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Why has Marxism never worked?

China really isn't an example of Marxism though. Mao went through an agrarian movement, where Marx said it had to come from the workers. Also, the fact that China is becoming more capitalistic means it truly it isn't Marxist either.
Have you done any research at all on China? I feel like I should be getting tutorial pay. I guess your professor didn't tell you that Mao planned for the "agrarian movement" to fuel the manufacturing segment so the workers of the world could unite. As in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, China's Communist regime wished to use wealth created by farming to advance industrialization. Mao's China
Only a funny thing happened on the way to communist nirvana. The farming communes were a total disaster with massive starvation so bad it caused a drop in the population. Millions starved. What was Mao's response? "China has plenty of people". Sweet guy!!
But, guess what worked out pretty good? It was the small family worked plots of land. Imagine that. People work harder on what belongs to them. Guess Marx didn't plan on that, eh? I'm seeing a lot of dancing on why communism sucks.
 
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We haven't truly been capitalist, ever. Even with the founding the country, we had the post office and some regulations. That was my point.

I see China to be pretty much an autocratic single party dictatorship.

Well, here's how Mao saw it.

The Communist Party decided to launch a new program of collectivizing farming. China's peasantry saw Chairman Mao and the Communist Party as heroic much more than Russia's peasantry had seen Stalin and the Bolsheviks as heroes, and through 1956 the peasantry cooperated with the Party. There was none of the resistance and warfare that had accompanied the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union. Mao's China
And all their cooperation got them was starvation. Thank you communism.
 
Well, here's how Mao saw it.

The Communist Party decided to launch a new program of collectivizing farming. China's peasantry saw Chairman Mao and the Communist Party as heroic much more than Russia's peasantry had seen Stalin and the Bolsheviks as heroes, and through 1956 the peasantry cooperated with the Party. There was none of the resistance and warfare that had accompanied the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union. Mao's China
And all their cooperation got them was starvation. Thank you communism.

This does not change the fact that it was essentially a dictatorship (albeit with communist sympathies).
 
Have you done any research at all on China? I feel like I should be getting tutorial pay. I guess your professor didn't tell you that Mao planned for the "agrarian movement" to fuel the manufacturing segment so the workers of the world could unite. As in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, China's Communist regime wished to use wealth created by farming to advance industrialization. Mao's China

China really isn't an example of Marxism though. Mao went through an agrarian movement, where Marx said it had to come from the workers. Also, the fact that China is becoming more capitalistic means it truly it isn't Marxist either.

So yeah I already mentioned that.

Only a funny thing happened on the way to communist nirvana. The farming communes were a total disaster with massive starvation so bad it caused a drop in the population. Millions starved. What was Mao's response? "China has plenty of people". Sweet guy!!
But, guess what worked out pretty good? It was the small family worked plots of land. Imagine that. People work harder on what belongs to them. Guess Marx didn't plan on that, eh? I'm seeing a lot of dancing on why communism sucks.

No one here has defended Communism. You tried to paint Marxism in one way and all I did was say that neither Russia nor China followed it. And you are right it didn't work because Mao was a crazy bastard that was a cult of personality more than anything else.
 
I've been waiting for you to say something other than your foolish one liners. And BTW, you're no Henny Youngman.

Being concise is a good thing. I hate long winded lectures.
 
Russia was a society based on peasantry and almost completely underdeveloped when the Bolshevik revolution took place.
Really. And I guess the other Kingdoms of Europe were calling each other on iphones, right? ALL the European countries were under developed in 1917. Hello!!!
 
Communism is not a new idea. Aristotle and Plato knew about a collective society. Marxist Socialism has not actually happened because Marx was absolutely wrong in what would drive a revolution. Marx believed that the industrial workers would revolt. However, any time we see a mine squash, or a chemical plant explode and cook workers we usually see two groups:

(1) Lawyers, advocacy groups the families directly affected by the falling mine, or the sizzling plant.
(2) Lawyers, advocacy groups, and the other workers of the mining company or chemical company.

Marx believed that workers would start the revolution because they are opposed to the gentry or he wealthy, bourgeois owners of production. The case happens to be that workers like their jobs. They do not fall prey to Marx's imagination.

Also,

Marx didn't see the ability of the radical republics. Which passed child labor laws, compensatory acts, minimum wage only after Marx kicked the bucket.
 
Really. And I guess the other Kingdoms of Europe were calling each other on iphones, right? ALL the European countries were under developed in 1917. Hello!!!

To different degrees. Russia had a serious technological deficiency compared to other nations at that time. Once of goals of the revolution was to modernize the nation.
 
Complaining about people calling China communist is lame. It's like complaing about calling the US a democracy.

Yeah, calling the US a democracy would be foolish, because it's a Republic as in "...and to the Republic for which it stands....."
 
Yeah, calling the US a democracy would be foolish, because it's a Republic as in "...and to the Republic for which it stands....."

The US is not a direct democracy, but we are a representative democracy, so the name does fit our society. The full name for our style of government is actually a democratic republic. So both answers are in a certain way, correct.
 
The US is not a direct democracy, but we are a representative democracy, so the name does fit our society. The full name for our style of government is actually a democratic republic. So both answers are in a certain way, correct.

Nope.

We're Romans, not Greeks.
The founders explicitly state why we're to build a government in the Greek style. It's a Republic. Adding "democracy" to the end just makes one sound like a revisionist.

Oh and BTW, you don't actually vote for the President-- so it's def. not a democracy.
 
Nope.

We're Romans, not Greeks.
The founders explicitly state why we're to build a government in the Greek style. It's a Republic. Adding "democracy" to the end just makes one sound like a revisionist.

Oh and BTW, you don't actually vote for the President-- so it's def. not a democracy.

Right, and all those other guys I do vote for don't exist.
 
There's no such thing as a national election. State electorate votes for the President. It used to be the same for State Senators (State electorate > State Senators), but the Federal Gov't kicked the states out of Washington and put that to the people.

However, as it stand, you don't vote for the President. Sorry to inform you that.
 
Really. And I guess the other Kingdoms of Europe were calling each other on iphones, right? ALL the European countries were under developed in 1917. Hello!!!

None moreso then Russia though.

Russia was a ****ing ****hole x 10, and in many ways had the worst human rights record of the time.

Baltic states might have followed, but they were still under the control of the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
 
For everybody saying that China isn't a communist country, you might want to try telling that to the Chinese.

I thought I made that clear. I said "worked" means to provide a standard of living on par with captialist countries. Is China on a par with any of the European countries? Pay attention.

You didn't make it clear at all. Look at the OP, it's just a ramble that doesn't contain the words "standard of living on par with captialist countries" anywhere.

If we're talking about a standard of living on par with capitalist countries, I'd like to see your data on that. Most capitalist countries don't have a standard of living anywhere near the USA.
 
You wouldn't? But to be fair to Marx no country has actually gone through the process the way he described it. So we have never seen a truly Marxist society.

Why do we have to be fair to a moron like Marx? His idiotic notion has never worked, does not work and never will work. You already know why, so why apologize for that fool?
 
For everybody saying that China isn't a communist country, you might want to try telling that to the Chinese.

Hrrm, my government tourguide in beijing told me it wasn't that communist and probably wasnt going to be in 10 years. But mebbeh he was a spy trying to get my guard down....
 
Why do we have to be fair to a moron like Marx? His idiotic notion has never worked, does not work and never will work. You already know why, so why apologize for that fool?

Because you are saying his idea was wrong, when it has been been put to the test like he said it should. I am not saying that what Marx said is right, but the roads that Russia and China went down are not the roads that Marx described. Also, Marx also critiqued capitalism, most of which he was right about by the way.
 
Marxism failed (as defined above: Providing a standard of living as high as in Western free market economies) because a nationalized, centrally planned economy is incredibly inefficient compared to the free market. When you nationalize the economy, you got rampant inefficiency which lowers the general wealth (even if communists may argue that little wealth that remains is more equally distributed, at least).

In terms of efficiency, the free market is way superior to central planning, when it comes to allocating resources, goods and services. If the market is just as sufficient regarding normative considerations, like fairness or equality, is a different question.

Personally, I'd go with the best of both worlds: Preserve a generally free market to make sure the economy is efficient, but add a few regulations, limited social safety nets and limited redistribution of wealth to relieve the free market's worst bad side effects of inequality and Darwinist lack of compassion. But these benefits due to limitations of the free market must be in a healthy relation to the loss of efficiency, they should not go overboard.

China may refer to communist/Marxist/Maoist tradition, but combined the worst of both worlds: An authoritarian regime without constitutional protection of civil rights and individual freedom, with a generally privatized economy and according bad excesses of a free market. People no longer enjoy the benefits of a more equal distribution of wealth due to socialist economy, but due to the privatization suffer poverty and bad working conditions, but due to the authoritarian system and police state, they cannot even form labor movements or free unions. Karl Marx would puke.
 
You wouldn't? But to be fair to Marx no country has actually gone through the process the way he described it. So we have never seen a truly Marxist society.



There's a reason for that. It was a fantasy when Marx wrote it, and it remains a fantasy. Marx failed to take into account several aspects of human nature in his work of "fiction"... but his chief error was the error of all utopians. It goes something like this: "In MY Utopia, people will do the right thing..." :roll:
 
There's a reason for that. It was a fantasy when Marx wrote it, and it remains a fantasy. Marx failed to take into account several aspects of human nature in his work of "fiction"... but his chief error was the error of all utopians. It goes something like this: "In MY Utopia, people will do the right thing..." :roll:

Actually, its more in estimating concessions to socialism in workers rights etc, the expansion of the middle class and redistribution of wealth that happened for itself. Marx lived in a different world. Workers gained democratic rights in the west eventually.
 
Hrrm, my government tourguide in beijing told me it wasn't that communist and probably wasnt going to be in 10 years. But mebbeh he was a spy trying to get my guard down....

Without getting into the nuts and bolts of what "communism" is . . .

Are you in the habit of reflexively believing "government tourguides" in authoritarian regimes? Looks like.
 
But mebbeh he was a spy trying to get my guard down....

Maybe this sarcasm answers your post preemptively. But you're going to have to expand on your feeble point.
My money says you dont know what you're talking about.
Go on.
 
:roll:

Yeah. Your sarcasm makes it clear you believed what he said without question. As does the context of your post.
 
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