Originally Posted by Alex McKee:
Guys, don't fall into the trap of thinking that the USSR was necessarily a good example of what communism could do.

A real application of communism, or perhaps a modern hybrid of communism, might be a reasonable way of running a country.

I personally disagree with communist ideas but there is more to them than Stalin's politics.

Unless you can think of a good example communism or socialism starts as a great ideal to solve the inequalities of life but all ways seems to end in to much power being given to government which ends up in dictatorships and tyranny.

Their will always be inequality the greatest thing a government can do is to protect the freedom needed for us all to push ourselves to be the best we can.
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Actually in Spain in the civil war and Ukraine in 1918 and in several other places there were good examples of decentralised and libertarian communism. They were generally short-lived however, generally due to hostility and military attacks from other groups like the Bolsheviks and fascists.
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Originally Posted by BonnieDundee:
Actually in Spain in the civil war and Ukraine in 1918 and in several other places there were good examples of decentralised and libertarian communism. They were generally short-lived however, generally due to hostility and military attacks from other groups like the Bolsheviks and fascists.

If the good example of communism you have given was short lived because it could not sustain or defend itself against hostile forces then it was not a good example of communism.
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Originally Posted by Roland:
If the good example of communism you have given was short lived because it could not sustain or defend itself against hostile forces then it was not a good example of communism.

That depends, in general it was overwhelming force used to crush them. They certainly show it can be libertarian and/or anarchist.

I'm not an anarcho-communist or any kind of communist but I'm not about to rule it out completely on the most logically flawed of arguments.
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Originally Posted by BonnieDundee:
That depends, in general it was overwhelming force used to crush them. They certainly show it can be libertarian and/or anarchist.

I'm not an anarcho-communist or any kind of communist but I'm not about to rule it out completely on the most logically flawed of arguments.

I'd say your argument is logically flawed.

If the true ideology of communism were to work the government would have to have very little power in order to be equal to the people it ruled over. If a government is to weak it runs the obvious risk of a takeover by other powers or on the other foot it will end up a hard line military police state that makes damn sure this kind of take over is impossible from either with in the state or from foreign powers and will inevitably end up an extremely authoritarian dictatorship.
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Originally Posted by BonnieDundee:
You know you are giving into the whole fake state communism-corporate capitalist spectrum when you make comments like this? There are many other kinds of economic arrangements some as libertarian or more so than most libertarian capitalist schemes.

I'm sorry, I don't really see how I am doing so. I did not say otherwise.
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Originally Posted by BonnieDundee:
That depends, in general it was overwhelming force used to crush them. They certainly show it can be libertarian and/or anarchist.

I'm not an anarcho-communist or any kind of communist but I'm not about to rule it out completely on the most logically flawed of arguments.

The good news is that the Spanish Communists were crushed by patriotic forces.

What a pity that Spain has now become as degenerate as the UK - if not more so.
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Originally Posted by Mikeuk:
The good news is that the Spanish Communists were crushed by patriotic forces.

What a pity that Spain has now become as degenerate as the UK - if not more so.

Here you are actually supporting fascist- classic.:-)
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Originally Posted by Roland:
I'd say your argument is logically flawed.

If the true ideology of communism were to work the government would have to have very little power in order to be equal to the people it ruled over. If a government is to weak it runs the obvious risk of a takeover by other powers or on the other foot it will end up a hard line military police state that makes damn sure this kind of take over is impossible from either with in the state or from foreign powers and will inevitably end up an extremely authoritarian dictatorship.

I'd actually say it was your argument which is logically flawed. Your argument relies on largely unsubstaniated generalisations and would require in-depth analysis of particular situations and ideologies in order to be of any worth.
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Originally Posted by Akria:
I'm sorry, I don't really see how I am doing so. I did not say otherwise.

I simply extrapolated from what youi said. You offered as the only alternatives to state communism to be libertarian capitalist(which I take to mean free market, corporate stuff.) and liberal capitalism ie social democracy or something near it. There are other alternatives.
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