I've never read or recommended either for analysis of any kind.

I have yet to see you criticize one aspect of communism

In fact I told you I could tell you some good things about Cuba if you'd list some bad things about it and you flat out refused.

Also you tend to blame most if not all of communism's failings (NK and Cuba) on capitalism thus never admitting it has issues

The problem is that you are never interested in dealing with actual effects and problems of actual communist countries, so when you say "comparing it to capitalism" most of us want to compare real world communism and you want to compare to your idealized fantasy of best-case communism.

To touch on Jay's point, in your mind problems in capitalist countries (no matter how mundane) are due to the economic system. Problems in communist countries (even if identical problems to the ones in capitalist countries!) have nothing to do with the economic system.

It's not a useful debate to rehash, you're never going to change on this, and we all know it.

I would probably just generally point out bad things, like say Banks are bad actors and we should behead all bankers or whatever instead of using socialism to bail them out. So the alternative is just, uh, changing the things that are not great?

I don't really think of myself as a capitalist. If a thing kind of works it works and if not then we can change it if we want.

I am enjoying all my free rent money.

You're a fascist, a liberal, and a conservative.

That's also why I say you use the No true Scotsman fallacy

Transpolitical

You're gonna need your own pronouns.

So whether or not something is a gop talking point is irrelevant. Talking points are talking points because they resonate with people.

Let me ask you this: is communism more a form of government or a state of mind? It seems like you want to argue it's the latter but I'm not sure.

Is there such a thing as decentralized communism and how would it work?

great article!

we need to watch out for the usual Jewish-dominated pro-Israel think tanks because of their influence over politicians reportedly under pressure from Jewish billionaire GOP donor...

Verily, Every American president has to bow before Jewish power in the United State [sic]

I mean, yeah

I totally see no difference at all between openly lobbying for a foreign interest and furtively stirring up intentionally destabilizing controversy via serial identity fraud

porn star stormy daniels is suing trump lol

the dark side of social capital...

food for thought.

i mean we already do this in USA with the facebook mob getting people fired for whatever random stuff

In the small claims court...

This comes across like mostly projection. I have not in any way in this thread created an idealized version of communism. In fact, I have been pushed to do so and been criticized when I refuse. Just ask pwns. Whenever I am asked "what will communism look like" I always point out that answering would be idealism and to elaborate on this I will refer you to the quote I posted for Dustin earlier.

This once again feels like projection because this is exactly what you and other who want to attack capitalism do. You point out things that don't go well in communist countries while completely ignoring the same or worse problems in capitalist countries. The "justice" system in America, for instance, is way worse than the Gulag system in the USSR ever was. Was the Gulag system rough? Undoubtedly. But the Gulag system came to occasion shortly after a revolution in the early/mid 20th century. The American "justice" system is the way it is 250 years into the country's history at a time of relative stability. And it is 2018.

You are here seeking some type of "fair trial" between capitalism and communism (a fair trial, I might add, you have no interest in conducting yourself) and I'm telling you there is none. Capitalism is a global force more powerful than any one country with the might of the world resources wrapped up in it. Communism may have come close to vying for that kind of power for a few decades on the 20th century, but for the most part it has been an isolated movement under threat by the most powerful forces in the world. So yes, capitalism is open to critiques and will be blamed for problems that communism, because of the present state of affairs, will not be.

I just find it odd that I can be simultaneously criticized for not presenting some vision of communism while also being criticized for presenting an idealized vision. Which is it?

Few people who are capitalist do. That is how "ideology" works.

Resonating with people does not make it a valid critique/analysis. Nazi rhetoric in 1930s Germany resonated with people.

Communism is definitely not a form of government. It is also not really a state of mind. The most succinct way I could put it is that communism is a movement to abolish capitalism.

You aren't asking the right question here. I believe you are asking could a communist movement eventually give rise to some form of decentralized government. If that is your question then yes, obviously. The belief is that the movement will eventually give rise to a stateless society.

Not an idealist though.

You present the rosiest possible outlook and interpretation without providing details of its would-be operational mechanics or pathways to its realization. All past failures are the fault of something external to what you believe is, or at least what was originally conceived as, an historic inevitability.

You could have been saying that the previous socialist experiments were either premature or miscallibrated, but no, you proudly cling to the total infallibility of your ideology so you can sit in the corner whining without, in your mind, bearing any responsibility for the corrupt world in which you reside.

I think an important difference is the weight of government vs the influence of public opinion.

Keep in mind that social opinion driving business decisions has been, at least since Friedman, a feature of laissez faire economics.

Yeah, but personally I think there is a pretty big difference between not buying yuengling because the owner supports Trump and leveraging the power dynamic online to get fungible economic units fired. Not sure the second was ever really intended by econ peeps. I don't remember any economics courses like that, at least!