Vote in 2008 america.

[Gulliver]

Responsibility? Communism is a system which allows you to get by without lifting a single finger because you'll automatically be bailed out. That hardly promotes responsibility, quite the opposite.

Also, consider:



Obviously not a perfect correlation, but it makes its point.

[Solnath]

Responsibility? Communism is a system which allows you to get by without lifting a single finger because you'll automatically be bailed out. That hardly promotes responsibility, quite the opposite.

Since fucking when? Communism is a system in which you get exactly as much you work for. You never even lift your finger, well, grass is good and water's free.

[The Empire]

^Just as I told Myroria, Apparently, you yanks (Myro, Prag & Ryaz) have a tendency to confuse laisses-faire wellfare-states like Sweden with communism wich is just not even related though you have different grades of openmindedness between you.

[Allama]

Not socialist?

The means of production are not controlled by the working class, so no.  The government is a dictatorship enforcing shared property, so it is not socialism.  Sorry.

Would you call nomadic tribes sharing livestock and living off the land communists?

Yes, as a matter of fact, I would. Wikipedia says "Communism is an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production." The means of production being livestock, as many Indians used their animals for mostly everything, and as you yourself said "sharing livestock", that would mean that Indians shared the means of production, therefore being communist.

Wait, who said anything about Indians?  I wasn't discussing India, personally, and I don't think anyone had mentioned it...  Did you mean Native Americans, by any chance?  No one mentioned them either.

Anyway, there is an anthropological difference between tribal communalism and communism, whether you believe it or not.  See Gallipoli-China's arguments for examples.  Please study up before you argue the point.

Primitive communism, which Marx himself believed existed, was the state of the pre-historic cavemen. He said that "exploitation of the working class" (Which I put in quotations because it's funny how workers have had an alternative idea for a little under 200 years and yet they don't do anything about being "exploited") came from having a surplus, which is basically saying "It's admirable to live on bare bones". If it wasn't for capitalism, there wouldn't be communism.

It's interesting how self-defeating your arguments are.  You say communism wouldn't exist without capitalism having preceded it, but in the same paragraph you say it existed in "primitive" societies before the advent of currency and the capitalist system.

My parents are not affluent, and yet they are not in debt either.

You mean they bought their home and car(s) with cash?  They didn't take out loans on anything?  That is very impressive, and I would call it affluence.  Being debtless must be nice.   

[Solnath]

My parents are not affluent, and yet they are not in debt either.

Congratulations, they're pretty unique as well as bourgeois, then.

Must love this, though. Can't wait 'til it gets to nine trillion.

[Gulliver]

I don't confuse free market welfare states with communism. Indeed, I would argue that free markets are an integral part of a functioning welfare state, as the resources necessary to run it have to come from somewhere.

[Ryazania]

So if you don't work in a communist state, you get the same result as not working in a capitalist state? Then what the fuck are you complaining about if you would implement the same Goddamn thing.

[Solnath]

If you look at it from your point of view, communism = capitalism without any corruption.

[Ryazania]

I would call something corrupted if a manual laborer earned as much as a astrophysicist working the same hours.

[Gulliver]

Rather, someone working for the same hours as someone doing nothing earning the same.

[Solnath]

Why would a manual labourer earn as much as an astrophysicist in a communistic system? I fail to follow your Nimbus logic.

[Ryazania]

You can't claim equality if you're going to pay people differently. By doing so you will create a class system which you tried so hard to abolish.

[Solnath]

Just remembered, people aren't paid. Having no currency does that.

[Tacolicious]

Communism to me is the proof that very little has changed in many many years of human history. If you consider Machiavelli's theory of the six forms of government you'll find that Marxism and Communism take the same place as Aristocracy and Oligarchy with some interesting parallels. Look at Russia: just as a true Aristocracy has never existed neither has a true Marxist state, both immediately go to their respective negative form. Also as the theory goes from Oligarchy to Democracy what happened after the Communists fell out of power in Russia... Democracy.. next stop anarchy and then the cycle begins once more 

[Ryazania]

Then can you please explain to me how the fuck people are going to do anything without some omnipresent government providing everything?