Research Paper Hiatus

Stc95

Stc95

Tribe of Judah Guild Wars Chapter Leader
This is the week before my ~18 page research paper for my Senior Project is due, and being the diligent senior that I am, just started today :). So, my GW time will be abysmal this week at best. I'm planning on really only setting up my death levels at night, which takes only about 20 mins. If anyone would be so kind to gather 5 Massive Jawbone for me, I'd be most appreciative and won't mind paying full price for them, just let me know what the going price is. If there's any emergencies it shouldn't be hard to contact me. I'll have Xfire up and most likely be on Facebook to help my productiveness ;)

Just wanted to give you a heads up. Oh, and if anyone has comments on the duality/hypocrisy between a democracy and communism, and/or the similarities between each system. I would be interested in hearing your opinion ;)
 
Stc95 said:
Oh, and if anyone has comments on the duality/hypocrisy between a democracy and communism, and/or the similarities between each system. I would be interested in hearing your opinion ;)
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First off, democracy and communism aren't mutually exclusive, in fact Marx's original views of communism was a fully classless system where everybody had a say in a true democracy, as opposed to the representative democracies that we see today. Now Lenin's view of communism is that the society should be classless by everyone being working class, and this was the basis of the socialist system of government used by the Soviet Union.

Marxism definition - includes the differences in socialism and communism.

Socialism refers to when everything becomes owned by the public, in other words it is controlled by the government, since there is still a state it is not truly communism but many people identify it as such. Whereas communism refers to a self-governing society more akin to ancient tribes where everyone helped out their community out of necessity, as such all decisions would be made by the people in a "pure democracy."

Pure democracy definition

I hope that helps, it's kind of late here so I don't feel like comparing it to capitalism right now, but it's hard to compare democracy and communism, since one is an ideal and the other is a form of making decisions, so it is probably easier to compare the two realised societal structures often associated with them, capitalism and socialism.
 
OrryW said:
First off, democracy and communism aren't mutually exclusive,
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Aye, that's, more or less, my thesis. We read Invisible Man and now we are choosing a topic to research and right about, and it was written during the Red Scare, and the Cold War era, where Communism is the opposite of Democracy and Capitalism. Yet during that time period there were many things we did that went against our morals, and even some things that were quite Communistic.
 
Stc95 said:
Aye, that's, more or less, my thesis. We read Invisible Man and now we are choosing a topic to research and right about, and it was written during the Red Scare, and the Cold War era, where Communism is the opposite of Democracy and Capitalism. Yet during that time period there were many things we did that went against our morals, and even some things that were quite Communistic.
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Keep in mind that we've yet to see a truly communist government, during the Cold War the soviet union was socialist, not communist.The biggest problem with communism is it underestimates people greed, so it will probably not work that well. Marx always predicted that very shortly after a socialist government overthrew the capitalist society that it would be quickly overthrown itself into a communist society, however there are plenty of socialist governments, but not really any communist ones, once someone has power they don't really want to give it up.

Pure communism is very similar to pure democracy in that everyone gets to take part in decision making, as opposed to just the representatives in the modern governments. In fact, all communism does is adds to the strictest definition of democracy, stating that everyone gets an equal vote, as opposed to just citizens, since communism ideally exists without a state then nobody and everybody is a citizen, so everyone gets a vote. And that everyone benefits from everyone's labour, you do what you are capable and get the rewards, if you are good with foreign relations, you do that, if you are good with machines you work at that, etc. Free education, healthcare, medication, etc.

Communism is however, quite different from representative democracy, since that still has elected leaders.
 
Preacher23 said:
thank god we were made a republic.. or are we now changed to democracy?
fall of the republic
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The United States is a republic, like pre-Caesar Rome, a type of representative democracy. Athens in ancient Greece had a democracy, people would gather in the town and discuss what was best, and every citizen had a say, but not everyone was a citizen, so it wasn't a communist government either.
 
Somewhat of a mix... When the US was founded, the states and local governments held more sway/power than the federal government, which was how it was designed to be. Those levels of government closer to the actual people are more likely to be in tune with the actual needs of their constituents.

While still a republic, the US began to go more toward democracy, or mob rule. There are still some pieces in place to prevent complete mob rule, it is more democracy than the intended representative republic.

What socialism/communism fails to take into account human nature. Human nature is to work to provide for himself and to improve his quality of life, not the quality of life of others. In a communist/socialist society, no matter how hard the individual works, or as it has been shown, doesn't work, everyone is "supposed" to get the same amount.

With the Soviets, it wasn't about implementing a true socialist society, but about conrol of the people and maintaining power for those who held it. Those who succeed and excel are quickly put down to the so-called "norm", and in Russia's case, even moved to different areas of the country and assigned to different types of jobs.

The real issue is this: Success is punished in a socialistic/communistic society, whether it be by taking what extra you earn from your hard work and redistributing it to others who did not earn it. By punishing (RE: Taxing) an activity, you get less of that activity. Rewarding an activity (allowing people to keep more of of the fruits of their labors) produces more of that activity not only from the individual, but from others around them as the others strive to improve their quality of life.
 
Reginator said:
With the Soviets, it wasn't about implementing a true socialist society, but about conrol of the people and maintaining power for those who held it. Those who succeed and excel are quickly put down to the so-called "norm", and in Russia's case, even moved to different areas of the country and assigned to different types of jobs.
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Actually, a true socialist society does have leaders who hold power, "The people don't know what is good for them, so I'll tell them" kind of deal.
 
OrryW said:
Actually, a true socialist society does have leaders who hold power, "The people don't know what is good for them, so I'll tell them" kind of deal.
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That's the flawed form of socialism that we've seen in history. To achieve Marx's vision there would be a period of time where the government owned everything and there was a leader to "facilitate" the movement to a socialist economy, after that, the country would turn into a Marxist society where there is no government, everyone owned everything, and everyone has an equal say. Yet, from Reginator's post, human nature gets in the way and those in power are particularly reluctant to give it up. So Marx's socialism (Marxism) is the ideal that socialism tries to achieve, yet the corrupt socialism we are familiar with today is a different socialism than Marx's idea. If that makes any sense at all.

Kyrel Ruth said:
And God is pushed out of this picture altogether?
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Note: I am not trying to advocate socialism in any way. I'm just using a socialist argument to answer Kyrel's question.

Of course! Religion is the opiate of the masses! Religion is used by the bourgeoisie to manipulate the proletariat so that they would work hard to achieve salvation. If a lower class peasent tried to think "Hey, this is messed up, why am I working my butt off, but my lord is getting all the rewards?" Then the local priest would quickly come down and inform him that God has placed that lord in position by divine right and to question that, or to not work that hard, will condemn him to hell.

Yet, I'm not sure if Marx is specifically attacking the religion, or the institution, two very different things. But in Marx's world (Socialism) there would be no religion that the bourgeoisie can wield to oppress others. For better or for worse.


But we all know the sins committed in the name of the Lord, and the Church today is quite different than the Church of old. It's also why we see a lot of "I'm not a Christian, and a follower of Jesus" slogans and whatnot.
 
Stc95 said:
That's the flawed form of socialism that we've seen in history. To achieve Marx's vision there would be a period of time where the government owned everything and there was a leader to "facilitate" the movement to a socialist economy, after that, the country would turn into a Marxist society where there is no government, everyone owned everything, and everyone has an equal say. Yet, from Reginator's post, human nature gets in the way and those in power are particularly reluctant to give it up. So Marx's socialism (Marxism) is the ideal that socialism tries to achieve, yet the corrupt socialism we are familiar with today is a different socialism than Marx's idea. If that makes any sense at all.
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Marx actually figured the people would quickly rebel against the leaders to make a communist system, the same as they rebelled against the capitalist society. Which leads to the next point.
Stc95 said:
Note: I am not trying to advocate socialism in any way. I'm just using a socialist argument to answer Kyrel's question.

Of course! Religion is the opiate of the masses! Religion is used by the bourgeoisie to manipulate the proletariat so that they would work hard to achieve salvation. If a lower class peasent tried to think "Hey, this is messed up, why am I working my butt off, but my lord is getting all the rewards?" Then the local priest would quickly come down and inform him that God has placed that lord in position by divine right and to question that, or to not work that hard, will condemn him to hell.

Yet, I'm not sure if Marx is specifically attacking the religion, or the institution, two very different things. But in Marx's world (Socialism) there would be no religion that the bourgeoisie can wield to oppress others. For better or for worse.


But we all know the sins committed in the name of the Lord, and the Church today is quite different than the Church of old. It's also why we see a lot of "I'm not a Christian, and a follower of Jesus" slogans and whatnot.
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In true communism, it would be whatever the people want. However, in Socialist governments, they typically try to hold on to power, leading to atheist police states, if the people have the freedom to think, they'll rebel. Saying no religion represses the masses more than allowing free religion, so my guess is he just was against the institution and not the belief.
 
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