posted
Communism is a failed idea for much the same reasons that economic theories fail (and why the stock-market can't be predicted) - they rest on the assumption of rational individuals acting to optimize their own self-interests.
Posts: 351 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Agreed. I was taught that people who tested their products on animals were evil when I was growing up...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Communism is a failed idea for much the same reasons that economic theories fail (and why the stock-market can't be predicted) - they rest on the assumption of rational individuals acting to optimize their own self-interests.
I agree. I'll add that the term "self-interest" is tricky.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:The second problem is that the muscular forces of competition burst out of their proper realm and start effecting the basic standards of living, and start meddling in an untoward manner with a person's self-respect.
This is a curious statement. Obviously I agree that it can startto 'burst out' into standards of living, but self-respect?
Unless you're arguing that there is just as much nobility and worthiness in winning as losing, shouldn't winning in this noble competition result in at least a little more self-respect for the victor, without disgrace for the vanquished?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Avatar300: Hitler was anti-communist because the base of the facist parties is the same as that of communist parties. They were competing for members.
In reality, there is little difference between facism and communism.
Damn those facists! How dare they judge on the basis of someone's facial features!
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posted
I'd be interested to hear about how fascism and communism are similar. While in practice they are certainly known for being similarly repressive and totalitarian, in theory they have many important differences.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
In Facism corporations were given many favors and the government deliberate helps large corporations thrive by contributing to the enviroment.
In a sense Facism doesn't mean Central Planning, since they can operate in market systems, however it can be considered planning when the government pushes forward with many projects meant for prestige and national health etc.
Socialist Totalitarianism is basically heavy handed centralized planning and forced communalization. Also, extremely heavy arms spending in theory accompanies Stalinism.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I'd be interested to hear about how fascism and communism are similar. While in practice they are certainly known for being similarly repressive and totalitarian, in theory they have many important differences.
Read the Road to Serfdom.
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posted
What's funny about the Road to Serfdom is it has never really happened that way. You'd think he'd have come up with an argument with a better basis in history.
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posted
ketchupqueen, I know where you are coming from, but I don't think you understand the system you are getting the ideas from well enough. The United Order was such that it could thrive in all kinds of political conditions. It depended as much on interpretation as participation on how it ran. There have been anywhere from Communist, Socialist, and Capitalist models used. B.Y. was probably the most Communist interpreting of the system. J.S. seemed to be a more socialist leaning governor. There were smaller groups who used it as a suppliment to Capitalist economics - verging on socialism.
In the end all of them failed because of human selfishness and the political reality surrounding them. It doesn't work well with a still developing urban industrial society. Secondly, there wasn't enough isolation for a maturing of the system. Finally, participation was disproportionatly made up of those who needed help compared to those who could help.
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posted
Occasional, I wasn't thinking of the United Order. At all.
And this is an idea I've had as an ideal since I was a teenager. Long before I joined the Church. So I don't really know much about the United Order at all, although I've always been fascinated by the Mennonite communities in central CA (and their kin back east.) Also the Shakers, the Amish, and various degrees of communality all over the world.
Out of curiosity, why did you assume that's what I was thinking of?
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Yeah, I thought so. If you can't explain it or it doesn't hold up, just say so. I'm not going to read an entire book just because you say it illustrates how communism and fascism are alike and can't even tell me a little bit about how that is.
Stand on your own two feet. Don't make a book do it for you.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
There are few if ANY things in common with theotetical communism and facsism. However how they were utilizaed in practice might tend to be similar.
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posted
Both emphasise group rather than individual loyalty; strong state control of the economy (in communism, it's true, this is supposed to wither away to control at the grassroots level, but it's hardly market capitalism); strong, state-enforced morality.
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posted
Gahhhhhh. I just wrote an eight-page essay for a midterm on why centralized, authoritarian governments hinder the progress of humanity toward the improvement of the technological project.
After my brain rests, perhaps I shall express some of it here.
-pH
Edit: To clarify, it was in-class. So I wrote the eight pages in a forty-minute frenzy.
posted
Not quite Germany was a centralized dictatorship and they were quite advanced and is commonly believed that they would've had many achievements in aerospace had they won the war.
posted
You are quite right, it is 'commonly believed'. It is also commonly believed that the Germans had better and more tanks than the French, that the Wehrmacht was completely mechanised, and that the Rjukan raid prevented Hitler from getting nuclear weapons. (Well, the last is kinda-sorta true, if the war had lasted until 1955.)
Sure, the Germans were quite advanced in specific, specialised fields that Hitler poured a lot of resources into. The result was wonder weapons that could be produced in extremely small quantities. It is a damn good thing, for example, that the money spent on the highly unreliable V-2 wasn't instead poured into mass-producing the V-1. Massive cruise missile launches at London, with chemical warheads - brrrr. Even late in the war that might have been very nasty indeed. Or better still, stop improving the Mark IV (ye gods, the thing had 10 different production runs, each requiring a retooling of the factories) and just pour out several thousand of some model that actually worked.
Meanwhile, the first real electronic computers were being built in a grad student's cellar and completely starved of funds.
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