So, what's wrong with communism?

Great Debates
1

I get the impression that not many people really understand what communism is all about, but are opposed to it by default, maybe because of the anti-communist propaganda coming from our own government.
I’m not saying that I’m a communist or that I support that system of government, but I’m confused by people’s reaction towards it.
From what I understand, communism is a system in which all people of one nation share the wealth and workload equally - isn’t this what most people think of when they try to imagine an utopian way of living?
The only problem is corruption… When this system was tried (in Russia, Romania, etc…) it failed, because the people in charge got greedy and tried to get themselves better off instead of helping the people.
But couldn’t this system work if there was no corruption? I think we just need the right people in power.

“Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer”

2

Yes, it’s true. Many people have no good reason to be anti-communist. They just like to parrot what they hear around them. Those that are anti-communist for a good reason, fall into two types. Those who have a stake in the current system (the rich and powerfull) and those who have been brain washed into thinking they have a stake in the system.

3

What you really need is a whole country of the right people. Corruption doesn’t have to start at the top.

Communism is great… theoretically.

I don’t know what the whole American anti-communist thing is all about. I might guess that communism is America’s scapegoat for all the people they don’t like, who happen to be communist. It’s ironic that the States fell into MacCarthyism (sp?), which was really just fascism, one step past communism from capitalism.

4

Actually, fascism is far removed from communism in ideology and implementation. What fascism and communism have tended to share in practical examples, though, is totalitarianism.

Many people object to totalitarianism no matter what clothes it wears.

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

5

Not to hold you up or anthing… but, this is why so many people are anti-communist. They do not really understand what it is or how it fits into the world. Another good example ios the regimes that call themselves Communist but are not, if that’s communism I don’t want anything to do with it. It’s like if from your earliest childhood you believed that loving God involved being sexually abused by your parents. You would definetly be anti-religious regardless of what it actually involves.

6

I think if this discussion is to be had, someone with some spare time should differentiate between communism and socialism. A very rough guideline for this discussion to go by could be the following:

communism: a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production

and

socialism: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property

The problem here is that depending on what source you’re looking at, these terms are interchangeable. However, I chose to match the terms and definitions with what is currently accepted and typically taught in comparison government courses in universities.

Marxist theory actually interchanges these terms. Ideally, the final stage of Marxist theory defines “communism” as the point where government withers away and property is collectively owned. However, the USSR defined themselves as communist, and this was definitely NOT the case.

Any other definitions or finer points I’m missing (or completely wrong on?)

Connor

Sala, can’t you count?!? I said NO camels! That’s FIVE camels!

7

one correction

State capitalism: a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production

I would not refer to those regimes as Communist. They had nothing to do with communism.

8

To actually attempt to answer your OP, one of the main tenets of McCarthyism, and the root of anti-Communism was Communism’s (capital C being USSR’s flavor) take on religion. They wanted the state to be the end-all be-all of the workers’ lives, not a God. Stalin was very tough on religion and booting it out of the country. So when you hear people talk about the “godless communists”, they’re not wrong. Seeing as how our country was founded on religious freedom (to an extent), it is easy to see how this flag was easy to rally behind. Communism, as defined by the USSR, thrived on its totalitarian tendencies and ability to control the population. Not so much “workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” as it was “workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but these brand NEW chains!”

Connor

9

But if the government control everything and does a good job, then what is the need for organized religion? This would just be a distraction for the workers and it may result in them not doing their job right or doing certain things that would interfere with the way the government is being run, because it’s part of their religion.
And speaking of religion, I’m wondering whether the christian ‘heaven’ is a type of communism…

“Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer”

10

communism has 3 M’s and is there fore morally wrong.

11

-In a Communist country you couldn’t have this debate.

-If you’re paid equally no matter what job you do, then who’s going to do the crappy jobs?

12

In my incomplete understanding of Communism I am against it as it does not encourage people to be their best.

I have relatives who live (and lived) in East Germany. Their work ethic is non-existent. There was a childlike quality to them, they wanted what others have, but were unwilling to do anything of substance to obtain similar items or comforts.

13

Asmodean:

Communism is morally wrong because it has 3 m’s? What about “embalmment” and “memorandum” and “mesmerism” and “metamorphism”… are those wrong too?

heheh

“Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer”

14

Accepting the concept for a moment that all people share the workload and wealth equally, what if I want more?

What if I am willing to do more than my share because I want more of the wealth? What if I am willing and able to be a fireman, policeman or soldier and therefore expected to put my life on the line? What if my ability and initiative qualified me to be a manager rather than a clerk?

In short, what if my contributions are greater than yours? Shouldn’t I be able to reap the rewards?

Conversely, what if I only want to work part-time instead of full-time? Should I be able to accept less than a full-time worker, or should I be forced to work full-time?

What if I want to have eight children? That would obviously take some of the wealth away from others. Who should decide how many children there are(or retirees for that matter)

I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.

15

Mojo:

Not everyone gets paid equally. I think how much you get paid is decided by several things, including how hard your job is and how large your family is.

“Two hands working do more than a thousand clasped in prayer”

16

Ack, I just wrote a long response, but mistyped my password. The basic jist of it was that communism seems to eliminate ambition, and that it keeps us from doing any better than our parents did, similar to the system we have been trying to escape since the time of monarchies.

IMO, ambition is one of the defining characteristics of humanity, and to eliminate it is not only wrong, but impossible.

Anyway, I’m no expert. One thing I’ve wondered is how decisions are made in a “pure” communist nation? Is someone elected? Do you take turns? Do you vote on everything? Wouldn’t the decision maker be “more equal” than everyone else?

PeeQueue

17

Cosmin: Communism did not work because damn few of us wanted to share the workload equally. If I work my ass off and you are a slacker, why the hell should you receive as much wealth as me?

The only communities that ever made anything remotely like communism work were religious communities like the early Christian church and the Shakers. The early Christians abandoned the idea basically because they wanted their wealth to go to their kids. The Shakers got around this problem by preaching celibacy, but guess what? No children, no Shakers.

Granted, a utopian society might make communism work, but a utopian society will never be a free society. Everybody has to believe exactly the same thing.

No society, certainly not our own, has ever eliminated corruption. Too many people, myself included, are perfectly willing to get a little extra gravy. In the opinion of the philosophers Will and Ariel Durant, who wrote a famous multi-volume history of civilization, Napolean’s regime came closest to eliminating corruption. And that regime did not succeed.
oldscratch and KarmaComa: many people do not like Communism for reasons that have nothing to do with wealth. I am a poor man and I despise communism and the tired old leftists that continue to preach Marx 11 years after the Berlin Wall fell. The Chinese and Russian communist regimes killed tens of millions of people for simply disagreeing with their leaders; there was no freedom of religion, press or speech. The Russian system of communism fell apart because of gross economic inefficiency. The Communist Party still rules China, but it’s amazing how much capitalism those guys tolerate. The graybeards of PRC are moving their country to a market-based economy.

KarmaComa: “I might guess that communism is America’s scapegoat for all the people they don’t like.” Yes, this explains why the United States went to war with Hitler’s Germany and Iraq, doesn’t it?

Get a clue. When the glorious communist regimes have been objectively compared to Western governments, they fall down in every area – wealth, human rights, protection of the environment, et cetera.

Armed, dangerous …
and off my medication.

18

Hoo boy. Where to start.

First: Communism- as practiced- is a system where the means of production are controlled by the government. In other words, the factories, the warehouses, the refineries, the railroads, etc. are all owned by the government, not by private citizens.

In theory, that government is comprised of representatives of those people who actually work in those factories, on those railroads, in those warehouses, etc. In practice, that government has always been an oligarchy of party leaders, usually those who were instrumental in overthrowing the previous government (Lenin, Castro, Ho Chi Mihn, Mao Zedong, etc.).

Which means that, individually, you’re not better off than under unfettered capitalism- in capitalism, the rich control everything and make it tough for others to get rich; in Communism as practiced, the powerful control everything and make it tough for others to get powerful.
Second: Communism dictates a division of power between the classes, with the proletariat (i.e., blue-collar industrial workers) taking over and the capitalists (i.e. rich) and others (i.e., farmers, white-collar workers, etc.) being dealt with as the state sees fit (reintegration into new jobs, re-education camps, or just liquidation). Given all the talk of people lucky to be rich just because they were born that way, I can understand the joy taken in giving those bastards the big karmic turn-around. On the other hand, I don’t really see why the poor beating up on the rich is necessarily more just and honorable than the rich beating up on the poor.

Third: In Communism, everything is seen as an extension of the class struggle. You’re a writer? Then write things about the proletariat beating out the capitalist dogs. You’re an artist? Hmmm; this painting doesn’t seem to capture the great revolutionary spirit of communism well enough- send him to the gulags. You’re a playwright? Write a play about the greatness of Leader Tsarmoff. No; wait; Tsarmoff has just been removed- we’ll have to burn your manuscript and try you for crimes against the state.

Fourth: All production is in the hands of the state. More specifically, in the hands of the few individuals who control the state. Which is great if those individuals are perfect visionaries with complete understanding of all of the factors involved in production and the economy. But if we had that, we could run an economic system of Groucho Marxism (whoever can say the secret word wins a fine new tractor) and still get by.

Conversely, capitalism, by being de-centralized, allows for mistakes and misplanning in a way that Communism doesn’t. If one guy fails, there are four others who can jump in with new ideas and pick up the slack. In Communism, the one leader screws up and it all goes to hell.

Look; I have yet to see a Communist state that actually lived up to any of the Utopian ideals that were espoused; and all of the Communist states ever created have been ruthless dictatorships. Now, maybe hope springs eternal for you, but if I see forty countries turn towards Communism and all of them screw up their resources, abuse their people, and clamp down on dissent, I’m going to assume that the forty-first Communist country will come to the same fate.

I have met with quite a few people who grew up under Communism (mostly from Vietnam); and none of them wanted to go back to a Communist state.

KarmaComa said:

I really think you’re overstating the case, both about the dangers of McCarthyism (which was bad, but not as bad as fascism) and the hold it had over the country.

JMCJ

“Y’know, I would invite y’all to go feltch a dead goat, but that would be abuse of a perfectly good dead goat and an insult to all those who engage in that practice for fun.” -weirddave, set to maximum flame

19

Additionally, the OP asks if communism could work if the right people were in charge. As was correctly pointed out, it’s not just the leaders who have to be the right people. The entire populace has to go along with it.

The problem is that communism seems to run contrary to human nature. A good argument has been made by Robert Wright (among others) that our biological and cultural evolution has left us with innate cooperation (our social nature) joined with a strong competitive streak. It’s the interplay of these two drives that has fueled human progress, and I don’t think that our biologically-compelled striving to do better than others can be eliminated by wishing for a utopia.

In fact, that is why communist societies have these totalitarian streaks – because a communist society depends on the cooperation of its members, and most members are unwilling (or unable, due to human nature) to give up their competitive drives and accept perfect equality. And, in fact, some people in a communist society are more equal than others, so that just opens up a different avenue for people to exercise their competitive muscles. That’s why corruption is so endemic – without really strong self-discipline and dedication on the parts of ALL of a society’s members, some of them will naturally pursue their self-interest.

The major advantage of a capitalist system is that this natural self-interest is harnessed, leading to better results for everyone. Okay, not everyone – but that’s where our cooperative, social nature helps out. Modern capitalist societies have added features of socialism, establishing some minimum standard of well-being that people should be guaranteed. We can disagree about how well that is being implemented, but at least the framework is there.

You can argue, of course, that these socialist reforms have been made by capitalists out of pure self-interest, to keep the working-classes appeased. Even if that’s true, it still demonstrates that capitalism’s pursuit of self-interest can result in social good.

Incidentally, another advantage of a market-based economy is efficiency, something that a centrally-planned economy finds almost impossible to achieve, due to the amount of information central planners would have to have. In a market, it is all of our individual transactions that set the prices and determine what the economy produces. Millions upon millions of transactions, each driven by self-interest, leading to efficient outcomes. Whereas, central planners have to guess at what people want, what the economy should make, how much of something it should make, etc. And when the central planners are wrong, they can’t immediately discover it nor correct it as quickly as a market can.

That’s a different question than the OP, of course. People don’t necessarily hate communism because it’s less efficient. It’s because you really need to be prepared to be a part of the whole, a communal member whose individual needs and how they are satisfied are determined by the state. And, the state will compel your cooperation to make the system work, if it needs to. And it does.

20

You know that phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Originally, it was “life, liberty, and property”. Why? Because people realized that private property was a basic human right, without which there can be no legitimate government. Take a look at the Bill of Rights. Our basic rights either inmplicitly or explicitly recognizes the importance of property:

First Amendment:
The implied restriction on free speech is that you must own or have permission from the owner of everything you use to facilitate your speech. If I were to argue that I should be able to say anything I want to on this MB because of the First Amendment, I’m sure that someone would point out that since I don’t own the MB, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. In Communism, the State owns everything, so no one has free speech.

Second Amendment:
Well, if there’s no private ownership of guns, then there can be no right to bear arms, now can there?

Third Amendment:
What, you don’t remember the Third Amendment? It prohibits the lodging of soldiers with owner’s consent, a clear protection of property rights.

Fourth Amendment:
In order for a person’s property to be protected against searches, the person must have property.

Fifth Amendment:
If people can’t be deprived of property without due process, then they must have property.

Without private property, the Bill of Rights is meaningless.

Furthermore, if the State owns all means of production, and all citizens are means of production, then clearly the State owns all citizens.

Finally, once the State owns means of production, it itself becomes a means of production. Since some people hold more governmental power than others, those people will in essence have private property, while the rest will not.