Does communism force a portion of the population to live in poverty?

Khayembii Communique said:

My point is that human consciousness develops in such a way based on the environment in which it exists. The idea that people would need to be "indoctrinated" implies that communist society is "unnatural" and therefore that people need to be tricked into "believing" it. So again we are back at the silly "human nature" argument.

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The way I see it, all societies require some form of "indoctrination" to continue existing. We teach everyone (in theory) some basic skills in our school system here in the US. Without those basic skills, our society would look far different. Is that a form of indoctrination?

Personally, I'm not sure there IS a "natural" society. Or at the least, not one that has been discovered as of yet. On the other hand, the opposite could be the case, and all societies are "natural", at least in the sense that they were dreamed up by humans (so far as we know, that is).

Who knows? It may be that I was "indoctrinated" during my formative years, leading me to this generalized dislike for communism and socialism, despite socialism's (or a form of it) current existence in US society.

If that were the case, then my dislike is “unnatural”.

And really, the training/indoctrination/etc. that takes place in the more formative years could be considered as part of “human nature”.

Personally, I don’t think there is a “human nature” as such… Or rather, human nature varies widely depending on the events during those “formative years”.

Still, you probably would agree that if you tried to implement a completely communistic society here in the USA tomorrow, many people would disagree, some violently, making it nearly impossible to emplace (unless US citizens are far more apathetic than I fear) without enforcement methods.

Whether this stems from a “human nature” produced by ingrained and institutionalized indoctrinations against communism/socialism or some unfathomed “human nature” that is intrinsic to all humans, cannot really be determined, since any test I can think of would violate many of the moral codes that are…ingrained and institutionalized into our collective psyche.

Nonetheless, it indicates that “human nature”, such as it exists here in the US of A, would resist an overall communist governing method – or however you want to describe it.

IMO, it cannot be determined one way or the other whether any given societal system is “natural” or “unnatural”, seeing as the very system you are examining would either be that which you currently reside in, or one similar, counter to it, or both, in several ways.

So, I would say all systems are “natural”...and at the same time, none are.

Damn, I really typed a lot there…

Meh.

The Mark said:

Still, you probably would agree that if you tried to implement a completely communistic society here in the USA tomorrow, many people would disagree, some violently, making it nearly impossible to emplace (unless US citizens are far more apathetic than I fear) without enforcement methods.

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Well that's the thing. "I" am/"We" are not going to "try to implement" it. The point of Marxian theory is that the class struggle develops to such a point where the question of working class power is posed as a result. A socialist revolution is a popular revolution. One cannot "implement" a popular revolution; it is born out of the conditions of the time and the development of the course of history.

Nonetheless, it indicates that “human nature”, such as it exists here in the US of A, would resist an overall communist governing method – or however you want to describe it.

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If it is "human nature, such as it exists in the USA" then it cannot be human nature as human nature is by definition the nature of all humans.

Khayembii Communique said:

Considering the quality of your posts and your obvious arrogance, I don't see the point.

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If the quality is so bad, then it would be an easy task for you to refute my statement. But the fact is, I have used this argument against many communists, and not a single one has been able to explain how they would allocate jobs in a communist system where everyone earns depending on what they need and not what they produce. The best answer I have heard so far is job-sharing, which is extremly inefficient and won't work at all for highly qualified jobs.

Another typical answer is "But there is not going to be any wages", however in reality there has to be some form of rationing. If not, then there will be a fight over the resources because some people are going to take more than they need. And if some people take more than they need, then the rest will also take more.

I don't really think you are concerned about the quality, but more that you lack an answer.

Camlon said:

If the quality is so bad, then it would be an easy task for you to refute my statement. But the fact is, I have used this argument against many communists, and not a single one has been able to explain how they would allocate jobs in a communist system where everyone earns depending on what they need and not what they produce. The best answer I have heard so far is job-sharing, which is extremly inefficient and won't work at all for highly qualified jobs.

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Ah but I have already responded to this:

Me said:

But we can't have a discussion on anything that will happen in the future outside of abstractions based on an investigation of the development of history. There is a reason that whenever Marx (or any other serious Marxist theoretician) spoke of a future communist society he always spoke in abstractions. He wasn't interested in painting a picture of how he thought it would work in a concrete way but rather made conclusions on its general development based on historical investigation.

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I don't really think you are concerned about the quality, but more that you lack an answer.

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No, I have responded to this question in the past. I just don't feel like wasting my time on you.

Khayembii Communique said:

Ah but I have already responded to this:
But we can't have a discussion on anything that will happen in the future outside of abstractions based on an investigation of the development of history. There is a reason that whenever Marx (or any other serious Marxist theoretician) spoke of a future communist society he always spoke in abstractions. He wasn't interested in painting a picture of how he thought it would work in a concrete way but rather made conclusions on its general development based on historical investigation.

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So why should we adopt a model, when you are not able to explain how it's going to work in the most simple terms?

Think about this, you make a car that is driven by water power. Then someone ask, how are we going to make sure there is enough water in the tank. Your answer "But we can't have a discussion on anything that will happen in the future outside of abstractions" It's meaningless and it means you can't answer. If you can't answer how we are going to allocate jobs, then communism is not a good system.

Camlon said:

So why should we adopt a model, when you are not able to explain how it's going to work in the most simple terms?

Think about this, you make a car that is driven by water power. Then someone ask, how are we going to make sure there is enough water in the tank. Your answer "But we can't have a discussion on anything that will happen in the future outside of abstractions" It's meaningless and it means you can't answer. If you can't answer how we are going to allocate jobs, then communism is not a good system.

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Communism is the classless society that will eventually result from the workers coming to power. It is impossible for one socialist to lay out a blueprint of exactly what this society will look like because it isn't up to one person, or a small group of people to build this future society. Your asking for a blueprint from one man may indicate that your thinking is too authoritarian to grasp the concept of communism.

Khayembii Communique said:

Well that's the thing. "I" am/"We" are not going to "try to implement" it. The point of Marxian theory is that the class struggle develops to such a point where the question of working class power is posed as a result. A socialist revolution is a popular revolution. One cannot "implement" a popular revolution; it is born out of the conditions of the time and the development of the course of history.

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Spontaneous revolution on an individual level?
No on leading anyone else? The leading is what I was referring to when I used the term "implement"…

I don’t see anything of that nature happening in the US anytime soon…

But then again, I could be wrong.

Khayembii Communique said:

If it is "human nature, such as it exists in the USA" then it cannot be human nature as human nature is by definition the nature of all humans.

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Thus the “such as it exists here in the US of A” – I was referring specifically to the flavor of “human nature” we have in the US currently.

For that matter, I personally think that if anything is “human nature”, unpredictability is the one word that might best define it.

No one “human nature” exists, but rather, the very variances in so-called “human natures” are the true “human nature”…

faminedynasty said:

Communism is the classless society that will eventually result from the workers coming to power. It is impossible for one socialist to lay out a blueprint of exactly what this society will look like because it isn't up to one person, or a small group of people to build this future society. Your asking for a blueprint from one man may indicate that your thinking is too authoritarian to grasp the concept of communism.

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They don't need to present excactly how it will look like. However they should be able to explain broadly how it works. Similiar for the car example above, you should be able to explain how it will get enough water.

Your argument that they don't know how jobs can be allocated in communism, because it's not up to them how it will look like, makes no sense. I'm not asking them to tell me how it will look like in a specific future communist society. I'm asking them to come up with a way to allocate jobs in a communist society.

I see that allocation of jobs is going to be a major problem in the pure form of non-oppressive communism, because you can't use wages to allocate jobs. I ask communists, then how are they going to allocate jobs. If no can explain to me how jobs are going to be allocated in communism, then no wonder why communism fails every single time and turn into horrible poor totalitarian socities. Allocating jobs is crucial in any economy, and it shouldn't be a problem to explain how jobs can be allocated.

Camlon said:

Your argument that they don't know how jobs can be allocated in communism, because it's not up to them how it will look like, makes no sense. I'm not asking them to tell me how it will look like in a specific future communist society. I'm asking them to come up with a way to allocate jobs in a communist society.

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You're not asking what you're asking for you're just asking what your asking for?

Why do you make polls that require people to answer the question favourably to your own view?

If you want actual discussion on the pros and cons of socialism and communism, you're certainly going about this the wrong way.

If you want to make an idiotic and pointless statement about your lack of willingness to hear debate on the subject, then you're certainly going about this the right way.

Le Marteau said:

Why do you make polls that require people to answer the question favourably to your own view?

If you want actual discussion on the pros and cons of socialism and communism, you're certainly going about this the wrong way.

If you want to make an idiotic and pointless statement about your lack of willingness to hear debate on the subject, then you're certainly going about this the right way.

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What's the point of working in a communist society?

How do you allocate resources without a price system (or how do you deal with scarcity)?

How do you deal with people who don't want to work in your economic system (human nature problem)?

How do you deal with the diamond-water paradox which is a knockdown of the labor theory of value which is necessary for the theory of surplus value?

Le Marteau said:

Why do you make polls that require people to answer the question favourably to your own view?

If you want actual discussion on the pros and cons of socialism and communism, you're certainly going about this the wrong way.

If you want to make an idiotic and pointless statement about your lack of willingness to hear debate on the subject, then you're certainly going about this the right way.

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What is the point of debating pros and cons of communism, when you can't even explain how we are going to allocate jobs in a communist society?

The only problem I see with this poll is the fact that the poll creator did not offer a choice for the pro-communist. I would have been interested in seeing how many people still held a favorable view of the failed system.

Ivan The Terrible said:

The only problem I see with this poll is the fact that the poll creator did not offer a choice for the pro-communist. I would have been interested in seeing how many people still held a favorable view of the failed system.

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I'm for any system that will take care of everybody, not just the schemers, liars and cheaters, it's the civilized thing to do. Learning how to share is the only way civilization will survive.

"Government and cooperation are the laws of life. Anarchy and competition are the laws of death." John Ruskin

ricksfolly

phattonez said:

How do you deal with the diamond-water paradox which is a knockdown of the labor theory of value which is necessary for the theory of surplus value?

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LOL you never know what you're talking about when it comes to economics, do you? This isn't even an argument against the LTV. It's like saying "I could spend $1,000,000 on this worthless rock and that disproves the LTV because I paid more than the value inherent in it." It's not an argument at all because you're completely missing the point of the LTV.

ricksfolly said:

I'm for any system that will take care of everybody, not just the schemers, liars and cheaters, it's the civilized thing to do. Learning how to share is the only way civilization will survive.

"Government and cooperation are the laws of life. Anarchy and competition are the laws of death." John Ruskin

ricksfolly

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What does "take care of everybody" mean? At the expense of what and whom? Is this your way of saying that you, in fact, advocate communism, a proven failed system?

Ivan The Terrible said:

What does "take care of everybody" mean? At the expense of what and whom? Is this your way of saying that you, in fact, advocate communism, a proven failed system?

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A) Communism has never been actually implemented, or you'd be living in a communist society now.
B) It would be at nobody's expense.

Camlon said:

If the quality is so bad, then it would be an easy task for you to refute my statement. But the fact is, I have used this argument against many communists, and not a single one has been able to explain how they would allocate jobs in a communist system where everyone earns depending on what they need and not what they produce. The best answer I have heard so far is job-sharing, which is extremly inefficient and won't work at all for highly qualified jobs.

Another typical answer is "But there is not going to be any wages", however in reality there has to be some form of rationing. If not, then there will be a fight over the resources because some people are going to take more than they need. And if some people take more than they need, then the rest will also take more.

I don't really think you are concerned about the quality, but more that you lack an answer.

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The fact is communism won't work because it attempts to defy human nature. If we were all like Jesus, it might work....but mankind has enough greed and selfishness to defeat the perfect utopia. Marx forgot to add the disclaimer, "In a perfect world....".

American said:

The fact is communism won't work because it attempts to defy human nature. If we were all like Jesus, it might work....but mankind has enough greed and selfishness to defeat the perfect utopia. Marx forgot to add the disclaimer, "In a perfect world....".

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It would require a societal evolution.

SE102,

A) Communism has never been actually implemented,

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Of course it has. Do not pretend that vas people across the globe have not attempted to implement the Marxist fantasy because they have ended in failure.

It would be at nobody's expense.

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Tell that to the victims of Mao's "Great Leap Forward".

American,

but mankind has enough greed and selfishness to defeat the perfect utopia.

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I am so sick of descent Constitutional Americans making excuses for this failed theory! Saying something along the lines of, "Oh if we just loved each other more etc, etc, etc..." This is not the reason communism fails. Communism fails because it refuses to deal with economic reality.

Another one that doesn't know what marxism is.

SE102 said:

Another one that doesn't know what marxism is.

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Look in the mirror. I think you will find the person you are speaking of. Here is a little help on the subject. Tell me what do you think of the third aspect of Marxism, Advocacy of proletarian revolution? Namely the expropriation of private property? " Another one that doesn't know what marxism is." Indeed.. How cute...

H E R E - W E - C O M E - S O C I A L I S M
Speaking at a United Steelworkers event on Monday,
Nancy Pelosi railed against the wealthy and income inequality in America:



"We’re talking about addressing the disparity in our country of income, where the wealthy people continue to get wealthier, and some other people are falling out of the middle class when we want to bring many more people into the middle class. But that disparity is not just about wages alone. That disparity is about ownership and equity. It’s all about fairness in our country."

dadman said:

H E R E - W E - C O M E - S O C I A L I S M
Speaking at a United Steelworkers event on Monday,
Nancy Pelosi railed against the wealthy and income inequality in America:






"We’re talking about addressing the disparity in our country of income, where the wealthy people continue to get wealthier, and some other people are falling out of the middle class when we want to bring many more people into the middle class. But that disparity is not just about wages alone. That disparity is about ownership and equity. It’s all about fairness in our country."

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Did you really have to post a picture of that woman? Really?

Ivan The Terrible said:

Did you really have to post a picture of that woman? Really?

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Hey, it's nearly Halloween, it's appropriate to the season…