Easy to get all of them when you're a communist, except John Lennon (and maybe the one on Israel is a bit niche, although for the quiz fanatics out there it should be known)
I realize the quote is "to each according to his needs" but in my mind I forgot the pluralization, and was surprised when "need" didn't work. Ended up not getting it after trying a few other things. Suppose that "need" can be accepted?
It's funny...every generation's youth sees communism and thinks it's a great idea on paper. I was guilty of the same in high school. Most people grow out of it when they study even a tiny bit of history and take into account actual human desires. Communism creates death, famine, and pain for the people and it has done so in literally every place it has been tried. So yes...for all intents and purposes, it's pretty safe to say that the practice (maybe less so the ideals) of communism is pure evil.
Sky, what evidence is there of that? Which former communist countries have higher standards of living than the USA? Bulgaria? Romania? The former Yugoslavia?
To take one example only: per capita GDP. In both nominal and PPP, not a single post-communist country is even close to the USA number. In fact, the only european countries that best the US in that measure are the micro countries (Monaco, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg), Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland.
I was mainly replying about the 'pure evil' part, which obviously isn't true. Hilarious how quickly people get all defensive and worked up about communism.
The most important thing to remember, is that the only alternative to communism is capitalism. This is a scientific fact.
The irony. Communism is such a failure that communists either have to blame the West for it failing or try to claim nobody's ever really tried it. It's also ironic that it bans religion yet is based on some fairy-tale idea of human nature that completely ignores evolution.
Capitalism and communism both take advantage of workers and are run by elites - the difference is that in a capitalist society the common man may actually have a chance of working his way out of poverty.
I get why it's on this quiz, but I'd like to point out that "Imagine" isn't meant to be communist. Lennon was not a communist, and he even said, "There is no real Communist state in the world; you must realize that. The socialism I speak about... is not the way some daft Russian might do it, or the Chinese might do it. That might suit them. Us, we should have a nice... British socialism." There are some valid criticisms of the song (plenty of which you'll find on this quiz if you're interested), but at the end of the day I don't think it was meant to be ideological.
Under capitalism rich exploit poor. Under communism poor exploit rich??? But rich people don't exist if all people are equal and there's no poor or rich
Galbraith's quote, while catchy, is admittedly an enormous oversimplification (as it would have to be at so short a length). Communism– by nature of the total destruction of institutions required to implement [or "try to implement" to some people] in modern societies– gets rid of the old hierarchical institutions, so while the same rich individuals are often no longer exploiting the poor, hierarchies and exploitation still crop up, just in different forms (at least initially): Instead of business tycoon exploiting the poor, it's regional official exploiting the commoners. Factory foremen exploit the workers in place of the former factory owners.
One critique of communism has stuck with me since I first heard it, and it comes from a leftist viewpoint itself. I'll paraphrase it as I understood it now:
"The big failing with communism is that it ideologically assumes tyranny to be foreign. It theorizes that once we overthrow capitalism, it will all be smooth sailing. But the reality is that oppression has been a feature of humanity since before civilization, and in every large communist society people still got there way into positions of power and exploited that power for their own personal gain and at the expense of others. A safeguard against this potential to gain power and exploit others would be necessary for communism to succeed in realizing its stated goal of ending oppression."
I heard this idea from Lily Orchard (who I only mention now because half the people who've heard of her would stop reading once I put her name.)
I myself do not know of what such a safeguard would look like, or whether one would even be possible. Still, I feel that this critique is something to consider. From the lowliest official to the head of state, communist societies have seen their fair share of corruption and oppression. It's just not tied to a corporation (at least not often).
Maybe it's just me, but the question about the only communist state in the Americas is somewhat unclear about its time period (I answered Grenada initially, as it was communist until it was invaded by the U.S.). Perhaps change it to "only currently communist state in the Americas"?
Both sides of the cold war were raised on pure crystal-grade propaganda, but only one side had the nature of that propaganda suddenly exposed.
Also worth considering that maybe the historical failure of communist states might have something to do with the most powerful nations in history allied against them.
Communism does seem great on paper. Many people, especially the young and inexperienced, buy into the falsehood that everybody is basically good, and that when given the chance they will do the right thing. Communism only works if everyone agrees to pull his or her weight even if there is no reward or incentive to do so. As expected it never works out that way. People get tired of working hard with nothing to specific to work toward. If you are the type of person that likes to challenge yourself and enjoys the fruit of your labor, then you will only tolerate the idea of communism for so long. Communism also seeks to level the playing field by ensuring that all have what they need. Human nature is opposed to this because we all want more than we need, and we are willing to work harder to get more. The people that benefit the most are those that seek to do the minimum to get by, guaranteeing the system is not sustainable.
If you look deeply into the ideology of communism, it is clearly a terrible ideology, because of human nature. However, as many people have already stated in this quiz, communism seems like an almost perfect ideology purely on paper, as many can envision it creating a utopia of sorts. However, knowing humans, utopia is impossible, and we have learned this lesson from many books. Dystopia is one of the most common genres of books today among all readers, young and cold, and in many of these stories (e.g. The Giver) the society starts out as a utopia, but the protagonist generally finds a disturbing secret that turns the setting of the story into a dystopia. I have always used this analogy while thinking of communism as there are many other similarities between a dystopia and communism, some being the restriction of human rights and totalitarianism.
The most important thing to remember, is that the only alternative to communism is capitalism. This is a scientific fact.
The r*dditor jumped out 💅
John Kenneth Galbraith
"The big failing with communism is that it ideologically assumes tyranny to be foreign. It theorizes that once we overthrow capitalism, it will all be smooth sailing. But the reality is that oppression has been a feature of humanity since before civilization, and in every large communist society people still got there way into positions of power and exploited that power for their own personal gain and at the expense of others. A safeguard against this potential to gain power and exploit others would be necessary for communism to succeed in realizing its stated goal of ending oppression."
I heard this idea from Lily Orchard (who I only mention now because half the people who've heard of her would stop reading once I put her name.)
Regardless, this was a good quiz!
Also worth considering that maybe the historical failure of communist states might have something to do with the most powerful nations in history allied against them.