22-01-2004 01:52									#61
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quote: Originally posted by Ned I raise this question because all prior examples of "communism" appear to rely on censorship and control of the media. All. Not some. All. This is not an aberation. This has to be inherent in communism. And the reason it is inherent is obvious.

It is not exactly inherent to the idea of communism, but it is inherent to the communist regimes that have spanned the 20th century:

1. All communist regimes have either been installed by a difficult revolution that turned the revolutionaries into authoritative leaders, or by being propped up by an already authoritarian "communist" regime.

2. The two main "communist" regimes, that have framed all other "communist" countries, USSR and China, are/were totalitarian, i.e. they believed the State should be the driving force in every fricking aspect of society.
As a result, almost every "communist" country was totalitarian to some extent, even though there could be some margin depending on the country (CZ, hungary and Yugoslavia are exemples of less-intrusive "communist" regimes).

For a totalitarian country, whether capitalist, communist, fascist, theocratic, or whatever; it is a no-brainer to make sure each and every bit of information gets filtrated by the State. In really hardcore totalitarian countries (nazi Germany or stalinist USSR), even private discussions without political consequences have to fit the demands of the State. In a softcore totalitarianism (such as Brezhnev's USSR), only public information is strongly restricted.

Besides, very few ordinary authoritarian countries allow free information as well. Just like China, Saudi Arabia has a Great Firewall to avoid pious Saudis to find heaten websites; All newspapers in Tunisia are sycophants; and I don't think communist newspapers had much chance of survival in Pinochet's Chile

The fact that all "communist" countries were authoritarian for historical reasons, and totalitarian to various extents, explains why information was withheld.
I don't think this fit is "inherent to communism". I much more think this fit is inherent to totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

	22-01-2004 01:59									#62
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To illustrate for Ned the level of absurbdity in his views that Communism=Authoritarians... is Hitler's Germany an example of how corporations and capitalism lead to authoritarianism? Hardly...








yes, I invoked Godwin's AND made a point

	22-01-2004 02:00									#63
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To further elaborate my previous post, there is one reason why communism has a quite high potential for totalitarianism.

That's because many commies believe in creating a new mankind, one where the individuals are willing to share, and work together focusing on the greater good.
Such nice idealism can quickly turn sour when leaders think of it seriously. Take Pol Pot for example. He was a nice idealistic guy back in Paris' University. He became probably the worst monster the world ever held because of his dogmatism in changing mankind.

Our hopes for a "better" humanity is the reason why we commies have to be particularly wary of totalitarianism, because we may end up wanting to promote a value change by terrible ways.
BTW, all proponents of a religious power should be extremely wary of totalitarianism as well. The potential for totalitarianism by religious regimes is even worse than for commie regimes; the difference being that no religious country except Iran had the technical means to sustain totalitarianism in history.

	22-01-2004 02:36									#64
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quote: Originally posted by Sava So? Do you plan to eliminate greed? A worldwide WAR ON GREED? Design me a system that works... until then.... zzzzZZZZZzzzzZZZZzzzz the best we can do is work with what we've got and try to make things as fair as possible... there will always be have's and have not's... your little fantasy world will never exist kid. Deal with it. Then when you get some sense, we can talk.

I thought you were proposing limiting the effects of greed. That's what communism does. Limiting the incentive to be greedy would have little negative effect in a communist system since all of the production is planned. In a capitalist system individual agents decide the production based on their own self-interest. If you limit the incentive to be greedy, you screw the whole thing up.

	22-01-2004 02:41									#65
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quote: Originally posted by Spiffor That's because many commies believe in creating a new mankind, one where the individuals are willing to share, and work together focusing on the greater good.

Good point Spiffor. I think another thing that commies need to be aware of is the tendency to think that their whole life is about being a communist. Everything doesn't have to revolve around politics. There are plenty other aspects of live that should have nothing to do with politics.