I hate that people reject something that would be great because "people are bad". If we just use that to excuse everything, we'll never get anywhere. If we don't trust other people, if we don't try (and I don't consider the countries that have tried communism so far to have actually made a decent attempt with any hope of success based on their starting point), we'll never get anything, we'll never improve. As long as we live in a society that promotes selfishness, those are the traits that we'll learn to possess, that's what we'll evolve into. Sure, it might not work, especially not at first, sacrifices would have to be made, but in the end, it would be worth it, wether or not we succeded, because at least we'd be trying to improve, not only ourselves, our own situation, but the very foundation of our society.
And individualism has nothing to do with communism. In a capitalistic system we have just as little individuality (or just as much, depending on who's arguing). Everyone would be worth just as much, yes, but we have enough resources to provide everyone with choices. In a capitalistic system many people lack a lot of freedom, it's just not the law, or the state prohibiting things, it's our economic situation. Even if the lord we have to serve, that keeps us from doing things is money, it's still just as inhibiting as anything else, even if it's just immaterial things, instead of people. Communism is about removing that dependency.
We have enough resources on this planet to make every persons life good, to provide choice in furniture, food, travel, whatever. We wouldn't have to conform and make everything identical just because we converted to communism. It would mean more freedom, not less, because we wouldn't have to worry about money, and making ends meet.
The ideal communist society would have everyone equal, in oppurtunity as well as resources, quite unlike a capitalist society where you need to be born to the right family to have any oppurtunities, where you have to aspire to be better than everyone else, where to goal is not to have a good life, but to have a better life than everyone else, not to have a fast car, but a faster car than other people, not a lot of money, but more money than other people, etc. With everyone aiming only for what's best for themselves, we waste a lot of potential, and by working together instead, for the betterment of all, we'd improve the standard for everyone, and bring it up well above the current average, the average achieved when everyone tries to get what's best for them.
Gorfias said:
Hitler was a facist. Arguably, there is no difference between facism and socialism. The word facism has been demonized. It is merely a political/economic term. They are both leftist ideologies that tend to fail to actually improve the human condition.
I will give you this: he was also a nationalist, which, can be attributed to right wing ideologies as well as left. NAZI meant National Socialist.
Arguably, Hitler was a great guy only out to get as many Jews as possible into heaven as quickly as possible. Everything can be argued for, and against, some things are better to argue for, some things are worse.
Arguably, facism can be seen as left-wing. It's usually considered extreme right-wing though, and while there are some similiarities to socialism, there are a lot of key differences in their core tenets making them as different as a diamond and a plastic container, both of which consist of carbon.
The word facism may have been demonized, but the ideology itself lends itself especially well to it, seeing as some of it's core tenets are to put the state, the country, and the leader well before the people, dictatorship, and alienating people from each other. That it's closely tied with eugenics, personal sacrifice and anti-intellectualism doesn't make it much nicer. Seriously, it promotes war for the sake of war, for crying out loud, how much demonizing do you have to do?
In contrast, socialism puts people first, equal rights, and education, and healthcare for everyone. It's like the difference in killing a hen for food, and killing it for being hen. Sure, the hen dies in both cases, so the act is sort of similar...
