Posted on 08/28/2015 7:43:31 AM PDT by HomerBohn
It will just make them a much bigger Zimbabwe within a decade or so.
Nelson Mandela not only supported the communists, but was a terrorist to boot. He was not in jail for refusing to go to the back of the bus. He was in jail for a bombing campaign.
Actually, Marxist ideology has stages of development-true Communism, or the Communism state of development is a classless utopia where the state “withers away”. No “Communist” nation ever reached that level. All of them would say that they were really at the *Socialist* state of development. If you remember the old Soviet Union, you’d know that it’s full name was the Union of Soviet *Socialist* Republics. It’s not uncommon for Socialist countries to have mixed economies. Look at Nazi Germany, for instance, or for more Marxist versions, Tito’s Yugoslavia or even the Soviet Union under Lenin’s New Economic Policy.
Communism is just a form of organized crime. Surely you don't take communist's descriptions of communism at face value.
I think fascism is a better description of the examples you refer to - which is basically a more extreme and formalized version of “crony capitalism”, where politicos and corporatists coexist in a symbiotic relationship.
The Soviet Union was much closer to the ideal of communism where private ownership was essentially non-existent.
“There is also a sense in China from what happened a 100 years ago that if there is no strong central authority China becomes a collection of war lord ruled states.”
I agree - what’s keeping China whole is a very strong central government. If they were to become “democratic” I could see the place splintering into many states, given the various ethnic groups, languages and religions.
One has to give the rulers there a lot of credit for being wise enough to keep the masses reasonably happy and create pride in their country with the economic progress and, as a result, military and world influence that they’ve achieved. They’ve also given them a lot more freedom than they’ve had in the past.
It’s a pretty good facsimile of a benevolent dictatorship.
Of course people’s needs change, and there will come a time when their needs will include more direct say on how they’re governed. That will be the big challenge for the regime when the time comes.
Thought that was true of Tito and Yugoslavia, but as we saw, once Tito was gone from the scene, the leadership was incapable of keeping Yugoslavia together.
One world government is coming. It won’t be a representative republic.
“Thought that was true of Tito and Yugoslavia, but as we saw, once Tito was gone from the scene, the leadership was incapable of keeping Yugoslavia together.”
Yes, Yugoslavia stayed together because of a person, Tito. Once he was gone, Yugoslavia was gone.
The amazing thing with China is that it’s not based on a cult of a single person, post Mao. They’ve managed to keep it going for decades with different leaders - there is no cult of personality. I can’t even name who the current leader is.
The party has managed to institute a system for choosing leaders that maintains a continuity of policies, and keeps a leash on the president. I guess the elites of the party (central committee and politburo) maintain enough power in their hands to offset whatever power the president has, so that it doesn’t become a dictatorship of one person.
I’m not sure how all the levers of power are distributed, but so far one can’t argue with its success.
Good points all around - the diff between Yugoslavia and China is of course that China has been held together this way for centuries.
Maybe the world would be a better place if China was a dozen nations but the post imperial break up of China was not a pretty picture and before that we had the Taiping rebellion.
Here is a pretty accurate wiki article on China’s warlord era:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era
So we should be careful in what we wish for in cheering a Chinese break up (which may happen as their bubble economy burts).
i suspect that the Chinese leadersip would probably say that they were at the Socialist state, rather than then Communist one, so they could afford to be economically pragmatic. But I digress.
I’ve heard it said that Marxist ideology states that human history runs in stages-Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, and finally Communism, which is supposedly a classless utopia where the state “withers away”, the one where there’s no private property. In any of the “Communist” nations, did the state ever show signs of “withering away”? I suspect that all “Communist” nations would say that they were actually at the Socialist stage of development, not the Communist one. After all, the Soviet Union was called the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics, not the Union of Soviet COMMUNIST Republics. The Chinese leadership, I suspect, may well say that they were at the Socialist state, and could thus afford to be pragmatic economically. But I digress.
It seems to me like China’s economy is basically a hybrid or combination of Socialism, and de facto Fascism. But that’s just my opinion.
Actually, Yugoslavia did hold together for a while following Tito’s death-mainly due to fears of a possible Soviet invasion should relations between Belgrade and Moscow deteriorate. When the Soviet Bloc ceases to be a possible threat, Yugoslavia ceased with it.
care to comment on this thread, Olog?
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