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Is Communism good? This poll is closed. |
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| Yes |
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375 | 66.25% |
| No |
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191 | 33.75% |
| Total: | 523 votes | ||
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If we had Communism maybe you'd be a better poster 
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Jan 23, 2017 22:12
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OwlFancier posted:That... What? "Global capitalism demands a solution" is what I was responding to. Ineffective internet leftists are always "demanding" things just to see reality go in the exact opposite direction. I can see why you guys are mad all the time, i mean you go to all the trouble to come up with words, and the global economic system has the unmitigated gaul to just strait up ignore you like you're not even there
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Jan 23, 2017 22:16
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gobbagool posted:Please, by all means, share your understanding of Adam Smith and within context explain how totally awesome communism or anarchism or whatever dumb alternative you support is in contrast to capitalism. Adam Smith is a sentimentalist, which is reflected in Wealth of Nations.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:16
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gobbagool posted:"Global capitalism demands a solution" is what I was responding to. Ineffective internet leftists are always "demanding" things just to see reality go in the exact opposite direction. I can see why you guys are mad all the time, i mean you go to all the trouble to come up with words, and the global economic system has the unmitigated gaul to just strait up ignore you like you're not even there I don't think you understand. Capitalism is predicated on constant growth, the world, being of finite size and finite resources, simply cannot support it indefinitely.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:18
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:If we had Communism maybe you'd be a better poster Nah, I am what I am, but i'd be in a position to decide who gets to post and who doesn't, which would in turn raise the quality dramatically
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Jan 23, 2017 22:18
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OwlFancier posted:I don't think you understand. oh, so you're either a freshman at college communist, or a middle aged angry-because-your neighbors-have-more-than-you communist. ok, sorry, I shouldn't have engaged
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Jan 23, 2017 22:20
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gobbagool posted:oh, so you're either a freshman at college communist, or a middle aged angry-because-your neighbors-have-more-than-you communist. ok, sorry, I shouldn't have engaged What on earth are you on about?
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Jan 23, 2017 22:20
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OwlFancier posted:What on earth are you on about? Projecting mainly.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:21
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OwlFancier posted:What on earth are you on about? sorry, you seem like a serious fellow. How about this, since you've obviously thought at great length about the failings of capitalism. Can you explain why communism never actually works outside of internet forums or college debate classes? Bonus points if you can avoid the terms "eternal science" and "...didn't actually practice communism"
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Jan 23, 2017 22:26
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gobbagool posted:sorry, you seem like a serious fellow. How about this, since you've obviously thought at great length about the failings of capitalism. Can you explain why communism never actually works outside of internet forums or college debate classes? Bonus points if you can avoid the terms "eternal science" and "...didn't actually practice communism" Well, Communism does specifically refer to the final idealized society, and definitely nobody has managed that yet. What you usually have people practicing is some variety of socialism, the proposed method whereby the state takes control of the means of production and supposedly runs it for the benefit of the people while using some sort of democratic oversight as a check. The USSR didn't do particularly well on the democratic part because the government centralized power after the revolution because they were worried (justifiably) about being toppled either by other nations or by the wealthy people they were fighting against. That didn't really ever resolve itself and it retained an awful lot of centralized power, probably most exemplified under Stalin. That is socialism, but it's not the only form of it, just as, say, you can have capitalism under a nominal democracy, social democracy, or all out plutocracy. Broadly, socialism hasn't really been tried a huge amount, not least because the US is run by rich people and makes it its mission to destabilize or invade everywhere that tries it. There's lots of ways it might be approached and hell, socialism isn't even the only possible alternative, anarchists definitely don't agree with it.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:35
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OwlFancier posted:Well, Communism does specifically refer to the final idealized society, and definitely nobody has managed that yet. so, communism is the perfect ideal that cannot be criticized because it's never actually been tried to your satisfaction. seems like a good thing to spend your life breathlessly defending on a dead gay comedy forum
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Jan 23, 2017 22:40
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Shbobdb posted:I don't think too many people are arguing for anarcho-syndicalism anymore mostly because most people don't work in large factories anymore. And those that do work in industries amenable to syndicalism from a scale-perspective, those industries are driven by artificial demand (driven by sales/marketing as opposed to need) so they recognize that trying to set up a society based on those principles would deconstruct itself pretty quickly. i'm not sure why syndicalism is restricted to manufacturing industry? any industry could be run by cooperatives
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Jan 23, 2017 22:41
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It's an acquired taste OP.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:51
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Agnosticnixie posted:"Anarchism is a failed system, why it can't even withstand a concerted assault by three fascist empires single-handedly with the full might of two spanish provinces" Shibawanko posted:Information technology is bad for people and if communism means returning to some less sophisticated technological state where we drive bikes and simple cars and don't mine coltan (and of course, it does not) I only want it to happen more. OwlFancier posted:The USSR didn't do particularly well on the democratic part because the government centralized power after the revolution because they were worried (justifiably) about being toppled either by other nations or by the wealthy people they were fighting against. That didn't really ever resolve itself and it retained an awful lot of centralized power, probably most exemplified under Stalin.
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Jan 23, 2017 23:48
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Cicero posted:It's almost like the government also completely running the economy inevitably leads to more authoritarian behavior because you've concentrated basically all the power in a country into a single entity. Depends how you define "single entity" really. If control of the "single entity" is properly distributed among everyone then that is surely preferable to the current approach, where the bulk of the power is concentrated into a few people who are rich enough to own everything. Unless your argument is literally that democracy is bad then democratic control of the state and state control of everything which impacts people's lives materially is surely preferred to democratic participation in the state, state control of some things, and plutocratic control of everything else including major parts of the democratic process. Also as I said the desire to place power in a few people was a deliberate choice made in response to perceived external threats, not an automatic result of having a powerful government, a government can have as much democratic participation as it wants to, regardless of how much control it has over what happens in the country. Or at least if you ignore the damaging effects of wealth on democratic effectiveness anyway. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 23:58
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gobbagool posted:so, communism is the perfect ideal that cannot be criticized because it's never actually been tried to your satisfaction. seems like a good thing to spend your life breathlessly defending on a dead gay comedy forum Of course you can criticize an ideal, but you have to do it on theoretical grounds and not by referencing anecdotes of states that were aiming for that ideal that failed. And the post also clearly then goes on to say that socialism is the practical application of communist ideals, and so then clearly the thing that can be cirtisized by reference to failed states that implement it, which the post then does. If you're gonna make fun of someone for breathlessly posting on a dead gay comedy forum, you have to at least read the breathless posts on the dead gay forum first. cosmically_cosmic fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 00:04
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OwlFancier posted:Depends how you define "single entity" really. If control of the "single entity" is properly distributed among everyone then that is surely preferable to the current approach, where the bulk of the power is concentrated into a few people who are rich enough to own everything. Holy poo poo no wonder you people got owned so hard, every time a communist posts a million people die of boredom
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Jan 24, 2017 00:38
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gobbagool posted:sorry, you seem like a serious fellow. How about this, since you've obviously thought at great length about the failings of capitalism. Can you explain why communism never actually works outside of internet forums or college debate classes? Bonus points if you can avoid the terms "eternal science" and "...didn't actually practice communism" Trotsky.
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Jan 24, 2017 00:39
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OwlFancier posted:I don't think you understand. This is marxist psudoreligion, not reality. Haven't we gone over this before? OwlFancier posted:Depends how you define "single entity" really. If control of the "single entity" is properly distributed among everyone then that is surely preferable to the current approach, where the bulk of the power is concentrated into a few people who are rich enough to own everything. The argument against capitalism is that democracy is bad. Specifically that's its unable to check the power of capitalists. And the communist solution is to take power from guys called capitalist and give it all to a smaller group of guys called bureaucrats. asdf32 fucked around with this message at 02:29 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 02:25
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asdf32 posted:This is marxist psudoreligion, not reality. Haven't we gone over this before? No idea but it's patently correct, captialism exists to extract wealth from the labour of others and concentrate it, this is inherently unsustainable unless you have infinite space to grow into because eventually all the wealth will be concentrated and the system will collapse.
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Jan 24, 2017 02:28
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OwlFancier posted:No idea but it's patently correct, captialism exists to extract wealth from the labour of others and concentrate it, this is inherently unsustainable unless you have infinite space to grow into because eventually all the wealth will be concentrated and the system will collapse. Or that doesn't happen and the system continues. I will assume for now that you're one of those marxists that doesn't understand what profit means. Hint: socialist economies have it too.
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Jan 24, 2017 02:35
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Communism is good if you like mass graves and vicious political repression, bad if you like freedom, prosperity, and good outcomes.
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Jan 24, 2017 02:38
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Capitalism is good if you like mass graves and vicious political repression, bad if you like freedom, prosperity, and good outcomes.
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Jan 24, 2017 02:42
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i give communism 8 out of 10 nazis getting punched in the face
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Jan 24, 2017 02:47
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OwlFancier posted:[...] So what's your opinion on the ongoing collapse in Venezuela, and if/how it relates to socialism?
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Jan 24, 2017 03:07
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asdf32 posted:Or that doesn't happen and the system continues. I will assume for now that you're one of those marxists that doesn't understand what profit means. Hint: socialist economies have it too. Profit can be defined several ways but for, say, nationalized rail, the profits would be invested back into proviidng the rail service because the point of the industry is to provide the service. As opposed to privatized rail where the profits are extracted from the system and the operators go begging the government for money to pay for everything they don't want to pay for. You cannot constantly seek to extract and accumulate wealth from a system and predicate your entire economy on being able to do that because that only works as long as there is a constant expansion of things to be exploited to produce wealth. OtherworldlyInvader posted:So what's your opinion on the ongoing collapse in Venezuela, and if/how it relates to socialism? No clue, don't know anything about Venezuela. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 03:17
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OwlFancier posted:Profit can be defined several ways but for, say, nationalized rail, the profits would be invested back into proviidng the rail service because the point of the industry is to provide the service. Christ. Profit is a label for money which is no different than "tax", "fee", "tariff" or "wage". It's no more "extracted" or unsustainable than any of those other labels for money which all come from and get spent in the economy
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Jan 24, 2017 03:33
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asdf32 posted:Christ. Profit is a label for money which is no different than "tax", "fee", "tariff" or "wage". It's no more "extracted" or unsustainable than any of those other labels for money which all come from and get spent in the economy Except that is explicitly not the case under Captialism, that's what the word basically means. That people use ownership of things to extract a portion of the value of others' labor which they then concentrate. A capitalist will probably invest back into their property but they will also accumulate vast sums of wealth that simply sit, doing nothing, or being traded among the ultra wealthy but not actually participating in production of material things for the use and benefit of the majority of people. You're the one trying to jam the word profit in there, frankly I don't see a need to. It matters not a jot whether the wealth comes from profit, what matters is simply that property law supported by the force of the state allows those with lots of money to demand a portion of others' labour in exchange for the basic necessities of life. That is immoral, and not sustainable when that wealth is simply put in private hands because our society clearly shows that private hands cannot be trusted to use that wealth to the greatest benefit of the people who actually produced it. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 03:37
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OwlFancier posted:No clue, don't know anything about Venezuela. If you're going to argue for socialism on the internet, I'd recommend familiarizing yourself with whats often held up as a very recent and notable failure of socialism.
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Jan 24, 2017 04:06
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Eh, I'm pragmatic, I entirely agree with Marx's analysis of the failures of Capitalism and democratic socialism has brought some of the finest institutions in my country so I think there's plenty to recommend it without being overly tied to any particular implementation of it. It hardly needs to be ideal in order to be an improvement.
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Jan 24, 2017 04:08
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Communism is real, and my friend. Also technology owns, primitivists out.
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Jan 24, 2017 05:08
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Actually communism is very bad, if you're a bourgeois who's used to enjoying the fruits of the exploited labor of the working class
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Jan 24, 2017 05:37
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Bob le Moche posted:Actually communism is very bad, if you're a bourgeois who's used to enjoying the fruits of the exploited labor of the working class As a parasite who benefits from the labor of others while contributing nothing of value myself, I can say with authority that Communism is good.
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Jan 24, 2017 06:26
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Without Marxism there would have been no Cheka, without Chekism there would have been no KGB, Without the KGB Donald Trump wouldn't be president. Checkmate commies.
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Jan 24, 2017 06:29
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It's hard to do it, huh OP? Like you can't say "Is Bolshevikism good?" because people will laugh at you and you otherwise can't really point to communists advocating for ethnic cleansing. Unlike, say, the loving Nazis. This must be so frustrating for you. The truth has to be in the middle! It just HAS to be!
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Jan 24, 2017 08:45
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SSNeoman posted:It's hard to do it, huh OP? Like you can't say "Is Bolshevikism good?" because people will laugh at you and you otherwise can't really point to communists advocating for ethnic cleansing. Unlike, say, the loving Nazis. I don't understand this post. Every communist country has genocided.
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Jan 24, 2017 10:07
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Oh yeah, who did Cuba genocide? (The rich don't count) edit: Also, Vietnam, who did Vietnam commit genocide against? Be mindful that if you're going to keep bringing up mass killings, the list of massacres and genocides committed by capitalists, monarchists, fascists, imperialists and other reactionaries only grows and grows and the repressive and murderous communist regimes of the 20th century are hardly exceptional if that's the only criticism people can bring to bear. People starve under capitalism, people are rounded up and killed by death squads or obliterated by air strikes or drone strikes, political leaders are assassinated, people are disappeared to extraterritorial blacksites. If communism is supposed to be qualitatively worse than the status quo because it's historically meant to have been more repressive then other systems that idea is patently false and the evidence is all of human history. TomViolence fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 10:09
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gobbagool posted:every time a communist posts a million people die of boredom You're not dead though.
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Jan 24, 2017 10:23
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TomViolence posted:edit: Also, Vietnam, who did Vietnam commit genocide against? Be mindful that if you're going to keep bringing up mass killings, the list of massacres and genocides committed by capitalists, monarchists, fascists, imperialists and other reactionaries only grows and grows and the repressive and murderous communist regimes of the 20th century are hardly exceptional if that's the only criticism people can bring to bear. People starve under capitalism, people are rounded up and killed by death squads or obliterated by air strikes or drone strikes, political leaders are assassinated, people are disappeared to extraterritorial blacksites. If communism is supposed to be qualitatively worse than the status quo because it's historically meant to have been more repressive then other systems that idea is patently false and the evidence is all of human history. Easy there, communism is a bad system because it cannot be implemented into the world. Every country that tried to do communism failed and had really bloody periods of strife. SpaceDrake posted:Quick realtalk: Soviet/Stalinist-style Communism is awful because it's ultimately just oligarchy wearing red clothing. Democratic Socialism, meanwhile, is pretty much the only sensible way to run a high-technology, well-developed civilization in a stable manner (which is why so much of Europe has developed in that direction). had it right back on page one. Now of course these violent periods were caused due to economic issues, not racial ones. Unlike The Actual loving Nazis, who OP is trying desperately to conflate with communists, the entire philosophy is inclusive of all people (whether it is so in practice is another story). Nazism is and always will have exclusivity and racial hatred and superiority built in them. So it is okay to punch Nazis. Which is what this thread is actually about. oh btw if you find any communist hate groups who advocate for genocide of people you can punch them too.
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Jan 24, 2017 10:47
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SSNeoman posted:Easy there, communism is a bad system because it cannot be implemented into the world. Every country that tried to do communism failed and had really bloody periods of strife. How about Imperial Japan as well? How about the major European Imperialist powers? How about all those South American military dictatorships? How about all those ancient monarchies? Was Tsarist Russia really swell and the Bolsheviks just hosed it up? The KMT? History is literally with murder and starvation and the only choice is not to try to replicate it. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 11:05
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