Communism refers to at least two separate things, though (in Western Europe).
- a theoretical economic model that is opposed to capitalism
- the atrocious regimes of the 20th century calling themselves communism you are referring to that have vanishingly few things to do with the first.
Vanishingly few people in Western Europe support these atrocious regimes. And therefore, communism the way you are using it. What's more, there's not much propaganda for communism here (I believe there was propaganda in the past, though). The confusion is usually here and people mostly don't see communism with a good eye because of the confusion (or because they are knowledgeable and oppose the theory - which is a better reason to be against it). Now, it's true that we have weaker feelings about it than in the US (and, I guess, the parts of the words that suffered from the atrocious regimes).
(The usual response to this is that theoretical communism invariably leads to these atrocious regimes, but I believe we don't know this - invariably, it seems they've been set up by possibly sadist assholes with huge egos and thirsts for power, we haven't tried without - as well as we don't know if it would work. I don't have any further useful point to make in this discussion so I probably won't engage in it.)
These eastern european regimes implemented alternative economic model opposed to capitalism. Even if we look away from the atrocities / human rights violations and just consider economic reality of communist countries, then the economic model of communist countries caused lower GDP growth rate, falling behind comparable western countries. E.g. in Czechia, after 40 years of communism, we ended with about half of GDP/capita than neighboring Austria, which has comparable GDP/capita before.
But I'd say we don't have any example neither: regimes from your history books weren't "communism" we find in your philosophy books. You can see it if you read both carefully enough.
(and again, I'm not stating communism can work, because we don't know that).
But even if we assume both "communisms" are the same: you are saying "Communism has failed N times, therefore it will always fail". You don't know that (though I would admit it's quite solid evidence in this case)
We don't know. And I'm not arguing for or against communism here neither.
So would you agree with the statement that all attempts failed?
You see, you're mockingly presenting me as simply going "never happened therefore can't happen". I would say that you're the extreme opposite where you're going "what happened doesn't matter, we learned nothing from it".
You know, we can reason about the future past the data...? There's a reason why communism failed all attempts. That reason is something which apparently you're missing, but I'm using to support my prediction that it can't work.
> So would you agree with the statement that all attempts failed?
Yes, to the extent there were none, really. And if we consider all the regimes calling themselves communism, yes, sure, failed in every possible ways too, of course.
> you're mockingly
No no no, I wouldn't dare making fun of you / mocking you. I have no interest doing so and I would not find this funny. I'm sorry I made you feel I'm mocking you, in any case that was not my intent.
> There's a reason why communism failed all attempts.
You didn't address the hypothesis I exposed in my first comment and that I will restate: any regime calling themselves "communism" were set up by huge assholes using the noble name to call their totalitarian views and misusing the concepts to make it look more legit. Maybe they even liked the idea but still wanted the power.
I feel like I won't convince you and that's fine.
On my side, I haven't discarded the hypothesis that communism can't actually work. We don't know either way.
> You didn't address the hypothesis I exposed in my first comment and that I will restate: any regime calling themselves "communism" were set up by huge assholes using the noble name to call their totalitarian views.
Ok lets break it apart.
> any regime calling themselves "communism" were set up by huge assholes ( ... )
Agreed.
> ( ... ) using the noble name to call their totalitarian views.
Wrong. Research into the inner circle writing of Stalin show that he and the top people in the party believed themselves to be communists and doing the right thing for the ultimate goal of making the world communist. He wasn't just "using the noble name" (lol?). He behaved like a communist even when no one was looking as per the decisions he made even after attaining absolute power. I'd suggest you read Steven Kotkin's book "Stalin". Of course, if you dispute the expert take I'd have to ask for your credentials.
EDIT: bit frustrating to talk to someone whose starting point is "it's unknown if X" when X has been known for a long time. It's like, do your homework before coming in here. I'm out, good luck.
Taking a shortcut. I meant using a name that possibly had good reputation back then.
For the rest, I'm no expert on the topic, you seem to know better than me, continuing to argue would be pointless.
edit: (to answer your edit) Okay, but then why didn't you counter me right away with solid arguments if you had them from the start? Happy to learn from an actual expert! Like, you could have just written: "Actually, there's strong evidence that both are the same. Here are some references: ..."
- a theoretical economic model that is opposed to capitalism
- the atrocious regimes of the 20th century calling themselves communism you are referring to that have vanishingly few things to do with the first.
Vanishingly few people in Western Europe support these atrocious regimes. And therefore, communism the way you are using it. What's more, there's not much propaganda for communism here (I believe there was propaganda in the past, though). The confusion is usually here and people mostly don't see communism with a good eye because of the confusion (or because they are knowledgeable and oppose the theory - which is a better reason to be against it). Now, it's true that we have weaker feelings about it than in the US (and, I guess, the parts of the words that suffered from the atrocious regimes).
(The usual response to this is that theoretical communism invariably leads to these atrocious regimes, but I believe we don't know this - invariably, it seems they've been set up by possibly sadist assholes with huge egos and thirsts for power, we haven't tried without - as well as we don't know if it would work. I don't have any further useful point to make in this discussion so I probably won't engage in it.)