What are your thoughts on communism -negative and positive?

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Rozellelily said:
Under democracy don’t we anyway still have some form of forced redistribution of resources in the way of taxes, divorce settlement, child support rulings etc…
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Yes, but those laws are legislated by elected representatives. The laws aren’t dictated by a self imposed body.

There are always going to be people who don’t get they want through the process of voting.
Rozellelily said:
And if it isn’t a government causing the gaps of wealth and people in poverty, someone else fill the shoes. I.e., so many people in western countries have now just become corporate slaves serving only to make the rich richer.
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People aren’t forced into working for someone else. Anyone can start their own business in the US.

There are anti-trust laws in the US (that the people have codified) that are being stretched presently IMO. That doesn’t mean that we swing full pendulum into the opposite direction. It takes time for the US federal government to bring balance when things get out of balance. That’s a good thing.
 
Well are you aware that in the Greek Civil War, the communist took children away from their parents in Greece and sent them into Communist Yugoslavia ?

Read “Eleni” by Nicholas Gage to get the whole story.

Under Communism, the government takes control of the farms, industry, education and the press. There is no freedom of speech under communism.

When the government confiscated those, they jailed those who had built them leaving them to be run by incompetent’s people. The Soviet Union under Stalin, starved the nation and killed millions in the Ukraine. Of course the Soviet Gulag has a track record no people should even live through. Read, “The Gulag Archipelago,” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to understand how this happened because of communism.

Mao was no better in Red China. Millions died of starvation and intellectuals and religious leaders were sent to work camps.

I myself knew priests who spent over 20 years in Communists prisons. They were eventually released as they were dying of cancer or other ailments.
 
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Communism usually needs “unbridled capitalism”(example-China)to be successful. Otherwise people will starve even more. What if I told you I was against unbridled capitalism? I’m also against communism as it inevitably ends in poor people being equally oppressed(no individual rights) with a few rich people up at the top. Then there’s the whole bait and switch Communists usually use. Reel people in with talk of property redistribution, only for it to be seized back by the state where they will spend their lives as cogs the same as they would under private land owners during imperialist times. Except there would be even less free thought, free practice of religion. You could lose your job, your children couldn’t go to higher education, or worse…you could be killed for your dissent as millions were. They would sterilize you, or force an abortion, shame you into abandoning your infant to starve to death in a marketplace because under communism, there are only so many resources.
 
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@StudentMI, I usually like your posts but on this I must disagree with you.

Please read Divini Redemptoris by Pope Pius XI. It is the definitive encyclical on communism and answers the false theory about the early Church being communistic.

Also I highly recommend all the books of Theresa Marie Moreau, particularly An Unbelievable Life. Just google her name
(Theresa Marie Moreau) and her website should pop up. She has written extensively on communism in China and won the Pulitzer Prize for her works.
 
You realize many were killed by capitalist regimes as well, right? Sterilization happened in the capitalist United States. Et cetera.
 
That happened because of Eugenic social movement. Eugenists were by and large progressive socialists such as Margaret Sanger and Andrew Carnegie. That had nothing to do with capitalism.
 
StudentMI said:
I do find it odd that Christians are so prone to deny the communistic nature of early Christianity. So be it.
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StudentMI said:
Capitalism causes death and misery. Deal with it.
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StudentMI said:
You realize many were killed by capitalist regimes as well, right? Sterilization happened in the capitalist United States. Et cetera.
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I don’t want to become an apologist for any kingdom or fallible system of this world.

But re: capitalism versus communism, the scope and type of harms is systematically different, could we agree on that?

And re: early Christianity, it’s fundamentally different for Christians to voluntarily ‘opt-in’ to Book-of-Acts style property sharing (what remained in the Church as monks and nuns voluntarily opting in to monasteries and convents), versus a government gun forcing non-volunteers of every religion (and non-religion) to surrender their property, right?

The key difference to me seems that voluntary communism (i.e. monasteries) are great. But involuntary communism is a violation of human rights.

In the Church, even with our monasteries, it’s forbidden for even a parent to pressure their child into entering a monastery. Each child must choose for themselves. And of those who do choose monastic life, enthusiastic and devoted volunteers that they are, many cannot continue in it and choose to leave, either before or even after vows.

The poverty and obedience of communism are hard enough to bear for devoted religious volunteers. Attempting to impose the poverty and obedience of communism across an entire population of coerced non-volunteers… it seems tragically natural how communism has unfolded the way it has, every single time it’s been tried.

Again, I’m not trying to be an apologist for or against any merely worldly system here. And I’m all for experimenting with new things (eg exploring UBI to see what it’s effects are; considering alternative systems like Distributism).

But in the meantime I do think that a politically free-press marketplace system – albeit with reasonable regulations, and sure, personally I’m happy with some redistribution through taxes, though the money has to be applied carefully to avoid creating new problems – seems like the least-worst system so far tried. In terms of the concrete results for the masses of non-volunteers born into it. And even including the worst abuses that have occurred in free market societies. They just don’t seem to stack up comparably against the worst abuses that have occurred under communistic societies.
 
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Rozellelily said:
But then on the negative those freedoms can become too broad as we see now with people just criticizing everything, calling the Governments and the Pope all sorts of swear words or even worse derogatory things etc.
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So what should happen to people when they promote foolish ideas? Imprisonment? “Re-education?” Execution? Forced work detail?

What happens in the U.S. is that these people become “stars” for a while, and everyone is listening to them, talking about them, buying their promotional products, wearing a t-shirt or a cap with their logo or trademark or name—and then they fade from public attention when the next idea-monger comes along.

Of course, there is always a small group of people who do not forget, and who continue to promote the ideas of their “dream king” to whoever will listen, and sometimes get enough education and credential to start teaching in schools and universities and promote the ideas to vulnerable young minds with little experience of life and only a cursory knowledge of world history and economics. Sometimes the ideas are disseminated among the poor, the unemployed, the immigrants, and other groups that have not been able to grab hold of a piece of the American Pie.

But almost always, the ideas that are in conflict with democracy and FREEDOM fade as people do find their way in America and realize the truth and beauty of being in charge of their own personal destiny.

To anyone who believes in communism, I suggest a walking tour of the United States of America. Talk to our people, live with them, work alongside them, worship with them.
 
Can China be actually called communist any more?

It’s a totalitarian government, but there is a great wealth disparity especially among rural communities.

What communist governments exist currently?

I believe currently just Cuba officially and China.

Albania is no longer communist.
 
Y Venezuela.

ETA: and then I thought of North Korea and decided to look it up. They don’t include Venezuela, but do include Laos and VietNam, in addition to the others already mentioned.
 
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It depends on which market societies we’re talking about as far as living conditions go. Some have been repressive with massive poverty, others (mostly with state intervention) have become great places to live.

Actually existing capitalism, however, has such a mixed record I prefer to abandon the term entirely to the dustbin of history, especially considering the massive state subsidies that take place under it. I prefer to use the term free markets, and I am for such.
 
It probably depends on the ruler of the party good or bad.

How would a new communist country choose their leaders?
 
Actually Venezuela is an oligarchy, to what I understand.

I forgot North Korea. But North Korea seems to be run like a corrupt monarchical dictatorship.
 
StudentMI said:
I defer to your experience on the day to day.

As for the theory, there have been communists who have made remarkable insights into politics and economics, along with much that was wrong. Just like pro-market economists and thinkers.

Ultimately, the obsessive focus on communism and socialism in the west, especially the United States, has been in my opinion for the worst. Due to the idea of a monolithic world communist conspiracy many died, alliances that could have been forged were lost, etc.

I do find it odd that Christians are so prone to deny the communistic nature of early Christianity. So be it.
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Seems to be a good article.
 
Positive? Most communistic country have cured obesity.


You may watch this and tell me where you think the USA sits on the 0-100 scale?

If VP-elect Harris gets her way we will be at 100.
 
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Odilon said:
We are not a “democracy” anyway, we are a constitutional republic and there is quite a difference between the two.
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I am not from America. There are members on CAF who are not living in USA.
 
I don’t think North Korea can be compared to most countries. It is pure dictatorship.

But even there of all places I see a positive in that North Korean people are still very much traditional views towards genders and have been unaffected by (extreme type) feminism and transgender ideology etc.
I am not suggesting that Kimmie’s government is positive haha, just there is is positives in North Korean people society.
 
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