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Originally Posted by highthief
I'm not sure why whenever communism and capitalism - as practiced in the world today and in the past - are discussed, everyone always jumps up to point out that "The USSR wasn't REALLY communist" or the "US isn't REALLY capitalist".
Today we play hockey and football and basketball - sports invented well over a hundred years ago - and what we play today actually bears only a passing resemblance to what was played then. Rules have changed, equipment has changed, etc. But we still call basketball by its name.
IMO, communism is/was the USSR, China, and Cuba, no matter what Marx may have written once, just as the US is capitalist, regardless of Adam Smith.
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It's important because in their theoretical forms there is a lot of good stuff. Anytime one tries to praise Marx's communist ideals they the same response EVERY time from people who think they know what it is, and that is: "well... the problem with communism is that is works well on paper...." I can't tell you how many times I've heard that and that's usually where that person's knowledge ends.
You're right. What I really should be saying is that the U.S.S.R. was NOT communist. The sports analogy is a false one, because current sports are intensifications of the original concept, where Russia and China were misinterpretations of Communism.