Originally posted by: drag
Communism, socialism.. whatever.
My understanding that the original concept of Communism started off as a politically charged philospohy.
Every once of a while you have a revolution. Then a another and another thurough out history. Each revolution reduces the ruling class to rubble, and puts a new one in it's place until those rulers corrupt and are again usuped. Each time this happens, the rulers become poorer and the peasents become richer. So eventually you may reach a state of being were the the rulers are esentually the peasents and everybody groups together with no money or strife and every one is equal. This is a communist state. The ideal communist state. No rulers no nothing, just groups of people working towards equality.
Which is of course a impossiblity or at least attain this purity within a hundred thousand years at the rate things were going in the late 19 century and early 20 century.
So what do you do? The rulers were the problem or so it seemed, they had plenty and the people had nothing. So you have a revolution, but after that you have anarchy and caos. So you create a govermental class based on "servents" of the state and the will force a ideal communist state. The way the government is orginized is a socialism.
This is of course complete rubbish but that's what people were told was happening during the russian resolution and the dissolvement of the weak democratic state that was put up imediately afterwards. What was realy going on was a political group saw a opertunity to destroy a weak and corrupt empire and put themselves in place. They just told people what they wanted to hear and after they gained control of the country and military they took the weapons away from the people. As people began figuring out what was happening Stalin and freinds simply killed off entire populations of people to stay in control. After that they kept control of the population by being completely unpredicatable and ruthless and kept them in a state of fear so hardcore that noone dare appose them. This lasted thru the cold war. If you pointed out a flaw in the government or current state of affairs you could be rewarded as a genius and give a nice house and a fat pension or a appointment in the communist party. However if someone else did the same thing the next day they could be arrested and executed as a enemy of the state. That person, his freinds and family could be executed or sent of to siberia. Completely random. Everyone was a potential spy or turn-coat so people couldn't organize or figure out what was happening.
This happens in every communist state, because communism is a lie and this is just the sort of thing that happens when you let other people control you. Cuba, China, Vietnam, Russia, East Germany, Korea, Cambodia. It all happened the only difference was the scale and brutality of what happened.
This is why people were freaking out about communism for the past 50 years.
In Europe the practice a different form of Socialism called Democratic Socialism. They believe that they can vote and tell highly educated leaders what they want and the leaders will figure out the best ways to go about accomplishing this fact. If you don't want poor, you create welfare. If you like the enviroment you make it illigal to work. If you want more money you raise taxes and have the government give it to you.
In America it was oringinally designed to have a crippled government and let people figure out how best to live there lives. Instead of trying to get the government to accomplish things they wanted you have to figure out things on your own and trust in God. If you want less poor you give to charities. If you care about the enviroment you have the cities and states create parks and you go plant trees or do recycaling and try to convince others. If you want more money you go and work for it. If you want a job you go find one. etc etc.
Socialism is based opon the notion that the average person is kinda of a peasent, sort of uneducated surf. If left to there own devices you generally get unhealthy, lazy and just generally selfish. People who strive to make money and establish businesses are generally doing it just because they want more then most everybody else. So you need a strong government to keep things in line and watch out for the common good.
I mine opinion I trust most everybody else. I know there a few jerks and such, but you just have to watch out for youself and other people around you. It's important to be educated so that you make proper decisions and don't waste your efforts.
The results stand out for themselves in my mind. Americans are hard working people, we give out more in money in charity around the world then anybody else. For instance North korea, which you don't hear about, we give billions of dollars every year in food aid to that country. Even though their goverment sh*ts on us every chance they get, but the people are more important then anywere else. Our creativity leads to more technological break throughs then anywere else (exept per capita japan is more technologically advanced), drugs we create are making people live longer and curing many deseases. Our ecomony is more active and provides more opurtunities then anywere else, and there is much more chance for personal advancement.
Of course people think that this is greed and the average american is a kind of stupid pig or something. But to me this is just success. But it's going away now. Socialism is a very sexy idea and seems like a easy way out. It seems easy just to FORCE change and decide for others what is better. So eventually we will end up like Europe with a entrentched elite.
I think that people have a hard enough time deciding what's best for themselves. The idea that putting a small group of human beings in charge of a population is a error and fraught with danger. Nobody is that smart to be successfull in their own lives and then go out and tell millions of other people what they should do with their time and money.
People who say its all about greed and money are full of it. Money is just a reflection of time spent in labor. This time is my life and I should be the one to decide what's best for me. I don't like other people telling me what I should do with my time and who deserves my help. It's up to me to be the judge of my own life. I am not going to go around telling people what to do and I expect the same respect from others. I believe that people are generally good and will go out their way to help others. etc etc etc.
All this has severe religous and philosophical overtones and people get very freaky about it. In one thought proccess, we are all created spiritual creatures are a equal. We have been put on this earth for a purpose. In the other camp, all this is god-stuff is BS, a trick. The only people worth paying attention to are the government and you must make everyone equal. You replace one of the "people's opiate" (religon) with another. (a brave new future of equality thru a social elite forcing everyone to be equal).
Hehe. I guess I got of subject there for a while. But the definitions of communism and socialism have been twisted over time and are difficult to discuss.
