I'm sick of young Americans obsessing over communism!

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Where did I say they shouldn't get enough to meet their basic needs?

You asked what was fair, I answered your question.

Oh the "skilled" could very much not do the jobs of the "unskilled"; and they would even moreso refuse to do those jobs out of self-importance. I see the word "unskilled" and I read it as "poor people work", "peasant work", "servant work", "slave work".
You think no skill goes into being a custodian? Or a truck driver? Or a *ahem* "burger flipper"? I feel most who throw around the word "unskilled" will admit that a good deal of skill goes into any of those jobs. Someone with 10 years experience as a custodian cannot have their job done just as well by some random schmo with no experience.

These jobs are considered "unskilled" because they do not require skills which one must obtain through university or trade school. The wealthy feel above such work, so they use their wealth to obtain skills which are needed for jobs they feel are good enough for them.

It calls to mind the plot of the game BioShock. Millionaire Andrew Ryan uses his wealth and influence to construct a libertarian, Randian paradise at the bottom of the ocean: the city of Rapture. He invites artists, engineers, scientists, musicians, and geniuses of all kinds to pursue their dreams free of the "parasites" and "rent-seekers" holding them back. This plan quickly falls apart, because none of the visionary geniuses wants to do the mundane """unskilled""" work that goes into maintaining the city. Those who actually do do that work are immediately looked down upon and treated as little more than slaves (minimum wage is a commie inefficiency!). The underclasses predictably grow resentful and rebel, and the city is in the midst of violent anarchy when the plot of the game starts.

Even if those "unskilled" jobs did require basically no skill, then that does not mean the people who work those jobs deserve poverty, precarity, insecurity, and misery. The wealthy pay "unskilled" workers as little as they can get away with; the wealthy pay themselves as much as they can get away with. But to the capitalist this is fair, and because life is fair each and every person in a free market deserves exactly as much money as they happen to have by sole virtue of the fact that they have it.

Exactly this and we've seen that contemptful attitude from posters here before. Guys who seem to think because they have a STEM background that they're inherently superior to people who do other lines of work.

Engineer 1: Boy! I sure do like being an engineer! And the pay is nice! Life is good.
Engineer 2: Did you hear? They custodians unionized and have secured a contract that gives them a pay increase.
Engineer 1: MY. PAY. IS. INADEQUATE!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE MOTIVATED WHEN MY LIFE IS TREATED AS VALUABLE AS THOSE DIRTY CUSTODIANS? I QUIT!! ! *sob sob sob*
Capitalist: Those poor engineers... If only those custodians weren't so selfish, they would realize they deserve to live paycheck to paycheck barely able to afford rent....

Life is fair! You deserve to be paid whatever the bosses say you deserve to be paid. If you disagree, then you're selfish! The bosses get to decide who gets carrots and who gets sticks, and they decided in their infinite, selfless wisdom that they get carrots and we workers get sticks! Don't you know? Rich people need *raises* to motivate them to work. Poor people need *pay cuts* to motivate them to work. Basic capitalist psychology

Semi-skilled or skilled jobs are often defined as jobs that take longer than 30 days to become proficient at. There isn't really much in the way of vagueness, if it looks simple enough to do.....then it probably is. I'm sure a lawyer can learn to flip burgers far quicker than someone who flips burgers can become a lawyer.

The skilled are perfectly entitled to ask for higher pay than the unskilled. The unskilled don't deserve to live in poverty, but they don't deserve the same pay as the skilled too.

I'm all for making life fair and equal for everybody. Maybe a better solution to this problem (which I never see people suggest) is to not use the term "communism" when trying to fight for a better future for everyone?

What the people suggesting communism as a replacement for hard unfiltered capitalism don't seem to grasp is exactly why the West and particularly Americans are so afraid of that word.

I'm starting to sorta see why communism (or rather socialism) sounds like a more appealing solution but maybe instead of forcing it on people who are only going to resist it even harder they should try a softer approach without blaming Americans for the "Red Scare" etc.

It's like that old saying "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar".

When Americans voice concerns about this, don't say things like "Oh you Americans are just being brainwashed by your own propaganda!". Because NOBODY responds well to statements like that.

I'm usually not this reasonable in a debate ( ) but I do hope my point makes sense to some?

Where you're coming from makes sense, although what I would point out is that communism isn't all that popular among younger cohorts, at least not compared to more moderate socialism and social democracy.

Additionally, a lot of the people who support communism don't necessarily want either violent revolution or an authoritarian dictatorship. Utopians might not be very realistic, but they're generally not malicious. Reformists and fabians generally want social democracy in the short-term and emphasis the importance of democracy to socialism.

Meanwhile it's not uncommon for libertarian socialist types to be too busy actually putting their money where their mouth is to have time to try to impose much on anyone. G7 Welcoming Committee was an example of a record label ran as a socialist collective (for example).

That's not to suggest that more tankie leaning types don't exist, only that they're a small minority of the left.

Believe you me, I avoid that term when possible because it is such a dirty word to most people that it immediately shuts down the conversation. Socialism is almost as dirty a word as communism. Of course this leads to awkwardly dancing around these terms,which I feel undermines leftist credibility, like we are just pretending to care about human rights or democracy, because the common understanding is that communism does not care about those things. It feels like a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-dont scenario, where if you call yourself a Marxist (for example) people will assume you support any number of awful things, but if you express support for Marxist positions while avoiding the term, it makes it seem like you are arguing in bad faith.


I very much understand most people's misgivings about socialism/communism. Americans spent almost half of the last century in constant fear that a self-proclaimed communist state would nuke them to oblivion. They hear about things like one-party states, state atheism, gulags, purges, no freedom of press or speech or assembly, the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward, the stifling of minority cultures, the crushing of uprisings in the Eastern Bloc, etc. etc. Even now our main geopolitical rival is a self-described communist state with a more than questionable track record on human rights. Knowing all this, wy wouldnt Americans be hesitant about abandoning capitalism?
I feel like if a given leftist does not understand the appeal of capitalism to people, then they are not going to be successful in convincing those people to reconsider their positions.


I appreciate your open-mindedness. I do believe that a historic error of many communist regimes is the crushing of freedom of speech. Not just from the obvious moral perspective--when you stifle speech, it seems like you cannot defend your own positions. If people do not voice their concerns, then those concerns will go unaddressed. When those concerns go unaddressed, they fester. It is telling that, despite the extensive propaganda and observation apparatuses of the USSR, when Glasnost and Perestroika were implemented people suddenly came out of the woodwork to state their dissatisfaction with the state of things. The left's credibility in the former Eastern Bloc has been decimated because of the inflexible authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks. Who can blame them? To paraphrase Mr. Spock: I do not agree with it, but I understand it.


No, I get what you're saying. I would feel worse about the "you just follow propaganda" argument, but a big part of it is a matter of throwing capitalist's words back at them. Any leftist has experienced being told they only think what they think because of Soviet or anti-American propaganda. I still recognize that most ardent capitalists devoted great time and effort to research and refine their views--even if I think it is in the wrong direction. Capitalists in America were and are encouraged and pressured by most forces in society and government to embrace capitalism. It becomes tiring as a critic of capitalism being accused of naively buying into propaganda, when capitalism is as popular as it is in large part to pressure from government and business to push capitalism on the public. Few capitalists will deny that American society very strongly encourages capitalism and strongly discourages socialism/communism. Anti-capitalists spent decades keeping their opinions to themselves on the matter for fear of losing jobs and friends. Many still do.

I believe roronoa79 did a good job addressing this line of argument preemptively.

But further, I don't believe that anyone has suggested that no jobs should be more highly compensated. The main disagreement is over whether or not some people should receive poverty wages which is currently the norm, as well as what disparity should exist between the most highly compensated positions and the least well compensated positions.

I'm fine with the engineer getting more than the custodian, even if it's 2:1, but the executives probably shouldn't be getting between 10:1 and 20:1 on the engineer. The shareholders shouldn't be more important than the employees or customers.

If one isn't willing to see anything done about the status quo, they defacto support it no matter how hard they insist otherwise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg

You might find those two people interesting, especially as critics from within communism.

Her too:

http://www.queensilver.org/

I know one thing for certain. The entertainers in Hollywood really shouldnt have as much wealth and influence on the country as they do. Because not only do you have a lot of homelessness and impoverished people living in that area, but our entertainers arent even that entertaining anymore.

I mean I'm not just being a smartass, I really don't think its fair the way Hollywood and Los Angeles is divided by super rich and super poor with the rich being these filmmakers who havent made anything truly great in a long time yet they still rake in a lot of money for their mediocre movies.

I wouldn't oppose either additional tax brackets or a maximum wage.

Ideally multiple countries would pass similar laws simultaneously to reduce the 'oh, well I'll just move elsewhere' response.

I guess what I mean to say is I'm starting to understand why so many things are unfair in the system we currently have set up in the US. I mean a lot of this Ive been noticing myself for many years... I had a brief friendship once with a lady who told me that I actually sounded like I would be a communist sympathizer because I really do care about treating people fairly and equally, but like many Americans I'm afraid of the communist label because of not only the taboos it conjures up thanks to McCarthyism but because of the countries that claim to be communists but did atrocious things to hold onto power like China, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

I should have listened to her more instead of breaking off the friendship but my Mom somehow convinced me this woman was a bad influence on me...

I wish there was a way we could maybe build a mixed system to satisfy the needs of everyone in the US, but I know that Trump's supporters will rail violently (as they proved on Jan 6th) against anything that isn't Trumpism.

I had thought opposition to communism stemmed from doubts about the viability of democratic big government or an attachment to private property.
Now I have heard about "red scare", some rough execution methods are emphasized by the media to oppose the guiding ideology, while the real red ideology is not seen by ordinary people.
This made me realize that the media is a double-edged sword and should somehow allow free discussion while ensuring that ordinary people have their own independent judgment. This is exactly the original goal of the "Cultural Revolution" as I understand it.