The Communist Left

[David S]

Socialism is a system in which individual rights and property can be sacrificed in the name of the collective good. Communism is socialism with a bad attitude.  Someone once said a socialist is someone who wants to bring about a collectivist economic system through peaceful means and a communist is someone who wants the same thing but is willing to kill people to bring it about.
I'll take capitalism any day.

[David S]

Sorry guys but I don't get it. The communists, whether they were in the U.S.S.R. or China, or North Korea, all had horrible records of human rights abuses. Murdering their own people or sending them to forced labor camps was common. Also none on them came close to providing the level of prosperity that our capitalist system provides for us.
Someone please explain to me the attraction to communism.  

[David S]

Sorry guys but I don't get it. The communists, whether they were in the U.S.S.R. or China, or North Korea, all had horrible records of human rights abuses. Murdering their own people or sending them to forced labor camps was common. Also none on them came close to providing the level of prosperity that our capitalist system provides for us.
Someone please explain to me the attraction to communism.  

True communism to me would involve everyone doing what's best for the community according to what they can do best.

Much better than the libertarian paradise of everyone doing whatever they want.

My young friend, it seems to me that you are buying in to the promise of socialism; everyone works together for the common good, shared prosperity, no fat cats getting rich off the sweat of others, government takes care of everyone. I can't blame you for feeling that way since many years ago I also believed it. But the history of socialism and communism is very different from the promise. Socialists and communists have murdered millions of their own citizens in the past century. This is a brief list:
Communist U.S.S.R.           61 million
Communist China               35 million
Nazi Germany (Socialists)  20 Million
Communist North Korea    1.6 million
The communists/socialists lhave left a bloody trail of dead bodies in their path.

The idea of shared prosperity never happens either because socialism/communism does not create prosperity. It creates poverty, so you get shared poverty. It is a horrible system. Try to name one communist country in which the people enjoy more rights, or more freedom or greater prosperity than what we have right here in the United States. I assure you there are none.

By the way Libertarians have murdered no one.

[David S]

Nazi Germany was NOT a socialist nation. Hitler hated socialism with every bone in his body. The name of his party was intentionally misleading to gain supporters when the Nazis had no power. Hitlers government was actually a Tyrannical Republic or something similar.

(Thank you History Channel)

I can only say that the Nazi party is the National Socialist German Workers Party. Look it up in your dictionary. The Nazi's gave themselves that name not me.

[David S]

By the way Libertarians have murdered no one.

Well, to play devil's advocate, it should also be noted that Libertarians have never gotten in a position of power in a country, either.  Communism advocates who have no chance of winning generally don't murder anyone either.

Given how deviant Soviet Russia under Stalin was from what communism was supposed to be like, it's hard to say what a libertarian country would be like.

First the Libertarian pledge is a promise not to initiate violence against anyone. ( Self Defense is OK though)

Second Libertarians believe in individual freedom, personal responsibility, and government limited to its constitutional duties. These are basically the principles that America was founded on.

This is why I dislike Communism/socialism
History
As I mentioned before their history is littered  with dead bodies.

Philosophy
Communism/socialism is based on collectivism instead of individual rights. Rights can be sacrificed in the name of the common good. Eventually rights disappear and you have only oppression left.

Big government
Capitalism requires very little government intervention to work. Communsim/socialism on the other hand requires a huge and powerful government to run the economy of the nation. Such a government is in itself a threat to freedom. With big governments you get an army of bureaucrats with nothing to do but harass the citizens.
Our founders realized that governments tend to get into what they euphemistically referred to as mischief. (Some of us would call it larceny) They opted to keep government as small as possible to avoid that problem. In America our government has grown beyond its constitutional bounds. As a result we have the IRS harassing innocent taxpayers, the EPA telling people they can't farm their own land because some lousy endangered rat lives there, and now more recently government hinting that the "obesity crisis" justifies their meddling in our diets. In communist countries its much worse.

Economics
Capitalism is driven by the profit motive. In an effort to get rich people are willing to work long hours and take risks developing products or services that you and I might want. Henry Ford got rich by making an assembly line that could produce cars economically enough for most people to afford them. Yes he got rich but the benefits for the rest of us were great. We became a nation of mobility where people could easily travel long distances in little time. Ford's factories also provided high paying jobs for probably millions of Americans over its history. Bill Gates did  something similar with PCs. Probably you are using some of his products right now. There are countless entrepreneurs who have made themselvses wealthy making things that you and I want. In the process they have also created jobs that many of us also want. So while the system is based on individual profit motive the benefits for all of us are enormous. Furthermore competition forces them to produce their products with good quality and low cost. Communist countries cannot match that.

By the way, if the Soviet model of communism was deviant which model worked right?

[David S]

By the way, if the Soviet model of communism was deviant which model worked right?

Oh, I'm not saying any model of communism worked right; none even came close and I don't believe any realistically could.  What I'm wondering, though, is whether or not any model of libertarianism could work right either, since we've never had one.  I honestly don't know; like I said, I'm just playing devil's advocate.  I personally dislike communism for reasons I've said in other topics, so don't take this as an advocacy of one side over the other.

Gabu
In the early history of America there were two social problems that Libertarians do not believe in; slavery and limited voting rights ie women and slaves could not vote. Thankfully both of those have long since been corrected by constitutional amendment.
Aside from those two items the founders were philosophically  Libertarians. So  Libertarianism has been tried in America and it worked well.

[David S]

I can only say that the Nazi party is the National Socialist German Workers Party. Look it up in your dictionary. The Nazi's gave themselves that name not me.

Yeah, and one of the first things the Nazis did when they came to power was to ban the Communist Party of Germany. Would you call a Nazi a "socialist" or "communist" he would probably beat you senseless.

The official name of East Germany was "German Democratic Republic", bit it wasn´t a democracy at all.

You're from Germany and I suppose you should know better than me but the Nazi party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. That's what my dictionary says. Also the following link takes you to a speech by Rudolph Hess, one of Hitler's thugs.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/hess1.htm
He uses the word socialist or socialism about 12 times and always in the context of German goals or philosophy, and always in an approving manner. I doubt that anyone beat him senseless.
Tell me he wasn't a socialist.

[David S]

The question of this poll is do you identify with the communist left.  So far 7 people have said yes. To me communism equals poverty, and oppression, and I think history supports that conclusion. I don't understand why anyone would want that, and so far no one has given me a logical reason.

[David S]

Migrendel
Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
From what I have seen, communism has never delivered prosperity or freedom or well being to the people of any nation. Capitalism, despite the fact that it fundamentally operates on greed, has worked well. Yes we have a great disparity in wealth between the rich and the poor, but most people are very well off by the standards of the rest of the world. And when we speak of the poor in the U.S. we are usually speaking of someone who has only one color TV. Poverty of the type which exists in some 3rd world countries, where people literally have nothing to eat, is extremely rare if it exists at all in the U.S.
It seems to me that the failure of past communist countries to achieve success is not bad luck but an unavoidable outcome of communism.
I suppose we shall have to agree to disagree, but thank you for your response.