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It seems like a while since Ericthebean started a thread like this. The answer is simple - Marxian economics hasn't improved the lives of people (in general).
Why don't you ask the victims of communism such as the people who starved under Stalin? Or the moderate and right wing people, including their children, who were slaughtered during the Cultural Revolution in China?
Better yet, why not go to Beijing and stand near a police officer who speaks English, and demand that Taiwan and Tibet be left alone and granted their sovereignty and freedom? When they put in you a prison labor camp without trial, get back to me about how great communism is.
Or you could ask the people behind The Epoch Times. They are people who fled the Communist Party to get to freedom here in the Great Nation of the United States of America, and they know a lot about its history and what it still does. They publish a newspaper giving insight to the Chinese regime, and they also published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, a document talking about the evils of communism:
btw China has nuclear weapons still, and the missiles to deliver them to US soil. It is not classified, but I know more about it than I can say because I was on a Trident submarine crew. Observe the unclassified information:
Not to mention that Russia still has the ability to destroy us, although they are not technically communist anymore, but they are going back toward totalitarianism (it might end up being right wing totalitarianism this time):
You are confusing a politics and economics...there are plenty of non-communist brutal regimes, not only now, but throughout history. The communist vs capitalist debate is nothing more than a debate about property ownership, and countries can have a varying degree of property ownership laws, even down to individual economic sectors.
Sorry, your "being on a trident submarine crew" does not privy you to any special info in this regards. Anyway, the US helped China secure those nukes when they obtained them.
Communism intrinsically requires authoritarian regimes. Freedom requires a free market.
To establish communism, you would have to eliminate the free market. No one would do that voluntarily, so you have to do it by force. Hence, you only find communism in authoritarian regimes, not in free countries.
Depends on the economic sector, there are plenty of gov controlled sectors in what are considered "free" countries, just as there are plenty of free economic sectors in what are considered "not free" countries.
But of course broadly you are right, something I incorrectly stated in my previous reply to you, in that the nature of communism invites a more brutal regime. However, the brutality of the regimes we are familiar with, was not really targeted towards economics, but rather political opponents and to consolidate power. If you look at the USSR for example, what happened during the times up to Khrushchev was basically a continuation of the Tsar's policies, right down to the secret police and forced confessions and interrogation tactics.
Slavery is not intrinsically required by capitalism or the US Constitution.
Slavery is, however, required by communism. The originators of the concept referred to it as "reeducation camps".
Socialism in the sense of left wing politics. Not communism. France, for example, has the word "socialist" in its constitution (at least the version from the 50s), but not "communism". The French wanted freedom, so they would never adopt communism.
Sorry, but slavery predates communism by thousands of years. Communism nor capitalism requires slavery, but both institutions will take advantage of it if able to do so. This has nothing to do with neither system, this is a political and human rights issue.
And if you want to get technical on the terms, no country has ever had "communism".
I was reading intelligent discourse and then it came to a screeching halt with this post.
This is just as bad as a "just because" answer.
Since I am a teacher, I will ask you to clarify your remarks so things can get back on track.
A. Where did you get the figure 100 million deaths? Please cite your source.
B. Are those deaths directly attributable to communism, or are these deaths attributable to the authoritarian regimes that practiced communism?
C. Secondly, as a means of comparison, how many deaths can be attributed to capitalism during the same time period? These deaths would include: deaths due to starvation through lack of wages and social programs in non-communist countries, deaths due to lack of medical care due to insufficient wages and government health programs, and deaths due to wars fighting against communism or for capitalist gains.
D. The use of the word "don't" in the phrase "it don't work" is incorrect grammar. The correct grammar would be "it doesn't work."
Even if by chance they would've been separate issues, this is what many people think of when they think of things like Marxism, Communism, Socialism, etc.
You can't wither the state away voluntarily. Communists have to use force to get what they want. People want the freedom to choose what kind of system of government they wish to have. Try to force communism and you will meet armed resistance, as did the Chinese Communist Party. Unfortunately, they were brutal murderers and had access to more firepower than the moderates and the right wing. Ultimately, the moderates and the right wing from China fled to Taiwan and made it a place where people could go for freedom and not have to go across the ocean to the USA.
It is apropos to this topic that a Chinese general once said in public that if Taiwan declares independence and uses force to defend it, and the USA comes to their aid -- as we would be required to in theory since we have a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan -- we would have to determine which is more important between Taiwan and Los Angeles (they would use a nuclear weapon on Los Angeles).
What, that only applies to communists? Was it not by the force of arms the US revolted against the English monarchy? How is the US revolt any more or less the "will of the people" than a communist revolt?
It seems a few people have forgotten what even brought on communism...
Countries in which communism swept through, or were a legitimate threat of doing so, all had widespread failure of implementing capitalism where it would benefit the entire population. The implementation of capitalism generally only benefited a few people. Add this a poor form of government, like a monarchy, and you have great conditions for a communist revolt. Remember, back in the day, the actual known effects of communism was not known, however, people did experience the negative consequences of capitalism. The entire basis of communism was "equality", something that was missing in countries that underwent revolts.
If the revolts against the governments, mainly Imperial Russia, happened at any other time, then communism probably would not have swept in. But the governments combined with all the bad qualities of capitalism, really turned off millions of people to the capitalist system.
Communism intrinsically requires authoritarian regimes. Freedom requires a free market.
To establish communism, you would have to eliminate the free market. No one would do that voluntarily, so you have to do it by force. Hence, you only find communism in authoritarian regimes, not in free countries.
Without a free market, you actually have even more capitalism than with one. Capitalism means accumulating capital so you can use it to bribe people to let you accumulate even more capital. Without a free market, you can hardly do anything without bribing someone, so you need capitalism, as the source of those bribes. Without the bribes, you can't open your own casino, can't sell cocaine, can't sell consumer products that might be construed as unsafe, even if the consumers know the risks and want them anyway, can't invent your own medicine and sell it, and in many jurisdictions can't even open a restaurant without bribing the health inspector.
In communism, you effectively have even more capitalism, because the whole economy is based on bribes. Whoever has the most capital can pay the most bribes to get the most gains on their capital.
As for eliminating the free market, that can't be done, and yet communism was established anyway. So much for your theory. The reason why it's impossible to eliminate the free market is because there is no such thing.
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Originally Posted by boxus
You are confusing a politics and economics...there are plenty of non-communist brutal regimes, not only now, but throughout history.
Yes, of course. I didn't say otherwise.
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The communist vs capitalist debate is nothing more than a debate about property ownership, and countries can have a varying degree of property ownership laws, even down to individual economic sectors.
Yes, but the ones with a communist system are not free countries. As I said France has "socialist" in its constitution but not "communist".
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Sorry, your "being on a trident submarine crew" does not privy you to any special info in this regards.
Special information about the military forces of other countries yes it does. Well it did between 1999 and 2003. I don't have a clearance anymore, nor do I have need to know, but back then I had both.
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Anyway, the US helped China secure those nukes when they obtained them.
Nope. They obtained the technology through Soviet assistance.
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In 1951 Peking signed a secret agreement with Moscow through which China provided uranium ores in exchange for Soviet assistance in the nuclear field. In mid-October 1957 the Chinese and Soviets signed an agreement on new technology for national defense that included provision for additional Soviet nuclear assistance as well as the furnishing of some surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.
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