Originally Posted by
Tooting Carmen
Am I the only one who has noticed this? There are many people not just on the far Left, but even quite centrist, moderate people who argue that the main problem with the USSR, pre-1980s China, Eastern Europe, the Khmer Rouge etc. is that they "didn't really practice Communism". By contrast, nobody remotely sane and normal would argue that the main problem with South Africa was that they "didn't really practice Apartheid", or that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy "didn't really practice Fascism", or that the current Saudi and Iranian regimes "don't really practice Islam". (Actually, perhaps people like Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi might argue that, but nobody remotely in the realm of reality would). What explains this dissonance? Why are Communist regimes seen as problematic, cruel and despotic in spite of their guiding ideologies, whereas other totalitarian regimes are (correctly) seen as problematic, cruel and despotic because of their guiding ideologies?
I have not gone through this whole thread to see if someone has mentioned this already but in so called 'true communism' there is no state because it has 'withered away' :
"Withering away of the state" is a Marxist concept coined by Friedrich Engels referring to the idea that, with realization of the ideals of socialism, the social institution of a state will eventually become obsolete and disappear as the society will be able to govern itself without the state and its coercive enforcement of the law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wither...y_of_the_state
The problem with this stupid idea is it tries to repeal two laws of nature and any doctrine that does that is doomed to failure. The first law it tries to repeal is that nature abhors a vacuum and that includes a power vacuum so this statelessness only lasts as long as it takes a few fellows to double up their fists or grab some guns and become the de facto state as people are willing to pay for protection etc... etc...
However, the other law of nature, and most critical law, is that Communism tries to repeal is that people work for reward and the more reward they get the harder they work :
The individual is filled with the unqualified desire of preserving his life, and of keeping it free from all pain, under which is included all want and privation. He wishes to have the greatest possible amount of pleasurable existence and every gratification he is capable of appreciating.
Efforts by Hegelians and Marxists to create a socialist utopia without incentives to work and produce, any private property, or possibility for profit are, by the nature of human action, doomed to failure. The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer sums up the matter from a praxeological standpoint this way: “Egoism [self-interest]… will never be argued out of a person, as little as a cat can be talked out of her inclination for mice.”
Therefore, there can never be "true Communism" and instead , when it is practiced, always leads to totalitarianism.
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