Comment by adamtaylor_13
3 hours ago
You have to somehow separate the horrible evils that have been inflicted on the world by Communism before you can get people to consider words closely associated with it.
Being anti-communism is good not only for the individual's health but for their society as a whole.
The problem, generally, with this view point is that it attributes all of a societies ills to Communism and none of (or few of) societies ills to Capitalism.
For example, do you believe the Capitalist system has nothing to do with the eagerness of the United States to drop bombs throughout the world for the past 100 years? Personally I see these actions as unnecessary and evil but pushed to continue by the people who stand to gain the most wealth and influence from them.
What specific horrible evils do you mean? And how do you attribute them to, specifically, organizing an economy along communistic lines?
I ask because if we can take a country with a communist economy, or striving for one, and blame all its evils on communism itself, I have a few things I'd like to point out as being the horrors of capitalism:
1. Atlantic slave trade - millions dead (many on the ships), millions enslaved
2. Settler colonialism and indigenous genocide - British empire, all over the world
3. Congo Free State, Leopold II - 1 to 5 million dead via colonial extraction regime
4. British India famines - 3 million dead
5. Irish Famine - 1 million dead
6. Opium wars - directly caused by British using the military to defend market access. 100k dead, devastating to Qing China for a century
7. Indonesian anti-communist massacres - 500k-1mil alleged "communists" killed after the USA, UK, and Australian intelligence agencies propagandized against them
The specific evil in my mind was the Great Leap Forward, but there are dozens we could draw from history.
And I attribute them to communism because that's literally how history attributes them, though obviously pro-Communism thinkers would disagree.
Dozens means over 24 or more. Could you also provide a non-exhaustive list of such ills to be compared against the ones mentioned above?
> What specific horrible evils do you mean?
The 1956 student massacres in Hungary, where my grandma was almost killed. The Holodomor, the various "Russianization" campaigns, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, The Great Leap Forward, etc.
It sounds like Communism, Capitalism, and Fascism are all very bad, then. Maybe we can try something else? Do you have any ideas?
A) Well, it's you vs. the Pope and I!
B) Fine, drop communism altogether -- it's evil and disgusting and bit my finger and should never be tried again. Can we work on a society where the means of production are owned by groups of laborers?
A lot of the world is a free-market and labors can absolutely own the means of production. Is there some government regulation in particular that you think is preventing this?
Re: B my guess is probably not (human nature and all that), but I'm open to ideas! I just think failed experiments where tens of millions died are probably not ones where we just flippantly "try again".