TheAgitator.com
“Good” Commies and Unicorns
Monday, November 9th, 2009Here’s a question for the folks in the comments section still clinging to the damnable notion that communism as a philosophy isn’t responsible for the mass murder, human rights abuses, and general evil perpetrated by communist regimes: Can you name a single communist country that didn’t suppress political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights? Has there been a single communist country whose citizens could feel free to speak out against the government without retaliation?
Communists believe a country’s citizens are the property of the state. That makes them dispensable. It isn’t difficult, then, to see how and why the philosophy has turned out piles of bodies and widespread subversion of fundamental freedoms everywhere it’s been tried.
Imaginationstan
I was going to suggest the USA, but then I looked at some of your other posts.
:)
(or should that be :( ? )
It’s probably important to distinguish a Commune vs a Communist State. I’d probably have a good time in a Commune presuming we had a group with complementary skill sets. I had a blast in my Fraternity days living with 30 others and certainly it was a lot easier/cheaper to plan a party back then. Still even these don’t have complete freedom of speech. I would be sure to chuck out the member of my commune/fraternity that I thought was an ass. The ability to expel somebody completely from a society and force that problem on somebody else (or force them to stay and contribute) is a key difference between a Commune and a Communist State.
Not that I am a defender of communism, but can you name a single country -of any sort- that has not suppressed political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights? Because I can’t think of a single one. Bhutan comes close, but even there free speech is in some ways curtailed. Can anyone come up with a perfect sterling country? The nation state, universally, comes to view its citizens as property, regardless of the happy talk and lip service that they give to freedom and individuality.
Bologna?
You really are painting with a pretty wide brush here.
There’s no shortage of truly evil acts committed by “capitalist” countries. Indeed, you usually provide several examples yourself every week of police forces ran amok right here in the USA.
I mean if you want to count up the abuses, liberal western democracies are where I would want to live, but they are not that way because they are “non-communist.”
And, sorry for the double post, but where would you put Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Somalia in the “communist/non-communist” matrix?
I don’t think they’re enthralled with Marx there, but I don’t want to vacation there anytime soon.
Of course all governments violate human rights to some degree. But it’s a matter of scale. For all the abuses I write about here in the U.S., you are exponentially freer here than in any current or formerly communist country. It isn’t remotely even close. And it’s sort of depressing that even on this site there’d be much debate.
The fact that there are oppressive governments that aren’t communist has nothing to do with the argument that all communist governments are repressive.
an insistence on perfection is the province of math teachers, li. in math, the answer is either right or wrong. no middle ground.
human relations much more gray area-ish, especially when politics and political systems get thrown into the mix. the sensible man realizes that there is no “perfection” to be found in this world in this life, and chooses instead to seek/work for the *least worst* system out there. as you yourself pointed out, it’s the nature of the nation-state to regard its citizenry as property. but we’ve found that nation-states tend to lead to the best possibility for a secure future. tough to make plans for the future if the huns or the mongols or the mohammedans keep raiding and sacking the joint, and carrying away the women and children as slaves.
so maybe the question ought to be, ‘how can we measure the least worst system’? if your criteria are “least number of people killed; largest number of people not living in poverty; most rights granted to citizens; largest number of rights guaranteed to minorities of any kind”……
then – OBVIOUSLY – capitalism wins, and communism comes in dead last.
now allow me to turn your question back on you: “can you name a communist country – any communist country – that has *allowed* political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights? (and also didn’t find it necessary to have a large border guard force/gigantic deadly wall to keep its people from running away?)
“Can you name a single communist country that didn’t suppress political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights? Has there been a single communist country whose citizens could feel free to speak out against the government without retaliation?”
Nope. On the other hand, can you name a single capitalist country that didn’t suppress political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights? Has there been a single capitalist country whose citizens could feel free to speak out against the government without retaliation? Are you still clinging to the naive notion that capitalism as a philosophy isn’t responsible for the mass murder, human rights abuses, and general evil perpetrated by capitalist regimes?
Face it. We’re still in the dark ages when it comes to governments and economic systems. Anyone under the assumption that our societies operate under systems that are remotely healthy for humanity or the rest of the planet are seriously misguided. Unfortunately, the degree of change required to adopt a more enlightened societal order is so huge as to make significant steps towards any such change inconceivable.
Our only hope is to bide our time, foster improvements when and where possible and try to keep alive the dream of a fair and fruitful future civilization. When you understand this you understand the myth of Camelot.
I think if you look back, San Marino had a communist government for a bit, that was OK. It even left power after being voted out, as I remember.
Li: Switzerland and Luxembourg are pretty free, both economically and politically. I can’t really remember the last time I read about the police forces there cracking skulls of protesting citizens. Or, for that matter, citizens taking to the streets to protest against government repression.
As far as communist countries that haven’t dissolved into murder? Maybe Canada…
I’m not a communist myself, but I think most people who are self described communists living in countries not communist would claim that there hasn’t been a true communist country, at least according to Marx’s precepts. And they would probably be correct.
Anarchist Catalonia.
And seriously Radley, we can agree to hate on authoritarian communists without resorting to distorting their views. They do not view citizens as “property of the state.” You may argue that that is how they are treated, but show me where they ever claim that as some part of their political philosophy.
“For all the abuses I write about here in the U.S., you are exponentially freer here than in any current or formerly communist country”
I’d like to see how the native american’s, victims of mass murder, mass dispossesion and mass relocations would feel about that statement. Or for that matter, how about 10 million slaves, who’s condition was arguably worse than any communist country.
You can wear rose colored glasses and pretend all the problems of the world are due to the “communists”, but they aren’t. They aren’t even particularily unique to anyone with a broad historical viewpoint (on a percentage bass, Alexander “the great” would put both hitler and stalin to shame). The truth is that tyrants are the same whenever and wherever they appear on the scene – this is a result of human nature, not a result of communism or any ideology. That the disorder and power vacuum caused by revolutions gives rise to tyrants should not suprise anyone.
By not understanding history Balko falls into the trap of thinking that somehow a particular ideology is to blame for atrocities, when in truth atrocities have been part of the human condition since time immemorial. Its not ideology, its human nature.
“Switzerland and Luxembourg are pretty free, both economically and politically. I can’t really remember the last time I read about the police forces there cracking skulls of protesting citizens.”
How about profiting from and enabling the atrocities of others by allowing them to stash and launder stolen loot in their banks?
I doubt you’d find many people here who think that communism has any hope of success.
The key point to note, though, is that liberal democracies that have significant freedom don’t revolt and become communist. When communists make small gains in countries that have multiple competing power structures they rapidly find that they need to play the political game in order to continue to be elected. Revolution is not an option because there isn’t a single ‘state’ to overthrow. Look, for instance, at the communist party in parts of India where it’s got into local power and singularly failed to establish itself further.
The kinds of countries, Russia, China etc. that have seen communism take hold were police states beforehand. That single source of authority and the lack of checks and balances in the system were what made a single revolution capable of overthrowing the established order.
Saying ‘communism caused this’ doesn’t tell us much that’s useful about what happened but if it’s a mantra that makes you feel better then feel free.
What are they teaching in college now? Back in the day the reflexive response was “Well, real communism hasn’t really been tried yet”. Dumb, but not as dumb as “Well, capitalist countries repress speech which is similar to the 120 million corpses communist regimes have spit out.”
It is almost unbelievable no one has tried to file a class action lawsuit against universities and colleges for malpractice. The intertubes alone should provide enough evidence to get a default judgment.
You can wear rose colored glasses and pretend all the problems of the world are due to the “communists”, but they aren’t.
Who has claimed this? Anyone?
Perhaps the problem isn’t ideology, but rather, assholes. And they seem to control the most powerful governments.
I am anti-asshole.
If a government takes over 50% of a person’s income in taxes and provides free medical care to citizens, is it a communist country?
Is China a communist country now?
“How about profiting from and enabling the atrocities of others by allowing them to stash and launder stolen loot in their banks?”
Pecunia non olet.
Would be productive to actually define what is meant by “communist country”.
Ok, seriously, #4, it is insane to posit Bhutan as some sort of a paradise. In 1990-91, Bhutan decided to ethnically cleanse itself, expelling the ethnically Nepali Lhotsampa people from its territory. Tens of thousands are still living in refugee camps in Nepal. Most of them want to return to Bhutan, but its government continues to deny their Bhutanese citizenship.
It is almost entertaining to see the apologists comparing non-contemporary atrocities and contemporary political imperfections with the systematic and all-encompassing dehumanization, entrapment, forced poverty, complete disenfranchisement, and widespread ideologically-based imprisonment and execution endemic to every flavor of communism yet to be tried in modern times.
It’s like defending Dahmer because he didn’t cheat on his taxes.
I love how it devolves quickly into “but Capitalism isn’t any better!” thread. There isn’t a Communist Country that hasn’t devolved into a Civil Rights Horror.
By not understanding history Balko falls into the trap of thinking that somehow a particular ideology is to blame for atrocities, when in truth atrocities have been part of the human condition since time immemorial. Its not ideology, its human nature.
I don’t think you understand his point.
The simple fact of the matter is that a political and economic system that holds that people should have the opportunity to exchange the product of their labor for other economic values produced by others, based on their own evalation of the worth of those economic values, at least has a chance to be free, and a communist system has no chance.
If you don’t want to inspire men to work by giving them pay or the opportunity for profit, your only other choice is terror. And that’s why communist systems always use it in the end.
What Fluffy said
Radley, even the fact that we can write about them and discuss them speaks of the freedom here. Perfect? No. But it never will be.
Still, we recognize that this is a system that we can work within for change.
hey Jeffer, the ‘evils’ capitalism do in no way compare to the absolute horror of communism. go ahead, make your case, and try to compare any capitalist/leader system to the atrocities of communism under stalin, pol pot and others. problem there is, you cant, or you would have already done so in your poorly formed thought. capitalism has brought freedom and prosperity to more people than any other socioeconomic system in the history of mankind. communism, well communism has brought us piles of bodies and throngs of desperately oppressed, poor and illiterate people. so while it is true that no socioeconomic system is perfect, and it it likely that none will ever be perfect, any rational and educated person would not even contemplate making a comparison between the two.
I always like the ‘no true Scotsman’ argument for communist countries. It essentially admits that Marx, like all political philosophers, had a great number of ideals and musings on a variety of subjects. But for some reason we are supposed to ignore the attempted practical applications of some ideals in the real world, especially when the results are abhorrent.
The fundamental flaw in communist thinking is that it acknowledges that people have different levels of output, it terms of productive or creative power, but then contrarily states that all needs are equal and deserving of being fulfilled. This arrangement is fine if the community is voluntarily assembled and everyone knowingly agrees to such conditions. But when it is enforced by a government over a random population it destroys economic and progressive incentives.
It is impossible for a ‘true communist state’ to exist. Because everyone born or living under a government is never really given the option as to whether or not they want to buy in. Only a small minority of people are capable of freely moving to other countries or even states, with most people having to live under the government they are born in. If they are lucky they are born under a republic or a democracy which allows them to participate in the political system. Communism requires voluntary input, while government is largely compulsive, which is why the two can never be successfully married.
Joe B and Fluffy hit it pretty much on the head.
What Fluffy said.
There were useful idiots on Usenet back in the 80s denying the death toll in the USSR, extolling the triumph of that abomination of an empire. Even after the wall fell and the horrible truth of the megamurders even made its way onto the pages of Walter Duranty’s “newspaper of record” we still, to this day, must suffer the communist equivalent of the skinhead or “Identity Christian”.
The problem is, there are orders of magnitude more of the socialist deniers and apologists than there are the inbred racist loons. There never was a Nuremberg for most 20th century mass-muderers, unfortunately.
Instead, we get people with shit for brains wearing logos of mass murderers on trendy t-shirts. Hell, even in Dallas you get this crap.
Haven’t any of these people seen the pictures of piles of bodies? Concrete walls? Barbed wire? Tanks rolling over students?
I only wish that each and every person who sports one of those shirts or vehemently defends that political philosophy (or similarly extreme forms of collectivism) could trade places with the innocent victims of Communism, many of whom could have lead wonderful lives, who would not be demanding the authority to dispense with the productive efforts or very lives of others.
It’s the same thing libertarians do whenever faced with some criticism of our capitalist system: “Ohbutthat’snotreallycapitalism!”
Bobzob wrote: …Or for that matter, how about 10 million slaves, who’s condition was arguably worse than any communist country.
Only arguably–and…how about some more recent examples from, say, the last 100 years? Y’see, your examples of mercantilist excesses from the 16th to 19th centuries aren’t exactly relevant to this discussion.
And, to a few others here: how come whenever the atrociously murderous excesses of essentially all Marxist regimes is noted, there’s always a line up folks noting “well, capitalism isn’t perfect…”? That’s like bringing up nail-biters when the subject is Geoffrey Dahmer.
I mean, c’mon, the two biggest communist regimes of the last century both made even Hitler look like a piker when it came to exterminating domestic citizens.
As usual, the idiot ideologues cannot argue logically. Make a factual criticism of communist governments, and they bring out the childish retort “But Joey is a bully and he’s a democrat.” Or, they make ridiculous equivalency arguments such as arresting a protester who throws stones in the USA is as bad as starving to death millions of peasants in the USSR. Or, still worse, they play the “no one is perfect so you aren’t allowed to criticize anyone” card. Wrong. I’m not perfect, and I’m still allowed to say that supporters of communism are grossly ignorant, stupid, or evil (or any combination of the three).
“Communists believe a country’s citizens are the property of the state.”
And with Capitalism, the fruits of your labor are owned by the capitalist, not you. The capitalist profits, the laborer stays poor. Hence the pathetic wealth gap in this country.
If you are seriously trying to say that 1% of the population owning ~40% of the wealth is a-OK, then you have some serious issues, RB.
The system in the USA gives the image of being able to work within in for change, but the facts indicate that it is an illusion. It’s always “meet the new bosses, same as the old bosses”. I suppose change is possible, but you have to define that vague term … despicable, immoral, unethical, evil changes are always occurring, even today (see health care bills; hell, examine just about any bill).
cleavingSpace “If you are seriously trying to say that 1% of the population owning ~40% of the wealth is a-OK, then you have some serious issues, RB.”
Not even remotely comparable with starving millions of your own citizens.
(Many, if not most, middle class earners and up, live better than monarchs and potentates of yesteryear. Anyone in the UK earning fifty Thousand pounds or more, or anyone in the US making over $100K, (and there are plenty of them) lives better than any monarch, aristocrat or industrialist did before the birth of Marx.) Many of the poorest here in America don’t suffer starvation they suffer obesity and wear $150 Jordans.
And yet there are still many who concern themselves more with the unequal distribution of wealth than wealth creation. Hence, marxism and socialism is still alive and will probably always be around.
The right wing, for similar reasons, will always be around also. Reagan’s trickle-down theories (What George Senior once termed ‘voodoo economics’) and Maggie Thatcher’s Freidmanian economics have both fallen out of favor and have not proven sustainable.
The knee-jerk selfishness (lauded by someone else today in another thread on Ayn Rand) of unbridled capitalism has been employed and found wanting, unsatisfying and ‘unjust’.
One’s political position is much more affected by sentiment than reason.
“Communist” and “Marxist-Leninist” aren’t equivalents. Pyotr Kropotkin was a communist, and so was Rosa Luxemburg.
Also, there’s never been a state professing any ideology that hasn’t had as one of its integral functions the enforcement of legal privilege and economic exploitation.
Capitalist states enforce corporatist privileges (subsidies, cartelizing regulations, IP law, etc.) while professing “free enterprise” and “free markets” as an ideology. And Marxist-Leninist states enforce the rule of a bureaucratic oligarchy while appealing to the symbolism and rhetoric of the historic socialist movement.
We’ve never seen a genuinely free market state, or a genuinely libertarian socialist state, because states are by definition the instrument of a ruling class.
States use ideology to legitimize the systems of privilege and power that they enforce, and a good legitimizing ideology appeals to symbols that resonate with the general public. The form of any ideology coopted by a state will be distorted beyond recognition. Marxists become repressive in power, IMO, not so much because of the peculiar features of Marxism as an ideology, but precisely because they’re working through the state.
cleavingSpace wrote: “The capitalist profits, the laborer stays poor. Hence the pathetic wealth gap in this country.”
Oh, BS.
I get paid for every hour I work for my capitalist “oppressor”–and the pay I get is my profit; I see it that way because I am happy to exchange the hour I spend working in trade for the money I’m paid–I think the money is worth *more*, otherwise I wouldn’t exchange it.
Of course, unlike folks who take the labour theory of value even remotely seriously, I understand the nature of “profit”.
@ MattD,
Yeah, America is such a free market. I mean, thats what free markets are all about, government subsidization, regulation of industries to the point of being defacto state owned, tariffs and quotas (for the good of the American people of course) which restrict trade….yeah, it’s free alright.
@ cleavingSpace
Your absolutely right, the workers in first world countries have it terrible. At least under the mixed economy we have now the poorest workers are living at a level that would put to shame kings less then two hundred years ago. That’s with just a limited free market, imagine how terrible it would be if it was completely free! Jesus Christ, they might be living better then royalty did 50 years ago. Now that would be an unacceptable travesty.
“Many of the poorest here in America don’t suffer starvation they suffer obesity and wear $150 Jordans.”
That’s due to a variety of things, mainly technology, cheap labor, and the fact that we don’t have an authoritarian dictatorship. Keep in mind Communism is an economic system, and has nothing to do with authoritarianism anymore than Georgy Bush has to do with Capitalism.
Also keep in mind the reason that many of the poor don’t ‘starve’ is because they have food stamps/welfare, which is a *gasp* minor redistribution of wealth!!111 Radley and other blowhard capitalists are against such things, so if they had their way, I guess people with no income/job would starve.
To sum up the arguments:
1 – Well capitalism is repressive too! (without recognizing the irony of being free to criticize)
2 – The workers never rose up in 1875, so therefore Pure Marxist communism hasn’t been tried.
To me this means the answer to ‘Can you name a communist country….’ is clearly No.
“I’d like to see how the native american’s, victims of mass murder, mass dispossesion and mass relocations would feel about that statement. Or for that matter, how about 10 million slaves, who’s condition was arguably worse than any communist country. ”
Well if your going to bring in Native Americans, Couldn’t you say that thier communist society they lived in left them completely unprepared for dealing with a more advanced culture. Perhaps if thier society generated more economic surplus they could have devoted more of thier resources to advancing their society. As such it left them unprotected when a more advanced civilization moved in and they dispossessed of all thier lands and murdered them en mass. Good way to point another failures of Communism.
“At least under the mixed economy we have now the poorest workers are living at a level that would put to shame kings less then two hundred years ago.”
Again, this has nothing to do with capitalism, but rather with increases in technology and cheap labor (which leads to cheap goods).
@Mike:
“Well if your going to bring in Native Americans, Couldn’t you say that thier communist society they lived in left them completely unprepared for dealing with a more advanced culture. Perhaps if thier society generated more economic surplus they could have devoted more of thier resources to advancing their society. As such it left them unprotected when a more advanced civilization moved in and they dispossessed of all thier lands and murdered them en mass. Good way to point another failures of Communism.”
And that’s a great way to point out the cold hearted, douchy-ness of capitalists. The Native American’s were commies, they deserved it! Fucking idiot.
“and has nothing to do with authoritarianism anymore than Georgy Bush has to do with Capitalism. ”
In theory yes, In practice not even close. For communism to ‘work’ it needs the buy in of all its citizens. If somehow the US government let you and you declared California would now be run as a strictly communist society. All major industry and probably most of the skilled workforce would leave. That unfortunately is normal human nature. How would you propose stopping that? All previous communist systems have recognized this and turned to Authoritarnism means.
“If you are seriously trying to say that 1% of the population owning ~40% of the wealth is a-OK, then you have some serious issues, RB.”
But what if 1% of the people create ~40% of the wealth? Why shouldn’t they own it?
“Of course, unlike folks who take the labour theory of value even remotely seriously, I understand the nature of “profit”.” Most folks who take the labor theory of value seriously also understand profit.
I certainly didn’t say they deserved it. Further I don’t even lay the blame on Capitalists. Had they met any other civilization they would have been wiped out. Suppose the USSR was the first to discover America do you think Native Americans would have fared better? Would China have left Native America Untouched? I don’t think so. I’m pointing out they were a were an ancient society competing against a more modern one and not unsurprisingly lost. Why were they still an ancient society?
You say that capitalism has nothing todo with increases in technology (which leads to cheaper goods). Can you really make that statement? Doesn’t the economic system that functions better allow for more resources to be spent developing that technology? I don’t think the two issues are that separate.
@ 46
Funny you would say that, considering that the more a society/economy sits on the side of freedom over collectivization the faster technology and available capital/goods grows. I’d say you just debunked your own dogma but like any subscriber to a dogma you’ll just dismiss it out of hand.
“Again, this has nothing to do with capitalism, but rather with increases in technology and cheap labor (which leads to cheap goods).”
Uh, isn’t technology basically intellectual capital? And I don’t care how cheap labor is, without capital it produces less. How many poor people would have, say, microwaves without microwave factories? And if labor’s so cheap, they why do the folks who labor so cheaply have so much, compared to the folks who labor in other systems?
Can I just not have a state of any kind, please? The absurdity of the notion of “limited government” puts Communism to shame, as far as unworkable utopianism.
Either embrace true voluntaryism, or don’t pretend you disagree with the Communists on anything deeper than the degree of state control.
The native Americans weren’t commies. They were many varieties of tribal, and to a huge extent they were traders and/or warriors.
So, no, Mike…you couldn’t accurately say that “their communist society they lived in left them completely unprepared for dealing with a more advanced culture”.
I’m a capitalist, Mike, but–with respect–your post is proof that few things are as dangerous as bad arguments for good ideas. That’s because your opponents will seize on the error of your argument and ignore that your conclusion was still, somehow, correct (like saying: don’t jump off high buildings because the fairies won’t catch you and you’ll go splat. The gravity deniers will scream that fairies don’t exist, and, safe and satisfied that they’ve recognized your error, they will continue to insist that jumping off high buildings is safe.)
Judging by some of the defenses above, an ideology of punching everybody you meet in the groin is no worse than an ideology of punching 10% of them in the face and giving the rest kittens, because people get punched either way. Or the winner of the race is no faster than the loser, because the loser meant to run faster than he did.
Honestly, I never really considered Native Americans communist either but opening that can of worms will probably bring you even more flak. Native Americans is the one supposed shining star for a communist government try to call them non-communists and there’ll be even more raving.
Kevin Carson wins the thread. Still, this always applies:
What Fluffy said.
With free markets, there’s no need for the people involved to “buy in” to the concept. As a matter of fact, they’re welcome to set up their own communes and live communistically. This has been done with varying success throughout the history of the US. New Harmony, IN was a commune at one time. It actually can work well as long as involvement is voluntary.
Now, how many folks have tried capitalism under a communist economic system? Oh, wait, can’t do that. See, for a country to have a communist social system requires a forced buy-in by those in the system. Free markets are the natural system (give people money, let them create, sell, and buy goods and you have a free market by default). Communism on a national level has to be forced on people. The only way to force it on people with with a totalitarian government. That’s why the two go hand in hand- there’s no other way.
Our system of government may not be perfect, and this country has done harm in the past and will do so in the future. But that just doesn’t compare to the harm done by Communism. Furthermore, we know we can work to change this for the better. We can actually elect people to office. We might not like the choices sometimes, but there typically is a choice.
And with Capitalism, the fruits of your labor are owned by the capitalist, not you. The capitalist profits, the laborer stays poor. Hence the pathetic wealth gap in this country.
Well, let’s leave aside the “failed experiments” of actual Communist states for a moment and consider the “pure” Communism of political philosophers. Pretending for a moment that it could be achieved, it would entail a social and economic system where all property is owned in common and the individual owns nothing, but contributes all his labor for free.
The poorest laborer under capitalism is more free than every last human being living under such a “pure” Communist system. For the simple reason that even if the money that poor laborer has is only enough for him to buy one more meal, he am at least free of the domination of his fellows for the space of that meal and however long it takes him to get hungry again. The citizen under Communism has no such freedom, but can be stripped naked and left without a sou at any moment by the dictate of the other members of his “commune”. And the philosophers who advocate “pure” communism know this very well, and that’s why they want that system to exist. To put every man in a perpetual state of absolute dependence, to keep him in line.
I would rather be poor under capitalism than live under even “perfect” Communism – because ultimately the man with even meagre property is more able to say, “Go fuck yourselves!” to his fellows than a man living in a polity where property does not exist.
Keep in mind Communism is an economic system, and has nothing to do with authoritarianism
Of course it does.
Most “Communist” societies have retained elements of capitalism, like paying workers more for working longer periods, or in more dangerous or demanding jobs. But let’s return to a “pure” Communist system for a moment, to give your system its best shot: no one draws pay or profit based on anything other than their actual needs. All people with similar needs draw the same salary, no matter what work they do.
In that case, I declare my job to be picking my own ass and smelling it. I’ll be by to collect my pay on Friday.
In order to stop me from doing this, you have to – HAVE TO – do one of two things:
A. Either tell me that you won’t pay me for picking my own ass – in which case we’re back to capitalist “earning” and “deserving” again, and different people are being paid differently for different work, and we no longer have a Communist system; or -
B. You force me to work by pointing a gun at my head.
That’s why Communist must be authoritarian if it’s going to exist at all. Because without the profit motive or property I’m not going to work unless you put a gun to my head. And neither will most of the rest of the population. And so there we are.
#24 Ah, and there is the rub. Even nations that are doing well by their people now for their citizens have done horrible things in the past. Though I must say that Bhutan’s ‘ethnic cleansing’, perhaps simply due to the small scale on which it occurred, was hardly of the camps and bombs variety we have seen elsewhere over the past hundred years. Even so, it is inexcusable.
Because it’s easier to use the guns of government and the “power” of democracy (mob rule) to get your goods, rather than work hard to obtain things and stuff for yourself.
A candidate for worst capitalist ever:
From 1885 to 1908, Leopold II of Belgium ran the Congo Free State as a privately held enterprise. Said to have caused somewhere between 8 and 20 million deaths.
Our system of government may not be perfect…
“Our”?
But that just doesn’t compare to the harm done by Communism.
Sure it does. As I said before, it’s just a difference of degree. If you embrace a state, you embrace a state. (And your language makes it pretty clear that you do indeed.)
Furthermore, we know we can work to change this for the better. We can actually elect people to office.
I refuse. It may be your system, but I lay no claim to it.
#61 What Fluffy said … succinct and put in terms that anyone should be able to understand (assuming one is trying to contemplate data that doesn’t fit their world view).
I would have to ask where in the communist doctrine does it call for mass murder, human rights abuses, and general evil. Even if every communist country on the planet has a history of these abuses, that does not constitute proof that the communist philosophy is the cause. Communism, in the modern sense, is less than a century old and, at least in the examples given, has come to power under violent rebellion and civil war, not generally a mechanism known for bringing about a government that respects human rights and is open to challenges from competing perspectives.
Like others, I question whether there is any state that hasn’t violated human rights and perpetrated “general evil”. I can’t even name all the communist states in the world, much less tell you whether they have a history of mass murder. Are all Eastern Block countries guilty of mass murder?
Also, the world is technologically more capable of inflicting death and misery on a larger scale now than in centuries past. The fact that modern civilizations have victimized many times more people than in the past is more a reflection of the tools available to tyrants now.
You can blame communism if you want, but to me communism is just a defective and political economic theory. The abuses you list have been around since the invention of government and government is limited by one one thing: what it can get away with. Ultimately, a government cannot exist if it is not at least tolerated by the population. The dissolution of the Soviet Union (and much of the transformation taking place in China) happened because the population would no longer tolerate the abuse of power of their government.
I will grant that a population that is aggressively indoctrinated from childhood to worship the state is probably much more likely to trust and let themselves be oppressed by the state. Thankfully, that can’t happen here where the population, inherently skeptical of the benevolence of the state, would throw a fit if children were ever required to recite a loyalty oath every day…
The notion that individuals are freed from their responsibility for horrendous atrocities because they happened to read the same books is fantastic. Thankfully, the French, the British, the Americans, etc. never had leaders who shared the same literature, leading to horrible violence against all sorts of people.
I think it’s important to note that capitalism and political freedom don’t necessarily go hand in hand. We’ve seen free market reforms go on in China, Vietnam, and other countries accompanied by continuing political repression. Now a big part of it depends on how you define capitalism and communism but it is hard to deny that the modern era has seen countries exploit the benefits of market liberalization while remaining essentially authoritarian in the political realm.
Others have mentioned this, but I also think it’s hard to find any governments, modern or historic, employing a communist political system which truly rule(d) with the consent of the governed. The Eastern Bloc essentially had it imposed on them by a foreign super power and it was established in the former Soviet Union and China as the result of a civil war, the victors of which took control of a governing apparatus set up by former regimes similarly lacking in popular legitimacy.
Now I personally do think capitalism and market based incentives, despite some drawbacks, create a superior form of economic system to communism when it comes to improving the quality of human life and spurring innovation. However, the big policy question to me is how we appropriately distribute the burdens and benefits of capitalism across society. A balance must be struck in which incentives are sufficient to spur economic activity but not at the expense of creating ethically unacceptable outcomes (or at least with an eye towards minimizing them). The government has a role to play in how that is done.
Dave, I and one other commenter have already answered this. Briefly, because communism must be forced upon the population, it can only exist under a totalitarian government. While the communist doctrine may not directly call for that, implementation of such absolutely demands it.
A free market system, on the other hand, can exist independent of the government. There have been many free market dictatorships, it’s not a problem. At the same time, people who enjoy economic freedom may find other forms of freedom to be similarly refreshing.
“And it’s sort of depressing that even on this site there’d be much debate.”
Many (most?) of the commenters here find waterboarding high-value terrorists morally equivalent to skinning political dissidents alive. If they can’t see the vast differences in scale, purpose, and method in this instance (and many others), why does Balko expect them to differentiate Joe Arpaio and Pol Pot?
“A balance must be struck in which incentives are sufficient to spur economic activity but not at the expense of creating ethically unacceptable outcomes (or at least with an eye towards minimizing them). The government has a role to play in how that is done.”
Were you under the impression that Balko was contrasting communism to anarchy?
“In that case, I declare my job to be picking my own ass and smelling it. I’ll be by to collect my pay on Friday.”
“Performance Art.”
At #72
I was contributing my views on the need to strike a balance within a spectrum of economic regulation which involves many possible pitfalls with gross over regulation on the side of a system like communism on one end, under regulation on another end with Gilded Age-like outcomes, and corporatist regulation which though market based favors certain economic players at the expense of others on another end. If you want to have an intelligent debate, please contribute something. Otherwise no need to get snippy.
Wow, Fluffy, that was the best explanation for the necessity of coercion in implementing communism I’ve ever read. I’m stealing it.
I apologize for not reading all 75 comments, in case this was already pointed out. But: “Of course all governments violate human rights to some degree. But it’s a matter of scale.”
Exactly why libertarianism falls apart. The proper role of gov’t is -protection- of rights, without violation of -any- rights. To do this, proper use of the police, courts, and military is not only the role of gov’t, it is the -proper- role of gov’t.
While I’m at it, “It isn’t difficult, then, to see how and why the philosophy has turned out piles of bodies and widespread subversion of fundamental freedoms everywhere it’s been tried” doesn’t go quite far enough. It should conclude with “and will do so everywhere it IS tried, because this is what will happen IN PRINCIPLE whenever it IS tried.”
In theory, people could vote in a Marxist-Leninist government. Wouldn’t seem like it could happen after Stalin, but Nepal’s Maoist party is a major player participating in the government of the country.
In any event, there have been a number of countries where socialist governments have been voted into power. (Italy, Portugal, Venezuela, Chile…)
The thing people fail to understand — the thing Orwell understood — is that abuse is part and parcel of Communism. It’s all right there in the writing of Lenin. The “truth” existing only as far as it serves the state; thought control, endless propaganda; the destruction of freedom. These were all specific things that the communists needed.
Maoism was based on the premise of destroying existing society and rebuilding it along communist line where the individual has no existence except to the service of the state.
These are no inseparable concepts. Communism is the death of the individual. They can not exist side by side.
As others have mentioned, just because a country called itself ‘communist’ does not necessarily make it communist.
One of the biggest factors missing is that under Marx’s concept of communism scarcity is all but eliminated. Marx acknowledges that this will only occur thru capitalism. If you look back in the early Soviet Union they actually mentioned this in much of their propaganda as something like “a shortened capitalist cycle” (or some such). Obviously it did not work out well for them.
There is not really a state under Marx’s ideal and there is no need for private property since the cost of production has been reduced to as close to zero as possible.
While humorous, a pretty good example of this is Star Trek. With the cost of production being near zero because of replicators, they lose the need for a wage. They are then free to labor on whatever they want and then the product of that labor is then theirs.
A good way to look at it is capitalism is based on scarcity of resources. What happens if resources are no longer scarce?
However, the big policy question to me is how we appropriately distribute the burdens and benefits of capitalism across society.
In what sense can you honestly say that you support capitalism, when your collectivism is as plain as you have made it here?
A balance must be struck… The government has a role to play in how that is done.
Can you really not get along without initiating force upon others?
Dave Kreuger “I will grant that a population that is aggressively indoctrinated from childhood to worship the state is probably much more likely to trust and let themselves be oppressed by the state. Thankfully, that can’t happen here where the population, inherently skeptical of the benevolence of the state, would throw a fit if children were ever required to recite a loyalty oath every day…”
When I read that the first thing I thought of was Toby Keith singing about how free we are.
“Exactly why libertarianism falls apart. The proper role of gov’t is -protection- of rights, without violation of -any- rights. To do this, proper use of the police, courts, and military is not only the role of gov’t, it is the -proper- role of gov’t. ”
How exactly does this opinion differ from libertarian ideals? Sounds like your idea of libertarianism differs from mine. I would agree with the above paragraph and consider myself a libertarian. Its all the rest of the government that is questionable. It sounds like your thinking of anarchy which libertarianism is not.
The UK. No?
I had thought of a long rebuttal, but simply put, using the metrics many of you apologists use, the National Socialists weren’t any worse either. Get some perspective for heaven’s sake.
As for it’s not ideology it’s human nature, fist fights have been going on since time began, but some people just knock you down, others kick you until organ failure.
Can anyone respond to Radley’s question without attacking capitalism or democracy?
Hello?
Pinocchio?
So if the very idea of communism is responsible for every single death under every regime that could possibly be considered remotely communist…Are we holding the Free Market responsible for sharecropping, child labor, Pullman Towns, Triangle Shirtwaist, Bryant and May, etc?
It seems like it’s only fair.
Y’see, your examples of mercantilist excesses from the 16th to 19th centuries aren’t exactly relevant to this discussion.”
Why not? What difference does it make that my examples of capitalist excesses are slightly older than examples of communist excesses. Tell me please, why your arbitrary date makes something irrelevant.
Answer: We let our people leave. They don’t.
Argument over.
Exactly why libertarianism falls apart. The proper role of gov’t is -protection- of rights, without violation of -any- rights. To do this, proper use of the police, courts, and military is not only the role of gov’t, it is the -proper- role of gov’t.
I find that the harshest critics of libertarianism are under the impression that it means “no government.” Libertarianism means a lot of things, but this isn’t one of them.
That’s not exactly true. You can leave, but the US government in its benevolence will continue to tax you even as you go abroad (and even as you renounce your citizenship). Welcome to serfdom, baby!
I did.
Sean L. “Answer: We let our people leave. They don’t.”
No we actually don’t anymore:
http://www.escapeartist.com/Expat_Taxes/Trapped_In_America/
i can’t believe I spent the first 30 minutes of my day reading a debate about the relative merits of capitalism and communism. It reminds me of the debate about vaccines. Listening to people compare the systematic evils of the soviet union to US wealth distribution statistics is like hearing twenty somethings that never saw the effects of polio complain that Jenny McCarthy is SURE vaccines cause autism and no kid should be vaccinated ever.
Capitalism is truly a victim of it’s own success
- without capitalism you would not have free time to POST COMMENTS ON A WORLDWIDE COMPUTER NETWORK THAT PROVIDES FREE ACCESS TO ALL INFORMATION EVER GATHERED IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH.
– You would be sustenance farming a small plot of land and dying at 30 .
That’s a decent objection to the “love it or leave it” argument I sometimes hear. It is NOT a decent objection that the US is morally equivalent to communist regimes, and indeed it is an ugly kind of moral equivalence itself. The tax difficulties of millionaries are hardly comparable to getting shot by the stasi while trying to cross the berlin wall.
MattH, but the groundwork is there. They can now deny you the same right this whole country was founded upon-the right to declare political independence and pursue life, liberty and happiness outside the US government’s jurisdiction. You can only cease to be an American citizen if they LET YOU! And even then they still claim the right to tax up for ten years after you’re no longer a citizen and you have moved off to another country. That’s pretty much an equivalent of the communist’s Berlin wall.
That’s typically the last vote that they have, too.
No, it just isn’t. I understand the temptation to say that, but you should hold yourself to a higher rhetorical standard. A physical wall which you could get shot trying to climb over to seek a better life is just not the same as being hassled for taxes by the US government. You can still leave the US if you don’t like it. I don’t see any reason you can’t renounce citizenship if you want to.
I agree with you about the absurd expansion of US government power. I agree people should be free to terminate any supposed obligations to the government. You’re preaching to the choir there. :-) Just try to keep a sense of perspective.
#69: “…the big policy question to me is how we appropriately distribute the burdens and benefits of capitalism across society. A balance must be struck in which incentives are sufficient to spur economic activity but not at the expense of creating ethically unacceptable outcomes (or at least with an eye towards minimizing them). The government has a role to play in how that is done.”
First of all, who is the “we” you refer to in the first sentence? I’d think that those who create the wealth are the ones who would determine the most appropriate way to distribute the results of their efforts.
And it’s clear what the government’s role is in determining how that’s done, especially in the last year: those who are politically connected or pay for access to politicians, or use political favor to become “too big to fail” manipulate the levers of power to distribute the benefits to themselves, and the burdens to others. That’s why government should have as little of a role as possible in re-distributing wealth.
I must be missing something. I see a lot of posts chastising people for finding fault with capitalism, but I’m not seeing any posts where people actually claim to prefer communism.
Being honest enough to recognize that capitalist countries are not “without sin” is not the same as arguing that they are as bad or worse than communist countries.
So, after adding up the death toll on each side, capitalism wins by a landslide as being more humane than communism. Does that mean, from now on, we are only allowed to criticize communism and must bow and worship capitalism?
There is no bigger proponent of capitalism than I. Capitalism, as practiced, is clearly better than communism by any measure of benefit to the population (rich or poor). But, not a day goes by where I don’t see capitalism corrupted by commercial interests in partnership with government and every day people die as a result of that. Not a day goes by where I don’t see capitalist countries sliding more towards a police state mentality. The fact that most of the modern world’s misery has been caused by communist tyrants is interesting, but the next round of tyrants may well ride in on a horse of a different name. Sitting around thinking we’re safe because, after all, communists are where the real danger lies, doesn’t do much to prepare us for that.
Like a few others, I’m surprised we’re even arguing about this, especially considering that most of the people who frequent this site are anything but sympathetic to tyranny or state run economies.
Nepal! Nepal! Nepal!
Abolished the death penalty and recognized gay marriage, which is more than some “humane” capitalist states have managed…
Communism is simply contrary to human nature. Therefore, for it to exist, those in power necessarly apply coercion. Marx pretty much said as much in his advocation of a ‘new man’ (one whose nature is congruent with communism) and mass murder of those who don’t tow the party line.
I’ve often wondered about Marx’s proposition that communism is the ultimate end state of society. We (me included) seem to think capitalism is so much more stable (compatible with human nature) than communism, but every day we see examples of the population expecting the state to provide more of the basic necessities of life even as they keep expanding the list of those necessities. In return, they willingly relinquish control over their own property.
Most of the population of the U.S. takes it for granted that citizens have a right to a job, a home, food, a “living wage”, unemployment benefits, a 40 hour work week, social security, banking security, and, of course, “affordable health care”. And it expects government to implement the means to guarantee delivery of these “basic needs”.
The old philosophy that starvation is a great motivator to get a job, is nowhere to be found in American politics (except among those fuckin’ heartless libertarians).
If these demands on government inevitably lead to the collapse of the economy (at which point it simply starts over down the same path), how can we claim capitalism is a stable system? If these demands on government by the population (through the democratic process) are human nature at work.
Not trying to start an argument and I know this is really off topic. But, I honestly don’t see any mechanism to restrain the cycle of more and more demands on government (which responds, at least these days, by running up the national debt and mortgaging the income of future generations). Are we really just hoping the population will eventually stop looking to government for everything? If so, shouldn’t that revelation have happened by now?
Are we holding the Free Market responsible for sharecropping, child labor, Pullman Towns, Triangle Shirtwaist, Bryant and May, etc?
It seems like it’s only fair.
I would say that I do not accept responsibility for mercantilist economic systems, whose monarchical and aristocratic rulers would have specifically denied that their system was capitalist. I also will not accept responsibility for any system that maintained unequal systems of law, because the bottom line is that by any definition those systems are feudal and not capitalist.
But I will accept responsibility for the so-called “abuses” of the robber baron age. The overwhelming majority of those “abuses” were in fact advances. Sharecropping was a moral advance on the plantation slavery system. Child labor was a moral advance on the pathetic situation of children during the feudal and mercantilist ages, as a cursory glance at child mortality figures can demonstrate. Pullman towns might not have seemed pleasant to us, but millions of people from around the world fled their homelands to have even the chance to live in a city like Butte.
Most of the so-called “abuses” during the developmental period of capitalism were only even considered abuses because capitalism had created a comfortable middle class that was insulated from the utter horror that had been day-to-day life until capitalism started rescuing people from it. The muckraker exposes about food safety, for example, make it sound like the meatpacking plants were a novel disgrace, when in fact they were vastly more hygenic than slaughtering your own food on subsistence farms had been for millennia. Capitalism saved the middle classes from the subsistence farm conditions that had been universal for centuries, and the middle classes promptly forgot the past and looked at the condition of the poor [which previously had been universal] and decried it as a horrible abuse.
Is it really that hard to understand that communism was just used as cover by feudal dictators because all-encompassing-egalitarianism is great populist propoganda?
I read this site every day. You cover topics in most need of attention, and your considerable analytical skills are evident. But for some reason, when the conversation turns to certain topics, your brain shuts off and you start grunting rehearsed pablum like a well-indoctrinated high school student. Its embarrassing.
By the way, to the person who mentioned the “end of scarcity” above – scarcity doesn’t end, so the question you’re asking never arises.
As productivity grows, a capitalist system will create “new work” to the degree that the overall system has the wealth to support that work.
A century ago people assumed that technological advances would lead to manufacturing productivity so great that there would not be employment available for more than a tiny proportion of the population. This was true, but only if you only considered the amount of manufacturing employment available. The service economy expanded as manufacturing productivity grew, because the system was throwing off so much wealth and income that had to be consumed that new jobs were invented. This process can continue essentially indefinitely and replicators would make no difference.
Hmm…let me see if I can sum up…picked some thoughts up I like from this thread, well done (and, as always, *love* for Dave’s posts).
Communism appears to be incapable of taking hold except where a totalitarian system already exists (anyone have an example where it didn’t? I’m not a history major).
Since Communism was simply layered over pre-existing tyranny (or perhaps tyranny lurking just beneath the surface), the tyranny doesn’t change, only the words used to describe it.
This means that we’re letting ourselves be distracted by those manipulating us. *Communism* is just a word they used to secure and/or maintain power. Arguing against communism is useful because use of the term by a government should indicate that the government, while not truly communist, is still at least a budding evil.
I believe that we lose the war when we to allow ourselves to lose sight of the true evils so that we can argue a single word. Some aspects of socialist and/or communist philosophy is damned nice (really, I do like national health care…but let’s argue that in another thread, k?) and we, as a nation (assuming we’re mostly from the US) have absorbed what is useful to us (taking care of the elderly and disabled is *not* a capitalist more) and discarded most of the rest. This is supposedly (and I agree) one of the things that made America strong. Attempting to implement a purely communist state results in evil. I argue that attempting to implement a PURELY capitalist, socialist, libertarianalist (yeah, I made it up), republican or democrat platformist, or any other pure philosophy that I can think of results in evil.
Pure communism results in evil? Fine, no argument. Let’s stop arguing how my evil is better than your evil…it’s all no good, and the argument itself is one giant straw man after another. The goods and evils of our societies are not created by a word and we do ourselves and the future of our world a damned disservice spending our time arguing that one word.
I would never describe myself as a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian, a Communist, or a Capitalist. I’m something in between and I hope to god all of you are too. I love ya Radley, but I never thought you’d drink the kool-aid on this one. Absolute statements are beneath your intellect, and although your current statements are based on a degree of truth I urge you to take a look at your motivations for shouting this one out.
If it was a carefully calculated political move I apologize for the criticism.
Oh, and since there’s obviously more than one Sam here (unless someone is trying to troll me) I’ll go by SamK from now on.
Is it really that hard to understand that communism was just used as cover by feudal dictators because all-encompassing-egalitarianism is great populist propoganda?
Try to understand: most of us here consider the principle of communism to be pernicious, and thus arguments about implementation don’t impress us.
As I’ve described above, I wouldn’t comply with even a sincere and “perfect” Communist system, and therefore to get me to submit Communists would have no choice but to employ terror. This is true whether the rulers are telling the truth or not, and whether they’re just spewing propaganda or not.
Basically whenever I encounter an argument like yours I can deduce that it’s based on the fact that you kind of like the basic idea of Communism, and therefore want to protect that idea from the bad press involved in being associated with Stalin or Mao. But the bottom line is that Stalin and Mao aren’t and weren’t the problem.
Dave:
I’d say the answer is staring you in the face. :-)
Books and ideas don’t kill people. People do. It’s absurd to suggest that the book or the idea was at fault. Or, at least, it’s absurd to suggest that the book or idea is at fault while simultaneously absolving capitalism for any responsibility for the bad things that happen during its practice.
Isn’t democracy really just a means for the aristocracy to con the peasantry into thinking they control their own fate? Who was it who said that, as a form of government, democracy sucks, but all others are worse?
If you are a student of society, it seems like free people can’t wait to be enslaved and enslaved people can wait to be free.
No, I don’t really have a point. I’m just having kind of a stream of consciousness moment where my thoughts are just bursting out as a kind of lumpy slurry onto the keyboard….
Dave,
Churchill: Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.
Well, there’s two possibilities that seem plausible to me. It could be that humans have evolved to simply prefer the type of security provided by a big brother type entity. It seems reasonable to me that humans who did what they were told in the tribe and liked it had a significant evolutionary advantage, and now we’re stuck with that hardcoding.
The other possibility that seems plausible is that social systems, like religious systems, are largely determined by momentum. Many kids of religious parents grow up to be religious, even following the same religion. I know, I almost was one of them. They’re simply told, over and over while their brains are forming that religion X is correct, and that suffices to make it fact, for them. I suspect many people’s notions of what government should be and should do are created in exactly the same way. The notion that the government should provide an enormous array of stuff to people isn’t even debated, it’s simply assumed. So new people grow up, see that assumption being made by literally everyone they encounter and assume it’s correct.
Solutions? There are none, at least not on a societal level, short of using alien technology to rewrite people’s preferences.
I’m late to this party, just wanted to give props to Radley. The recent influx of liberals can gnash their teeth all the they, but numbers don’t lie …. socialists/communists killed over 100 million last century … all other types of government combined can’t even come close.
(note to Radley – if you DO switch the comments system … a Preview button would be awesome … mmmkay?) :)
We don’t need a “New Libertarian Man.” We already know of a system that works well with existing human nature.
James D,
And as long as we carefully define things by only looking at “the last century,” you might end up correct. Although even if we limited ourselves to the last 100 years, I’d probably be willing to take “all governments” against the socialists/communists.
The basic tenent of communism is that as follows,
From one according to ability, to one according to need.
This philosophy automatically weakens if not destroys the notion of the individual. I am no longer working for myself, but for those who cannot provide for themselves. In a sense, I become their slave/servant as part of my labor and output goes to them. The greater this dependency, the more I am a slave.
Its just that simple. All the other arugments just don’t matter unless you can address this simply observation and the rather straight forward implication of said observation.
Fluffy’s comments–whether in this thread or in a Hit & Run thread–are almost always excellent. Succinct and crystal clear.
Fluffy, please start a blog!
Communism must be forced on the people. Capitalism allows you the choice to voluntarily make as big a communal system as you and others like. Communism forces everyone to live the same way and if you don’t agree to it…you die.
I never said there were “good” commies. All I said was that countries that call themselves communist are often nothing more than totalitarian police states and not necessarily communist. It’s just like the USA calling itself the land of the free, when its nothing of the sort.
But according to wiki, there are only 4 so-called communist countries left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_communist_states
China
Cuba
Laos
Vietnam
And looking at Laos, I can’t say that it’s so much worse than the US or especially a European socialist state. I’ll bet there are certain areas where Laos would have more economic and social freedom than the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Laos
Does someone need a history lesson as to how the internet was created? By the government? As in not through capitalism, but through socialism?
“Child labor was a moral advance on the pathetic situation of children during the feudal and mercantilist ages, as a cursory glance at child mortality figures can demonstrate.”
Child mortality rates dropped after scientists came up with the germ theory of disease.
First of all, this is in no way a defense of communism, so probably is totally off topic. Secondly, I only read through the first 99 comments. But I do have a question:
#99: So, after adding up the death toll on each side, capitalism wins by a landslide as being more humane than communism. Does that mean, from now on, we are only allowed to criticize communism and must bow and worship capitalism?
Assuming we are equating the U.S. with capitalism, how many people has this country killed in the last seven years? How many people has any other government killed during that time. Some people have been criticized for going back a couple hundred years to make their point. How about seven?
The other point is that people in communist countries have little or no say in what their governments do, whereas capitalist societies do. How many people reading this are satisfied with the number of people killed in the name of the United States in the past seven years?
I would go with Laos.
“Does someone need a history lesson as to how the internet was created? By the government? As in not through capitalism, but through socialism?”
I’m not sure it matters how it was created the point was what you personally are doing. Somebody pointed out Nepal as a successful communist state. From Wikipedia its a country with 50% unemployment and 76% of the population as farmers. Certainly it has only existed for a year but that just says you can’t call it successful yet either. With those numbers I don’t think the average person is sitting bulshitting about political theory all day.
Oatwhore you are silly. Socialism is not defined as any action the Government takes. Meaning, you can’t define something as socialist only because the government funded it, there are other criteria as well.
Besides, DARPA only funded a very small part of the research which produced the internet. Most of the communications protocals were developed by colleges and universities, and the world wide web was developed by a private corporation.
not to mention the fact that the infastructure (the actual wiring, switching, etc) was paid for by private telecoms.
Unfortunately, our government is assuming that it owns us, as well. Communism is not the only system which treats its citizens as dispensible property. It may be the worst of the lot, in as far as it has (so far) killed more people, but even an apparent free society can be gradually changed to a totalitarian state, as ours has been.
excuse the typo on “dispensable”
I find that the harshest critics of libertarianism are under the impression that it means “no government.” Libertarianism means a lot of things, but this isn’t one of them.
Yeah, I hate it when people assume that all self-proclaimed libertarians have the principles to carry their philosophy to its logical conclusions.
I’m not sure how a bunch of people took from my post that I’m some sort of collectivist. I am in favor of lightly regulated market economies. I simply am not so ignorant as to think that certain regulations to combat fraud, monopolies, and other excesses are necessary for market based economies to work and that so far the best entity for doing that is a government. That doesn’t mean a big or oppressive government, just a government.
Also a lot of people need to get it out of their heads that capitalism is why we have social freedom. Our form of capitalism/market economics/private enterprise (which is by no means unrestricted now, nor has it ever been) is a form of ensuring economic freedom. The economic theory on the other side is socialism which at its purist form is when the means of production are entirely owned and operated by the state, though there are softer forms of it which are what we see in some European countries. Communism is a political theory in which the collective takes decisive precedent over the individual. Our system is a Republic with democratic principles in which the will of the collective is (or at least is intended to be) restricted when it comes to certain individual rights. Clearly economic and government theories work in conjunction with each other. However saying “capitalism protects political freedom” is absurd. They’re adopting market principals in numerous countries that don’t protect political freedom. Market economics, if done correctly, protects an individuals economic freedom. Republican forms of government with strong constitutional rights and accoutnable institutions protect political freedoms.
Again I would never advocate communism, mass redistributivism, or whatever other isms people have taken me to support. I simply live in reality. I also greatly thank Dave Krueger for his comment that just because one acknowledges shortcomings in capitalism and grey areas in economic and political theory does not mean someone is a communist. I am quite pro-capitalism. His point about the uncertainty over what the next big economic or political philosophy will be used to sew chaos and death is one that everyone should take to heart.
I’m not sure how a bunch of people took from my post that I’m some sort of collectivist.
Gee, maybe it was when you asked “how we appropriately distribute the burdens and benefits of capitalism across society.”
I simply am not so ignorant as to think that certain regulations to combat fraud, monopolies, and other excesses are necessary for market based economies to work and that so far the best entity for doing that is a government.
Actually, that seems to be precisely how ignorant you are. If you believe that coercive regulation is necessary to combat fraud and potential monopolies in the market, you lack some pretty basic economic understanding.
Sam (and others), it’s pretty simple …. we’re putting up a wall (fence) to keep people OUT. Communist countries have to put up walls to keep people IN. When America starts putting up walls to keep people IN rather than OUT, then you know that this country truly has lost it completely.
It’s not like the country isn’t trying it’s best to make us a bunch of communists:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/PhotoPopup.aspx?id=511787
MattH “No, it just isn’t. I understand the temptation to say that, but you should hold yourself to a higher rhetorical standard. A physical wall which you could get shot trying to climb over to seek a better life is just not the same as being hassled for taxes by the US government. You can still leave the US if you don’t like it. I don’t see any reason you can’t renounce citizenship if you want to.”
Read the article in the link I posted. That’s exactly what it said, you can’t legally renounce US citizenship and just go somewhere else anymore unless American authorities let you. Its not up to you its up to them. My point has nothing to do with millionaires renouncing in order to get out of paying taxes my point is they can now legally claim jurisdiction over you forever and there’s nothing you can do about it:
http://www.escapeartist.com/Expat_Taxes/Trapped_In_America/
Here’s another one explaining the law
“The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 stipulates that Americans wishing to renounce their U.S. citizenship must sign an oath of renunciation in the presence of a diplomatic or consular officer. The oath reads: “I hereby absolutely and entirely renounce my United States nationality, together with all rights and privileges and all duties of allegiance and fidelity.” The renunciation must take place in a foreign country, and the State Department reserves the right to reject the citizen’s attempt to ditch their citizenship.” rest of the article here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2104878/
“Communists believe a country’s citizens are the property of the state.”
This is just factually wrong about Marxist theory — about which it seems to be a statement. Recall that, for Marx, the dictatorship of the proletariat was only a phase and the State would whither away, leaving the individual truly free. It may be that in practice all Communist states acted as if citizens were their property — and it may be that this was not a contingent fact! — but that isn’t what the theory says.
>>>>> Communism is a political theory in which the collective takes decisive precedent over the individual.<<<<<
Which is why it is inherently evil.
Agree with the conclusion, disagree with the logic.
“Can you name a single communist country that didn’t suppress political dissent, free speech, freedom of religion and other human rights?”
Stipulated: no.
“Communists believe a country’s citizens are the property of the state.”
I don’t think that’s got a damn thing to do with it; the focus on property rights is a libertarian projection (I speak as someone who considers himself mostly libertarian).
Any political philosophy that a) proposes to remake a country’s power structure from scratch and b) provides no way of dealing with asshole leaders* is going to wind up causing precisely this sort of human disaster. For example, I have no doubt that Plato’s Republic would have collapsed in the same way if anyone had actually implemented it.
It follows that, if communism was watered down to include a) awareness of the current political situation and b) a sensible method of leader-selection, it would not necessarily lead to disaster. And this is pretty much what we see in the social-democratic parts of Europe these days.
I personally think it’s a grossly inefficient and legally distasteful approach, but that’s different from thinking that e.g. Denmark is going to go crazy and start slaughtering its citizens.
* Apart from “surely all the sensible people won’t let that happen”. Let that be the lesson of the 20th century: yes they bloody will.
Market economics, if done correctly, protects an individuals economic freedom.
When done “correctly”, it protects political freedom as well – for the simple reason that most exercises of political freedom can be expressed as an economic freedom.
If I want to criticize the government, and I write a book about it or record a podcast about it, that book and that podcast are an economic product. In order for a state to claim to have “correct” economic freedom, the state can’t restrict or prevent me from publishing that book or recording that podcast.
If I want to form a political party, I can form an association of like-minded people, open a bank account, have everyone dump money into it, and start printing pamphlets, buying phone systems, giving people money to run for office, etc. These are all also economic freedoms.
In fact, one major reason that political freedom is under threat in the US is because economic freedoms are under threat. Most of the freedoms we’ve lost have been lost because they’ve been couched by the enemies of freedom as economic regulations and not political restrictions. Campaign Finance “reform” being the most visible example.
This is just factually wrong about Marxist theory — about which it seems to be a statement. Recall that, for Marx, the dictatorship of the proletariat was only a phase and the State would whither away, leaving the individual truly free.
The problem with this statement is that it represents not just a failure of imagination, but a refusal to imagine the conditions of life after the extinction of property.
A man who is not simply poor or without property, but who cannot own property, is more dependent on his fellows than a newborn infant. How would the individual be truly free?
Leftists have no trouble arguing that poor people aren’t “really” free because they have to work to have property. How does it make us more free to universalize that experience, and tell everyone that no matter how much they work or how much value they contribute, they will never own property – ever?
People seem to assume that the end-state of Marxism is “everyone has whatever property they want.” And it’s not, not even by the most charitable reading of the theory. The end-state of Marxism is “everyone gets whatever property the collective decides to give them”, and that means that at any moment the hammer can come down and you can get nothing. The collective can walk up to you in the middle of a meal and rip the fork out of your hands. The collective can roust you out of your assigned bed at night and kick you into the street. The collective can tear the shirt off your back and let you walk around naked. All within the confines of the theory.
If under capitalism you’re a frickin’ Bushman from the Kalahari and have nothing but a loincloth and an empty Coke bottle, you’re richer than anyone in Marx’s classless society – as long as you live in a polity that recognizes your loincloth and Coke bottle as yours.
I don’t think that’s got a damn thing to do with it; the focus on property rights is a libertarian projection (I speak as someone who considers himself mostly libertarian).
That is just completely false.
Let’s say we do as you suggest and water communism down to give it “a) awareness of the current political situation and b) a sensible method of leader-selection” and then we proceed on that basis, but with no property.
OK, so I don’t like the way the government is being run, or how the economic plans are progressing, so I decide to write a book about it and print a bunch of copies and distribute them door-to-door.
Where do I get paper and pencil, if the collective doesn’t think that’s a useful use of my time or the collective’s resources?
Where do I get the time to do it, if the collective has decided that it’s imperative that I go out and pick cotton that month?
When it comes time for our “sensible method of leader selection”, if I don’t like the choice of leaders available and want to run for the office myself, how do I do that? Who decides who is entitled to use the collective’s resources to run a Maximum Leader campaign?
A poor man under capitalism can knock on doors and try to get people to buy his book of poems, as Whitman did. Under Marxism, if the collective says, “No,” who do you ask then? Whose door do you knock on then? And you can’t even save up your own money and pursue your goal or goals using your own limited funds. So you can’t even defer your activities to the future. If the collective says “No,” you’re done. Forever.
All I’m going to agree is that it makes it easier to abuse the freedoms of the populace by centralizing decision-making.
Capitalism has a lot of checks in place to prevent abuses from happening on a large-scale, despite it’s innumerable flaws and innefficiencies, least of which is potential instability. (Boom… bust…. booom….. buuuuuuuuust…)
Transitioning to communism is extremely unlikely from capitalism. The populace has too much of a sense of entitlement to allow for that to happen. I am fairly confident that the reason that communist regimes fail is because no one wants to be on even footing with everyone else.
Someone mentioned replicators earlier, and I’m gonna run with it. With replicators installed everywhere and replicating let’s say…. everything… what are we left with?
If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, what’s been fulfilled? Well, most of your physiological needs will be met or under your control, as will your security needs. Moving up to Love/Belonging, that’s covered by social interactions which would be much more free. With more time to spend on your education, delivered by equally fulfilled professors, you’ll quickly find yourself gravitating towards normal society: Your successes will be measured, you’ll compete for the jobs you want. You’ll enjoy whatever you do. You’ll have the freedom to be as decadant or as stringent as you want to be. Government’s role will be reduced to policing human rights violations.
The only price you have to pay for all of this, is letting go of the sense of entitlement for the things you do. Everyone should be proud of what they do, should be credited; If you create something useful, everyone should have access to it.
Maybe I have too much hope for the human race that that’s how we’d use that technology, but I personally would be happy with a life of intellectual pursuit free from difficulties wrought by the acquirement of property.
I work in the telecom industry. “private telecoms” do not exist. And certianly did not exist when the internet was designed. They all recieve inordinate amounts of government subsidies from all levels of government.
That would be the incorrect reading of Marxism. The end state of Marxism is that there is no need for private property since scarcity is eliminated.
Then the poor man writes his poems and keeps writing his poems as long as he wants. There would be no need to save up money (remember there is no need for private property) so he is free to do whatever he wants. All of his labors are labors of love.
Did you guys not watch Star Trek? It really is a pretty good example of the end state of Marx.
Well, I guess that’s ok, as long as he’s not trying to braid hair or arrange flowers or operate a lemonade stand.
Since China has slowly rolling back the communist aspects of its economy here is a question.
If China decided that they no longer officially embraced communism and embraced capitalism, yet still maintained a oppressive totalitarian regime, would you be as quick to label them as a ‘capitalist’ and then all of their crimes would get listed under that label?
oy, my advocation of the devil is fired up today…
The poor man under Marxism would have to then spend time convincing other members of the collective of his reasoning until he had won enough of them over to support his book of poems. Honestly, I like this idea better than the system we have where every old book store I walk into has piles of shitty poetry written by some guy who thought everyone wanted to listen to him whine.
At least with your reading of Marxism people would have to like it (the poetry) enough to advocate letting him mass produce it…instead I get to subsidize it through higher prices from every company that loaned him money because they thought they’d get a cut if he made it big.
:D wow, I must be the biggest commie…I’ve even actually read Marx so I can know for sure he’s a shitbag instead of just guessing because he’s referenced by all those east european dictators. That’s communism right? One man telling everyone else how to live?
No No No Lee…if China called its repressive totalitarian system capitalism it would automatically spawn fluffy bunnies and rainbows everywhere! I mean, that’s pretty much what happened with democracy in Iraq, right?
OK, so the theory is great but when put in practice not so much….but the theory is still great and look you can see it in Star Trek (where the State has yet to wither away, by the way). This is so sad…
“In any event, there have been a number of countries where socialist governments have been voted into power. (Italy, Portugal, Venezuela, Chile…)”
“That’s typically the last vote that they have, too.”
Judging purely by the sample above, that’s not true.
Well, SamK at least openly admits he’s a totalitarian cunt, who would be happier if you had to ask permission to write, because then he wouldn’t have to listen to all the people who just decide to write without asking permission.
I almost wish SamK would try to put his system in place, since any attempt on his part to do so would immediately morally entitle me to stab him in his fucking face with an icepick.
The only price you have to pay for all of this, is letting go of the sense of entitlement for the things you do. Everyone should be proud of what they do, should be credited; If you create something useful, everyone should have access to it.
And so we come full circle: we start out with Radley claiming that everyone under Communism is a slave, and then we have numerous posts where you fucking commie smears of cunt blood claim that’s not true, and then Akusu shows up and openly admits that what he wants is universal slavery. Of course, he’s too fucking stupid to see how his little exercise in John Lennon poetry actually is universal slavery, but that’s besides the point.
There’s a word for someone who has to work without a “sense” that he’s entitled to be paid, Akusu. A word for someone who is entitled to absolutely nothing. A word for someone who should just shut up and hope that his masters pat him on the head and “give him credit” when he produces something useful. And that word, sir, fucking is slave. Period.
And Lee, the entire reason that the political and economic system on Star Trek seems so attractive to you is because it’s never explained. If you actually tried to logically analyze it, you would see what an absolute joke it is in practice. Replicators can’t eliminate the problem of scarcity because they can’t replicate desirable real estate, or human time or talent in the services, or a host of other things. Scarcity would just move; it wouldn’t disappear. In any event, from all appearances Star Trek is ruled by a military junta anyway.
The poor man under Marxism would have to then spend time convincing other members of the collective of his reasoning until he had won enough of them over to support his book of poems.
Just look at this nonsense for a minute: the consolation we’re offered in response to my objection is that if you just manage to convince 50% plus 1 of all the people in the nation or world you live in to support your activity, you’ll get to do it.
Once again, what you people fail to understand about property – the singular reason why property supports freedom – is because in societies that respect property it creates some area of activity where you can do what you want without asking a dictator if it’s ok, and without asking the rest of the world if it’s OK. Our own society doesn’t respect property that much any more, but it still respects it a little, and every last moment when any one of us can do what we want without groveling before power only exists because of that.
Freedom is the freedom to say, “Fuck you, this is mine and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.” Anything other than that is not freedom. “Please please please will the committee please consider meeting again to reconsider the issue of whether I can do what I want?” is not freedom.
It’s not just that scarcity would move in a science fiction setting; it already has moved from the days of trying to put food on the table, “bring home the bacon,” etc., to the present day where scarcity means trying to get insurance that will cover the the health consequences of a limitless supply of calories.
Gene,
That might be what the theory states, but I don’t think there is a causal mechanism within the theory to get to that final state. As I’ve noted, and Fluffy has noted, and probably others, you aren’t free under communism, even in the final stage. My labor and its produce is to go not just to myself, but to others as well. As such, I am their property and they are mine. Under this situation you can imagine the horrors that we have witnessed. If you don’t want to share your labor or object you are ejected from the communal and even outright killed.
Right here we can see that this isn’t a philosophy, but a cult. We cannot grow the world’s food supply a flower pot. This is true irrespective of whatever economic or political system you are discussing. As such scarcity is inevitable, and any philosophy based on that is…worthless. People who peddle this philosophy are hucksters much like the leadership of Scientology. The people who follow the hucksters are deluded.
And please, Star Trek’s economy was total nonsense. On one hand we are told there is no money. In another episode there are “transporter credits”?!?!?! I thought there was no scarcity anymore? Why worry about transporter credits? Sounds like money too me.
And Fluffy is write, since everyone is entitled to the fruits of my labor and intellect I am their slave, and they are my slaves. It is a society of slaves, and humans being heirachical creatures there will eventually be a slave master. Thanks for playing akusu, SamK and Lee you guys just lost.
HTH, HAND
JS, that article you keep linking does not say what you claim it says. In fact, it says the exact opposite. According to your own source, it is perfectly legal to leave the US and renounce citizenship. It is just that the US will attempt to tax your U.S. earnings for 10 years. That’s not “pretty much an equivalent of the communist’s Berlin wall.”
This is quite right. Twits like SamK are upset because some guy decided to write poetry without consulting him or anyone else. And to add to the effrontery, he then manages to get it published! This is intolerable. This kind of…gasp…freedom must be curtailed. It must be curtailed in the name of purity and goodness of art and decency and…whatever the fuck crawls up SamK’s butt.
It captures beautifully the tyranny that one finds so frequently in communist systems as practiced. You didnd’t get permission “from the people” therefore you can’t do it. And if it sucks, but you get permission well…then you still get to do it.
Contrast it with capitalism. Under capitalism anyone can write a book of poetry. If its good it will sell, if not, it wont.
The latter is an offense to SamK because the mere existence of a book he might find objectionable is the crime. Note he doesn’t have to buy it, read it, or even look at it. But that isn’t good enough; merely that it exists is the problem…why only a bad system would produce such an outcome.
If that is your best defense for communism SamK, you really need to come up with something better.
If in the future when replicators can provide anything anybody wants. There will be no communism, there will be no capitalism either. In its best light communism boils down to everybody sharing a limited set of resources equally. It sounds pretty but overlooks the fact that doing this leads to fewer resources in the future. If everybody has everything they want what resources are shared?
The means of production was owned by the government. What’s not socialist about that?
Where do colleges and universities get 95% of their research funds?
That’s right. The government.
“Private telecoms” using public subsidies.
The 1996 telecom act was called “telewelfare” by many.
Or shine shoes or sell pies.
No in end-stage communism your production is yours to do with whatever you want. In capitalism your production is for someone else. In communism it is for yourself. Some of you keep trying to say that in communism that everyone is entitled to your labor. That is exactly wrong. In communism only YOU are entitled to the fruits of your labor.
Since according to the theory there is no scarcity, then the resources are not limited.
BTW, the Federation is not the government on earth. It is a completely different entity. While vague, it seems that transporter credits were used by starfleet academy to limit the traveling of its cadets. I am impressed that you picked out a obscure reference in one episode in attempting to discredit the idea.
Are you talking Star Trek now or Communism? There is always scarcity in real life. If your talking star trek I don’t believe dilithium crystals were all that common. They certainly didn’t use a replicator to make more of them.
[quote]
#148 Fluffy
There’s a word for someone who has to work without a “sense” that he’s entitled to be paid, Akusu. A word for someone who is entitled to absolutely nothing. A word for someone who should just shut up and hope that his masters pat him on the head and “give him credit” when he produces something useful. And that word, sir, fucking is slave. Period.[/quote]
The hilarity here is you’ve missed the point of absence of money. The concept of money becomes at best a trivial game when you have access to every piece of property you need or want freely. This property, by the way, is not centrally or even evenly distributed at all in this scenario, which precludes it from my conclusion that communism dangerously centralizes power. All I’m saying is that by letting go of the ridiculous need for the existence of monetary value(i.e. To Be Paid), you’d find that you would be “paid” instead.
I’d much rather live in a society where I don’t have to be an economist to survive. I’d much rather see my accomplishments take me places, rather than place me on a precarious cliff of monetary value. And I’d much much much prefer a sense of stability rather than worrying about modern cash-grab propoganda campaigns and greed-induced recessions. If we all stopped worrying about how best to compensate each other for the act of existence, we’d all live much happier lives.
Also, realize that I understand that “replicators” are a pipe dream, but the mental exercise is still valid and useful. Star Trek is a good example but that doesn’t mean that it’s the end-all-be-all model: It is science-fiction after all, created by flawed human beings and all that jazz.
You might want to take a few deep breaths and tune in to the idea that some people like exploring controversial ideas for the sake of uncovering what’s useful and what should be discarded. I should hope that most people make at least some attempt to see all sides of things before plowing dogmatically into what their pre-programmed line of thinking is.
Lee,
1. How in Sam Hill can you reconcile the state owning the means of production and “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” with “In communism only YOU are entitled to the fruits of your labor”?
2. “A good way to look at it is capitalism is based on scarcity of resources. What happens if resources are no longer scarce?” Based on recent history, it appears that damn foolishness prevails until resources become scarce again. In the semi-free market of the USA, we manage to keep a sense of scarcity in the midst of great wealth by foolish spending on luxuries that would be utterly unbelievable to Louis XIV. And that’s just the people on welfare, the rest of us are doing even better… OTOH, where collectivism in some form prevails, wealth shrinks until even the basic necessities are scarce.
It’s quite simple. Collectivism removes most of the incentives to work harder and to work smarter. Why work hard or strain your brain to invent a better way of doing the job when you will gain little benefit from it? Collectivism further shifts decision-making from the decentralized market system to bureaucrats and politicians – who do not know in detail what individuals want or what it takes to make it, and who in any case will soon be more concerned with maintaining and improving their position in the government than with what gets delivered to the people.
“#64 | RobZ | November 9th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
A candidate for worst capitalist ever:
From 1885 to 1908, Leopold II of Belgium ran the Congo Free State as a privately held enterprise. Said to have caused somewhere between 8 and 20 million deaths.”
Because a king using his army to seize mines and farms, and force workers to slave in them, is a perfect example of capitalism…
This is not true at all. This is a lie. The guiding principle in communism is:
To each according to their need, from each according to their ability.
Thus, those who cannot support themselves take from those who are able to more than support themselves.
This underscores a fundamental misunderstanding. I own my labor. I can either keep it for myself and try to produce items I need, or I can sell my labor for money and use it to buy what I need, given the limits of my money derived from the sale of my labor.
Okay suppose we have the communist paradise with Joe, Bob, Mary and Beth. Beth unfortunately can’t work like Joe, Bob and Mary and whatever she produces isn’t sufficient. So, what happens. Beth takes from Joe, Bob and Mary. She is entitled to her labor. During the dictatorship of the proletariat the government does this via force. In this mythical “end stage” magic unicorns do it with fair dust or imaginary replicators from a fucking television show.
Guys, it well past time you grew the fuck up.
Also, realize that I understand that “replicators” are a pipe dream, but the mental exercise is still valid and useful.
No, its mental masturbation that does nothing to address the real problems we face today. Grow up.
Oh, and get a job and move out of your mom’s basement.
Should read as,
She is entitled to their labor.
And I messed up the html on this part,
No, its mental masturbation that does nothing to address the real problems we face today. Grow up.
I find it simply amazing that people are arguing: communism would be just peachy if we had these machines that eliminated all scarcity.
No fucking shit. Any system would likely be much better if everyone had a replicator. Of course, perpetual motion machines simply do not exist.
You owe me a keyboard, dammit.
I’d go a different way. The ultimate scarce resource, and the only one that can never be made non-scarce, is other people’s time and energy.
If you want to get Darwinian about it, you could say that all other products – clothes, food, fast cars – are just proxies for our genes’ ability to replicate themselves (e.g. by keeping ourselves alive long enough to procreate, or by impressing girls with a nice set of wheels). If those products cease to be good proxies – if they cease to have any relationship to reproductive success – it’s likely that they’ll become less interesting.
This is why no-one brags about owning a digital watch, despite the fact that it would have been unthinkably advanced half a century ago.
Of course this is a bit of a problem for communism: eliminating scarcity just moves the power plays to a different game board. And in fact that’s what seems to have happened in most communist countries – position within the party became the new status symbol.
But it’s also a problem for capitalism-as-political-philosophy. Capitalism doesn’t change a society’s power structure, it just changes the expression of it (in a way that happens to vastly increase overall productivity, so yay). So there’s no reason why the same genocides etc shouldn’t happen in a capitalist country.
Personally, I think this is a correlation-versus-causation issue: countries that have converted to communism have historically been very deprived; deprived countries are more prone to genocide. Capitalism is only a factor insofar as it affects the number of people below the starvation line.