S
SuperLuigi
Guest
ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789
Military man-power has never stopped dictators like Stalin from turning in on their own people before.
Evidence?
- Status
Military man-power has never stopped dictators like Stalin from turning in on their own people before.
So, your defense of the muderous reign of socialism is the British did it too?
R
Regular_Atheist
Guest
We’ve discussed this many times, and I’m not sure there is any value in me repeating the same stuff over and over again. Fascism isn’t socialist it is capitalist, it is the death agony of capitalism, it preserves capitalism once liberal democracy no longer can. Countries like the USSR were not socialist. The USSR was a degenerated workers’ state - the isolated and backwards economy led to the development of social antagonisms in the country which caused the development of a strong bureaucracy to manage these antagonisms. People like Stalin and Mao probably did more to hold back socialism than anyone else, and they ruled over some of the most anti-worker states in existence.
What happens if I don’t work? I can’t buy food or pay my rent. What happens if I become homeless and starve? I die.
If I own all the food on a desert island and withhold food from someone unless they have sex with me, that wouldn’t be considered consensual even if they verbally agree to it or sign a contract or whatever. They only agreed to it under external pressure, and they only did it because they didn’t want to starve, not because they actually wanted to have sex. It was rape.
Most people don’t have any meaningful choice. They have to get whatever job they can just to survive. It is also important to note that being able to choose which capitalist exploits you (and even then, barely) is not the same as having control over your labour. My work hours, the actual job I perform, what I wear, and pretty much everything is still dictated to me. Work is unrewarding and unfulfilling because we lack any meaningful control over what we do. We don’t choose to work, we have to work in order to survive. Work is something we do in order to live, not something we do because we live. More importantly, it is impossible for us to consider it to be our own labour, or the products we create to be our own. If I enjoy carpentry and create a birdhouse at home as a hobby, I enjoy the labour and will take satisfaction in the product I produce. I will be proud of it. I made the birdhouse and can do with it what I like. The same thing cannot be said for wage labour on the assembly line. The thing I produce is appropriated from me and sold on by the capitalist, without me having any control over it.
That means nothing for society as a whole. Not everybody can own capital - the vast majority of people have to be exploited. This isn’t really a particularly valuable answer to most people. A lot of people are poor and are stuck in their jobs, and will never have the opportunity to own capital. Some people under capitalism have to be wage labourers and have to be exploited, that’s how capitalism works. It isn’t really an answer to the problems of capitalism, either, which are inherent to the system. The solution to exploitation is not to become the exploiter.
I am reminded of the time when Gary Johnson did a Q&A with the public online. Someone asked him “I am mentally ill and cannot afford the therapy I desperately need. How will you help me with this?” Gary’s answer? “Open a business!”
What if you don’t have the means to acquire new skills? Most people can’t afford to work their jobs, pay for education along with everything else, and take time out to educate themselves. This is ignoring responsibilities people might have outside of work and education, like raising children. Honestly this is one of the worst right-libertarian stock answers and you don’t have to be a communist to see why it’s stupid.
I agree! Which is why I oppose capitalism. That’s what capitalism is - the capitalist lives off of the labour of the producers, the wage labourers, the working class. If I am a large shareholder in a business, what value do I contribute to society? I don’t produce anything or do anything useful. I just live off of the labour of others as a result of some abstract concept of “property.” There is no reason a capitalist class should exist, and there is no reason workers cannot manage the workplace themselves.
The producers in society are wage labourers, not capitalists. Owning property is not a contribution to society. If you live off of the labour of others simply because you “own” property, you are a leech.
P
Peter_Plato
Guest
What if you live off the labour of others when you don’t own property? Does that imply you are NOT a leach?
Are you implying that that fruits of one’s labour cannot be converted into goods and services, but must simply evaporate into thin air if not used immediately to barter for food or some other need?
Why can’t labour be converted into property ownership if someone labours with a certain intensity and longevity that others do not and makes that property productive far beyond what anyone else could?
Owning property can be a contribution to society if that person uses it to produce things which society needs to continue. Perhaps in the hands of someone else, that property might not benefit anyone at all. I think it is disingenuous to presume that merely because someone owns property, even a vast amount of it, that they are merely a leech.
Fascism is socialist. Hitler’s party was not called the National Socialist German Workers Party because it was capitalist. Fascists governments exercise strict government control of the means of production, even while allowing a facade of private ownership.
Stalin and Mao are the legacy of socialism, the face of it, which is why American socialists tend to want to distance themselves from it by redefining socialism, fascism and communism.
You make two false assumptions here.
- That people, particularly in the Church, lack compassion. Americans make the mistake of allowing the central government to run welfare programs, but it is not from a lack of compassion.
- That you have a right to the fruits of the labors of others. Living a life of want should be a deterrent to sloth.
It was rape indeed. But if the acquisition of food is dependent of legitimate labor, where a contractual arrangement provides that working in the fields, for example, is exchange foe payment, then this is appropriate.
Usually the lack of choice occurs in communist or fascist socialist states.
This actually sounds like a description of a a socialist state. In a capitalist free society, one has control over who one works for, because it is a contractual arrangement. One can even choose to work for oneself, acquiring for oneself the means of production without excessive government interference.
If you enjoy making birdhouses and develop one that has high demand, then you can hire people to produce many of them, providing a living for those you hire (assuming they fulfill their end of the contract), as well as a livelihood for yourself doing something you love.
It is not exploitation when one freely enters into a contractual agreement to exchange time and effort for remuneration. It is exploitation to assume that you should be allowed to not work and still enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Gary Johnson proved himself to be a progressive. Providing for those in need can be accomplished in a free state. We need not turn to the oppression of socialism.
You’re kidding. Right? Are you aware of how much the American taxpayer spends on
education post K12? Are you aware of how much the Church spends on education? How much private individuals and foundations contribute to post K12 education?
The capitalist IS the producer! He provides the opportunity for the wage earner to make a living. There are no others that do this. Government cannot. Socialism does not. It is people that risk their own wealth and property, sometimes the last few dollars they have, on a project they believe will create greater wealth for themselves.
We have seen the “success” of socialism, be it communist of fascist. People living in poverty while the ruling class lives in wealth. People imprisoned for speaking their minds. Churches persecuted. Socialism fails to raise the standard of living every time. Socialism fails to defend human rights and liberty every time.
Jon
G
goout
Guest
Exactly.
This confusion what happens when history becomes a matter of opinion and ideology rather than…history.
R
Regular_Atheist
Guest
The first fascist state, Italy, was pretty openly capitalist. Mussolini himself described it as “corporatism”, and the country openly attacked socialists, trade unionists and workers’ rights in general. The country was probably also likely the first to engage in widespread privatization. Even by a non-Marxist definition of capitalism, it seems hard to consider it to be anything but capitalism. Similarly, Nazi Germany underwent a strong process of privatization. It is true that the state played a large role in the economy in both countries, but this was only done to preserve capitalism/private ownership. Both Hitler and Mussolini were supported by big industrialist capitalists.
The fact is that the existence of capital, wage labour and exchange value as social forces is what makes capitalism capitalism, not the “size” of the state. It is absurd to say that even direct state control of industry makes a country socialist - if this were true then you would say that people such as Bismarck or Napoleon were socialist. A fascist economy, where capital is deliberately moved into private hands, to the benefit of many capitalists, even with the state dictating the economy, is capitalist.
If you want to read a left-wing perspective on fascism and the role it plays, you should read this pamphlet. I appreciate that it’s written by a controversial figure, but it’s very good. Essentially fascism preserves capitalism by uniting all of the disenfranchised masses who are suffering at the decline of capitalism into a social movement which seeks to use the state to preserve private ownership. Fascism rises up when liberal democracy can no longer preserve capitalism - once the communists start making progress politically, as they did in Weimar Germany, fascism rises up to viciously put down any opponents of capitalism and ensure the rule of private capital. It might not meet your “libertarian” notion of what capitalism should be, but understand that it benefited many large capitalists who openly supported fascism to preserve their ownership of industry against the threat of socialism. Fascism is antithetical to socialism, it seeks to destroy the socialist movement.
Also, on the subject of the Nazi party calling themselves socialist, you should see what Hitler had to say about that. In this interview Hitler pretty explicitly separates Nazism from any normal conception of socialism, along with Marxian socialism. Instead, for him, socialism is some kind of ethnic thing - the idea that the Germans as a race hold certain lands in common. Here are some quotes I picked out:
"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"
Here the Nazis admit that they are not really socialist.
Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.
Hitler admits he is trying to redefine socialism.
**Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property.
**
Again, Hitler admits that his concept of “socialism” bears no resemblance to any previous conception. He is using the term “socialism” to refer to something that is specifically not socialist. As Viereck, the man conducting the interview, admits, it is explicitly the antithesis of socialism. Viereck was a committed Nazi, too.
Firstly, I’m not American. Secondly, this ridiculous lie that socialists have only recently started rebuking the USSR and the PRC is just that, a fabrication. Socialists have been some of the most vocal critics of it from the start. Left communists, anarchists and Trotskyists have been criticized the USSR since its inception (well, ever so slightly later with Trotskyists - technically around 1923, I suppose). Some notable early critiques of the USSR:
The Revolution Betrayed - 1936
There is no Communism in Russia - 1935
Left-communists such as Bordiga, Pannekok and Mattick were all criticizing the USSR as being “state capitalist” as early as the 1920s and 1930s.
Rosa Luxemburg was very critical of Lenin.
Certainly the definitions of socialism, communism and capitalism I use are not conceptions that came after the USSR, but that predate it by decades. They are definitions that Marx used. He died in 1881, and the USSR was formed in 1922. They predate Stalin and Mao by decades, a century for Mao. Certainly the definition of communism I use, that it is a classless, stateless society where the means of production are held in common by all and exchange value does not exist, is the properly understood definition of communism, the original definition. Stalin and Mao themselves would have recognized that as communism - they did not believe to have created communist societies yet. Stalin never recognized the USSR as being communist, and Mao did not recognize the PRC as being communist. They would both consider them to be socialist countries on the road to achieving communism.
L
Latias
Guest
It is really pathetic that those criticism are not highly regarded. I might say that they offer some legitimate criticism of the Soviet Union and PRC.
But no one here cares about Rosa Luxemburg or Paul Mattick.
But look at the Victim’s of Communism Foundation. What does the purpose of the survey? It is to measure how much people are indoctrinated into believing chimerical atrocities of the Soviet Union. Conservatives are upset that people do not believe the fiction that Stalin killed more people than Hitler, and that “communism” killed a hundred million.
The sacred numbers on the one of the few things that matters to them. And some of the survey questions also ask about how people perceive Putin and Russia. So associating Russia with “communism” is a priority.
Not according to one-time Marxist Benito Mussolini:
By every measure, other than that of totalitarianism, fascism is socialism, with the facade of capitalism.
Both Hitler and Mussolini controlled the big industrialists.
Hitler:
This is socialism, pure and simple. It isn’t the totalitarian version of communists, but it is socialism, nonetheless.
ion fascist states, private ownership may or may not be held privately, but it is the government who controls the means of production, every bit as much as in communist states.
And here are some others:
He considered his task to “convert the German volk (people) to socialism without simply killing off the old individualists”
We must “find and travel the road from individualism to socialism without revolution”.
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions”
Hitler differed from Lenin and the communists by trying to use the industrialists and bankers to his end. They did not control him. He controlled them. They were his tools to socialize Germany. He even couched his anti-semitism in his socialism:
“If we are socialists, then we must definitely be anti-semites – and the opposite, in that case, is Materialism and Mammonism, which we seek to oppose.” “How, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-semite?”
Jon
econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
“If we are socialists, then we must definitely be anti-semites – and the opposite, in that case, is Materialism and Mammonism, which we seek to oppose.” “How, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-semite?”
It is not a lie. It is fact. Post WW II socialists have tried to distance themselves from both socialist communism and socialist fascism. But the paper trail is too obvious.
Jon
econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
Actually, a conservative such as myself couldn’t care less which one killed more. When you add the deaths that resulted from the war, Hitler’s 12 million climbs substantially, rivaling Mao. Stalin, on the other hand, was probably between 20 and 30 million, more than likely not the 60 million claimed by Solzhenitsyn.
I don’t feel the need to compare one socialist mass murderer to the other.
Jon
L
Latias
Guest
Ok,since you disavowed any ideological attachment to some number, what do you think about this.
web.archive.org/web/20080611064213/http:/www.etext.org/Politics/Staljin/Staljin/articles/AHR/AHR.html
Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years:A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence
J. ARCH GETTY, GABOR T. RITTERSPORN, andVIKTOR N. ZEMSKOV
I disavow any ideological attachment because I disavow any attachment at all to progressivism, socialism, and all of it’s forms.
So, here’s a different site.
historyofrussia.org/stalin-killed-how-many-people/
There seems to be disagreement, but the fact remains, regardless of the numbers, socialism is responsible for tens of millions of civilian deaths in the 20th century.
Jon
L
Latias
Guest
Looks like you have an affinity to the large numbers. So you do retain the bias that Stalin killed more than Hitler.
The Gulag did not kill 12 million people. It is not supported by the archives. Only about 400,000 died in Kulak resettlement.
I rely on empirical evidence.
R
RCinMT
Guest
Once again, this is an assertive question that is easily answered: because people fear for their own lives and their loved ones. Military service was compulsory: refusal meant death. What would be the point of refusing service?
Again, why did communism in Russia fall through the will of the people? They just didn’t know how good had it? Why haven’t the people of Russia demanded that communism be reinstituted? Why did the East Germans tear down the wall? Why do Cubans die trying to get to America?
Whataboutism, tu quoque.
I had an annual general physical exam the other day. The doctor said I was overweight and needed to lose twenty pounds. I looked at the doctor and said “you look thirty pounds overweight so who are you to talk?”.
Does the fact that docor is overweight invalidate his diagnosis that I am overweight? Can only doctors within acceptable weight ranges for their height and body type instruct or observe weight related issues in other people? Does a smoker telling people smoking is bad make it untrue?
L
Latias
Guest
R
RCinMT
Guest
L
Latias
Guest
- Status