Assumptions About Communism
How to judge the needs and abilities of people in society.
To me you views of needs and abilities reminds me of the phrase “like the devil reads the Bible.” You pick an idea and interpret it in the worst possible way to make your case. I think most socialists view receiving according to need and contribute according to ability as an aspiration rather than some of absolute requirement.
You see people like Ben Shapiro make the rather nutty argument that health care cannot be a right, without putting a gun to doctors heads. And yet plenty of us live in countries where access to health care is a right. The key difference is that societies are not run on the most pedantic and narrow minded interpretation of “right” you could possibly come up with.
You are really just constructing a convenient straw-man which is easy to beat to pulp.
When you refer to “good” communists which obeyed democratic processes and helped your country to prosper, just know — they were not “communists” from the point of view of “real” communists. Such a “good” communists were called “opportunists” and were the worst enemies.
As I said they transitioned into being democratic socialists, which is not the same as a communist ideologically speaking. However that is my point, in a society which offers some measure of freedom, democracy and prosperity, your average communist will eventually transition into becoming a democratic socialist instead. The more successful democratic socialists got in the political system, the more the communist party shrunk.
In Norway the last fringes of the communist party has now transitioned to democratic socialism. They still use a language that reminds you of Marxism, but they are still clear on their dedication to democratic processes.
The problem with the term “Stalinism” is that it somehow separates what Stalin tried to build from communism. The truth is that Stalinism is the real communism
Sounds more like because you don’t like communism, you want it to be equal to Stalinism. It is a convenient rhetorical device to smear an ideology you don’t like. Yet Stalinism lacks all the central themes of communism. There is no workers democracy in Stalinism. It is an oppressive regime run by a God like dictator. Not anything every described by Marxist revolutionaries.
And there are no exceptions, any attempt to build communism resulted to mass murder in the past
You cannot build communism, because it is an impossible system. You can attempt to do so and when you do that in a democracy you end up with Nordic style social democracy. When you attempt to do it in a dictatorship through an armed revolution you end up with Stalinism.
The problem with theorizing about this is that there has never been a case where anybody was ever able to attempt to build a communist society without violent opposition. Anyone pursuing almost any kind of socialism or communism in less developed countries have gotten squashed, invaded or persecuted.
What you are trying to do is argue what a communist ideology would lead to completely detached from any context. You ignore the 18 powers ready invade you. You ignore the insiders of the existing regime ready to imprison, torture and execute you.
To argue that the outcome of a communist ideology would have exactly the same outcome in an entirely different context is borderline absurd. It is like arguing that only the type of seed matter when to you try to grow a plant and that they soil is irrelevant. It is like telling people to never buy a particular seed because it always gave stunted growth. All despite the fact that you only ever tried growing it in poor soil.
Or rather whenever you grew it in good soil, you suddenly decide that this isn’t the “real” seed. It is only the real think if the outcome is shitty. I see this with American conservatives. Whenever Nordic countries do bad at something, then Nordic countries are all horrible socialist hellholes. Whenever results look great, Nordic countries get immediately relabeled as capitalist utopias. You cannot just shift the goalpost around to suit your argument.
Mass murder is unavoidable because it’s inherent to communism.
An empty assertion with zero proof. There is not a single instance of communism leading to mass murder in a western democracy. Your logic is like cherry picking capitalist imperialist countries and argue that capitalism always leads to colonialism and mass murder of brown and black people.
But perhaps most importantly, why are we even arguing over any of this? It is not like communism is surging in popularity. Quite the contrary it is pretty dead ideology. If anything it is Fascism which is seeing a new dawn. Ironically I see all too many conservative fret about communism and socialism when what really should worry them is rise of Fascism among their own ranks.
I would have to clarify what I mean by Fascism since I see so many creative definitions on the internet. What I mean is a nationalist, anti-egalitarian, socially conservative, autocratic, nostalgic (looking for former glory and greatness) ideology glorifying the military and the police, while frequently being racist. An ideology obsessing about “lesser people.” That believes the rabble must be put in their place. An ideology that hates the weak and worship strength.
