How important is "Communism" ?

Question

Can that idea be the idea for the next generation ?

Answer 1

Quite literally, the world has never experienced communism. The Soviet Union and the PRC were both state-run capitalism, more or less. In truth, Bolshevism (not Leninism) could work far better than our current system of Plutocratic Capitalism. In fact, our system is very similar to the Soviet "Communist" system. A very small group controls prices, the workers have absolutely no input into the way things are produced, and there is a strong counter-dissidence movement to keep any differing opinions out (HUAC, "terrorist-sympathizers", and various other pejoratives). Adam Smith himself described a system in "the Wealth of Nations" that is verbatim of our current legal alchemy called "the Corporation". He said:

"The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people's money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own .... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less in the management of the affairs of such a company?"

This came straight out of the horse's mouth, Adam Smith, the same scholar who is so frequently quoted by deregulation proponents. The corporate structure in and of itself is nothing more than privately held tyranies that are legally obligated to do anything in (or out of) its power to ensure that it turns a profit for its share holders. The case of Dodge v. Ford is the paramount example of this. Ford was commanded to turn over additional profits it made to the share holders instead of putting the money back into the automobiles that consumers were buying.

Capitalism is severely broken. You need only look at how in the last 30 years of so-called "brand marketing". Nike sells t-shirts for around $30.00 while it only costs them in the neighborhood of less than a dollar to make that shirt and get it to the store for you to buy. There is a severe concentration of wealth and growing disparity going on that is far worse than anything we've seen before. As it stands now, 1% of the world population owns over half of all of the wealth in the world. That means cars, houses, airplanes, and assets.

Now true Communism is quite simple, really. The workers own the means of production (not found in any "Communist" nations to date!) and determine what to produce and how much, there has to be equality and democracy, and there also has to be some kind of social safety-net for people. Now of all of these, the Soviet Union only had one characteristic, a bit of a social safety-net to help people who get injured at work or get sick. Wasn't much, but it was more than we had. If you want a good example, you could have gone down to Cuba before Kennedy took office and looked at their health care system. Pre-Kennedy, Cuba had a far superior health care system than ours and they were even training a lot of our doctors in Cuban hospitals. After the embargo, Cuba didn't have much anything, but that certainly wasn't the fault of "Communism".

Now how would putting the power in the hands of regular people help? That's easy, we could honestly and truly decide how much and of what to make. Money doesn't matter if it means working harder ensures there is litterally more for everyone. Take a look at unionized shops, the quality of work and moral tends to be much higher. Prices are higher, but that is mostly because we have become used to the practice of slave labor and sweat shops.

That misconception of totalitarianism going with communism is largely the Soviet Union's fault. After Lenin took over, he basically gave the Bolsheviks that put him there the "middle finger" and started to crack down with paranoid, draconian laws. Communism doesn't require totalitarianism no more than Capitalism. Take a look at Singapore and Denmark. Singapore is one of the worst places to live in the entire world and is completely and thoroughly capitalist. Denmark doesn't have a huge private sector, they have socialized medicine and other public services, but it is quite a nice place to live (if you like the shitty weather ;)) because of the open government. They even have a Danish monarchy and are still not in the least totalitarian.

So, what can be done to fix the dreadful disparity of wealth and staggering costs of health care in the united states? Communism is an answer and so is socialism, fixing capitalism, and switching over from a republican system to a democratic system. What do I mean by this?

We don't have to have a bolshevik revolution, we can have a few little, very realistic changes to start fixing things up. Let's become democratic. Get rid of the electoral college, reduce campaign finance contributions, and put an end to gerrymandering by letting an independent organization draw voting districts. Until we do this, we will never see a popular president, only the choice between two fantastically wealthy men.

For the growing lack of health care, let's socialize it. Canada did it without any major problems. Canadians live longer, healthier lives and spend a fraction on health care compared to what we do (I mean the whole industry, not just "free-loaders" getting a free ride. Canadian society is doing more with less money) now. Take a look at any Canadian hospital and I can assure you that the "bureaucracy" is no where near the size of ours. Professor Noam Chomsky made one such visit to a Canadian hospital and he had to look for somebody who even knew where the billing department was. It was a tiny little closet of a room they kept some records in and rarely even had to enter the room. Compare that to the billing department of a US hospital which employs a full-staff and occupies an entire office floor-space. If you want to point to socialism as a bureaucratic mess, you may want to evaluate our own system first.

Lastly, to address some of the neo-Nazi horse **** about how minorities, lazy people, or foreigners are the core of our problems, I strongly recomend opening your eyes. Farm workers pick the food that we eat. The most sage advice I have ever given anybody was "never mess with the people preparing what you eat". I don't know why anybody would need to refute that, but if you feel the need, I advise you to look at history and remember that Caucasians are immigrants. "Mexicans" have actually been here far longer than we have, settlements as old as 9,000 years ago have been found in South America by these people of Siberian descent.

And that myth about "lazy people are dragging the system down" was used by every despot in the book. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot, etc. Using such an expression puts you in their league.

Thank you for your time, I hope this might clear up any misconceptions about the topic at hand.

Answer 2

Wonderful question.
Communism is a GREAT idea.. on paper. Everyone earns the same thing as everyone else. No one has more, there are no fancy cars, no capitalistic greed... every lives in a smurf like village utopia world, one with mother earth and because there is no greed (or religion because communism bans it) there are no wars.

Sounds great right? Wrong! People need reason to want to excel. Why would you excel at a job the government choose for you? No matter how good or bad you are at your job, there is no advancement or raises. Olympic athletes are picked from birth and taken from their parents as are genius children, all for the good of the state. I have a friend who moved here from a communist country. I asked what her favorite part about the US was. Instead of saying the clothes, parties or music she said food and hot showers. Her country rations food and hot water. Her house and bath is always cold and her family shares the same bath water.. cause guess what? The water is rationed too. Not sounding so smurfy after all huh?

So these people have no reason to have a strong work ethic or a spirit of invention. Their countries products can't compete on a world marktet where countries like the US and Japan keep pumping out state of the art electronics and games, and even if you wanted to start your own company that makes this sort of thing you couldn't, your goverment owns all companies and wouldn't let you start your own.
Relgion is banned so people have no real place to turn to for solace so alchoholism is a huge problem. A co-worker of mine adopted a baby from some part of the former Soviet Union that is still under a communist thumb, and the biggest problem with the babies is they are all born with fetal alcohol sydrome. Even the pregnant women are drunk to keep from committing sucide.
And because the goverment has absolute power over you they can even haul you away and have you killed for even disagreeing with them.
But we live here in the US where I can take a 20 minute hot shower, if I pay my bill. I can listen to a new commentator call our president a nazi and know the ignorant @ss won't be hauled away to a dark room where his tongue is burned out with a hot porker. And I am free to earn money and choose how I spend it.
So do you think you'll be switching from capitalism anytime soon?

Answer 3

Communism doesn't work economically because the fact that the government is in complete control of all production and everyone gets the same no matter how hard they work or how lazy they are. Thus the incentive to work decreases dramatically.

The country's wealth goes down, shortages occur, no inventions are produced (as the government would steal them away anyway, leaving no incentive) and the economy eventually collapses. Just look at the Soviet Union.

Of course the fact that they were a harsh totalitarian dictatorship didn't help things much with them either. Eventually China will surely suffer the same fate.

Basically, Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.

Answer 4

unlikely... if you look at any communist society, you will see an extremely weak/ poor economy..there is a lack of housing , jobs and food , the government, is treated well ,having the best of everything along with certain elite groups that the country values such as scientists and athletes, but the majority of people have very little.. standing in long lines for food,crowded inferior housing and medical care. the government does whatever it wants to / with its citizens with no repercussions ...no checks and balances ..... no freedoms/ rights for the mass .....not an appealing future for any society/ country... communism though a lofty idea of every one being equal does not work well... because everyone suffers except for the few valued citizens that are treated like royalty.

Answer 5

Nope, most of your 'isms' out there are just lofty promises anyway, philosopher's drug-dreams, the here-and-now is sort of an 'ism', too, most people call it 'realism', the concept that a bird in the hand is better than trusting Bush with the federal budget! LOL Seriously, though, we DO need something along the lines of 'get-off-your-***-ism', in which people are STRONGLY exhorted to stop standing there like boneheads with their hands out, and actually DO something to help themselves, and maybe even help others if they've got something left over, but the Main Focus is support yourself, support your family, and don't be a burden on society. Mexico's being a burden on our society right now, and it's fully reflected in our negative trend of heading 2 billion dollars a DAY further in debt. Can you say 'unsustainable'? Try it. 'Unsustainable'. Very good. Now, can you say 'dysfunctional border policy dreamed up by bleeding-heart liberals and stoned-out hippies'? Very good...

Answer 6

As a student of science of politics I can say that communism is just like any othery political theory and its importance can not be judged, never the less comunism or as for you case I think it would be soicialism has had a great reflection on the events in world in past

Answer 7

Communism doesnt work.
Its a theory and it believes in the good of people where there really isnt any good.
So to establish communism you need someone who watches over it and power corrupts.
So why go for the extreme??????

The very best and well working system is socialism, which has the best of captialism as well as communism.
And it also works as a democracy.

Answer 8

No it didn't work before, no reason to believe it will work in the future.

Now communal living is interesting but not too many people want to share everything these days.

So I would say communism is irrelevant. It is an IDEA but an irrelevant one.

Answer 9

It's extremely important that people learn the history of communistic rule, especially the fact that it has failed in every country that was once governed by communists, as well as the mass murders of innocent people that all of the commie leaders have ordered throughout history.

Answer 10

it would be good if humans werent involved. the human race's base instincts are to look out for ones self. communism takes away free will and turns it into a state of either ur poor or rich. when ur poor u have no respect and ur life aint to good. when ur rich u get respect and life is good. the next generation is to smart to actually form their government into a communist one.

Answer 11

The idea has been tried and found faulty. Unless you are in a Utopian society communism is a fairyland.