To be honest, I always found it odd that Marx described his view of the perfect society and said there would be no religion in it, when Christianity should be the exact same ideal, in every way.
The most fascinating aspect of Christianity to me is the “beast of Christendom.” I love it. What other book so strongly warns of its own extensions?
The antichrist supposedly brings about the “reign of fire on earth” (or something like that) by posing under Christian status. And the person riding the beast is some sort of economic prostitute.
I love the argument, and I fear the prediction. And then I’m reminded that it could have “predicted” so many other situations in history, and that I can’t back up the validity of the writing in the first place.
I wonder if our fascination with paradoxes is what allows the popularity of self-contradictiong testimonies.
That does make sense, but the problem was that in the past Christian organizations were much like what we see in Islam if not worse. There was much more focus on imposing rules than understanding transgressions and on being poor and pathetic to be more god-like. These rules were not always followed by those in charge, and that was annoying.
Also, and this is really the main point, that religion takes the mind off of life on Earth. It really has almost no value. In contrast, communism is only focused on life, so it’s much more functional in that there’s no distraction from the goal.
I believe this is the reason why communists can come down very hard on people that aren’t with the program. It’s seen that there’s no excuse for not wanting to help the collective.
Whether Christianity or Communism or (fill in your own utopia) it isn’t in the seeing, but in the acting out. The ideals of christianity and communism have been exhibited in various cultures, but always fall short of the ideal. This is usually explained away citing outside influences, the weather, who knows… In small groups reaching ideals may be possible, but greed and avarice always appear in larger societies, and the ideals begin to fade. Still, it is those societies that reach for their ideals that remain vibrant. I keep looking around, but I’m having little success in finding any of those societies in today’s world.
It’s a capitalist trick to focus on the “ideal” of communism. Most capitalist countries are actual socialist with many secret nationalist industries (ones heavily funded by the government) so capitalism doesn’t work at an ideal level either.
Mr. P,
No. Capitalism is the least benevolent of any system out there. It is, “Fuck you, I’ve got mine, you get yours”. It is a giant game of musical chairs with someone always missing the chair. The problem is, it works, and it works better than the alternatives because it panders to greed and competition and holds out the illusion that anyone can win a chair. As long as a society can keep us from thinking about the losers by offering us ever greater opportunities to consume, it’s a great way to play. That it guarantees losers by definition is easily overlooked as long as I get mine.
The socialist oriented side of capitalism is to sit at the table eating steak and caviar and throwing the losers a bone now and then to keep them from revolt.
Capitalism works because it more nearly fits the weaknesses of human nature, not it’s strengths.
As if you couldn’t guess, I disagree.
Capitalism works the least well out of all the systems, as it needs to take from other systems to make itself work, thus it‘s not working.
At the macro level, let’s take the US government, it doesn’t operate as a business at all. The farmer, the airline, the train system, the military contractor, and many other industries are not independent but rather funded by the government to maintain the infrastructure of the government. This makes all of those industries secretly Nationalized.
As I’ve mentioned in the Power Suit thread, most any western nation that wants to fund a project can do it to whatever degree that they want to, as long as they pay you in their own currency. For instance, Nameless African Nation, can pay your company 10 billion Schlupies to make them rifles, but that doesn’t amount to anything in the outside world. However, you can take that money and say start a diamond mine, in their country, and then flip that product in the world for 50 billion dollars, then it was worth it.
Now if you’re dealing with the US you don’t have to worry, because their money is worth something everywhere, and the government controls the flow of it. That means that if they want your product badly enough, then money is no object. That’s because at the US government level the money is worthless, if you get me.
It is the case though that non-US firms don’t get the big contracts and that’s because the government secretly owns all of the industry that keeps it supplied and the people fed. None of it is capitalism at all and is in fact closer a kind of communism. That’s where the term “corporate welfare†came from, but if that didn’t exist then country would become destabilized very quickly, or at best have patterns of destabilization as various industries rose and fell. The important ones can’t be allowed to do that.
There is no capitalist government of any importance on Earth.
no.
greed is good.
-Imp
Mr. P.
Of course it works! Of course it takes away from other systems. The U.S. capitalistic system, like the European colonial powers before it were built on three pedestals: Cheap labor, cheap raw materials, and cheap energy. I purposely left out any reference to government because it is nothing but a pawn. It is guaranteed a chair by the capitalists to provide smooth running of the game. Government is certainly the enforcer, but it is a small part of the sytem. Money, and the power it brings are the real controllers. Government is bought and sold like any other commodity.
I agree that there is no “pure” ideological system out there. At bottom, the old adage remains true: Call it anything you want, just follow the money.
Greed is the sole reason for, the sole cause of, most of the societal problems in our world today.
no. wanting to eliminate greed is the sole cause and reason for the problems.
-Imp
And that is why he had to die - a naïve idealist who sacrifices himself for an idea that has no understanding of human nature, surely deserves to die and become a martyr for all the naïve, idealists of the world, wanting to avenge themselves by slandering what they cannot be or find power by sharing it.
these are also examples of small groups of people, they have little to nothing except what is needed, they do not create things like tv or the internet. they create food for each other
I even disagree with that, because there is no money. It’s an illusion that’s designed to create an imagined cost of goods. This allows the movers behind government to have a have freedom to do what they like as they are imagined by the people in the system as having unlimted wealth.
Of course! Think of the word “community,” if you will. Communism, naturally requires a very strong sense of community. It’s just impossible to have such a genuine care and appreciation of fellows if the group is too large. Families are almost like little communistic groups, with each person acting for the greater good of the family instead of his own wealth. So to make this happen on a national scale, it has to be forced. Unfortunately, communism is one of those things that doesn’t work to well when forced.
I agree.
I started a thread when I first got here that was about Leninism and how it differes from communism that is more focused on a more democratic life. Leninism is a war focused state that believes in the need for martial law until the worldwide revolution is achieved. It’s the difference between crusading Christians and the ones that keep to themselves. Few mind the latter group.
At one time the war stance seemed reasonable to me, but now it doesn’t. Rather, I believe, or hope, that communists will form a small state somewhere that has a focus on quality of life. If not that, then I’d like to see the very mixed economies of some European countries spread out a little more.
The caring aspect of it all is important, but I think that can be taught and is especially strong in countries where families get along and love each other.
On a positive note: although I believe that capitalism tends to breed all kinds of relationships based on “an exchange” I believe that people can learn to keep business at the shop, but that would take a lot of will.
Hi Mr. P,
It is true that money isn’t “real”, but the power that it represents is. In this sense, money is simply another way to keep score.
Communism as an ideal in practice: The concept has been tried both here and in Europe, particularly in the teens and twenties in any number of communes. They all failed. One can say that they failed because of outside pressures, or failed because people didn’t try hard enough, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the ideal couldn’t succeed even on a commune sized scale, let alone in a small country. Communism relies heavily on a self-sacrifice sentiment, which is noble, but belies human nature.
That said, communism is the best sense of that ideal could be taught, but only over a number of generations with no outside interference, a set of conditions highly unlikely to occur in today’s world.
I too would like to see different (better) answers than what we are currently pursuing, but I don’t see any of the prerequisite conditions necessary that would allow the shift in thinking needed to effect changes.
tentative,
You seem to be stuck in the capitalist rhetoric that communism failed. Firstly it didn’t fail because such states still exist, and secondly it succeeded no more than capitalism did.
What I’ve illustrated is that capitalism is in reality a total failure. At best it exists at the ground level for the middle-class. However, western countries have welfare for the poor and welfare, and beyond, for the powerful or the necessary.
This is a mixed economy. It appears that the big communist countries are moving in that direction, and the religiously based socialist countries also do it.
It’s clear to me that communist inspired system find themselves in more modernised countries than not, thus it proves itself more useful than purely capitalist ones.
Think about it.
I guess I’m going to need some examples. If you’re suggesting a place or places where communism actually works, I’d like to know where. That socialism is used in every system is no argument, but the communism of Marx? I don’t see it working - anywhere.
tentative: I guess I’m going to need some examples. If you’re suggesting a place or places where communism actually works, I’d like to know where. That socialism is used in every system is no argument, but the communism of Marx? I don’t see it working - anywhere.
K: Barcelona Spain 1936 for two years during the spanish civil war.
No one ever talks about it because it pokes holes in the theory
that no communism ever worked.
Kropotkin