Communist Party Against Chinese Censors
“History demonstrates that only a totalitarian system needs news censorship, out of the delusion that it can keep the public locked in ignorance,” a group of former senior Communist party officials in China said in an open letter denouncing the recent closure of investigative newspaper Bingdian (Freezing Point).
Party elders attack China censors
Finally! A dissenting view point has leaked out of the stronghold of Chinese censorship. What better place to demonstrate dissent than from within The Party itself? It’s a step toward changing the popular belief that socialism is to blame for what malevolent power hungry men have done.
Do you think that people blame socialism for what malevolent, power-hungry men have done, or do you think people believe that socialism is doomed to fail because malevolent, power-hungry men will always exist?
These men do use the guise of “releasing the proletariat from their chains” of capitalism and religion. But don’t capitalists use wealth to manipulate democracy (ignorance from the masses) for the same deeds?
To directly answer your question, I don’t think people necessarily “blame” socialist failures on malevolent, power-hungry men but certainly the human rights violations of these men leave a horrible ghost that is hard to shake.
Of course, I also believe that there hasn’t actually been a real Communist/Socialist society yet. “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.”
Every Communist society created has had more chains put on than lost.
“But don’t capitalists use wealth to manipulate democracy (ignorance from the masses) for the same deeds?”
I totally agree. My question was meant to be taken at face value – it was not asked in defense of capitalism.
Re: your other comments – I think the very fact that a truly egalitarian society has never existed on a large scale is the reason many people distrust/dislike socialism. In other words, every time it’s been attempted, the aforementioned malevolent folks get involved and pervert the system. So, if one believes in the adage that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” they would have to believe that socialism is doomed to fail because those in power would not act for the betterment of the whole. The only way it could work is if only TRULY benevolent people had access to power and authority, which is seemingly unrealistic.
In short, no one blames socialism itself for what men like Stalin have done, they blame human nature for preventing pure socialism from being successful.
A little while ago I read a book that was based in NY. The story pretty much followed a group of recent German immigrants. The main family’s father was an unyielding socialist and on a trip to the zoo he noted something that really opened my eyes to socialism. I can’t recall the exact phrasing but the event transpired a bit like this:
It was feeding time for the monkeys. When the zoo handler presented the tray of fruit every monkey went for it in a jumbled frightening display of selfishness. The father, seeing this behavior, noted that the monkeys acted in similar fashion to capitalists.
“Look at how these religious capitalists fear Darwin’s theory. They mock him because he compares our ancestors to primitive beasts. Children, look around you. This world is ruled by primitive beasts, capitalists.
We’re supposed to be the most advanced species on the planet. Yet, we don’t treat our fellow man with respect and we don’t emulate what we teach our children, to share.”
I’m sure I mucked up the wording but the feeling was there. In turn, I agree with you Tony. Socialism is too sophisticated for human nature to comprehend.
I assume the story was set in the late-19th/early-20th century. It’s interesting that nowadays, Darwin’s theory of evolution – centered on the concept of “survival of the fittest” – is used as an argument against socialism. I think it’s a cop-out to say that socialism (or at least a more humanistic form of capitalism) can’t work because people (like all animals) have a biological imperative to only look out for themselves and those close to them. That’s because, even though that instinct of self-preservation does exist, there are a lot of people who overcome it on a daily basis.