Question:
Why are Americans so against communism?
Rainbow Dash
2015-01-06 10:21:37 UTC
I don't understand it. Sincere question. I never got why America was so staunchly anti-Communism from the McCarthy era and viewing them as some threat until now. On the whole, communism is supposed to be about getting rid of social classes and empowering people, not taking it away from them. Yes some leaders have taken it overboard but the ideology itself seems pure on intentions. Marx designed it's philosophy through experience. Why does it seem that Europe, Canada and even countries in Asia embrace communism but America is so vehemently against it?
Fourteen answers:
?
2015-01-06 10:45:17 UTC
Are you old enough to remember the Communist East Germans were forced to actually build a WALL---to keep East Germans from fleeing to Democratic West Berlin? Do you remember the HUNDREDS of East Germans who were shot and killed---trying to escape to West Berlin---their bodies left entangled in the barbed wire---as an example to any OTHER East Berliners who wanted to escape Communism? If Communism is so great, WHY were they forced to build a wall---to keep the people locked up? If Communism is so great, why did people---in their tens of thousands escape East Berlin? If Communism is so great, why were people even willing to give up their lives---in the hopes of gaining freedom? I KNOW why Americans are so against Communism. What I can't understand is---WHY are you in favor of it?
Socrates
2015-01-06 14:53:22 UTC
The key, operative word here in your question is "supposed". Communism is a theoretical Utopia created by people like Marx of how they'd like the world to work, not how it does. It's easy to imagine a Utopia, it's totally another thing to achieve it. It ignore human nature in what happens when too many people get something for nothing, they stop working for it. Communism also has a complete shift in socioeconomics that people must be "actively managed" to conform to the new paradigm. Marxism is this transitional step. It includes total government and total control of the people. the people no longer own anything and some "benevolent" bureaucrat decides what they own, where they work, how they make money and how they socialize. Another attribute of human nature, power corrupts, takes over and stalls Communism in this Totalitarian State.



People under Communism wouldn't wait to get out from under it. Millions have died at the hand of their own government "for the good of the people". East Europeans think people are NUTS in wanting Communism or even big-government Socialism.



Socialism doesn't go as far a Communism. It entices people with the notion that government should "take care" of you. If one ignores the hopeless bureaucratic red-tape, poor service end economic waste, it works until it runs out of other peoples' money. This is why many countries are in deep debt right now.



Even China, who has had the most successful Communist regime, is moving away from it. Since the late 1970's, the more they have embraced Capitalism, the more prosperous they and their people have become. THIS is why they are the powerhouse economy they are now.
Anon
2015-01-06 10:29:22 UTC
Western Europe and Canada have always been anti-communist. The quality of life in eastern Europe has tripled since the USSR collapsed. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Croatia and Latvia are now in the top 50 countries on the Human Development Index. This would have been impossible under communism.



The issue is that communism is not realistic or workable. The Stalinist interpretation of communism was particularly brutal and has turned people off communism as a viable alternative to capitalism for a long time to come.
duker918
2015-01-06 10:51:24 UTC
"On the whole, communism is supposed to be about ....." what things are supposed to be about and how they exist in reality are often very different. The individual 'in theory' acts certain ways. The reality is there is no way to predict how all individuals will react because they are, well, individuals. They react differently to the same situation, they will react based on their own conscience, their environment and how others around them react. Often not the way anticipated.

Communism is dehumanizing. It makes the individual subserviant to the whole. Enforced communism destroys personal identity, creativity, etc. and make the individual human basically a robot who's utility is his sole value. Once that utility no longer exists that human is valueless.

Capitalism is working a whole heck of a lot better in the US than communism is working in Cuba.
okiknowit
2015-01-06 10:54:10 UTC
The wealthy have always been terrified of it. They were terrified of democracy when the US and France had revolutions. They were terrified of Unions when they first arose. Anyone who wants a chunk of their money, is the enemy, and they use much of their money to buy media outlets to convince everyone else that taking rich people's money is a very bad idea.



But we are still suffering the lingering effects of cold war propaganda. We always demonize our enemies. Nazis, Communists. and today Islamic terrorists. But in the meantime, communism has transformed itself. Almost all nations today are social democracies with a mixed free market economic system. The differences are only in the mix.



But China is now the largest economy in the world. So communism has indeed triumphed over capitalism. Its just that those two systems and what we deem them to be, have changed significantly since the 19th century. .
?
2015-01-06 13:25:09 UTC
You act like they just "go about minding their own business" but in effect we are being subverted RIGHT NOW by those forces who want to see America fall. And 51% of the people voted for them...
2015-01-06 10:23:44 UTC
It's to do with the cold war and all the propaganda they soaked up during the McCarthy era - basically they've been brainwashed to be scared of it and to never consider it. You'd think that they'd have noticed just how badly capitalism was working for them with a tiny proportion of billionaires stitching everyone else up but they've been programmed to believe that this is good.
Patrick
2015-01-06 10:23:51 UTC
America is based on capitalism and communism is the opposite of that. Communism also most often fails as a stable government.
Shawn
2015-01-06 10:29:47 UTC
Those who fail to remember history are always doomed to repeat it. I strongly suggest you take an anti-leftist true and factual history lesson. The option is to actually go and live in the two remaining "liberal utopias" still in existence: Cuba and Venezuela. Then you will certainly understand why.
2015-01-06 10:22:24 UTC
You don't understand why a first world country is anti-communism?
2015-01-06 10:22:50 UTC
"Europe, Canada and even countries in Asia embrace communism" FALSE



You are getting socialism and communism mixed up.
2015-01-06 10:26:28 UTC
Joseph Stalin = 20 million kills

Mao Zedong = 70 million kills
midnyteryder1961
2015-01-06 10:27:11 UTC
We can read. Let me help your memory out.



Pol Pot



Mao Zedong



Joseph Stalin



Kim Jong Il
xpatinasia
2015-01-06 10:24:38 UTC
It does not reflect the ideals on which America was founded, although you seem to believe in it.


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