OK good the Capitalism blog exacted a few comments, I was hoping it might, and the sort of comments I got were not much of a surprise. I thought after Haywood’s post I might devote a whole entry to it after Glasgow Dave’s I was convinced it was the right thing to do.

So Communism comrades, splendid idea, don’t mind if I do!! What do you know about it? How much do you know about the systems of the Soviet Union, China, North Korea etc. that purport(ed) to use it as their State model? If we are talking about theories vs practice how much do you know about capitalist theory and is the practice concurrent with that?

That should be enough questions to be going on with. Let’s try to address some of them. Communism what the hell is it anyway? Let’s take the basics tenates otherwise we’ll be here all night. The fundamental principle is the assumption of equality. People should not be judged on any pre-conceived principle ie the place or station of their birth an such like. The idea is that a human is born and is equal to another human born of different parents or with a different colour etc. etc. This means that you go into the making of a state ensuring that opportunities must be provided for all people there is no categorical weighting. Now this as a founding principle shouldn’t be too contraversial, leaving aside for the moment how you would implement this onto an existing and inequitous system. So perhaps the biggest issues to talk about are can it work in practise and how would you go about implementing it? Now there have been limited examples of Communism that we can look at but they are probably not the ones you are thinking of.

Firstly the Paris Commune 1870s- I didn’t know much about this until last year when I heard a lecture on it -fascinating stuff the public took over the city and resisted the state army etc. When the army finally broke through they massacred thousands -capitalism eh, so good at handling criticism! Then there was the good old Russian Revolution which did start out well, except for the Romanovs but they kind of brought it on themselves. The Russian Revolution was supposed to lead to anarchy and racism etc. but actually the implementation of the soviets led to a far greater degree of representation. The Bolsheviks removed Russia from the First World War and returned to interior matters. It was expected that a government of the people would lead to chaos and intolerance such as anti-semitism but this did not happen. It was Lenin’s Bolsheviks that came up with the concept of the Soviet which was a representative group, each area was to have soviets so that people had representation both in their working life as well as their local life in general. Now when Stalin comes on the scene you get a very different state model based around the cult of personality which is not at all what Communism is about. The same in fact applies to the Eastern Bloc in toto even a brief analysis of their systems will reveal that it was about as close to orthodox Socialism as it was orthodox capitalism.

The misconception now is that with the collapse of the USSR et al and the capitalisation of China it shows that Communism cannot work and Capitalism has taken over as the true principle of government. Incorrect what it shows us is that secured market capitalism wins over state capitalism because of the freedom of speculating individuals and institutions to exact strong influence over national and international affairs -George Souros being but one example. What I never got is how socialist planned economy was lambasted and not without cause, but there is a pretence that capitalist markets are free this is just crap, the sort of speculation which goes on based around advance figures, profits, losses etc. is tnatamount to a financially planned economy rather than a state one and it too screws up.

Shall we look at the old chesnut rebuttals usually leveled at the Big C? Why not, you know me always up for a laugh!

  • Communism is a good idea in theory but can’t ever work in practice.
  • You’re not taking account of the fact that human nature is greedy and therefore people will always want more.
  • Why can’t I have the things I want, I worked hard for them.
  • It’s just the way of the world, you can’t stop things now

And I have already tackled the favourite about Russia so no need for that again.

So the theory -practice arguement, which is a falsehood there is no way of saying one way or the other because if you accept it’s a good theory then it needs to be looked at with regard to how it may be put into practice, why can it not work in practice what is the evidence for this?
Human nature is not an inherent desire to be greedy. Humans are pack animals and you cannot have latent greed in that sort of system. Human do have the desire for self-advancement but this does not have to be at the expense of others -that trait is completely the product of our current upbringing.
You can have the things you want provided those things are either things you need or do not infringe upon somebody else’s right to live. If you don’t need it, ask yourself why do you want it? Let’s give in the old words ‘to each according to their needs’ first and then we’ll look at the fripperies.
The way of the world, well things change, that’s the way of the world some things change quickly other things take a little longer.

So what am I saying here -have we had communism, well not really in any form of model that we could look at with regard to the future. Can it work? I don’t know but I’d like to look at practical implementation before discarding it. Why should we put the effort in? Because the curent system doesn’t work proportionally speaking if you take the distributed wealth ratio. So time to think of something new and in my view Communism is the best starting point and then we see where we go from there. Come on then let’s have some comments as to the how’s why’s and wherefore’s, oh and yes I am expecting to have to speak about education.

Song Of The Day – The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy ~ Drink

Original Comments:


rotterdam.blog-city.com made this comment,
Hey Red Baron,
Well written personal statement!
• Why can’t I have the things I want, I worked hard for them.
The issue of equality is the biggest pain I guess. Of course we humans are all equal but some are more equal than others.

The ‘equality’ factor in communism is always aimed the destruction of the “elite”. In a socialistic sense, that appears to be fair. But it’s implications are disasterous. Because the result is that for instance the intellectual ‘elite’ and the artistic ‘elite’ will be destroyed. Moreover, the only elite left will be the government that in this way becomes a dictatorial regime that decides for the masses as if they were a bunch of irresponsible toddlers.

As I understand it, communism’s goal is always to ‘liberate the masses’ – but the masses can never be liberated with the destruction of free thinkers.

Visit me @ http://propagandada.blog-city.com/

[Redbaron responds – now that is a very interesting point and I think one that can only be tackled by the education issue. There are inevitably people who are more academically intelligent than others and likewise creatively. One can also say that there is a manual elite in the sense that many of the academically-minded are lousy at practical things. The key point here is why do we perceive the intelligence issue in such narrow terms. We need to reappraise people and their qualities to appreciate that our strengths are specific to us, they make us a valuable member of society but not a more valuable member than someone who has different strengths. I may come back to this point at some stage because it is without doubt the biggest question to be addressed.]

comment added :: 5th June 2004, 10:34 GMT+01
David S made this comment,
You say “Human nature is not an inherent desire to be greedy. Humans are pack animals and you cannot have latent greed in that sort of system. ”
I’m not disagreeing with as such but I don’t think you can make this sort of statement without further discussion. Human nature is one of the great philosophical debates the anarchist or Hobseian (sp?) idea.
If the Bolshiek system was good, then why was a man working within the system able to so easily destroy its ideals and take power. Also I didn’t say that communism couldn’t work but why it hasn’t worked, for a sustained period.
Visit me @ http://glasgowdave.blog-city.com

comment added :: 5th June 2004, 17:57 GMT+01
Teh Czar made this comment,
Not all people are born equals in society, but we are born with the same chance to be equals in society; a man who is born with mental deficiencies will not be able to have the same life as a average person. Call it the work of God, call it what you will, but it doesn’t change the fact that they do not have the same mental capabilities.
Responding to another point, I believe that not all human beings are born with a natural sense of greed. There is an instinct with tells humans that to continue to advance themselves: seek food, seek shelter ect. It is the environment that tells them that norishes this instinct: seek better food, seek better shelter.

Visit me @ http://tehczar.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 6th June 2004, 01:57 GMT+01
Chuck Baker made this comment,
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
— Ronald Reagan – September 25, 1987
Couldn’t have said it any better myself.

[Redbaron responds – of course Reagan was under the impression the Communists read Groucho Marx and John Lenin, he wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the box.
Aide: “Mr President, Mr President it’s your birthday”
Reagan: “My birthday, how old am I?”
Aide: “You’re 77 today Sir”
Reagan: “76 yesterday, 77 today, Goddam I’ll be nearly 90 by the end of the week!”
-Spitting Image 1987

comment added :: 6th June 2004, 03:40 GMT+01
Teh Czar made this comment,
How befitting that you use a quote from Reagan.
P.S. You on AIM Baron? I feel that we should talk further.

comment added :: 6th June 2004, 04:03 GMT+01
ryan made this comment,
Well me getting commusism is a long story but it led to me reading a few books about it (our school is a bit lak in that area)and found me agreeing with most of it.
And I desided that communism would work, cept for a few details like that equality thingy, which i soved with this: ok so your not all born equals so you all get a equal chance, like schooling and the like, if you dont take it, thats your problem
and apart from a few other minor details, i think it would work.
So give me a country, some fuds, about 2000 poltistons(yeah i cant spell), an army to do my dirty work and some time, AND I’LL TAKE OVER THE WORLD, WMHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Visit me @ http://themeaningoflifeishere.blog-city.com/

comment added :: 6th June 2004, 12:35 GMT+01
A visitor made this comment,
The quote from Mr. Ronald Reagan that you left in response to Chuck Baker’s quote was, I believe, a joke. Mr. Reagan was quite known to have a good sense of humour. I wish i knew how to add an email that was sent to me stating several of his comical (lightening up if you will) remarks to prove my point.
Jen

comment added :: 7th June 2004, 18:48 GMT+01