But how would you feel about a Catholic who was advocating a new inquisition? After all, Sandino thinks that South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan need to be ‘liberated’ from Capitalism by force in order to keep the revolution going. I wonder how many carcasses swinging from lampposts would result from THAT?
Pervert: Glad you liked the silliness. I wrote that after reading about the Commie toys in the other Marxism thread. It seemed just too surreal to pass up.
*Originally posted by pervert *
OK - we’re much clearer now. I, too, make a distinction between sharing, trading, and taking. But I guess I wasn’t looking at each one necessarily in terms of moral implications.
OK - now I understand what you were driving at. I agree that trading can be seen as generally good (if the exchange is mutually satisficing to both parties). However, sharing can sometimes be a good thing, even though I give you something and you give me nothing in return. What I may give you is some tangible item, while what you give me is respect (something nontangible). Or I may derive some sort of personal satisfaction in giving you something with nothing in return.
I think where we will agree that this type of exchange (sharing) is bad is if it is compulsory (however, see below example). That is, the sharing isn’t voluntary. So you are right, there are moral implications to sharing if it is forced.
But this brings up a question of why are people sometimes taught that sharing is a good thing (such as sharing toys with one’s siblings?) I know I was forced to share as a child, even though I didn’t want to; but I was told that sharing (in this instance) was a good thing to do. Maybe in this case forced sharing was seen as a means of addressing the situation, a means to reduce all the yelling, screaming, and fighting experienced by my mother that required the dictum “share your toys!”
OK - I see your point. Yes, I think you are probably right, but when this came about would be an interesting issue to investigate.
is any one going to answer sam stone’s question?
There’s been a lot of talk advocating military action on this board since 9/11. I believe your voice was among them.
Oh yes, military action to overthrow a brutal tyrant and liberate the people is EXACTLY LIKE invading a democracy so you can expropriate its land, kill the people who resist, and distribute the booty to your fellow travellers.
And moral equivalency hits a new low on the SDMB.
It’s your moral equivalency I was pointing to, Sam (if I may address you as such). You seem to equate a call for revolution with the Red Terror out of hand. Perhaps I’ve missed the part where Sandino has advocated intentional famines and genocide.
I did not equate it to the Red Terror, and said nothing about intentional famines. This does not change the fact that invading another country for the sole purpose of taking property away from people and giving it to others WILL lead to bloodshed.
Then YOU attempted to lump his brutal plan with ANY call to ‘military action’.
The first problem being that the colonial powers brought with them the concept of a nation state and grafted it over the top of their existing tribal culture. Without “oppression” there would be no African nations. In some cases there are failed states – like Somalia – which indicate how wonderful tribal rules can be.
That’s what Marxism is in one sense, trying to apply tribal rules to complex economic equations and realities. It’s amazing that intelligent and literate people fall into this trap.
From errata
Um. I’m not sure exactly what you are saying here. Are you saying that Nazism (do you mean facisim here?) is totally evil without any redeeming qualities, but Communism, while possibly flawed, is not on par…or something?
Assuming you meant Nazism and not facism: If you mean the one major country that went the Nazism was implemented (i.e. Germany/Austria…I suppose it was also implemented in the Balkins and Finland too…not sure where else) then I suppose a case could be made that it was a fairly mixed bag of pure evil, tinted with some good. After all, while the holocaust was one of the truely evil acts perpatrated against mankind, and while the various invasions of other soveriegn states and the general way they conducted those campaigns, especially in Russia was, to put it mildly, brutal, the Nazi’s DID do some good, i.e. they stabalized the economy, put people back to work, brought up the health standards (if you were of the right ‘race’), etc.
Communism is ALSO a mixed bag of pure evil tinted with some good. Looked at empirically, every nation that has attempted it (EVERY ONE) has turned into a brutal dictatorship with thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of dead bodies at their feet (in fact, the top two communist nations beat Hitler hands down body count wise), and ruined economies in their wake (with the possible exception of China, who is using highly ‘modified’ communism to say the least). The good? Well, in China and Russia’s case they pretty well moved to become industrialized nations through main force, something that neither country was likely to do with the old regimes. They also became world powers, again, not something that was very likely before. Perhaps things like health care were also better than they WOULD have been as well (if you didn’t die of lead poisoning while posing for gun fire that is).
The point being, you have to be an appologist to over look the bad for the good in EITHER system. The bad FAR outweighs the good in both, and in both cases it didn’t have to be that way. From a moral equivelancy stance, I have to say that Nazism and Communism (as its been implemented to date) are roughly equal. Facism…well, thats another kettle of fish I suppose, with not ALL of the various facist countries turning into complete monsters (I’m thinking of Spain mostly here). I still think its a flawed system, but looked at empirically I don’t think it equates directly to how communism has been implemented to date.
-XT
A simple misunderstanding, I was referring to the Red Terror when I used the metaphor of the Inquisition. When you used the same metaphor, it was a natural leap for me.
I guess I missed this part of his plan, perhaps you could point out the relevant quotes. I thought he was proposing a revolution of the working class (within the country) to overthrow their capitalist oppressors. Seems a little different from an invasion of any kind to me.
Well if someone proposed stabilizing the economy putting people back to work etc… that’s all good, but if you take establishing racial supremacy out of Nazism you don’t have Nazism anymore. Regardless of the methodology, the goals themselves are intolerable to me.
Now back to communism. I favor a classless society wherein the workers own the means of production. There’s nothing evil about that to me. Now the rub is how to achieve it. Some favor revolution and I don’t. All of the failures you listed were achieved through violence and to me that is at the core of why they failed. I live in a country full of people that favor violence as a means of solving problems so I can’t write people off just for that. Now there are extremes which are exceedingly awful and fall outside of a successful dialog, but I will oppose those extremes on their own merits, not whether they are associated with communism, capitalism, theism or whatever.
The vast majority of leftists I know are either pacifists or damn close. Frankly I have seen more advocation of bloodshed from those who are adamant capitalists. But that doesn’t cause me to write off capitalists as a violent.
I have a modest proposal. Simply buy them. Organize enough workers pool your money and buy some means of production. I’m not sure where you live, but it should be possible. If worker run factories are as efficient as you guys seem to think, it should be possible to completely take over an average sized economy in a couple decades. Once you control all the means of production, you should also control most of the political structure. You could at this point introduce a “classless” society without any trouble. A successfull revolution of this sort in any country would lead to more in others. Before long the world would be a giant classless utopia!
Workers of the world unite!
You have nothing to lose but your communist oppressors!
From errata
And I would agree completely…they are intolerable to me as well, especially in light of the fact I’m one of the minority subhuman types who would have sever lead poisoning to the brain. Thats kind of why I said that you’d have to be an appologist to over look the bad in favor of the good…especially since the bad FAR outweights the good. But then, you’d have to be equally an appologist for the same reason for the various communist states AS THEY HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED.
From errata
The empirical problem has been that every time its been attempted in any form, we get all those nasty extremes that you (and I) dislike so much. Personally I don’t think placing the means of production into the hands of the workers is a good idea, but I also don’t think its inherently evil either. However, every time a communist government has been tried so far, its been uniformly a disaster. Contrast that to Capitalism (well, the modern social-capitalism social-democracies) and empirically its really no contest. Maybe some day a nation state WILL successfully implement what you are talking about, and we’ll be able to judge its merrits and compare it to other capitalist/democracies and see which is better. Atm though we simply can’t.
From errata
Well TRUE capitalist don’t normally advocate bloodshed as war cuts into profits and is disruptive to trade. I think you meant right wing types as opposed to your leftists. While capitalists (or the right wing in the US) might ADVOCATE bloodshed, its pretty appearent that communists (not leftists) shed blood. Ok, this is simply me doing the retoric bit…it was just gratuitous and for my own amusement.
-XT
I’m to the left and a pacifist as well, though I doubt I qualify as a “leftist,” though I have been accused of it on this board. In all honesty, it’s a very odd experience to be pretty much on the same side of a debate as Sam Stone. Sandito hasn’t been arguing racial supremacy, what s/he has been arguing is class supremacy. S/he has been willingly blind to facts, you might want to peruse the Lenin and the “4 million killed” thread in which s/he has argued in the face of facts that the revolution caused a total of 10 deaths, that the Red Terror was a fully justified response to imperialism, and that:
Such noted “leftists” on the board as Olentzero and Mr. Svinlesha have either dismissed him/her or abandoned him/her. How exactly the arming of the workers, the overthrow of capitalist oppressors and the establishment of a communist utopia as put forth by Sandito is to be achieved through peaceful means is beyond me.
Actually that’s a pretty good idea, pervert. And not too far from what I would propose.
There are some inherent practical problems, such as competing with sweatshop workers, that make factories a particularly hard market to penetrate. This makes it hard for anyone to start a new factory in the US though. Until we begin to hold employers at least as accountable for there practices here as we do overseas, we will continue to see a decline in production jobs in the US and the first world. Perhaps there could be a strategy for starting cooperative production in the third world, but that goes well outside of my knowledge base at the moment.
There are several collectives and co-ops where I live and they seem to be pretty successful. It appears to be a growing trend. The hardest part appears to be the start-up capital, but once in place, they seem to be as successful as any other business. I think the trend will continue to grow. I’m hoping for significant results on a society level in about another 50-100 years. I’m a very patient “communist”.
I don’t know if it was meant seriously, but it actually DOES sound like a good plan (though maybe doomed to failure unless some of the ‘workers’ just happen to be engineers, designers, managers, marketeers, and someone with a CEO’s background to run the show). I would look into starting such a thing in one of the rising industrial countries as opposed to the US or Europe though, for the reasons you gave. Maybe India.
I’m sure a true ‘communist’ would rant on about class and all that, and dismiss such an idea out of hand. But if you were ever going to do such a thing peacefully (without using the democratic process to win a popular election, if such a thing is even possible) then that sounds like a reasonable way to do it.
-XT
Actually I can cite a case going on here, of a tire factory that closed; the workers formed a cooperative and managed to get things going again; but AFAIK they have some investors too.
One can oppose oppression in any form without linking that oppression to the ideology associated with it. Yet oppression is ** a part of **and the purpose of a Nazi ideology whereas, at least in your argument, oppression is the consequence of a communist ideology which some could feel meant well.
That’s just the rub however. Only looking at who benefits from capitalism creates an overly rosy picture. Pre-soviet Russia was no walk in the park, nor was pre-communist Vietnam. Capitalism was failing for them. Life was great in France (at least on either side of WWII), but some of that wealth came at the expense of the Vietnamese. And the trend continues in more subtle ways today. As the good life in the first world which is the “success” of capitalism is interdependent with the cheap labor of the third world (although I think this strategy won’t work forever). Life in many of these countries, I would not consider a success in almost any measurement.
If capitalism was all that, I don’t think we would have seen communism in the first place. Now it could be, after the wealthiest countries have been built on slavery, exploitation of foreign labor and resources through imperialism and military might, that we’ve figured it all out. But I remain skeptical.
The atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao et al are not fig leaf in my mind for the down side of capitalism. Saying it’s the best we have, does not imply it is a satisfactory solution in my mind.
If you win however, it can also give access to cheap resources such as oh… I don’t know…oil maybe. And if you happen to be in the business of making weapons, war is always good for business.
I’m nothing if I’m not consistent. The fun question is; Have I proposed a way to pervert capitalism into communism or a way to pervert communists into capitalists. 
If the post had any point, it was that I think the communists vehement refusal to propose things like this is an indication that either they don’t believe worker controlled factories could compete, or their only purpose is the bloodbaths which result from their revolutions. That is they don’t want to take the means of production as much as they want to destory them.
I can’t really answer for Sandino. I am aware of the Lenin thread and I called Sandino out in my own “Johnny come lately” way. However, if he really does think things were so rosy, I can understand why he thinks revolution is such a good idea.
Sandino does appear to be ignoring facts or at least unable to produce credible cites. That is distressing but not a moral flaw per se. I have not read every post, but Sandino really strikes me as a sincere person trying to achieve a utopia that I might find agreeable. It’s his/her proposed methodology that is suspect. OTOH a Nazi utopia would sicken me no matter how you sliced it.
IMO, they are just more concerned with instant gratification. It takes a looong time to buy the whole world from the capitalists.