Communism: Good or Bad?
360265
There really has never been a real communist state in the world. Only totalitarian governments that called themselves communist. I don't think it works.\n\nOn the other hand. A government made up of several types of ideals I beleive is the way. Like the US or Canada. A democracy with a capitalistic base, seasoned with socialism works very well. As long as it doesn't get too one way or the other, business booms, and the poor get help.
123665
Important good or important bad?  Let's go for one of each:\n\nImportant bad changes were wrought by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the father of the beaurocracy.  He use the excuse of recovery from the great depression to create an alphabet soup of government programs, all funded by taxpayers, which were supposedly combating poverty.  It is true that a lot of unemployed people got jobs with the government, and as a temporary measure it might not have been all that bad.  Such things are alway vulnerable to favoritism and various forms of corruption, of course, but at least people who had been hungry started bringing home a paycheck.  But those programs, and the precedent they set, are mostly still in place, getting larger and more expensive and less effective all the time, and the taxpayers are paying for it all.\n\nTherefore, the president who made the most valuable changes, or at least tried to, or pehaps started to, was Ronald Reagan.  He vowed to disassemble the beaurocracy, reduce taxes, and deregulate industry.  He did his best, but the job was too big for him.  However, he was largely instrumental in the downfall of the Soviet Union, mostly by scaring them into spending so much more than they could afford on their military.  The Soviet Union, as a communist country, was strangled by its beaurocracy.  It was therefore enormously inefficient.  The money it spent on the military, and on the space program once Reagan warned them that space programs had an obvious military purpose, was more than it could afford, and it went belly-up.  Also, you may recall that there were a group of hostages which the Democrats did not have what it took to get released, who were handed over when the kidnappers realized Ronald Reagan was indeed being sworn in as president.  They did not want to deal with him, because he had guts, and gave back the hostages.
402718
Communism will never work.  Why would you bother to work hard when you get the same for your hard work as some lazy ass?  The biggest problem with communism is it doesn't take into account one simple factor:  human nature
1127913
Yes. Americans are afraid of anything that they don't understand. And those under 18 seem to understand just as little. \n\n I dont really think there ever has been a true communist nation - just a bunch of capitalist-monarchists who called themselves communists.  Funny....Some Americans (and others) will say the communist ideal is good but not practical cause its never worked HOWEVER democracy is a good idea too - but we've never had a true democratic nation either and the faux democracies of our world  have not "worked" either. \n\nSo hmm....whats more practical? A communist gov't to train the people into caring for each other so that eventually they will be capable of making the right decisions - OR an immediate "democratic" government which gives the selfish people the ability to make decisions on their own before they have been educated enough to wipe away the influence of humanity's self-destructiove history? \n\nThere is a reason that there is a minimum voting age in most nations - it is the same reason that communism is a necessity for a true socialist world - a world where one hand helps - not hinders the other.
106787
ask a communist country how well that little experiment went
887069
No.!!!\nNobody has ever practised Communism the way that Karl Marx visualised, as they say my donkey stays my donkey.!!!\nWhat is yours is mine. what is mine stays mine.\nHypocrites is what they all where, thieves and liars while the people suffered.!!!
370491
is free education worth all our freedoms?\ni mean seriously. who would want to be a governemnt slave? the concept of communism is that everyone gets the same amount of money and they all have to have the same number of children and they all have to be exactly alike. america isnt my favorite country but its better then cuba.
610039
Look at George Keennan article on the soviet union, \n\nBasicly \n\nthought communism was in the long run gonna die, \n\nDidn't want to start a world war, as communism thought would go carzy if near death\n\nTHought in long run us, stronger than soviets,
1073049
The problem with communism is that it removes most of the incentives for a person to excell. If there is no reward for above average or better performance, why should you push yourself? What would be the point of trying to innovate in that kind of system?
170424
I am talking in a economical sense. Politcally I do not how to answer your question. True communism requires equally distribution of capital. Socialism does not. Both have high levels of government ownership of industry.
1180048
Remember, George Orwell was a Socialist, but hated Communism.  The animals were represenative of his feeling toward governments.  Also, the other person who answered had a good point.  Do your own homework.  That's a great book
907222
That's a very ideal argument.  Communism is responsible for many human rights violations.  I have a friend from Russia who tells me about the atrocities against people of her ancestry, mainly Ukrainians and Gypsies.  She is a descendant of the warrior class and her family lost all their wealth, land and titles.  They had no religious freedom.  Gypsies lost their traditions and couldn't move around and were forced to assimilate into a society created out of fascism and colonialism.\n\nIf you missed a day of work, you went to a concentration camp.  They killed off the aristocracy and enslaved farmers and the middle class. Artists, the homeless and the mentally ill were rounded up and institutionalized.  Take Kruschev, the supposed liberal, tolerant one.  He sent away artists who went against state-enforced policies of socialist realism in art.  You could not leave the country and come back freely, you had to defect if you were an athlete or in the ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, for example.\n\nThere is no capitalism.  Now there is too much poverty in the West but that is because of our own doing and policies.  It can be eliminated.  You cannot produce growth and profit for reinvestment in a communist economy, which is a false economy and not a natural one.  The 'invisible hand' that aids the middle class doesn't exist.  There is no motivation for ambition and success.  Freedom is complicated, sophisticated and demanding.  I like an intellectual challenge.  Culture and intellectual discourse, along with religious freedom and freedom of speech, disappeared in Russia.\n\nThere are still some remnants of the old system.  You can be placed in prison or a work camp for being on the streets and suffering from the disease of alcoholism.  They still want to preserve their aging nuclear arsenal and cannot afford to purchase uranium for nuclear reactors.  They want to keep fighting against the Chechnyans in their civil war.
305303
I'm not sure because communism is inherently evil. It relies on depriving the people of the truth. It relies on the hard work of the few supporting the many.\n\nThere has never been a communist regime that has worked. Just look at the USSR and all of the eastern bloc countries. Their people were enslaved and tried to escape whenever possible. You NEVER saw large groups of people defect en masse to a communist country. Hell, even Lee Harvey Oswald gave up on communism and came back to the States.\n\nLook at the few remaining communist countries today. China is barely recognizable as a communist country - it more closely resembles Wall Street today. Cuba is barlely holding on to survival. North Korea is watching hundreds of thousands of its people starve to support its military. And Vietnam is just, well, there.\n\nCommunism does not inspire people to be great because the reward for hard work is not there. In order for people to do truly great things, there must be some kind of reward for their hard work. Where is the reward if your hard work will just be spread out amongst those who had nothing to do with your success?\n\nYet, many are trying to implement aspects of communism into our society claiming it is the answer. Just remember to look at history, folks ...
264313
anti-communism, cant say much else
311153
I have been in Moscow and i saw that they were more powerful when they have a communist regime.They had an unity.I am looking at China and they are very powerful too.\n\nSo, i think communism is not bad.
500687
It's a great book.  It's about communism.  Under communism the workers are worse off than they were under capitalism.
15498
The communism Karl Marx promised was good, equal rights for all, but todays communism makes sure the govt. is rich but the people are poor.\n\nFor more info, read the book Animal Farm