The Fall of the Wall

[BruceVC]

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/16/world/europe/germany-by-numbers/index.html

 

So its been 25 years since the Berlin Wall fell, now for most of us this was a very important historical step as it signified the end of the Cold War and fact that Communism was a failed ideology and form of government

 

But I know that there are several people on these forums who think that Communism isn't that bad and the world nowadays could maybe benefit from that type of government?

 

But anyway lets hear what you guys think  about how the Cold War ended 25 years ago. I know there are some members who live in ex-Communist countries like Czech and Poland. So how do you feel about your new governments?

 

I think the world is a much better place since the end of the Cold War and I really believe that non-Communist governments offer there citizens more opportunities and a better quality of life

[Valsuelm]

Communism ideals when they're applied on any scale larger than 100% voluntary participation (which is to say, pretty much anything larger than a small commune of people wanting to live together under those circumstances) are evil. 

 

Communism is definitely not dead though, that's one heck of a myth as it's probably never been healthier than it is today.

 

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.'

 

 

Edited November 10, 2014 by Valsuelm

[Valsuelm]

 

 

...and you if one wants they can go from these videos and educate themselves. Or as most will, not.

[BruceVC]

Communism ideals when they're applied on any scale larger than 100% voluntary participation (which is to say, pretty much anything larger than a small commune of people wanting to live together under those circumstances) are evil. 

 

Communism is definitely not dead though, that's one heck of a myth as it's probably never been healthier than it is today.

 

 

 

I agree, sadly Communism is definitely not dead and many people still think it offers them a way of realistic economic transformation

 

In South Africa we still have a Communist party that is part of what is called the "Tripartite Alliance " which is a political union between the ANC, the Trade Unions and the Communist party

 

Its more significant from a symbolic perspective than a policy perspective as they claim to have the interests of exploited workers as there main goal

 

But there are also many examples within the trade unions where you hear speeches from some of there leaders around " we need new radical economic policies and nationalisation policies " and these reek of  the old  Communist perspective.

 

The irony in the South African context is most of these leaders have quite happily enriched themselves through free markets and Capitalist initiatives so I really question how committed they are to this idea of the state being able to control and drive the economy and implement successful economic change

[Rosbjerg]

The USSR was as communist as it was democratic.. Totalitarian States proved to be a flawed ideology. The jury is still out on actual socialism and capitalism.

[obyknven]

http://youtu.be/U_gYNS-a5Hc

[Gorth]

First off, I'm no "communist". That being said, all those people who condemn "communism" (and a lot of it's close relatives) as evil incarnate, have you ever given any thought to why so many millions of people found it attractive? It sure as heck has nothing to do with lazyness or entitlement issues.

 

If Russia had still been ruled by the Romanovs, would it still exist today (or fragmented into a multitude of warring states)? If Cuba had still been ruled by the american pupptet dictators, would it eventually have gone the same way as Somalia (and to a degree Haiti)?

 

People embraced it because it offered the prospect of improvement over what they currently had at the time and it (communist movements) managed to follow those promises with action. Did it come at the price of individual freedom? Yes. For some, that seemed to be an acceptable price for an end to wars, food on the table and a roof over the head. At least in the short term. Then eventually Maslow's hierarchy of needs reasserts itself and people starts looking for the next thing on their "to do list".

 

Would I ever want to live under a communist regime. No way. Would I ever want to live under the regimes replaced by it? No way.

[BruceVC]

First off, I'm no "communist". That being said, all those people who condemn "communism" (and a lot of it's close relatives) as evil incarnate, have you ever given any thought to why so many millions of people found it attractive? It sure as heck has nothing to do with lazyness or entitlement issues.

 

If Russia had still been ruled by the Romanovs, would it still exist today (or fragmented into a multitude of warring states)? If Cuba had still been ruled by the american pupptet dictators, would it eventually have gone the same way as Somalia (and to a degree Haiti)?

 

People embraced it because it offered the prospect of improvement over what they currently had at the time and it (communist movements) managed to follow those promises with action. Did it come at the price of individual freedom? Yes. For some, that seemed to be an acceptable price for an end to wars, food on the table and a roof over the head. At least in the short term. Then eventually Maslow's hierarchy of needs reasserts itself and people starts looking for the next thing on their "to do list".

 

Would I ever want to live under a communist regime. No way. Would I ever want to live under the regimes replaced by it? No <beep><beep> way.

 

This is a very good post as it offers both factual and philosophical insights into the state of Communism both past and present

 

I can agree to some of what you are saying but I think you are underestimating how much the only reason Communism sustained itself for so long wasn't because people really thought the system benefitted them but because Communism was enforced through military and dictatorial mechanisms

 

So you had no choice to support the various Communist regimes

 

When the USSR collapsed its interesting how almost none of the ex-USSR states followed new governments that were Communist in a nature, they all attempted to embrace Western culture and political ideology

 

So it just highlights how disliked Communism was by the majority of  the countries who were forced to live under it

[Rosbjerg]

The only reason Communism sustained itself for so long wasn't because people really thought the system benefitted them but because Communism was enforced through military and dictatorial mechanisms

 

He only really talked about how it started - of course the 'strong leader' who only wanted to keep power during the "transition" to communal rule had to keep that power with military might, that's pretty much the definition of totalitarian power.

 

Interestingly there are a lot of parallels between the rise and corruption of Communism and Christianity - how they both started as a decentralized people's movement against the status quo of the elite / religious and/or economic. and then slowly evolved into power worship and centralized control and doctrine. Guess we haven't quite gotten the hang of sharing power yet.

[Shallow]

The key to sharing power is simple really, it's never ever, not for one second, giving anyone, regardless of how qualified they are, a representing role.

 

Also, Bruce, communism and other forced wealth decentralization and isolation based ideologies can be very useful in third world countries, provided the leadership doesn't get overly authoritarian or corrupt.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Shallow

[exodiark]

I think the word "communism" has become pejorative due to extreme propaganda during Cold War, but the idea itself is just an unattainable fantasy that people should live free from money, social classes (**** the nobility or something), social hierarchy (you don't work under anyone), and law. It's not comically evil like gas the Jews or something, hence it's popularity among working class or poorer folks in many parts of the world.

Although by this definition, the Soviet Union or China are anything but a communist state

I think it's a nice ideal, but it failed horribly today.
But who knows? Maybe a thousand year in the future, when technology enable people to create anything they want from junk, communism might just work and become cool again.

I don't think there's any need to be averse of Communism, just take the good ideas and leave the rest. I, for one, don't mind free dachas for everyone.

[Longknife]

http://youtu.be/U_gYNS-a5Hc

 

 

Am I to take this as meaning oby speaks German?

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on communism...?

I find it unfortunate so many people point and say "haha they were WRONG and EVIL!" and somehow seem to equivalate communism failing with capitalism and the west automatically being right.

 

  If you want my opinion? Communism in absolute theory works. But that's just it: in practice it doesn't. This can be applied to a LOT of philosophies, capitalism included (many of the people who cheer on the free market are the very same people who would slap down any government intervention to try and prevent crony capitalism...), it's just Communism is a kind of philosophy that fails especially quick in practice whereas others are comparatively slower burns or have smaller problems. Philosophies and social structures regularly fail to account for how flawed the people running those systems are, and THAT is what can lead to the failure of ANY social structure, democracy included.

   It's sad that communism is one of those words that, in American culture, can be tossed around blindly with people having very limited understanding of what it actually is beyond knowing that the word has a negative connotation and is therefore useful in throwing at things they wish to denounce. Really, I wish people would focus more on the flaws of their own social structures rather than the flaws of communism, as often the latter seems to devolve discussion into a nonsensical "but look at how bad communism did, that means everything we do wrong is 100% justified somehow and a neccesary evil!" Yeah...doesn't work like that.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Longknife

[Valsuelm]

I think the word "communism" has become pejorative due to extreme propaganda during Cold War....

 

Pretty much. Which is why people call it socialism these days. They are one in the same as socialism is communism when applied on a national scale. Despite many people, including people on this forum thinking they are different.

 

It is astounding to a degree just how easily many people are fooled. Get enough people to call a pot a tiger and many people will think that a pot is indeed a tiger and not a pot, especially if a trusted government official or the news says it is. There's a great many examples of this in modern real world politik, and other places cultural marxism has touched. The corruption of ideas and ideals is widespread.

[Brayko]

Communism is awful.  It is the belief in the complete absence of spirit or morals.  It is the same thing as capitalism except the numbers are evened out.  There is more to life than numbers and figures and "quotas".

[Valsuelm]

Communism is awful.  It is the belief in the complete absence of spirit or morals.  It is the same thing as capitalism except the numbers are evened out.  There is more to life than numbers and figures and "quotas".

 

Communism on a national scale requires a government to enforce it's doctrines, capitalism does not. Comparing the two is comparing apples and frogs. Real capitalism is essentially what you get without government interference. It's what people naturally will generally do on their own, if left alone.

 

Capitalism gets a bad wrap it doesn't deserve as so much of what's negatively attributed to it is not capitalism, but in fact symptoms caused by fascist or socialist policies. It's another example of calling a pot a tiger. The west's economy is not primarily capitalist. It's primarily socialist/fascist, and has been for the better part of a century now. You have people constantly talking about 'free trade', 'free markets', and the benefits of capitalism, but the reality is that the people at the top have been benefiting from socialist/fascist policies that they bought and paid for a long time ago, and we don't really have 'free trade' or 'free markets'. The only people engaging in free trade or free markets are the people who engage in illegal activity, as real free trade and markets have been outlawed in most or all of the west.

 

When the government gets involved in the market (and I'm talking the market, not the 'stock market') you don't have capitalism. The government is and has been heavily involved in the western markets for a long long time now.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

This is going to turn out well.

[HoonDing]

[Zoraptor]

Nice to see Gorby getting some proper recognition. I'm not really the sort of person who has personal heroes, but he and Mandela probably come closest because they took circumstances that should have ended terribly and managed to end them with something approaching genuine hope, no matter how their successors may have made a mess of things.

 

Communism on a national scale requires a government to enforce it's doctrines, capitalism does not. Real capitalism is essentially what you get without government interference.[..] It's what people naturally will generally do on their own, if left alone.

 

 

In theory. In practice, not so much.

 

The basic (mis)assumption that both philosophies make is that people are rational actors who obey what are effectively little formulae written onto paper underpinned by what may as well be a god of societal modelling- the invisible hand of the market vs each according to their abilities, each according to their needs. Practically, neither works according to their little formulae and theories because the formulae work on the basis that 2+2=4 while people may decide that actually 2+2=5.

 

And most evidence is that default human society was not based on capitalism and competition, but on either intra communal cooperation (small scale) to stratified dominance (large scale) neither of which are compatible with theoretic capitalism. The current model requires an extra input, technology, to function even slightly properly and still often resembles the stratified dominance of feudalism as much as actual capitalism.

 

This is going to turn out well.

 

A Bruce thread calling out the ghost of Lord of Flies? How can it turn out anything other than well?

[obyknven]

The Fall of the Wall = Fall of True Germany. Osties, DDR are descendants of Prussia and Prussia is true creators of German Empire. It's so easy to note by comparing of DDR military forces (who beat US arses in Vietnam war ) and pathetic Bundeswehr who even can't protect homeland in case of war.

http://youtu.be/oldMTT_4k4s

 

 

It's Ostalgie thread now

[Gorgon]

The Fall of the Wall = Fall of True Germany. Osties, DDR are descendants of Prussia and Prussia is true creators of German Empire. It's so easy to note by comparing of DDR military forces (who beat US arses in Vietnam war ) and pathetic Bundeswehr who even can't protect homeland in case of war.

http://youtu.be/oldMTT_4k4s

 

 

It's Ostalgie thread now

DDR forces fought in Vietnam ? I'm sure you have something ready for when people say 'No, they literally didn't', so lets hear it. 

[Oerwinde]

I was reading an article the other day about how the fall of the wall was the beginning of the fall of western civilization, because we took the wrong lessons from it. We took the lesson of Capitalism Good -> Communism bad, and began deregulating everything, which lead to short term economic boom, long term economic disaster, and there is little we can do to reverse course. At the time of thwfall western economies had struck a decent balance between capitalist and socialist ideals, and that was what beat the Soviets. It wasnt Capitalism vs Communism, it was Moderation vs Extremism.

[BruceVC]

I was reading an article the other day about how the fall of the wall was the beginning of the fall of western civilization, because we took the wrong lessons from it. We took the lesson of Capitalism Good -> Communism bad, and began deregulating everything, which lead to short term economic boom, long term economic disaster, and there is little we can do to reverse course. At the time of thwfall western economies had struck a decent balance between capitalist and socialist ideals, and that was what beat the Soviets. It wasnt Capitalism vs Communism, it was Moderation vs Extremism.

 

This is a relevant point you are raising

 

There was no doubt that when the USSR collapsed there were some people who took this as irrefutable evidence that Capitalism and Democracies  were faultless and it was the responsibility of Western countries to export there systems of government to less fortunate governments around the world

 

 

But we now realize that you can't actually export the concept of a  Democracy, or Capitalism,  and expect all cultures to automatically accept and thrive under systems of government that work for Western governments

 

So if you look at the Middle East for example  we know that due to the fact most of the countries there are religious states they need to find there own form of sustainable and working governments that work for there citizens

 

This rule doesn't apply to Africa which would absolutely benefit from more Democratic and free market institutions

 

So we need to look at each country and region on a per case basis

[Namutree]

I was reading an article the other day about how the fall of the wall was the beginning of the fall of western civilization, because we took the wrong lessons from it. We took the lesson of Capitalism Good -> Communism bad, and began deregulating everything, which lead to short term economic boom, long term economic disaster, and there is little we can do to reverse course. At the time of thwfall western economies had struck a decent balance between capitalist and socialist ideals, and that was what beat the Soviets. It wasnt Capitalism vs Communism, it was Moderation vs Extremism.

Whoever wrote that article certainly didn't have the US in mind. Over here in the US we started doing more regulating after the wall fell. Like, a lot more. More wealth redistribution too. 

 

EDIT: It's actually really weird. It's like, "Congrats on beating the socialists! Now let's emulate them."

Edited November 11, 2014 by Namutree

[Longknife]

The Fall of the Wall = Fall of True Germany. Osties, DDR are descendants of Prussia and Prussia is true creators of German Empire. It's so easy to note by comparing of DDR military forces (who beat US arses in Vietnam war ) and pathetic Bundeswehr who even can't protect homeland in case of war.

 

 

I do hope you realize that most people associated with Prussian culture would refer to it as "that culture where parents have the attitude of do things my way or I'll beat the ever living **** out of you," so you're praising a culture with a fairly negative stigma, right? I mean, my Grandfather and grandmother are both from that prussian culture, they indeed beat the **** out of my uncle and father, and now the entire family has issues. Productive? Sure, anyone would be if they were raised on an attitude of "work or get beaten up," but when I have "friends of the family" actively advising me to not get involved with my German family because they're notorious for fighting nonstop, I wouldn't call that something worth praising.

 

 

  I also don't see why Germany would hold any interest in strengthening the Bundeswehr, given it's history. Germany is already an economic juggernaut and would have little need to worry about war, given it's allies and it's ability as an economic giant. Who could or would possibly want to harm or attack Germany? There isn't an enemy for miles, and even if Germany were to be attacked, it has dozens of allies that would come to it's aid. It's not stupid, it's economical. If anything, I'd be criticizing countries that continue to support having an inflated defense budget; I mean the USA doesn't need all the money it spends on defense by ANY means, and yet it's one of the wealthiest economic sectors, as if the USA is oblivious to the fact that no one can realistically attack them without there being major logistics problems. They kind live in the middle of nowhere...

   I also find it incredibly strange that you're accusing the nation responsible for the highest amount of casualties on behalf of your country (not trying to talk crap here or something; sorry about those casualties) of being incapable of defending itself. Germany certainly isn't as focused on military might as it once was, but I would definitely hesitate to call a country that took on the world not once but twice of being unable to fend for itself.

[Longknife]

I was reading an article the other day about how the fall of the wall was the beginning of the fall of western civilization, because we took the wrong lessons from it. We took the lesson of Capitalism Good -> Communism bad, and began deregulating everything, which lead to short term economic boom, long term economic disaster, and there is little we can do to reverse course. At the time of thwfall western economies had struck a decent balance between capitalist and socialist ideals, and that was what beat the Soviets. It wasnt Capitalism vs Communism, it was Moderation vs Extremism.

 

 

This is definitely true, and unfortunately Russia fell for the same trap. I've got multiple friends from Russia and...maybe you've encountered a couple Russians who say communism was better...? There's a reason for this: Russia went ****ing ape**** with capitalism after the Wall fell. Imagine if you were in a city where the bus system wasn't government run, but privatized. Imagine the bus driver refusing to go until someone who didn't pay fesses up and either gets off or pays his fare. This is exactly the kind of stuff I've been told about, as well as an inability to realistically study at a university without some degree of money (hence why they came to Germany).

 

  And yeah again, that's exactly my point: I find it very unfortunate people seem to consider Capitalism and Communism opposites, and that if one fails, the other must be a success story. No, any form of social structure or regulation can fail if not maintained properly. The lesson never should've been a simple "communism sucks," it should've been "any idea can sound good on paper but fail in practice if it fails to recognize human error and basic human flaws."