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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2014 02:23 AM |
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Catalonia was Bolshevik-opposed, sure. But libertarian? It was horribly violent. Lots of extrajudicial killing, thousands of people being murdered by socialist militants, all that good stuff. Very libertarian, right? There's a reason it was called the Red Terror.
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Baklava
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posted May 20, 2014 02:44 AM |
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Edited by Baklava at 02:47, 20 May 2014.
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Oh please. It was a civil war. Compare to the French revolution, the American revolution, the American civil war, the White Terror, the breakup of Yugoslavia etc. It's the repercussion train. In civil wars, territory changes hands often, nobody trusts anybody, and things get out of control constantly. I'm talking about the peaceful pockets, during ceasefires long enough for something reminiscent of a normal economy to be set up - and there were little to no such measures over there. On the contrary, as I said, even the collectivization was introduced in a non-coercive manner.
And mind you that the Red Terror includes the crimes of the bolsheviks as well, not just those of the more ideologically libertarian leftist forces.
Besides, you yourself claimed, a few months ago, that the way the USA conducts wars is not a measure of authoritarianism, when we discussed whether it's less of an authoritarian regime than Putin's. When my argument was that the US gov't starts enough wars and leads to the deaths of enough people for there to be no discernible ethical difference between the two empires.
George Orwell was there back in the '30s, he wrote a pretty detailed (and realistic - eerily so, at times) account of Catalonia. You should get it, if only for an interesting and pretty straightforward point of view. "Animal Farm" shows how sceptical he was of populist dictatorships, if nothing.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2014 02:53 AM |
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From Burnett Bolloten's testimonials of rule by committee in the Spanish Civil War:Quote:
"The committee is the paterfamilias. It owns everything; it directs everything. Every special desire has to be submitted to it for consideration; it alone has the final say."
"If someone has a girl outside the village, can he get money to pay her a visit? The peasants assure me that he can."
"I tried in vain to get a drink, either of coffee or wine or lemonade. The village bar had been closed as nefarious commerce."
"With the abolition of money, the collective held the upper hand since anyone wishing to travel had to get 'republican' money from the committee."
"Puritanism was a characteristic of the libertarian movement. . . excessive drinking, smoking and other practices that were perceived as middle-class attributes were nearly always censured."
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Baklava
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posted May 20, 2014 03:10 AM |
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Only 18.5% of the land in the Republican zone (and, of course, none in the Nationalist zone) was collectivized. Thus, individualists in Spain continued to be overwhelmingly important, especially in comparison to state-sponsored collectivization of Soviet agriculture in the same period.
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In Catalonia, collectives were islands in a sea of medium- and small-property olders. An inquiry by the Catalan regional government at the end of 1939 revealed that only sixty-six localities had taken some collectivist measures, and over 1000 municipalities had not.
We can go on like this forever. Bolloten was especially disgruntled by communists and some of their actions, and rightly so. This isn't the time or the place - what I was aiming at showing was the banality of your insistence that there can be no freedom of association under the communist overlords.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mvassilev
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posted May 20, 2014 03:14 AM |
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I'm not conceding the point, but I think we should stop getting off-topic.
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JollyJoker
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posted May 20, 2014 10:46 AM |
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The usual bs - fundamental debate.
Although, meanwhile everyone should know that humans are "walking in the twilight", so-to-speak: individual, but social beings.
That means, that neither the pure predator/individual capitalist/libertarian approach makes sense, nor the hive-mind/full social/equalitarian pure communist: both "ismns" cater only to one side of the coin.
In practice there isn't that much difference between the "enlightened communism" in Vietnam and the social capitalism in some parts of Europe. And I repeat: IN PRACTISE; names and labels may differ quite significantly, but what's in names?
Anyway. There seem to be people here who advocate the following. Putting someone a cocked gun to the head to take advantage of someone is bad.
Taking advantage of a cocked gun that HAPPENS to be held at someone's head is just fine.
So it all amounts to "be there, if somewhere someone happens to suffer from the misfortune of having a cocked gun to the head".
How LAME a predator-in-disguise bs is that? It's not my fault, so I can take advantage? Talking about kicking someone in the face when they are lying on the ground.
Come to think of it - it's SCAVENGER mentality: just wait until the predators do the bloody work. After that, pick what's left - and point your finger to the predator: hey, it was them!
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted May 20, 2014 11:40 AM |
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Edited by artu at 15:04, 20 May 2014.
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I am not an advocate of communism and as far as I can tell, neither is Baklava. But to suggest a communist to live in a commune under a capitalist state is misconceptualizing the ideology. It is an individualist approach to the matter: Hey, get your own property and friends and live like however you want to live. Communism labels that sort of individualism as a conformist deviation, it is first of all a socialist ideology, not individualist and it aims to transform the society, the state and the relationship between the means of production and the social classes.
The sort of individualism Xerox tries to apply to communism is not compatible with the magnitude of the ideology. He does the same with Islam for instance, a Muslim (if not only culturally religious but also a political advocate of Islam) will defend laws and practices of Quran to be the social norm, for he believes it is Allah's will to try to establish that social order. Some may be more radical in this stance (behead the infidels) and some may be more democratic (we should impose Islamic values from an early age) but they will not agree to a total secular state based on individual preferences, in the sense we understand. Anyway, this example is a little off topic and there are subtle differences between religion and ideology, one can be solitarily culture-based, so I wont get in there right now.
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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 12:04 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 12:04, 20 May 2014.
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I understand all of that. I am very aware of that the communists I know IRL won't accept my suggestion to pack their bags and leave, instead of trying to accomplish their revolution here. Again, not agreeing with an ideology has nothing to do with not understanding it.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted May 20, 2014 12:10 PM |
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You are not just "not agreeing" to it. You are suggesting a consolation that you formulate as "small-scale communism" while the ideology itself defines that as a deviation from the cause.
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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 12:19 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 12:20, 20 May 2014.
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Then I ask them to develop their ideology.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted May 20, 2014 12:26 PM |
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That made me picture you living in Russia during the times of Stalin. On your way to exile, in a train to Siberia, looking out the window, watching the frozen trees and talking to yourself:
- It was just a suggestion!
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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 12:31 PM |
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Well, as long as they go by the notion that communism can never exist on any scale as long as there's just a little bit of capitalism, I feel safe in that such a day will never come.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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JollyJoker
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posted May 20, 2014 01:29 PM |
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"They" already DID develop it, like everything has to develop or die.
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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 01:40 PM |
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I don't believe ideologies are static things that at some arbitrary point just stagnate.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted May 20, 2014 02:03 PM |
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Edited by artu at 14:06, 20 May 2014.
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They are not static, anyway. As JJ already pointed out, they do modify and adjust their stance all the time and I'm sure any modern communist party has a different programme than a communist party from early 20th century. What you suggest radically differs from modification though, it's an individualist commune fantasy (I dont use the word fantasy in a negative or even unrealistic sense here) that has not much to do the with communism. Sure, the very basic principles of sharing stuff and equality among members are similar but the scale, the motivation and the position regarding matters of state, its currency are absolutely different.
Would you call the Amish communists because they, in a way, establish their own pre-capitalist commune?
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Baklava
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posted May 20, 2014 02:07 PM |
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The social democracy of the Nordic countries is one of the love children of capitalism and communism. For all the horrors it wrought, Marxism had its purpose. It made the working class into a force of nature that capitalism needed to conform its BS "ethics" to, in order for us to have a chance for a more humane world today.
Everyone is certainly free to believe in its inefficiency compared to a system allowing child labor with no minimum wage or defined work hours, as much as they're free to insist that peddling food for sex in a crisis isn't unethical, and just like every monster has its own tale to tell itself before sleep. That doesn't mean the people won't recognize it for the wuss form of survival of the fittest that JJ explained it to be.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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xerox
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posted May 20, 2014 02:25 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 14:28, 20 May 2014.
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lol Nordic social capitalism has nothing to do with communism and is a concept that those countries have moved away from in the last 30 years. Historically, Swedish social democrats/capitalists certainly did not make friends with communists. They were and are fierce opponents, with very different ideas of the ideal society.
I'm pretty sure voluntary commercial transactions and private property is allowed in Amish society. Without that though, it might be seen as a sort of small-scale communism, which I am fine with. The notion that communism can't be achieved if there's an ounce of capitalism turns it not into an ideology, but a childish fantasy.
____________
Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Baklava
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posted May 20, 2014 02:35 PM |
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High taxes that pay for a plethora of social services is a legacy of socialism and its influence. As are minimum wages, worker-oriented labor laws, syndicates etc. Capitalism won the race in the long run, and it's generally for the better (considering how communism was realized), so it's natural that your system will remind of it more openly. But to say that the 21st century capitalism, especially in social democracies, wasn't influenced by Marxism, is not the most informed of statements.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted May 20, 2014 02:40 PM |
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Edited by artu at 14:41, 20 May 2014.
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Communists (naturally) aim towards a communist state, that doesn't mean their reelpolitik is based on a fantasy of capitalism vanishing from the surface of the earth immediately.
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Fauch
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posted May 20, 2014 02:59 PM |
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xerox said:
Well, as long as they go by the notion that communism can never exist on any scale as long as there's just a little bit of capitalism, I feel safe in that such a day will never come.
what's so scary about communism?
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