i just read the communist manifesto

[rch35]

and it struck me how little americans actually know about communism

its amazing

[Hardrada]

1. A Spectre is haunting Europe

and here too. (Just in time for Halloween by the way).

[Heidi]

2. You're soooooooo gonna get smited. (nt)

[Selatius]

3. It's the birthplace of many of the ideas that became the New Deal.

Full implementation has never been achieved though, and I hardly think the Soviet Union qualifies. If the state owns the means of production and it does not operate with deference to the will of the people, then it isn't socialism.

[RadicalTexan]

35. Socialism/communism =/= Stalinism

nt

[orleans]

4. did it sound like it was written by a bunch of liberals?

:evilgrin:

[blindpig]

29. Naw

Liberals are enablers of the bourgeoisie.

[Oregone]

5. Sadly, most americans will never read it.

The same ones who also have no idea what 'socialism' means, but happily label anything they are afraid of with the term.

[readmoreoften]

6. Shocking that Marx doesn't reflex Stalinism, eh? Read Lenin and you'll find the same thing.

Both are closer to what we now call "anarchosocialism" than Kruschev's bureaucracy or Stalin's gulags. It's a little like judging Thomas Jefferson by the antics of Karl Rove, Cheney, and DARPA.

[Selatius]

7. One thing with Lenin's early attempts at economic reforms is that it is basically what FDR tried.

The New Economic Program that was instituted to help boost farm production was very similar in many respects to what FDR tried during the Great Depression to help farmers. It was Stalin who came up with the idea of forcing farms to collectivize. I guess in his mind he was trying to achieve economies of scale.

[MonteLukast]

8. Communism failed...

... for some of the same reasons Republicanism is failing now. Purging of the moderates. Skimming a little extra for yourself and stiffing the little people with the consequences. Lust for control of your mind. Idea-averseness (in the end).

[obiwan]

9. Correction: Stalin-type communism failed.

Pure communism was never tried. Mankind fucks up everything it gets its hands on. The selfish ego, you know.

READ!

[AngryAmish]

16. Not really. Any centralized planning is doomed from the start.

It is an information problem. No central planner can know enough to set prices and supplies. So while a freeish market is a terrible idea, there is nothing better.

[melonkali]

25. Centralized economy/government was the reason the South gave for secession

Confederate propaganda argued "tyranny of the majority" and "consolidation" or "centralization" of state governments into one "despotic" central government. This resulted, according to the propagandists, in centralized economic planning with high trade tariffs which fertilized the North's manufacturing economy but wrecked the South's trade economy.

So if centralized planning is really an evil, was the South correct in that regard? Or am I making an unfair comparison? These are not rhetorical questions -- I'm no economic expert, and I'm sincerely asking.

(I probably should clarify here, so I don't sound like a revisionist nutcase -- like Pat Buchanan or the AIP -- that I realize this line of Confederate propaganda was a smokescreen meant to serve as a reasonable-sounding public explanation for secession, especially when trying to convince England and France to recognize the Confederacy. I personally agree with the mainstream view that despite the South's arguments, right or wrong, about economic centralization and tariffs, it seceeded because of slavery.)

[AngryAmish]

26. An unfair and inaccurrate comparison

Centralized planning means the gov't determines how many buttons, pogo sticks and pounds of lard are made during a year.

The South wanted different trade policies (low tariff, etc.).

However the crux of my argument is, however benevolent or despotic, central planning does not work practically. It cannot because of the information problem.

[JoseGaspar]

32. It was a question of "whose" central planning

The South fought for the right to remain a virtual colony of Britain rather than become an internal colony of Massachusetts. Steam plus Manchester textile mills and Southern cotton were the perfect prescription. Besides, that perfect relationship kept icky slavery thousands of miles from London while supplementing Southern profits on cotton production with profits on slave production. No "central planning"? What a crock. It was planned to the farthing. The issue was "whose control?"

It is always about "who" plans. The form of that planning comes and goes. More, it is amazing that this could be a subject for such abstract ideological consideration on the eve of the G20 (or whatever) Finance Ministers coming to America to "reshape" world finance. Seems it is too important to be left to some elementary Libertarian platitudes.

[Kalyke]

36. Being Southern, I disagree.

Most people fought because of the tyranny of the majority. Most Southerners who fought did not own slaves.

[anaxarchos]

48. Yeah... sure.

"Tyranny of the majority" is it? You might want to re-examine how often you want to repeat such neo-confederate propaganda. The majority of Southern Whites fought because they perceived that they had an interest in the System of Slavery ...and they were right. The eleven states of the Confederacy were the eleven richest states in the Union before the Civil War and the eleven poorest after wards. There was reason to be "Good Germans".

Ask Nat Turner about the "Tyranny of the majority".

[LanternWaste]

37. However, isn't that precisely what...

"Any centralized planning is doomed from the start."

Taking that specific statement without additional qualifiers...

...isn't that precisely what FDR did when he had the war industries centrally managed and planned during WW2? And the industries seemed to be both efficient and effective in setting prices, prognosticating needs, and also was highly profitable-- to both the plants and the workers (for many, many reason)

For a fascinating and in-depth reverse-telescopic view of American cerntalized war-planning in WW2-- its successes, it's high-points and even its low-points, I highly recommend 'The American Aircraft Factory in World War II' by Bill Yenne.

[AngryAmish]

41. 3 years of wartime

There was rationing and shortages. No cars made, etc. In fact a lot of the economy was not planned - and that is what kept us fed.

Methinks that WWII era US is not exactly the acme of the good life.

[LanternWaste]

44. "Good life..." a qualifier to your previous statement.

"Good life..." a qualifier to your previous statement. DU parlance is (I think) 'moving the goalposts.'

Shortages *were* planned. Cars not being made was part and parcel of the plan. Rationing was planned.

Yet,the essentials were there. It was effective. It was efficient. It worked. Which is in direct opposition to the statement "central planning never works", regardless of additional qualifiers to better suit an opinion.

[Captiosus]

23. Pure communism would still fail.

Precisely because mankind fucks up everything it gets its hands on.

Marxist communism would, inevitably, turn into some form of Marx-Lenin-Stalinized form of Communism between the "ruling classes" and the proletariat. Frankly, I think the last five hundred years or so of combined human history shows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that we're utterly incapable, as a species, of governing ourselves independently and treating folks as equals on a large scale. Throughout all of history, humans are too greedy, too competitive, too hawkish to actually live in an equal society without finding some way to establish class differences.

Besides Communism in its purest form is just a variant of Socialism.

[readmoreoften]

11. That's a facile and ahistorical analysis.

Communism "failed" for many reasons in many places--it usually "failed" in Latin America because of US intervention through the conversion of "moderates" into "right-wing death squads" and the installation of US puppet regimes. Centralized economics failed in the USSR, but the Russian people are much worse off as a whole under capitalism. Poverty, violence, and drug abuse has increased. China became a capitalist nation after the death of Mao, largely because the remaining Communist leaders ARE the anti-revolutionary "moderates"-- in fact, they are power-hungry anti-Communist totalitarian nationalist-capitalists and many of those who are in opposition to them (i.e. dying in prisons) are actual Communists who desire the withering away of the state (i.e. direct democracy/equality) that would come from the destruction of the anti-revolutionary rightist regime that still calls itself "Communist."

By the way, capitalism has 'failed' as well. It has failed to bring about democracy, and in fact its 'purest' form (Friedmanism) has actually brought about fascism (Pinochet, neoconservativism etc.) It looks as though its markets very well may collapse to boot. The question will be what happens when both capitalism and communism fail. Hint: the answer isn't "a mixed economy." The basic reality of capitalism is that it trends towards totalitarian plutocracy. Massive profit is anti-democratic by nature. The problem with communism is that it is easily subverted (or made paranoic) by totalitarian capitalism. This leads to the really big question of the 21st century: is any substantive paradigm of democracy possible?

[MonteLukast]

14. Why we need to wake up from the "American Dream"?

Massive profit is anti-democratic by nature.

I think most people are afraid to think about that. It feels almost subversive... it goes way, the very idea of the American Dream. We've all been conditioned that one day, WE'LL be rich, if we just settle down and follow the free-market rules. That's another way the Republicans were able to win so many hearts for so long. It may even be bigger than terrorism appeals.

[karynnj]

15. Also, this conflates American ideals of government - a representative democracy and the economic

system. The form of government is independent of the type of economy. I do agree that federalism which greatly limits the role of government is most compatible with capitalism. Norway, even though it has a monarch, is a representative democracy with a socialist economy.

In the US, the extreme version of federalism has been rejected. We can also see in the aftermath of the financial crisis, the advocates of becoming more of a federalist government, who always were for small government and as little regulation as possible suddenly are posing as the ones who wanted regulation. It is lucky that few believe them.

In fact, the Democrats tried in 2000, 2002, and 2003 to pass a major bill that would have regulated predatory loans - this link is to the JK group - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=273x153196 . The 4, 14 and 15 co-sponsors to each of the Sarbanes bills were ALL Democrats and they had the support of organizations the Republicans are now demonizing - like ACORN. This bill would have stopped the problem at its root. There were also Durbin attempts to get similar provisions passed as amendments to other bills - failing each time on a party line basis - and yes, McCain voted against them.

The vaunted Republican bill (Hagel's S190) only regulated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not the private sector companies that bought mortgages. There was a Democratic supported bill that was a bi-partisan House bill with a Republican sponsor. Either bill would have increased regulation of the FMs. The difference was that the Republican Senate bill forced the FMs to shrink. Had it passed it would have had little impact on the financial mess - other than to hurt the FMs in the short term and keep them out of the mess. 83% of the bad loans were bought by the private companies. The Republican Senate's bill, which the Republicans never brought to a vote because it ultimately lacked enough Republican votes, was motivated partially by a desire to shrink the public sector relative to the private sector.

What is clear in the Republican's newfound claim to being for regulation is that it acknowledges that pure capitalism - which the Bush administration's SEC came close to - was a complete failure. It also works against a representative democracy, which seems to function best when there is not a third world profile of a small percent of the population being very wealthy and the vast majority of other people being extremely poor. Pure capitalism leads to that - as we may have all experienced playing Monopoly when one person puts hotels on Broadway and Park Place.

[fed_up_mother]

20. There's nothing wrong with massive profit (taxed, of course) as long as labor is treated well

Labor has not been treated well, and until the symbiotic relationship between labor and capital is restored, this country is in deep shit trouble.

[eridani]

13. It's working just fine in Kerala, India

That's because Communists are just two more political parties, and when they get voted out, they leave office. Their very popular programs really have stuck around though.

I think that most of the evils people attribute to "communism" actually are evils of a one-party state. In Kerala, that was never possible because they had (and have) two major communist parties, and also because they are a subset of a larger political unit that wouldn't have allowed a one party state in any event. Also, being a part of a much larger state rules out invasion and terrorism by the US.

[fed_up_mother]

21. Communism by its nature runs to a one-party system

Pure communism and pure capitalism just can't exist without dreadful consequences.

[LanternWaste]

38. I don't think that either...

I don't think that either pure capitalism or pure communism has ever existed outside of the theoretical (much the the chagrin of many ideologues I imagine...).

Seems to me that almost every type of modern economic philosophy has simply leaned towards one or the other without ever fully realizing the actual abstract itself. Some may lean towards one end of the spectrum more than another may, but the differences seem to be merely in degrees of leaning.

[eridani]

43. But I just gave you a counterexample n/t

[fed_up_mother]

19. Power corrupts. I don't care what side of the fence you sit on.

[dysfunctional press]

22. where did actual communism fail?

:shrug:

i wasn't aware that it had actually been tested.

[fed_up_mother]

24. Pure communism like pure capitalism is destined to fail.

[dysfunctional press]

33. human nature is a bitch.

nt

[Poseidan]

10. isn't the internet great?

All the world's knowledge a simple google search away: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/index.htm">Communist Manifesto

My solutions differed from Marx's. I came up with a 'work-wheel'. If there are 12 people in a business, only one of them can occupy the manager position. It is a simple matter of math. What you can do though, is rotate the workers, so each month a different person is manager.

I don't care for the idea of a centralized credit system. Fifty lenders would be good though, one for each state. Dividing power is an important aspect of eliminating tyranny.

Speaking of dividing... maybe the stock market should also be divided among the fifty states? If there was only one market per-state, and only state residents could use the state market, the country would be far less damaged by crashes. We can be sure, as long as there are stock-markets, there will be stock-market crashes. We have to ensure these crashes are not catastrophic.

[Indenturedebtor]

12. If you take food, housing, and healthcare off the market

along with basic commodities like energy - then you don't have to worry about crashes.

Read the Jungle, or at least the end of it for a definition of American Socialism. Which is what FDR read right before he created the FDA.

[fed_up_mother]

17. Housing off the market? UGH

I've been to Russia a handful of times. College professors were living in small, dingy flats that weren't any better than most apartments here in run down areas of the inner city. They had no pride in where they lived. Imagine "the projects," but inhabited by professionals.

NO THANKS. We need a European model of socialism, and housing is still on the market in those countries.

[JackRiddler]

18. It should also strike how much Marx & Engels knew about today's America...

160 years in advance, just by correctly understanding the drives inherent in the capitalist system. Think on it: the extreme concentration of wealth, the proletarianization of all classes but the richest few, the intensification of the labor system, the state of permanent crisis, the resort to violence and imperialism in the war for profits. It's all there, and for the same reasons as when they wrote.

[Swamp Rat]

27. Now you're on 'the list.'

:D

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

28. Fuck Communism.

[blindpig]

31. Here ya go...

[The Leveller]

30. Here it is in eight minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1IME451NDY

Those who conflate Communism with Stalinism are in need of de-programming.

Those who defend property probably don't realize that the system they are defending in fact denies property to 90+ percent of the population.

Which side are you on?

[fed_up_mother]

45. More than 10% of this country own property and I happen to be for nation states

I'm not in favor of a big one world government with centralized planning for the entire world.

I've been to one former communist country and one communist country (at the time). Housing was much like inner city ghetto housing here only my friends were college professors with two kids living in less than five hundred square feet. YES, college professors. I don't care to define our standard of living DOWN. NO THANKS. I've been to another communist country who's standard of living was about twice as good, and it still sucked.

They had no private property, and the properties were not taken care of. There was no pride in home ownership. Everything was run down rental property. Yeah, I know...Communism isn't the same as Stalinism. Both still suck.

Give me European style mixed economies any day. France is ten times better than any stalinist type government you will ever find. So are most of the other western European nations. I do not subscribe to the notion that if some people are poor, we should all be poor. No hope. No thanks.

[blindpig]

34. From the Manifesto:

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.

And here we stand.

[kineneb]

39. and where is someone like Bismarck...

when we need him...

„<...> the actual complaint of the worker is the insecurity of his existence; he is unsure if he will always have work, he is unsure if he will always be healthy and he can predict that he will reach old age and be unable to work. If he falls into poverty, and be that only through prolonged illness, he will find himself totally helpless being on his own, and society currently does not accept any responsibility towards him beyond the usual provisions for the poor, even if he has been working all the time ever so diligently and faithfully. The ordinary provisions for the poor, however, leaves a lot to be desired <...>.“
– Otto von Bismarck, 20.03.1884


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck

[blindpig]

I'll take the socialization,

but hold the Otto and Prussian militarism, please.

Betcha the Iron Chancellor read Marx too, probably scared the shit out of him.

[blindpig]

40. I'll take the socialization,

but hold the Otto and Prussian militarism, please.

Betcha the Iron Chancellor read Marx too, probably scared the shit out of him.

[billyoc]

42. Seems to work in Northern Virginia.

:hi:

[ColbertWatcher]

46. Even if it's written down, every idea will be misinterpreted. Just look at the Bible. n/t

[honestduel]

47. It's a nice read

It tells some truths.