You may be a Communist if . . .

Post Reply New Topic

You May Be A Communist If...

• You believe anyone engaging in subversive behavior is an Enemy of the State who should be tried, found guilty, arrested, and sent to a far-away labor camp . . . in that order.

• You believe anyone having contact with or being related to anyone outside the State is engaging in subversive behavior.

• You believe anyone moving about the country without permission of the State is engaging in subversive behavior.

• You believe anyone practicing any form of religion without permission of the State is engaging in subversive behavior.

• You believe arbitrary arrest and detention 'on suspicion' benefits the Common Good.

• You believe artistic expression that does not glorify the State is subversive behavior.

• You believe competition for employment requires permission of the State.

• You believe conspicuous consumption is subversive behavior.

• You believe criticism of the Bureaucracy is subversive behavior.

• You believe each individual must sacrifice his or her own aspirations and freedoms for the Common Good.

• You believe everybody is equal; but you also accept the fact that some people (e.g., the Bureaucratic Elite) are more 'equal' than others.

• You believe everyone living outside the State is living in abject poverty and squalor, except for the Capitalists -- who all live in luxury without any cares in the world.

• You believe everyone living outside the State wants to either become a citizen of the State, or wants to obliterate the State.

• You believe exercising any form of personal privacy is subversive behavior

• You believe exercising economic freedom is subversive behavior.

• You believe in the abolition of any form of inheritance.

• You believe in the establishment of agricultural 'armies', dedicated solely to the production of food.

• You believe in the establishment of infrastructural 'armies', dedicated solely to the installation, maintenance, and repair of bridges, roads, and public utilities.

• You believe in the establishment of industrial 'armies', dedicated solely to the production of goods.

• You believe it is theft (and subversive behavior) when someone else makes a profit from your labor, even though they pay you fair-market wages.

• You believe opposition to the State is subversive behavior.

• You believe personal property should be abolished, and that no one should own anything, including their own bodies.

• You believe spying on your neighbors and denouncing them for their suspicious and subversive behavior is your duty as a citizen of the State.

• You believe the Bureaucracy is necessary to maintain the State, even though it is run by a self-perpetuating Bureaucratic Elite.

• You believe the State knows best.

• You believe the State (e.g., the Bureaucracy) should determine your profession and provide you with appropriate education.

• You believe the State should have a monopoly on banking.

• You believe the State should own all buildings, the infrastructure, and every means of production.

• You believe the State (e.g., the Bureaucracy) should set production goals for all goods and services.

• You believe three or more people gathered together without State permission are engaging in subversive behavior.

• You believe voting against any State-sanctioned initiative is subversive behavior.

• You believe voting for anyone other than the State-sanctioned candidate is subversive behavior.

• You believe you are entitled access to free clothing, free education, free food, free housing, and free medical care from the State (e.g., the Bureaucracy) even if it is all sub-standard; but you will accept having to wait in line for days to receive any of it.

Marxist communism was about achieving a stateless society.

Marx said capitalism is necessary in the beginning of an economy. Since Marx is a communist, and capitalists are anti-marx... I wonder if that actually would mean capitalists are anti-capitalist?

All the anti-communists pick out "Communist" countries that are not real communism. Every serious communist does not view the stereotypical communist countries as legitimate forms of communism. I am not even sure if I consider myself a total communist or not, I just get tired of hearing the meme arguments about communism over and over.

"Small government" capitalists: Communists are so stupid and evil for being autocratic statists! They want the state to run everything! And the state is always evil!
Communists: We believe the state should be abolished.
"Small government" capitalists: Are you insane?!?! We NEED the government! Anyone who thinks we can survive without government is living in a lunatic fantasy world! Government is the only thing that can save us from ourselves! Save me, State! Save us from these awful statist anarchists who want to destroy the State!

Whatever the 'real' Communists fantasize about 'real' Communism is simply impractical.  Marxism assumes that the sins of humankind (i.e., envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath) will evolve out of human behavior in a single generation of Communist rule.  Obviously, Marx was a naïve idealist -- ignorant of human nature and unhappy with the lack of free handouts he mistakenly believed he deserved for just being alive.

The so-called 'stereotypes' listed in the first post of this thread characterize actual 'Communist' states that get stuck in the second stage of the revolution because (as I implied in the previous paragraph) human nature does not allow for natural altruistic behavior.  People are too aware of the competition between 'self' and 'not-self' to engage in anything but quid-pro-quo relationships with others.  This leads to hoarding of goods, wealth, and services that can be capitalized upon for personal gain and profit.

So what happens is that after each of their respective revolutions, those 'Communist' states (in name only) devolve into state-owned Socialist economies operating within feudal government structures -- the State owns every means of production, and capitalizes on the labors of its citizens to increase the wealth of its leaders.

More simply put, Communism does not work because avarice is part of human nature.  Marx's "Workers' Paradise" will never be achieved for this reason.

Marxism either ignores human nature or assumes it will be changed as a side effect of a Marxist revolution.

I argue human nature needs to be changed first. Preferably smashed with a hammer. (And if you believe human nature can't be changed then we need to plot human extinction, because human nature is awful.)

Capitalism achieved widespread adoption by embracing human nature, but by embracing human nature it can only be a failure.

Mind you, I'm not a Marxist. I do lean toward democratic socialism, but I'm opposed to a stateless society and I consider "the dictatorship of the proletariat" to be a nonsensical idea.

have a tank, steal the old peasant lady's pig, smoke crocodile, invent rubbish games

Bruh you gotta stop with the strawman arguments for what communists/marxists/whoever on the left believe. Humans are by their nature sinful and virtuous. Fixating on mankind's negative qualities has consistently been used as a weapon by those opposed to democracy to rationalize disempowering the average person. When you think most people are depraved/selfish/stupid/dangerous, you are going to be more likely to believe that only certain, special people who have demonstrated exceptional virtue (since all virtue is treated here as exceptional) deserve a say in society and government. It's just dressed-up Übermensch/strong-man/divine right of monarchs nonsense. It's the idea of Original Sin repurposed for a more secular misanthropy. We are as democratic a society as we are because people gradually accepted that you do not need to demonstrate exceptional virtue to deserve dignity and agency. We are not that puritanical anymore--despite the efforts of the misanthropes, reactionaries, and cynics.


"Human nature does not allow for natural altruistic behavior"? "People are too aware of the competition between 'self' and 'not-self' to engage in anything but quid-pro-quo relationships with others"? What planet you living on? Humans have been as successful as they are as a species because of our capacity to be altruistic--to function as a self-supporting group. What would "natural" altruistic behavior look like? We are altruistic, and we are part of nature--what makes human altruism so unnatural? We are altruistic because evolution rewarded altruism in humans more than it rewarded the kind of "got mine" selfishness the social darwinists are convinced is our "real" nature. Strident selfishness is disadvantageous to the average person in a society, because people straight-up do not want to associate with that kind of person if they can avoid it. Why would anyone want to associate with that kind of person? People who are that selfish mostly only get away with it because they have the power or wealth to balance out the negative social consequences that come from rejecting altruism. Or if society is dominated by those who use their power to reward selfishness. If people seem fundamentally selfish to you, maybe you've been spending too long listening to the leaders of an economic system that treats altruism as a lie. Those with power want you to think that. Those with power benefit from you thinking that. The older I get, the more it seems like cynics are naive. Having unrealistic beliefs about people being awful is as foolish to me as having unrealistic beliefs about people being 100% good.


So... are these communist states in name only? Or are they actually the only possible realizations of a communist state? You say in your OP that "communists" agree with all of these negative things these "in name only" communist states have done, so which is it?

I have to wonder how you would respond faced with the same line of argument? So all capitalists think Apartheid was okay? South African capitalists made a point of illegalizing criticism of Apartheid by equating it to advocating communism. Might you be a capitalist if you believe that? Might you be a capitalist if you support the brutal purges and terrors of South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Argentina, Chile, South Vietnam, and dozens of other capitalist states? Might you be a capitalist if you support slavery? Might you be a capitalist if you think sweatshops are a sign the system is working perfectly? Might you be a capitalist if you think children living in miserable poverty is a good thing if it motivates their parents to "work harder"?
No, most capitalists nowadays would say they do not support every awful thing every capitalist government ever did. And the response from you guys is the same response you receive when acting like communists must support this that or the other policy: "Just because a self-identified capitalist government did that, doesn't mean that I, as a capitalist, agree with it, nor do I believe that a "truly" capitalist government would do such things." Are states that do those things only capitalist "in name only"?


Capitalism does not work because altruism is part of human nature, and active selfishness is self-destroying. Smith's "truly" ""Free" Market" will never be achieved for that reason.

"When you cannot refute the message, attack the messenger." -- Book of Trolls, vol. I

China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, the (former) Soviet Union, and Vietnam are not "strawmen", but actual, real-world examples of the Communism I described in the first post of this thread -- states that have turned away from "true" Communism to become Socialist economies under Feudal governments run by Autocratic dictators, but that still claim the "Communist" label.Earth, the same planet where people do nothing for others without expecting something in return, from a "warm, fuzzy" feeling to a crown and a kingdom in Heaven.Both. Theoretical Communists claim that an anarcho-syndicalist society is possible, while Real-World Communists (in name only) exhibit some, most, or even all of the points in the first post.Look around. Capitalism works for those who know how to work it, and who are both willing and able to do so.  The rest would become proletariat drones under any of the real-world "Communist" systems mentioned before (if they were allowed to live). Even Karl Marx was a slacker who lived off the wealth of others -- I doubt that he would have survived in a real-world Communist state, or been happy in a real-world anarcho-syndicalist state.

Anarcho-syndicalist states are the promise of Communism; Socialist-feudal states are Communism's reality.

Deal with it.

A lot of Theoretical Communists seem to fall into, and rely heavily upon, the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Wikipedia states:

"No true Scotsman", or "Appeal to Purity", is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly.  Rather than abandoning the falsified universal generalization or providing evidence that would disqualify the falsifying counterexample, a slightly modified generalization is constructed ad-hoc to definitionally exclude the undesirable specific case and similar counterexamples by appeal to rhetoric.  This rhetoric takes the form of emotionally charged but nonsubstantive purity platitudes such as "true", "pure", "genuine", "authentic", "real", etc.

The following is a simplified rendition of the fallacy:

Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Person B: "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge."
Person A: "But no TRUE Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge!"

•••

However, in the context of Theoretical Communism, the fallacy morphs into the "No True Communist" fallacy.

Person A: "No Communist uses currency or is ruled by a government."
Person B: "But people in China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, the (former) Soviet Union, and Vietnam are all Communists, and they have currency and are under government rule."
Person A: "Ah, but no TRUE Communist uses currency or is ruled by a government!"



The trouble is that no true Communists can possibly exist, due to human nature.

I believe in Christian Communism or Apostolic Socialism but I hate government-enforced Communism.I just think the sharing of property should be complely voluntary.I remember reading in the Communist Manifesto that Marx said he got some of his inspiration for Communism from Acts 2 and Acts 4.That surprised me but at the same time not really.

The thing is that the First Christians were not really Communists ("No True Communist!"), since they still used money and obeyed the Roman government (up to a point, anyway).


• "True" Communists cannot exist due to human nature (e.g., envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath).

• "Real" Communists are actually State Socialists currently living in Feudal Empires (e.g., China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam).

• "Faux" Communists (a.k.a., "Poseurs") are those who preach Communism while enjoying all the benefits of living in Capitalist societies.


(There. I think I have finally boiled down the definitions to their essences.)

Okay the word communism was not the right word to use in this context to describe the first Christians but at the same time they did not consider any of their property to be their very own in Acts 2 and Acts 4.They would be prolly be considered communalist.They also sold all their property in Acts 2 and Acts 4 and gave the proceeds to the church so in that sense they did have a community of goods and common ownership of resources.

literally this

why is it only a small percentage of humans are extremely greedy to the point of ruination, ie. the Activisions of society.

And like the majority of people, even greedy money hungry people, are not like this, and would be able to coexist in a UBI society. Like if there wasnt resource scarcity utopia could exist

Social Democracy FTW:

https://www.libdems.org.uk/

I am generally not in favor of democracy. Its just a dice roll really, leftists need to realize the Trump winning the election was a democracy.