Is communism possible in the USA?

ashurbanipal said:

It really doesn't seem possible that history (i.e. the things that happened...or perhaps more perspicuously, the stories we tell about the things that happened) could reveal what someone's ideas and motivations were or are. The best it can do is give us a clue about them, but with some obvious caveats. To say otherwise, you may as well claim that (for example) business owners who start a business but fail intend to fail, or that someone whose house is struck by a tornado wanted their house to be struck by a tornado, or that Albert Einstein and Marie Curie intended for people to make nuclear bombs.

I wonder if you could point out where, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx explicitly called for systematic bloodshed and oppression. He thought there would be a revolution, of course...but you can say that about any numer of proponents of democracy and market economics. You could also say that about Jesus--indeed, it was his anti-establishment rhetoric that got him crucified in the first place. So, show us where Marx thought it should be necessary to do massive and cruel violence over and above what was necessary to revoke the established social order.

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Marx believed that the Paris Commune should have executed many more people, to name just one example.
Fact is that Communist regimes and parties have demonstrated throughout history that mass-murder and brutal oppression are the hallmarks of Communism.

Artevelde said:

Marx believed that the Paris Commune should have executed many more people, to name just one example.

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I'm curious about your source for this information. I've read, for example, The Civil War in France and didn't see any evidence he thought there should be widespread executions. He did think that it would have been better, in retrospect, to kill the leaders of the former regime. But that seems to be something that happens generally whenever a revolution is fought and won (however temporarily). Either the victors kill the most dangerous among the losers, or they end up not sitting in power for long. So it doesn't seem this is terribly exceptional. The early Christians did the same thing when they moved up into Europe, or back into the Middle East.

The burden that is before you is to show that Marx intended communism to be exceptionally violent and brutal, and moreover, that this was a core ideal of his.

artevelde said:

Fact is that Communist regimes and parties have demonstrated throughout history that mass-murder and brutal oppression are the hallmarks of Communism.

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This is not established. Communist regimes have been responsible for a large number of deaths. This does not mean that communism requires mass killings of the sort the world saw under Stalin or Mao. Those horrors may just as easily have been the result of the personalities and cultures involved.

ashurbanipal said:

I'm curious about your source for this information. I've read, for example, The Civil War in France and didn't see any evidence he thought there should be widespread executions. He did think that it would have been better, in retrospect, to kill the leaders of the former regime. But that seems to be something that happens generally whenever a revolution is fought and won (however temporarily). Either the victors kill the most dangerous among the losers, or they end up not sitting in power for long. So it doesn't seem this is terribly exceptional. The early Christians did the same thing when they moved up into Europe, or back into the Middle East.

The burden that is before you is to show that Marx intended communism to be exceptionally violent and brutal, and moreover, that this was a core ideal of his.



This is not established. Communist regimes have been responsible for a large number of deaths. This does not mean that communism requires mass killings of the sort the world saw under Stalin or Mao. Those horrors may just as easily have been the result of the personalities and cultures involved.

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You need to read a bit of serious history.

And all Communist regimes have been bloodthirsty and extremely repressive. Communism is one of the most murderous ideologies in all of human history.

Artevelde said:

You need to read a bit of serious history.

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I read history quite avidly, and typically don't find myself rolling on the floor laughing afterward. I wonder whether "serious history" isn't just a code word for "history that agrees with Artevelde's worldview" here. Perhaps you could give me some examples of what you mean by "serious history." That is, perhaps you could point out some authors and titles that constitute "serious history."

Artevelde said:

And all Communist regimes have been bloodthirsty and extremely repressive. Communism is one of the most murderous ideologies in all of human history.

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I can't think of very many genuinely communist regimes. I agree that Russia and China have executed a lot of people. Cambodia and North Korea have as well (it's not clear that North Korea counts as a fully communist nation). On the other hand, as I previously pointed out, quite a few countries have implemented ideas from communism/socialism without a lot of violence (Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway, Canada, Spain...etc). So your argument may rest on a sampling problem. Again, we may well attribute the purges of Stalin and Mao to...well, Stalin and Mao, and not communism as such.

ashurbanipal said:

I read history quite avidly, and typically don't find myself rolling on the floor laughing afterward. I wonder whether "serious history" isn't just a code word for "history that agrees with Artevelde's worldview" here. Perhaps you could give me some examples of what you mean by "serious history." That is, perhaps you could point out some authors and titles that constitute "serious history."

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You can start with Robert Service's "Comrades: A History of World Communism".

ashurbanipal said:

I can't think of very many genuinely communist regimes. I agree that Russia and China have executed a lot of people. Cambodia and North Korea have as well (it's not clear that North Korea counts as a fully communist nation). On the other hand, as I previously pointed out, quite a few countries have implemented ideas from communism/socialism without a lot of violence (Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway, Canada, Spain...etc). So your argument may rest on a sampling problem. Again, we may well attribute the purges of Stalin and Mao to...well, Stalin and Mao, and not communism as such.

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The idea that Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway, Canada, Spain implemented Communism is ludicrous and shws you don't even have an elementary grasp of what Communism is.

Communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Poland, East-Germany, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Cuba, ... have been responsible for the death of dozens of millions of people and the brutal imprisonment, deportation and torture of dozens of millions more.

Artevelde said:

You can start with Robert Service's "Comrades: A History of World Communism".

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What is it about this book that makes it "serious history"? Is there a general consensus among historians in the same subject that this is the definitive work?

artevelde said:

The idea that Sweden, Denmark, France, Norway, Canada, Spain implemented Communism is ludicrous and shws you don't even have an elementary grasp of what Communism is.

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I did not say they implemented communism. I said they implemented ideas from communism/socialism. In the same way, China has implemented ideas from democracy and capitalism...but you wouldn't describe China as a capitalist/democratic nation, would you?

Artevelde said:

Communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Poland, East-Germany, Czechoslovakia, Albania, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Cuba, ... have been responsible for the death of dozens of millions of people and the brutal imprisonment, deportation and torture of dozens of millions more.

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There is no argument over this point. The argument is over whether Marx intended this to be the case, or not, and whether this is a core ideal and motivation of communism, or not.

ashurbanipal said:

What is it about this book that makes it "serious history"? Is there a general consensus among historians in the same subject that this is the definitive work?

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It is one of the best and most current general surveys by one of the foremost authorities on Communism.

ashurbanipal said:

I did not say they implemented communism. I said they implemented ideas from communism/socialism. In the same way, China has implemented ideas from democracy and capitalism...but you wouldn't describe China as a capitalist/democratic nation, would you?

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These countries didn't implement one iota of Communism. They are explicitely anti-Communist. And your attempt to mix up Communism and Socialism (by which you probably mean social democracy, which is yet something else) again shows you are without a clue.

ashurbanipal said:

There is no argument over this point. The argument is over whether Marx intended this to be the case, or not, and whether this is a core ideal and motivation of communism, or not.

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It is the defining characteristic of Communism.

ah yes the age old tactic of doublespeak
that always works, relabeling a concept changes it completely?
do what you say, say what you mean (otherwise) One Thing Leads to Another

artevelde said:

It is one of the best and most current general surveys by one of the foremost authorities on Communism.

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You don't seem to be grasping my subtle hints, so I'll try a more blunt approach. Dr. Service is a good scholar and a good historian. However, his opinion is disputed by others who know as much as he does, who are also good scholars and good historians. We sometimes call this the problem of epistemic peerage--when two or more people who are equally smart and equally knowledgeable arrive at different conclusions about the same subject.

In such a situation, the fair thing to do is to maintain epistemic neutrality. I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea that communism has at its heart the idea that a whole bunch of people ought to be killed in nasty ways for no particular reason. But so far, I have seen no evidence that this is so. Communism may be motivated by bloodlust, but again, I have seen no evidence this is so.

artevelde said:

These countries didn't implement one iota of Communism.

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Really? This seems false to me. They maintain a much more robust commons than anything we have here in the U.S. The oft-discussed health care systems of those countries, for example, are socially owned.

artevelde said:

They are explicitely anti-Communist.

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China is explicitly anti-capitalist, but it still uses capitalist ideas. That said, I'm not sure I agree with you. Communism is viewed favorably by a larger segment of the population in many of the countries I mentioned. Socialism even more so.

artevelde said:

And your attempt to mix up Communism and Socialism (by which you probably mean social democracy, which is yet something else) again shows you are without a clue.

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Do you deny that Marx thought socialism was a necessary step towards communism?

artevelde said:

It is the defining characteristic of Communism.

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Really? So, we ought to be able to look at any instance of systematized murder in the world throughout all of history, and the people who did it were communists? The Mongols under Temujin? The Romans under Julius or Octavian or Constantine? The Mugals? All of those, and many more besides, were communist regimes? I'm afraid I cannot take that seriously without some very serious evidence.

ashurbanipal said:

China is explicitly anti-capitalist,

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you mean the same place that seems to make nearly every durn thing we buy today?
yer age isn't listed in yer profile so I will give you a pass for not knowing what happened there in the 70's

Canell said:

To save the poll from influence, I will spare my opinion for the time being.

So, is communism possible in the USA?

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Remember Walden 2?

I've seen the real Socialism only under the Hitler's regime in Germany and under the Gaddaffi's regime in Libya.

Coin, do tell (us more).

Canell said:

To save the poll from influence, I will spare my opinion for the time being.

So, is communism possible in the USA?

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Without reading any replies yet, I'll say that yes, communism is possible in the US. It has to do with desperation and nothing left to lose, basically. If we ever feel we have gotten to that point, it is possible... though we are a long way away from it... that it could happen. The Communist Party actually made headway during the Great Depression. Not huge, but notable.

Now, I'll go read the thread and see what others think.

AngryOldGuy said:

you mean the same place that seems to make nearly every durn thing we buy today?
yer age isn't listed in yer profile so I will give you a pass for not knowing what happened there in the 70's

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Whatever do you mean? Do communist countries not export or import goods?

Whatever I do mean is that your belief that:
"China is explicitly anti-capitalist,"

is false.
I'm to lazy to explain why this is so but the information is readily available.

AngryOldGuy said:

Whatever I do mean is that your belief that:
"China is explicitly anti-capitalist,"

is false.
I'm to lazy to explain why this is so but the information is readily available.

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Oh, I think not, especially when you take it in context. My other interlocutor claimed that the countries I listed (like Sweden, Canada, France, etc.) were explicitly anti-communist. This may be true, but only in the same way that China is explicitly anti-capitalist.

ya see there was this guy named Mao
in the mid 60's there was this thing called the Cultural Revolution
then Nixon went to China and there was this guy named Deng Xiaoping
and...
nevermind

AngryOldGuy said:

ya see there was this guy named Mao
in the mid 60's there was this thing called the Cultural Revolution
then Nixon went to China and there was this guy named Deng Xiaoping
and...
nevermind

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I was alive when all of this happened. I've read more about it than (probably) most people have. As I said in my previous post, China does implement capitalist ideas. They are nevertheless a communist country, and opposed to full-on capitalism. That may or may not change with time. We'll see, I suppose.

The point is that the black-and-white sort of distinction that artevelde is trying to make doesn't fit the real world.

Alrighty then yer right about that.
(sry)
Of course the Chinese are commies
who else would have the audacity to institute the One-child policy?
I went back and skimmed through your exchanges with Artevelde
not quite sure what you two are trying to nail down.
ya wanna say that because neither of you can manage to agree what constitutes 'Communism'
it therefore isn't possible in the USA?
I'd say anything it possible no matter how highly unlikely.

socialism is communism-lite
and there aren't many that would disagree that the US has been moving towards ever increasing socialism

ashurbanipal said:

This may be ridiculous (though, if Jesus was God, he was surely aware of communism, as such). What isn't ridiculous is claiming that the ideas of Jesus are harmonious with the core ideas and motivations of communism--as they surely are.

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Actually, it's obviously ridiculous_

Jesus never promoted forced wealth redistribution__every Christian knows "Thou shalt not steal"_

What Jesus did advocate was compassion and charity from the heart for the less fortunate among us_

Christianity is about giving of your own free will while Communism is rooted in The Authoritarian State_

The teachings of Marx are about as contradictory to those of Jesus as two disciplines can possibly get_