Are you kidding? Is that a joke? How many times to people have to cite all the nations that tried communism? If you’re looking for a quote from Marx stating something to that effect, and you’ll leave without one, well, we’ll be seeing ya, then.
You probably won’t find a cite if we’re talking economic theory. But since we’re also talking reality, which is what usually matters, it’s been cited ad nauseam.
Since you seem bent on the theory at play here, theorize this:
What is the logical conclusion of peoples desires if they exist in a society where they cannot reap what they sow, enjoy the fruits of their labors, and could work twice as hard, be twice as intelligent and capable, but limited to a lifestyle the same as someone half as motivated or productive?
Answer: they’d want to leave.
So how do you prevent mass departures from from communist societies?
Answer: limit their freedoms of movement.
What if said communist nations had the power of voting?
Answer: they’d vote communism right off the planet
How do you prevent this?
Answer: no voting on such matters.
Since we’re on a cite search, anyone have one handy of a communist nation that had freedom of speech and the power to vote similiar to western style democracies? Are there any examples where free nations freely voted themselves into a commuist state?
How is that a hijack? The thread is about good and bad, and js is attempting to retrack the thread by defining evil, and seeing if the way it applies to communism applies across the board. I would say that Christianity, as an ideology forced upon a society, has a similar effect on freedom as does Communism. Of course this goes for all organized religion. And like communism, little private pockets of it, limited to families or small groups of volunteers who are free to leave at will, do not appear evil in its traditional sense, but they have a history of developing into something far more insidious. I was originally going to say that religion practiced in the US is not evil, but as an agnostic I do find something disturbing about the stranglehold it has on politics and the media and society in general. IMO, organized religion is evil for the same reason that communism is evil. I don’t know the stats, but I would be curious as to which ideology has caused more violence and oppression throughout history. I would guess religion.
>> How is that a hijack? The thread is about good and bad
I thought it was about communism being good or bad when compared to capitalism. But if it is about anything being good or bad, then the discussion which was just declared a highjack was, in fact, not a highjack. And, in fact, it is much more related to communism and other political theories than the Crusades. But hey, If you want to discuss the Crusades in this thread go right ahead and don’t let me stop you. You’ll forgive me if I don’t join you though.
It is about communism being good or bad when compared to capitalism, but ‘bad’ has been interchanged with ‘evil’ several times in this thread, and he was making an analogy to see if declaring an ecomomic model as evil is consistent with how we normally define evil. He is suggesting that IF we don’t define organized religion as evil simply because its intent is supposed to be ‘good’, then maybe we need to limit our tag of evil to the specific negative results. In which case we would say that injustice is evil and oppression is evil, but the ideas that cause it are not (not necessarily my view, nor, do I believe, js’s). Maybe he was reconsidering the title to the thread…that capitalism ‘works’ and communism ‘fails’, but to label one good and one bad (or evil) is misleading.
If “negative results” is a sufficient euphemism for mass starvation and genocide, OK. I concede the stuff about Christian atrocities. I don’t see immediate relevance to this topic.
I will point out that Hayek titled his book “The Road to Serfdom” precisely because socialists kept promising more freedom and one of the main points of Hayek’s work is that the road which many people and countries were taking believeing it was the road to freedom was, in reality, the road to serfdom.
The relevance is that if we label Christianity (or any organized religion) as evil because it has historically led to violence and oppression, then it would be consistent to label communism as evil, as has been debated in this thread, for the same reason. So if you’re defining ‘bad’ from the title as ‘evil’, then you agree that communism=bad, which is half the OP. If, on the other hand, you don’t believe that this thread has anything to do with ‘evil’, and ‘bad’ to you simply means ‘a worse economic choice than capitalism’, then I agree that the definition of evil is irrelevant.
However, sailor stated “There’s no doubt [communism] is inherently evil”, which is why I’m baffled that he doesn’t recognize the relevance of defining evil, in this case by analogy.
I think we are debating semantics, and I am anti-semantic.
As I said previously, I am not against the word “communism” per se, it is actual by-the-book hardcore communist regimes which do, arguably, evil things. I said also that capitalism “just is” moreso than being a conscious choice. This is borne out time and time again in command economies, which have thriving black markets, and brutal suppression of the black markets.
Evil as in “it inevitably leads to loss of liberty, oppression and often, death” and as in “it puts the State above the people and degrades human beings to being mere instruments of the state”. You can use whatever word you like. For my taste evil works pretty well.
How can you debate something without agreeing on semantics? Do you not agree that the concept of ‘evil’ is subjective? And that to debate whether something is evil requires that evil be defined? I think js assumed these premises in his post.
OK, I would say the same things about organized religion, except I’d substitute ‘god’ for ‘the State’. THAT’S the analogy js was making. js didn’t state a conclusion; he simply offered the analogy as a way for either side to consider the consistency of how they define evil. ‘Do I believe that ANYTHING that puts a body above individuals and reduces them to mere instruments of that body is evil, or is there something else about communism that separates it from religion, which does essentially the same thing’. My answer is that, no, communism is evil for precisely the same reason as organized religion - it is a way for a ruling body to force their agenda on others, without allowing for freedom of choice.
It depends on what your definition of “evil” is? Is that where you want to go with this? That is like a Medieval Scholastic debating whether Jesus owned the clothes that he wore.
Jeepers H. Crackers, man. Can’t you understand the idea of using a analogy to illustrate the point of a question? Can evil be assigned to an ideology based solely on its actual expression, or must it be part of the internal logic?
Are you suggesting that capitalists attend different high schools than the masses? Or that they are sequestered from society at a young age by evil CEO’s to be taught their nefarious trade, like Napoleon’s dogs in ‘Animal Farm’?
I actually took a year of h.s. accounting and it has had no impact on anything I’ve done. Personal finance classes would probably be a good idea, yes, but at the expense of what? You seem to suggest that there is some sort of conspiracy by the monied elite. Go to your local school board meeting and see to what extent such a conspiracy evident.
If they did offer accounting or personal finance I bet someone else would post complaining that those classes are just to indoctrinate kids into the capitalist dogma when they should be studying literature or art.
Guys, dal_timgar is just working up to his standard rant about planned obsolescence. Soon we will be hearing how depreciation isn’t factored into anything, and how that somehow changes the whole equation.
He’s wrong, but that’s never stopped him before. Definition of a fanatic: Someone who won’t change his mind, and won’t change the subject.
