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If you believe you have discovered something new to say about this or some other grand ideological theme, you should probably write a book. Internet comments as a genre are not able to communicate that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15367489
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
We couldn't be bothered to do anything about it when the ROC ran away to Formosa, but then Eisenhower realized US interests in the Pacific theater were threatened.
That's also why communism doesn't work. Self interest is a much better motivator.
We still live in a world where the Cambodian genocide murdered millions while we bombed the hell out of Indochina in a scorched earth policy. Laos is the most bombed country on earth and most people dont realize that.
A lot of people on HN have highly-demanded skillsets which keep them fat and happy and focused on problems away from the realities that the world is filled with a lot of evil people.
Those are the reasons "real communism" will never work in my opinion. Well-regulated self-interest is such a better way to govern humanities terrible behavioral problems.
PRC might not ave been the "true government", but who the "US acknowledged" is not the criterion.
>Those are the reasons "real communism" will never work in my opinion. Well-regulated self-interest is such a better way to govern humanities terrible behavioral problems.
Well, Stalin practiced exactly "Well-regulated self-interest" -- his self-interest, of course.
>Also, always comes from people who don't/didn't live there
You'd be surprised. E.g.:
https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/10/12/many-eastern-eur...
"Since communist nostalgia is a growing phenomenon in Eastern Europe today, it has different ways of manifesting itself amongst post-communist citizens. Nostalgic types are quite particular in their reverence for the past and share different things they are nostalgic about (this is shown in their electoral support for communist and socialist parties). Most of these individuals are nostalgic for job security, free education and reliable and affordable healthcare. This is because most Eastern Europeans remember and long for the vast social programmes and services that are no longer offered under capitalism."
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/kurt-biray/...
"The poll showed 30 percent of Ukrainians approved of the change to democracy in 2009, down from 72 percent in 1991. In Bulgaria and Lithuania the slide was to just over half the population from nearer three-quarters in 1991."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-communism-nostalgia/speci...
You just get 2x of famines, mass executions and freedom impairment.
Or maybe 3x since communist regimes tend to be more violent than colonial regimes.
You also can't colonize yourself but you can install communism and suffer famines, mass executions and no freedom.
You can say that Eastern Europe didn't have famines or mass executions after WW2. But hey, Russians still did!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%93...
I don't think I've ever heard anyone defend imperialism by saying that it wasn't true capitalism.
With the recent trend of banning speech you don't like/agree with under the guise of hate speech the west has opened up pandora's box for a similar thing. Sure what some people may say can be utterly repugnant, but what is happening today is similar in many ways to what happened with communist regimes. A few powerful individuals set the tone (replace the government with big tech and the media), they get the masses to do their bidding via propaganda, eliminating dissenting opinions (IE: Bans for things such as stating scientific facts on Twitter etc..) and crushing anybody who dissents from the narrative. The power goes to a few, and human nature in the form or greed, desire for power, ego etc. takes over in the leadership class.
It hasn't gotten to the point of murder in the west (yet), but looking at the progression it has already ratcheted up to violence.
That's what communism is about and you have to confiscate a lot of pre-existing stuff. Yes you can have hybrid model where you leave a lot of small business around, which is no longer communism as we know it since there's a lot of bourgeois people feeling great compared to workers.
The same way you disallow ownership of government office without totalitarianism; by making the thing that can't be privately owned publicly controlled via democratic accountability.
> Imagine a person has a small auto repair or sewing shop. They will not give up on profit unless you raid them, rinse, repeat.
Or, imagine a person owns the right to tax a small village. They likewise won't give up the profits unless you raid them, etc.; that doesn't make the transition away from feudalism totalitarian, it just means that changes in social concepts of property rights face resistance from those who have power in the old system that they would not in the new.
> Yes you can have hybrid model where you leave a lot of small business around, which is no longer communism as we know it
It's no longer a system where the only property that exists are what Communism holds to exist by right, which explicitly excludes the means of production, but since virtually every actual “Communist” state did some degree or another of that hybrid model in practice, it absolutely is “Communism as we know it”.
> since there's a lot of bourgeois people feeling great compared to workers.
Well, perhaps some petit bourgeois, but Communists more have problems with them as class allies of the haut bourgeoisie than directly.
So like how the government still has anticommunist propaganda in textbooks and regularly on various TV shows? And how supporting any Communist-action committee, including the Communist Party USA, is a crime under US law?
I don't know who you call communist, but the actual communists have faced over a century of abuse far more direct than you mention.
I’m old enough to remember when conservatives in the U.S. were the ones clamoring to regulate speech on college campuses and liberals decried censorship. Now it is reversed.
I’m guessing we have opposite political philosophies and in the cruelty environment there s little common ground. Perhaps though you’ll agree that he essence of the problems you fear and mentioned stem from too much power concentrated in too few hands. Let us strive for a system where power is spread out.
The big thing is not that we come from different political philosophies. It is that all who want to espouse them are afforded the opportunity to debate and discuss them freely. These days in tech, many corporate settings etc., many fear losing their job, having their professional life destroyed, etc. for expressing views that go against the progressive narrative. Once again I have personally experienced this and know others who have as well in addition to what others have reported. Before things got so politically charged I used to enjoy learning about the views from the other side and having those discussions. These days a mono-culture has taken over and we have lost that which I reject.
But to your point, I agree that having power spread out it a better way. Let people have actual freedom to choose what works best for them, and, more importantly actually respect different view points...which is sadly a lost art today.
Both sides do this, almost equally.
It isn't a progressive vs conservative thing, it is a "someone wants to crush the other side" thing.
Conservative commentators are forced to tow the party line or become outcasts. Progressive commentators, same thing.
If one of Trump's policies works out well, NYT isn't going to run an article about it, nor is Fox news going to give serious consideration to any of his failings.
Both sides will however name and shame anyone who doesn't tow the line.
> Before things got so politically charged I used to enjoy learning about the views from the other side and having those discussions. These days a mono-culture has taken over and we have lost that which I reject.
The problem is both sides are working to stifle free speech. Conservative trolls have no issue ruining the life of anyone who they decides deserves it, and many progressives have no qualms about doing the same!
It is sad that people cannot have even polite public discourse in this nation anymore for free of consequence from their fellow citizens.
Someone a world has been created where we need not fear the government, we need only fear ourselves.
All communism does is replace the economic class system of capitalism with a political one.