Typical apologists. Anybody who believes in the elimination of class without the extermination of the bourgeoisie would have also believed that the Jews were really going to Madagascar.
Or they would just believe that a Jew who survived the camps would go join a kibbutz, as many of them did. They, of course, did not try to exterminate Israel’s bourgeoisie, but within the kibbutz, they voluntarily eliminated class distinctions. These victims of the Nazis would be quick to tell you that there was indeed an extremely significant difference between their communist lifestyle and Nazism.
Voluntarily living a communal lifestyle, one which you can quit at any time, is NOT communism. Isn’t that obvious?
Cecil, no, it is not obvious. It depends on how you define communism.
Lets try wikipedia first, because so many people do: “common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate.[”
The old-style kibbutzim fit this definition.
Lets try the dictionary.com, again, only because so many people will:
com·mu·nism
/ˈkɒmyəˌnɪzəm/ Show Spelled[kom-yuh-niz-uhm]
–noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2.
( often initial capital letter ) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.
—
The classic kibbutzim fit the first definition of small-c communism, but of course, did not fit the second definition.
What you either fail to grasp or are deliberately being obtuse about, Bob, is that voluntarily joining a commune or collective farm is completely different from living under a communist government. The key difference is the voluntary nature of life on a collective farm. People were free to come and go at any time. That was most definitely not the case under a communist government where trying to leave could easily get you sent to prison or killed. Likewise, I’ve never heard of collective farms establishing secret police agencies to spy on their members. For that matter, I’ve never heard of a collective farm that sent spies to other farms to gather intelligence and institute subversive actions to undermine those other farms.
Face it, Bob, you can keep trying to deflect the discussion from the evil nature of communist governments all you want but you’re not fooling anyone except perhaps yourself.
Voluntarily living a communal lifestyle, one which you can quit at any time, is NOT communism. Isn’t that obvious?
To everyone but Bob, Minister of Truth.
they voluntarily eliminated class distinctions.
That’s the key, right Bob? That’s your ideal utopia? Been listening to Imagine quite a bit?
I think Bob has a point.
Clearly the communist concept of Kibbutz is what many on the left have as a Utopian view, understanding this might help create a constructive dialog with those on the left that have an open mind.
At the same time Communist as practiced by governments larger than a single small farm is unquestionably bad.
I would postulate that this breaks down at the point where the group grows to the point where its members don’t personally know each other. Based on wiki the largest Kibbutz is currently 1400 people.
Clearly when it gets too big the “power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely” theme kicks in.
I personally think progress is made when society sets up its resources to maximize opertunity, thereby encouraging the best and brightest.
I do not think it serves progress not when society sets up its resources to make everyone equal.
Fundamentally everyone is not equal.
Equal rights is not the same as equal outcomes.
Paul, thanks. You may have missed it in the other thread, but Brock pointed out something new to me: Dunbar’s number. I’m not sure it is entirely a correct notion, but it seems plausible, and unless I’m missing something, it accounts for communism’s history, as kibbutzim did stay pretty small. Brock’s comment might even be falsifiable: we compare the histories of the smaller kibbutz communities to larger ones.
Curt, no, I wouldn’t want to live on an old-style kibbutz, or even one of the new more privatized ones. As for that Lennon song, as I’ve mentioned here before, if you listen to Imagine, you might want to really imagine — think of a world where sentient beings are uploaded into a virtual world with what would seem to them to be unlimited possibilities…. …I might not want to live there either compared to some perfect situation, but it might be more fun than the actual life I lead. But if you are religious, I could see where you might disagree.
think of a world where sentient beings are uploaded into a virtual world with what would seem to them to be unlimited possibilities
OK, been watching Matrix quite a bit? 🙂
On the meaning of “communism”, do we use a narrow definition to highlight a vital distinction? Or a wider definition indistinguishable from “collective”, useless as redundant and obscuring the vital distinction? I think the former is more useful language.
Peterh, I think redundancy in the English language is aberrant, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, bizarre, deviant, divergent, exceptional, extraordinar, irregular, odd, peculiar, strange, uncommon, unexpected, unnatural, unusual, and weird! Lets both join a commune where we and like-minded speakers can make a collective effort to improve the way we speak!
I’ve begun a post on this topic based on the index of Hitler’s speeches that Bob provided. It’s much too long to comment here.
I’d be curious to know if those kibbutz survive and operate entirely ‘free’ from the polluting influences of capitalism and private property.
I doubt the success (as it much as it can be called such) of these miniature communist paradises is reliant on not surpassing some managable population limit moreso than the productivity they manage to extract from the surrounding non-communists.
Paul,
Bob may have a point, but I note that in a thread that compared to horrors of Communism with the horrors of the Nazi party; Bob decided to compare Jew’s to Communism and never once acknowledge the mass killings under the name of Communism. Perhaps Bob can tell us about the mass killings done by Kibbutz as a point of comparison in the way that Rand’s referenced link did.
I have to leave for the day, but if you check the other thread, you’ll see that the very first thing I did was call Stalin, Mao, Castro, Tito, and Che murderers and thieves, so you’re not only making an ad hominem argument, you’re making a demonstrably false one.
Thanks for making some pretty irrelevant points, Bob-1.
Bob, seriously, my bad. Indeed, in your second comment in the other thread, you mentioned individuals you thought were responsible for mass murders. You seem to think we should blame the individuals, rather than their ideology, as if the individuals single handedly each killed millions. You then proceeded to compare Jewish farm cooperatives, after admitting they were neither marxist or communists, to communism because…?
I just finished a post regarding Hitler’s 1940-Dec-10th speech if any are interested. I’d welcome any to tear it apart if they would.
Leland, those were just a few bad eggs. In reality, Communism brings peace and love everywhere it goes. Honest.
Leland, those were just a few bad eggs. In reality, Communism brings peace and love everywhere it goes. Honest.
And if it hasn’t, it’s because the right people (meaning us) weren’t in charge. Let us be in charge and we’ll get it right this time. Honest. You can trust us. Really.
This has long been the ultimate defense of Communism.
It’s not the system, it’s not the ideology, it’s the individual practitioners!
Stalin distorted Communism. Except, as Solzhenitsyn notes, he built upon what Lenin had created. Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Mengistu, Castro, all of them also murdered millions.
What does it say of a system where the aberrant is the norm? What does it say that not one Communist system survives unless it becomes a murder machine?
In the 1950s, a group of disillusioned ex-Communists published The God That Failed, a volume discussing how each had come to see Communism as a failure.
In the eyes of the Bob-1’s of the world, I think the problem is humanity. We have failed to live up to the virtues of true Communism. (No wonder we deserve to be starved, shot, hanged, or condemned to live in Gulags and laogai camps!)
It is not The God that Failed, but The Followers That Failed.
No I completely disagree, but I don’t have time write anything else now. I hope to have time tomorrow.
Typical apologists. Anybody who believes in the elimination of class without the extermination of the bourgeoisie would have also believed that the Jews were really going to Madagascar.
Or they would just believe that a Jew who survived the camps would go join a kibbutz, as many of them did. They, of course, did not try to exterminate Israel’s bourgeoisie, but within the kibbutz, they voluntarily eliminated class distinctions. These victims of the Nazis would be quick to tell you that there was indeed an extremely significant difference between their communist lifestyle and Nazism.
Voluntarily living a communal lifestyle, one which you can quit at any time, is NOT communism. Isn’t that obvious?
Cecil, no, it is not obvious. It depends on how you define communism.
Lets try wikipedia first, because so many people do: “common ownership of the means of production, free access to articles of consumption, the end of wage labour and private property in the means of production and real estate.[”
The old-style kibbutzim fit this definition.
Lets try the dictionary.com, again, only because so many people will:
com·mu·nism
/ˈkɒmyəˌnɪzəm/ Show Spelled[kom-yuh-niz-uhm]
–noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state.
2.
( often initial capital letter ) a system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party.
—
The classic kibbutzim fit the first definition of small-c communism, but of course, did not fit the second definition.
What you either fail to grasp or are deliberately being obtuse about, Bob, is that voluntarily joining a commune or collective farm is completely different from living under a communist government. The key difference is the voluntary nature of life on a collective farm. People were free to come and go at any time. That was most definitely not the case under a communist government where trying to leave could easily get you sent to prison or killed. Likewise, I’ve never heard of collective farms establishing secret police agencies to spy on their members. For that matter, I’ve never heard of a collective farm that sent spies to other farms to gather intelligence and institute subversive actions to undermine those other farms.
Face it, Bob, you can keep trying to deflect the discussion from the evil nature of communist governments all you want but you’re not fooling anyone except perhaps yourself.
Voluntarily living a communal lifestyle, one which you can quit at any time, is NOT communism. Isn’t that obvious?
To everyone but Bob, Minister of Truth.
they voluntarily eliminated class distinctions.
That’s the key, right Bob? That’s your ideal utopia? Been listening to Imagine quite a bit?
I think Bob has a point.
Clearly the communist concept of Kibbutz is what many on the left have as a Utopian view, understanding this might help create a constructive dialog with those on the left that have an open mind.
At the same time Communist as practiced by governments larger than a single small farm is unquestionably bad.
I would postulate that this breaks down at the point where the group grows to the point where its members don’t personally know each other. Based on wiki the largest Kibbutz is currently 1400 people.
Clearly when it gets too big the “power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely” theme kicks in.
I personally think progress is made when society sets up its resources to maximize opertunity, thereby encouraging the best and brightest.
I do not think it serves progress not when society sets up its resources to make everyone equal.
Fundamentally everyone is not equal.
Equal rights is not the same as equal outcomes.
Paul, thanks. You may have missed it in the other thread, but Brock pointed out something new to me: Dunbar’s number. I’m not sure it is entirely a correct notion, but it seems plausible, and unless I’m missing something, it accounts for communism’s history, as kibbutzim did stay pretty small. Brock’s comment might even be falsifiable: we compare the histories of the smaller kibbutz communities to larger ones.
Curt, no, I wouldn’t want to live on an old-style kibbutz, or even one of the new more privatized ones. As for that Lennon song, as I’ve mentioned here before, if you listen to Imagine, you might want to really imagine — think of a world where sentient beings are uploaded into a virtual world with what would seem to them to be unlimited possibilities…. …I might not want to live there either compared to some perfect situation, but it might be more fun than the actual life I lead. But if you are religious, I could see where you might disagree.
think of a world where sentient beings are uploaded into a virtual world with what would seem to them to be unlimited possibilities
OK, been watching Matrix quite a bit? 🙂
On the meaning of “communism”, do we use a narrow definition to highlight a vital distinction? Or a wider definition indistinguishable from “collective”, useless as redundant and obscuring the vital distinction? I think the former is more useful language.
Peterh, I think redundancy in the English language is aberrant, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, bizarre, deviant, divergent, exceptional, extraordinar, irregular, odd, peculiar, strange, uncommon, unexpected, unnatural, unusual, and weird! Lets both join a commune where we and like-minded speakers can make a collective effort to improve the way we speak!
I’ve begun a post on this topic based on the index of Hitler’s speeches that Bob provided. It’s much too long to comment here.
I’d be curious to know if those kibbutz survive and operate entirely ‘free’ from the polluting influences of capitalism and private property.
I doubt the success (as it much as it can be called such) of these miniature communist paradises is reliant on not surpassing some managable population limit moreso than the productivity they manage to extract from the surrounding non-communists.
Paul,
Bob may have a point, but I note that in a thread that compared to horrors of Communism with the horrors of the Nazi party; Bob decided to compare Jew’s to Communism and never once acknowledge the mass killings under the name of Communism. Perhaps Bob can tell us about the mass killings done by Kibbutz as a point of comparison in the way that Rand’s referenced link did.
I have to leave for the day, but if you check the other thread, you’ll see that the very first thing I did was call Stalin, Mao, Castro, Tito, and Che murderers and thieves, so you’re not only making an ad hominem argument, you’re making a demonstrably false one.
Thanks for making some pretty irrelevant points, Bob-1.
Bob, seriously, my bad. Indeed, in your second comment in the other thread, you mentioned individuals you thought were responsible for mass murders. You seem to think we should blame the individuals, rather than their ideology, as if the individuals single handedly each killed millions. You then proceeded to compare Jewish farm cooperatives, after admitting they were neither marxist or communists, to communism because…?
I just finished a post regarding Hitler’s 1940-Dec-10th speech if any are interested. I’d welcome any to tear it apart if they would.
Leland, those were just a few bad eggs. In reality, Communism brings peace and love everywhere it goes. Honest.
Leland, those were just a few bad eggs. In reality, Communism brings peace and love everywhere it goes. Honest.
And if it hasn’t, it’s because the right people (meaning us) weren’t in charge. Let us be in charge and we’ll get it right this time. Honest. You can trust us. Really.
This has long been the ultimate defense of Communism.
It’s not the system, it’s not the ideology, it’s the individual practitioners!
Stalin distorted Communism. Except, as Solzhenitsyn notes, he built upon what Lenin had created. Mao, Kim Il-Sung, Mengistu, Castro, all of them also murdered millions.
What does it say of a system where the aberrant is the norm? What does it say that not one Communist system survives unless it becomes a murder machine?
In the 1950s, a group of disillusioned ex-Communists published The God That Failed, a volume discussing how each had come to see Communism as a failure.
In the eyes of the Bob-1’s of the world, I think the problem is humanity. We have failed to live up to the virtues of true Communism. (No wonder we deserve to be starved, shot, hanged, or condemned to live in Gulags and laogai camps!)
It is not The God that Failed, but The Followers That Failed.
No I completely disagree, but I don’t have time write anything else now. I hope to have time tomorrow.