It doesn’t value human life and gets rid of the idea of human nature. Karl Marx himself said you need to kill a large portion of the population to obtain the basic objective of communism. Communist leaders took that teaching and killed millions of people. HOW can people defend this ideology?

Do you not see that these are ENTIRELY different things? If a society has a state which calls itself communist (contradiction already) then that doesn't mean it is - what makes a society communist is implementing communist ideology which none of them ever did. 

Communism values human life far more than capitalism. The entire point is to ensure that everyone is secure, free, and part of society in a meaningful way. It means that human life can actually reach it's full potential democratically, with decentralised power and freedom as a standard. Capitalism has literally no account for human life - profit is literally the only concern for everyone in it. Why did we have child labour, no healthcare, mass poverty, hunger, and illness for the working class? Because it was not the capitalist class' concern. Only through regulation have these things stopped, but look at the way the "Constant Growth" part of capitalism affects us today - it is literally destroying the environment all human life depends on to live. With communism, none of these things would ever happened. Decisions would be made by humans, for humans. 

The human nature argument is bullshit for many reasons. First off, there is no one, set human nature. We all have the capacity to be generous or mean, loving or hate-filled, anything. The question is - which part of human nature should society nurture? Capitalism promotes individualism, greed. Communism promotes community, solidarity. Also, the only instinct that is inherent in us as animals in one of co-operation. Look at the studies into how young children and babies behave, clearly co-operation comes more naturally to us than competition. Thirdly, communism would not require people to be Gandhi types. In fact, you would be much more free to follow your own personal inclinations that you would under capitalism. If a greedy man was offered the choice between being a capitalist proleteriat or a member of a communist community, which would he choose?

Marx never said that you have to kill a large portion of the population, but he did advocate a violent revolution. This is one of the reasons I am not a Marxist - you should be aware that his form of communism is not the most popular. Anarcho-communism, in which the revolutionary period is less state-based, is the mainstream. However, it may be unavoidable that the revolution is to some degree violent. After all, they have tanks. 

We've already shown that the people you are talking about were in no way communist. Until you can provide a single example of them promoting communist ideology, you can't use them to discredit communism. Why don't you get that?

wtf is this thread about, and why has it reached 10 pages in 2 days.

How is Marx not communist? I just gave you an example you wanted but you just keep asking the same question, so I’m done. This whole thing is horseshit and it take someone brainwashed like you to not realize how dangerous communism is. It will never work in today’s society and only oppress those unfortunate enough to have to be under it. I hope you get to experience it first hand to finally realize how much it sucks. Go ahead and descredit more people like @manualex who actually live under ideology like socialism and know first hand how bad it is.

Can you please tell me wtf it's even about. lol

I’d suggest using your eyes and reading the previous posts

I'd like to Like all The Escapist posts on this thread but I can't go through all of them right now, so I'll just leave my TheEscapist Appreciation Post here. 

It's nice to see a clean debate around, btw. I strongly disagree with Jordan's thoughts and to be fair some read quite absurd to me, but it's good to have and see great conversation in this forum, regardless of the theme itself.

The thread has no name
The thread has no face
And its whereabouts are sort of unknown

Who...who said Marx wasn't a communist? And no, not once have you given an example of any of the countries you're talking about implementing communist ideology - and you know you haven't. In fairness, you have a good reason - they don't exist. 

Look, you need to understand why what you're saying doesn't work. Just because places like the USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba etc call themselves communist or socialist doesn't mean they are. People like to use Sweden as an example of socialism being good, but I'll say the same reply to them. It's not socialism. Look at all the major socialist and communist literature for centuries, look at the philosophy and you will see these meanings and these meanings only: 

Socialism: Worker's control of production

Communism: A form of socialism in which there is no state and power is decentralised to communities.

That's what they are. Now, whenever they have been applied, they have been internal successes. I don't have to defend any of those countries, no matter how horrible they are, because they never one tried to implement the ideology I support. I have deepest empathy for all those who had their freedom, food, or even lives taken away from them by fascism (or state-capitalism in Venezuela's case), but it was not because of communism. In fact, you are the one here who supports the state. I don't. Your ideology has more in common with those countries than mine does. 

And it's true that over time, the popular definition of the words has been distorted by the propaganda systems both in the west and in the fascist states, to create these meanings: 


Socialism: State ownership, regulation of capitalism

Communism: Total state control

Anarchism: Chaos, no rules. 

Now you're right, these ARE very dangerous, particularly the last two. In the first two, this is what is being applied in the countries you are talking about. But the problem is that these definitions are false. They do not represent any of the socialist thought or understanding for hundreds and hundreds of years, it completely ignores Marx's and every other communists understanding of their own ideology. It's not what anarchism means, its not what any anarchists want. Regardless of how many people use the words to mean this things, it doesn't change the fact that that's not what the ideology supports.

So, I'm sorry, but you ARE wrong. The facts, the history, everything, is against you. All you can do is repeat your baseless argument and make emotional appeals. You're wrong. 

Iron curtain wasn't communist. Here's a simple litmus test for anyone reading this thread (not having a go at you btw, just a general thing)...

1) Did the workers control production, or is that what was being worked towards? If the answer is no, ain't socialism. 

So can you be more specific about your worries? It seems to be that a system that gives communities large amounts of autonomy would allow their individual characters to flourish. 

Also, it's important to note who plans the economy. In communism, unlike fascism, it isn't the state. It's the people, whether on a communal level or through syndicates and federations.