Excuse me if i sound silly or dumb but i want to understand this.

How come in my studies of history, and reading through these boards i always get the feeling that communism is regarded as bad? I mean it's not just that i get the feeling, it's calling people a 'commie' and so on.

Anyway i always thought it was a good thing. Because to me communism means sharing money with all the people and putting it back into the community, creating equality. How does it mean you will live in fear of poverty or that violence needs to be used to control the people of a communist country?
I mean i know that Cuba is a communist country and with my own researching ive learnt they even have their internet restricted, have shitty hospitals and freedom of expression is restricted.
But why do you HAVE to control the people so harshly to make it work? If people wanted communism then wheres the need to be so harsh and controlling?
If it cant work for a whole country as my learning has taught me, my question is why? Couldn't it work for a small community who all wanted it? (I've read of an experiment where it's like that i think it's in India if i can remember what it's called or anything i'll post it) Because to me it is a good idea, the idea of sharing everything. But of course with a greedy leader it would never work.

Also - why does communism mean no individuality? Why cant you be an individual? Whats stopping people from being themselves, i don't get the criticism so please enlighten me so i can learn something. I've always felt that if everybody's goal were to become strong individuals we wouldn't have a strong community, in the end we all belong into some group whether that be our family, community or country.

I think i'm done now, excuse me if i seem to ramble or seem naive. But anyway - opinions and explanations please.

Well, the basic idea of Communism is actually great--make everyone equal, no religion, nothing to fight over, everyone's happy--but humans just weren't built that way. We want things. We need to feel more important than one another. It's mainly the way the plan of communism was executed is why its reputation isn't too great.

But really, why can't each country deal with the government? Only when something like fascism or genocide comes up should other countries start wars over such things.

I think that if everyone were selfless and hardworking, communism would work. Sadly, that will never be the case.

communism is portrayed to be bad because of the countries that claim to be communist but are not, such as china or stalinist russia. communism can work in the real world if it was tweaked on paper so as to have real world application. i myself would like to find how to tweak communism into a real world ideology and spread it throughout the world. i believe using today's technology would help people truly be equal and thus allow for true communism to spread and work.

why can't we just let nations have their own government.

seriously who gives two shits about communism? it's not like we're going to wake up one day to the ussr.

let a country have whatever form of government runs it the best. isn't that the most efficient way to do things? whatever is best for whoever.

quote:

but in essence, it was Marx saying that the working class would eventually overthrow the capitalists and rule

This is both true and not true. The whole point of Marx's use of dialectic is that the final move to a communist state should eliminate the difference between the working class and the capitalist exploiters. Everyone gets a chance to rule equally, within a basic social framework. Marx really envisioned a society in which everyone does some work in the morning, whether basic farming, janitorial stuff or working on a cure for cancer, and then spends thier afternoon painting, writing poetry and so on. The revolution is supposed to equal things out so that people both except the burden of work (so the capitalist exploiters actually have to do some work rather than just employ other people to invest their money for them) and reap the reward: there will be no poverty and no millionaires. Basically, the social ideal becomes to foster contentment; extra goods are replaced as the highest good in society by self-expression and so on.

Add to that that Marx envisioned the communist revolution happening in a long established democratic county like the UK rather than what basically amounted to a feudal system in Russia and there you have it. After Stalin, no one really gave communism a chance except Cuba (and their health system is reportedly quite good: Dr House says so. So it is true. IT IS!).

The whole point is, is that the communist spirit encourages people to work collectively - like Confucius wrote: 'Choose a job you like, and you'll never have to work a day in your life.' Work becomes something done out of a sense of fellowship for other human beings and something pleasurable that you can take pride in.

Anyway, just throwing it out there.

Actually, what you are talking about is more socialism than communism. Communism has several different forms (depending on the ruler.) but in essence, it was Marx saying that the working class would eventually overthrow the capitalists and rule. Marx really didn't get far into how everything would work, just a major revolution would happen and capitalists (those who benefit from the working class) would be replaced by those who work. Not a lot of detail provided on how the government would work.

Socialism is having everything regulated by the government and there is no private ownership. The government distributes all the goods as needed. What job you have would ideally be irrelevant to how many goods you receive.

As pointed out, it sounds good because in a very small community (like say among a group of friends) we practice this on a small scale. The problems arise when total strangers enter into it and when there is a lack of checks and balances.

In essence, in order for this system to work you need
1) who would run this system honestly?
2) How do you determine someone's needs?
3) How do you distribute the wants of the society (there will always be a shortage of goods in this department b/c people's wants are unlimited.)
4) How will you be sure there are no shortages?
he problem with 4 arises when people lose their incentive to work hard for extra goods. Since your performance doesn't correlate with your needs, (or what goods you receive.)productivity drops. The only way to keep it in force is a strong central government
The other inherent flaw is government is always less efficient than private businesses and is just as corrupt.

Main points colored for those who don't like a lot of reading

quote:

Originally posted by daemonophobia:
Excuse me if i sound silly or dumb but i want to understand this.

How come in my studies of history, and reading through these boards i always get the feeling that communism is regarded as bad? I mean it's not just that i get the feeling, it's calling people a 'commie' and so on.

Anyway i always thought it was a good thing. Because to me communism means sharing money with all the people and putting it back into the community, creating equality. How does it mean you will live in fear of poverty or that violence needs to be used to control the people of a communist country?
I mean i know that Cuba is a communist country and with my own researching ive learnt they even have their internet restricted, have shitty hospitals and freedom of expression is restricted.
But why do you HAVE to control the people so harshly to make it work? If people wanted communism then wheres the need to be so harsh and controlling?
If it cant work for a whole country as my learning has taught me, my question is why? Couldn't it work for a small community who all wanted it? (I've read of an experiment where it's like that i think it's in India if i can remember what it's called or anything i'll post it) Because to me it is a good idea, the idea of sharing everything. But of course with a greedy leader it would never work.

Also - why does communism mean no individuality? Why cant you be an individual? Whats stopping people from being themselves, i don't get the criticism so please enlighten me so i can learn something. I've always felt that if everybody's goal were to become strong individuals we wouldn't have a strong community, in the end we all belong into some group whether that be our family, community or country.

I think i'm done now, excuse me if i seem to ramble or seem naive. But anyway - opinions and explanations please.

I wasn't planning on reading every single one of these replies so sorry if someone said this already.

Communism favors mediocrity and destroys innovation (or individuality) No one has any incentive to do any work or if they do work they have no reason to do it well because everyone is being treated exactly the same and being paid the same. This may sound like a good idea. But in a world with a communistic government a doctor would be making just as much money as a janitor.

Communism is a terrible idea.

Communism is in theory a decent idea, as it usually means that each will work according to their ability and each will receive according to what they need. However, Karl Marx's idea was that communism was a goal and in order to acheive it there must be an uprising of the working class. As well as a struggle (this turns into the idea of socialism) and the struggle would be violent before it became good.

Through out history many countries have adopted their own means of communism, and in many cases it has been with large amounts of people. In communist china many ideas ended up being repressed as philosophy and art were viewed as harmful during the Cultural revolution. Another problem with communism is due to not really gaining much from working people often weren't inspired to work hard. In the soviet union it was difficult to get items that were needed and people had to stand in long lines in order to get basic necessities.

Perhaps the idea of having communism on a small community may work, but certainly using it with a larger group of people and under a dictator it has not been the best system of government.

Communism is bound to happen, that's all I need to say. With all the revolutionized means of production all exertion of labor will be minimal; making it subordinate at the biggest form. So does the value of the bourgeoisie conditions of productions with the constant commercialism of such means of production. The bourgeoisie won't be able to keep the proletariat as a thread anymore, therefore abolishing a necessity in the bourgeois mode of production. Revolution is the response of the worker (note: not reaction, response).

All those prejudices that Communism is bad are all according to the controlled bourgeois media (and its true: who controls media - rich people), they would like to retain their wealth, won't they? But all the Cuban and Soviet revolution demonstrated is revolution without the zenith of bourgeois development - fatal against the proletariat revolution.

Workers of all lands, unite!

well...I don't even know what communism is.
soo...?

quote:

Originally posted by applefan:
The problem with communism is that you need a leader in order to regulate goods and services. And then you need money to take care of the goods and services. But there isn't supposed to be a leader in communism.

The next part is hard to explain but it has happened in every isntance of communism to date.

Soon a leader becomes powerful who the people flock to for guidance. The people become convinced that the leader is just helping them. But the leader always has become corrupt and has gained so much power the people are helpless.

Leaders are necessary. That's why communism doesn't work. You should read the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. Very good explanation.

Unfortunately, you're suggesting fascism. Facism is defined by strong faith in a supreme leader, the idea that there is a elite class within society that can guide the lower classes. This flies in the face of most historical examples, where fascism (and a strong central leader) fails.

(If you need a quick set of examples, Pinochet in Chile, Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and various short lived dictatorships in Africa and South America.

Corporatism (the economy based on what you're describing: a strong leader or government directing a capital based economy) has only really worked out in Post-War Japan.

If you're using Animal Farm by George Orwell as an argument against communism, you know very little about George Orwell himself, who was an avowed socialist, almost borderline communist. He used 1984 and Animal Farm to warn against dictatorships and the tyranny of the proletariat, just as Marx did.

You're also mistaken on how many instances of "communism" there has been. There is a vast divide between any traditional branch of communism, be it Trotsky's version or Marx's version, and what was put in to practice.

Very few people remember that Lenin came in to power by putting Capitalists in place to boost Russia's industry, something Marx never purposed. It's also forgotten that Stalin actually increased class tensions by referring to classes of Russians as lower then they actually were, such as the argratarian farmers known as the Kulaks.

Most references to modern day communism, are actually the furthest thing from it. Perhaps the closest thing we can call communism would be Cuba. However, Cuba is more acuratly described as a bastardized form of socialism, not communism.

Leaders are not necessary either. In fact, most western nations focus on the exact opposite: Leaders are not necessary to the survival of the state, they're only useful. Such is nature of democracy.

quote:

applefan you said it.

I know people in communist China that if they believe a certain religion and if the government finds out they will come in and at first will give them warning, but then after I don't know how long the police comes in and starts taking them to jail.

Like applefan said it sounds good in theory, but it really isn't.

China isn't communist. China is a socialist-capitalist hybrid that switches between the ideals of Mao and the new bursting capitalist economy that's industrializing China. How you manage to fit communism in to a market/capital based economy.

People seem to have misconceptions about communism, so I'd like to remind people of a few pieces.

1. Communism is about class equality. Any organization that aggrevates class inequality is NOT communist.

2. Leaders must inherently create an elite class. Therefore, any society with a designated leader that speaks for the whole of the society can not be communist.

3. Communism must therefore be inherently democratic, as the only way to have direction without a leader is through democratic process.

I have heard about this religion that believes in an idea called the Law of Consecration. Essentially this is law is what communism was based on. The idea behind this law is that everybody believes in a single faith and religion and so they are all interconnected. This fixes a major problem of communism: lack of motivation. The motivation comes from a mutual respect, if not love, for the others in the community. And also, as has been stated, somebody has to regulate the money and supplies, and since every person of this religion believes in the prophet and believes that he has divine right to be in charge,therefore the problem of jealousy and greed are lessened. (they do not disappear and probably never will disappear from the face of this earth.) If every person is willing and capable of performing their lives unselfishly, and this is important- and nobody gains anything more than what they need to live- then communism is a viable system and can be considered "good." However, in every communist society to have been constructed so far is doomed to fail, because the leader (usually a dictator, if not always) has complete power for the country. He has more money and power, which defies the very structure of integrated living, and therefore when the people decide they want him to be destroyed because he has more than them, when they do rebel and the dictator is destroyed all the power and money of the economy gets destroyed with him. Causing the downfall. Tell me what you think. This is just my take on all this.

i think comunism is one of those things were it looks good on paper, but not really in the real world. it could work if we have a honest society with little corruption and an abundent supply of nesesities but we can never have neither. also, no one is equal. lets face the facts here, we all caNT BE EQUAL on a physical or mental level so a totally equal society cannot work.

Personally, I dislike Communism.

Communism is idealistic but in reality, if you look at it it doesn't really work. For example such countries like China and Russia, the people are still suffering, not really the happiest people on earth aren't they.

The people don't have freedom, no motivation. The idea of everything being balanced and equal seems like a great idea but it has its downfalls like things in money. If you as a doctor gets paid the same amount as a janitor. What would you feel? A lot of communist countries are suffering, personally I don't really like it. You can't have individuality. It's not exactly the best thing for me.

applefan you said it.

I know people in communist China that if they believe a certain religion and if the government finds out they will come in and at first will give them warning, but then after I don't know how long the police comes in and starts taking them to jail.

Like applefan said it sounds good in theory, but it really isn't.

Communism in theory is good. Everyone and everything is equal, with no government to interfere. Everyone has equal power.

The problem with communism is that you need a leader in order to regulate goods and services. And then you need money to take care of the goods and services. But there isn't supposed to be a leader in communism.

The next part is hard to explain but it has happened in every isntance of communism to date.

Soon a leader becomes powerful who the people flock to for guidance. The people become convinced that the leader is just helping them. But the leader always has become corrupt and has gained so much power the people are helpless.

Leaders are necessary. That's why communism doesn't work. You should read the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. Very good explanation.

To add to what a lot of people here have said, communism would only be a hindrance to the people if the government is not making enough revenue to share among its citizens.Example Cuba.Although russia is doing well because she make lots of funds from Oil.

Communism is more wrong than right.

Sharing money isn't bad its just that in a communist society people are paid the same so there is no difference between a doctor and a garbage man. Understand that I'm not saying that either is better. I just think that some people work harder then others and deserve to keep their money. I believe in helping those less fortunate but I don't agree with helping those who won't help themselves. I don't think communism is bad or good. Depending on who you are you may like it or hate it. I don't like communism and i never will. But if others do, Best of Luck to ya.

any extremism is bad, left or right