To be annoyed when people think communism is bad?

[waitingimpatiently]

Not 'communism' in places like Cuba and Korea which has some sort of dictator, which a lot of people appear to think is real communism.

Why does there seem to be this ignorance?! Do people not research the things they believe in?! Karl Marx would be turning in his grave if he saw the state of some of these 'communist' countries. Surely, the images of heaven (that I see in jehovahs witness leaflets, where everyone is happy and eating breakfast with lions etc) is a communist idea! Everyone is equal, no money, no state, no class system.

I get that the sort of communism we see can be awful, but real true communism isn't bad at all!

Rubberglove - imo human nature comes from the fact we have needs - physical and emotional - from food to security, shelter front elements etc. We are driven by those needs at a biological level - chemicals and hormones produced in our body for example - when we are hungry and when that hunger need is met. When we see people we love. When we feel threatened. We naturally seem to like living in communities as that meets social needs as well as security of "the herd". We are also innately selfish - in times of plenty will share as that drives a social need but in times where food or resources are perceived to be low there will be a natural tendency to share less - saving obviously for social needs. This is nature - at your very core is a need to survive - doesn't mean people will not be selfless at all times but this is a factor surely?

In small communities where the natural elements/environment would be dangerous for an individual surely there would be a bigger drive to fulfil more social needs and work as a collective as the fact that non cooperation could mean exclusion from the group and that individual's chance of survival without he group would be lower - so it pays to share the wealth.

Communism - ie., some aspect of communal living - IMO works on a really small scale when everyone opts in to it (and it isn't forced on them). Think residents in Kevin McCloud's sustainable housing development in Swindon sharing a veggie garden and the veggies they grow. Lovely.
Conversely, Russia, North Korea, China, etc, corrupt dictatorships where the rights of individuals get trampled on for sake of tiny minority of Party members who want to cling on to power. That is what Communism with a capital C is. Look at why Russia is so f-Ed up now. 70 yrs of Communism, which replaced one autocracy (Tsar) with another. People have every right to hate Communism.

Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it, and hell where they already have it-Ronald Reagan

Hi mumsnet I've found some of your advice useful&hilarious. Communism is not bad,please look into it some more. I'm writing this for the sake of the younger generation who are facing climate changes... you saw the floods in Europe 2.6.13. Sorting floods out is an overhaul of the I.M.F matter as discussed by then President Fidel Castro in his G77 South Summit April 10-14,2000 speech.
In Britain communism(Marxist-Leninist) is about FACTS; how since '1946 the national debt has been repaid many times over', the necessity of making RCPB(M-L)'s Resolution 4, moratorium on the national debt happen.It is about 16+, adults to adults being truely part of deciding how the economy is run.Excuse me for putting it this way, none of this ,shut your faces,pay the £1trillion+ national debt or we will kick your heads in by the 3 big parties.
Please see the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain(Marxist-Leninist)'s website, General Line section-THE LINE OF MARCH TO A NEW SOCIETY Political Report, discusses the national debt. Thank you.

Ahhh so the first line of your post makes the fact you've bumped a zombie thread to spam us, ok does it?

You little flatterer you

Are zombies communist?

I agree with aufaniae that money is a process of mystification that has replaced religion. There's plenty of research into how it doesn't place a realistic value on what most humans value - land, clean water, food, raw materials, work.

I don't think Communism will work because it is too top down in the way it organises things. I think a blend of solutions in one society is preferable - some elements run as a free market, some run as communism and some run as anarcho-syndicalism.

I don't think Cuba is a Communist country. It is a country that has different ways of organising different parts of society, depending on which way is most effective for the particular issue. There are certainly human rights abuses that have happened and some that are currently happening, and that is indefensible. But Cuba is the only country in the world that is sustainable and developed. Everybody has enough to eat, clean water, is educated and has health care. Infant mortality is low and life expectancy is high, and they use their resources in such a way that the same can be true for generations to come. No other country in the world can say that.

Marx was an idiot. -Politics graduate.

It is bad. It's fundamentally contrary to human nature.

We need a certain amount of self determination and freedom to motivate us.

Communism can only ever exist if it's forced on the population by a dictator.

OP, you mean, I believe, Communist Utopia, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' idyllic but utterly daft master plan for the Homo Sapiens'?

Communism can not work because of one simple reason -human nature - which can not be changed, not en masse.

You'll always have the bright-eyed etc idealists who, for time being actually believe their own ideas. Then Life kicks in. The greed, self preservation, tribalism etc etc ad nauseam.

The horrible, failed experiments on communism in former Soviet Union, China etc are clear examples how ghastly and inhuman any attempt to create a communist state can be.

Communism can work, all that needs to change is the ownership of the means of production. Instead of wealth accumulating to very few people, wealth would be distributed amongst those workers who produce it.

For anyone who is interested in understanding Marxist economics this is a great place to start davidharvey.org/ Reading Marx's capital. Don't dis it until you try it!

The only reason we are told that communism won't work is because the ruling elite who sit behind the state have much to lose and we have everything to gain.

Anyone wondering why their local newspapers filled with adverts for marriage agencies "Marry a Russian Girl" that is because when the eastern bloc collapsed, work for women dried up and many turned to prostitution. Before the fall, there was work for everyone.

Zommunism

Communism isn't about having a large top down state either, real communism is actually about having no state. The end point of socialism is communism-real democracy with no state.

It is still top down in that generally advocates that subsistence and other work are communally owned and organised, whereas in a bottom up organisation people still own private property big enough to meet their own subsistence needs if they wish.

I can't think of any place where they really tried communism - not recently anyway. Mostly when you think of communist countries you think of the names of the dictators.

Even if communism fails to work (and I suspect it always will) there is no reason to see it as evil. We ought to see it as a beautiful ideal which we unfortunately are not built to reach. Mainly we are told it is evil by those in positions of power and wealth. Well they would say that wouldn't they.

Capitalism, we are told, is wonderful. Because it relies on greed which is in greater supply. Even when it works (it's working wonderfully in the UK today right?) we ought to be sad that it's the best we can do.

The fundamental difference between communism & capitalism is ownership of the means of production. Under communism you have collective ownership, in the form of collectivised labour such as co-operatives. This means that the workers that produce the wealth share in that wealth. (under state socialism the ownership is collectivised under state control......that is not communism)

Under capitalism you have workers being paid only a fraction of the value they create. The surplus is creamed off and accumulates to very few people, those who own companies. You have owners who have large share holdings in companies dotted around the globe, in places they have never visited. They have no sense of responsibility to workers or the environment and no interest except profit.

Capitalism must grow at 3% compound growth per annum otherwise the wheels fall off. This is not sustainable because larger and larger surpluses have to be invested. Which is why so much across the globe that is "socially necessary" is now being privatised. Capitalists will pry open everything they can to investment, it isn't an act of evil or greed but something that must happen under capitalism because surpluses can not sit idle. When they do, as is the case now we have a situation of rising unemployment and misery for ordinary people. However if the money is invested, jobs created and goods exchanged the surplus this creates is at your expense, wealth again accumulates to a few people, making a larger surplus for investment.

Marx was a tosser.

This is a zombie thread.

Very few communist or socialist countries survive because of the aggression of pro-capitalist countries and imperialism. Democratically elected social reformist leaders have been bumped off all over south america, Argentina, Iraq, Iran, Haiti, Guatamala, El salvador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Indonesia......They tried in Cuba and failed. All bumped off by Western sponsored insurgencies, using right wing pro-capitalist forces armed by the west (esp america)

In Chile Allende's government was finished in a coup orchestrated and funded by the CIA. They put Pinochet in place, a rabid psychopath......but he was pro-capitalist. He set up concentration camps and murdered everyone with any leftist sympathies. But he instigated neo-liberal reforms and opened up the country to investment from American multi-nationals and privatised everything from health to water and education.

Under communism you have collective ownership, in the form of collectivised labour such as co-operatives. This means that the workers that produce the wealth share in that wealth.

All very utopian. And works until some decide they are more equal than others. And then you get what every other system has - an elite.

Trying to make communism work would, itself lead to methods of enforcement, when people realise the unfairness of equality for all when some work harder, provide more, take more risk while others are happy to bimble along or even freeload.

'Under communism you have collective ownership, in the form of collectivised labour such as co-operatives. This means that the workers that produce the wealth share in that wealth.'

What if you do work that doesn't produce anything to create wealth from? Childcare, health care etc ?

Will you be able to take your children with you when you're participating in the collectivised labour?

Communism only works in theory.

In practice it's a load of old bollocks.

I can say this, as both my parents lived through communism. It's very suppressive, miserable, and works only for the people at the top using their little people as puppets at a show.

What if you do work that doesn't produce anything to create wealth from? Childcare, health care etc ?

But they do create wealth, why else is childcare already privatised and health has been opened up to capitalist investment. The NHS is being privatised.

'That's why I don't live in a communist country and avoid socialists'

I think you have got the right idea. Shame we can't all do the same

'That's why I don't live in a communist country and avoid socialists'

You obviously don't live in the UK. We had some of them in government for 13 years and they absolutely wrecked the country and left us with a note saying something like "sorry, there's no money left". Typical!