Re: Communism!
Well, you don't know oppression until you've lived in East Germany (or somewhere like it). Trust me. I didn't grow up there, but I live in former East Berlin and my boyfriend and a good chunk of my friends are East Berliners or East Germans. I've heard enough family stories to turn me off of the idea of going totally communist. I'm all for the social state and everything that goes with it, but I'm also for compromises and some level of competition in business (though, the degree we have now is totally dangerous, which is something for another topic).
Although I am aware that communism has never been practiced as it was imagined by Marx et al, there is a reason for that. You can't totally start a country from scratch. It doesn't work that way. Communist countries have always sprung out of revolutions or wars, because the people in positions of power do not give up those positions easily. When you get a situation like that, there is always some sort of period of extreme instability that calls for some group of people to take power to return the stability that was lost, hence why you get dictatorships. On top of that, these have always been countries or regions that existed within previous borders, and you can't control an area that large without some kind of central leadership (even Cuba is too large for that). Democratic socialism is definitely an alternative and a good way to get to a socialist state without revolution and instability, but there are several differences between that and communism.
Well, you don't know oppression until you've lived in East Germany (or somewhere like it). Trust me. I didn't grow up there, but I live in former East Berlin and my boyfriend and a good chunk of my friends are East Berliners or East Germans. I've heard enough family stories to turn me off of the idea of going totally communist. I'm all for the social state and everything that goes with it, but I'm also for compromises and some level of competition in business (though, the degree we have now is totally dangerous, which is something for another topic).
Although I am aware that communism has never been practiced as it was imagined by Marx et al, there is a reason for that. You can't totally start a country from scratch. It doesn't work that way. Communist countries have always sprung out of revolutions or wars, because the people in positions of power do not give up those positions easily. When you get a situation like that, there is always some sort of period of extreme instability that calls for some group of people to take power to return the stability that was lost, hence why you get dictatorships. On top of that, these have always been countries or regions that existed within previous borders, and you can't control an area that large without some kind of central leadership (even Cuba is too large for that). Democratic socialism is definitely an alternative and a good way to get to a socialist state without revolution and instability, but there are several differences between that and communism.
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