Mario is a communist!

[Souljah]

i dont buy the theory either , but that doesnt stop us having a communism debate does it?

im off to bed, will check in on this in the mornin

-greg

[PHILBERT]

Its a joke, if anyone thinks Mario is indeed a commie, well you need to pass whatever it is you're smoking around and share some.

Laughed at the McCarthy thing ya had going there OdderMensch, though it took me a second for it to flow into my head.

However communism is an ideal society, a utopian environment type thing where everyone is happy and the government provides. Well if the government stuck my sorry butt in a 7-11 as a clerk I won't be happy therefore it failed. However if they let me be a camera man or director for [straight] porn then I might be happy.

In fact, IMO, if Marx had been around in 1789 (he made his debut around 1830 if I remember correctly) I'd put money that France would of gone to a communist society, being that 3% of the population was rich and 97% were dirt sucking farmers. In the Russian revolution they took the rich out into the street and blew there heads off.

[Serpent]

Communism is like anarchy. A great theory that can never work in practice.

[Souljah]

tis true,
gotta quote myself from earlier in this thread


"man is by nature too greedy for communism to ever work.

Its not communism that faulters, but human inability to abide by its principles"

-greg

[ricksitterly]

Yeah, and our American "democracy" is doing SOOO well. Our economy is in great shape.... oh wait a minute, I forgot I'm supposed to thinking about Iraq right now, stopping those evildoers, not such trivial matters like 'how the American people are doing'

[Stranger]

Yeah, and our American "democracy" is doing SOOO well. Our economy is in great shape.... oh wait a minute, I forgot I'm supposed to thinking about Iraq right now, stopping those evildoers, not such trivial matters like 'how the American people are doing'
********************

What does that have to do with Mario or Communism?

[Sasha]

'Orthodox' Marxism in the sense of Marx's actual teachings is hardly ever referred to any more. When people talk about Marxism, they usually mean neo-Marxism, which is the interpretations which have come since.

Anyone who says it couldn't possibly work because of human greed doesn't actually understand the system (forgivable, since there are almost as many kinds of neo-Marxism as there are people, but still ignorant). It's far too complicated to go into on a web page, but just trust that there's more to it than asking people nicely to work for exactly equal income.

Sasha,
a neo-Maxist existentialist agnostic-atheist act-utilitarian (or tree-hugging hippy for short).

[Souljah]

"Anyone who says it couldn't possibly work because of human greed doesn't actually understand the system (forgivable, since there are almost as many kinds of neo-Marxism as there are people, but still ignorant). "

Im sorry could you explain the system to me then?

Of course there is more to it.
But at the root it fails because of misinterpretation and for the fact that no practical use of marxism was ever thought out, and humans will never be able to live by its principles.

Stalinism, maoism.....do you really think that was what marx had in mind? genocide?

I do think human greed does play a role in the fact that it has never worked....granted there are many more factors but I believe this to be a major one.
I think that humans will always strive to be better than one another and the class system will never be abolished
Ignorant?

[SevenStar]

At least river city ransom isn't communist. Speaking of it, I think I will hook up my NES and play that game today.

[Sasha]

Originally posted by Souljah
"Anyone who says it couldn't possibly work because of human greed doesn't actually understand the system (forgivable, since there are almost as many kinds of neo-Marxism as there are people, but still ignorant). "

Im sorry could you explain the system to me then?

In a word, no. It took Karl Marx (at a guess) about 500,000 - 1,000,000 words to describe his vision, and as I said, there have been a large number of variants since then. All I can suggest, if you're really interested, is that you read as much of his stuff as you can get your hands on. It's poorly written and flawed (as is most philosophy), but it's some of the most evolutionary thinking that's ever been put to paper.

Originally posted by Souljah
Of course there is more to it.
But at the root it fails because of misinterpretation and for the fact that no practical use of marxism was ever thought out, and humans will never be able to live by its principles.

No practical interpretation of it has ever been implemented. That doesn't mean none was ever invented. But the way the world we live in works, the worst people invariably end up twisting any theory they like to their own ends. It's been done with just about every political or theological system I can think of, but we still live (supposedly) under the principles of some of these systems, so why hold one and not all to account for its worst excesses?

Originally posted by Souljah
Stalinism, maoism.....do you really think that was what marx had in mind? genocide?

Painting a door black doesn't make it red, no matter what colour you decide to *say* it is. I know little about Maoism, but Stalinism had far less to do with communism than it did with democracy and totalitarianism. The Soviets liked to call themselves Communists because it gave them more political clout.

Originally posted by Souljah
I do think human greed does play a role in the fact that it has never worked....granted there are many more factors but I believe this to be a major one.
I think that humans will always strive to be better than one another and the class system will never be abolished
Ignorant?

Most neo-Marxist systems seem to count on the drive to compete. As for class systems - they're unrecognisable from the form they took 100 years ago, and will certainly be very different in 100 years time. Some people would argue we already live in a classless society. In the end, you're always going to find class divisions if you look hard enough for them; and I have yet to see a political system that suggests everyone should be exactly the same (despite what western governments would have you believe), so it's not really an issue.

[JusticeZero]

Here's a big reason why I don't like Communism:
Capitalism: "I own the business. I have to take the risks and buy the materials. I will pay you some money to work for me and help me to stay in business."
Communism/Socialism: "Someone else says they own the businesses. We'll take them over, manage them all, and we'll all SHARE. Although somehow, it's going to look a lot like when you were working for a paycheck, except that we don't even have a stake in whether the factories stay open. Oh, and we siezed power over you in order to enforce all that sharing, so you have to be extra-careful to say good things about us."