35 thoughts on ““Why I’m A Communist””

  1. Notice how she feels the need to (inaccurately) label both liberalism and conservatism as basing issues on ‘morals’ – neither does so. She doesn’t address ‘how’ every communist government has kept the folks in line. My guess is she watched one too many Star Trek episodes where they came upon a planet with a great society. Note these societies only exist in movies/television/books.

    1. Also known as Utopia:
      Wiki:
      “The term utopia was coined from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the Atlantic Ocean. The word comes from Greek: οὐ (“not”) and τόπος (“place”) and means “no-place”, and strictly describes any non-existent society ‘described in considerable detail’.”
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia

      And Communism is also described in detail.
      But important part is there is no country which is actually communist- though there countries which claim to be communist- Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, and etc. And the believers of Communists support or favorable to these countries.
      The closest thing to Communism is primitive societies, particularly non farming societies or people who don’t have/need specific laws regarding land use.
      A defining aspect of communism is that individuals should not be able own property.
      And defining aspect of ownership is the ability to sell it.
      And selling something is trading something for something else. And device or tool of selling something is money.
      Or if you have a pencil, you could trade it for nickel or a pen or biscuit.
      And important aspect about ownership and selling something is, that you have right not to sell something. Or if you have pencil you don’t have to sell it for a nickel [or any amount of money].
      So someone who rents a property, does not own the property but rather owns the use of the property. Or a renter can’t sell the real estate property as whoever the owner is, has kept the right to sell it.
      Anyhow property rights can be complicated and vary from place to place.
      But ancient and primitive people do have/recognize the right of property and had various systems related to it, the proof of this is that artifacts have been found which were traded over distance of thousands of miles, thousands of years ago.
      Anyways, capitalism was word coined by Marx to mean, not Communism- or any of the existing order which Communism wanted to change. Capitalism is essential free trade or any system of trade.
      The general sentiment of Communism is not original. There is a general idea that Money is basis of evil. Which is only correct is sense that Money = Power. Or Power is the basis of evil.
      Or the habit of controlling other people is basis of evil.
      Or Communism is simply, evil.

      1. The closest thing to Communism is primitive societies, particularly non farming societies or people who don’t have/need specific laws regarding land use.

        But many of these societies did have concepts of ownership over terrain, hunting grounds, camping sites, ect.

  2. Apprently 100+ million dead at the hands of communism in the twentieth century is not enough for some people.

    1. 100+ million dead at the hands of communism in the twentieth century somehow doesn’t reach the level of conscious awareness for all too many. Ardent socialists introduced to the fact would likely dismiss it as a conservative “lie”.

    2. She said a variation of the usual theme: it’s just that the right people haven’t done it yet. “Communism is a system of social organization that has never been truly tried”

      Maybe the system’s just so unworkable that it can’t be done.

  3. “Oriana is Ukrainian.” So was Khruschev, I understand. She probably has an autographed photo of the loveable “Butcher of the Ukraine” hanging up near her Che and Mao posters. I’m also guessing she dislikes Trump because she thinks he’s a dictator.

    2. Oriana didn’t write the article, she was quoted by Rand as apparently disliking the article – ‘making a face’.

      Helen Razer is the communist who needs her ass soundly beaten – it’s the closest part to her brain.

      1. Yes, sorry for the mix-up. I was reading the article half distracted by stuff going on around me, and mistakenly thought she wrote the article, not Helen Razer. My apologies to Ukranians everywhere. You have suffered enough..

  4. From the article:

    “Communism is a system of social organization that has never been truly tried and, these days, never truly explained. ”

    Ah the classic lament…THIS time we’ll do it right!

    Never mind the 100+million dead, more lives than that ruined. Starvation. Ignorance of human nature. And the plain fact that if you were a member of the elite you lived high on the hog.

    “Yet it inspires fear in some, derision in others, and an almost universal unconcern for what it is actually intended to convey.”

    Derision sure enough. Useful idiots like this fail to realize it’s merely a means to totalitarian power.

    They also betray a complete lack of understanding of human nature. They should get out more.

    1. Yes, the old never been tried or even really explained routine combined with,

      Consider this your trigger warning for disappointment: There is no blueprint for communism.

      So, we can’t even know what real communism is supposed to be. Isn’t it all a little too convenient? The author also plays a communists favorite game, arguing over meaningless distinctions between different types of communism.

      And while free markets not being perfect as being the reason to overthrow them, No transition in the mode of production has ever been smooth, nor has it been particularly quick. Every society destroying bump along the road to full blown communism must be endured.

      1. So, we can’t even know what real communism is supposed to be.

        I suppose we have to pass it to find out what’s in it.

    2. Ah, but you fail to understand that what the Soviet Union, China, and other countries tried wasn’t “real communism.” Your criticisms are therefore invalid.

      In an abstract sense it’s impressive how they’ve constructed a “get out of intellectual jail free” card for themselves. Anything that historically occurred was by definition not communism, therefore any deaths, pogroms, ethnic cleansings, etc, have nothing to do with communism. Reactionary capitalists possess no valid arguments against communism since it’s never been attempted.

    3. I’ll grant that it’s never ‘truly explained’ in the ‘here’s what Marx said in great detail’ way.

      Because:

      1) Nobody has any patience for that outside of people who are already Communists.

      2) Real Existing Communism always fails in the same way, no matter how much Marx they throw at it; by their fruits shall ye know them makes sense even if one isn’t a Christian. Thus nobody cares that “it’s nae true Communism!”

      3) If one does rely on Marx one has the problem of explaining how his critique of 1840s “capitalism” (a term nobody else should use; call it “free market economics”) has anything to do with a post-industrial economy in a liberal welfare state.

      “Forget it, Jake, it’s Communists.”

    4. The article lost me at “Communism . . . has never been truly tried.”

      The No True Scotsman fallacy. “The Scots are very polite people.” “I was scolded for saving for my wife and two small kids a table at self-service restaurant in Edinburgh . . .” “No true Scotsman would do such a thing!”

  5. There is a functioning Communist Group — The German Hutterite Sect. But there is a problem, or three, with bringing them up for the Left.
    They are religious, believe that their system does not work with populations larger than 60-250, and did I mention they are religious?

  6. It’s useful to note that all these stars of classical economics had died before Marx even learned to read. Yet, theirs are the thoughts on which the poorly functioning neoliberal policy of the present still rests.

    Your old dead white guys are slightly older than my old dead white guys so you lose!

    The moral arc of critical theory always bends toward justice, ergo everything* from the past is inherently bad and everything closer to the present is unerringly awesome.

    *Except for communism. It’s always cool.

    1. Does she actually think nothing new has happened in non-Communist economics since 1848?

      Or has she heard some names and just dismissed them Because Not Communists?

      (And that does remind me of the other problem with Marxian Communism – historicism, and its utter failure.)

  8. Ah yes, Helen Razer, daughter of Professor John Razer of the School of Social Inquiry at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia ca. mid to late 1970s. She was a student there IIRC while I was on staff at the Atmospheric Science department. Later sometime DJ on a publicly funded youth music radio station.
    Typical left wing undergrad who never grew up.

  9. In addition to a Holocaust Remembrance Day, we need one for the many more victims of communism brutally starved and murdered.

    Isn’t this unofficially May 1st?

  11. Well, I always see things from my dynamicist background. The Communist ideal is an unstable equilibrium point. Even a tiny perturbation causes instability, and a transition to dictatorial rule.

    There is no way to realize the Communist ideal. It will always eventually fail over to the stable equilibrium point with probability 1.

    1. Actually dictatorship is part of the program of passing from Capitalism to Socialism to Communism, which is the end state where everything is peachy.

      Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Never quite figured out what that meant, but I think it means you have a dictatorship, but it is for your own good because the dictator (and inner circle of advisors) are acting by proxy on behalf of the Proletariat rather than the Proletariat being repressed by dictatorial rule.

      Or something.

  12. I was almost tempted to go back on Twitter just so I could block @qz.

    Some reflexes take longer to shed than others.

  13. Something to add to Ms. Razer’s reading list: Animal Farm . No one questioned the morality of the pigs there either.

  14. Communism is to Economics what Creationism is to Evolutionary Biology. Religious dogma tarted up as “Science(TM)”.

  15. Toward the end we get

    “…Both climate change and the irrevocable fact of nuclear weapons reduce the original communist hope for collective management of everything; these totalizing threats demands a certain level of totalitarian management. It is my view that an honest communist can now no longer say that the state can be done away with entirely—these true threats require a handful of true bureaucrats to manage them…”

    So…even she is saying we could not be true communists!

  16. Suppose her article was entitled “Why I’m a Nazi–and why you should be, too”? How do you think people would react?

    A big problem in our society is that people can openly proclaim themselves Communists without fear of imminent and grievous bodily harm.

    1. I put it down to the duality relationship: Fascism is the masculine face of totalitarianism, Communism the feminine. Fascism is masculine power run amok. Communism is feminine nurturing to the point of suffocation.

      Both kill with equal license, but we are ingrained with the predisposition that one does not strike a woman.

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