Can you take communists seriously?

No, because so many self-proclaimed communists are usually just dumb young hipster types who think it's cool.

Failing that, all it takes is the words "redistribution of wealth" to get me to give said person the finger and walk away, which I guess is not taking them seriously.

I wouldn't dismiss either immediately, mainly because they can mean a lot of different things. For example, as mikefrombrooklyn demonstrated, many use "socialism" to describe social democracies or mixed economies - that is, capitalist countries but with socialist elements such as the welfare state, workers' rights, and some public services such as healthcare. For example, I would not consider the UK to be a socialist country, and I think most Britons would agree with me, but I have heard it described as such. With that in mind, I kind of have to take socialism seriously since the term appears to encompass every economic system which isn't feudalism or free market capitalism, neither of which I support.

Communism, I must admit, I feel considerably more wary of, since it almost invariably denotes a considerably more radical ideology which involves the uprooting of the entire economic system, and which I feel has never achieved satisfactory results in the past, and could easily prove disastrous. Nevertheless, I don't think it's right to dismiss communist ideas offhand; for that matter, I don't think it's right to dismiss hardcore rightwingers offhand. It is entirely possible for intelligent individuals to hold radical or extreme views having given them a great deal of thought, and I think they at least deserve a fair hearing.

Well this is just kind of proof about how little people know what the actual differences are.

I tell people I'm a social democrat and everyone's like "OH MY GOD COMMUNIST/SOCIALIST MCCARTHY SAVE ME"

Depends on what else they say. I wouldn't dismiss them immediately, but they've definitely got an uphill battle to convince me they're not an idiot. Usually 50% of the argument is what the definition of communist is

I've known a few really intelligent people that made their case really well, and some...not so intelligent people where this just reaffirmed their idiocy.

But I think the important part is that you can't dismiss everything they say because they claim to be communist, that's just Ad Hominem.

I usually just get "So why don't you leave? You obviously hate freedom"

Yeah, because social democrats tend to be linked rhetorically with the unsavory strawmen throughout history.

Whatever's labeled "left" is going to be imbued with such evil connotations that people figure, Where there's smoke there's fire, so we'd better not listen.

Depends on the context on which they feel it important enough to inform me of this, and how they go about this belief.

So, no more than any other belief.

Just throwing this out for reference: there's a self-proclaimed socialist in the United States Congress for twenty years now. Presumably, he keeps getting re-elected because his constituents do take him seriously and like the work he's doing on their behalf.

—R.J.

edited 4th Mar '11 12:03:45 PM by rjung

Yes, as long as they take it seriously enough to be able to coherently explain their position.

Well like everyone says, communism has different definitions. Capitalism itself has different definitions, some who are pro-capitalist could be very anti-corporation.

And I was so sure the OP would be Chagen...

Of course I could take a Communist or Socialist seriously, unlike much of America, I am not spellbound to a bone chilling ph34r of OMGSOCHIALISM.

It's the anarchists I can't take seriously.

...Forgive me for saying this, but what you said makes you appear no better, if not worse, than the people you deride.

^^ So, giving the workers control of the means of production makes perfect sense, but abolishing hierarchies is out of the question?

I think the concepts of communism and anarchism go together extremely well, in theory. They seem made for one another.

edited 4th Mar '11 12:35:58 PM by BobbyG

Anarchists miss the point. I get what they're saying, really. But when elites are already busy taking apart the government and basically reducing it to a blunt stick to hit people with, the solution is not Let's dismantle the federal government as fast as we possible can. Because then you'll have the opposite effect. You will have extreme authority.

^^ Except one of them does it by just not creating a hierarchy and failing when hierarchies inevitably crop up, and the other does it by obsessively micromanaging people to not have a hierarchy and failing when someone finally realizes that the person doing that is at the top of a de facto hierarchy that now has even more power to abuse than before.

edited 4th Mar '11 12:48:14 PM by Pykrete

Let's dismantle the federal government as fast as we possible can

That seems like more of a rebellious position than an ideologically anarchistic one.

So I suppose the problem here is the broad number of definitions communism has as well as the the types of people who tend to argue for it. So it's a case by case basis for me, but I'm wary when I hear somebody is a communist.

Just like there are many flavors of anarchist. The du jour version is anarcho-capitalism, which is kind of like Libertarianism American-style. On the other side you have anarcho-syndicalism, the more wary kind, which doesn't wish to haphazardly lash out at government.

Not exactly a deep thinker in these matters. But I have a hard time believing that the latter will prevail first.

I tend to dismiss communists pretty quickly in terms of the viability of their ideology because the whole thing basically hinges on addressing our problems with a small group of corrupt elites by giving a small group of politicians even more unchecked power and for some reason naively hoping they're less likely to abuse it this time. There's a reason communist nations tend to be cults of personality.

That said, dismissing them as a possible threat is never wise, since such a movement gaining an appreciable amount of sway would be disastrous.

edited 4th Mar '11 1:03:57 PM by Pykrete

"Anarchism" does not mean "the desire to abolish the federal government as fast as possible"; nor does it mean "naïvité". It is a broad term encompassing a range of ideologies that run the gamut of the left-right spectrum and which are tied to a highly diverse range of philosophical views. It makes no more sense to dismiss somebody for being an anarchist than it does if they are a communist, socialist, conservative, libertarian, liberal, whatever.

To me, communism seems like a great idea that failed to take into account that Humans Are Flawed. Specifically, that a) most people are fairly selfish and work better when they personally gain from their own work, and b) a few people are selfish power hungry jerks who are great at manipulating people. Most examples of communist governments got hijacked by b) - Stalin is a prime example.

If there was some way to deal with those two problems, I think communism would be a great idea.

Yeah, but that came about because Lenin and Trotsky had elevated Marx to godhood and believed in his 'iron laws of history' that would ensure the spread of socialism. We have laws of history?

edited 4th Mar '11 1:38:18 PM by johnnyfog

I can take communists seriously. Their proposals ... usually not.

I feel that Anarchism and Communism are both equally broken and unrealistic ideals.

I don't take communism itself seriously. I can take communists seriously, as they're individuals. Just because they hold beliefs I disagree with or believe to be wrong doesn't mean I can't be respectful of those beliefs. It's the same as religion to me.