologies, and because I have no wish to replace one tyranny with another.

Violence is sometimes necessary. Sorry to bust your bubble, but do you honestly think that the capitalists are going to let us strip them of their power and assets and institute worker control of the economy and government without putting up some kind of fight? No. Even if it's just a matter of having to defend ourselves against mercenaries instead of state violence or a civil insurrection, it is going to take violence (and even if instituting Marxism is done without violence, it will certainly have to protect itself from a right-wing coup with violence at some point. Though maybe without the US there to back it, said coup won't happen). Hell, even getting the most basic of worker protections in this country (the US) has required that working people literally take up arms against the US fucking army. You're a Colorado native, correct? You should bloody well remember the Ludlow Massacre, wherein the Rockafellers hired mercenaries and enlisted the National Guard to murder striking miners and their families in their ramshackle tent city, which was the only housing the capitalist scum allowed. The miners then armed themselves and fought back, only to be castigated for trying to not die for their overlord's profits by the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

As for dictatorship, it is a system of government. Not part of Marxist ideology. Tends to happen when a culture that institutes communism doesn't start off with democratic institutions in place and then conquers others to create a buffer zone. The material and social conditions at the time meant that...well... it was gonna happen. Despite the best intentions of the people who actually kicked the revolution off to start with. It doesn't mean that it has to happen. Hell, there's at least one country I can think of that was doing its revolution through the political process. That is until the United States intervened and backed a military coup to put in place a fascist regime run by Pinochet.

Arbenz in Guatemala also comes to mind, though he was little more than a New Dealer: his big land reform proposal was to divide up a fraction of unused farmland from latifundia landowners and give it to the serfs. The reason he and Allende were overthrown is that they wouldn't use force against the opposition, even though it was clear they wanted the violent overthrow of the elected government and the CIA was actively arming them. One of the reasons Castro was so ruthless with landowners, Battista loyalists and other counterrevolutionaries in Cuba is that he wasn't going to make the mistake Arbenz made by being conciliatory towards the ruling class.

I can actually make a better case that fascism is part of the political immune system of neoliberal capitalist democracies than you can that communism is predicated on dictatorship.

The coup in Guatemala, and the spillover into El Salvador resulted in some of the ghastliest atrocities ever recorded. Clyde Snow, the forensic anthropologist who excavated a number of mass graves in Guatemala, said that if Jeffrey Dahmer had gone to Guatemala, he would have been made a general. This is what the capitalists and aristocracy unleashed on the peons, yet mass murder is not linked to these groups the way Marxism and despotism are. That's how effective the brainwashing has been for over a century.

[Darth Yan]

Derridean New International identifies the problems with capitalism but seems to assume communism will work.

Does it? I'm sure you can provide a quote showing that Derrida uncritically assumed that communism was viable.

If Capitalism is bad junk food than communism is the idiotic fad diet.

More empty, poorly considered rhetoric, as usual from you.

As for Gandalf.....Communism as a whole has been a failure no matter how much its evolved. He's defending a dream that will never work so I don't really feel the need to discuss the new reforms. Just look at every attempt to put communism in practice.

I see. So in other words, you feel that the failure of earlier experiments means that no future experiments can be undertaken? What a tremendously foolish view. It would be quite alright if you just said 'I'm not familiar with them, so I can't comment' - indeed, it would be laudably honest to admit that ignorance, since we all have a great many blindspots. Instead, you take the frankly idiotic view that 'communism didn't work then, therefore communism can never work', which relies on the presupposition that all communist theories are the same and that no reform can significantly alter it. This is, to be entirely blunt, utter shite. There are theories of communism that are radically different from those that have been attempted in the past which you are thus arguing you are free to ignore - some fifty odd years of various developments that have never been put into practice, drawing expressly on the failures and successes of the past, with express provisions to try and work through, around, or avoid the pitfalls prior attempts fell into. I'm sure you of course apply this same standard to capitalism, democracy, electricity, heart surgery, structuralist literary analysis, post-modernism, the Enlightenment, medicine in general, humanism, and all the other theories and practices that have had a variety of false starts, horrific interludes, and major failures.

The sheer hubris of deciding you can ignore not just the modern literature but indeed pretty much all the theory work from the beginning - and that's what your reliance on Wong's very short overview of the Communist Manifesto, itself a very short overview, signals - is staggering. You are not merely an intellectual lightweight - you are a vacuum, utterly devoid of meaningful rhetoric, knowledge, and wisdom. You scrabble to point to the failures of history, but can you identify why they failed? Can you explain what part of the theory failed in its exercise? Can you demonstrate what element of this is unaddressed in modern post- and neo- marxist thought?

Don't be a cretin. Communism depends on the idea of humans putting their own needs aside for the greater goods. While humanity CAN be noble by and large there are enough bad people to fuck things up for the rest of us; communism however depends on humans as a whole being willing to be selfless when we can't (which incidentally is why your incredibly idiotic decolonialist ideas are intellectually bankrupt. YOU may be fine with that "blackfella whitefella" stuff but a lot of people won't be and you fail to realize this).

Communism brought us Stalin, the atrocities of the Maoist government, the Khmer Rouge etc. That Capitalism brought environmental rape, the atrocities in Guatemala, and mass greed does NOT change that as much as you would like to pretend otherwise. For the record yes I agree that capitalism as a whole is flawed and can't really be reformed. But comparing communism to democracy electricity heart surgery structuralist literary analysis post modernism enlightenment medicine and humanism is idiotic. There are good ideas and bad ideas. Communism has good elements but is ultimately a shit idea no matter what flowery language it's advocates use. Same with Capitalism.

ALL Marxist ideas come from he same core, the communist manifesto, and they all depend on the same naive view that humans can completely 100% overcome their flaws (it was idiotic when Roddenberry preached it and it's idiotic now.)

YOU are devoid of meaningful rhetoric knowledge and wisdom. You keep repeating the same utopian ideals, ignoring that they don't align with human nature and arguing that since capitalism is a destructive ideology that it's polar opposite communism must be good.

[loomer]

Derridean New International identifies the problems with capitalism but seems to assume communism will work.

Does it? I'm sure you can provide a quote showing that Derrida uncritically assumed that communism was viable.

If Capitalism is bad junk food than communism is the idiotic fad diet.

More empty, poorly considered rhetoric, as usual from you.

As for Gandalf.....Communism as a whole has been a failure no matter how much its evolved. He's defending a dream that will never work so I don't really feel the need to discuss the new reforms. Just look at every attempt to put communism in practice.

I see. So in other words, you feel that the failure of earlier experiments means that no future experiments can be undertaken? What a tremendously foolish view. It would be quite alright if you just said 'I'm not familiar with them, so I can't comment' - indeed, it would be laudably honest to admit that ignorance, since we all have a great many blindspots. Instead, you take the frankly idiotic view that 'communism didn't work then, therefore communism can never work', which relies on the presupposition that all communist theories are the same and that no reform can significantly alter it. This is, to be entirely blunt, utter shite. There are theories of communism that are radically different from those that have been attempted in the past which you are thus arguing you are free to ignore - some fifty odd years of various developments that have never been put into practice, drawing expressly on the failures and successes of the past, with express provisions to try and work through, around, or avoid the pitfalls prior attempts fell into. I'm sure you of course apply this same standard to capitalism, democracy, electricity, heart surgery, structuralist literary analysis, post-modernism, the Enlightenment, medicine in general, humanism, and all the other theories and practices that have had a variety of false starts, horrific interludes, and major failures.

The sheer hubris of deciding you can ignore not just the modern literature but indeed pretty much all the theory work from the beginning - and that's what your reliance on Wong's very short overview of the Communist Manifesto, itself a very short overview, signals - is staggering. You are not merely an intellectual lightweight - you are a vacuum, utterly devoid of meaningful rhetoric, knowledge, and wisdom. You scrabble to point to the failures of history, but can you identify why they failed? Can you explain what part of the theory failed in its exercise? Can you demonstrate what element of this is unaddressed in modern post- and neo- marxist thought?

Don't be a cretin. Communism depends on the idea of humans putting their own needs aside for the greater goods. While humanity CAN be noble by and large there are enough bad people to fuck things up for the rest of us; communism however depends on humans as a whole being willing to be selfless when we can't

Hm. That doesn't look like a quote where Derrida affirms an uncritical communism as the solution. Concession on that point accepted. Second, communism does indeed depend on the idea of humans putting their own needs aside to a certain extent. So does democracy, as it happens. This extent, however, is not total as you seem to think but instead limited, as the goal of communism is in fact to guarantee every person's needs are met.

I think you will find it very difficult to find any coherent political philosophy (which of course rules out raw libertarianism, as it tends to incoherence) that does not require limited setting aside (willingly or under sanction) personal wants and needs. Can you name one that doesn't? I'm eager to see.

(which incidentally is why your incredibly idiotic decolonialist ideas are intellectually bankrupt. YOU may be fine with that "blackfella whitefella" stuff but a lot of people won't be and you fail to realize this).

If you'd like to relitigate decolonization, we can - but this is not the thread, so perhaps either shut the fuck up or front up and start one to debate it. However, if you do I'll be expecting you to actually answer questions and follow basic debate etiquette, which you seem to struggle with.

Communism brought us Stalin, the atrocities of the Maoist government, the Khmer Rouge etc. That Capitalism brought environmental rape, the atrocities in Guatemala, and mass greed does NOT change that as much as you would like to pretend otherwise.

Sorry, where did I talk about capitalism's environmental rape, Guatemala, or even mass greed? Where did I deny Stalin, Mao, and the other failings? I'm sure you can show me where. Do so, or shut the fuck up.

For the record yes I agree that capitalism as a whole is flawed and can't really be reformed. But comparing communism to democracy electricity heart surgery structuralist literary analysis post modernism enlightenment medicine and humanism is idiotic. There are good ideas and bad ideas. Communism has good elements but is ultimately a shit idea no matter what flowery language it's advocates use. Same with Capitalism.

Prove it. Prove that communism is a special case that must not be judged the same as other ideologies and technologies that have had failures. You wish to make the claim, so it's time to back it up: What about communism is so fundamentally special that it's failings cannot be reformed or resolved?

ALL Marxist ideas come from he same core, the communist manifesto, and they all depend on the same naive view that humans can completely 100% overcome their flaws (it was idiotic when Roddenberry preached it and it's idiotic now.)

Hm. Please provide a source that the Communist Manifesto - a pamphlet outlining in simple forms Marx and Engel's politics - is 'the core' of Marxism as opposed to, say, Das Kapital or Engel's Principles, Origin, and Socialism. I'm sure for someone who makes bold claims you can do so easily.

YOU are devoid of meaningful rhetoric knowledge and wisdom. You keep repeating the same utopian ideals, ignoring that they don't align with human nature and arguing that since capitalism is a destructive ideology that it's polar opposite communism must be good.

I'm sure you can demonstrate where I have said communism is good because capitalism is bad. Do so, or shut the fuck up. I've grown tired of your continual prattling about human nature, evasion of direct questions, and overblown rhetoric. Either front up or shut the fuck up. If you don't front up, I'll simply treat your posts with the respect they deserve - zero.

[Darth Yan]

1.) Maybe this is pithy but "everyone's needs" being met is impossible. It's pithy but while you might have enough for every man's need you can't have enough for every man's GREED. There are ALWAYS going to be those who want more and who will conspire to hoard more than they actually need. Communism very much depends on this not happening (it's why so many communist countries have a corrupt elite that lives in luxury while the common people starve).

2.) Fair enough but I do notice that you tend to have an INCREDIBLY Idealistic view of how people will behave in both the decolonialization thread and here.)

3.) KA and Gandalf sure as shit have; I assume you agree with them since you haven't raised issue with what they've said

4.) Oh please. There ARE ideologies which have been proven irredeemable and morally bankrupt no matter what you try (fascism for instance); communism is no different. As for your other question it's the fact that communism relies on EVERYONE being good and ignoring that there are always going to be bad people who exploit the system (Marx advocated the idea of a government having all the power and leaving once it was no longer required, as well as state control of all means of production and communication. Unless everyone is good and selfless that NEVER ends well).

5.) Does Das Kapital or Principles Origin and Socialism renounce ideas like abolition of private property, the government assigning what job you get or other ideas advocated in the Communist Manifesto? If not then there's not much difference.

6.) See 3. You don't take issue with what they say or point out how they may be flawed (KA is cheerleading for communism like it's going out of style). That implies that you tacitly agree with them.

I have not read Das Kapital or any of the books Engels wrote. But I have studied history and communism ALWAYS ends badly outside of MAYBE a few small limited cases. That Pital and Gandalf would like to pretend otherwise is irritating.

Check this out. Food for thought.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Communism ... n_practice

[K. A. Pital]

1.) No they aren't.

Seems like they are, and also you can’t invest a bit of time in spellchecking.

In Experience Communist Russia was a shithole

I‘m sure that unlike me who was born in the USSR you‘re uniquely qualified to call other nations shitholes. That just shows how much of a smug First Worlder you are.

In that shithole where I came from, we were never opulent, but we did not have slums or unemployment, did not lead our lives indebted for education, housing or medical care, and even being much more constrained relative to the West, we lived in comfort that would seem incredible to any third-world country. Which I‘d also stop calling „shitholes“ because this is insulting and false.

The real origin of all shitholes is the First World, who enslaved the world and built a golden toilet, an Elysium, on top of it. Transcontinental plunder, centuries of theft that left nations with scraps and crushed their nascent industries - these real shitlords have lost any right to call the plundered nations „shitholes“.

I was clearly referring to Dessalines alone. The massacre of Haiti's whites had no viable purpose other than sating his lust for revenge. That the french colonialists did even more monstrous things doesn't make the fact that they butchered civilians AFTER THEY ALREADY WON justified (also Touissant L'Overture would have been absolutely horrified by what Dessalines did and even at the time a lot of blacks were uneasy, as seen by the fact that the soldiers kept putting things off until Dessalines personally went to each city to force them to do it.) So no. He WAS a monster, and he is burning in the fires of hell just like the french colonial overlords. Guess what. Being on the receiving end of the oppression is NOT a get out of free card for committing atrocities.

No, but it explains the violence. In your view everything is just because Dessalines was a bad person. Not because it was a slave society, not because the French (unlike, say, the Poles) were the masters of this society, etc. But somehow you don’t apply the same retarded logic to your other examples.

3.) Again, no. You shouldn't just be lovey dovy kumbaya forgive. But there is the phrase "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." If you cling to hatred and anger all it does is fester and warp you. You shouldn't forget the wrongs of the past but clinging to hatred of another person is NOT healthy.

It sure is not, but it is also understandable and explains many events better than „oh bad people“. You know, the idea that you know better than the people who just had a revolution is basically recast supremacy.

Nelson Mandela understood that. It's why when he took power he had the truth and reconciliation committee put in place and had ALL parties involved (even his own) forced to hold an accounting. He didn't just enact mass revenge against the white population because he knew it would be stupid and pointless.

Seems to me you think that kind of attitude is bad and that oppressed people should always choose bloody revenge

No. I don’t think they always should. But I understand why events unfold as they do, and I don’t think it is because „monsters“ or somesuch. I think critically and reject mythical and individualistic thinking. The flow of history is defined by the masses. If the masses are backwards, and the transformation of their material conditions is lagging, the resulting culture will bear the mark of this backwardness. No matter who we are talking about. And asking for former slaves to be saints is also unrealistic, but it doesn’t prevent you from throwing around the word „monster“ even as the Haitians themselves still commemorate him in the national anthem. But I‘m sure if I said Washington was a slaver and a monster, you’d be up in arms excusing the institution of slavery as a feature of the time. Or would you?

But I have studied history and communism ALWAYS ends badly outside of MAYBE a few small limited cases.

If by „badly“ you mean that I would have been better off born as a worker under capitalism outside the First World - indebted perhaps already from the cradle, unable to pay if I needed any surgery or serious treatment, needing funds I’d likely never have to go to school and university - sure, then „badly“ it is. But I guess I value the ability of the ordinary people to get access to things that would otherwise be locked by their belonging to a subjugated class. I value not the excesses of the masters.

[loomer]

1.) Maybe this is pithy but "everyone's needs" being met is impossible. It's pithy but while you might have enough for every man's need you can't have enough for every man's GREED. There are ALWAYS going to be those who want more and who will conspire to hoard more than they actually need. Communism very much depends on this not happening (it's why so many communist countries have a corrupt elite that lives in luxury while the common people starve).

Yes, and? You haven't shown me an ideology that doesn't require a degree of self-sacrifice. Stop evading my questions and answer them, you gutless wonder. Either this is a unique character flaw of communism or it isn't, at which point it ceases to be a particularly relevant critique of communism and becomes a general critique of political ideology and philosophy in general.

2.) Fair enough but I do notice that you tend to have an INCREDIBLY Idealistic view of how people will behave in both the decolonialization thread and here.)

I've advanced no view of human behaviour in this thread, fuckwit, and I defy you to show otherwise. My actual view of human behaviour is quite cynical, but with a small sliver of idealism left - a nuance that you fail to grasp. And again: Shut the fuck up about decolonization or start a thread to relitigate it.

3.) KA and Gandalf sure as shit have; I assume you agree with them since you haven't raised issue with what they've said

You assume wrongly. But also, please do show me where Gandalf has tried to argue the Guatemala issue etc, because all I've seen is him - rightly - pointing out that communist movements were an early friend to Indigenous Australians and question whether Wong's essay engages anything recent and what criterion you're using to determine legitimacy. You seem to make this mistake often, of imputing some kind of hivemind to people that renders everyone responsible for the acts of a single poster.

4.) Oh please. There ARE ideologies which have been proven irredeemable and morally bankrupt no matter what you try (fascism for instance); communism is no different. As for your other question it's the fact that communism relies on EVERYONE being good and ignoring that there are always going to be bad people who exploit the system (Marx advocated the idea of a government having all the power and leaving once it was no longer required, as well as state control of all means of production and communication. Unless everyone is good and selfless that NEVER ends well).

Again, prove it. You are making an assertion. If it has been proven elsewhere, it will be easy for you to demonstrate that proof. Communism, incidentally, does not depend on everyone being good - and certainly not Marx's interpretation, as he rather roundly denounced utopian socialism. I'm sure you're able to prove it does, though, since you're making the claim it does. So we can add that to the list of claims you need to prove.

5.) Does Das Kapital or Principles Origin and Socialism renounce ideas like abolition of private property, the government assigning what job you get or other ideas advocated in the Communist Manifesto? If not then there's not much difference.

This is not what I said, and I note that you still haven't answered my question. Do it, you cowardly little evader. You wish to argue that the Communist Manifesto is the core of Marxism. PROVE IT.

6.) See 3. You don't take issue with what they say or point out how they may be flawed (KA is cheerleading for communism like it's going out of style). That implies that you tacitly agree with them.

You are mistaken. I don't argue with them because I don't particularly feel like getting embroiled in a debate around the morality of Guatemala etc or whether communism in the form K.A.Pital advances is the answer (I don't think so, myself, but I'm content to leave it there - in no small part because to actually do justice to the issue would require significantly more time both in preparation and argument than I am willing to spend in the middle of my thesis, and quite probably require an entire additional thesis worth of praxis-theory grafting to sketch out my precise position in regards to the longstanding communist-anarchist dilemma). I do ask questions about your underlying assumptions because they are far simpler and should be readily resolved. The fact you can't answer them adequately - if at all - doesn't reflect well on you. Now, again: Show me where I have advanced the argument you allege I have made, you snivelling little shit, or concede the point.

I have not read Das Kapital or any of the books Engels wrote. But I have studied history and communism ALWAYS ends badly outside of MAYBE a few small limited cases. That Pital and Gandalf would like to pretend otherwise is irritating.

In other words, you are painfully ignorant of the subject matter at hand. And again - why can't you point to where communism went wrong in those instances? Why can't you pinpoint the areas that failed beyond a vague allusion to 'well, there will always be dicks and that means communism is, like, doomed'? If you feel confident enough to talk shit, you should be willing to back your views. But you aren't, because you are an intellectually dishonest little coward of a man who tries to snipe and run, and any time you get drawn into an actual battle it becomes painfully apparent that you are fundamentally incapable of actual debate, of reading, or of doing anything but squawking about human nature and 'but history!!' If you're such a student of history, you'd be able to point to the arguments around where and why communism failed in the instances you cite. But you can't.

Because you aren't. You aren't a student of history - certainly, at any rate, the history of communism, as no student (well, student passing their classes...) of the history of communism would be so incredibly foolish as to mistake the Manifesto for the sum total of Marxist thought. You are an idiot, who simply scrabbles in the muck for something to support your preconceived notion and what you were told at school.

Since you seem to have trouble applying yourself, I'm going to do you a favour and list out the claims you need to support. Here are the claims you haven't answered from my last post:

• Communism is a special case that cannot be redeemed as an ideology regardless of any alterations made to it

• I excuse communism's failings because capitalism is also bad

• The Communist Manifesto is the core of all Marxist theory

• Communism's reliance on humans setting aside personal desires to a certain extent is in some way a special characteristic

Here are the new claims you need to justify:

• Communism depends on the complete eradication of greed

• Gandalf has advanced the arguments you claim he has

• Marxist communism is incapable of addressing the existence of 'bad people'

• There is no meaningful distinction between the contents of the Communist Manifesto and other seminal works of Marxist theory

• Communism has been proven to be irredeemable and morally bankrupt

• As a correlate of the above, that there exists a suitably objective morality to determine the moral bankruptcy of communism as anything more than personal feeling and opinion

[loomer]

One further question, actually. Have you actually read the manifesto yourself, Yan? Or should we add it to the list of things you haven't read but feel qualified to argue about?

[Darth Yan]

1.) No they aren't.

Seems like they are, and also you can’t invest a bit of time in spellchecking.

In Experience Communist Russia was a shithole

I‘m sure that unlike me who was born in the USSR you‘re uniquely qualified to call other nations shitholes. That just shows how much of a smug First Worlder you are.

In that shithole where I came from, we were never opulent, but we did not have slums or unemployment, did not lead our lives indebted for education, housing or medical care, and even being much more constrained relative to the West, we lived in comfort that would seem incredible to any third-world country. Which I‘d also stop calling „shitholes“ because this is insulting and false.

The real origin of all shitholes is the First World, who enslaved the world and built a golden toilet, an Elysium, on top of it. Transcontinental plunder, centuries of theft that left nations with scraps and crushed their nascent industries - these real shitlords have lost any right to call the plundered nations „shitholes“.

I was clearly referring to Dessalines alone. The massacre of Haiti's whites had no viable purpose other than sating his lust for revenge. That the french colonialists did even more monstrous things doesn't make the fact that they butchered civilians AFTER THEY ALREADY WON justified (also Touissant L'Overture would have been absolutely horrified by what Dessalines did and even at the time a lot of blacks were uneasy, as seen by the fact that the soldiers kept putting things off until Dessalines personally went to each city to force them to do it.) So no. He WAS a monster, and he is burning in the fires of hell just like the french colonial overlords. Guess what. Being on the receiving end of the oppression is NOT a get out of free card for committing atrocities.

No, but it explains the violence. In your view everything is just because Dessalines was a bad person. Not because it was a slave society, not because the French (unlike, say, the Poles) were the masters of this society, etc. But somehow you don’t apply the same retarded logic to your other examples.

3.) Again, no. You shouldn't just be lovey dovy kumbaya forgive. But there is the phrase "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." If you cling to hatred and anger all it does is fester and warp you. You shouldn't forget the wrongs of the past but clinging to hatred of another person is NOT healthy.

It sure is not, but it is also understandable and explains many events better than „oh bad people“. You know, the idea that you know better than the people who just had a revolution is basically recast supremacy.

Nelson Mandela understood that. It's why when he took power he had the truth and reconciliation committee put in place and had ALL parties involved (even his own) forced to hold an accounting. He didn't just enact mass revenge against the white population because he knew it would be stupid and pointless.

Seems to me you think that kind of attitude is bad and that oppressed people should always choose bloody revenge

No. I don’t think they always should. But I understand why events unfold as they do, and I don’t think it is because „monsters“ or somesuch. I think critically and reject mythical and individualistic thinking. The flow of history is defined by the masses. If the masses are backwards, and the transformation of their material conditions is lagging, the resulting culture will bear the mark of this backwardness. No matter who we are talking about. And asking for former slaves to be saints is also unrealistic, but it doesn’t prevent you from throwing around the word „monster“ even as the Haitians themselves still commemorate him in the national anthem. But I‘m sure if I said Washington was a slaver and a monster, you’d be up in arms excusing the institution of slavery as a feature of the time. Or would you?

But I have studied history and communism ALWAYS ends badly outside of MAYBE a few small limited cases.

If by „badly“ you mean that I would have been better off born as a worker under capitalism outside the First World - indebted perhaps already from the cradle, unable to pay if I needed any surgery or serious treatment, needing funds I’d likely never have to go to school and university - sure, then „badly“ it is. But I guess I value the ability of the ordinary people to get access to things that would otherwise be locked by their belonging to a subjugated class. I value not the excesses of the masters.

The Soviet Union had a black market for western goods, breadlines, people being reported if they uttered a peep about the government....you're looking at everything through rose colored glasses. The economy stagnated in the 70s because Centralized economies aren't actually all that efficient; the Great Leap Forward and Killing Fields were yet more examples of mass poverty and economic chaos.

2 3 and 4.) Don't be cute. I freely admitted that the french overlords were ALSO horrible people. The atrocities they committed almost certainly did help motivate the massacre of 1804. But the fact remains that even at the time many Haitians disagreed with the massacre (Dessalines had to personally visit each city because the soldiers were deliberately putting off committing massacres unless he showed up in person.) Dessalines also betrayed Louverture when it suited him (it's why he died in prison). There was no practical reason to kill the whites other than fears they would give birth to oppressors (which is the same logic used to justify the murder of native americans at sand creek btw). The "we were oppressed" excuse only goes so far. Israel uses that excuse to justify mistreatment of palestinians; doesn't make it any less right.

5.) Again, the Soviet Union had a black market, breadlines, a big brother style watch system, a stagnant economy and widespread starvation. You may have been lucky but most people suffered under communism. That capitalism has the horrors you ascribed doesn't change that.

[Gandalf]

I have not read Das Kapital or any of the books Engels wrote. But I have studied history and communism ALWAYS ends badly outside of MAYBE a few small limited cases. That Pital and Gandalf would like to pretend otherwise is irritating.

Okay then. You want to say that you've studied history, and such, despite apparently not having read key primary texts of the period. So, with which schools of thought have you engaged, which scholars have you read? Show us that you've read a fucking book on the subject as opposed to just citing "Wong said so!" over and over.

[loomer]

I'd accept an actual analysis of why communism didn't work, too, if it went beyond some generic 'it's human nature because history! I studied history!' nonsense. I too studied history (I'm sure that'll shock absolutely no one. Lawguy also likes history? Unprecedented.) so if that's all the qualification we need to assert human nature then boy do I have some real whoppers to unleash on the world about the secret nature of humanity.

[K. A. Pital]

The Soviet Union had a black market for western goods, breadlines, people being reported if they uttered a peep about the government....you're looking at everything through rose colored glasses.

Yes... so what? What is your point? Unlike privileged Westerners, I don’t see the world through rose-colored glasses. Our society had the above faults and more. Your point being? There was no heaven on Earth. It was a society with issues, some organic, some unique to the nation and some originating from the Marxist-Leninist program (which was far more progressive than the practical implementation of it). I‘ve explained that to many Western leftists who are fascinated with us: we were not the best, we were not rich, and we had a myriad problems. Still, the point I made stands: ordinary people, without any capital, were able to access things that in capitalist nations are locked beyond purchasing power. Most ordinary people in the Third World likewise have no access to Western goods by virtue of having no purchasing power to purchase them. In addition to being unable to purchase the goods, they also have no job security, no education, no right to healthcare.

But the issues of our society to you somehow mean we are a „shithole“. Students of history ought to have higher standards, no?

The economy stagnated in the 70s because Centralized economies aren't actually all that efficient

Yes. It also stagnated because it was starting to suffer from Dutch disease after the discovery of oil in the North. Efficiency and humanitarian goals also often conflict. The economy was overburdened by maintaining military parity with the US, a fully self-reliant superpower untouched by both World Wars and who supplied a huge share of the world. But again, fully granted the issues of Soviet-type societies in the 1970s... your point being what? I should insult myself and my people saying I therefore come from a shithole?

2 3 and 4.) Don't be cute. I freely admitted that the french overlords were ALSO horrible people. The atrocities they committed almost certainly did help motivate the massacre of 1804. But the fact remains that even at the time many Haitians disagreed with the massacre (Dessalines had to personally visit each city because the soldiers were deliberately putting off committing massacres unless he showed up in person.) Dessalines also betrayed Louverture when it suited him (it's why he died in prison). There was no practical reason to kill the whites other than fears they would give birth to oppressors (which is the same logic used to justify the murder of native americans at sand creek btw). The "we were oppressed" excuse only goes so far. Israel uses that excuse to justify mistreatment of palestinians; doesn't make it any less right.

I did not say anything about excusing. I said saying that this atrocity invalidates the Haitian revolution would be a nonsensical and deeply retrograde, bad conclusion. Can you follow the argument instead of inventing new ones?

5.) Again, the Soviet Union had a black market, breadlines, a big brother style watch system, a stagnant economy and widespread starvation. You may have been lucky but most people suffered under communism. That capitalism has the horrors you ascribed doesn't change that.

A lot of people were starving in the early industrialization period and it brought them nothing that there was a „white market“. A lot are still malnourished now. Somehow you seem to fully ignore this. I was not „lucky“, it is just the fact that „communism“ - even if narrowly interpreted as the movement of left-behind nations in the XX century to industrialize, even if narrowed down to only Soviet-type societies - was not a monolithic experience. It was different in space and in time. Capitalism is useless to my class: I am not noble, I do not have capital. Under capitalism, for me there is only a lifetime of wage labour to generate profits for the masters. It is not the „horrors“ of capitalism, to me capitalism as a system represents collective enslavement of the working class. The fact that our first attempts at liberation failed do not mean they are worthless. Spartacus also died defeated.

[Darth Yan]

I’m saying that you should acknowledge that people fled the Soviet Union for a reason, or that shit like the holodomor were an inevitable result of communist ideals. You are absolutely looking through rose colored glasses

[K. A. Pital]

I’m saying that you should acknowledge that people fled the Soviet Union for a reason

Yes, so? People also flee the Third World for a reason (a great many reasons). If you haven’t noticed, I’ve already acknowledged most of your criticisms. Is there a further point to them, besides “poor barbaric country attempted to build socialism but was totally not heaven on Earth”? Maybe at least a criticism building upon the ideas of Bakunin and Kropotkin, an attempt to tie the Marxist concept of the worker’s state to the Leninist idea of a vanguard party and thus show that a one-party state is the natural conclusion of the Leninist political program? See, in one sentence I did more to criticize my own position than you managed in several posts.

shit like the holodomor were an inevitable result of communist ideals.

You’ve been asked to prove time and again how it is an “inevitable result”. So far you haven’t. You said Dessalines was not an inevitable result of the Haitian revolution, but just a bad person. You apply a different logic here. Why?

You are absolutely looking through rose colored glasses

By acknowledging the fact lots of people died during the Soviet industrialization I’m looking through “rose colored glasses”? That’s a peculiar definition of “rose glasses” if I ever saw one. You seem to be appalled at the fact I suggest that these criticisms are not enough. But you fail to realize most the First World represents continuous government from the governments that originally built capitalism on the bones of the workers, so if we were not looking through rose coloured glasses, we ought to demand their immediate destruction.

[loomer]

I’m saying that you should acknowledge that people fled the Soviet Union for a reason, or that shit like the holodomor were an inevitable result of communist ideals. You are absolutely looking through rose colored glasses

One thing students of history usually pick up on is that describing almost any social process as inevitable is highly disputable.

[Zinegata]

Marxism is illegitimate? Compared to what? What criteria are you using? And so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsere_Besten

It pays to remind people that Germany actually considers Marx to be the third greatest German ever, behind Adenauer and Martin Luther. And that this idea of Marx being "illegitimate" is an American-invented historical fanfiction.

[Broomstick]

OK... because it's been over 40 years since I last read Marx and I honestly haven't kept up with the evolution of communist/socialist theory I have largely been a spectator here rather than a participant, but I wish to interrupt the pissing match going on to bring up some items relevant to the notion of the US having problems that may or may not be solved by communist/socialist contributions. I'm going to assume that rank and file worker actions like strikes would fall under the broader umbrella of "socialist" actions/solutions.

GM autoworkers are on strike. I'm not saying the linked article is the definitive summary of the situation, but it does serve as an introduction. Management/owners are trying to do an end-run around the union. I believe the current offer is still a 2% raise, which the workers who took paycuts to help bail the company out of bankruptcy don't think is enough. Also, the strikers health care benefits have been cut off (the union strike fund is supposed to take care of that, but I question if that's actually going to happen. Also have to wonder if it was part of plan to drain that strike fund). How effective will this be against a company that makes more and more of its money from China? (I doubt very much the Chinese give a fuck about American workers.)

University of Chicago nurses are striking. Again, the linked article is intended as an introduction to the issues and not the definitive document on them. Short summary so far: the nurses engaged in a one-day strike. The UofC contracted with substitute nurses not just for that day but through Wednesday, turning the strike into a lock out.

Part of what it comes down to is that while American industry (and nursing is also part of industry, because everything is now part of industry) is willing to spend seemingly limitless amounts of money on machinery it seems to want to spend less and less on people. Given the lack of social safety net in the US this is a big problem.

There are many strikes in the US these days, but they are largely ignored and seemingly ineffective. Worker action doesn't seem to be effective in today's US. What have you pro-communist/socialists have to say about this situation?

[Alyrium Denryle]

OK... because it's been over 40 years since I last read Marx and I honestly haven't kept up with the evolution of communist/socialist theory I have largely been a spectator here rather than a participant, but I wish to interrupt the pissing match going on to bring up some items relevant to the notion of the US having problems that may or may not be solved by communist/socialist contributions. I'm going to assume that rank and file worker actions like strikes would fall under the broader umbrella of "socialist" actions/solutions.

GM autoworkers are on strike. I'm not saying the linked article is the definitive summary of the situation, but it does serve as an introduction. Management/owners are trying to do an end-run around the union. I believe the current offer is still a 2% raise, which the workers who took paycuts to help bail the company out of bankruptcy don't think is enough. Also, the strikers health care benefits have been cut off (the union strike fund is supposed to take care of that, but I question if that's actually going to happen. Also have to wonder if it was part of plan to drain that strike fund). How effective will this be against a company that makes more and more of its money from China? (I doubt very much the Chinese give a fuck about American workers.)

University of Chicago nurses are striking. Again, the linked article is intended as an introduction to the issues and not the definitive document on them. Short summary so far: the nurses engaged in a one-day strike. The UofC contracted with substitute nurses not just for that day but through Wednesday, turning the strike into a lock out.

Part of what it comes down to is that while American industry (and nursing is also part of industry, because everything is now part of industry) is willing to spend seemingly limitless amounts of money on machinery it seems to want to spend less and less on people. Given the lack of social safety net in the US this is a big problem.

There are many strikes in the US these days, but they are largely ignored and seemingly ineffective. Worker action doesn't seem to be effective in today's US. What have you pro-communist/socialists have to say about this situation?

Union strikes are often ineffective because the unions have been systematically gutted in terms of their ability to actually conduct a strike. They cannot do a sit-in strike, which means that the company can easily hire scabs. Right to Work legislation means that the strike fund is underfunded. Third-party administrated defined contribution pension schemes also mean that the unions don't have a pension fund to use as a war chest, and when they do they've been saddled with Fiduciary Rules and half-management control that together mandate maximum return for current retirees rather than maximum benefit for all members. This means they cannot build social housing like they used to, or use the pension fund to soften the blow of lost work due to strikes.

The solutions are as follows.

1. Use flexible strike tactics. In the case of the nurses, they could use a good-work strike, where they continue to perform their duties; but just don't send things down to the billing department. At all. That way, they physically occupy the space and prevent scabs, while also denying the hospital revenue and even better expend resources.

2. Expand the strike. The teachers strikes were effective because it was industry wide across a large geographic area, swamping the local supply of scabs. ALL nurses should thus strike. Or even better, nurses, doctors, and low-level adminbodies.

None of this is a criticism of socialism. Rather, it is an indictment of capitalism, showcasing its power in corrupting the political system to throttle the efforts and effectiveness of organized labor.

[loomer]

Alyrium has already noted two solutions. I will go slightly further and suggest that it's also necessary to build mass solidarity, which is difficult these days but can still be pursued. Unions as voting blocs are powerful assets, which is precisely why they were destroyed. If these don't work because there are too many scabs or too much automation, then the destruction of the means of production may be necessary.

[K. A. Pital]

Strikes alone cannot topple capitalism (or rather, they are the foundation of a wide labour movement, which needs to see beyond the immediate demands of the strike, turn towards political goals of a higher order). Pure trade unionism can beat concessions out of capitalists only if it can through strike action paralyze the work of the enterprise.

It is hard for the unions to act against TNCs, which is why the best hope is trying to internationalize action, coordinate action with the workers striking in other countries.

I also suspect the ineffectiveness of strikes has to do with a drop in workforce union participation rates. This can be reversed by, well, helping people to join good unions, creating unions in new industry and cooperating with other unions, and criticizing unions that collude with the bosses from both inside and outside. General strikes are much more effective than isolated strikes.