Communism

[geForce]

Continuation of off-topic discussion in this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1922&start=15

Communism's failings in China and Russia weren't because it was forced onto the people or that the leaders weren't communist minded. The founding fathers of communism in China and Russia were very well intentioned and were great men. The people of China and Russia fought huge civil wars within their respective countries against the corruption and inequality of Imperialism.

Dr. Sun Yat Sen was the Chinese revolutionary that started the civil wars in China against the monarchy there. He saw communism as a good ideology and a perfect fit for China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yat-sen

The failures of communism was not from it being forced onto the people or that it had oppressive leaders. The failure came from implementation and ideology vs human nature. Communism is equality among all the people. However, once there is equality among all the people, human nature kicks in and we tend to lean towards the lowest common denominator. Meaning - there is no incentive to do better. Everyone gets the same reward for doing simple or complicated work. Why would someone be a scientist if the reward for it is the same as if you were a janitor?

So in the beginning, the people wanted communism because Imperialism had the upper classes tyrannizing the lower classes and communism was supposed to be the great equalizer of these social classes. Once the equality came into effect though, the economy started falling apart.

The new communist government was given power and authority to implement this new equality. The second failing was that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Once the government gained absolute power, they ironically became corrupt from this power and didn't let go of it.

[nature boy]

not forced on the people? i don't think my grandparents went to prison willingly.

i don't disagree that communism isn't a bad thing, in that i believe in equality. the problem however isn't that the people didn't have incentive to do better, but more that they felt under-appreciated for doing more.

i was talking about this with a couple the other day, and how communism will never work in north american culture. people here are too focussed on money being the determining factor of our worth. so the more possessions/earnings you have, the more valuable you are to society. but we all know that's bull crap. i can live just fine without oprah winfrey, tiger woods and madonna (among highest paid celebs). but i cannot live fine without teachers, social workers and, wait for it... pastors (all among the lowest paid in our society).

but yet it's those who are the lowest paid who are apparently the most happy in their jobs (see the forbes article i posted a while back). why? because our value isn't determined by how much we make. this isn't the normal mentality of north america. every time i mention that i don't get paid that much, i always get a "well, that's not why you're doing it" or something of that effect. true, i'm not. but does that mean everyone else is working just for money? i find that truly sad, because that is reason why communism will never work. actually, that's the reason why we'll never have equality. or peace, for that matter.

[geForce]

[nature boy]

i guess you could put it that way, depending on which side you were on. apparently there are still people in china who miss communism (or is that russia? i don't remember).

[Wetundies]

The KGB misses it. Or what's left of them.

[nature boy]

actually, i remember now, it is russia.
and it was the peasants who miss it. they're much worse off now than before.

[Duncan]

my russian coworkers tell me that under communist rule, the former USSR used to provide free services like post secondary for everyone. Going to university was free and in some cases, you were even paid to go to school. But all that's changed now

[geForce]

[nature boy]

and also from the stuff that i mentioned up there.

[joel]

um... when i last checked the Communist Party of China is still the ruling body of the country.

and in terms of global powers China is one of the leading countries... so how did it fail exactly??

[Duncan]

they are a big power because chinese culture instill over thousands of years where you work until you die, and also, because they have the numbers to be a power. When you have a country with more than a billion ppl, there has to be some people who are doing things right

[geForce]

Communist party is in power in China, but they're not really communist anymore. They've got rich people there who own and operate factories and they've got swanky houses and apartments for sale, and then they've got a huge poor population who can't even afford to feed themselves.

That doesn't seem like communism, does it?

The measure of communism's success/failure isn't from how big of a world power the country became. Communism failed because it didn't accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish, and they ended up as capitalistic as North America, if not more so.

[joel]

They are less socialist than before but I would say they are still communist. It makes sense that political parties adapt to the needs of the country.
Communism is much more of a broad ideology and not only based on economy distribution.

Also China is far and away the most improved country in terms of poverty still today and has been since the late 70's. http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/CHN

i would say not adapting to the changes of their country and the global climate could be seen as failure. adapting to it and improving the general quality of life for its citizens is largely a success.

I would also argue the biggest reason for communism not being adopted in NA culture, is individualism.

[nature boy]

after the hk handover in 98, things went really different for china. they tried to be more like hk in a lot of ways, but at the same time they said that they're still communist.

[geForce]