Do you find Communistic symbols offensive?

[linuxares]

Hi!

I got inspired by the thread https://gbatemp.net/threads/do-you-find-nazi-imagery-offensive.600543/

After all, the Communistic countries is still around and keep killing people.
After religion, Communism have caused more deaths in our world.

So I'm really curious what you people feel about it?

 

[subcon959]

Communism have caused more deaths in our world.

I think you might get some push back there that it was the dictators themselves more than anything.

To answer though, no I don't have any emotional reaction to symbols in general.

 

[SG854]

Was the creation of this thread only a retaliation to the Nazi thread?

People don't find communist symbols as offensive as Nazi ones.

 

[MORSHU8KRTXON]

What's wrong with communism?

 

[VinsCool]

Sharing (the hatred) is caring

 

[linuxares]

Was the creation of this thread only a retaliation to the Nazi thread?

Nope, generally curious since I feel both are disgusting. I just find it a bit weird that one extreme is fine but the other isn't.

 

[SG854]

Nope, generally curious since I feel both are disgusting. I just find it a bit weird that one extreme is fine but the other isn't.

You are asking for consistency basically

 

[0x3000027E]

Hi!

I got inspired by the thread https://gbatemp.net/threads/do-you-find-nazi-imagery-offensive.600543/

After all, the Communistic countries is still around and keep killing people.
After religion, Communism have caused more deaths in our world.

So I'm really curious what you people feel about it?

The trouble with communism is fairly obvious to me; government claims full ownership of all production and resource, yet is incapable of producing resource. This results in a skew in the production/consumption dynamic, and eventually creates an irrecoverable class separation.
Free enterprise is successful because the consumer ultimately dictate's the market: what is produced, how much is produced, and the cost. Naturally, the consumer is in the best position to decide what will enhance their quality of life. Communism has always been sold as a "fair and equal" approach to governance, but history shows it is a way to maintain class separation for people holding power.
Oh, I realize I didn't actually answer the question. I don't find any image offensive, simply because it is a *symbol*, therefore open to interpretation. Symbols are also dynamic, as the meaning is changing with time (the swastika, for instance). Finally, taking offense to something is just not proactive; in fact, I would argue that it is the path to complacency.

 

[Dakitten]

The trouble with communism is fairly obvious to me; government claims full ownership of all production and resource, yet is incapable of producing resource. This results in a skew in the production/consumption dynamic, and eventually creates an irrecoverable class separation.
Free enterprise is successful because the consumer ultimately dictate's the market: what is produced, how much is produced, and the cost. Naturally, the consumer is in the best position to decide what will enhance their quality of life. Communism has always been sold as a "fair and equal" approach to governance, but history shows it is a way to maintain class separation for people holding power.
Oh, I realize I didn't actually answer the question. I don't find any image offensive, simply because it is a *symbol*, therefore open to interpretation. Symbols are also dynamic, as the meaning is changing with time (the swastika, for instance). Finally, taking offense to something is just not proactive; in fact, I would argue that it is the path to complacency.

I... um... what? Does "Planned Economy" mean nothing to you? I don't care for a lot of Chinese political decisions, but its kind of hard to deny the power of communism in generating value.

On the flip side, free enterprise is not the best for the consumer because monopolies form without regulation and then quality and decision are eliminated from the process as consolidation and elimination drive out alternatives. Even with the meager anti-monopoly laws we have in the states presently, several companies have figured out the trick of forming alliances, where major decisions regarding quality of service and pricing are agreed upon between competitors. Airline travel, supermarket stock, broadband and cell phone service, only handfuls of companies exist at the top of the markets and whenever one bumps up cost or cuts corners, just about everyone else in the competitive chain does too.

As a full blown socialist kitty, I can look at communism as more than just the corrupt USSR and understand its merits. I can also point out the fact that, unlike the sister thread to this one, communist parties in the USA aren't a threat to the masses, the democratic process, or minority groups. Power to the people, and all that fine jazz~

 

[KingVamp]

When you have people that just throw the word "communism" at anything they don't like so often, it is hard not to just be dismissive than offended. As stated, we are mad at the people, not the concept. Like how we are mad at the people that are destructive even under capitalism.

That said, the concept of communism is just going be more outdated as technology moves forward anyway.

 

[Foxi4]

They should be considered as equal to Nazi symbolism - it’s just another failed ideology from the past that was entirely based on hate and led to untold suffering. I don’t necessarily find them offensive since hardly anything is “offensive” to me - I’m a free speech absolutist. People can follow whatever ideologies they want, it doesn’t bother me - we’ll only have a problem if they show up on my doorstep to enact their nonsense. In fact, the act of displaying such iconography allows me to quickly identify people who are not worth associating with. Self-identifying with the ideals of communism is innately tied with several character flaws, so it’s nice that they give us a dead giveaway instead of pretending that they’re not silly.

 

[Jayro]

I just find it a bit weird that one extreme is fine but the other isn't.

Communism is everyone working together for the common good of everyone.

Being a Nazi is being a racist piece of shit.

They're polar opposites of one-another.

 

[smf]

Free enterprise is successful because the consumer ultimately dictate's the market: what is produced, how much is produced, and the cost.

It depends on how you measure success.

It's been great at getting poor people to work in terrible conditions making goods that they could never afford while polluting the planet.

It's probably better than the feudal system that it replaced, but thinking any system is perfect and can't (or shouldn't) be replaced is terribly flawed thinking.

 

[Tigran]

It depends on how you measure success.

It's been great at getting poor people to work in terrible conditions making goods that they could never afford while polluting the planet.

Are you talking about Communism or Capitalism? And I'm not even joking at this point. I'm honestly not sure which one you are referring to here.

 

[Jayro]

Are you talking about Communism or Capitalism? And I'm not even joking at this point. I'm honestly not sure which one you are referring to here.

Only capitalism has a free enterprise market, so...

 

[Xzi]

Insofar as the hammer and sickle represent the working class (tools of the trade), no I don't find that symbology offensive. Neither Stalin nor Mao nor any other dictator can claim ownership over it, as they never lived up to the blueprint created by Marx. Redistribution of wealth and the means of production is not an optional step in implementing socialism or communism; keeping ownership of all that in the hands of a few government elites is nothing but oligarchy/monarchy with a bit of window dressing.

By that definition, communism is effectively dead in the modern world outside of perhaps a few untouched indigenous tribes. China's been sucking at the tit of capitalism ever since Nixon introduced them to it. And the problem with capitalism is of course that it concentrates wealth and power into the hands of the few by design, rather than by the overly-zealous ambitions of bad faith actors. The US was never meant to be strictly capitalist, either, but instead take all the best components of several economic systems and mix them. Which is precisely why all of the country's most prosperous decades came on the heels of FDR's New Deal, and why we need a second expanded bill of worker's rights if we are to ever enter another golden age.

 

[Foxi4]

China's been sucking at the tit of capitalism ever since Nixon introduced them to it. And the problem with capitalism is of course that it concentrates wealth and power into the hands of the few by design, rather than by the overly-zealous ambitions of bad faith actors. The US was never meant to be strictly capitalist, either, but instead take all the best components of several economic systems and mix them. Which is precisely why all of the country's most prosperous decades came on the heels of FDR's New Deal, and why we need a second expanded bill of worker's rights if we are to ever enter another golden age.

That’s hilarious considering FDR’s New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by approximately 7 years. As for China, the only reason why the Chinese are not starving while trying to share a grain of rice among everybody in the village is specifically because they’ve embraced some (not all) principles of the free market. You could argue that they’ve embraced them better than some western countries, which explains their rapid economic development from a poverty stricken hell hole into an unquestionable superpower and an industry titan. Alas, this is not a thread about the economy, I think all of those points were already touched upon in the infamous “Communism vs. Capitalism” rollercoaster.

 

[Xzi]

That’s hilarious considering FDR’s New Deal prolonged the Great Depression by approximately 7 years.

That's one take on it, another is that the Great Depression might've lasted decades longer if not for the focus put on building the working class back up to a better state than they were in before it hit. Boomers were only able to accumulate the wealth and land they own now because of the New Deal (and subsequently pull the prosperity ladder up behind them in the 70s/80s).

As for China, the only reason why the Chinese are not starving while trying to share a grain of rice among everybody in the village is specifically because they’ve embraced some (not all) principles of the free market.

I'd attribute that more to the one child policy, but that of course comes with more than its fair share of problems as well, not all of which are made obvious in the short term.

You could argue that they’ve embraced them better than some western countries, which explains their rapid economic development from a poverty stricken hell hole into an unquestionable superpower and an industry titan.

Again, the vast majority of that power and wealth is concentrated into the hands of a few oligarchs, and far too much of it is outright blood money. Work safety standards in China are non-existent, and that's for the population that the government supposedly cares about. They obviously couldn't give a damn about the people in slave labor camps or prison labor camps rapidly dying off. It's not that they're "better" at capitalism than America, they learned these tactics from us after all, it's just that they've got so many more bodies to throw on the pile than we ever did.

 

[smf]

Are you talking about Communism or Capitalism? And I'm not even joking at this point. I'm honestly not sure which one you are referring to here.

capitalism obviously, because I was replying to a comment about capitalism.

I don't know whether you can't follow a thread, or whether it was just some kind of passive aggressive nonsense.

I'm not keen on communism as it was applied by russia for example.

https://www.history.com/news/socialism-communism-differences

But because communism (as it was applied) is bad, then that doesn't mean capitalism (as it is applied) is good.

I don't have a problem with nazi symbols, I have a problem with people using nazi symbols because they want to show unity with people who share nazi ideology. I don't see that so much with communist symbols.

 

[Jokey_Carrot]

Glorification of the ussr and ccp are pretty cringe. Believing in commie ideologies is fine but I just don't like people who support the actions of those regimes.