user ballots
Login
Register
Add One
FAQ/Contact
Popular Ballots
Recent Popular
Recent Votes
Best
Worst
Yes or No
Choices
What If
Prediction
Advice
Would You
Crime
Recommend
Quiz
TV & Movie
Music & Radio
Political
Science
Sports
Relationship
Techonology
Culture
Philosophy
Religion
Ethics
History
Food & Health
Fashion & Beauty
Crime
FanBase
Discussion
Bug Report
|
COMMENTS:
propaganda and dishonest implementation
There isn't a country I know of that practices true communism. I dont think it would work anyway.
Communism is held in the worst areas for food production! Russia hopeless too cold. china. well its not really communism as we understand it! sanctions dont help and europe as well as america dont help there.
In terms of doing as your told goes america has lots of food and so is therefore self sufficient. russia is not self sufficient in that way it never really has been. i guess people still freeze to death in siberia!
So i guess in a round about way id say Location is what its about with communism! But i agree with duckhead it still doesnt work!
Wow, mobsie you are an idiot.
Russia has huge fields that are perfect for agricultural production. If you throw in all the states they had during the soviet union they'd be even better, the ukraine was once thought of as the breadbasket of eastern europe.
North korea is far wealthier than the south in terms of mineral production, timber sales, etc. They only starve because of their government.
If the ability of a nation to feed it's people rested solely on having ample farmland then everyone in japan would be starving, same with singapore and most of europe.
Hell russia should be the wealthiest nation on earth if it were done simply in terms of what value the land provides, they're in a great spot for trade, they have huge reserves of oil, metals, coal, diamonds, gold, timber, and just about everything else you could want. They have plenty of farmland, they could export food if they did it right. The only reason they are poor, the *only* reason, has to do with communism.
What keith said...
It should also be noted that red china and the soviet union, during the worst periods of famine in their histories, were *exporting* tremendous amounts of rice and grain in order to buy weapons from abroad.
But remember, communism is about helping people and making life better for the working man.
Herzog you just talk rubbish! simple as that!
No mobs, all these are facts. You're the one here with a patent on speaking only nonsense.
you dont deal in facts herzog
Do you even know how far the ukraine is from seberia?
Do you know what sanctions mean?
Russia were a monarchy once herzog and they still starved. that screws up your communism theory because it just replaced something that didnt work.
herzog i cant imagine why anyone takes you seriously,
Unfortunately, when people speak about communism, they invariably fall into the age old trap of believing Russia, China et al, practiced communism.
You give Herzog and his ilk, the sort of ammunition in which they try and distort the whole concept by trotting out the same old diatribe.
Herzog and his friends are afraid of communism as it is a direct threat to the land owners and the people who hold the power.
If you want to know what communism is really all about, I suggest taking a look at my user page, as I explain it there, as it saves time of having to repeat and constantly repudiate the outright falsehoods spread by Herzog and friends.
'Do you even know how far the ukraine is from seberia?'
Seberia doesn't exist, it is however quite far away from siberia. The US is also quite distant from asia, and yet we still manage to sell food there. Obviously it is possible to transport food from where it is produced to where it is consumed, not that many people live in siberia anyway, mostly herders and substance farmers.
'Do you know what sanctions mean?'
Yes. And you'll notice it's always free nations putting them on less than free nations. Why is that? Is it because less than free nations, your communist dictatorships for example, don't have anything we need? Somehow it's always the evil capitalist west that produces food, while the saintly communist east starves. If we stop giving aid to north korea, they suffer, if they put sanctions on us, I doubt anyone would notice.
'Russia were a monarchy once herzog and they still starved'
Yep, lack of freedom, as in a despotic monarchy as russia had, is a sure way to starve people. Of course you could point out that russia produced less food in the first 10 years under communism than it did under the tsars. Bad as they were, they weren't nearly as bad as the soviets. Notice also that 20 million people were starved to death under stalin, lenin, and the rest, not under the monarchy. All forms of tyranny are bad for human life, communism just happens to take despotism to a new level.
'herzog i cant imagine why anyone takes you seriously'
Because I'm right.
'Herzog and his friends are afraid of communism as it is a direct threat to the land owners and the people who hold the power.'
Yes, they are the first lined up against the wall. Of course then the peasants and the workers starve as well. Or was it all some western conspiracy that 20 million starved to death in the soviet union? I can promise you there weren't 20 million evil rich capitalists in russia at the time, so a good number of them must have been hard working commoners, you know the people you claim to idolize.
Steely: if communism is so great name one partial success it has had. Capitalism has been tried, as have democracies. Both have had some failures, but mostly successes, certainly plenty of examples.
Name one success communism has had, ever.
As it has never been tried Herzog, it is difficult to answer your question.
I have repeatedly pointed out to you that Communism has never been implemented, then you still insist on speaking the falsehood that the Soviet Union was communist state.
You either dont know what communism is, or you do and you are trotting out the same lie, perpetuated by the petty bourgoise since time immemorial.
You then try to justify capitalism by trying to give examples of its triumphs, noone disputes that capitalism has had triumphs, but ultimately the system is flawed and is tilted in favour of the rich 'property classes'.
You have no real argument against communism except your knee jerk fear that the workers will eventually realise they have been exploited for eons and overthrow you and your capitalist masters.
Steely boy: even though you won't admit it communism has been tried, maybe not word for word as marx described it, but close enough to be called the same thing. And it has failed, miserably.
What would you say about an experiment that every time it has been attempted it has killed several million people, not achieved any of it's stated goals, and didn't appear to offer any hope for success, ever?
I'd say one attempt was enough, people disagree so we have 100 million people killed in a century, more than smallpox, not bad.
Capitalism has never been perfectly implement, it has however come very close in some cases and shown remarkable success, and certainly given reasons for more attempts.
It seems to me, that no matter how many times I refute your assertion of a Communist state, you just deny the facts I put to you.
You instead try to regurgitate the same lie, in a vein hope you will either convince me, others or more than likely yourself.
As to capitalism being a Utopian dream, lest we forget how many have died and are dying due to its overwhelming principle, to exploit others for personal gain.
Communism is a violation of human rights.
Central control is what caused so many shortages in the Soviet Union. If they had decentralized pricing and production decisions, they would've had a much better economy. Small farms with only a fraction of the land provided most of the Soviet Unions food. They were more efficient because they operated with minimal government restraints.
check out my user wisdom
herz: Why is the US so rabidly phobic about the possibility of other countries adopting communism? The US doesn't give a damn about the rest of the world (when Republicans are in office) in most matters ... why care if they go Communist?
herz: I suspect that any Centralized government bohs down with size and corruption.
Capitalism, on the other hand, institutionalized corruption and thus escapes that fate.
Whether it is "successful" depends upon your definition. A bacteria or virus that thrives is, technically, successful. But that doesn't mean it is a life form to strive to emulate.
Steel: you can trot out that old lie as many times as you want, that doesn't make it true. You know the one; 'communism is great, it'll create a global utopia, just ignore those mass graves in the background, those guys didn't do it right, but one more chance and I know we'll get it right! And if not there are plenty of countries we can screw over until we do'.
Face it, communism doesn't work. The idea is horribly flawed, and nobody can doubt that the implementation of that idea is frightening at best.
Cath: the reason americans don't want to see communism take hold in other nations is varied: some americans do care about their fellow man, and thus don't want to see them killed by the tens of millions and forced into crushing poverty and oppression. Others see it as a way to screw over the world economy in some way, it makes everyone worse off when one nation turns into an economic sinkhole and no longer produces anything of value. And no, china is not a communist nation, they're a dictatorship with an increasingly free market that calls themselves communists. They figured out how to make communism work: take the communist out of it.
But I digress, others don't want to get dragged into more wars, communist nations start more than their fair share of wars. Or they don't want to get stuck giving those nations aid, or recieving their refugees. Again, they recieve aid and produce refugees in numbers far out of proportion to other nations.
Take your pick.
Re: "some americans do care about their fellow man, and thus don't want to see them killed by the tens of millions and forced into crushing poverty and oppression"
Um ... as an advocate of the wealthy, your assertion bears little weight, my friend.
Why would Americans care what happened in other countries? Remember, the big fear was/is Communism sweeping the globe. (Which shouldn't happen, if you were right; if it were so terrible, it wouldn't be so attractive.)
I don't know where to even begin ... you take a viewpoint that has been drilled into your head since birth and never questioned and conjure up some bogeyman of dread.
Do you want to know the real reason it is so feared and detested, here? Because wealthy people fear they'll los ethere assets. It is that simple.
Now, that being said, IMO, the real reasons communism probably won't work are:
* Becomes too inefficient if it grows to cover too many people -- not very scalable.
* Man's tendency towards corruption: power corrupts, centralized power would be something most could not resist for long.
It's better to be an advocate for human rights including the rights of the wealthy than to be an advocate for an immoral political and economic system like communism.
Americans have a healthy fear of communism, just like being afraid of fire can save your life. Fear of communism can preserve your freedom and possibly your life.
Cath: so your theory is that no american cares about other people? Are you an american? Do you care about people outside the borders of the US? There goes your theory.
And communism has never been implemented by popular choice, no nation has elected a communist dictatorship in a fair election, they are always forced on the majority by a well armed and organized minority. And if it were so attractive then why don't the streams of refugees head *in* to communist nations instead of out? Why aren't americans floating of rafts to get free healthcare in cuba, instead of cubans floating here to get thrown at the mercy of the evil and oppressive capitalist system? Hell people flee north korea into CHINA, if you can believe it, even though they'll probably be shot upon return, and the chinese do return refugees.
Clearly popular opinion is not in favor of communism, even outside of the US.
So cath, the reason communism is feared is because of the wealthy huh? Then why is it common people fleeing cuba? I could see your point if only those wealthy people in cuba fled following the revolution, but that wasn't the case, it was ALL people. Same with any other communist nation. And the 100million killed in the 20th century under communism couldn't all have been millionares. Some of them had to be common folk, I guess they had something to fear.
The reason communism doesn't work is because man is not an insect. You want to see successful communism? Look at an anthill. But people don't function well as cogs, we don't like to work for the benefit of others.
They tried an experiment in russia when things got really bad: farmers had their plot of soil, and about 90% of it belonged solely to the state, the other 10% they could farm and keep for themselves, eat the crops, sell them, whatever. They ended the program when they found that 10% was easily outproducing the other 90%, it proved some of the flaws of communism. Combine that with the fact that the people who can get power in government are usually the last people who should be trusted with power, and the fact that communist style government have greater power than any other dictatorship and no limitations and there you go; perfect recipe for disaster.
And yet people still manage to defend it, despite all the empirical evidence, despite the horror stories, despite the a complete lack of common sense.
It boggles the mind. It's like a person who sticks a fork in the electric socket, gets shocked, and keeps repeating this in the hope that next time it won't hurt so bad.
Great metaphor her-blog.
herz: Please try to discuss with integrity. You know as well as I that taking a statement, generalizing to an extreme, and then questioning its validity is not a valid point.
BTW, as has been told to you many times: The instances you cite were not really Communistic.
Also, I like how you portray idealistic Capitalism as the norm, rather than the predatory form, manipulated by powerful interests.
Alright cath, you say it doesn't count because they didn't get communism quite down perfectly. What is it about communism that the mere *attempt* leads to hundreds of millions of deaths?
Capitalism has been tried many times, it's never been fully realized, and yet in those attempts there was prosperity, a general improvment in the quality of life, and hundreds of millions weren't shoved into mass graves.
Explain that please.
First, I am not asserting it doesn't count (i.e., it is not a factor) ... I am saying it is not a definitive answer.
Second: The road to capitalism has had huge amounts of poverty and misery as well ... but we, the victors, write our history so as to gloss over peasant deaths. After all ... they were only peasants, right?
And finally, you seem ready to attribute all success or failure primarily/solely to economic system.
Do you want to know the real reason the US has prospered so well? It is because we only have two countries with land borders and are protected by oceans during our formative years, thus avoiding the bulk of conflicts that other countries have had to endure. Combine with that a land of relatively plentiful resources ...
Those are the primary reasons why the US has done so well, IMO ... not due solely to Capitalism.
'Second: The road to capitalism has had huge amounts of poverty and misery as well ... but we, the victors, write our history so as to gloss over peasant deaths. After all ... they were only peasants, right?'
Nothing under capitalism can even compare to the horrors of communism. The US never needed gulags or mass graves to realize our dream of a capitalist society.
Cath: so the US is only a success because we've avoided wars? I could believe that, but there's too much evidence against it. Has japan avoided wars, and the devastation caused by them in the last 100 years? No? Then how are they prosperous? Afterall, they were rebuilt on the american model, and if the only reason american style governemt and economy is successful is our avoidance of wars then how could it possibly succeed in a nation that has most definately NOT avoided wars? Same goes for germany.
I'm curious about the answer.
Is the US successful only because we've avoided wars? No. But it is a major factor.
Why is Japan prosperous? Well, before WW2, I would question how prosperous they were. Afterwards, being rebuilt by the US, constrained against having a military, etc. ... yes, I suggest they owe a large degree of their current prosperity to US money and enforced peace.
Same for Germany, paradoxically. Yes, it may have been doing well before, but the rebuilding and enforced peace is when it came into its own, I suggest.
Countries who have border disputes/wars may achieve varying degrees of prosperity. But countries who can avoid it have a natural advantage.
Money spent on war (weapons, etc.) do not contribute to the economy ... they are considered, by economists, to be a drain (although certain factions will profit -- the economy, as a whole, does not).
That's just basic Macroeconomics, herzog.
Ah, so it's how much money a country spends on weapons that makes them poor, the more they spend the worse off they are. Well the US spends more on defense than any other nation, and we're rich as hell.
And as a counter to your argument I present Israel. Hardly a peaceful nation without border disputes. And yet they are a firstworld nation, and very prosperous. Wildly propserous when compared to their neighbors. How is that?
Your two factors, avoiding conflicts and not spending money on the military, don't seem to hold up to realworld examples.
herzog ... evaluate Israel without the massive amounts of foreign aid pumped into it.
Please ... that was a stretch, even for you.
They'd manage without that aid. No nation has ever been made prosperous with international aid alone.
But if you're going to go that direction then please discount all of western europe, japan, south asia, and south korea from the list of wealthy nations.
|
|
