Is communism totalitarian?
Someone at school says that communism is not totalitarian, in that:
“They may appear similar because, in both, the State does control everything. However, they are vastly different. This difference is in who controls the State, in Communism the people do, in Totalitarianism a dictator does.”
They are a troll?
Someone who believes that more centralized power makes everything better.
Based off the defnition you gave and wikipedia, communism could be totalitarian. That is, it is not excluded from totalitarianism by definition.
In fact, based off those 2 definitions one could put a an argument that communism is totalitarian by definition (this is soley based off the definition given compared to wikipedia’s definition).
If he is talking about Marx’s idea of what a communist society will be like then he is right, but then again that society is a paradise & a utopia. You just have to throw some economics his way to dispell that spectre.
However if he means a communist state, (kind of like what we saw in so called actually existing communism) & he is just making the point that a state with totalitarian powers is not totalitarian if it is democratic, then he is just confusing his concepts. A democratic totalitarianism(if possible) is no less totalitarian for being ‘controlled’ by the ‘people’. A state with an absolute ruler/s is an authoritarianism. Authoritarianism as defined need not be totalitarian. Indeed an authoritarian state may be very free with very little interference in peoples lives. While a free totalitarianism is an oxymoron. Authoritarianism is a lack of democracy, while totalitarianism is a lack of freedom. The two concepts are distinct despite often appering in practice together. So many people wrongly conflate them.
Great dichotomy.
wait, I have the other one… What about peaceful totalitarianism…
What does this mean?
False dichotomy. This person apparently has not heard of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” doctrine used by Marx himself.
Same argument every communist on Earth uses. If only _____ was el presidente utopia would break out.
Comrade Lenin called to say this is news to him. It is the vanguard of the people that controls the state.
With a state,yes.It’s the worse tyranny.
However Voluntary Communism is possible.I think it’s embarassing some say it’s not, since leftists say the same about our ideas-i.e. that people will not voluntarily choose it or it will be totalitarian.
*Voluntary socialism is possible. Communism is totalitarian by definition. It requires a state. Socialism is malleable as a word.
I could see voluntary communism on a micro-scale, kind of like Mennonite societies today.
Not on a national scale, though… like a voluntary cartel, there’d be too much incentive to cheat on it, and it would quickly fall apart.
Communism isn’t a dictatorship at all. As long as everyone is a communist… or else. Reminds me of the video recently posted on the Mises Facebook page.
Alright, so here is his reply to another student:
For me, the attraction of Communism is the fact that there is less exploitation of the workers because the means of production are manage by the State not by companies who’s main goal is a focus on “the bottom line” (profit) - in Communism, the human holds much more value.
EDIT: Also, he suggested the following book: http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Evolution-Twentieth-Century-James/dp/0853453535. Has anyone read and, thus, could give a review?
Completely the opposite of the truth. Even if the State had intelligent people in charge who knew how to balance a budget, each human would become a mere unit of production.