[simonh]

Because outlawing a political movement supported by millions of citizens has always worked so well?

My country, the UK, has been ruled by socialists for two fifths of my lifetime and we're doing fine. OK, so the 70s were pretty bad, but it's not like Chavez is the ideal socialist leader, any more than Batista and Pinochet are the ideal republicans.

[throwaway84742]

Ah, the good old “it’s not real socialism” argument.

[ekianjo]

Yeah its like there is never any real socialism, even though something like 20 different countries with different cultural backgrounds have been at it. And following pretty much to the letter what Marx intended. Yet some folks refuse to see facts for what they are.

[ulzeraj]

Its about time for people to realize that it’s a broken complex system which relies on unhealthy controls over economy and actually empowers corruption and opression it claims to oppose. And I suspect that is the case since most discussions nowadays are based at the moral level rather than economics.

[ekianjo]

>And I suspect that is the case since most discussions nowadays are based at the moral level rather than economics.

It's pretty obvious why. Communism/Socialism has failed big time in economics, in an unmistakable way, so the only ground left to fight is on philosophy/morals. But even then there's ample evidence this leads to bad outcomes, no matter how good intentions one starts with.

[simonh]

Marx founded communism not socialism which already existed, they are not the same thing. Many western European countries have had real socialist governments for much of the post-war period, including the UK.

[ekianjo]

The USSR was not a communist country either if you want to argue semantics, as they called themselves socialists. Socialism is just the kind of regime that leads to a communist utopia, in the future.