Just what do you people think communism means, anyway?

angelosKD

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kedaman said:
Communal ownership is state control. If I can't do what I want with my property, then its because someone else has a say in it. In communism it is the rest of the state thus state control.

no it isn't In the early part of the 20th century farmers in Minnesota formed "cooperative" creameries, feed mills, grocery stores where all the people who used the business were entitled to share in the profits. These were labled as communist organizations by McCarthyites, and later such organization were condemned by Reagan when formed by peasants in Central America.

In communistic countries you wouldn't even have personal property for someone else to have a say about. If you have personal property and other's regulate it- you are in a either part owner - part of capitalism where people have bought stock in your company - or you are in a democracy where the people have voted (or their representatives have voted) to control your actions for the common good.
 
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kedaman

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kedaman

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angelosKD said:
no it isn't In the early part of the 20th century farmers in Minnesota formed "cooperative" creameries, feed mills, grocery stores where all the people who used the business were entitled to share in the profits. These were labled as communist organizations by McCarthyites, and later such organization were condemned by Reagan when formed by peasants in Central America.

In communistic countries you wouldn't even have personal property for someone else to have a say about. If you have personal property and other's regulate it- you are in a either part owner - part of capitalism where people have bought stock in your company - or you are in a democracy where the people have voted (or their representatives have voted) to control your actions for the common good.
That's not communism then. Communism is shared property, shared by all members of the state, everyone has a say in it. If that doesn't hold then its something else.
 
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kedaman

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WittyBanter said:
Kedman, so in your Communism each and every person has a say on where I live and work? I am not following the logistics of this.
In Communism, SOMEONE has to decide who gets what. That someone is the State.
That doesn't sound like communism to me, because that would imply that people get private property in the end.
 
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The Seeker

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WittyBanter said:
Kedman, so in your Communism each and every person has a say on where I live and work? I am not following the logistics of this.
In Communism, SOMEONE has to decide who gets what. That someone is the State.
Well, that's over 150 years of political tradition out of the window, some bloke calling himself WittyBanter on an internet message board hath spake.
 
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kedaman

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The Seeker said:
Which part of that do any of the examples I cited fall under? I'm mystified, I really am.

Also, the dictionary is not the best place to go for definitions in political theory.
Perhaps not, but I happen to use that definition. You asked what people think it means, so I responded with what I think it is, not what you think it is.
 
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WittyBanter

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The Seeker said:
Well, that's over 150 years of political tradition out of the window, some bloke calling himself WittyBanter on an internet message board hath spake.

I am so glad I destroyed this weird tradition. This communist state where every last property decision must be put to each and every person in the country sounded like alot of work. Also, a logistical nightmare.

You do realize that even in a communist society a governing body must exist? Or were you thinking that a sort of "Hive mind" telepathy would exist to make day-to-day decisions?
 
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In A Perfect World

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The ideal of communism is a great one. Everyone working together to share resources. However, when people decide they want more (the virtue known as ambition), they tend to revolt from such systems. Then who defeats the revolt? Now society isn't working together. The only way to ensure communism prospers is to have a higher authority enforce it, which defeats the ideal itself.
 
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The Seeker

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In A Perfect World said:
The ideal of communism is a great one. Everyone working together to share resources. However, when people decide they want more (the virtue known as ambition), they tend to revolt from such systems. Then who defeats the revolt? Now society isn't working together. The only way to ensure communism prospers is to have a higher authority enforce it, which defeats the ideal itself.
What do you base this upon? Can you find a single example of libertarian communism that has collapsed due to internal strife? There are plenty that haven't. Again, agrarian communes during the Spanish civil war (as well as the collective factories in the same time and place) would be a good place to start.
 
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WittyBanter said:
I am so glad I destroyed this weird tradition. This communist state where every last property decision must be put to each and every person in the country sounded like alot of work. Also, a logistical nightmare.

You do realize that even in a communist society a governing body must exist? Or were you thinking that a sort of "Hive mind" telepathy would exist to make day-to-day decisions?
Would you like fries with that supersize strawman?

For a start, in a federated, gift economy, you wouldn't need "every person in the country" to be involved in every decision.
 
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Lifesaver

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Indeed, Keynesianism is not communism.
It advocates a lesser public control of the market, and even though it does produce a lot of poverty and waste, especially with its encouragement of reckless inflationary policy, it is not as completely impossible to exist as a truly communist society with no market.
Most countries nowadays organize themselves with Keynesian models in mind; they institute a central bank, control interest rates, are always increasing money supply, tax and spend a lot, estabilish barriers to foreign trade and to currency exchange rates, etc.
 
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