Should Socialism - Communism be condemned like Nazim?

Gipper · May 17, 2011

But you've done a cost-benefit analysis, at which point you placed a monetary value on intangible characteristics (commute, job satisfaction, etc.).

The difference is that these are very small potatoes in an overall comparison. A more accurate gauge would be something like "what would you do if you found the cure for cancer?" at which point you had choices of giving it away, taking a very small amount, getting what you could deduce as a "fair amount", or just taking every possible cent you could.

One is a personal scale. The other is a national (or global) scale.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

Gipper said:
But you've done a cost-benefit analysis, at which point you placed a monetary value on intangible characteristics (commute, job satisfaction, etc.).

The difference is that these are very small potatoes in an overall comparison. A more accurate gauge would be something like "what would you do if you found the cure for cancer?" at which point you had choices of giving it away, taking a very small amount, getting what you could deduce as a "fair amount", or just taking every possible cent you could.

One is a personal scale. The other is a national (or global) scale.

I have placed a value on those factors, money works into that internal sense of value, not the other way around.

We could look at your scenario many different ways. For example, there are plenty of papers published in journals with all sorts of scientific findings and besides the subscription costs of those journals, those findings are pretty much free. What if the cure for cancer is in there? We have had papers that contained info on improving the human condition before and I expect that trend to continue. Alternatively, Pfizer could be the one to make the discovery and I am sure they would try and profit as much as humanly possible. It depends on the individual(s) involved, I think.

Gipper · May 17, 2011

megaprogman said:
We could look at your scenario many different ways. For example, there are plenty of papers published in journals with all sorts of scientific findings and besides the subscription costs of those journals, those findings are pretty much free. What if the cure for cancer is in there? We have had papers that contained info on improving the human condition before and I expect that trend to continue. Alternatively, Pfizer could be the one to make the discovery and I am sure they would try and profit as much as humanly possible. It depends on the individual(s) involved, I think.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that grants for research of this nature is in the billions, and that these scientists are making more than a shiny penny for their thoughts.

I'd bet every dollar I have that if you found someone off the street with no monetary investment that suddenly tripped over "the cure", the chances are infinitessimal that they'd freely give it away.

LuckyDan · May 17, 2011

megaprogman said:
People die in any system that places ideology over people.

Ideology is the key word. Rusell Kirk and Robert Conquest are good sources of scholarship on the topic.

The ideologue . . . thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for
transforming society and even transforming human nature.

The word ideology was coined in Napoleonic times. Destutt de Tracy, the author
of Les éléments d’idéologie (five volumes, 1801-15), was an abstract intellectual
of the sort since grown familiar on the Left Bank of the Seine, the haunt of all
budding ideologues, among them in recent decades the famous liberator of
Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot.

Although it has been the most powerful of ideologies, Marxism—very recently
diminished in strength—has competitors: various forms of nationalism, negritude,
feminism, fascism (a quasi-ideology never fully fleshed out in Italy), nazism (an
ideology in embryo, Hannah Arendt wrote), syndicalism, anarchism, social
democracy, and Lord knows what all. Doubtless yet more forms of ideology will
be concocted during the twenty-first century. - Russel Kirk

http://www.isi.org/books/content/149150chap1.pdf

Robert Conquest researched the blood shed from the Purge alone.

In the original version of his book The Great Terror, Robert Conquest gave the following estimates of those arrested, executed, and incarcerated during the height of the Purge:

Arrests, 1937-1938 - about 7 million
Executed - about 1 million
Died in camps - about 2 million
In prison, late 1938 - about 1 million
In camps, late 1938 - about 8 million

Conquest concluded that "not more than 10 percent of those then in camp survived." Updating his figures in the late 1980s based on recently-released archival sources, he increased the number of "arrests" to 8 million, but reduced the number in camps to "7 million, or even a little less." This would give a total death toll for the main Purge period of just under ten million people. About 98 percent of the dead (Gendercide Watch's calculation) were male.

Gendercide Watch: Stalin's Purges

In this interview from 1999 he talked to News Hour about how the role of Ideas in what he termed "the ravaged century"

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us more about that. How did this happen that ideas like Communism, like Naziism became so obsessive that they led to the mass murders?

ROBERT CONQUEST: I think once you accept that you have the answer to everything, you can do anything to bring it about because your enemies are trying to stop you, are enemies of reason, of truth of everything -- enemies of the future. You represent the people, you represent the nation, you represent everything that is good and that entitles you to destroy the bad people. This is fairly obvious, the type of looking at it. But how did it possess intellectuals? Who are the Typhoid Marys who brought this awful mental affliction into people's lives, into movements and things? That's what was interesting to me - basically - I mean, I naturally develop what they did.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And there have been ideas, which were held obsessively and dangerously for many, many centuries. Bu you go back to the French Revolution and point to it as -- at the beginning of the ideas your most concerned about, right?

ROBERT CONQUEST: It's that time when they first got the motion that you would have a perfect society and you can bring it about by terror and that -- they did both -- the people and the nation, the French Revolution. The nation went to the Nazis, you may say, and the people went to the Marxists. This is putting it crudely. But it's really -- it did affect the whole intellectual class. It's a mental laziness that you have the answers and really study any further than that and how did it happen? I do go into the sort of people who --

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us about that? Why did it affect so many people?

ROBERT CONQUEST: Well, it's very attractive in some ways. People do want answers; this is natural, but the ordinary man in the street didn't think he got all full answers. He knew he didn't - it was the intellectual, creating the single, perfect answer and time and time again this has happened.

Online NewsHour: Reflections on a Ravaged Century -- December 24, 1999

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

LuckyDan said:
Ideology is the key word. Rusell Kirk and Robert Conquest are good sources of scholarhip on the topic.

http://www.isi.org/books/content/149150chap1.pdf

Robert Conquest researched the blood shed done by the Purge alone.

Gendercide Watch: Stalin's Purges

In this interview from 1999 he talked to News Hour about how the role of Ideas in what he termed "the ravaged century"

Online NewsHour: Reflections on a Ravaged Century -- December 24, 1999

The definition of ideology I mean is:

a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions.

Basically this boils down to any set of ideas on how society should work best. That can be darn well any social model from fully authoritarian to anarchist as well as whatever moral system one wishes to have. My view, is no matter how public or private one wishes to make the system (and again, it could be anything, it could be modern liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, fascism, socialism, whatever the hell china is, despotism, etc), if they are unyielding vs what society itself wants, a catastrophe will happen.

Society itself has ebbs and flows like the tide. Culture changes, generations change, technology changes, circumstances change, etc, sometimes we want more government, sometimes we want less, there are times when we want more or less of everything, but a government that does not have the ability to be more capitalistic one day and more socialistic the next will run into issues.

LuckyDan · May 17, 2011

megaprogman said:
The definition of ideology I mean is:

Basically this boils down to any set of ideas on how society should work best. That can be darn well any social model from fully authoritarian to anarchist as well as whatever moral system one wishes to have. My view, is no matter how public or private one wishes to make the system (and again, it could be anything, it could be modern liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, fascism, socialism, whatever the hell china is, despotism, etc), if they are unyielding vs what society itself wants, a catastrophe will happen.

Society itself has ebbs and flows like the tide. Culture changes, generations change, technology changes, circumstances change, etc, sometimes we want more government, sometimes we want less, there are times when we want more or less of everything, but a government that does not have the ability to be more capitalistic one day and more socialistic the next will run into issues.

Not on the level of Soviet-Style communism, no sir. If our leaders are unyielding to their constituency, they are voted out.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

Gipper said:
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that grants for research of this nature is in the billions, and that these scientists are making more than a shiny penny for their thoughts.

I'd bet every dollar I have that if you found someone off the street with no monetary investment that suddenly tripped over "the cure", the chances are infinitessimal that they'd freely give it away.

Yes there is money for research, however, scientists tend to be motivated by fascination with the subject more than any other consideration. I am motivated by fascination with computers, even though I could make more money as a lawyer, if that's what I wanted to do, but I doubt I would find the job interesting and I am not a naturally competitive person. I could even be a lawyer in my town and still have the same commute. (and trust me, my family is well off, I could go to law school for no money of my own if I asked, so its not a cost-benefit thing for me)

Also, I disagree with you on your second point, there are some who would seek to profit and some who would not. It depends on one's moral view. I do things for people all the time and get nothing out of it other than knowing I did something good and often not even that (if that person doesn't appreciate it or my actions end up having no or a negative effect)

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

LuckyDan said:
Not on the level of Soviet-Style communism, no sir. If our leaders are unyielding to their constituency, they are voted out.

This is why I like democracy over (classical) liberalism. However, to your point, a good example would be, what would happen to this society if the constitution could not be amended and we still had what we had in 1787 while people's values today are very different than they were back then? If you think constitutional interpretation is problematic in our current situation ... (either that or we would have scrapped the whole thing and done something different by now)

LuckyDan · May 17, 2011

megaprogman said:
This is why I like democracy over (classical) liberalism. However, to your point, a good example would be, what would happen to this society if the constitution could not be amended and we still had what we had in 1787 while people's values today are very different than they were back then? If you think constitutional interpretation is problematic in our current situation ... (either that or we would have scrapped the whole thing and done something different by now)

Probably something akin to a war between the states.

But even your example does not necessarily lead to rule by authoritarians, or men of ideas who know best, and it is classical liberalism that holds there is no divine right of Kings, but that all men are created equal, that we are ruled by law and not men.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

LuckyDan said:
Probably something akin to a war between the states.

But even your example does not necessarily lead to rule by authoritarians, or men of ideas who know best, and it is classical liberalism that holds there is no divine right of Kings, but that all men are created equal, that we are ruled by law and not men.

I am not trying to lead towards rule of authoritarians, that was your take on it (in fact I tried to reel you back in by specifically referring to a scenario that could have happened with the founding fathers). I am referring to my belief that ideas need to flexible. As far as I can tell, this concept doesn't play into any statist vs individualist charts as its meta to that.

Khayembii Communique · May 17, 2011

The Baron said:
"Communism hasn't killed anyone." - Khayembii Communique

"Communism hasn't killed anyone." - NGNM85

Oh, well. No intelligent conversation to be had here.

I agree there's no intelligent conversation to be had with someone that makes the outrageous claims you are.

Gipper said:
As a whole, no. Having said that, I'd like to see some return to McCarthyism-like witch hunts in America. Quite frankly, if you live in America and don't appreciate capitalism, get the hell out. There are many other socialist hellholes that would welcome your ilk. Unfortunately, there aren't many global options like America where you can avoid hyper-taxation and excessive governmental control.

There aren't any "socialist hellholes".

According to anyone on the dumb side of center, anyone who dies from anything remotely considered a natural cause died of communism.

FTFY

Communism is the spirit of anti-competition. To think that people would always "do the right thing" without incentivization is just downright stupid.

LOL yes people require incentives to "do the right thing" that's why the financial crisis happened right?

Lucky Dan said:
Ideology is the key word. Rusell Kirk and Robert Conquest are good sources of scholarship on the topic.

LOL they aren't good for much aside from cold war propagandizing.

A number of economic historians have applied really good statistical approaches to this period which, in conjunction with archival evidence, have pretty much demolished the old figures of 20+ million deaths ascribed by Conquest and his ilk to the Stalin period.

Today the generally accepted range (largely formulated by statistical or economic historians such as Nove, Ellman, RW Davies and Wheatcroft) tends to be around the 10 million mark for the period 1927-38. Of this figure around 1-1.5 million are believed to be the result of direct repression (ie, execution or death in prison) with the remaining 7-8 million being due to famine pre-1936.

Of course the entire point of this isn't to downplay what happened (which I'm sure someone is about to accuse me of doing), but rather to counter the playing up of these historical developments for propaganda purposes.

But even your example does not necessarily lead to rule by authoritarians

Rule by authoritarians is a tautology. Rule is always authoritarian, by the very definition of the word - rule of authority.

Camlon · May 17, 2011

TheDemSocialist said:
I would like to see the knowledge behind this...

Socialism is the system where most of the capital in the economy is owned by the state, Where the government regulates your life.

However, what's nice is that we have a index which rank these kind of factors, and where do Scandinavian countries end up. Hardly what I would call socialist countries. And not only that, apart from Norway who can live on oil revenues, they have all increased their economic freedom more than other countries.
8 Denmark 78.6
9 United States 77.8
17 Finland 74.0
22 Sweden 71.9
30 Norway 70.3
64 France 64.6
175 Venezuela 37.6
176 Eritrea 36.7
177 Cuba 27.7
178 Zimbabwe 22.1
179 North Korea 1.0

http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

But you may say that they may have other freedoms, but they have really high governmental spending. Not really, here is GDP spending for 2008 and 2009, not all countries are included after UK. Their spending is higher, but not by very much. They are not socialist, Scandinavian countries are not even the most left wing countries in Europe economically.

Denmark 51.90 || 58.42
Finland 49.35 || 56.25
France 52.86 || 56.20
Sweden 51.68 || 55.15
Belgium 50.11 || 54.11
Austria 49.30 || 52.97
Greece 49.65 || 52.85
Italy 48.83 || 51.83
United Kingdom 47.42 || 51.45
Norway 40.59 || 46.32
United States || 36.87 || 42.19
Switzerland 32.23 || 33.74

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx

TheDemSocialist · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
Socialism is the system where most of the capital in the economy is owned by the state, Where the government regulates your life.

Wrong. Socialism is where the workplace is democratically owned and controlled by the workers. Where the workplace is owned in a co-op fashion.
It has nothing to do with the "government regulating your life"

Camlon · May 17, 2011

TheDemSocialist said:
Wrong. Socialism is where the workplace is democratically owned and controlled by the workers. Where the workplace is owned in a co-op fashion.

So, you believe in a system you don't even know the definition of? No wonder people like you create hellholes where you force people to work for the government.

This is the definition of socialism.
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled co-operatively
Socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you believe wikipedia is wrong, and you're right then you should be able to modify wikipedia.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
So, you believe in a system you don't even know the definition of? No wonder people like you create hellholes where you force people to work for the government.

This is the definition of socialism.
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled co-operatively
Socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you believe wikipedia is wrong, and you're right then you should be able to modify wikipedia.

You are aware you just proved his case, right?

You can't really get more publicly or commonly owned than a workplace controlled by its workers.

ricksfolly · May 17, 2011

Nothing should be condemned until it has a full, independent. non-partisan hearing, not just a political knee-jerk reaction.

ricksfolly

TheDemSocialist · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
So, you believe in a system you don't even know the definition of? No wonder people like you create hellholes where you force people to work for the government.

This is the definition of socialism.
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled co-operatively
Socialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you believe wikipedia is wrong, and you're right then you should be able to modify wikipedia.

Thank you for proving my point!

Camlon · May 17, 2011

megaprogman said:
You are aware you just proved his case, right?

You can't really get more publicly or commonly owned than a workplace controlled by its workers.

Logical fallacy.

I never said that the workplace won't be owned by the workers in socialism.

I said that socialism is where the means of production is owned by the state. This is genereally what happends, because someone got to to look over it. He said wrong, and that socialism is only about the workplace owned by the workers, so he obviously don't know his own ideology. In fact, there are more to socialism than just workplaces owned by it's workers. Because it's supposed to be commenly owned across the country/community, and across all sectors.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
Logical fallacy.

I never said that the workplace won't be owned by the workers in socialism.

I said that socialism is where the means of production is owned by the state. This is genereally what happends, because someone got to to look over it. He said wrong, and that socialism is only about the workplace owned by the workers, so he obviously don't know his own ideology. In fact, there are more to socialism than just workplaces owned by it's workers. Because it's supposed to be commenly owned across the country/community, and across all sectors.

Your definition does not bring the state into it, that is your interpretation of it.

Camlon · May 17, 2011

TheDemSocialist said:
Thank you for proving my point!

No, I debunked your point. You wrote
Socialism is where the workplace is democratically owned and controlled by the workers.

When in fact socialism is
Socialism is an economic system in which the means of production are publicly or commonly owned and controlled co-operatively

Can you point at where workplace is in that sentence? Workplaces controlled and owned by the workers are only a part of socialism and they are controlled is not a requirement.

TheDemSocialist · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
Logical fallacy.

I never said that the workplace won't be owned by the workers in socialism.

I said that socialism is where the means of production is owned by the state. This is genereally what happends, because someone got to to look over it. He said wrong, and that socialism is only about the workplace owned by the workers, so he obviously don't know his own ideology. In fact, there are more to socialism than just workplaces owned by it's workers. Because it's supposed to be commenly owned across the country/community, and across all sectors.

You do realize there is something called decentralization... Riiiight?

Camlon · May 17, 2011

megaprogman said:
Your definition does not bring the state into it, that is your interpretation of it.

No, but the definition doesn't have workplace in it either. Who did you side with?

In fact, you will have to have a state to have socialism in practice, because somebody got to control the economy or we will end up with anarchy. We do not have to have democratic controlled workplaces to have socialism and socialism is a lot more than that.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
No, but the definition doesn't have workplace in it either. Who did you side with?

In fact, you will have to have a state to have socialism in practice, because somebody got to control the economy or we will end up with anarchy. We do not have to have democratic controlled workplaces to have socialism and socialism is a lot more than that.

Obviously, I side with the person who can understand a simple definition. So in this case, it would be TheDemSocialist.

Camlon · May 17, 2011

TheDemSocialist said:
You do realize there is something called decentralization... Riiiight?

You do realize that decentralization is not a requirement for socialism?

You do realize that such a system would probably end up in anarchy? Because why should you be able to work without a state when there hasn't been any functioning country without a state.

Slartibartfast · May 17, 2011

Camlon said:
You do realize that decentralization is not a requirement for socialism?

You do realize that such a system would probably end up in anarchy? Because why should you be able to work without a state when there hasn't been any functioning country without a state.

Whether or not the system would work has nothing to do with its definition, this is where you are going astray.

Should Socialism - Communism be condemned like Nazim?

Should Socialism - Communism be condemned like Nazim?

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No

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