"I mean I actually believe in communism to be right, and that's only because it is really fair, not that it is actually achievable as a realistic goal that can be achieved. "

How is it fair?

@Krunoslav Democracy isn't. Just because everyone gets a vote doesn't mean the outcome is right or fair. The one 1% could be sitting in the corner and be right the whole time, and instead of having everyone thought that, they were simply swanned to action in preference of the majority instead. It's not fair to the people that were right. Democracy only works, until it doesn't, same thing with the judicial system. Even the functionality of debate is flawed in a sense, it isn't, although that's just how it works, you don't win the debate because you were right, you won the debate because you were supposed to convince everyone else you were. What's less fair than that? I'm not saying that communism would be perfect, just that it's fair. And I don't mean to confuse socialism with communism either, communism and socialism are really defined the other way around, it's communism that says everyone should have a right to the same amount of resources as everyone else, it's socialism that describe how those resources are distributed. So yeah I see that I believe that everyone should have the right to anything the same as everyone else, but I know, because I know, that just isn't the way it works. It doesn't make democracy any better, it just means there's a lot about ourselves that needs to be worked on before we start depending on any sort of government to be telling us what we should be doing.

@caseyxsharp "Democracy isn't. Just because everyone gets a vote doesn't mean the outcome is right or fair. The one 1% could be sitting in the corner and be right the whole time, and instead of having everyone thought that, they were simply swanned to action in preference of the majority instead. It's not fair to the people that were right. Democracy only works, until it doesn't, same thing with the judicial system. "

I agree.

“Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.” ― Aristotle

“The aspirations of democracy are based on the notion of an informed citizenry, capable of making wise decisions. The choices we are asked to make become increasingly complex. They require the longer-term thinking and greater tolerance for ambiguity that science fosters. The new economy is predicated on a continuous pipeline of scientific and technological innovation. It can not exist without workers and consumers who are mathematically and scientifically literate. ” ― Ann Druyan

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse ( willingness to give money, or money given to poor people by rich people) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 300 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.” ― Alexander Fraser Tytler

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.IDEALLY, this includes equal (and more or less direct) participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law. It can also encompass social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.

Criticism of democracy: Economists since Milton Friedman have strongly criticized the efficiency of democracy. They base this on their premise of the irrational voter. Their argument is that voters are highly uninformed about many political issues, especially relating to economics, and have a strong bias about the few issues on which they are fairly knowledgeable.

On paper, formally there are no real decocracies like in Ancient Greece, but republics, a representivive democracy. Democracy is a deliberate misnomer. But its a long debate how it worked even when it was a democracy in Ancicent Greece.

@caseyxsharp

" I'm not saying that communism would be perfect, just that it's fair. "

It is not fair even as a concept on paper, much less in reality. To make everyone equal even on paper requires cooersion.

"The two goals of liberation and social justice are not obviously compatible, any more than were the liberty and equality advocated at the French Revolution. If liberation involves the liberation of individual potential, how do we stop the ambitious, the energetic, the intelligent, the good-looking and the strong from getting ahead, and what should we allow ourselves by way of constraining them?” ― Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left

“Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species” ― Edward O. Wilson, The Ants

Socialism as a sociopolitical term has existed for a long long time, but it never worked when it was artificially attempted and only worked for short time in small communities where it organically developed as a form of cooperation.

The concept of communes. Small tribe like societies where all is shared and self sustaining. Karl Marx ideas of communism was to go full circle and do communes on national level. World level actually. Hence, socialism was seen in Karl Marx view as taking up the means of production by violent uprising of the working class. He called this scientific socialism to differentiate it from other non violent forms attempted by others, he called those utopian socialism.

scientific socialism by Karl Marx was supposed to have working classes rise up in violent revolution and seize means of production, in industrial society and divide everything equally, and it would be so perfect he claims that after some time there would be no need for the state , and it would be perfect society he called communism.

Marx never said when will this revolution happen or how it would be done, so Lenin picked up where Marx stopped and called his version Marxist - Leninism, and the rest is history. Once the self proclaimed communist took power in Russia, it was bloodshed and they called the new system Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics; in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR.

“The goal of Socialism is Communism." ― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The definition of social-ism is: the government controls the means of production.
Commun- ism: the government owns the means of production, and the government is supposedly the people.

Problem is that all -ism have a tenancy to end up like "fascism" or rather public-private partnership of corrupt elites and increase inequality and grip of power. A form of "corperatism." We see the same today in China under CCP and in EU and USA and UK etc.

I won't even go into all the other problems in terms of moral decay, degeneracy etc.

@caseyxsharp "
And I don't mean to confuse socialism with communism either, communism and socialism are really defined the other way around, it's communism that says everyone should have a right to the same amount of resources as everyone else, it's socialism that describe how those resources are distributed. So yeah I see that I believe that everyone should have the right to anything the same as everyone else, but I know, because I know, that just isn't the way it works. It doesn't make democracy any better, it just means there's a lot about ourselves that needs to be worked on before we start depending on any sort of government to be telling us what we should be doing. "

Here is some background on the terms socialism and communism.

SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM

What is socialism? According to a Hungarian joke made during the "gentle revolution" of 1989, it is the "longest and most painful road from capitalism to capitalism" (Garton Ash 1990). Although this biting definition was fashionably cynical about Soviet-type societies in the wake of their fall, it provides no substantive insights into one of the major social organizational forms of modern history.

The origins of socialism are obscure. Intellectual historians have traced its beginnings to the religious utopias of the Old Testament (Laidler 1968), the principles of Mosaic law (Gray 1963), the anti-individualism of the radical sects that emerged after the French Revolution (Lichtheim 1969), and the publication of the Communist Manifesto (Sweezy 1983). As well as can be determined, the term made its first appearance in Italian print in 1803, although its meaning at that time differed somewhat from the current interpretations (Cole 1959). For this reason, the origin of the term usually is attributed to the London Co-Operative Magazine, where it was used to designate followers of Robert Owen (Nuti 1981). The first French usage followed shortly thereafter when, in 1832, a French periodical, Le Globe, used it to characterize the writings of Saint-Simon (Bell 1968; Kolakowski 1978).

Despite its complicated origins, by 1840 the concept was used commonly throughout Europe and was making its way across the Atlantic to the United States. By the early 1920s, the Soviet Union had already claimed "socialism" as its overall organizing principle; ironically, at that time, over 260 definitions of the term were available in the social scientific literature (Griffith 1924), rendering its meaning somewhat ambiguous. Since then, further transformations of the concept have appeared; for instance, scholars now differentiate among Chinese socialism, corporatist socialism, democratic socialism, radical socialism, and Russian socialism.

The common core of socialist ideas is hard to define. To be sure, all socialists were critical of the competitive and unequal nature of capitalist society, and without fail, they championed a more egalitarian and just future. At the same time, their visions of the organization of a socialist future were sufficiently diverse to render a single definition of the term practically impossible. It is frequently assumed, for example, that all socialists wanted to establish communal ownership, yet many were content with the centralization of resources in the hands of the state (e.g., Bernstein 1961) and others actually protested the abolition of private property (e.g., Saint-Simon 1964). Battles also were waged over the role of the state: Some believed that centrally managed administrative organs would become superfluous under a socialist regime (Proudhon 1966), while others regarded those organs as essential for the management of community affairs (e.g., Cabet 1975). Many argued that the freedom of the individual must be guaranteed at all costs even under socialism (e.g., Fourier 1971), while others were willing to impose limitations on such freedom in the name of equality and efficient production (Mao 1971). Finally, some believed that socialism could be realized through gradual reforms (Bernstein 1961), while others thought that it was possible only through a major revolution (Lenin 1971).

Because of the nontrivial nature of these differences, a single definition of socialism is likely to conceal more than it illuminates. For this reason, it is more productive to highlight features of the concept by examining separately some of the best known schools of socialist thought.

@caseyxsharp THE IDEA OF SOCIALISM

In the view of utopian socialists, socialism was a romantic vision whose purpose was not necessarily to be realized but to serve as an ideal against which the evils of capitalism could be compared. The specific content of this vision varied from author to author, but two central themes can be identified.

The ideal of community was the first of those themes. From Fourier to Cabet, through Owen and Saint-Simon, all utopian theorists championed a new social order organized around small communities. In most sketches of socialism, this vision was realized in an agrarian setting (e.g., Cabet 1975), although some required advanced industrial development (e.g., Saint-Simon 1964). In either case, however, it was assumed that those communities would be based on fellowship, harmony, and altruism—virtues that utopian theorists favored on moral grounds over bourgeois individualism.

Nostalgia for the past is the second common theme in utopian socialist thought. It frequently appeared in utopian novels and usually assumed one of two forms. In some versions, the protagonists in those novels were returned to a romanticized preindustrialism, while in others, they returned to an even more distant past, such as the Middle Ages (e.g., Morris 1970). Despite such variation in the settings of those novels, the message they sought to convey was more or less the same: In the transition to industrial capitalism, people abandoned the "golden age" of social harmony and replaced it with a fragmented and competitive social order that is unable to provide for the full satisfaction of human needs.

In the hands of scientific socialists, the idea of socialism represented more than just an attractive dream (Marx and Engels 1968). Karl Marx, for example, considered it a historically possible future for capitalism, as he assumed that the internal contradictions of capitalism would create some of the preconditions for socialism. According to his theory of historical materialism, the demands made by capitalist development will create increasingly grave crises for the ruling class. He maintained that with the mechanization of production and the concentration of capital in the hands of a few, there will be greater polarization in terms of class inequalities and an increase in the degree of exploitation of the working class. As capitalism enters its advanced stage, the condition of the working class will deteriorate and the struggle over the quality of its existence will intensify. At first, the war between the "two hostile camps" of capitalist society (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat) will be waged within the boundaries of particular nation-states. However, as capitalism expands into new markets internationally, workers across the world will be forced to unite in their effort to overthrow capitalist society. Socialism, according to Marx, will emerge out of this final instance of class struggle.

It is ironic that the "father of socialism" never provided a detailed blueprint for his model of the future. It is evident from a number of passages, however, that Marx envisioned two stages in the evolution of socialism. In the lower stage (which he referred to as socialism, or the "dictatorship of the proletariat" ), he foreshadowed major improvements in the human condition. He predicted, for example, that private property would be abolished, the forces of production would be nationalized and placed in the hands of the state, rights of inheritance would be eliminated, universal suffrage would be introduced, state representatives would be elected from among the working people, and education would become accessible to all. At the same time, because Marx expected this to be a transitional stage, he believed that some elements of capitalist society would continue to prevail. Specifically, he mentioned that income inequalities would continue to exist in the lower stage because workers would still be paid according to the amount of work they contributed to the social good.

At some point, according to Marx, this transitional phase in the development of human history would evolve into the higher stage of socialism, a stage that he often referred to as communism, or the "realm of freedom." Under communism, work would no longer be an obligation but a free and creative activity, alienation would be transcended, the production process would be under the direct control of the producers, and rewards would be distributed in accordance with the principle of "to each according to his need" rather than "to each according to his ability."

Scientific socialism gained considerable popularity among French, German, and British socialists during the nineteenth century. Many agreed with Marx's assessment of bourgeois society and were attracted to his vision of the future. As the century progressed, however, and the Marxist scenario still appeared to be far away, some began to raise questions about the continued relevance of scientific socialism in the modern age. The main protagonist in this debate was Eduard Bernstein, a leading advocate of democratic socialism.

Bernstein and his followers called into question various elements of scientific socialism, but they were especially concerned about Marx's predictions concerning the development of industrial capitalism. On the basis of new empirical evidence, Bernstein (1961) noted that the standard of living at the turn of the century was improving rather than deteriorating, class inequalities were far from polarized, and the ownership of capital, rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few, was becoming diversified. In addition, he observed that general strikes were becoming less common and socialist parties were gaining considerable strength in the political organization of the state. In light of those findings, Bernstein called for a revision of the Marxist program and offered a new interpretation of socialism.

According to Bernstein, democracy was the most important feature of socialist society. He discouraged his confederates from describing socialism as a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and recommended that they acknowledge its fundamentally pluralist character. Of course, for Bernstein, the significance of democracy was not simply that it guaranteed the representation of minority rights under socialism; it was also that it assured a peaceful transition from capitalism through a series of parliamentary reforms. For many later socialists, this emphasis on reform came to represent the essence of democratic socialism; it was this idea, in fact, that earned the "revisionist" label for this school of socialist thought.

Needless to say, Bernstein was not the only theorist to revise Marx's ideas on socialism. In the early part of the twentieth century, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1971) also amended the concept by adding to it several new notions, some of which were derived from his experience with political organization in tsarist Russia. Taken together, these propositions constitute Russian socialism, also known as Bolshevik theory.

The best known contribution of this school of thought to socialist theory is the idea of the "vanguard party." According to Lenin, Marx was unduly optimistic in his belief that the proletariat could develop the necessary class consciousness to overthrow capitalism. If left to their own devices, Lenin claimed, workers would defend only their immediate (i.e., economic or trade union) interests and would not know how to translate them into revolutionary action. To assist them in this task, he suggested that a vanguard party of intellectuals must be formed, the task of which would be to develop a revolutionary theory, "go among the masses," and politically educate the proletariat. From the point of view of Bolshevik theory, therefore, the success of the socialist revolution depends not on the political maturity of the working class but on the strength of the vanguard party.

A second feature of Russian socialism that sets it apart from the Marxist scheme is grounded in its claim that the prospects of a proletarian revolution can arise not only in advanced industrial societies but also in precapitalist economic formations. Given the importance of the vanguard party in Lenin's version of socialism, this idea makes perfect sense: As long as a country is equipped with a group of willing, dedicated, and professional revolutionaries, it should be able to make the transition to socialism without the benefits of advanced technology or without having passed through the capitalist stage.

Last but not least, Lenin took from Marx the idea that socialism will come in two stages. In terms of his scheme, however, the lower stage (the "dictatorship of the proletariat" ) would not be a brief transitional period but would require a whole epoch in human history. During this time, the bourgeois state would be "smashed," the class rule of the proletariat would be institutionalized, and opponents of the socialist regime would be suppressed by the "special coercive force" of the proletarian state. The higher state of socialism ("communism" ) would be realized once the socialist state had "withered away" and democracy had become a "force of habit."

Russian socialism constitutes one of many indigenous graftings of the socialist vision. Another well-known attempt in this direction was made by Mao Zedong (1971), who accommodated the idea of socialism to the conditions of a peasant country. Those revisions led to the emergence of what is known as Chinese socialism or Maoism.

Unlike most interpretations of socialism, Mao's is famous for its glorification of the peasantry. Earlier socialists, among them Marx and Lenin, were skeptical about the revolutionary potential of agricultural laborers. For the most part, they regarded them as inherently petty bourgeois and, consequently, as unlikely allies of the proletariat. Mao argued, however, that in a peasant country such as China, traditionally conceived paths to socialism are not viable because they require the mass mobilization of something that his type of country does not have: an industrial proletariat. He insisted therefore that the socialist revolution in China was a peasant revolution and had no reservations about organizing agricultural workers into a revolutionary force.

Another trademark of Chinese socialism is its lack of confidence in the guaranteed future of socialism. According to Mao's writings, socialist victories are not everlasting; even as the dust from the revolution begins to settle, old inequalities can resurface and new ones may emerge. For this reason, the work of revolutionaries is never complete: They must be constantly on guard against opposition and be prepared to wage a permanent revolution.

@caseyxsharp THE REALITY OF SOCIALISM

During the nineteenth century, a number of communities were established to attempt the realization of the socialist vision, including Etienne Cabe's Icaria in Illinois, Charles Fourier's Brook Farm in Massachusetts, William Lane's New Australia in Paraguay, and Robert Owen's New Harmony in Indiana. In nearly all these cases, an attempt was made to isolate a small group of dedicated socialists from the rest of society and create a model environment for efficient production and egalitarian social exchange. The documented history of these communities suggests that they experienced varying amounts of success (Ross 1935). Some attracted a large number of followers (e.g., Icaria) and prospered for more than a decade (e.g., Brook Farm). Others were fraught with hardships from the beginning (e.g., New Australia), and some collapsed within a few years (e.g., New Harmony). In the end, however, all the utopian experiments failed: They suffered from lack of preparation and meager financial support, harsh living environments and a dearth of agricultural skills, heterogeneous membership, and a lack of long-term commitment to the socialist vision. The individuals who flocked to those communities were sufficiently adventuresome to embark on a project to build a new world but were not prepared for the trials of pioneering.

Experiments with socialism in the twentieth century were more successful and longer-lasting than their utopian counterparts. After the Russian Revolution, 1917–1923, the Soviet Union was the first country to call itself socialist. By the middle of the century, however, there were regimes in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Near East modeling themselves after the Soviet scheme (Hollander 1983). At the risk of oversimplifying, the following traits may be identified as the most important features of those "actually existing" (Bahro 1978) socialist societies: (1) They were characterized by a common ownership of the means of production and distribution. (2) Their economic activities were centrally planned by the state, and market forces played little or no role in the allocation of their resources. (3) One party ruled their political life and legitimated itself by reference to some version of Marxism and Leninism. (4) That party dominated their political culture with a unitary ideology and directed all their executive, legislative, and judiciary powers.

In their purest form, Soviet-type societies have secured a number of major achievements. Within decades of the revolution, they industrialized their outmoded economies (Berend and Ránki 1974), guaranteed full employment and attained price stability (Nove 1989), incorporated women into the labor force (Rueschemeyer and Szelényi 1989), developed their natural resources and advanced science and technology (Nuti 1981), strengthened their military power (Starr 1988), and improved their educational, health care, and welfare systems (Ferge 1979). Along with those changes, socialist societies made a strong commitment to reducing income, educational, and occupational differentials after World War II (Szelényi 1998). Empirically, a number of studies have shown that those formally egalitarian policies have had impressive results: In nearly all these countries, inequalities in income have decreased (Matthews 1972; Walder 1989), educational opportunities have expanded (Lane 1976), and distinctions of prestige between manual and nonmanual occupations have narrowed (Parkin 1971; Giddens 1973). Policies also were implemented by socialist states to reduce the intergenerational transmission of social inequalities: Inheritance of wealth was eliminated, and quotas were imposed on educational and occupational recruitment to favor children from the working class and from peasant families (Simkus and Andorka 1982; Szelényi and Aschaffenburg 1993). Perhaps in part as a result of these changes, socialist societies carved out for themselves a position of considerable importance in the world system in the twentieth century. In the 1960s, for example, the Soviet Union competed directly with the United States in space exploration, the race for military power, and the development of science, technology, athletics, and the arts.

The economic and social miracles achieved by these countries in the years after World War II could not be sustained, however. By the early 1970s, centrally managed economies began to exhibit multiple signs of strain. Bureaucratic blunders on the part of state officials resulted in poor investment decisions (Nove 1983b), frequent bottlenecks created breakdowns in production (Bauer 1978), chronic shortages of consumer items provoked anger and dissatisfaction among the citizens (Kornai 1986), and curious managerial techniques (in the form of bribing, hoarding, and informal networking) had to be developed to mitigate the ineffective relationship between economic units and the state (Stark 1986).

Problems with central management, of course, were not restricted to the economic sphere. With a growing number of empirical studies during the 1970s (see Hollander 1983), the social and political consequences of Soviet-type planning became evident, although most scholars continued to be impressed by the initially positive outcome of egalitarian state policies in socialist societies. At the same time, they soon began to realize that the quotas introduced after World War II were often applied inconsistently and in almost all circumstances disturbingly short-lived (Szelényi 1998). It is clear from these studies that the initial attempts to "build socialism" soon were overturned by a "second stage" in socialist development (Kelley and Klein 1986) that was marked by the crystallization of inequalities and the emergence of new privileges (Ossowski 1963; Nove 1983a). By the 1970s, many of those societies began to demonstrate substantial inequalities in their prestige hierarchies (Inkeles 1966), patterns of social mobility (Connor 1979), opportunities for educational attainment (Simkus and Andorka 1982), and distribution of monetary and nonmonetary rewards (Szelényi 1976; Walder 1986).

The political inequalities that characterized Soviet-type societies during their heyday are well documented in the literature. Many studies have shown, for example, that Communist Party functionaries and the so-called nomenklatura elite enjoyed definite social, political, and economic advantages: They attended party schools, shopped at special stores, vacationed at the most desirable holiday resorts, and had better access to decisionmaking posts (Szelényi 1987). In addition to those privileges, they were more likely to receive state-subsidized housing, purchase a car or vacation home, eat meat several times a week, and participate in cultural activities. Such differences in the allocation of goods and resources have led many to conclude that the political sphere was central to the stratification system of socialist societies (Goldthorpe 1966; Bauman 1974). Indeed, some scholars have suggested that the political elite may well have constituted a New (dominant) Class in socialist regimes (Djilas 1957; Konrád and Szelényi 1979).

In light of these problems as well as the apparent failure of the egalitarian experiment, socialist states made a number of attempts to reform their ailing economies. Yugoslavia began this trend by introducing a new economic program that combined free market principles with workers' self-management; in 1949, Yugoslav leaders abandoned central planning, tied wages to the financial success of firms, and liberalized foreign trade (Sirc 1979). Hungary followed suit in 1968 by introducing its own version of market socialism (Hare et al. 1981), and China joined the trend in the late 1970s with similar economic reforms (Nee 1989).

Partial reprivatization, however, was not the only way for centrally managed economies to embark on the road to recovery. East Germany, for example, refused to combine planning with market reforms and chose to strengthen the operation of its central management (Szelényi 1989). In an effort to "scienticize" economic planning, East German leaders purchased state-of-the-art computers and sophisticated econometric programs to model the behavior of thousands of firms and anticipate the needs of millions of consumers. Cuba also refrained from market reforms in the late 1960s (Leogrande 1981). Hoping to prevent the restoration of capitalism in his country, Fidel Castro argued against the implementation of profit incentives to motivate workers. Instead, he introduce a rigorous political education program, the main purpose of which was to convince workers that they needed to expend maximum effort at work not for personal financial benefit but out of a moral commitment to socialism.

Despite those efforts to revitalize their economies, socialist societies were unable to recover from their experiences with overcentralization. Paradoxically, perhaps, reform plans were applied inconsistently, market rules were not followed rigorously, and the state continued its paternalistic practice of bailing out unsuccessful firms. Meanwhile, political opposition to those regimes continued to grow: Peasants asked for market reforms (Lewis 1979), workers demanded a say in management (Pravda 1979; Kennedy 1991), and intellectuals called for expanded political democracy and protection of their civil rights (Harman 1983). In the spring of 1989, many of those conflicts came to a head as a "gentle revolution" began to unfold in those countries. With a few exceptions, Soviet-type societies formally accepted the principles of multiparty democracy and announced their intention to move in the direction of a market economy.

@caseyxsharp THE LEGACIES OF SOCIALISM

If attempts to establish the socialist vision during the twentieth century were fraught with social and economic problems, efforts to undo the structure of existing socialist societies have proved equally challenging. Perhaps the biggest task facing postcommunist societies is to conquer the economic legacies of socialism and make the transition to capitalism without the assistance of a capitalist class (Eyal et al. 1998). In this sense, the postcommunist revolution in Central Europe resembles the Russian Revolution. In 1917, a group of intellectuals constituted themselves as a political class in a peasant country to lead a "proletarian revolution" without a proletariat but with the express purpose of creating a proletariat. In 1989, a fraction of the intelligentsia seized power in Central Europe and sought to lead a "bourgeois revolution" without a bourgeoisie but with the objective of creating a bourgeoisie (Szelényi et al. 1995).

Needless to say, this objective was not an easy one. In all formerly socialist countries, the economic infrastructure was poorly developed and arguably deteriorating, the industrial firms of classical socialism were too large to be privatized easily, and the transition to a postindustrial service economy had not progressed very far (Böröcz and Róna-Tas 1995; Volgyes 1995). The distinctive feature of the transition is that despite such seeming homogeneity in the conditions of origin, there was great heterogeneity in the pathways to capitalism. For example, the East German model is one of centrally managed privatization in the context, of course, of West German "colonization." By contrast, the Czech reformers acquiesced entirely to the "invisible hand" of capitalism, by which all workers were granted vouchers that could be redeemed for shares in any company. Finally, in Hungary, the transformation is best described as a form of "political capitalism" (Hankiss 1990; Staniszkis 1991), by which former communist bureaucrats used their political position to accumulate wealth and buy state companies. Where these privatization strategies will lead remains unclear, but one thing is certain: There is no single plan for designing capitalism, just as there was no simple blueprint for establishing socialism (Stark 1992).

Although most discussions of the transition to postcommunism have focused on the economic legacies of socialism, the political legacies are no less problematic as some form of successful marketization is sought. There are two political legacies of particular interest here. First, after forty years of communist rule and rampant political deception, the reigning view among East European workers involved considerable cynicism toward political elites, and such deep-seated cynicism could not be overcome immediately even when new leaders were vying for power (Kovrig 1995). This cynicism undermined popular support for long-term sacrifices of the sort that all marketization strategies would necessarily entail. Second, the concept of marketization was not completely endorsed by the general population, as there was a long heritage of support for state paternalism in which basic needs, such as health care, education, and a living wage, were guaranteed (Szelényi et al. 1996). There was also widespread concern that marketization would increase inequality to levels that were unacceptably high. It has to borne in mind, then, that the transition to a market economy was undertaken simultaneously with a transition to political democracy. Democratic regimes, for all their possible virtues, are not necessarily well suited for revolutionary economic transformations and the popular sacrifice that such transformations typically imply (O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986).

Finally, the emergence of postcommunism is further complicated by the social legacies of communism. Most notably, the transition to the high-unemployment economy of postcommunism created special problems of legitimacy for a new market society, since Central Europeans had come to expect full employment from the state (Moskoff 1994). Similarly, one of the great successes of communism was its low levels of income inequality (relative to the capitalist alternative), and consequently, the sudden and visible increases in inequality in the postcommunist world were not readily accepted. It was all the more problematic that the prime beneficiaries of this growing wealth were in some instances the former communist elites themselves (Róna-Tas 1994; Fodor et al. 1995; Szelényi and Szelényi 1995). For all its economic failings and political repression, actually existing socialism was at least partially consistent with the original vision of social egalitarianism, and one cannot expect such success to be relinquished without a struggle.

@caseyxsharp THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM

The question remains: Can the idea of socialism survive the reality of the past eighty years? For some, the answer to this question is in the negative, as the failings of socialism are so dramatic that the concept of socialism is inextricably associated with its particular realization, thus rendering it effectively dead for all of history ( Jowitt 1992). This is, then, a peculiar form of path dependency in which the possibly premature turn to socialism in the early twentieth century proved in the end to be its historical downfall. As a fallback position, one might argue that while socialism is perhaps dead in all the countries that experienced its "grief and shame" (Djilas 1998), it might nonetheless surface anew in countries that never underwent this premature experiment. Is there, in other words, a viable base for socialism in the Western world? The standard postmaterialist position on this score is that the base for socialism was at its strongest in the early twentieth century but has since dissipated with the decline in the size of the working class, the weakening of trade unions, and the associated rise of interest politics focusing on issues such as the environment, nuclear war, and gender politics (Inglehart 1983; Piven 1992). The implication is that socialism is dead not because of its tarnished history but because there is no longer a substantial base of working-class supporters.

This line of reasoning, for all its appeal, is not easily reconciled with the continuing support for social democratic policies and communist political leaders in formerly socialist countries. In many formerly communist societies, the initially extreme anticommunist sentiment weakened quickly, and the Communist Party was returned to power in the "second round" elections (Szelényi et al. 1996). Moreover, public opinion polls in those countries consistently reveal that the general population remains supportive of fundamentally social democratic policies even while disavowing support for highly repressive forms of communism of the sort that characterized Soviet-type societies. Under this formulation, a more mature civil society is in formation that probably will pursue a "Swedish form" of social democracy that maintains some elements of classical socialism (i.e., economic egalitarianism) yet abandons others (i.e., political inegalitarianism and repression).

[encyclopedia.com]

@caseyxsharp " So yeah I see that I believe that everyone should have the right to anything the same as everyone else, but I know, because I know, that just isn't the way it works. It doesn't make democracy any better, it just means there's a lot about ourselves that needs to be worked on before we start depending on any sort of government to be telling us what we should be doing. "

If fairness is the goal and not "equality", than we must have a system that is based on justice according to merit of skill, virtues character etc. This has been proven to work in the past and had lead to least bloodshed. Far from perfect, because human nature is such as it is, but morality is no just utopian concept, it exists so we reduce bloodshed and increase coorporation. This, than leads to question, how do we do that?

In the past traditional religions have proven closest to achieving concept of stable shared moral code, by proclaiming it comes from divine source. I'm an atheist myself, but I have no yet been able to find a way that has proven to work that allows people to share moral code on a deep personal level, and strive for fairness, unless there is a central authority from which morality is passed down on while the morality itself is practiced by individual moral agents. In other words, we must accept personal responsibility and that moral code of responsibility in a cooaporatve society must come from perceived divine source.

Modern religions such as liberalism insist everyone gets to choose their own morality because we must not impose it. This creates an obvious problem...

“I would rather try to organize politics and political discourse in a way that encouraged engagement on moral and religious questions. …If we attempt to banish moral and religious discourse from politics and debates about law and rights, the danger is we’ll have a kind a vacant public square or a naked public square.

And the yearning for larger meanings in politics will find undesirable expression. Fundamentalists will rush in where liberals fear to tread. They will try to clothe the naked public square with the narrowest and most intolerant moralism.”

• Michael Joseph Sandel is an American political philosopher.

“Liberalism has failed, not because it fell short, but because it was true to itself. It has failed because it has succeeded. As liberalism has become more fully itself, as its inner logic has become more evident and its self contradictions manifest, it has generated pathologies that are at once deformations of its claims, yet realizations of liberal ideology.

A political philosophy that was launched to foster greater equity, defend a pluralist tapestry of different cultures and beliefs, protect human dignity, and of course expand liberty in practice generates titanic inequality, enforces uniformity and homogeneity, fosters material and spiritual degradation, and undermines freedom.”

― Patrick Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (2018)

Reminds me of what someone said. Liberalism delivered what it promised, but it was the opposite of what most expected.

And we have seen exactly that in the west today.

Inevitably this leads to communist style regimes. Where morality is not fixed , it is whatever the replacement for God says it is, even when it contradicts itself. And that replacement for God is the communist party, off course. It claims that this moral authority comes from "scientism".

“Marxism is supposed to be a social science designed to see through hypocrisies and denial, but Marxism ended up as a kind of earplug, guaranteed to deafen its disciples.” ― Paul Berman

“The influence that Marxism has achieved, far from being the result or proof of its scientific character, is almost entirely due to its prophetic, fantastic, and irrational elements. Marxism is a doctrine of blind confidence that a paradise of universal satisfaction is awaiting us just around the corner. Almost all the prophecies of Marx and his followers have already proved to be false, but this does not disturb the spiritual certainty of the faithful, any more than it did in the case of chiliastic sects.… In this sense Marxism performs the function of a religion, and its efficacy is of a religious character. But it is a caricature and a bogus form of religion, since it presents its temporal eschatology as a scientific system, which religious mythologies do not purport to be.” ― Leszek Kołakowski

“Marxism was a simple substitute for Christianity. Replace God with Marx, Satan with the bourgeoisie, Heaven with a classless society, the Church with the Party,” ― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“It is quite true that Marx said that religion is the opium of the people. But of course we now know that Marxism is the crack cocaine of the people.” ― Douglas Wilson

“In Christianity this evolution lasted centuries; in Bolshevism — only decades. If Lenin was the St. Paul of Marxism, who set out to transplant the movement from its original environment into new lands, Stalin was already its Constantine the Great. He was, to be sure, not the first Emperor to embrace Marxism, but the first Marxist revolutionary to become the autocratic ruler of a vast empire.” ― Isaac Deutscher, Russia After Stalin

“Interestingly, Marxism, Communism and its derivative, Socialism, when seen years later in practice, are nothing but state-capitalism and rule by a privileged minority, exercising despotic and total control over a majority which is left with virtually no property or legal rights.” ― Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, The Synagogue Of Satan - Updated, Expanded, And Uncensored

“Therein lies the true essence of Marxism. ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’ only ever works with a gun in your hand." ― Philip Kerr, Prussian Blue

“Marxism is not necessarily what Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital, also called Capital. A Critique of Political Economy, but whatever it is that all the warring sects believe, who claim to be the faithful. From the gospels you cannot deduce the history of Christianity, nor from the Constitution the political history of America. It is Das Kapital as conceived, the gospels as preached and the preachment as understood, the Constitution as interpreted and administered, to which you have to go.” ― Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion

“Hence a communist society would have a new ethical basis. It has been claimed – by Lenin among others – that Marxism is a scientific system, free from any ethical judgements or postulates. These are the essential points of ‘the first Marxism’. It is manifestly not a scientific enterprise in the sense in which we understand science today. Its theories are not derived from detailed factual studies, or subjected to controlled tests or observations.” ― Anonymous

"That Marxism is not a science is entirely clear to intelligent people in the Soviet Union. One would even feel awkward to refer to it as a science. Leaving aside the exact sciences, such as physics, mathematics, and the natural sciences, even the social sciences can predict an event—when, in what way and how an event might occur. Communism has never made any such forecasts. It has never said where, when, and precisely what is going to happen. Nothing but declamations. Rhetoric to the effect that the world proletariat will overthrow the world bourgeoisie and the most happy and radiant society will then arise.” ― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“Kirk defined the ideologue as one who “thinks of politics as a revolutionary instrument for transforming society and even transforming human nature.” Unleashed during the most radical phase of the French Revolution, the spirit of ideology has metastasized over the past two centuries, wreaking horrors. Jacobinism, Anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, Fascism, Stalinism, Nazism, Maoism—all shared the fatal attraction to “political messianism”; all were “inverted religions.” Each of these ideologies preached a dogmatic approach to politics, economics, and culture. Each in its own way endeavored “to substitute secular goals and doctrines for religious goals and doctrines.” Thus did the ideologue promise “salvation in this world, hotly declaring that there exists no other realm of being.” ― Russell Kirk, The American Cause

A striking feature of Marx’s writing is his hostility to Christianity and religion. For example, in the preface to his ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’ (1843) Marx wrote:

"‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world … It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions’."

Although Marxism has failed as a political and economic system, ironically it flourishes as a secular religion. Perhaps Marxism ought to be regarded as the crack cocaine of the Left.

“The appeal by twentieth-century pluralists to scientific method was also ideologically—and even messianically—driven. It ignored scientific data that interfered with environmentalist assumptions and misrepresented socialist faith as “scientific planning.” ― Paul Edward Gottfried

P.S.

“It was Dostoevsky, once again, who drew from the French Revolution and its seeming hatred of the Church the lesson that "revolution must necessarily begin with atheism." That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008)

“Critical Theory’s (Frankfurt School) coming from influence on the New Left in the late 1960s and 1970s ensured that American society would be infected by this Marxist malignancy. While it addressed many aspects of social structure, Critical Theory, in the final analysis, proposed activities that would transform society into one far more amenable to Marxism. Critical Theory’s “struggle for social change” was an important step in undermining the values, structures, and practices of America’s free market and democratic principles.”

Antonio Francesco Gramsci (1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher and communist politician. He wrote on political theory, sociology and linguistics. He attempted to break from the economic determinism of traditional Marxist thought and so is considered a key neo-Marxist. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime.

“Gramsci set out to provide a revolutionary blueprint that would pervert the Roman Catholic Church’s values of goodness and forgiveness into a mind control tool in the hands of the new Marxists. He knew that the working classes were defined by their Christian faith and their Christian culture. Christianity, Gramsci recognized, blocked the way toward uprisings by the workers against the ruling class. No matter how strong might be their oppression, the working classes defined themselves in terms of their Christian faith. Christian culture liberated the working classes against even the most repressive secular abuses. While Gramsci shared the world views of Marx and Lenin concerning a future “workers paradise,” he knew that it had to come about in a wholly different way than through violent revolution. A high priority item for contemporary radical Leftists, therefore, is to destroy religion, a competitor for winning the “hearts and minds” necessary for Marxist revolution. For the Left, worship of God must be replaced by a worship of man, or “secular humanism.”

In the case of new radical left it is the worship of women and secular humanism was replaced by the identity politics.

“What was essential, insisted Gramsci, was to Marxize the INNER man. To secularize him to the point of godlessness. Only when that was done could you successfully dangle the utopia of the ‘Workers’ Paradise’ before his eyes, to be accepted in a peaceful and humanly agreeable manner, without revolution, violence or bloodshed.”

― Robert Chandler, Shadow World: Resurgent Russia, the Global New Left, and Radical Islam

“[T]he important thing is that you should not argue with them. Communism has become an intensely dogmatic and almost mystical religion, and whatever you say, they have ways of twisting into shapes which put you in some lower category of mankind.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

Regarding atheism, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared "Men have forgotten God":

"Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."

There is nothing more dangerous than atheist playing god. I am an atheists, but I do not consider myself a God, while communists do.

“Marxism was a simple substitute for Christianity. Replace God with Marx, Satan with the bourgeoisie, Heaven with a classless society, the Church with the Party,” ― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

"A belief in heaven is an assertion of the immortality of the soul, and the Moral Order of the universe. Without this faith, we'll never see heaven on earth. We're seeing hell instead." - Mike Stone, Restoring Belief in Heaven

@Krunoslav Please tell me exactly what it is I'm supposed to think you are saying first before I read all that. I don't know just from looking at that if you are preaching to a quire that doesn't exist, or if you're still trying to tell me something I should know in a real conversation. It feels like you're going to do just that. I already said that I don't think communism would be perfect, and socialism to me isn't what I believe in, only the communism part. If that's what you're really trying to say, then I'm going to go ahead and say this to you if you are, you couldn't argue that if we all lived in a perfect world, that communism wouldn't perfect to have in place. It's not right now because, we're not living just in a perfect world and it can never be one, here we are trying to talk about what would make the world a better place right now democracy and capitalism or communism right now, but like one of those is just an idea that doesn't exist that influences how people would be and the other is an actual idea that does affect real people living in the real world, and so just because it looks like one is really doing better than the other doesn't actually make that true if both of them still are doomed to fail, because neither believers of each can actually even understand what would be so great about the other. Maybe there is something to what you've said about people that are communists, I don't know. I'm not like what you'd call normal or other human beings, really none of this concerns me in the slightest, but yeah you could be right about communists, about them being communists not about them being Gods, they aren't, except the reason none of this would concern me is because I have this psychic ability that controls everything that happens in the world right now, so you could be right, communists that are communists could be just the worst, because they would be playing God, but those communists wouldn't be however. I'm just saying, they wouldn't be the worst just because they happened to be communists. But then again, I don't claim that I am the one called God, I would just have the power to have the ability to be if I wanted to be, so, I'm a thing that believes in communism, not because I am one, and I'm not the one claiming to be God right now too either. So yeah, for as far as I would know, you could be right specifically talking about people that are communists maybe. I just don't see the difference between them and everyone else though, any other human beings that walk the earth for that matter. To me you happen to be talking about communism and God in the same sentence, but you can call it whatever you want, and if you do, people do what humans usually do, which is make something up to be either one of those things no matter if they were made up as a result of them or called to be something else entirely, regardless those who do that are still going to call those things what they think they're to be because they just happen to think they're right. If there was still a God to be exists, then it neither words like what you call God or communism would matter to him, because a God would simply create a world that serves his own ambitions, doesn't matter what theologians or ideologists would call that, those are just ideas, the same ideas that can be changed by making himself a real world where even if those things did exist, they still wouldn't be right in the world he's created. Perhaps, God is, a communist... Maybe he is God playing God, maybe he's been a communist, he just doesn't practice exactly what he believes in. We will never know, because matters of democracy or communism wouldn't apply to such a being as God, and only one of those things actually affect real people without making extraordinary claims about how realistic their goals are.

@caseyxsharp I'm simply saying that communism is not fair, even in fiction, much less reality, and that your understanding of socialism and communism is probably wrong. Hence I provided lot of text to back that up and explained the complex nature of these terms. I've also commented on your remarks about democracy and fairness. Its a lot of text, sure. No need to read it, if you choose not. But I if you want to know where your assumptions, are not backed up by evidence, and strong arguments you can read what I posted. Its entirely your choice.

P.S.

It would be very helpful if you used paragraphs so your text can be more manageable to read. I try to do that and where the text is too long, I try to break it down into replies.

@caseyxsharp "Maybe there is something to what you've said about people that are communists, I don't know. I'm not like what you'd call normal or other human beings, really none of this concerns me in the slightest, but yeah you could be right about communists, about them being communists not about them being Gods, they aren't, except the reason none of this would concern me is because I have this psychic ability that controls everything that happens in the world right now, so you could be right, communists that are communists could be just the worst, because they would be playing God, but those communists wouldn't be however. "

"except the reason none of this would concern me is because I have this psychic ability that controls everything that happens in the world right now"

We are not operating on common ground. And I don't see how we could.

@Krunoslav You're right. I understand that you are commonly a human that is a real person capable of struggling to survive. What matters to you would be different to me. It wouldn't matter to me if even I was living in a communist state or a democratic capitalistic one, because I just would have the power to make sure I get everything I need for myself regardless. I can understand just how unfair that would be to those that it would be such an unfair thing to, but, in relation to how that would relate to equality, it still would be, to me. If it was up to me right now, I'd be the one to support communism in favor of a global economy, but I wouldn't be a God even I was playing one to do away with such a thing as democracy or capitalism just to prove a point, then there'd be nothing I to prove how much better it would be if I was God trying to prove how much better communism was to any other way of living, so no I don't think being communist is the worse thing you could be, because if it was, and this was a perfect world, then it wouldn't be, because then I would be the worse thing you could be then. I'm not a communist, I just happen to believe it would be the right thing to believe in. I would rather keep what I believe in, because if you lose what you believe in, you are no one at all, I am a real thing that can make a choice like that, just not the same as everyone else that it would have any influence over what I do.

@Krunoslav Furthermore, it is you're lucky then, very lucky then, that I am such a being that happens not care and only believes in whosoever happens to be standing in the end in terms of two sides fighting each other, we don't live in a perfect world, and if we did and that would change thing for the better, regardless who was ever fighting with who, all I'd have to do is snap my fingers and make that change if it could. I don't operate, like that. It doesn't concern me who believes would be losing or who is winning, if it wasn't exactually what I had planned for to be, then it wouldn't be, those two sides were never have to been fighting to make things better in the first place. There is no, magic wave of my fingers to just solve the world's problems, that's why whichever side, sides, end up winning in the end of something, now they're the ones to become the new norm, you have that choice to be what you want. There is nothing I can do or make happen to change that if I wanted to, I just make happen what is already going to happen anyway.

@Krunoslav I can explain, the dynamic that would put us both on equal ground though. See I would be able to do something if it was I was a real normal person really like everyone else, and that's what I would do if it was me, but I'm not, and you are, or may not be able to actually do anything, but you're still someone who would have the ability to too.

@Krunoslav I walk into a bar and get a drink, the person sitting next to me is talking to his buddy next to him, he's talking about what has happened, they can't believe it happened that way, the other side of the argument was just so wrong. And then I go back to the sitting on a king's throne, just snapping my fingers one after another again and again, and I'm just like, alright bring in the next one. That's what it's been like in my head.

@caseyxsharp "I can explain, the dynamic that would put us both on equal ground though. "

Writing in paragraphs would be a good start. Wink, Wink.

Are you sure?

varna, Sanskrit varṇa, any one of the four traditional social classes of India. Although the literal meaning of the word varna (Sanskrit: “colour&rdquo once invited speculation that class distinctions were originally based on differences in degree of skin pigmentation between an alleged group of lighter-skinned invaders called “Aryans” and the darker indigenous people of ancient India, this theory has been discredited since the mid-20th century. The notion of “colour” was most likely a device of classification. Colours were frequently used as classifiers; e.g., the Vedic scripture known as the Yajurveda is divided into two groups of texts, White and Black.

The varnas have been known since a hymn in the Rigveda (the oldest surviving Indian text) that portrays the Brahman (priest), the Kshatriya (noble), the Vaishya (commoner), and the Shudra (servant) issued forth at creation from the mouth, arms, thighs, and feet of the primeval person (purusha). Males of the first three varnas are “twice-born” (dvija): after undergoing the ceremony of spiritual rebirth (upanayana), they are initiated into manhood and are free to study the Vedas, the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. The Shudra live in service to the other three. The Vaishya, in turn, as common people, grazers, and cultivators, contrast with the governing classes—i.e., the secular Kshatriya, or barons, and the sacerdotal Brahmans. Brahmans and Kshatriya themselves contrast in that the former are the priests, while the latter have the actual dominion. In the older description, far greater emphasis is placed on the functions of the classes than on hereditary membership, in contradistinction to caste, which emphasizes heredity over function.

The system of the four classes (caturvarnya) is fundamental to the views the traditional lawgivers held of society. They specified a different set of obligations for each: the task of the Brahman is to study and advise, the baron to protect, the Vaishya to cultivate, and the serf to serve. History shows, however, that the four-class system was more a social model than a reality. The multitudinousness of castes (or jati) is explained as the result of hypergamous and hypogamous alliances between the four classes and their descendants. The inclusion of the Shudra into the four-varna system bestowed on them a measure of dignity. A move to accommodate still others not so distinguished led to the rather unofficial acceptance of a fifth class, the pancama (Sanskrit: “fifth&rdquo, which include the “untouchable” classes and others, such as tribal groups, who are outside the system and, consequently, avarna (“classless&rdquo.

In modern times, traditional Hindus, awakened to the inequities of the caste system yet believing the four-varna system to be fundamental to the good society, have often advocated a return to this clear-cut varna system by reforming castes. Individual castes, in turn, have sought to raise their social rank by identifying with a particular varna and demanding its privileges of rank and honour.

[britannica.com]

.................................................

Varna literally means type, order, colour or class and was a framework for grouping people into classes, first used in Vedic Indian society. It is referred to frequently in the ancient Indian texts. The four classes were the Brahmins (priestly people), the Kshatriyas (rulers, administrators and warriors; also called Rajanyas), the Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers), and Shudras (labouring classes). The varna categorisation implicitly had a fifth element, being those people deemed to be entirely outside its scope, such as tribal people and the untouchables.

Caste

The term caste is not originally an Indian word, though it is now widely used, both in English and in Indian languages. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is derived from the Portuguese casta, meaning "race, lineage, breed" and, originally, "'pure or unmixed (stock or breed)". There is no exact translation in Indian languages, but varna and jati are the two most approximate terms.

Ghurye's 1932 description

The sociologist G. S. Ghurye wrote in 1932 that, despite much study by many people,

we do not possess a real general definition of caste. It appears to me that any attempt at definition is bound to fail because of the complexity of the phenomenon. On the other hand, much literature on the subject is marred by lack of precision about the use of the term.

Ghurye offered what he thought was a definition that could be applied across India, although he acknowledged that there were regional variations on the general theme. His model definition for caste included the following six characteristics:

Segmentation of society into groups whose membership was determined by birth.

A hierarchical system wherein generally the Brahmins were at the head of the hierarchy, but this hierarchy was disputed in some cases. In various linguistic areas, hundreds of castes had a gradation generally acknowledged by everyone.

Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse, with minute rules on the kind of food and drink that upper castes could accept from lower castes. There was a great diversity in these rules, and lower castes generally accepted food from upper castes.

Segregation, where individual castes lived together, the dominant caste living in the center and other castes living on the periphery. There were restrictions on the use of water wells or streets by one caste on another: an upper-caste Brahmin might not be permitted to use the street of a lower-caste group, while a caste considered impure might not be permitted to draw water from a well used by members of other castes.

Occupation, generally inherited. Lack of unrestricted choice of profession, caste members restricted their own members from taking up certain professions they considered degrading. This characteristic of caste was missing from large parts of India, stated Ghurye, and in these regions all four castes (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras) did agriculture labour or became warriors in large numbers.

Endogamy, restrictions on marrying a person outside caste, but in some situations hypergamy allowed. Far less rigidity on inter-marriage between different sub-castes than between members of different castes in some regions, while in some endogamy within a sub-caste was the principal feature of caste-society.

The above Ghurye's model of caste thereafter attracted scholarly criticism for relying on the census reports produced by the colonial government,[32][45] the "superior, inferior" racist theories of H. H. Risley and for fitting his definition to then prevalent orientalist perspectives on caste.

Ghurye added, in 1932, that the colonial construction of caste led to the livening up, divisions and lobbying to the British officials for favourable caste classification in India for economic opportunities, and this had added new complexities to the concept of caste. Graham Chapman and others have reiterated the complexity, and they note that there are differences between theoretical constructs and the practical reality.

Flexibility

Sociologist Anne Waldrop observes that while outsiders view the term caste as a static phenomenon of stereotypical tradition-bound India, empirical facts suggest caste has been a radically changing feature. The term means different things to different Indians. In the context of politically active modern India, where job and school quotas are reserved for affirmative action based on castes, the term has become a sensitive and controversial subject.

Sociologists such as M. N. Srinivas and Damle have debated the question of rigidity in caste and believe that there is considerable flexibility and mobility in the caste hierarchies

[en.wikipedia.org]

....................................

The concept of Varna, a social grouping system which divided people into different groups based on their occupations and abilities, such as priests, warriors, merchants, and tradesmen, was created during this time.

Varṇa (Sanskrit: वर्ण, romanized: varṇa), a Sanskrit word with several meanings including type, order, colour, or class, was used to refer to social classes in Hindu texts like the Manusmriti. These and other Hindu texts classified the society in principle into four varnas:

• Brahmins: priests, scholars and teachers.
• Kshatriyas: rulers, warriors and administrators.
• Vaishyas: agriculturalists and merchants.
• Shudras: laborers and service providers.

Communities which belong to one of the four varnas or classes are called savarna. Those who do not belong to any varna were called avarna. This quadruple division is a form of social classification, quite different from regional Jātis which were later mapped, by the British, to the European term "caste".

The varna system is discussed in Hindu texts, and understood as idealised human callings. The concept is generally traced to the Purusha Sukta verse of the Rig Veda. The commentary on the Varna system in the Manusmriti is oft-cited. Counter to these textual classifications, many Hindu texts and doctrines question and disagree with the Varna system of social classification.

Towards the end of this period, around 600 BCE, after the pastoral and nomadic Indo-Aryans spread from the Punjab into the Gangetic plain, large swaths of which they deforested to pave way for agriculture, a second urbanization took place. The small Indo-Aryan chieftaincies, or janapadas, were consolidated into larger states, or mahajanapadas. The urbanization was accompanied by the rise of new ascetic movements in Greater Magadha, including Jainism and Buddhism. These movements gave rise to new religious concepts,which opposed the growing influence of Brahmanism and the primacy of rituals, presided by the Brahmin priests, that had come to be associated with Vedic religion.

The mystery of the Indus cities is so tantalising and the differences with later Indian civilisation apparently so great, that it's easy to think that there was a major break in continuity of Indian civilisation. But history's not like that, especially Indian history, and it's only a very short time after the end of the last Indus cities, let's say around 1500 BC, that we get the first definite evidence of an Indian language and an Indian literature.

And language and literature are the next landmarks in the story. Texts we can not just hear, but read. The language is Sanskrit, the ancestor of all the modern dialects spoken in the north of the subcontinent across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It's the root of the languages spoken today by nearly a billion people. But where did Sanskrit come from? Is it the language of the Indus civilisation? Did it grow up here in the Ganges Plain? Or did it come from outside India?

Caste-based differences have also been practised in other regions and religions in the Indian subcontinent, like Nepalese Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism. It has been challenged by many reformist Hindu movements,[14] Sikhism, Christianity, by present-day Indian Buddhism. With Indian influences, the caste system is also practiced in Bali.

India after achieving independence in 1947 enacted many affirmative action policies for the upliftment of historically marginalized groups. These policies included reserving a quota of places for these groups in higher education and government employment.

@Krunoslav I'm sure. They will even give up their own children if they are darker. I have friends in the Indian community and they openly admit it.

@Letemdangle Who is they?

There are 1,3 billion people in India, a very diverse community of people, religions, customs, that has diverse history lasting thousands of years. You are going to have to be a bit more specific than that and put it in proper context with proper motivation explained, otherwise if there is any racism, it comes from you. Because I'm pretty sure your accusation requires a hell of a lot more context and explanation before its taken seriously. Otherwise and prejudiced is only in your camp.

I have given you historic context and motivations and social norms and rules as well as how they changed over time. You have given no such assurances. Only broad accusations.

Also, what is "Indian community" exactly? What does that mean ? Who, where, when, why?

@Krunoslav We have an extensive Indian community here. It is what they tell me, not what I believed. In fact I was quite surprised and they are not embarrassed about it. I suppose they have their reasons.
If you need more context you need to approach them about it.

@Letemdangle Are you talking about so called Indian community in Canada? Originally I was under impression you are referring to Indian people living in India.

I can't say about Indians who living in Canada or Canadians of Indian ancestry living in Canada. Its a local culture that from what I can say based on your comments does not represent India as a whole.

@Krunoslav The people I know did live in India and they did pass on a child to a lower caste based on the baby's darker colour. The families involved now live in Canada. It was their experience they shared with me and they told me it was quite common in the Bombay region. I do not know how extensive it is beyond that. The caste systems in India are well documented.

@Letemdangle I don't think it represents India, and as I have pointed out it was not a matter of color. Whatever these people have done, or claim they have done, without more information I can't comment on specifics. But that is how it sounds, specific.

@Krunoslav Specific to me and those I know who are from there. Other than that, I don't know. But I know it exists.

@Letemdangle Like I said. Too little information given for such serious assertions.

@Krunoslav You do know about the caste system based on darkness of skin there, do you not? That's quite well known.

@Letemdangle Well, actually it is not. And if you spend 2 min reading what I originally posted you would have known that. Hence the reason I posted it, because clearly you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to Indian history, culture, cast system or religion. But you are quick to make allegations with no meaningful info provided. Next time, I suggest you educated yourself.

Otherwise I could accuse all of Canadians of being Nazis. You guys have have deputy prime minister NAZI Chrystia Freeland. Does she represents all Canadians? Or should I educate myself about Canada before I accuse Canadians of being NAZIs? What do you think?

Minister Freeland's Grandfather,
Michael Chomiak,
the Nazi's Top
Ukrainian Propagandist:

"It takes a village to raise a Nazi" (old African proverb, slightly modified)

[coat.ncf.ca]

1- Introduction
2 - The Liberal Government's Warm Embrace of Ukraine's Nazi Collaborators
3 - Historical Amnesia and the Blinding Effects of Propaganda
4 - The Nazis as Victims? Sure, just Blame the Russians!
5 - Canada needs Truth and Reconciliation, not Denials and Obfuscation
6 - Historical Denial among Canada's ultranationalist Ukrainians
7 - Michael Chomiak, The Ukrainian Central Committee and its Nazi Newspapers
8 - Aryanisation and the "Mighty Wurlitzer"
9 - The Ukrainian Canadian Congress and its Fascist Roots
10 - Getting them Early: Building the ultraNationalist Cause among Children and Youth
11 - The Freeland-Chomiak Parallels in Advocacy Journalism
12 - Was Freeland an "Accidental Journalist," or Groomed for the Job?
13 - In 1989, Freeland was Declared an "Enemy of the Soviet State"
14 - A Chomiak-Freeland Fixation on Jewish Oligarchs running the Kremlin
15 - Freeland's Kremlin-Oligarch Theory goes Global with Jewish Plutarchetype
16 - Institutionalised Confidence Scams: An Open Conspiracy of Oligarchs, Politicians and Journalists
17 - Escaping the War Racket starts with Seeing the Elephant
18 - Just Following Orders? Which Orders?
19 - Is there a Bear in the Room? Kill it!
20 - The Collective Care and Feeding of Russophobia
21 - The Need for Truth and Reconciliation

Yeah. There is no word in English language to describe the level of pathetic.

Let's check in on modern art. - It ain't pretty.

@Krunoslav When a people's morale collapses, you can see it in the art they create.

@sqeptiq Indeed. Art does not lie. Even history of countries, written by victors, cannot hide the truth, if one reads it by looking at art of the period and its evolution.