In a comment at Desipundit, Amit Kulkarni provides the best proof that Communism, as a scientific theory, was false.
Yazad, Ravikiran
To address the criticism of you people about Communism, it does not really matter what badge you wear if you are hellbent on killing people either by waging wars or conducting mass genocide, for the sole profit of a few people. In recent memory of last 100-200 years, you could be a ‘Communist’ or ‘Fascist’ or ‘Khmer Rouge’ or ‘Imperial’ or ‘democratic’ or ’socialist’. If you can get away with it, you do it. Just because you can. You coincidentially align with the people in power. You change your stripes when necessary. To justify to your unconscious hidden self, and to the public, you lie. It has been clinically proven, if you tell lies consistently, a point comes when you believe your own lies, and it becomes the truth.
It is just pure coincidence that the Communist Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist Khmer Rouge, Fascist Germany, Imperial Japan, etc… killed 100 million. It could very well have been that if Communism had triumped, all that is ‘democratic’ would be villified
Read the whole thing.
Forgive me, but this is a comment I had to make on the April 27 YLASI post by you, Ravi, which I only just read, as I am new to blogosphere.
Here it is:
WOW!! Thankyou, thankyou, ravi!
This is the best, most razor sharp, comprehensive, and on top, the most well-argued piece defending libertarianism that I have come across. It says everything I would have wanted to were I in your place, but I’m too inarticulate to do so in the manner in which you have. So, thankyou and bravo.
I understand perfectly what you mean when you say that you have actually thought through everyday issues and situations to arrive at your position. I have only recently started doing so, after having attended a seminar conducted by the Centre for Civil Society in Delhi, and have, at every turn, only affirmation for libertarian principles. I still have many doubts, queries, problems (don’t have an economic background, though have started reading up), but I remain convinced in my heart that libertarianism is the better among the best of solutions.
Why do we constantly hear about genocides by Stalin, Mao et al while the we don’t hear about genocides of our own people?
Read on:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-holocausts/
yum yum
Girija,
Thanks for the praise.
yum yum,
You don’t understand, do you?
🙂 – why do I find what used to be funny, boring?
Case in Point : Yum Yum.
Nilu I was never funny. Ravikiran and Gaurav know it. Now skb was funny though not that much. I miss his references to movies for making points.
I didn’t bother to read the post. I am guilty of that. I did now.
That guy has no direction. Also people did help in NO. Sometimes at risk to themselves. That is civilisation. Unfortunately, your poster only focusses on one aspect.
Anyway my link was another nail in the coffin of people who bray about stalin/mao.
But you don’t understand. Communism is a scientific theory that like all scientific theories, makes certain predictions. Amit’s point refutes that theory very well.
Ravikiran,
Communism is the an ideology and not well implemented either (in the past). Marxism is a theory. In my opinion, it is more of a prediction that will probably go wrong (at least the revolution part). Marx was good at explaining how capitalism works and what its effects are. Predictions are always iffy.
Amit Kulkarni’s ‘thin line between civilisation and animal instincts’ might be attractive to libertarians who claim that their beliefs are closer to nature. The truth is that Amit Kulkarni overlooked the other side of human response to Katrina. The way people helped, got angry, didn’t care etc. Why are people living in Europe worried about the plight of Africans thousands of miles away? They will gain nothing out of helping those people. We do many “illogical” things. Not all of us look for our selfish needs only.
Moreover, if nature is so important then humans are extremely tribalistic. Tribal loyalties trump individualism. That is the reason why globalisers detest and fear nationalism so much and there is an ongoing effort to delegitimize nationalism.
Scientific theories can be tested. Economic and political theories can’t be. Most free-market ideas have failed to in studies to give the results they promise. Free-marketism is thus a true successor of communism. A modern faith.
I am not a Marxist and not even much of a socialist. I would rather see the rollback of predatory capitalism and let people live the way they want. If they want to live collectively then so be it. If they love individualism so be it.
But how does pointing out the evils of imperialism make or mar the case for or against communism?
Um, maybe because the victorious capitalism was built on loot and genocide from imperialistic ventures. So that makes capitalism wrong….right?
Goodnight.
So are you saying that it was the capitalism or imperialism that killed those people and not the individual perpetrators of those crimes?
Tell me the specifc individuals who perpetrated the genocide of South Asians, Kenyans, Boers, Malays, Aboriginals etc. Also give me the names of the individuals who gained from the loot. Then we can take the discussion forward.
Why is that relevant? Are you saying that Imperialism and Capitalism took human form and commited those crimes? Some individuals, either singly or in groups, must have commited those crimes right?
Don’t you guys learn about organisations and systems as part of your MBA courses?
Why we do yum yum. I just wanted you to justify your claim that the failures of communism were individual failures while the failures of imperialism were failures of imperialism.
I never said failure of communism was individual failures. They were systemic failures. It was also not anything that Marx predicted nor anywhere near it, hence Trotsky’s desire to export revolution and Stalin’s rivalry with Trotsky. This all leads to mass appreciation for Stalin in the western media before WWII etc etc….Its a long story.
So what exactly were you trying to prove by dropping those links about imperialism on me?
“It is just pure coincidence that the Communist Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist Khmer Rouge, Fascist Germany, Imperial Japan, etc… killed 100 million.”
I saw that my favourite western countries were missing in the above given list. Considering that one of them nearly killed millions of my ancestors.
Local issues trump non-local ones.
Ravikiran,
You have twisted the context in which I meant to express my feelings. yum yum explains it partially in his long post on this thread.
yum yum,
That is what I meant by rewriting of history. If you win, you can rewrite history pretty much to your advantage so that your country shines. Who is going to know better, unless mostly amongst those who were affected, and amongst some of them, who bothers to remember all that?
Amit, I understood you perfectly, which is why I said that your argument provided the best refutation of communism as a scientific theory. Yes, it is true that Yum yum did not understand what you were saying, did not understand what I was saying and did not understand what he himself was saying, but that is normal for him.
Amit,
Do you realise that your arguments are reminiscent of NY Times stuff? Mainstream and nothing much in it.
I was just spicing it up.
Ravikiran 🙂
History is a lie agreed upon…
I am sick and tired of listening to these lies about how stalin killed xxx million
mao killed xxx million and pol pot killed xxx million
A thousand people have filled in a thousand different numbers in the place of xxx
This is pure madness and anyone who reads up history
will acknowledge the fact about how blown up these figures are
They serve only one purpose that of propoganda
and to bring about fear
You people first try and get your history right
Pol Pot was not communistic and was for the record initially supported by
the US …..
When capital and the ruling classes apologise for: Colonialism, the 14 hour day, Class Privilege, the 7 day working week, children in coalmines, the opium wars, the massacre of the paris commune, slavery, the spanish-american war, the boer war, starvation, apartheid, anti-union laws, the first world war, flanders, trench warfare, mustard gas, aerial bombing, the soviet intervention, the armenian genocide, chemical weapons, fascism, the great depression, hunger marches, nazism, the spanish civil war, militarism, asbestosis, radiation death, the massacre of Nanking, the second world war, belsen, dresden, hiroshima, racism, the mafia, nuclear weapons, the korean war, DDT, McCarthyism, production lines, blacklists, thalidomide, the rape of the third world, poverty, the arms race, plastic surgery, the electric chair, environmental degradation, the vietnam war, the military suppression of greece, india, malaya, indonesia, chile, el salvador, nicaragua, panama and turkey, the gulf war, trade in human body parts, malnutrition, exxon valdez, deforestation, organised crime, the heroin and cocaine trade, tuberculosis, the destruction of the ozone layer, cancer, exploitation of labour and the deaths of 50,000,000 communists and trade unionists in this century alone, then – and only then – will I consider apologising for the errors of socialism.” – J. V. Stalin
indiacorporatewatch: the reason I find communism to be dangerous is that my fate and prosperity would be tied to people like you. I find that downright scary.
To put it simply, any economic system which forces me to associate myself in an economic collective with people like you is not just suboptimal/morally-wrong, etc, it is terrifying.
7×6
So you know of “economic systems” on which you will be only able to associate with people you know ?
Good question.
Seven times six,
India Corporate Watch is a hate site. Did you check it out at http://indiacorporatewatch.blogspot.com/?
“Why do we constantly hear about genocides by Stalin, Mao et al while the we don’t hear about genocides of our own people?”
Uh, you’ve got that a little backwards, no?
Yum Yum, you truly can’t argue your way out of a paper bag, and it’s negationists, reviisonists and apologists like yourself that allow sociopaths like indiacorporatewatch to indulge their sick genocidal fantasies.