Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by pErvinalia » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:50 pm

@42... The reason I use the expression "freedum" is to parody the naivety that ideological liberals display. I've elucidated to you enough times before that I apply as a general rule that more freedom is better than less freedom. But pragmatics, NOT ideology, have to guide where the line is draw. That's actually a nuanced argument, despite your ironic claim about black and white thinking.
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Sean Hayden » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:51 pm

If you don't watch TV and use adblockers online then the advertising you do see is a lot easier to deal with. These days I have to go looking for ads of the things I'm interested in.

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by pErvinalia » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:53 pm

Yeah. I pretty much only watch the public broadcasters here. So that means the ABC (which has zero ads) and SBS (which has only SBS program and promotional ads). In any case, I've long ago developed the ability to totally switch off in ads. I stare at the tv but hear nothing and see nothing. Unless it is really out there and it catches my attention.
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Forty Two » Tue Apr 17, 2018 4:54 pm

Hermit wrote:
Forty Two wrote:
Hermit wrote:
Forty Two wrote:There is nothing "excessive or rapacious" in desire for pecuniary gain resulting from employment of capital in a transaction.
When someone who, with the sweat of his brow saves enough money to put down as a deposit for a home, then spends years paying it off and eventually sells it at a presumably much higher market value when the children have flown the coop and it is time to downsize, that person is making a profit - from his/her own labour. No greed involved because there is no exploitation involved. We're not talking about that.
Profiting off the sale of land, whether one year down the road, or 20-30 years down the road, is not profit from labor.
Ultimately, it is. Your own or that of others. I am pretty sure that no enterprise would bother employing anyone if that were not the case.
The increase in value of land is passive income. You could put as much work into it as you want, but it may go up $0, it may go down in value, it may go up.
Hermit wrote:
Forty Two wrote:
Hermit wrote:What we're talking about is when Apple Corp creams off 20 to 25% of the value its workers create and directs it into the pockets of its shareholders, which, in the words of one Apple executive "requires factories that seem harsh by American standards", profit meets greed.
In this sense, when there is not a level playing field among nations, there is a good reason to saddle the offending country, like China, with hefty tariffs so that the human cost is combatted. The libertarian might say that the tariffs should be 0 so that the low cost/low reg country like China could import in goods to the US, and then eventually the wages and benefits in China will go up and even out with the US (which will go down, quite possibly).

What are you referring to with Apple? Net profit? What's your basis for determining what is too much and what is reasonable net profit. I would agree, however, that there is a place for regulation of factories, and there should at least be a level enough playing field that countries cannot have 0 minimum wage compared to $8 an hour or more, and low cost facilities due to low or no regulation on safety and benefits etc. I don't think that's a function of the greed of a particular net profit number -- that's a function of a place like China not taking care of its workers, which is typical of a communism-based country. Working conditions in communist countries have for the last 100 years been generally worse than that found in capitalist countries.
There is no need to gish-gallop. I was perfectly clear. When a corporation keeps handing its shareholders 20 to 25% of total revenue while keeping its employees in harsh conditions, greed and profit are combined. Apple Corp is of course not the only enterprise to do that. Most of the shoes and other garments are made like that. Of course the big companies try to evade responsibility via subcontracting, but in my opinion it makes them even more callous.
Apple gives out less in dividends than it's large cap competitors. I am not sure what you're complaining about here. It doesn't give 20 to 25% of total revenue to shareholders - it gives dividents of like 25% of free cash flow, which is operating cash flow minus expenditures. It's the cash left over after the company maintains its asset base and expansion. Apple averages about 25% of "earnings" as dividend to shareholders, but not revenue (revenue is the top line, earnings is the bottom).
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by DRSB » Thu Apr 19, 2018 8:26 pm

Konstantin Simun, 1995

The definition of communism in USSR was electrification and soviet state organisation. One thing they deserve credit for was the mass alphabetization of the population.
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:52 am

That guy reminds me of Grendel, for some reason..
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by PsychoSerenity » Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:54 am

Yanis Varoufakis: Marx predicted our present crisis – and points the way out

The Communist Manifesto foresaw the predatory and polarised global capitalism of the 21st century. But Marx and Engels also showed us that we have the power to create a better world. 
Just putting this here to read later. :coffee:

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:10 am

Sean Hayden wrote:
So, given that, do you see greed as something inherent to capitalism, or, as 42 suggests, it is purely a matter of economics and self interest?
It makes more sense to me to talk about people being greedy. I think I can understand the usefulness of your description, but I'm sure it doesn't describe reality. :hehe:

Lately my problem with capitalism, and the reason I said the government should take over Amazon, is the vast amount of labor and other resources that get consumed making a few people very rich. From a certain vantage point it looks like all the wealth in the country is being channeled to just a few. But it's a massive undertaking to pull that apart and make sense of it. :dunno:
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:12 am

JimC wrote:Unchecked capitalism certainly, and inevitably, heads towards a massive inequality of wealth, which is self maintaining in political systems like the US, because extreme wealth generates the power to unfairly influence government decision-making.
It's almost as if society has conjured up gigantic means of production and of exchange, and in so doing has become like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Scot Dutchy » Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:47 am

This is capitalism:



Thanks for the idea Brian.
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Brian Peacock » Fri Apr 20, 2018 9:24 am

Thank Marx. :D
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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Forty Two » Fri Apr 20, 2018 12:51 pm

PsychoSerenity wrote:
Yanis Varoufakis: Marx predicted our present crisis – and points the way out

The Communist Manifesto foresaw the predatory and polarised global capitalism of the 21st century. But Marx and Engels also showed us that we have the power to create a better world. 
Just putting this here to read later. :coffee:
As a work of political literature, the manifesto remains unsurpassed. Its most infamous lines, including the opening one (“A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism”), have a Shakespearean quality. Like Hamlet confronted by the ghost of his slain father, the reader is compelled to wonder: “Should I conform to the prevailing order, suffering the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune bestowed upon me by history’s irresistible forces? Or should I join these forces, taking up arms against the status quo and, by opposing it, usher in a brave new world?”
Comparing the rteader's decision whether to accept and aid communism to Hamlet's decision of whether to commit suicide. LOL. Should I suffer the slings and arrows of mid 1800s England? Or should die... to sleep.... no more - and by a sleep to SAY we end the heartaches of 1000 natural shocks that flesh is heir to... communism, like death, is devoutly to be wished! To die - to sleep - perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub! For in that sleep of death (communism) what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil? There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life (the mid 1800s world) -- for who would bear all the whips and scorns, the oppressor's wrongs, the proud man's contumely, the insolence of office, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy makes when he himself (the reader) might his quietus make with a bare bodkin (he can end all the troubles by killing himself (helping to usher in communism).

Communism, by this analogy is the undiscovered country from whose borne no traveler returns - such that we'd rather bear the ills we have than fly to others we know not of.

Indeed - for Marx himself did not tell us what dreams might come when we have shuffled off that capitalist coil.....

Anyway, I read through the entire article, and two things were missing: (a) any reference in the Communist Manifesto that predicts the present day "predatory" and "polarized" global capitalism, and (b) any citation to Marx and Engels showing us how their ideas would make a "better world." Maybe that's the editor's fucking up the message of the article, but -- really -- the article does not deliver what the headline and summary suggest.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by DRSB » Fri Apr 20, 2018 5:16 pm

From a friend's FB-post:
On Saturday the 14 at 9am being a good boy that I am and a disciplined and curious conference goer I went to a panel on Soviet history titled: From Liberation to Tyranny: The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution, which among the speakers was featuring the famous early Soviet history revisionist historian Sheila Fitzpatrick. She off course was the main attraction that loored me to the panel.

The rest of the panel consisted of: Peter Whitewood (York St. John U.), Lara Douds (U. of York), James Harris (U. of Leeds).

And what I was told was frankly flabbergasting:

The Bolsheviks had no authoritarianism in their DNA. The meant good. They were pro-democratic. They meant to create a real democratic society. But from the start they faced with overwhelming difficulties, and as many revolutionaries in history they did not know how to handle such. Among their problems was: lack of administrative experience, borrowing from outdated and paternalistic systems that were in place before they came to power, lack of experienced and even educated managerial cadre to draw functionaries from, hostile powers surrounding their state and threatening it with war, especially Poland, and Romania, with shadow of France behind it. And off course insulting to Stalin and needlessly critical smarty-pants Trotsky who endlessly criticized party without offering much good in terms of advise. And then in historiography Trotsky's insultingly critical account became the Bible of historians who learned from him to look down at Stalin's and his supporters efforts.

In the end poor Bolsheviks had nothing better to do as to slide deeper and deeper into authoritarianism...

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by Forty Two » Mon Apr 23, 2018 11:41 pm

Image
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar

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Re: Why Isn't Communism Viewed As Negatively as Nazism?

Post by laklak » Tue Apr 24, 2018 1:14 am

Nazis had much better uniforms, Soviets had really big statues of sturdy women.
Yeah well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

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