It's interesting talking to individuals who lived through the USSR. Many of the things we take for granted simply did not exist. Hearing a 40 year old man speak so fondly of silly things such as Donald Duck and Disney - not in and of themselves but of the advent of freedom and open culture they represented, is something that's really eye opening. And while you might argue that that's because it was not a real, or a good, communist nation, at some point I think you have to consider that this might be a case of the no true scotsman fallacy. Ultimately, I don't see how you so severely restrict the liberties of the people without having a government that is extremely oppressive.
I grew up in the USSR, and this is news to me. Do you have evidence in favor of this claim?
And for a long time, I've felt that the lessons learned from WWII would be promptly forgotten once the vets died off. It's damn infuriating to see it actually happen, though.
Sadly, the rise of despots like Putin, Trump, Duterte, Xi, Orban, etc. (not to mention the Brexit fiasco) is not a surprise to me. I figured this would happen once enough of the vets died off. [Lack of faith in humanity? Me? Yeah, exactly.]
(US-centric) Frank Zappa's later albums carried the motto, "Register to vote before it's too late." Too bad that there were so many people back then who were either too cool to show up at the ballot box when they were needed most (think 1980), or decided that outright fascism served their interests best.
The fools of today think they know better. One thing that particularly concerned the leaders post-WWII was that the next war, after more technological advances, would cause unimaginable levels of devastation to humanity. Remember they had seen WWI exceed what anyone imagined, then WWII exceed WWI. Imagine a major war with all the technological advancement since 1945 devoted to killing and destruction.
http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/leg...
Literally every nation polled except Hungary and Ukraine have a majority in support of both changes. A critical point is that this poll was also done in 2009 when economic times were quite hard around the world. Also I expect that answer was on the approve - neutral - disapprove spectrum, so (100 - approve%) is not the same as disapprove.
Finally, there's also the general issue that overtime for whatever reason we, as humans, tend to view the past as much more pleasant than it was. If you polled Americans over some minimum age on whether the country was better off 'x' years ago (e.g. - the 50s) or better off today, I expect you'd see an enormous chunk, and likely a majority, stating that we were better off in the 50s. Even well below that age, I would be mighty tempted to agree as well. It was a time of 'friendlier' economics and people able to graduate debt free working a part time job, and also an era where employees were not just "human resources" -- think about how dystopic that phrase really is! There was a very different employer-employee model than we have today.
And finally there is the issue of a shared enemy. Countries united when they have a common enemy. Even George Bush approached near 90% approval engaging in some pretty bad actions following 9/11 simply because we had a shared enemy. It's called the 'rally around the flag effect'. The Soviet Union had the greatest of enemies, which is something that would have galvanized and unified the people. All we need to do to create world peace and harmony is get invaded by a space fairing civilization! I meant that as a joke, but it's probably quite true...
[1] - http://www.pewglobal.org/2009/11/02/end-of-communism-cheered...
[2] - http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/leg...
[3] - http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/leg...
Perhaps it is not any arbitrary and general '-ism' that is so deeply problematic, but the periodic failure or fall below some critical level of a collection of human understanding and willing effort that waxes and wanes with circumstances and lived experience over generations?
Sure the chief-tain had a say, but in the end, i think for a lot of human history as hunter gatherer without big storage- we ran on socialism. Which is why it reappears again and again.
Want to talk to socialism that's oh so unnatural? Close your browsers, stand up, talk to your spouse, lie about one of the neighbors having won the lottery. Observe.
Also, for all the bad it does to the economy as a total- at least, it resets the inequality, that prevents alot of Americans today from realizing there full potential.
Somewhere you have to draw a Finnish line, so that the race can start over.
What are you trying to get at here? What reaction do you think there would be?
(1) Different people did receive different wages in the USSR, and managers even received bonuses if they met performance targets.
(2) “Communism” as defined by communist thinkers is primarily the state of existence where the means of production, e.g. factories and railroads, are universally accessible to everyone, rather than under private and exclusive control. This doesn’t really imply anything about government at all, and perhaps even presupposes the non existence of the state, which after all is claimed to primarily exist to mediate interactions between the classes.
It is always some group of bureaucrats and talkers taking over and stealing from the workers they are supposed to be protecting.
Bureaucrats and parasites are also a problem in Western democracies, but less pronounced.
You fire them, I guess... Just like everywhere else.
Whereas the seeds of a capitalist society are at most 20 generations old. The news is full of talk of the royal wedding in the UK - officially ruled by the monarch. The United Kingdom is de jure a feudal kingdom still, if not de facto (I do not mean the UK still is de facto feudal, but that it is a sign of how recent this all is that, de jure, the UK is de jure feudal).
It's strange that such a recent phenomenon, with all its crises and such can be seen as the only way aligned with human nature, whereas one existing from the beginning is described as utopian.
We could argue about this all day and not come to real conclusions.
My belief about pre-history is that you were ruled by physical strength, not consent of the governed. I'd call it feudal, but it wasn't that organized, just your local strongman (or local charismatic person) getting... well, whatever you and your friends couldn't prevent them from taking.
Of course, I have no more evidence for my theory than for yours.
That aside, I mean right before 10000 years ago, before concepts like slavery, class, surplus etc. began their rise.
All human society then were in traveling hunter-gatherer bands.
Could you share some of these sources?
I'm sorry but this is a fairy tale view of human nature. People have always been selfish and have formed into dominance heirarchies. All you have to do is look at chimpanzee social behavior to see that unequal, heirarchical societies have been around for at least millions of years. True communism has never existed on a wide scale in human societies.