How Socialism Works (not for the faint hearted)

Generali

lvader wrote: »

Not needed, when everyone has the same level of existence and you don't know any better why would you get upset about it? That is communism in a nutshell.

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Does anyone really dispute the horrors of North Korea ?

Even North Korea doesn't describe itself as communist these days.

It's pretty hard to think of another hereditary dictatorship to compare it with, it probably is close to Pol Pot's regime in many ways and if you had to label it you could equally describe it as Fascism as Communism, but then the outcome of those 2 extremes are predictably dire.

I'm not really sure if you actually find it "interesting", or prefer just to use desperate tragedies to score juvenile debating points over anyone who doesn't subscribe to laissez-faire capitalism and a state limited to enforcing property rights.

I know this is a forum for debate and all sorts of nonsense gets posted by all posters, but if you are really proud of starting this one then feel free to keep digging, digger.

Pretty harsh words there.

Pol Pot, DRK, Stalin and Mao all did this stuff. Thatcher and Reagan didn't.

Bantex_2

Hitler called himself a socialist. Doesn't mean he was though.

Voyager2002

Generali wrote: »

Pretty harsh words there.

Pol Pot, DRK, Stalin and Mao all did this stuff. Thatcher and Reagan didn't.

Thatcher and Reagan worked through intermediaries.The numbers of their victims are probably considerably lower than those of Stalin, Mao and so forth (although Reagan's brilliant decision to create what we now call Al Qaida bumps up the total a fair amount), but numbers alone fail to catch the qualitative horror of crime on such a scale.

Generali

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Thatcher and Reagan worked through intermediaries.The numbers of their victims are probably considerably lower than those of Stalin, Mao and so forth (although Reagan's brilliant decision to create what we now call Al Qaida bumps up the total a fair amount), but numbers alone fail to catch the qualitative horror of crime on such a scale.

Well Stalin and Mao managed to starve well in excess of 50,000,000 between them during their collectivisation policies (a necessary part of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat). That alone, before the camps and the Gulags, manages to put any client state of the West in the shade to a quite horrific extent.

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Most people calling themselves socialists or "a bit lefty" would just like the world to be a bit fairer and less selfish. To imply that such a desire equates you with batsh!t-bonkers tinpot dictatorships like N Korea is really quite silly.

tomterm8

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

North Korea ... if you had to label it you could equally describe it as Fascism as Communism, but then the outcome of those 2 extremes are predictably dire.

It's neither a Fascist or Communist state, but is actually one of the more ancient forms of state: it is a tyranny in the same sense that Aristotle used it.

Generali

tomterm8 wrote: »

It's neither a Fascist or Communist state, but is actually one of the more ancient forms of state: it is a tyranny in the same sense that Aristotle used it.

I find it curious that Communism keeps on just creating these tyrants, all these exceptions. And on top of that, apparently normal, well educated people keep wanting to excuse them as atypical when the evidence shows that the DRK is behaving precisely to type.

tomterm8

Generali wrote: »

I find it curious that Communism keeps on just creating these tyrants, all these exceptions. And on top of that, apparently normal, well educated people keep wanting to excuse them as atypical when the evidence shows that the DRK is behaving precisely to type.

I don't. I think tyranny is a natural outcome of communism. Actually, it's probably the most benign outcome of a successful communist revolution.

If you go back to Aristotle there are two processes he described for making a tyranny and one of them sounds very like a communist revolution.

In practical terms most communist states are worse than most classical tyrannies. For example, soviet Russia and Communist China killed a heck of a lot of people following classic communist policies which are bat !!!! insane.

It's easier to live in a Tyranny than a communist state, that's for sure.

MS1950

Generali wrote: »

I find it curious that Communism keeps on just creating these tyrants, all these exceptions. And on top of that, apparently normal, well educated people keep wanting to excuse them as atypical when the evidence shows that the DRK is behaving precisely to type.

I realise Generali that you possibly have a bit of time on your hands and are probably just being provocative and engaging in what you regard as a bit of ‘fun’ (something which often seems to be the main purpose of this particular sub-forum).

However, why is it that you regard the totalitarian hereditary monarchy in North Korea as typical of ‘How Socialism Works’ but not China?

According to this randomly selected article (courtesy of Google):

“More than 30 years since beginning economic reform, China’s fundamental economic institutions today are dramatically different than the system of central planning operating during the Mao era. But despite sweeping reforms, government control over China’s economy remains pervasive, including through direct ownership of virtually all of the formal financial system and much of the economy’s productive assets”

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/report/2012/02/15/11069/chinese-state-owned-and-state-controlled-enterprises/

Personally I don’t think that either can sensibly be called ‘socialist’ (or communist – although both are one party states ruled by nominal ‘communist’ parties?) – anymore than I think that the Catholic church during the inquisition (or indeed the modern church) practices the published teachings of the Galilean prophet that it is supposedly based on – but it is just as valid to claim China is ‘socialist’ as it is North Korea.

As for your claims that:

“Hayek correctly predicted that in all cases, socialism is the Road to Serfdom”,

no sensible or responsible historian ‘predicts in all cases’ – as Zhou Enlai may have said "It is too early to say".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/asia_pac/02/china_party_congress/china_ruling_party/key_people_events/html/zhou_enlai.stm

Generali

Hayek was a philosopher not an historian.