You amaze me. The new system? What has it brought? Fucken freedom! Private buisness, an oportunity to get by, food, clothes, trade, tourism, EVERYTHING!!! People are getting poor? Russia has the highest percentage of multi-millionaires in all of Asia and Europe. (ofcourse, lots of poor too... but the poor can now progress). Communist Russia has a history of persecution and fear control! How do I know? I lived there. My entire family lived there. Go and find a better argument... you cannot win this one.
I must agree with Pav (Rubin), Kollontai. How can you possibly support a country that helped build the Berlin Wall, and also had the most bloodthirsty dictator in the world? Stalin killed over 20million people.
The thing is he's not supporting it, and I don't think any of us should paint this as a black and white issue when it's not. I'm certainly not a supporter of the Soviet Union, but I do think it's important to recognise the positives as well as the negatives. As you say, the negatives outweight the positives, but Kollontai isn't making the case for Comrade Stalin always being right....
It just amazes me how a person who has never even been to the country can make such direct and strict judgments... actually arguing that it wasn't all too bad and that the new system isn't better. It's like U.S. politicians saying that they know what's best for Iraq.
It amazes me how people think someone can't construct an informed argument about a country they haven't been to or about a time they haven't lived in. By that logic, no one would ever listen to a historian. I'll repeat what I said earlier, experience isn't the sole basis of knowledge. Kollontai may be wrong, he may even be misinformed, but the fact that he hasn't lived in the USSR is not a legitimate reason to denounce his argument and claim the superiority of your own. This is a basic debating skill that most people on these forums seem to lack....
Oh no, that's not what I meant. I completely agree with you... I was just focusing on this statement: "but before we try to make judgement, it is better to look at facts from different sources."
Even though... thinking about it... experience adds an extreme amount of strength to an argument. The media does not give you the entire picture, nothing does... other than actually being there and experiencing it. Knowing what it feels like, and seeing it for yourself. You can easily make a logical argument without personal experience... but honestly, how can you argue about something against someone who was actually there to witness it and live it. It's educated speculation vs. FACT.
in italy the comunism isn't very developed because almost all (in the north of italy particulary) are of right. i'm communism
That's the problem though, experience is not fact. Experience can be just as partial as a limited understanding gained from a biased media report; probably more so, because your perspective is so much more limited: necessarily limited to one person's experiences and ideas in a sea of confusing and conflicting information. No, I think Peace is right - personal experience can in fact be a barrier to a fuller understanding because it adds the element of personal emotional involvement and a conviction that your own experience trumps the most learned academic's reasoned and researched understanding. An attempt at a proper and full survey of all the information available by relying on a variety of authoritative sources is a far, far better way of gaining an understanding of something than actually being there. Sorry this is a bit off-topic, but it's an interesting point
Well, being a social and political sciences student, most of my arguments are based on in-depth readings from a huge range of sources, substantiated by empirical evidence, so the media's much less of a factor for me, and where I do utilise the media I try to expose myself to as many sources and opposing viewpoints as possible. And even in the case of someone who was there, their experience would be necessarily limited. No one can have seen everything and done everything and talked to everyone at every time. That's not to say that experience is not useful for fleshing out arguments, and I'm happy to believe reports of your family's experience of the USSR, but ultimately, unbiased, valid and reliable empirical research, taking in a range of experiences, is a far more useful source of knowledge than one person's subjective experience....
You both have great points. I am not saying that we should disregard factual information... But if both parties are educated on the topic on paper, then wouldn't personal experience eventually prove something? Per example... even in the legal system... lets say someone is tried for murder... all the documents indicate that that person probably did not commit murder, yet there are several eyewitnesses who saw the person commit murder... their subjective experience would rule out the documentation. Anyyyyhooow... like I said... the media and historic accounts rarely illustrate what actually happened. The media is biased and driven by money, while history is written by the winners, or even worse, the government (such as in Soviet schools... History was COMPLETELY skewed to make anything capitalistic or religious seem like pure evil).
i strongly doubt about this statement:Russia has the highest percentage of multi-millionaires in all of Asia and Europe. if it count in russian currency, it is unworthy at all. and life expectency of people in eastern europe is decreasing. and let me restate again, communist states are not neccessarily students of karl marx. my first sociology class in colllege, the textbook says that karl marx himself probably strongly aganist comtemporary communist states.
if u are sociology student who argee with micro tradition, u should agree that only individual or personal experiences are the only fact.
Russian currency? Man... these people got dollas, ya know... bling bling and all that jazz. Russians are also the fastest growing luxury toursit groups... they are called "Novi-Ruski"... "New Money Russians", like you said... they bought government property for cheap... they are mostly cons and assholes... but, they still make up that statistic. Ofcourse Communist states are students of Marx... they are a bi-product of Marxism... they show what happens to the system when it's applied to a country.
I've heard from enough sources to believe that the so-called communist states of China and Russia bear little resemblance to how Marx described it or would have wanted it. One of the things I hear again and again is that the revolution was supposed to happen in the industrialised world, not the backwards nations where it did in fact occur. The fact that it did occur there and not here is a big excuse for the eventual failure. I can sort of understand that, certainly that it might make it hard for them, but (and I'm asking with a desire to learn and utter sympathy with the ideal of "receive according to need, give according to ability") if communism really is such a superior politic to capitalism, how come Russia and China weren't big and clever enough to catch up and make it work? Capitalism drives it's people like slaves. Work you're guts out or fail, they say. Work will make you free, like in Auschwitz. That might be the reason. I think capitalism probably is a more efficient politic, if you measure the success of a political structure by a nation's GDP, which I don't. It seems to me should global communism ever occur the pace of say, technical advancement, may slow, but it's not like humanity actually has a destination. We may have a direction but hopefully the journey will last forever, right? We may sacrifice the speed at which we progress, but if we gain a happier, more relaxed life, it seems a small price. It seems to me money is a poor way to keep account of what a person is putting into and taking out of society. I'm all for workers collectives and it seems to me that the goal of production should be what a community is based around. Correct me if I'm wrong here, BraveSirRubin or anyone, but community basically doesn't exist in modern capitalist states. We have our little virtual communities like this one, but in the real world, people you see every day, who you depend on in any way? No, you just depend on money, don't you. I'm not one to advocate the throwing off of all modern inventions, but I do believe that the easiest way to achieve happiness is to pay attention to what our natural habitat is, how we evolved to live, and we evolved to live in groups of very roughly 100 people, 50 to 500 say. That does feel to me like it would be... happier. In groups of that size, money would surely be unnecessary. Those that contribute more would get there rewards through respect of others, and simply in contributing to the smooth running of the community, which it seems to me would be it's own reward. Those that continually contribute nothing, with no excuse, would presumably eventually be asked to leave. BSR, does a higher percentage of millionaires really mean anything? If so what?
you did say to correct you if your wrong and yes random andy you are wrong money is a very good yard stick to measure how much a person is putting into and taking out of a society in a democracy everyone has the opportunity to make as much money as they want to earn!!in a communist society you work hard to line everybody eles pocket you never have the opportunity to do and have what we can in a democracy!!!!!
Nah, I didn't want to be corrected about that. I wanted to know if you have experienced any such thing as community under your darling capitalist environment.
yes actually i find people are very happy and friendly when they have a good standard of living and food in their bellies.
