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Communism is right because

suncowiam

Well-Known Member
So atrocities don't happen in capitalist societies? Nobody here is defending state-sponsored violence or intolerance of dissent. That's not communism just because it happens in a communist country any more than warfare is capitalism because a capitalist country goes to war. I acknowledge your pain, but in the context of this discussion, its an argument from emotion.

It is part argument of emotion and part fact. Separate my father and place in many other individuals that were systematically punished for opposing communism. This is communism by various definitions concerning indoctrination and the use of force and violence.

Capitalism's definition does not directly support such things. There are definitions of freedom and enabling individuals. But you are correct that bad things can still happen in any government.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
Communism did right by forcing me and my family to USA where we prospered compared to those that stayed behind.

Good work communism. I should mention we almost died trying to leave but hey, that's just a little itsy bitsy formality of communism.

I wonder how Cubans and North Koreans are feeling these days? I guess one can't complain if there's nothing to compare to when they live in a cave all their lives.

Where did you leave from?

Good point though, anyone I've met from any communist/socialist leaning country, or who has even visited one, is not a fan. The biggest fans here are usually wealthy college kids, their professors, and actors who have never set foot outside the US
 

Repox

Truth Seeker
This is true if you only count the last 100 years of human existence and the places where communism tried - and, yes, failed - to supplant capitalism as the dominant sociopolitical system. If you count the first 190,000 of our species 200,000 year existence, you'll find that we had a non-capitalist, more egalitarian system that still sustains indigenous hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies to this day in some isolated parts of the world. And before you start Fox-educatedly blabbing about 'communists' recommending a return to primitive life-styles, that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that communism has been the norm for most of the human species' existence. Capitalism is the new kid on the block. Precocious immaturity sometimes overrides tried and tested wisdom in the popularity stakes (as anyone who has had teenage kids well knows), but there is no denying our past and we are what we are - first and foremost - social animals. By hook or by crook, (our inherited) nature will shepherd us back into its fold sooner or later - or eliminate us from the pasture altogether. Here's hoping.

Equalitarianism contradicts basic human needs to gain recognition for competence. Capitalism is a better fit for human nature. Humans strive to develop abilities in order to maximize social outcomes. Nature is replete with competition, human societies are differentiated by social groups striving to gain recognition based on social differences, not equalities. Communism contradicts human nature, people are not motivated to be equal, or to become comrades, they are motivated to gain social recognition for competent role outcomes. No two people are alike, not even twins; everyone, in one way or another, strives to achieve social recognition for competence. Competence is defined differently depending on culture, values, activities, and social structure of the society.

In almost every way, communism inhibits, rather than enhances, basic human needs for competent outcomes. Every communist society curtails human aspirations to achieve, or to realize one's full potential. A communist society will endeavor to control people so as to eliminate or reduce social differences deemed "harmful to the state." It is difficult to imagine an entrepreneur succeeding in a communist nation.
 
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suncowiam

Well-Known Member
Where did you leave from?

Good point though, anyone I've met from any communist/socialist leaning country, or who has even visited one, is not a fan. The biggest fans here are usually wealthy college kids, their professors, and actors who have never set foot outside the US

I immigrated from Vietnam in the late 70s.
 

suncowiam

Well-Known Member
Good to know thanks.. is there anything you miss about it? or were you too young?

I was too young but I did visit relatives several times in the early 2000s.

Vietnam is a foreign land and culture honestly. I can't speak it well nor do I know many customs outside of what my family practices. I'm simply Asian American.
 

Guy Threepwood

Mighty Pirate
So atrocities don't happen in capitalist societies? Nobody here is defending state-sponsored violence or intolerance of dissent. That's not communism just because it happens in a communist country any more than warfare is capitalism because a capitalist country goes to war. I acknowledge your pain, but in the context of this discussion, its an argument from emotion.

'because a capitalist country goes to war.'

historically to defeat threats from socialist countries.

Economically and religiously free democracies do not go to war with each other, much more is to be gained in trade
 

siti

Well-Known Member
historically to defeat threats from socialist countries.

Economically and religiously free democracies do not go to war with each other, much more is to be gained in trade
Do you know how this translates? Capitalist countries only go to war if it is in their economic best interests to do so. Its nothing to do with ideology or threat. And when was the last time a democratic country went to war against a socialist threat to its own borders?
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
Communism rooted in the theories of Karl Marx, in the industrial word of 19th century Germany, taking root in hapless Russia, is a political and social movement that has brought misery and destruction to any country unlucky enough to fall under its rule.
 

Repox

Truth Seeker
Communist nations collapse because of so much inefficiency. It took the USSR about seventy years to self-destruct from so much incompetence, repression, and false ideas. Now, Cuba is on the way out, its infrastructure is falling apart, its economy is collapsing, and its citizens are repressed by proletariat dictators. Cuban refugees have told us about government corruption, repression, imprisonment of opposition groups, and just plan stupidity for the way the government operates. Communism definitely leads to the worst form of government, one not fulfilling needs of its people, it's all about fulfilling the needs of communist officials.
 
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siti

Well-Known Member
It is part argument of emotion and part fact. Separate my father and place in many other individuals that were systematically punished for opposing communism. This is communism by various definitions concerning indoctrination and the use of force and violence.

Capitalism's definition does not directly support such things. There are definitions of freedom and enabling individuals. But you are correct that bad things can still happen in any government.
Yes - and since we have now admitted that kind of evidence into the argument, perhaps I should mention the generations of my ancestors who slaved under the yoke of British Capitalist Imperialism - in the land of their own birth, but deprived of any natural right to own land by pure accident of birth - few of whom made it much past their 40th year whilst their erstwhile dependents were separated between the workhouse and the orphanage after their breadwinner fathers had poured out their sweat, tears, blood and finally their last breaths on the altar of economic advancement. None of that wealth ended up in their pockets or mine - but if I have inherited their genes, they were at least as capable and competent as anyone else - they just lacked opportunity. They worked out their miserable existence in the very mills and slums that Friedrich Engels visited before collaborating with Marx to find a way of rectifying such an obvious and unjust 'anomaly' of the capitalist distribution of the 'wealth of nations'. If my own father is anything to go by, they were by no means lazy - the opposite in fact...they ended up idle in the wake of the arch-Capitalist "Iron Lady" - who 'ironically' was purposefully instrumental in taking the last puffs of steam out of the iron-built industry of North West England in the late 1970s-early 1980s with no regard to what would become of the economic future of the descendants of those on whose sacrifice was built the 'greatness' of the empire she presided Canute-like over the demise of. The "market" chewed them up and spat them out and they sank to the bottom of the economic ocean along with the bloated remains of one of my father's own bourgeois employers and his workers pensions! I did not get to choose ANY of that - I inherited it from capitalism - and I will never forgive the system for it - even if I have used it to get myself out. That might be emotively expressed - but it is all fact.

"College kids and actors" indeed - @Guy Threepwood - once again your profound ignorance shines through!
 
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Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
Communism is great at being the only politcal theory worse then Fascism. Body counts are the only evidence needed.

Fascism about 12 million
Communism 122 million

But hey atleast the 122 million was all equal as they were slaughtered. :rolleyes:
 

siti

Well-Known Member
Communism is great at being the only politcal theory worse then Fascism. Body counts are the only evidence needed.

Fascism about 12 million
Communism 122 million

But hey atleast the 122 million was all equal as they were slaughtered.
Where did you get these numbers from? Can you give us a breakdown? And while you're at it maybe you could do a comparison with, say, European Capitalist expansionism - I reckon you might even beat the corrected combined total of fascism and communism by just taking into account the genocide of indigenous American peoples - probably at least 100 million deaths across North and South America. But hey, they were definitely not 'our' equals were they. :rolleyes:
 

suncowiam

Well-Known Member
Yes - and since we have now admitted that kind of evidence into the argument, perhaps I should mention the generations of my ancestors who slaved under the yoke of British Capitalist Imperialism - in the land of their own birth, but deprived of any natural right to own land by pure accident of birth - few of whom made it much past their 40th year whilst their erstwhile dependents were separated between the workhouse and the orphanage after their breadwinner fathers had poured out their sweat, tears, blood and finally their last breaths on the altar of economic advancement. None of that wealth ended up in their pockets or mine - but if I have inherited their genes, they were at least as capable and competent as anyone else - they just lacked opportunity. They worked out their miserable existence in the very mills and slums that Friedrich Engels visited before collaborating with Marx to find a way of rectifying such an obvious and unjust 'anomaly' of the capitalist distribution of the 'wealth of nations'. If my own father is anything to go by, they were by no means lazy - the opposite in fact...they ended up idle in the wake of the arch-Capitalist "Iron Lady" - who 'ironically' was purposefully instrumental in taking the last puffs of steam out of the iron-built industry of North West England in the late 1970s-early 1980s with no regard to what would become of the economic future of the descendants of those on whose sacrifice was built the 'greatness' of the empire she presided Canute-like over the demise of. The "market" chewed them up and spat them out and they sank to the bottom of the economic ocean along with the bloated remains of one of my father's own bourgeois employers and his workers pensions! I did not get to choose ANY of that - I inherited it from capitalism - and I will never forgive the system for it - even if I have used it to get myself out. That might be emotively expressed - but it is all fact.

"College kids and actors" indeed - @Guy Threepwood - once again your profound ignorance shines through!

Let me first ask you your definition of Communism and how it associates with violence? Should communism use force and violence to assert and hold change?

If not then I have no qualms with you.
 

siti

Well-Known Member
Let me first ask you your definition of Communism and how it associates with violence? Should communism use force and violence to assert and hold change?

If not then I have no qualms with you.
I personally renounce violence as a means of political change. But if we are saying that, how is Syria or Libya or Iraq any different to Russia, Vietnam or North Korea? My communism would be one that more closely resembles a more primitive cooperative arrangement of social affairs. To be honest, I don't think that violence is now required anyway (not that I would condone it if it were) to overthrow capitalism, because I think capitalism will overthrow itself - probably with violence, even as it was, in truth, established with violence, subjugation and slavery - facts which modern-day capitalists are apt to forget - but when we're done with the oil wars, the food wars and then the water wars will be much worse.

I'm quietly preparing for it - I'm more or less out of it already. I'm still working but I'm building my little bit of paradise far, far away from the industrial north and high enough above the tropical high water mark to be safe from sea-level rise. I'm planting all the natural resources I'll need to keep body and soul together and I'll share as much as I can with my neighbours as I have continued to do throughout most of my adult life. To me communism is everybody doing that and I reckon it will be forced on us eventually by nature (our own nature in the face of natural calamity as the earth finally wrests back control of its resources from the weakening grip of human greed) - but we'll be much better able to cope if we understand it.

The repressive 'communist' regimes of the 20th century were not that. I hate them as much as I hate the yoke of capitalism - but what I detest even more is the deliberate twisting of history to justify some the bloodiest atrocities in the history of humankind, deliberately perpetrated in the name of 'free-market' capitalist 'democracy', whilst at the same time denouncing a perfectly rational political idea because it was misapplied by a combination of power-hungry despots and hapless officials resulting in a mix of oppressive violence and accidental starvation which are all lumped together as the death toll of communism. If we treated capitalism the same way, the numbers would be astronomical and we justify it all in the name of 'freedom'. My ancestors were not free - not since the dawn of capitalism - I am getting there slowly and I am, unashamedly, using capitalism as a vehicle - it owes me after all - and the end result will be my own little communist 'empire' with just enough to meet my needs and share a bit around. With that, I will be more than happy and capitalism can get on with dying without me in it.
 
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Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
Where did you get these numbers from? Can you give us a breakdown? And while you're at it maybe you could do a comparison with, say, European Capitalist expansionism - I reckon you might even beat the corrected combined total of fascism and communism by just taking into account the genocide of indigenous American peoples - probably at least 100 million deaths across North and South America. But hey, they were definitely not 'our' equals were they. :rolleyes:

The numbers are rough estimates from a quick google search. You can look it up for yourself if you want to verify them.

The fact is that many a Fascist and Communist governments have risen and fallen in the time since the U.S. formed. Because the idea of it looks nice on paper but goes horribly wrong when applied. As evidenced by the number of failed communist regimes and poor quality of life in current ones. Cuba, China, N.Korea. all terrible places to live.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
I think the main point, @Laika is that Communism has been a spectacular failure everywhere it has been tried.
Asides from the fact you aren't even willing to acknowledge the acheivements of those Communist places (such as trends in improvements in health care and literacy), it is a fair to assessment to say that Communism has worked in a number of locations, and what is widely understood as Communism has been military/authoritarian control.
However, at it's very core, Communism is communal ownership. You still have your things (no one is going to walk in your house and take your radio or whatever), and while their is obligation to work, there is no "executive" taking a chunk of the value your labor produces, and it would be much easier because without money there is no advertisements telling us what we want.
 

Dawnofhope

Non-Proselytizing Baha'i
Staff member
Premium Member
I posted this on another thread. I have as little respect for communism as an ideology as racism or nationalism.

"For long years, the Soviet system created by Vladimir Lenin succeeded in representing itself to many as a benefactor of humankind and the champion of social justice. In the light of historical events, such pretensions were grotesque. The documentation now available provides irrefutable evidence of crimes so enormous and follies so abysmal as to have no parallel in the six thousand years of recorded history. To a degree never before imagined, let alone attempted, the Leninist conspiracy against human nature also sought systematically to extinguish faith in God. Whatever view of the situation political theorists may currently hold, no one can be surprised that such deliberate violence to the roots of human motivation led inexorably to the economic and political ruin of those societies luckless enough to fall under Soviet sway. Its longer-term spiritual effect, tragically, was to pervert to the service of its own amoral agenda the legitimate yearnings for freedom and justice of subject peoples throughout the world."

Bahá'í Reference Library - Century of Light, Pages 43-65
 

siti

Well-Known Member
The numbers are rough estimates from a quick google search.
Well OK - in fairness then you must likewise google "deaths due to capitalism" and accept the first 2 or 3 hits as authoritative. Do it - it will open you eyes as long as you are not purposely screwing them tightly shut! Obviously though, such a crude metric doesn't really do justice - and doesn't capture the real cost of either militaristic despotic 'communism' or capitalist imperialistic 'democracy'. All 20th century versions of 'communism' have been completely immersed in and universally opposed by a predominantly capitalist world economy and at least some of the deaths that are (usually) counted as being caused by communism are actually a result of the combination of capitalist enforced embargoes and communist government bad management. If we are counting famine, then you have to put down about 21,000 deaths per day, mostly in countries whose economies are dominated by capitalism - that's 7.5 million a year so even if we give capitalism a clean slate today, it won't take long to catch up to the others.
 
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