Communism Vs. Capitalism

[Parokki]

Communism is a pretty wide concept. Are we talking about the system proposed by Marx, the system that actually saw use in the Soviet Union, or the one we have today in China?

(yeah I skipped reading most of this thread, but can you blame me?)

In my opinion Marx was a very intelligent man who understood the capitalist system pretty well, especially its flaws. The thing he got wrong was that he believed the conditions of workers would get worse and worse, finally leading to the inevitable point where the poor overthrow the rich and institute Communist Wonderland.

Instead what happened was that the bourgeoisie and state compromised, and slowly granted better rights and treatment to the workers. I find it pretty hilarious how 130 or so years ago Marxist agitators were urging workers not to accept the improved standards of life offered to them by the bourgeois and the state, as it was their "class responsibility" to violently overthrow them. Reminds me of how some ultra-capitalists on digg claimed the Scandinavian governments were going to collapse eventually "because they're state run, and state run initiatives never work!" There was also this thing called post-industrial society (still pretty far) around the corner, which nobody could've been expected to see coming back then.

As easy as it is to laugh at them, a large part of the reason the conditions of blue collar workers have gotten better over the years is the work of social democrat politicians, who started as Marxists by acknowleding the same problems, but disagreed on how to fix them. Likewise, it could be argued that the reason the working and middle classes in the US are doing so bad is the lack of left wing politicians.

Oh and btw, the Soviet Union wasn't actually *that* bad when Lenin was in charge, and China had a decent chance of recovery after WW2. Instead things were ruined by the inhumane brutality of Stalin, and the sheer incompetence of Mao. If you look at the communist states with oppressive regimes, you'll find that none of them had any kind of a democratic tradition to being with, and were complete messes in more way than one.

I copy/pasted half of this from a comment I made on digg a while ago, so let me know if anything sounds really disjointed.