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JimG
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Abolishing capital seems to me to be a guarantee of poverty.
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Regular_Atheist
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According to economists this might be the case, but capital in this case refers to self-valorizing exchange value, or the cycle whereby wage labour produces new value imbued in commodities which are then exchanged for a profit which is accumulated, with some of this accumulated value being used to continue the process again. It’s a social relation, one that characterises our present society. The abolition of capital entails the abolition of wage labour and commodity production, not the abolition of all productive objects. All labour will be social labour and the product of labour will be a social product, rather than being appropriated individually and exchanged.
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Brendan_64
Guest
So nothing morally wrong with the deaths of millions of innocent people, except that perhaps these deaths may have been unnecessary? Communism does not have to justify its actions in terms of morality? Innocent lives are of no real consequence and there is no moral issue with killing millions of them? So I guess that’s Communism for you? Very nice.I’m not really interested in making moralistic judgements about the communist movement. Communism doesn’t need to justify itself on universal principles of justice or morality - the proletarian movement is egotistical, and revolts to free itself from capital. However I don’t believe such deaths would be necessary to abolish capital, and often historically the acts of terror and party dictatorship that are associated with communism have been used against the communist movement.
If innocent people’s don’t actually matter that much (to the point that killing millions of them isn’t immoral, even if it may have been unnecessary) then who is Communism for? Certainly not for people whose lives can be snuffed out with no real moral issue involved.
Communism devalues humanity to the point where millions of innocent lives can be snuffed out with it being viewed as morally wrong. If you would like to live under a system like that then good luck to you, just don’t complain if they come for members of your family.
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stinkcat_14
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So, if we abolish capital, will anyone have an incentive to work?According to economists this might be the case, but capital in this case refers to self-valorizing exchange value, or the cycle whereby wage labour produces new value imbued in commodities which are then exchanged for a profit which is accumulated, with some of this accumulated value being used to continue the process again. It’s a social relation, one that characterises our present society. The abolition of capital entails the abolition of wage labour and commodity production, not the abolition of all productive objects. All labour will be social labour and the product of labour will be a social product, rather than being appropriated individually and exchanged.
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Regular_Atheist
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Your question is already a loaded one - it assumes that communism has already killed millions. What is communism? Communism is the real movement of proletarians that works towards the abolition of capital. During the Russian Revolution this was the movement of industrial and agricultural workers and soldiers who ceased their workplaces, formed factory committees and soldiers’ committees, and began the transformation of the conditions of life to something new. The party dictatorship and terror was ultimately employed as a weapon against this movement, crushing it and securing the existence of capital in the USSR.So nothing morally wrong with the deaths of millions of innocent people, except that perhaps these deaths may have been unnecessary? Communism does not have to justify its actions in terms of morality? Innocent lives are of no real consequence and there is no moral issue with killing millions of them? So I guess that’s Communism for you? Very nice.
Communism does not appeal to any universal morality because it is not an economic or political ideal to be implemented, but the striving for a truly human society by those most dispossessed by capital. It is an entirely egotistical movement. Communism is not a revolt for the sake of justice, right or God, but a revolt for the individual and humanity, for the creation of a truly human society based on the free and direct association of producers.
Why does anyone revolt? For themselves, because they want to. They revolt against the miserable conditions of their existence. Communism is the striving for conscious control over the individual’s life - a world where all that exists is individual human beings consciously shapely their relation with each other, where no externalities like the economy, state, or religion can deny them that control.If innocent people’s don’t actually matter that much (to the point that killing millions of them isn’t immoral, even if it may have been unnecessary) then who is Communism for?
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Brendan_64
Guest
Communism is a system devoid of any meaningful sense of morality. Communism has resulted in the deaths of millions under Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot… Is this really all that surprising with an ideology where there is no sense of morality? An ideology where individuals don’t matter and have no inherent rights as a result of their humanity.
I find it interesting when Communists claim that Communism hasn’t been done properly yet, while at the same time downplay the horrors and mass slaughter of innocents inflicted on humanity that has resulted from Communist revolutions (that they would presumably argue went wrong after a while).
Is that not a bit like claiming that Nazism (another amoral system where the individual has no inherent rights) has never been implemented properly, while at the same time failing to condemn the holocaust?
I find it interesting when Communists claim that Communism hasn’t been done properly yet, while at the same time downplay the horrors and mass slaughter of innocents inflicted on humanity that has resulted from Communist revolutions (that they would presumably argue went wrong after a while).
Is that not a bit like claiming that Nazism (another amoral system where the individual has no inherent rights) has never been implemented properly, while at the same time failing to condemn the holocaust?
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AlNg
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You left out Adolf Hitler whose actions caused the deaths of 80 million people in WWII. Of course Hitler was a baptized Christian who opposed communism. Some sources say he was raised as a Catholic. But his actions did not reflect the teachings of the Catholic Church. Similarly, it has been argued that the actions of Pol Pot did not reflect what communism is about.Communism has resulted in the deaths of millions under Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Pol Pot…
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SuperLuigi
Guest
They say that all of the time. They never accept responsibility (big surprise) for the failings of communism.
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Brendan_64
Guest
Hitler’s ideology resulted in the evil slaughter of millions of innocent people. And he also persecuted Catholic priests, sending them to Auschwitz. Nazism was evil, like Communism.
But while, quite rightly, Nazism is condemned as an evil ideology, there seems to be silence from certain parts of the left regarding Communism, despite the fact that many more innocent people have been killed under Communist regimes than even under Hitler. Why is that?
But while, quite rightly, Nazism is condemned as an evil ideology, there seems to be silence from certain parts of the left regarding Communism, despite the fact that many more innocent people have been killed under Communist regimes than even under Hitler. Why is that?
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DarkLight
Guest
One thing I’ve been thinking with this thread:
Wanting to create a utopia isn’t a bad desire. I think any good person will want a society that is better for everyone in it. We ought always to take note of the problems in our own society and how it could be made better.
The dream involved in communism is to create a system where someone’s value isn’t primarily in how much money they can come up with, and where rich people can’t use their money to try to take advantage of poor people. Lots of people notice that plenty of people do good work and don’t get rewarded very well for it (most teachers come to mind). Lots of people try hard and never get anywhere, and a lot of them are in very necessary jobs. That is definitely not a good feature of society.
Do I think communism is a good idea, or that it will work? No. I think at the end of the day it’s too hard to get around human nature. Most people won’t actually work for the good of everyone, especially in a large society (it has I think somewhat more success in small groups). And it makes it too easy for one person to put themselves in charge - because of how centralized everything is, it’s easy for one person to grab a LOT of power, especially if any sort of post-revolutionary paranoia is involved. Unfortunately the sorts of people who are good at grabbing a lot of power tend to be the sorts of people that you really don’t want to have it. (Example: I don’t think the primary problem with Stalin was him being a communist, but him being power-hungry, amoral, and completely paranoid.)
But I don’t think people who believe in it actually intend that sort of evil, or even intend to devalue human life. I suspect said devaluation has to do with personal attitudes and can happen in any economic system.
Wanting to create a utopia isn’t a bad desire. I think any good person will want a society that is better for everyone in it. We ought always to take note of the problems in our own society and how it could be made better.
The dream involved in communism is to create a system where someone’s value isn’t primarily in how much money they can come up with, and where rich people can’t use their money to try to take advantage of poor people. Lots of people notice that plenty of people do good work and don’t get rewarded very well for it (most teachers come to mind). Lots of people try hard and never get anywhere, and a lot of them are in very necessary jobs. That is definitely not a good feature of society.
Do I think communism is a good idea, or that it will work? No. I think at the end of the day it’s too hard to get around human nature. Most people won’t actually work for the good of everyone, especially in a large society (it has I think somewhat more success in small groups). And it makes it too easy for one person to put themselves in charge - because of how centralized everything is, it’s easy for one person to grab a LOT of power, especially if any sort of post-revolutionary paranoia is involved. Unfortunately the sorts of people who are good at grabbing a lot of power tend to be the sorts of people that you really don’t want to have it. (Example: I don’t think the primary problem with Stalin was him being a communist, but him being power-hungry, amoral, and completely paranoid.)
But I don’t think people who believe in it actually intend that sort of evil, or even intend to devalue human life. I suspect said devaluation has to do with personal attitudes and can happen in any economic system.
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MonteRCMS
Guest
In addition to pure materialism, Communism is also MILITANT Atheism.
So, you end up with a Double Whammy.
You get the government running everything.
Government Bureaucrats with Ginormous Pensions.
It would be Planned Parenthood running the economy and our foreign policy.
Communism is single-issue politics … militant atheism … over everything.
So, you end up with a Double Whammy.
You get the government running everything.
Government Bureaucrats with Ginormous Pensions.
It would be Planned Parenthood running the economy and our foreign policy.
Communism is single-issue politics … militant atheism … over everything.
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Regular_Atheist
Guest
Who says that beside anti-communists constructing a strawman? Honestly the whole idea of “doing” or “implementing” communism relies on an insane understanding of history - revolutions don’t occur because people decide to implement certain economic or political models. The Russian Revolution was a mass revolution, that emerged from the unique political and economic conditions of the Russian Empire. The USSR was a product of these circumstances, not of bad ideas being implemented.I find it interesting when Communists claim that Communism hasn’t been done properly yet, while at the same time downplay the horrors and mass slaughter of innocents inflicted on humanity that has resulted from Communist revolutions (that they would presumably argue went wrong after a while).
The fact is that the process the USSR went through in the 1920s and 1930s was similar to that of the process that occurred in many Western European countries in the early days of capitalism. It was a process of mass accumulation of capital - of creating an industrial working class, bringing agriculture into market relations, and abolishing the peasantry to create a class of agricultural wage labourers. It was similar because it was a capitalist process, the process of the transition to capitalism. The fact is that the economies of the USSR and western democracies were effectively the same, fundamentally based on the same process of the accumulation of capital from exploited wage labour.
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