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mulhollandj
Posts:230
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| 06/11/2007 8:15 AM |
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There have recently been several letters to the HJ journal both promoting and denouncing socialism and similar forms of government. Rather than continue explaining my positions in bits and pieces I am hoping to do a big post which people can read to understand some of the fundamental flaws of Communism and Socialism and how they differ from the United Order. It may even contribute to already existing discussions.
First of all, what is Communism? Most look at is as an economic philosophy which failed in the former Soviet Union and hence there is no need to worry about it. Communism is much more than that and far more dangerous than most people realize. I do not claim to be an expert but I do have some knowledge on the subject which I wish to share.
After this I hope to talk a little about Socialism, which is also very dangerous. I feel that people do not understand what its aims are and the pathway to which it leads.
Third, I want to talk about the LDS belief and how the United Order and Law of Consecration are different. Many people get these things confused.
What is Communism? Communism is a philosophy which seeks to prove that God does not exist. They have three laws which tries to explain away God. Man therefore becomes the highest form of life and hence should be worshipped. By removing the classes than there will cease to be conflict and you will eventually you will need no government as the better nature of people will overcome their selfish desires and people will live happily ever after. Doesn't that sound nice? How do you get there though? Communists do not believe in God and hence believe that the ends justify the means. The magic words here is FORCE and DISHONESTY. If you believe in God then they will do everything in their means to destroy your faith, prevent your worship, and most importantly, prevent you from teaching your family about your faith. How will they convince other people to accept their form of government? By whatever means necessary. I find this part the most disturbing because I find it far worse than the religious wars of history. Is Communism a religion? Why not?
Communism is based on falsehoods on so many levels. Oh, but it will get better when we can finally live in that utopian state. The problem is that the utopian state is never found and the leaders grow richer and richer and more and more powerful mired in their own corruption. It reminds me a lot of Animal Farm.
But how does one get to Communism? Through socialism of course. Socialism is just like Communism. Both seek to destroy the concept of private property, individual freedoms, and ultimately the human spirit. Both systems are about controlling and manipulating society instead of letting people be individual agents. Karl Marx viewed socialism as just a middle step to Communism.
What is the difference between these philosophies and the United Order. Instead of me saying it please read what Marion G. Romney had to say http://loganutah.com/Forums/tabid/60/forumid/31/postid/895/view/topic/Default.aspx.
Please let me know if you have any questions
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Zasch
Posts:134
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| 06/11/2007 9:24 AM |
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What is Communism? Communism is a philosophy which seeks to prove that God does not exist.
I'm usually not quite this brazen in debate, but your definition is entirely incorrect, I'm afraid. Communism is described as many different things by many different people, but usually in involves the apportionment of property in a manner highly dissimilar to a capitalist system (whether it be by democratic process or not).
I believe the belief of the nonexistence of god is "atheism". Communism offers no proof against the existence of God whatsoever: If you want those, see my "Ask a Liberal" thread.
Man therefore becomes the highest form of life and hence should be worshipped.
The value emphasis on humanity is common in most philosophical systems of the west. Otherwise, things such as freedom of worship would be meaningless: If man is not valued, but instead God, and the one true God comes from holy book X, then these secularist freedoms are contrary to the will of the almighty. In fact, this is the logic that is used against democracy in the Middle East: Democracy places men above God, which is heresy, and thus against Islam.
By removing the classes than there will cease to be conflict and you will eventually you will need no government as the better nature of people will overcome their selfish desires and people will live happily ever after.
Some communists believe this. Some communists believe that, as societies become more and more advanced (for instance, during a capitalist stage of development) they will naturally begin seeking to reappropriate property in a way to end the percieved injustices of capitalism (which, to communists, involves moving past notions of private property, expect perhaps in a personal sense, and move more toward communal living). Many communists believe that, without a social effort to move in this direction that starts from the grassroots, it is impossible.
Communists do not believe in God and hence believe that the ends justify the means.
Neither statement in this compound is true.
"Communists do not believe in God." is not true at all - many communists are atheists, of course, but many communists are also very religious and derive their belief in communism, communal living, and such from their holy books. The collective communities of Israel, for instance, are founded on Judaism.
Also, consequentialism (the ends justifying the means) is again something that is entirely seperate from communism - one can easily be a communist and still hold that there are certain ideals that must not be violated.
Equally, one can be a noncommunist and hold a consequentialist framework. I need only point to the actions of the United States during the cold war: The United States repeatedly funded terrorist groups and rogue regiemes in an attempt to contain communism. Prior to the Vietnam war, there were supposed to be elections in that country, but it was widely known that the Ho Chi Minh would easily win and thus the United States decided not to hold those elections and instead supported an unpopular and repressive regieme in South Vietnam. Americans then and today justify these actions on the basis that, while notions like democracy and self-determination are important, the threat of communism was simply so great that the *ends justified the means*. WIth terrorism, many Americans are of the opinion that moral prohibitions against torture no longer carry imperative weight, because the threat of terrorism is so great that the *ends justify the means*.
Consequentialism can be found in every ideology and strain of belief - including religion. It is not something that is unique to, or a necessary characteristic of, communists.
If you believe in God then they will do everything in their means to destroy your faith, prevent your worship, and most importantly, prevent you from teaching your family about your faith.
There are plenty of communists who believe in things like freedom of religion as a means to secure liberty for the workers. There are plenty of communists who use their religion to justify their belief. There are plenty of communists who believe that these sorts of things are the result of material conditions in a nation, and thus surpression of religion will not have effect unless the underlying material conditions of the society are changed.
How will they convince other people to accept their form of government? By whatever means necessary.
Very few western communists operate in this fashion. Also, again, all major ideologies throughout history have practiced this: Christianity only grew because it expanded aggressively by force of arms, conquering the Germanic and British and French peoples by sword, and expanding in a similar fashion. I need not tell you that, back in the day, nonchristians were at the very least rather heavily persecuted. I could give you a graphic description, for instance, of Spanish methods of "convincing others to accept their form of government" when it came to the Jews or whatnot, but I suspect you know these things already and thus I will spare you.
I find this part the most disturbing because I find it far worse than the religious wars of history.
I don't particularly see how one is "worse" than the other.
Is Communism a religion? Why not?
Strictly communism is merely a belief about the organisation of society. Communism as practiced in the Soviet Union or North Korea today could probably be described as a religion, as the cults of personality that sprung up bear remarkable similarities.
The problem is that the utopian state is never found and the leaders grow richer and richer and more and more powerful mired in their own corruption.
This does tend to be the case with any ideology that is not founded upon the people ruling themselves.
Socialism is just like Communism. Both seek to destroy the concept of private property, individual freedoms, and ultimately the human spirit.
No. Socialism probably differs from libertarianism in that it places belief in the existence of positive liberty, and thus notions like private property often are given lesser value when it is percieved that some larger social value is threatened.
When it comes to individual freedom, most socialists today agree that liberty ought be secured (We should note that the Soviet constitution, for instance, officially protected many rights such as speech, press, assembly, and indeed even religion. Article 52 states "Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited." - the Soviet constitution tended not to be followed by the Soviet government), and as far as I know all the modern socialist states of today (primarily in Europe) safeguard religious and other individual rights.
When it comes to the human spirit, I'm really not sure where you are going with that. The security of positive liberties, I would think, would promote the "human spirit" by turning attention away from things like health and poverty and more toward things that improve our society: Arts, entertainment, science, philosophy, that sort of thing.
Both systems are about controlling and manipulating society instead of letting people be individual agents.
The only philosophy that grants people the absolute right to be individual agents is anarchy.
Karl Marx viewed socialism as just a middle step to Communism.
Superficially true, but somewhat disingenous: Karl Marx also viewed capitalism as a middle step to communism (from what he saw as "primitive communism" of hunter-gatherer societies, to variously forms of serfdom, aristocracy, imperialism and nationalism, capitalism, socialism, communism). Capitalism is required in order to accumulate capital and development, but also to tear down various barriers that he saw as preventing class consciousness: For instance, it was seen that capitalism would necessarily demolish isolationism (I believe he put it as "demolishing the Great Wall of China" or something) and that has been expanded to include everything: Capitalism will, in the view of some communists, demolish religion and racism and nationalism because all of these things are ultimately barriers to profit.
Thus, when capitalism has finally demolished absolutely everything, the communists predict that the working class will realise their position (gain "class consciousness") and unite for action. But capitalism was a very important part of the process.
It was said that if the communist revolution failed in Germany (it did, by the way: Fascist counterrevolution put it down), it would fail entirely, for it was believed that Russia, having still been stuck in serfdom and aristocracy, could not at all achieve communism because the necessary social and industrial development of capitalism never took place there (where it supposedly did in Germany). Without the necessary capitalist stage of development, Russia would degenerate. The Trotskyists, after Stalin managed to consolidate power, call tihs the "degenerated workers state", for in their theory the Soviet Union did successfully manage to destroy the aristocracy and take control of the means of production (differentiating it from capitalism), but the means of production were not given to the workers and therefore it could not be called true communism. Others often label (and this would be my preferred interpretation) the Soviet Union a "state capitalist" state, because the Communist Party essentially operated like a giant corporation that had achieved monopoly in all markets.
China was criticised for the same reason: At least in Russia there was a significant urban movement toward communism, but in China the whole idea of maoism is that the revolution starts and is maintained by the rural peasantry instead of the urban worker, and that an industrial society is not even desirable. Many communists criticised this as bypassing basically every step that is "required" for communism to actually occur.
Many neocommunists now state that capitalism is meant to advance society socially to the point where the people, of their own democratic will, decide to impliment a communist society collectively, thus the "historic inevitability". Personally I don't think that this will ever happen, because I don't think that communist economics is particularly sound: Rather, social democracy (or "social market economy", if you prefer) will become the norm as people become more advanced until technology propels humanity into a post-scarcity economy.
Still, though, you seem to have some rather large gaps in your analysis. Your attempt to paint communism as deriving nearly its entire belief from atheism, while somewhat amusing on one level, is somewhat depressing on another: The central tenents of communist theory are wholly independent from atheism, and totalitarian communism as practiced by Stalin, Mao, et al mostly seemed to replace one religion with another. Furthermore, the argument that communism is secular and therefore bad naturally must lend itself to theocracy: If it really is arrogant for man to put himself above God, then freedom of religion or expression must never be permitted, for that puts the desires of man (his liberty) above the divine. Also, you basically seem to be trying to portray religion as an innocent victim of communism, when that analysis can be heavily debated (for instance, the actions of organised religion basically everywhere prior to the advent of liberalism in Europe).
Additionally, there seem to be aspects of communist theory that basically went missing in your analysis (the most notable of which being that capitalism too is referred to as a stage to communism). I could bring up a ton more points (for instance, a critique of how communist the communist parties of the world really are, comparative philosophical theory to both tease out the values of communism and then test various communist doctrines against it, an analysis of the relationship between religion and communism and rational thought, etc) but I think these are sufficient for now.
Your speech is very rousing, of course, but I remain quite skeptical of it for the above reasons. |
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mulhollandj
Posts:230
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| 06/11/2007 12:54 PM |
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| I am getting most of my information from The Naked Communist written by Cleon Skousen. I believe that his statements are well researched, documented, and accurate. I would be happy to let you borrow my copy of it if you would like to read it and refute his arguments. I am not speaking to what individuals believe as that really can't be defined but the fundamental basis of Communism by Marx and Engles. |
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Fiery Darts
Posts:135
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| 06/11/2007 8:28 PM |
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There appears to be two problems with this discussion so far. The first is that the two of you are, for the most part, comparing two different things. Mulholland is looking at communism as it existed in the USSR, while Zasch is generally looking at the more high-minded philosophical sort of communism (and, it is worth pointing out, the kind that has only ever existed on paper or at best in very small groups).
(This is a problem with LD debators. They argue the entire topic at once without ever addressing the issue of whether it works in any real-world setting. They somehow think that this is better.)
The other problem is that Mulholland's main point (at least according to the thread topic, and assuming that he is going to get around to making it) is that communism, at least in the USSR and probably in any form, is fundamentally different than another social system called the United Order. The general thrust of the argument would be that the United Order is better for some reason or another. The bulk of the differences that I have heard are fairly semantic, and the distinction is far less clear when the comparison is made with the philosophy of communism rather than with any specific application of it.
As for the atheism of communism, this has generally been the case because the leaders who established or entrenched the communist systems decided to implement that particular tenet of Marx's work. The rejection of religion seems to have been driven more by the establishment of cults of personality than by anything else, including Marx. In general, communism requires a high level of idealogical commitment in order to work, and that means that it has to be part of the religion of the people, whether that religion be worship of god, a leader, or just the state. |
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mulhollandj
Posts:230
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| 06/11/2007 8:47 PM |
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| I already mentioned the United Order and referenced an article by Marion G. Romney. This is a quote from the Naked Communist - "When Karl Marx was asked what his object in life was, he said "To dethrone God and destroy capitalism!". Lenin said that "We say our morality is wholly subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat." These quotes go on and on. Would you like me to list more? |
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Zasch
Posts:134
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| 06/11/2007 9:25 PM |
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I am getting most of my information from The Naked Communist written by Cleon Skousen.
If I may recommend also reading more direct texts by communists themselves? All flavours: Maoists, Stalinists, Trotskyists, Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, democratic communists, democratic socialists, etc. It is really quite insightful to watch the debate unfold in the communist world itself.
I am not speaking to what individuals believe as that really can't be defined but the fundamental basis of Communism by Marx and Engles.
This is extremely important in the discussion. "Communism" and "Socialism" are not particularly useful terms anymore in that their definition has changed (especially that of socialism) - you are attacking things that "dont exist" anymore.
Mulholland is looking at communism as it existed in the USSR,
That's fine. His analysis is still entirely incorrect: Soviet communist theory and Soviet practiced communism were entirely independent of Soviet state atheism. The reason that the Soviets surpressed religion was not because of high minded idealism, but because religion poesd a threat to the new ruling class in their attempts to replace it with a different sort of religion.
"Communism" as it existed in the USSR didn't resemble communism at all: The only thing they really had in common was state planning, and I see state planning as more a byproduct of despotism rather than a byproduct of "communism". Communism was used more as an excuse to continue to take away power and liberty from the people.
(This is a problem with LD debators. They argue the entire topic at once without ever addressing the issue of whether it works in any real-world setting. They somehow think that this is better.)
This isn't correct ;) What LD debaters do is address the problem as a values question, since those are the most fundamental of questions. We should determine the place of an idea before we possibly begin to discuss the particulars of its implimentation.
Plus, I've already addressed "communism in the Soviet Union".
"When Karl Marx was asked what his object in life was, he said "To dethrone God and destroy capitalism!". Lenin said that "We say our morality is wholly subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat." These quotes go on and on. Would you like me to list more?
No, because it isn't particularly relevant. I'm well aware of communist rhetoric ("The capitalist running dogs continue to fight a counterrevolutionary war of reaction in the People's Nation, but the newfound class consciousness of the whole of the workers of society will not be subverted in favour of a return to a system of bondage and exploitation that is now rife in the bourgeoisie nations of the West!") - I'm telling you, as an atheist, that it seems to me that the crux of your argument depends on communism deriving any substantial portion of its theory from atheism, when it just isn't true: Communist theory derives itself mostly from a (what I would call biased, and perhaps doubtful) analysis of class relations and the nature of property and ownership. It's "atheistic" component mostly rests on religion being a barrier to class consciousness (for instance, the communist would say that two workers ought to unite and fight against the capitalist - if they instead fight against each other because one is protestant and the other catholic, a communist would say that is an example of religion as a barrier to class consciousness).
Communism itself needs no atheistic component whatsoever, and it certainly isn't essential, and the main reason we saw it in the "real world" is because religion was a different sort of barrier - a barrier toward creating a cult of the state, which most atheists would decry as the same sort of irrationality that religion itself promotes.
Thus, it seems to me that the thrust of your attack against communism is taken out. Communism ought be opposed, but for entirely different reasons, in my view. |
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Fiery Darts
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| 06/11/2007 10:23 PM |
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Communism ought be opposed, but for entirely different reasons, in my view.
I'll concur with that.
The biggest problem that I have seen with communism (even in my more idealistic youth) is that it requires absolute commitment from its adherents in order to function. The problem (related to my economic argument made in another thread) is that in a true communist system, there is virtually no marginal gain from one's labors. The gain must therefore be of some intangible type such as civic pride or self-esteem in order for it to work. The only other option is to brutally enforce productivity, which has been the case in most national-level communist systems. The problems of scale are such that it apparently requires a dictatorial government to function. This is reprehensible to our freedom-loving sensibilities and for this reason we fight communism.
And hippies.
Dirty, smelly hippies.
(By the way, my criticism of LD was that in debating communism, an LDer will point out all of the theoretical good or ill that can come from this or that aspect of a philosophy, but there is not as much concern about whether such a system is in any way practical. This should appeal to my mathematical sense, since mathematicians work on their theories and often only later find a real-world application for them, but it jars me anyway. Of course, policy debators are often just as tied to defending plans that have never existed and never been implemented, but at least they commit themselves to some concrete application that can be evaluated critically. In any case, I'm so far removed from the world of debate that I hardly care about it anymore, except in so far as I might tend to pontificate on any random subject. You shouldn't take it personally, especially since I didn't really have any beef with them back when I used to drag heavy tubs of paper around high schools on the weekends.) |
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Zasch
Posts:134
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| 06/11/2007 10:58 PM |
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By the way, my criticism of LD was that in debating communism, an LDer will point out all of the theoretical good or ill that can come from this or that aspect of a philosophy, but there is not as much concern about whether such a system is in any way practical.
I don't take it personally, it is all in good fun ;) Still, any LDer worth his salt will integrate the two together: If he doesn't, his opponent will just point out that the lack of practical application undermines the morality of the argument he is trying to make, since a thing that is morally good on paper but that is applied in a morally negative fashion will still end up being morally negative. |
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Fiery Darts
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| 06/12/2007 5:51 AM |
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True that.
So, we are left with communism as a promising philosophy that has yet to find a non-totalitarian realization on a large scale. |
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