Someone asked if a communist economic system was an essential feature
of the Soviet dictatorship, and if a capitalist dictatorship could be
equally bad.
I say no. Under a capitalist system, the government neccesarily has
less power than under a socialist/communist system. Property rights,
the right to contract, freedom of movement, free communications, etc,
are all essential for capitalism...without them you don't have
capitalism but rather something else. If the CEO of Ford can have the
CEO of Chrysler hauled out of his bedroom and shot on a whim, I submit
that we would not have a free market in automobiles.
A totalitarian government precludes capitalism. Yes, you can have a
dictatorship or monarchy that allows capitalism, but not an absolute
one. Every right-wing dictator hates capitalism. They need state
control of industrial production, state control of the media, the right
to execute or imprison anyone at any time for any reason. Capitalism
neccesarily undercuts government power.
And Kat, you are really being silly when you assert that the communist
dictatorships of the 20th century replaced worse governments. That's
like asserting that people supported the Nazis because Weimar Germany
was even worse. Well, some people did support the Nazis, but that
doesn't mean that Weimar Germany was horrible dictatorship that
murdered millions.
Yes, Czarist Russia was a monarchy, yes people got sent to exile in
Siberia. But most of the people sent to Siberia under the Czars lived!
For an account of the difference between the Czarist and Soviet prison
system, see Solzenitzen's "Gulag Archipelago". No comparison. The
Bolsheviks from the very beginning were against free press, political
opposition, the idea of any sort of freedom from stat power. After
all, they were building a perfect society, so anyone who wasn't on
their side was by definition a horrible criminal. And horrible
criminals didn't have their careers destroyed, they got a bullet in the
back of the head.
Now, I also have a very hard time when people equate American troops
protecting western europe with Soviet troops occupying eastern europe.
Jeroen, you honestly don't see the difference between West Germany and
East Germany? Really? When Americans freed your country from the
Nazis we set up a puppet dictatorship, like the Soviets did in Poland?
You claim that the Soviets needed their vast military might to protect
them against NATO. Well, perhaps. But why did there have to be
military conflict between NATO and the Soviets? Is it because the US
aggessively seeks to conquer and enslave other countries and the
Soviets had to protect themselves? Hmmm, that explains why American
immediately invaded and enslaved Russia after the collapse of the
Berlin Wall. And why Canada has to keep a huge military presence on
our border to keep us from invading...
=====
Darryl
Think Galactically -- Act Terrestrially
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