Is Communism Really THAT Bad?

[Sasquatch]

Like I said, sacrificing an egotistical desperation to be recognised for your talents, seems rather small, if you're going to be selfless enough to give it up so that everybody lives the same.

I don't know where you're getting this idea that the only reason that people want to make more money is so that they can brag that they have more money than others. It's not an issue of ego, it's not an issue of gloating, it's an issue of "I don't want to be poor".

Of course, for those who plain refuse to better themselves if they have a bad effect on the community, should be dealt with by law, and by the population as a whole. This is already in effect today, with people that have committed a crime being prosecuted, and jailed if need be. The only difference would be that in a communist society, the criminals would be people that are being totally non-beneficial to the needs of the society, and refuses to address their selfishness.

"Totally non-beneficial to the needs of society", people that refuse to give up their posessions and talents and put them to use for "the good of society" ... no, nothing bad at all can, or ever has, come from that line of thought, has it? It's not like nearly every group of minorities has been abused because of this line of thought, is it?

Blacks in America throughout all to much of her history, Jews in 1930s Germany, Christians in USSR and Communist China, non-Muslims in most of the Middle East ... people of specific races, people with certain genetic differences, people of certain ethnicities, people of certain religious or political beliefs ... Who has the authority to decide who is useful to society and who isn't?

Why not just let people be responsible for their own good, so that whether they are financially successful or not, they have earned their own way? Do you really think anybody could make an entire society filled with nothing but people with everybody else's best interests in mind?

When you say communism prevents any kind of growth, can you expand on what kind of growth you mean?

The issue is, why should somebody really apply themselves if they won't be rewarded for it? Why should Dodie study and do her homework when she's going to make the same grades (or salary) as Rowan and I anyway?

It's every kind of growth. Technological, economic, even physical growth of infrastructure and construction itself. There's no reason for it. Everybody who can invent or build something will leave and go where their talents and abilities will be recognized -- and they often do, hence the "brain drain", and hence forced labor to keep them inside Communist countries. What's left is the "best" people in their fields being "average" on a larger scale.

You also said that there isn't enough of everything in the world for everyone, when it is plain that there is enough food on this earth to sustain every single human being, and clean water is just a case of distilling or filtering it to a healthy standard. That's all one really needs, is food and water.

So we're all equally poor, and we're all happy? Do you think you would be happy with having nothing, as long as everybody else has nothing, too?