Why The Tolerance of Communism?

The "slow reformists" are called Social Democrats.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

And there are many who would not count them as actual socialists.

edited 25th Sep '17 9:13:54 AM by Mio

I'd think Democratic Socialist, not Social Democrat.

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Not quite - social democrats don't see the transfer of the means of production as a goal, while democratic socialists do, and no social democrat would call for the abolition of the market, while democratic socialists may or may not (market socialism vs planned economy).

To add to what people already said, social democrats are, on paper, reformists, but it is not in the direction of socialism. It is in the direction of a form of capitalism which doesn't cause massive amounts of damage and exploitation (and thus motive or cause for revolutions - in other words, to steal the thunder of socialists, communists, and radicals).

edited 25th Sep '17 10:17:17 AM by Quag15

@Fighteer That's my point the words have been redefined so that it's not called communism if it's done be none violent means. Even if Marx would look at these specific reformist's end goal and say "yeah that's communism" (and then call the reformists weak/sell outs). Or for that matter that republicans will call these reformist communists and then point to Stalin when asked why that's a bad thing.

It's a reverse no true Scotsman. As for communism only being used in the Stalinist sense, I offer the whole rest of this thread as counter examples.

You know, Maoism was pretty awful too.

But ultimately, this thread isn't about "Is Communism worth discussing?" This thread is about "Why do more people give Communism a pass compared to Fascism?" I've already made my opinions on that matter clear:

1) Communist regimes mostly kept their atrocities within their own borders.

2) The Cold War never went hot.

3) At the end of the day, Communism panders to the fantasy of overcoming corrupt rich elite fat cats. The fantasy of being Robin Hood. And that fantasy will never really go out of style. By contrast, "gas the Jewish people" and eugenics are not as popular these days.

edited 26th Sep '17 8:37:37 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised

I would add 4)Communism lost the Cold War. If we were all leaving under soviet regimes we'd probably have a different opinion, but as it is it's easy to see the effects of unrestrained capitalism on the world and think "Man does capitalism suck, if only there were still people who opposed it".

Which kind of ties in with my first point. It's easier to be sympathetic to Communism if you or your loved ones weren't shat on by a Communist regime.

The Axis Powers on the other hand attached a rotary fan to their asses and shat over everyone.

edited 27th Sep '17 3:10:40 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised

Its also easy to look away from injustices when they dont happen to you or anyone close to you, which is why a lot of people have no problem with capitalism nowdays as "Poor people have iphones! That means they arent poor!" Bread and Circuses type things coupled with the export of menial labour to other countries.

@M84 I was counting Mao in the Stalinist camp.

It's similar, but not quite the same thing. Still awful and stupid crap.

Disgusted, but not surprised

As the guy called The Burger Krieg has said about the topic, "I'm not opposed to every single little component that it entails. I just wouldn't take the package deal, even if you paid me money for it." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8je64jy5Nds

Intermission

He wouldn’t get paid for it.

It’s communism.

In this day and age some “innocent minds” still have some leniency for those “nice guys” who wanted to do good for the downtrodden by any means necessary even after it’s been made manifest it’d always end up Gone Horribly Wrong, for said minds always compare it with right-wing totalitarians (and gladly assimilate anything to the right of themselves to these) for whom the means was the end.

No tolerance for that shit as detailed elsewhere.

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

Frequently ignoring the fact that for Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and their ilk, there was no "well intentioned end" in mind.

For them it was about their own power and self-aggrandizement.

Disgusted, but not surprised

I was watching a lecture series about the modern history of China (from the collapse of the Qing onwards), and it will never stop being amazing to me just how much of a power-hungry, insecure dickhead Mao was.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

Honestly, it actually does me think that Well-Intentioned Extremist barely exist on real life

Well, it does makes sense. If you are really well intentioned, you try to get the less lethal path.

edited 29th Mar '18 11:10:45 AM by KazuyaProta

Watch me destroying my country

Just in case, when talking about “good guys” above I referred not to those various leaders but to so many of their fans and supporters everywhere.

It’s all too easy to be tempted to go the any means necessary route and before one knows one finds oneself on the path where the means justify the outcome, any outcome.
Could happen to anyone.

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

Tell that to the victims of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot...oh wait. You can't.

Disgusted, but not surprised

Now there's an overly broad and nonsensical statement. Communism as practiced for most of the twentieth century (ie Stalinism, Maoism, et al) is very much comparable to Nazism, if for no other reason than totalitarian and genocidal regimes will always share the traits of being totalitarian and genocidal.

On the flipside "socialism" is a huge umbrella containing everything from Social Democrats to various anarchist movements to people who want a Communist style society but aren't willing to drop bodies to get there to you name it. Comparing such a vast set of wildly different ideologies to climate change denalism is just plain ridiculous; while some extreme socialists certainly do reject reality as we know it (and Communist regimes almost always do) Social Democrats certainly don't.

First off, let's not use a term like "socialism" to refer to the dictators. Again, it's a broad umbrella term. When talking about Stalin, Mao, et al, you're talking about Communism, or if you want to be more specific, Stalinism and Maoism.

And death was very much the end game for Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc, and they very much did kill people "for being alive."

Define socialism. Full bore command economies crash and burn, but totally deregulated ones aren't much better. All economies requires a degree of regulation to function, which is where the "Social Democrat" subset of "socialism" comes into this conversation.

edited 29th Mar '18 11:53:32 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar