I think that you have a different definition of communism and socialim than almost everyone else...
My definition of Communism and Socialism is the same as Communists and Socialists. If you believe China and North Korea are Communist states than not only have you bought into their own propagandized bullshit, but you've also bought into the West's propagandized bullshit.
And you said yourself that Cuba was communist and that's why it's so much better than America, but then just now you said that it's not actually communist...
I said Cuba was socialist (or should have). Even then, it is only partially militant-socialist, with some capitalist injections. Communism, by its very definition, is the system in which all states and governments have been abolished. Since China and North Korea still exist, and haven't abolished their state authorities completely, then by that simple definition they aren't Communist.
You're trying to convince us that communism is based on solid economic principles, but then you don't tell us what they are and instead push a bunch of links in our face and try to get us to on our own figure out what those economic principles are.
I've explained as best I can, but I am not a scholar, a philosopher or an economist. I
think I've explained enough about communist economics to give you an
idea.
As is communism itself, because although it may be "based on solid economic principles," the way it is argued for is that capitalist is greedy and evil, which is not that is based on anything except emotion.
Using the words "greedy and evil" are merely emotional ways to explain capitalism and its effects and contradictions -- the words are not the scientific basis of communism.
And you keep saying that the economic principles that capitalism is currently thriving on are flawed, without explaining exactly how.
I have already explained how. Are you even reading my posts? I'm starting to think maybe you stopped after the first few.
If it's so flawed and communism is based on such solid economic principles then why are there no (according to your definition) communist countries?
This too I have already explained which drives home the belief that you aren't even reading my posts. Read my posts, then join the discussion.
Scandinavia is leaning towards Socialism much more then say USA and Britan.
Leaning towards the general direction of socialism and being socialist are two entirely different concepts. Scandinavian "socialism" is nothing more than centrist liberalism. I'm sure they have some socialist aspects pock-marking their society but they are certainly not socialist in any sense of the word.
think SpikedHelmet would probably say that the "Communism" practised in these countries is actually Stalinism, which is the dictatorship/state capitalism/tyrannical oppression shindig that we use the word Communism for.
Not even. I view the degredation of the Soviet Union, China and North Korea as state capitalist -- by which I mean that after their respective revolutions, they simply replaced bourgeois domination of capital with government domination of capital -- they did not abolish capital at all, or the conditions by which one person or group manipulated and exploits another person or group in order to generate capital. And as the bourgeois and fuedalists were simply replaced by the state's own beauraucratic engine, hence I use "state capitalist". Workers in those nations were still being abused and exploited, just by the state, and not private capitalists.
Swedish socialism is actually social democrat, which is where socialist ideals are an important factor in policy decisions but no actual socialist system is in place.
Actually I wouldn't even call the Swedish model social democrat. I'd call it, as I did, centrist liberalism. This is based on actual policies. Sweden's model is far more right-wing than established social-democrat parties.
What is your definition of communism, why is capitalism fundamentally flawed etc.
I
do infact have a problem with staying on track and keeping track of my articulations. Unfortunately the intricacies of Communism are far more than I can put down in this forum. It would require typing an entire book (LITERALLY) to explain it all as I'd have to draw on dozens of authors from all manner of subjects and topics that Communism deals with. This is why I provided those links, because I don't feel like spending 5 hours of my time trying to explain it myself. But since that is absolutely unacceptable and it is stupid of me to expect anyone on this forum to actually take some initiative and try and study something they don't want or have to, I'll simply quote a paragraph from
Principles of Communism
The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. ... Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.
[Communism] will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene.
[Communist] society will take all forces of production and means of commerce, as well as the exchange and distribution of products, out of the hands of private capitalists and will manage them in accordance with a plan based on the availability of resources and the needs of the whole society.
The form of the division of labor which makes one a peasant, another a cobbler, a third a factory worker, a fourth a stock-market operator, has already been underminded by machinery and will completely disappear. Education will enable young people quickly to familiarize themselves with the whole system of production and to pass from one branch of production to another in response to the needs of society or their own inclinations. It will, therefore, free them from the one-sided character which the present-day division of labor impresses upon every individual. Communist society will, in this way, make it possible for its members to put their comprehensively developed faculties to full use. But, when this happens, classes will necessarily disappear.
will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society.
It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association.
Moreover, since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£ in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.
We have seen that the capitalistic mode of production thrust its way into a society of commodity-producers, of individual producers, whose social bond was the exchange of their products. But every society based upon the production of commodities has this peculiarity: that the producers have lost control over their own social inter-relations. Each man produces for himself with such means of production as he may happen to have, and for such exchange as he may require to satisfy his remaining wants. No one knows how much of his particular article is coming on the market, nor how much of it will be wanted. No one knows whether his individual product will meet an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or even to sell his commodity at all. Anarchy reigns in socialized production.
But the production of commodities, like every other form of production, has it peculiar, inherent laws inseparable from it; and these laws work, despite anarchy, in and through anarchy. They reveal themselves in the only persistent form of social inter-relations ├óÔé¼ÔÇØ i.e., in exchange ├óÔé¼ÔÇØ and here they affect the individual producers as compulsory laws of competition. They are, at first, unknown to these producers themselves, and have to be discovered by them gradually and as the result of experience. They work themselves out, therefore, independently of the producers, and in antagonism to them, as inexorable natural laws of their particular form of production. The product governs the producers.
Spiked, I'd be glad to read a book that you reccomend on Communism, as long as it is a) relatively short, and b) available at my library.
Fortunately for you, in spirit of the communist way, almost every major book written on the subject is available sans cost at
http://www.marx.org. Sadly, I see I'll have to
buy Mr. Bergland's book... I'm banned from the city libraries (I still have a book I borrowed 5 years ago...) but I'll see if I can make do.
I'll link you to it.
