Why are people so anti-communism?

Question

First off, let me start with this: I'm not pro- or anti- communist, capitalist, socialist, etc. I have zero opinions on politics. I just live and let the chips fall as they may. Honestly, after almost 35 years, I still have yet to feel like anything political has had any strong impact on my life, negative or positive. Honestly, I'm probably a leech. I put nothing into the system, other than involuntary tax dollars, and I just live  in this society, involuntarily reaping the benefits. But I guess my taxes pay for that.Anyway...In America, communism is a dirty word. I was taught to hate it before I even could grasp what it was. I was just taught that it was the enemy. When I found out what it was, I was like " that's it? That's what we're being bred to hate? It's just a different way of doing things." I get that if you're pro-capitalism that it's the antithesis to what you're about. But it seems well-intentioned enough, it basically says: everyone should be relatively equal wealth-wise, and aims to eliminate the upper and lower classes. Seems OK to me. Whether it works or not is another story, but what goes on in other countries is literally the last thing on my mind.So that said, capitalism at a philosophical level seems way more hostile. Sink or swim, if you die, you die. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. If this system is considered to work well, that blows my mind. It works well for SOME people, but most are outside looking in. That to me seems wrong, but at the same time, I can only worry about myself, so I don't lose sleep over it.My girlfriend gets exemption to go to Cuba with her father for religious reasons, so she's been there first hand. She said the people there are generally happy as clams, the only downside is that they're very limited in the products they can buy because of the US embargo. But there's almost no crime, if you're sick they take care of you, and everybody has what they need to survive. Everybody likes Castro, and they don't understand the US demonization of him. The Cuban defectors who left are just mad that they can't be rich, that's all their problem is. My friend is married to a Cuban defector, and in talking to him, that's all his problem is. He can make more money in his trade as a dentist in the US than in Cuba. That's it. He could go to school for free in Cuba, he's just not willing to be less rich, so he came to the States. To me, that just seems greedy and materialistic. But whatever, that what he wants, so this is where he came.So here's my question: why the hate? If you don't agree with it as a system, that's fine. But I feel like most of the people don't even realize what they're denouncing. "What? Communism? These colors don't run! USA! USA! USA!" They just hate because they think they're supposed to. If another country wants to operate like that, who cares? Why does it need to be stomped out elsewhere? Just figure out what you like better, and move somewhere that runs that way. Simple.

xHoneyxBeex · Accepted Answer

I think the main issue is, it works in theory but not so well in reality. Some of the main issues with Communism I've come to realize through studying history include:

1. Forced Collectivization.

The most notorious example of forced collectivization is the land reform carried out by Soviets between 1928 and 1933. It was thought that collectivization would maximize the use and potential of the countryside for urban and industrial needs however, people just resented this. Masses of resisting landowners, many of them small-scale farmers who worked their own land, died at the hands of executioners.

Almost exactly the same thing took place in Communist China, between 1958 and 1961. During this time, private farming was outlawed as it had been in Stalin’s Russia, and about 33 million people starved to death under Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward."

2. Reduced Incentives to Work Hard.

Incentives, such as higher pay for doctors, are necessary to give people the energy they need to work hard in a difficult job.?? When there are no extra incentives available, such as in a Communist state, where all reap an equal share in what some have worked harder to sow, the people in difficult jobs quickly lose their motivation. They are also likely to grow bitter at the government.

3. The Class Struggle’s.

Communism itself does not erase the class struggle, as it proclaims, but keeps it going. It does this because it is a government: there must be a group of people in charge, and it’s likely that this group enjoys its power. By maintaining their power, the leaders of a Communist state separate the population into at least two classes: themselves as the upper class, and everyone else in the lower class.

4. Mass Murders.

Communist rule may be directly blamed for the deaths of at least eighty-five million people in the twentieth century. Stalin alone murdered about twenty million, although other estimates range from fifty-three million to eighty million. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia, and set out to establish a Communist utopia. They immediately committed genocide on their own people. Roughly two million civilians were executed by brutally primitive methods in keeping with the Khmer Rouge’s anti-technology stance. Intelligence was deemed a direct and serious threat to the Khmer Rouge.?? Many other instances of murders committed by the government either directly or indirectly can be found in Communist states.

There are other arguments I could make against Communism but I don't have enough space here. Anyway, it's not hard to look at history and see why it doesn't work. Citizens in communist governments have little to no rights. I'm not saying Capitalism is perfect because every system has flaws. However, I would rather live in a Capitalist state than a Communist one.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

You said that, "whether it works or not is another story", there is no use of me wasting my breath explaining why communism doesn't work. A single experience working in a high school team project will thoroughly convince you why it doesn't work - let alone learning about why other historical examples of it didn't work. Even a modest understanding of human behavior (read Dale Carnegie) will allow you to see that socialism lacks incentive to produce desired results.

But you implied that you were aware that communism does not work. Your real question then is: why is America getting in everybody's faces to convince people that practice communism to change their ways?

Ok, well let me ask you another question. If your classmate was making a systematic error in their arithmetic, don't you think you'd be morally obligated to make them aware of their misunderstanding?

If it made absolutely no difference to your grade to help a fellow student, don't you think it would be nice of you to help them? What if you knew that the whole class would earn a few extra bonus points if everybody got at least a B on the next exam?

Capitalists think it's a good think to tell others about the errors of communism, because

1) It's the morally right thing to do to help someone else at zero cost to the helper

2) It would benefit world trade to have all countries be stable, productive, and potential trading partners

Communism in practice brings out some bad aspects of people. It rewards laziness, and enslaves those who have talent/ability by forcing them to work for nothing in order to feed themselves (by feeding the rest of the nation first). Communism nurtures a specific kind of evil.

Yet, you have also noticed that capitalism encourages certain evil behaviors too. It encourages self-reliance, proactive behavior, and optimism for improvement of the future. BUT it also encourages selfishness, greed, and unwillingness to help other people out of fear that helping a "rival" is a way of shooting themselves in the foot. Yet, poverty also encourages selfishness. If communism results in everyone being poor (lacking essential materials), communism results in an equal if not greater amount of selfishness.

I agree with you that there are a lot of ignorant people who cheer for certain political beliefs like sports teams. But I am convinced that capitalism, though it has many terrible flaws, works where communism has an equal (or greater number of flaws) and fails.

And that is why Americans speak so harshly about communism in favor of capitalism. We have not attacked a communist country to colonize or convert them - only to remove a direct threat to America.

UberTroll · Accepted Answer

Most people don't understand what it really is and with all the propaganda against it all people know is: "commies, bad!" Communism is often associated with people like Stalin and Castro who twisted communism into something more sinister.

I think greed is another reason. Many people in the US are chasing the dream, they want money and/or power. In an idealistic communist society you would have all your needs fulfilled (as well as everyone around you) but it would never be possible to become rich.

gotc147 · Accepted Answer

They say communism is just socialism with an attitude.

I was never taught to hate communism, I never heard the word until almost my teens. However it doesn't take a rocket scientist too see why communism should never be embraced. China, Russia, Korea... Why would we want to lower our quality of life to the likes of these countries? You said it yourself: "Whether it works or not is another story" the fact of the matter is it doesn't work, at least not in the way it is presented. Every communist country has the very few who are very wealthy who got that way by being connected, that ultra-small ruling class crushes the rest of society below it, doing nothing but taking, anything that is given has a price and it is literally impossible to pull yourself up out of that lower class.

In a capitalist society, all people have equal opportunity, anybody can become rich, it is simply a matter of playing your cards right and putting in the work. Capitalism doesn't work only for some, it's that those some made capitalism work for them. The US's fall from the top is due to moving away from capitalism and into a more communist-centric ideology, why do you think the rich in this country keep getting richer? It isn't because they're gouging the little guy, it's because Obama's policies created a perfect storm that benefits the rich while keeping the little guy mostly stagnant. Take Obamacare for example, force everybody to buy something from rich insurance companies, regardless of the price (which is going up, not down as he promised) and if you don't buy it you have to pay a fine (oh sorry, a "tax") that he can redistribute to his wealthy friends in the Insurance industry. Obama is far from the first one to embrace this anti-capitalism stance, we've been going down the road to ruin since the early 1900s.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and for the government to gain ground" -Thomas Jefferson

I'm all for laws that protect the consumer and employee from overzealous companies, but the elite have taken that concept and perverted it, they take it so far that it has transformed from simple and reasonable boundaries that give companies room to make plenty of money while still giving consumers and employees all the protections they need to the communist model. The elite know the masses will fall for it because "oh, they're trying to help me" gullibility of the general public.

Capitalism is the equal sharing of opportunity coupled with the unequal sharing of success, might not seem fair but we all had the same opportunities, some just went out and got them, rather than sitting there waiting for it to be handed to them.

jacquesvol · Accepted Answer

There are MANY reasons to hate Communism:

>Stalin was a BLOODY dictator, in the line of the Russian czars before the Communist revolution.

>Mao was a BLOODY dictator, in the line of the Chinese emperors and warlords before the Communist revolution.

>Anti communist propaganda started long before the Russian Communist 1919 revolution (during the Capitalist Industrial Revolution (I'd say, starting around 1850: shareholder's interests conflicting with worker's interests)

> several generations in Europe were afraid of a Russian invasion during the years between WW1 and WW2. (Europeans governments helped insurgents in Russia during the years after the Russian revolution) and the European countries hosted Russian refugees.

>During the thirties many preferred Hitler over Communism, hoping that Hitler would protect Europe from the USSR. When Finland and some Baltic states got too close to Fascism, they were invaded by Stalin during the late thirties.

>During the same period, disputed Polish territory was a real problem too (as it had been for centuries). A few days after Hitler invaded Poland from the West, Stalin did the same from the East. Both were the final movement leading to WW2.

>Several generations have been afraid of WW3 once the USSR too got the nuclear bomb.

In fact, the USSR respected the Yalta Agreements all along. Nuclear menace, ICBM's and mutual assured destruction persuaded both sides. The US and the UK didn't respect the Yalta Agreements in Greece, right after Greece's liberation from the Germans, when they intervened with military force to help the Greek rightists who had collaborated with Germany. This lead to a civil war with many casualties in Greece.

Given all that, who can not understand that many people don't like Communism?

Communism had it's good sides too, of course. But they were hidden by all the above.

thegirluwnt · Answer

The Ten Pillars?

No thank you.

My dad taught us girls better.

For us it was Thomas Jefferson and King James.

The Ten Commandments and the First Ten Ammendments to The Constitution.

I know I'm just a young twentysometing but that's how I was raised.

I don't think that Americans today fully understand just how free the Founding Fathers meant for them to be.

Socialism/Communism seems so wonderful to some. Until the overreaching greedy paws of tbe government shows up and wipes its dirty feet on your front doorstep.

Okay sorry guys.

Continue.

martyfellow · Answer

The media induces elitism, and contempt for other social systems and cultures,. Not tomention we imprted millions of Batista pimps into Florida and all kinds of dictators from other countries.That's one of themain goals of the media ownership., to encourage elitism and racism

And the majority of the US population still buys what the media,owned by a few dozen millionaires, is selling them.

But I think not for long. That majority of fools is shrinking a little every year.

bruvleigh · Answer

yeh and vietnam is a very healthy, organised and balanced society as well...

well it is until you want to be particularly succesful or inventive or unique, which is considerably harder in communism.

then again capitilism has issues, democracy has problems. communist goverments don't shut down for weeks on end for no good reason...

the reason its a dirty word is because America likes to force its way of life on other people. AND DAM THEM SMALLER WEAKER COUNTRIES FOR NOT BEING IN THE USA AND FOLLOWING OUR WAY OF LIFE.

in britain its not even a dirty word its just kind of said with distant intrigue.

yaddayaddayadda02 · Answer

Um. Communism. Isn't just a 'different way' like preferring sausage or pepperoni on your pizza.  It's a horrible failure of economics and oppressive to the people forced to live under it.  God, I worry about the education provided in schools these days.

Casper286 · Answer

It goes back to the Cold War. Russia and the USA hated each other since communism threatened the power of the US. That's pretty much the only reason why Americans are taught to hate it. America is very hypocritical. We are terrorists yet we teach our children that Muslims are the terrorists. Yet we killed innocent people in Japan during WW2 and the countless amount of civilians in the Middle East. America has tried to make the hatred of communism skin deep in their citizens because they don't want their power threatened again. IMHO, if the country isn't trying to attack us than they aren't a threat no matter what type of government they have.

(I'm an American college student who majors in Engineering and History)

bazooka · Answer

I see most answers are from the American perspective.

America has always been a strong believer in Democracy, and almost missionary of the same. USA propagates democracy in non democratic countries, and say "you're welcome" to the rest of the world, assuming the non democratic country was like the scum of this world.

I personally think that communism is a risky thing, as it takes away people's rights (some of which are very necessary) and the country is headed by a leader whom the people may, may not approve of or are forced to accept. It can work out well, for example, China who've developed a lot in the last 20 years, and is in strong contention to become a super power (I think they're already there). But on the other side, we have North Korea, whose leaders have done nothing but use their wealth (which by the way is very less) to develop nuclear powers to attack others.

To summarize, I'd the cons out weight the pros in communism, hence it is hated or not endorsed by many.

Eugene · Answer

In a nutshell:

Communism is pretty much all about TRUE equality, which will never work with humans. Let's say you're some filthy rich Rockfeller who wipes his ass with $100 bills. In communism his wealth would be spread across everyone equally. Obviously he doesn't wants that and also doesn't wants people to know how it would work. So what he can do? Raise a whole generation unaware of it's ideology and make them consider it to be the ultimate sin. Since they have sh*tloads of money, they can use political power to brainwash a whole nation.

front2back · Answer

The simple explanation is that communism looks great on paper, amazing in fact, but it doesn't work in real life. Ever. Crazy dictators or not. Human nature works well with Capitalism, because everyone works hard and gains wealth accordingly. In communism, people feel cheated. They work hard but everyone gets the same everything because it is equal. Should a doctor really get the same food, money, clothes and living space as a janitor? Most people wouldn't think so. Capitalism allows better rewards based off of position. Of course, capitalism has a ton of problems with it's system, but it's picking the less of two evils. I think if we still lived in a technologically repressed age and with less people, communism could work just fine. However, modern civilization doesn't support it.

ThatBritishLad · Answer

Because Communism never works.

Anonymous · Answer

Its like Nazism. Its an awful system that deprives people of human rights, like voting, freedom of speech and freedom of press. The government takes EVERYTHING from you because there is no private property. And communists like Stalin and Mao killed far more people than Hitler.

Anonymous · Answer

Communism, by it's nature, requires the government to impose equality by taking what one person has produced/earned and transfer it to others solely to "equalize". This means it can essentially only exist in conjunction with one party rule and dictatorship. Fundamentally, the vast majority of Americans are strongly opposed to dictatorship.

Also, taking away what a person has produced to force equality takes away the incentive to work hard. Hypothetically, if you were only allowed to keep whatever you earned for 400 hours of work and everything beyond that was taken by the government, why would you work a single hour over that other if it was at gunpoint? When that attitude pervades an entire society, innovation and investment disappear and economic growth slows or ceases entirely, I'm sure you could point to examples where that wasn't the case, but remember also that dictatorships tend to create their own economic statistics that make their performance appear better since no one will challenge them.

I have been to lots of third world countries where people who don't have money find ways to be happy. However, taking a broader look at things like opportunity for economic advancement, sanitation, availability of safe drinking water, access to medical assistance, availability of technology, etc. I doubt you would see those countries as examples we should model our economic policy after.

Anonymous · Answer

Because communism takes away people's freedom to free reign.

Anonymous · Answer

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

The above philosophy, popularized by Karl Marx, is the cornerstone of communism and goes against everything America stands for, or at least what it used to stand for. Hard work and personal responsibility are what made America great in the past. Our slow and steady fall from grace can be tied directly to a shift away from those values and toward Marxism.

Also, supporting communism is essentially a vote against liberty. Wherever communism has existed, so have violations against human rights and squelching of freedoms. China and the USSR have been shining examples of that.

Why are people so anti-communism?

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