I'm kind of back but kind of...meh, screw it

Sure, and no need to say "sorry." I like the way you write, you're smarter than I am, and you're not half as windy as most commies I argue with online (does the user name Rafiq mean anything to you?), so stay with us.

But let's continue this, though you might want to start a separate thread on ... oh wait, never mind, only we adults are allowed to do that per forum rules, and you don't qualify. JUST KIDDING AGAIN. You're making me tease you for some reason, so if I get out of line, it's all your fault. Anyway ....

For countries like East Germany, I can't argue with you. But Castro and his group led a band of guerrillas against an American-backed regime and supplanted what I'll call a liberal constitution with ... well, you know. I think Castro was pretty frigging revolutionary, considering. So was Mao. There was no reason Castro couldn't rebuff Moscow and continue the "struggle" toward real emancipation of the working class, free and fair elections, an independent judiciary. Except for one thing: he was a commie, let's face it.

Another argument I have with you is that this business of "the failure of communism was inevitable given the historical circumstances" does not explain why the governments of all these countries became so repressive. What was wrong with "okay, it's clear the people don't want us in power and the bread lines are getting too long and everyone would leave if we let them, so let's have free and fair elections and let someone else have a go?" Did this approach ever occur to a single Marxist in a corrupted state? If so, why didn't the mob and the military get behind him instead of some Stalinist?

AND I know that capitalism is no guarantee of economic security for all and freedom from an oppressive secret police, Chile leaping to mind ... but the worst things that the American FBI and your own security service (MI5?) are ever accused of doing seem tame and, more importantly, aberrant compared to the systemic abuses of, say, the Stasi and the KGB. That's not just American propaganda. Any East German or older Russian will tell you that they were all terrified of the secret police, and not just dissidents, I mean everybody. Americans and West Europeans were never shivering in wait for a midnight knock on the door. Why in every case did commies terrorize their own people?

 

Thanks, and I wouldn't be so sure :/

Omg, yes it does! Are you a RevLefter too?

Yeah, I have a teasable fa- wait, you can't see my face. A teasable avatar, then? (The avatar kind of resembles me in the sense that it looks really really young and innocent, so there's that)

Exactly: he was a capital-C Commie, and so was Mao (until the Sino-Soviet Split). They were both Russian lapdogs and their tactics were undemocratic and wrong from the get-go. Mao's People's War strategy, his Orwellian-ly named "New Democracy", Focalism and the general Stalinism and revisionism (in the broadest sense) of both leaders meant that in effect, it was never the proletariat which seized power in these countries; it was a professional military force, rather similar to a standard coup d'état (like, for instance, one of the many coups in Thailand). In Cuba, things didn't get as bad as in China because the government wasn't quite as economically, um, daring. But neither country ever had a workers' state controlling the means of production, even for a little while.

Well firstly, no Marxist in their right mind would want to return to bourgeois elections after what they see as a successful revolution - we don't even support these elections in a non-revolutionary period. The dissident Marxists - most famously the Trotskyist Fourth International - mainly advocated political "revolution" rather than all-out overthrowing the government and replacing it with a genuinely proletarian state, because they generally believed that there was still something there. It's easier to see otherwise in hindsight. And of course, what little agitation these dissidents could do before mysteriously disappearing was no match for the huge propaganda machine the state-capitalist government had at its disposal.

The reason why the governments of these countries all became more oppressive - and more blatantly oppressive - than those of the West probably boils down to the fact that they were all one-party states whose leaders 1) wanted to be strongmen, because autocratic state apparati tend to attract wannabe strongmen and 2) were afraid of being overthrown, since the majority of the world was hostile to them. This is why you don't just see such repression in countries which call themselves communist, but in almost all autocracies, including much of modern Africa, the Middle East and the left-leaning autocratic governments in many Latin American countries during the late 20th century. Though faux-communism did regrettably provide a convenient excuse for the horrors of several governments.

 

I figured you'd know who Rafiq was, and yes, I was on Revleft for years, as an overt anti-communist. Restricted of course. Rafiq and I went a few rounds.

Then I got banned. No crypto-homphobic comments or anything like that. I think it was in the name of purification. And then ... you'll be familiar with the two photos, one of Stalin within Nikolai Yezhof beside the Moscow canal, and the second photo with Yezhof airbrushed out after he was shot? (see attachment)

http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites...oviet-censorship-naval-commissar-vanishes.jpg

That's what happened to records of me on Revleft. It's okay. But it should scare you that the hard Left is famous for this kind of thing.

No, the deal is that you're peculiarly unflappable (especially for 14), and something compels me to flap the unflappable.

Focalism and "revisionism in the broadest sense," eh? How can a 14-year old know these things and write this precisely on such complex and -- to normal kids -- obscure matters? Put your hand on your heart and swear by all that is Holy that you are really 14. I'm not calling you a liar. Perhaps you have had to adopt an alternate internet identity for personal reasons, and I'm not asking, but damnation .... Tell your teachers I said they need to let you skip secondary school, unless you're conning me. In which case you need to be in jail (I'll write you every month.)

Apparati? I'd like to mark this quote as Exhibit B and introduce it into the record, your Honor (not you, I mean the judge at your trial.) But seriously, I know they were one-party states! That's begging my question, which is, what is it that makes failed leftist revolutionaries establish these one-party states and then turn into mass murderers? Not "now and then," but over and over, and everywhere? Okay, I shouldn't include Cuba in this, as I don't know how many people Castro has actually had murdered, if any. I get carried away with my own rhetoric because it's so powerful and soaring, see?

But seriously, please come over to our side and content yourself with liberalism. We ain't so bad. And we esteem women and don't force them to wear baggy, ill-fitting gray dresses and toil in the beet fields in the name of Revolution. You know that's what the Rafiqs of this world will do with you.

 

I could not get past this one sentence. Communism is based on state owned labor, yours, of course for the good of the collective. The power of capitalism is that you trade your labor for something in return, which is no more than barter but you choose instead of having your life chosen for you. With communism you always end up with some bureaucrat deciding what you will be allowed to do. Freedom is not something that is compatible with communism. The platitudes may sound like sweetness and light to a 14 year old but the realities of communism are much different.

 

Yes! This point is arguably the crux of why capitalism wins out over communism - it's the basic principle of human liberty and the kind of society that creates.

If America is moving left today, it's because we have an ever growing government that seeks to manage and control ever more aspects of the economy in order to maintain a certain order despite market realities. In fact, this involves the central bank as much as it does the government. Ours is now a system that demands central control and management, thus it is antithetical to the free market. Look at our currency now vs back when we were more free and capitalist - we now have fiat money precisely because it is entirely centrally controlled (target 2% annual inflation and all that). Before we had that and the level of control it afforded central financial managers, we got the wonderful Great Depression. It didn't happen before because we didn't have the central bank or the central planners yet, and it hasn't happened since because the central bank and planners now have more control over the economy via the modern financial system. The problem with this approach is that it requires increasing central management over the real economy as well as the financial system if it is to be sustainable long-term, and thus capitalism and the free market perish.

 

Central management? No! Especially as it pertains to collective decisions and control of production and distribution. That makes the economy socialist, and no socialist (not some social programs) state has ever existed for long until it becomes a very autocratic/dictatorial government. That is a must to keep the high achievers in production. Capitalism needs to be better REGULATED, not decisions made by the government. Off hand, capping executive incomes, increasing the lower paid, taxing the individuals making profits off of the corporations and shift that money to the lower rungs of labor. We may also consider taxing wealth over certain amounts, and very progressively.

 

What is wrong with social ills or popular disconnect, and why should anyone care that those are residuals of inequality?

 

In fact I just requested to have my RevLeft account deactivated because I'm sick of people being banned for no reason. The latest purge happened yesterday or the day before, after all the members of the site who sympathised with the ICL-FI (aka the Sparts) were banned for being ISIS apologists. Which, of course, is a total misunderstanding of the ICL line. I don't agree with that organisation and I think their line on ISIS is wrong, but I do consider them revolutionary socialists and don't think they should be banned. But as someone from RL put it so well, "RevLeft is to revolution what masturbation is to having a baby."

Haha, well in real life I'm anything but. I whizz around like an excitable, neurotic little...um, something excitable and neurotic. Goodness, it's too early in the morning to think of similes.

I swear to non-existent God I'm fourteen. I'm not sure how to prove it, but I write a column (ish) for http://weeklyworker.co.uk under the pen name "Commissaress" which mostly deals with youth issues from a communist perspective and have mentioned my actual age there a couple of times, and I wouldn't be able to do that if I wasn't actually 14, so there's that.

I also sound much smarter on the internet than in real life.

That's a product of having studied Latin for 4 years; I automatically pluralise any word ending in "-us" as "-i" (so apparatus -> apparati, and I don't even know if "apparati" is a word but "apparatuses" looks really wrong despite perhaps being right). Grammatical brainwashing for you.

Because no Marxist would bring back elections/bourgeois democracy even if they see that socialism isn't being formed (and the Stalinist leaders of the USSR, China etc. etc. either never saw this because they were utterly stupid and thought socialism in one country was possible, or were extremely good at hiding it), and the newly degenerated, state capitalist autocracy which results from this attracts wannabe strongmen who have no intention of using the state for anything except horrific, blatant repression.

Hey, I wouldn't mind toiling in the beet fields. Beetroot is delicious and the masses, who aren't middle-class vegan hipsters, should be able to enjoy it.

 

Ok. Since everyone seems to be paying special attention to this little paragraph, I'm just going to clear something up and write it in big, annoying font:

I do not believe in morality and therefore would not call capitalism "dehumanising" or any other word with moral implications. In that sentence I was assuming a position which I don't agree with for the sake of argument.[/obnoxious font size]

Anyway. I'm going to write this in list form because it's the morning and my teenage hormones are making me even lazier than normal.

1) There is no state (and no state bureaucrats) in communism, presuming you mean the higher phase of communism, and this is the only phase worth arguing against because the lower phase is only transient. And even in the lower phase, no one owns labour in the same way in which capitalists own labour in capitalism, because there is no market and it is therefore impossible to buy labour. So the state does not own labour in communism.

2) In capitalism, those without capital are forced to sell their labour to an employer if they want more money than is offered by the welfare state. And they can go and work for another business if they don't like the first one, but i) this is difficult because finding a new job is hard, ii) this is useless because almost all companies have the same awful top-down structure and enormous amounts of structure and iii) alienation and exploitation are necessary components of capitalism, so if you don't like that you have to suck it up. Or be a revolutionary, of course.

3) Communism is a theory. There is no "reality" of communism.

 

So you believe in amorality which would pair well with how communism eventually works.

1. There are always bureaucrats unless you are talking about anarchy instead of communism.

2. In capitalism you can either trade your labor for something or create capital yourself to trade. You have the freedom of choice to do either in capitalism. You don't in communism.

3. True, communism is theory and always fails in practice as it provides no rewards for excellence and bureaucracy is always the result.

Why support failure? What is your gain or do you just want to be taken care of by a nanny state that produces little so you have little?

 

You know what? I totally agree with you. Increased government intervention and spending is evidently not working; here in Europe we've been having to deal with the ramifications of oversized government for years now, and this is partly why growth over here is so anaemic. But freer markets did not work either - they caused economic crises, terrible working conditions and increased crime etc. during their periods of fashionability during the 20th century.

Surely, though, this just proves the total ineptitude of capitalism. If free markets don't work and regulation doesn't work, what does work? The answer to that, in my opinion, is stopping this fruitless attempt to make capitalism work and adopting socialism.

 

Thank you. No one seems to understand this. Though you probably don't understand this in the same way as I do.

The end goal of communism (Marxism) is the same as the end goal of anarchism. We just differ from anarchists with regard to means; they want to abolish the state straight away, we want the working class to take control of the state during the transition period and enable it to become unnecessary.

Hardly anyone has the means to start a successful business, and as businesses become increasingly large and globalised, this is increasingly the case.

It failed in practice because the revolution was isolated in one backward country which was beset by civil war and harmed by the tactical mistakes of the Bolsheviki. You could hardly expect it to succeed in these circumstances.

I don't want a nanny state, I want - ultimately - no state.

 

What has regulation of capitalism ever done for us apart from increasing bureaucracy, decreasing incentive causing capital flight?

And again, communism failed because of the isolation of the only genuinely proletarian and not chronically mismanaged revolution we've ever had, not because of the inefficacy of central planning. The law of value existed in every so-called communist country, so the inefficiency of these economies cannot be blamed on planning - it just resulted from bureaucracy, like the inefficiency in Zimbabwe, Venezuela etc,

 

They're associated with crime and unrest and make society less safe and pleasant to live in, and make governments' jobs harder. This makes capitalism less effective.

 

Must be why most communist nations are becoming more capitalist such as China because communism does not produce for the people like capitalism does. The only reason Europe is where it is today and why you have the luxuries you have is because of the world wealth created by capitalism. What ruins capitalism is central control, crony capitalism, and socialism.

- - - Updated - - -

Out of all the corporations in the world, very few are global. Most corporations are small. If you don't think you can create capital then you are not thinking hard enough but it takes effort, something that seems to be lacking in Western countries by a large margin now that socialism tries to take care of people from cradle to grave instead of taking care of themselves. What stands in the way of creating capital is central control.

 

You do, especially with that brain of yours (and I want in on the ground floor). Second, no one would have thought 20 years ago that McDonald's, who helped run a lot of cafés out of town in the 60's, would today be struggling against all the small startups that flourish today, some of which are giants already (Five Guys, In and Out, and I don't know who else). I guarantee you that their friends and parents said "There are already too many hamburger stands. And how you gonna compete with Micky D's?" Back in the 70's a guy I knew in a retail shop that wanted to own his own business but "all the big money has already been made." They thought like you do now. But you can change. Most people cannot do it? Sure, that's true. Most people could never do it. Most people who have the ability have bad luck. And most people don't want to do it. It's a massive pain in the rear, it requires 20 hour days, and failure rate is always high.

The same could be said of the USA in the 18th century. I think the reason it failed is, quite simply, the people didn't want it badly enough and in sufficient numbers. They weren't ready but the commies were impatient. There's an old Pep Boys TV ad that shows an inept mechanic trying to install a too-large battery under the hood (bonnet?) of a car. The customer looks worried and says, "Does it fit?" Inept mechanic pulls out a hammer and says, "Don't worry, we'll make it fit," and proceeds to try and pound the thing into its slot. That's communism.

I don't think any of us conservatives would mind if you'd invite the proletariat to come to you and convince them on the merits of your position, as the early Christians slowly and gradually built the Church, not with violence, sword and fire, but with appeals to their hearts and minds. (It worked everywhere.) But you can't for some reason. Not anywhere. You have a communist party in the UK, as we do here. Their appeal to the masses is pitifully small, almost non-existent.

I am sure. Next time you go to the dentist, have him take x-rays of your teeth and render an expert opinion on your age. Post the results here. Also post a photo of yourself (you can conceal your visage) sitting in the chair of that same dentist. Have him hold up a sign that says "Hi Chef, I am Dr. Witherspoon, dentist of Pre-teen commie girl and author of the opinion on her age. Trust me, she's 14," and you hold up a sign that says "Hi Chef, are you happy now?"

Then I'll be happy.

Remember in an earlier post that I suggested you were a tyrant? Look, I sincerely respect and like you and I want to stay on good terms, but you have just there confessed that you don't want the People to have a voice in their government. Not unless it fits your terms. That's pure tyranny. What am I gonna do with you?

 

I don't see how socialism is going to succeed where capitalism (synonymous with freedom) fails. I think it's just going to lead to other kinds of failures, although I'm not sure what exactly you mean to propose here, either. You've spoken of communism specifically before, and we've seen how miserably that has failed; where it's been most successful (China), it's actually given way to capitalism I don't think you can argue that freedom fails. There are problems when people's grand designs don't pan out on a large scale, such that everyone becomes negatively affected by it, and when fraud reaches epic proportions under failed legislation and lack of proper oversight (like the last financial crisis), but that's more a failure on the part of central planners than capitalism.

 

China never was communist; it always had private property, a state, wage labour, the law of value, et cetera et cetera. Judging by these characteristics, it was merely a particularly bureaucratic and ineffective form of capitalism, and under Dengism it transitioned into a less bureaucratic and ineffective form of capitalism.

I absolutely recognise that capitalism was a historically necessary phase - I mean, Marx wrote frickin' tomes about that fact. But now, it cannot provide for everyone, as the massive amounts of poverty in the world despite enough being produced to support everyone show. I may be very lucky, living it up in Europe (which has still only just crawled out of an economic crisis which saw massive real wage decreases and harsh austerity) but billions of people are not.

I agree that mismanagement of capitalism by oversized governments ruins capitalism, but that isn't socialism, it's liberalism. Or social democracy to us Europeans.

Still, increasing numbers of businesses are deciding to go global. There are far more multinationals today than in, let's say, 1989 (because I'm a Swiftie).

I don't mean "means" - heh - in effort and so on (well, only partially). I mean encouragement, incentive, ability to cut through bureaucracy like a knife through gross, gloopy butter, materials, and most importantly funding and backing. In a system which doesn't encourage going into business too much amongst the lower rungs of society, only a few people actually end up climbing the social ladder to a position of business ownership. But I agree that this is partially the fault of, again, "big government." Except big government =/= socialism.

 

awh u so sweet

but nah, i'd rather be a welfare queen

Uh-huh. The failure rate is always high. Success stories are a big exception. Which is why the vast majority of people, even if they have the financial means to start accumulating capital (a rarity) are dissuaded from doing anything but eking out a miserable existence selling their labour. This is a problem. But it's been going on like this for a good while now.

The American revolutionaries weren't really trying to change the whole mode of production and establish a whole new sort of class rule, so they didn't need quite the same degree of tactical perfection, technology and global support as the Russian revolutionaries, I guess. But the French revolution which shortly followed the American one, and the fact that Britain (and the Netherlands) were both already transitioning into full-blown capitalism, certainly helped out.

I mean, we do try. My party (which is not the biggest or the "official" party; the far-left here is comprised of about a bajillion splinter groups) is involved in a broad-tent leftist network, the wider anti-war and anti-austerity movements and tons of union stuff. But you're right, the left is pathetic at the moment. That's because we're in a period of reaction, which is something we've just got to deal with at the moment.

Wow, you sure aren't demanding

I've referred to my school as Tory Cesspit Academy in my writing before; I'm totally used to being on good terms with people who don't share my political views. C'est la vie (eh bien, pour un communiste ).

"The people" is a tad vague. There are some people who communists would want to have a say in the transitional government, and more than that, actually run said government through workers' councils based on consensus democracy. These people are the working class (or proletariat). And this working class makes up the majority of the population, so that's some good news. But the former bourgeoisie will almost certainly have to be excluded from participating in the government, because we don't want all the hard-won gains of the revolution to be lost.

In a capitalist democracy, people are allowed to vote for who runs their country (not run it themselves), but every single one of their options is capitalist. In this way, the capitalist class can make out that the power is with everyone when it is really with the capitalist class. In the same way, the transitional phase - not, it should be noted, full communism - will keep power amongst the working class, not the capitalist class. This entails an entirely different state apparatus from the capitalist one. Meaning bye-bye elections. And also, bye-bye out of touch governments, partisan bickering and meaningless governmental rhetoric.

 

Freedom for whom?

And even if it is "synonymous with freedom"...it isn't working. That's reality.

Yep, I'm referring specifically to communism; apologies if that was unclear, I often use the terms interchangeably when describing a society as opposed to a movement.

China was never communist, let alone being the most successful communist society. See my response to Hoosier8, I cba to write it all out again.

It depends on who is free.

I'm assuming that by grand designs you mean central plans. The issue here is that for a good central plan, you need to have a degree of decentralisation and delegation to improve accuracy, not too much red tape and most importantly no law of value in operation whatsoever, so as to prevent fraud and ineffectiveness. The Soviet Union didn't meet any of these criteria, and so did every other country calling itself communist (some of which made laughable attempts at planning). But we can make it work with the help of technology, the lessons of history and - crucially - conducive material circumstances.

 

Well welcome. I cant say I agree with Marxism, and kinda take the fascist approach at atheism and the lot...so yeah, we're polar opposites...

 

Ok well see the problem with capitalism is that people start refuting morality for personal gain. The problem with Marxism is that people have no incentive to work. The problem with social democracy is that they bury their heads in the sand whenever there is a problem with their system. Nowadays, the majority is capitalist, so Marxist economies cant really compete, but while I disagree with both systems equally, Marxism has historically failed more than capitalism, although you could make the argument that capitalism is continuously failing and no one really cares.

 

What is wrong with social unrest in a morally indifferent society and isn't crime justifiable in an amoral society?

 

I would beg to differ - capitalism works marvellously. No system is perfect, but capitalism is at least the best starting point, because it goes hand in hand with liberty. You ask me, freedom for whom? I answer, freedom for all. Capitalism does not take away anyone's freedom in the economic sense. Communism, by comparison, does, because it subjects all people to state control in this arena.

What is it exactly that you want from communism? What objective are you hoping to achieve that we do not achieve now? I think socialism to the extent of providing basic services to all, including health care and education, is a minimum expectation of any system and pretty much a requirement today. America did well with its private alternatives while its economic fundamentals were stronger, but now? Now we're competing with the third world, with developing nations, almost directly, in the labour market. This fundamental change, which also affects Europe and the Commonwealth, has been causing problems for the working class. It's made higher education much more important as it's taken away from us many jobs that do not require it, and with those jobs went a lot of wealth generation that made private health care plans more affordable for employers and employees alike. Retailers and restaurants cannot compare to what industry once offered, and what modern domestic industry remains is often much lower-valued today than it used to be thanks to globalisation, again making it much harder for employers and employees to cope with offering health coverage. Their profit margins just aren't what they used to be.

Then there's the tax situation today. This ridiculous drive to tax the evil rich is only taking more money away from producers and workers to be spent on... Well, any number of things, sadly including a great deal of military spending in the US. A great, great deal. At the same time, more is also needed to cover the needs of the citizenry through welfare programmes thanks to the aforementioned loss of higher paid labour to foreign shores.

Would communism reverse this economic reality? Would a glorious five year plan bring back the manufacturing that went to China? Would we even want that? Those jobs are increasingly being mechanised now anyway; machines are increasingly replacing human labour. We don't even want or need those jobs back. We're in the midst of a great transition, a post-industrial transition away from humans performing drudgery to produce masses of consumer goods and other goods. It's a big, dynamic world we inhabit, and I don't see where communism would fit into that, except of course in our need to cover people's needs going forward. Perhaps the entire economic and financial system will need reinventing before much longer because of this. If so, I just hope we will find a good, progressive solution, and not a regression that lowers our quality of life in another failed regime like the USSR. People fled those nations for a reason - no one wants to be a slave, whether to one master or a giant system of control. Do not attempt to take that freedom away.

In closing, I say again that capitalism as we have it today is working fine. It's not perfect, but then nothing ever is. History also teaches us that attempts to create Utopia end up creating Dystopia instead.

 

Thanks. Yeeeah, I guess so.

Whose morality are people refuting under capitalism?

As for incentive, by the time full communism rolls around and there is nothing even remotely resembling money in society, people will be used to "working" (I put that in quotations since in communism work and leisure effectively merge) out of personal enjoyment and the workplace will not be a maze of antagonisms, but a productive space for equals, so work won't be something which people hate. People's attitudes and interests change as social conditions change, and therefore after communism has transformed work, people's attitudes towards it will be very different.

Yes, I would say that capitalism is continuously failing and no one really cares. And also, communism was pretty much attempted in the same way and in the same conditions by every country which attempted it, and it is possible to pinpoint exactly why certain tactics and circumstances caused it to fail. On the contrary, a host of methods of managing capitalism have been tried and every single one is now past the point at which it can adequately provide for people.