Communism is Like religion.

Eric Hoffer, in his book The True Believer, sees Marxism[1] as one of the chief examples of a mass movement which offers The True Believer a glorious, yet imaginary, future to compensate for the frustrations of his present. Such movements need people to be willing to sacrifice all for that future, including themselves and others. To achieve this aim, such movements need to devalue the past and present. This is not only a criticism of communist tenets specifically; Hoffer's other chief examples are Fascists, Nationalists, and the founding stages of religions.

you see religo offers you enternal "joy" for some loss so dose communism.

and he demonstrates that communism is an unachieveable goal does he?
Nevertheless the same charge may have been made against the capitalists under feudalism, "I'm a Lord and you're a peasant, its just natural innit." Or anyone who wanted to abolish slavery, "Well its just natural for me to be their master, its how its always been. Besides if they were free they wouldn't know what to do with themselves and society would collapse, so you see, you're future vision of a free humanity is completely imaginary."

what?
capitalists emerged from the former royalty such as knights, lords and that kind of stuff.
and that isn't close to what I said, I didn't say communism had unrealistic goals just imaginary.

Well actually, IIRC, the capitalist class arose out of an intermediate class in the emerging towns. They were neither peasants nor lords. In Britain and Germany the aristocracy certainly remained outside of the capitalist class, as opposed to evolving into it.

Could you clarify what you mean by imaginary? as opposed to unrealistic?
Cheers

lol, wait, matt, capitalists were actually former serfs that had somehow found to make a living without the help of trade guilds, or...so my history teacher told me o.o;;

imaginary as...like god to athiests? incomprehensible? just because you can't understand something doesn't make it imaginary ^_^;;

Steel wrote:

Well actually, IIRC, the capitalist class arose out of an intermediate class in the emerging towns. They were neither peasants nor lords. In Britain and Germany the aristocracy certainly remained outside of the capitalist class, as opposed to evolving into it.

Could you clarify what you mean by imaginary? as opposed to unrealistic?
Cheers

I meant that by knigts and stuff pepole just above the middle class of that time.
communism is qite impossible anyone with any knid of good logic sees that human nature isn't exacly built for sharing.

civilization itself is evidence that humankind is built for sharing LOL

want more information? look at families.

want a reactionary example? check out how most of the world stood by in support of the u.s. after 9/11.

humans are primarily SOCIAL animals, not competitive ones! it was only by working together that humans were able to even survive past the tribal stage, afterall!

(that's not to say competition isn't important, though)

solpacvoicis wrote:

civilization itself is evidence that humankind is built for sharing LOL

want more information? look at families.

want a reactionary example? check out how most of the world stood by in support of the u.s. after 9/11.

humans are primarily SOCIAL animals, not competitive ones! it was only by working together that humans were able to even survive past the tribal stage, afterall!

(that's not to say competition isn't important, though)

familiy: A man, His children and his wife all are infact his possesions back in the day acctully WAY back in the day but from that came families and that stuff, good on basic levels with 20ish pepole but no the scale of millions were your stuff goes to someone you've never ment isn't qite the same thing.

actually, WAY before that, families weren't even that important, it was the tribe - a type of large, close-knit family.

and the concept of "nation" is just a larger tribe....

people can share on a global scale, i mean, even when its just for PR you find companies giving away stuff around the world....it may not be for the right reasons, but it exists, and so, possible.

and there are organizations that sacrifice their lives to just sharing.

who says sharing can't exist on a larger scale?

Quote :

communism is qite impossible anyone with any knid of good logic sees that human nature isn't exacly built for sharing.

and I suppose people who agree with you have this good logic
Apparently you haven't noticed that you came to this conclusion without any real evidence. Come on, find me a decent scientific study which concludes irrefutably that human nature is easily definable and that your interpretation of it is correct. If you can't do that then you have no basis for disregarding communism in such a way.

The 'human nature' argument is nearly as old as communism itself. It didn't work in the 1880's and it still fails today.

Paul Lafargue wrote:

It was generally presumed that Mr. Spencer had understood the Darwinian theory, of which he had volunteered to be the propounder. The anti-Socialist axiom cited above inclines us to think that the presumption was erroneous. For, according to the evolution theory, the organs of animals, their habits and their instincts are not spontaneous growths, but the necessary results of “the struggle for life under the conditions to which the animals have been exposed.” The sharp teeth and ferocity of the tiger, the swiftness and timidity of the antelope have, no more than the wisdom of Mr. H. Spencer, sprung up spontaneously, but have been evolved more or less gradually by the actions and reactions of their milieu.

Steel wrote:

Quote :

communism is qite impossible anyone with any knid of good logic sees that human nature isn't exacly built for sharing.

and I suppose people who agree with you have this good logic
Apparently you haven't noticed that you came to this conclusion without any real evidence. Come on, find me a decent scientific study which concludes irrefutably that human nature is easily definable and that your interpretation of it is correct. If you can't do that then you have no basis for disregarding communism in such a way.

The 'human nature' argument is nearly as old as communism itself. It didn't work in the 1880's and it still fails today.

Paul Larfargue wrote:

It was generally presumed that Mr. Spencer had understood the Darwinian theory, of which he had volunteered to be the propounder. The anti-Socialist axiom cited above inclines us to think that the presumption was erroneous. For, according to the evolution theory, the organs of animals, their habits and their instincts are not spontaneous growths, but the necessary results of “the struggle for life under the conditions to which the animals have been exposed.” The sharp teeth and ferocity of the tiger, the swiftness and timidity of the antelope have, no more than the wisdom of Mr. H. Spencer, sprung up spontaneously, but have been evolved more or less gradually by the actions and reactions of their milieu.

wtf is that qute???

its from the link (only for some reasons the links don't come up a different colour from the rest of the text)

Steel wrote:

its from the link (only for some reasons the links don't come up a different colour from the rest of the text)

ok let's assume that human nature can share on the concept of millions if not billions.
what is preventing communism from taking over the world?

I'm not assuming anything about human nature. I am saying that it is hard to define, flexible and above all subject to change.
I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that 'human nature' is nothing but a misanthropic red herring. You can prove anything imperfect is the best we can acheive if you work on the basis that humanity is flawed.
As far as I am concerned we are not mere animals who are incapable of foresight or coming to a reasoned, rational conclusion, and the fact that we are having this conversation, that politics, economics and science exists proves this.

The real issue here is whether or not human beings are capable of consciously shaping history and the world they live in or are the doomed to be nothing but the object which external forces act on. Our 'selfishness' does not come into it.

The reason that communism has not currently 'taken over the world' is that people do not currently believe that communism as a system can effectively run it.

And most likely won't, considering most of this generation seem to just learn in school, and obviously all they will say is that it doesn't work.

yeah, but at least they won't say communists are evil - which opens up the following generation ^_^;; right?

Would be better than this.

I just get annoyed when people who have no idea what Anarchy/Communism is come up and say it's evil. Haven't heard any from this generation though, maybe i'll get lucky and be able to see a change

hm, as much as it irks me, all you have to do is prove to them that capitalism, no matter what, is DOOMED, and then show the practicality of communism, when they say it dosn't work =D inform them about utopian socialism, and how communism is not utopian, its scientific, then show why!

anyway, it took me about 40 minutes to show this kid, using diagrams, how the capitalist system would inevitably fail, and then explained the type of "system" (lack thereof maybe?) that communism is - explaining socialism briefly along the way....and by the end of the period, he conceded that communism was possible! XD i felt so proud...

if someone like him can be convinced, more people can be convinced too - and so i study das capital so i can use more economic arguments against capitalism lol

You live in a good area than, were i live, if i explain it to them they just tell me to go to hell.

Better not generalize though, just most of them do this.

lol, i know, i live in such a good area now, its a really small town, not more than a mile and a half in diameter, filled with mostly democrats and their ilk XD