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OPINION

January 2, 2013

Re "Spiritual but not religious," Opinion, Dec. 28 Corinna Nicolaou looks backward in her quest for a "special kind of wisdom"; it is the religious who should look forward to her and other like-minded "Nones. " She contemplates the pervasive myth that Nones are "missing out. " I ask: Can religion propagate kindness without intolerance? Does it incline people "to see the big picture," or is a church a group of people encouraging each other that they no longer have to wonder?

ENTERTAINMENT

December 14, 2012 | By Hector Tobar, Los Angeles Times

Pow! A novel Mo Yan, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt Seagull Books: 386 pp., $27.50 This year's Nobel laureate in literature is an author who somehow manages to write books with brazenly political themes while living in a dictatorship. Mo Yan's latest novel, "Pow!," is a thinly veiled assault on the frayed moral fabric of that hyper-capitalist country known as Communist China. The characters in "Pow!" do awful and disgusting things, most of them involving meat.

OPINION

August 12, 2011 | By Jacob Heilbrunn

On Saturday, Germany will mark the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest and grimmest construction projects in history the building of the Berlin Wall. Photographs of the wall, which overnight brutally severed streets, rail lines and families, have been on display in front of Berlin government buildings for several months. On Saturday, the memorial events will last all day and include a wreath-laying ceremony honoring the victims of the former communist East German government. The 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall, in 2009, attracted a lot more attention in the U.S. It was a victory we like to claim, especially triumphalist conservatives.

ENTERTAINMENT

December 26, 2010 | By Thane Rosenbaum, Special to the Los Angeles Times

When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry Gal Beckerman Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: 598 pp., $30 If you think the Cold War is dead as the backdrop for any decent espionage story, you haven't read "When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry," journalist Gal Beckerman's reheating of the politics of the Cold War and of how the millions of Russian Jews and the Americans...

ENTERTAINMENT

October 10, 2010 | By Karen Wada, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Sometimes, a litchi box is more than a litchi box. In a designer's hands, it can become a work of art, a cultural artifact or a piece of propaganda. "Graphic design can be put to a number of services and uses," says Bridget Bray, assistant curator at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, where a new exhibition explores "the ways such artistry and relativity were in full effect in 20th century China. " "China Modern: Designing Popular Culture 1910-1970" features more than 160 posters, porcelain figures and everyday objects produced, says Bray, as the country moved from imperial dynastic rule to Western-influenced capitalism to Communism under Mao Tse-tung.

WORLD

April 11, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who died Satuday in a plane crash in Russia, was a fervent Catholic who battled communism during the Cold War and matured into a staunchly conservative politician. Kaczynski and his identical twin, Jaroslaw, rose to the top of Polish politics in 2005 when their Law and Justice Party swept to power. With Lech as president and his brother as prime minister, the snowy-haired siblings with boyish faces led their country to the right. Despite Poland's membership in the European Union, Lech Kaczynski was adamant that Warsaw not become entangled in continental politics and bureaucracy.

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Articles about Communism - latimes

Formation

The Communist Party of China was formed in 1921. It was under Mao Zedong's control in 1927. Eventually, Mao led a revolution, and the communist party obtained control in 1947. They followed the example of the soviet model of development through heavy industry with surpluses extracted from peasants. Consumer goods were left to secondary importance. In the sino-soviet split of the 1950's, Mao split from traditional Marxism-Leninism and developed Maoism, the Chinese interpretation of communism. Mao was upset with the Soviet leader Khrushchev's position of peacefulcoexistence between the communists and capitalists. The Maoists started a strong communist tradition, instituting the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The Great Leap Forward was instituted to help transform China into a heavy industrialized society. However, this was largely considered to be a failure and many Chinese starved to death. In the cultural revolution, Mao overthrew his enemies and millions of people were killed or persecuted.

New Ideas

After Mao's death, the ideals of China shifted under Deng Xiaoping to a form of "market socialism." He instituted changes in the economic system where they developed what he considered to be socialism with Chinese characteristics. He decided to use policies that had been shown to be effective and followed less the ideologies of the earlier leaders. He instituted the "Four Modernizations", describing agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military. Deng is commonly credited as the person who turned China into the economic world power that he is today. He opened up China to the outside world and industrialized successfully.

In 1989 the death of reformer Hu Yaobang led to student protests for individual freedoms. This led to the Tienanmen Square massacre, where military force was used against civilians. The PRC government was internationally condemned, and Deng officially resigned in 1989. He made a tour of China to keep emphasis on his policies and inspire the entrepreneurship that exists in China today.

Modern Communism in China

The current constitution was created in 1982 and been continually revised since. The constitution includes many civil rights: free speech, press, worship, the right to trial, and the right to own private property. However, in practice this constitution has widely not been followed. There has been very little done to ensure that new laws instituted follow the constitution. The judicial system does not provide any particular method for review of new laws.

Computer usage in China has exploded. Currently, there are over 210 million internet users and over 400 million mobile phone users. There is a huge increase of the computer users in China, and ethics of technology has become increasingly prominent over the years. In particular, privacy, censorship, public ownership, and work ethic have become series ethical issues.

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Communism in China - Stanford Computer Science

By Kallie Szczepanski

Question: What Is the Difference between Communism and Socialism?

Answer:

Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, and communism and socialism are related concepts, the two systems are different in crucial ways. However, both communism and socialism arose in response to the Industrial Revolution, during which capitalist factory owners grew extremely wealthy by exploiting their workers.

Early in the industrial period, workers toiled under horrendously difficult and unsafe conditions. They might work 12 or 14 hours per day, six days per week, without meal breaks. Workers included children as young as 6, who were valued because their small hands and nimble fingers could get inside the machinery to repair it or clear blockages. The factories often were poorly lit and had no ventilation systems, and dangerous or poorly-designed machinery all too frequently maimed or killed the workers.

In reaction to these horrible conditions within capitalism, German theorists Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) created the alternative economic and political system called communism.

In their books, The Condition of the Working Class in England, The Communist Manifesto, and Das Kapital, Marx and Engels decried the abuse of workers in the capitalist system, and laid out a utopian alternative.

Under communism, none of the "means of production" - factories, land, etc. - are owned by individuals. Instead, the government controls the means of production, and all of the people work together.

The wealth produced is shared out among the people based on their needs, rather than on their contribution to the work. The result, in theory, is a classless society where everything is public, rather than private, property.

In order to achieve this communist workers' paradise, the capitalist system must be destroyed through violent revolution. Marx and Engels believed that industrial workers (the "proletariat") would rise up around the world and overthrow the middle class (the "bourgeoisie"). Once the communist system was established, even government would cease to be necessary, as everyone toiled together for the common good.

The theory of socialism, while similar in many ways to communism, is less extreme and more flexible. For example, although government control of the means of production is one possible solution, socialism also allows for workers' cooperative groups to control a factory or farm together.

Rather than crushing capitalism and overthrowing the bourgeoisie, socialist theory allows for the more gradual reform of capitalism through legal and political processes, such as the election of socialists to national office. Also unlike communism, in which the proceeds are divided based on need, under socialism the proceeds are divided based on each individual's contribution to society.

Thus, while communism requires the violent overthrow of the established political order, socialism can work within the political structure. In addition, where communism demands central control over the means of production (at least in the initial stages), socialism allows for more free enterprise among workers' cooperatives.

Both communism and socialism were designed to improve the lives of ordinary people, and to more equitably distribute wealth. In theory, either system should have been able to provide for the working masses. In practice, however, the two had very different outcomes.

Because communism provides no incentive for people to work - after all, the central planners will simply take your products, then redistribute them equally regardless of how much effort you expend - it tended to lead to impoverishment and immiseration. Workers quickly realized that they would not benefit from working harder, so most gave up. Socialism, in contrast, does reward hard work. After all, each worker's share of the profit depends upon her or his contribution to society.

Countries that implemented one or another version of communism in the 20th century include Russia (as the Soviet Union), China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea. In every case, communist dictators rose to power in order to enforce the reordering of the political and economic structure. Today, Russia and Cambodia are no longer communist, China and Vietnam are politically communist but economically capitalist, and Cuba and North Korea continue to practice communism.

Countries with socialist policies, in combination with a capitalist economy and democratic political system, include Sweden, Norway, France, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. In each of these cases, socialism has achieved the moderation of capitalistic drives for profit at any human expense, without disincentivizing work or brutalizing the populace. Socialist policies provide for worker benefits such as vacation time, universal health care, subsidized child-care, etc. without demanding central control of industry.

In short, the practical difference between communism and socialism can be summed up this way: Would you prefer to live in Norway, or in North Korea?

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Difference Between Communism and Socialism

Ideology

Communism is a socialist movement that aims to create a society without class or money. As an ideology, it imagines a free society without any division, free from oppression and scarcity. The proletariat (working class) overthrow the capitalist system in a social revolution, usually via an armed rebellion.

Democracy is a form of government that gives all eligible citizens an equal say in decisions that affect their lives. All people can participate equally, either directly or through elected representatives, in the creation of laws.

Communism is traced back to 16th century English writer Thomas More, who described a society based on common ownership of property in his book Utopia. It first emerged as a political doctrine after the French Revolution, when Francois Noel Babeuf talked of the desirability of common ownership of land and total equality among citizens. Modern communism emerged from the industrial revolution, when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto.

Democracy originated in Athens in ancient Greece. The first democracy was established in 508-7 BC. Athenians were randomly selected to fill government administrative and judicial offices, and the legislative assembly was made up of all Athenian citizens, who had a right to speak and vote. However, this excluded women, slaves, foreigners and anyone under the age of 20.

In the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia. They changed their name to the Communist Party and created a single party regime devoted to implementing a specific type of communism known as Leninism. They nationalized all property and put all factories and railways under government control. After World War II, Communism spread throughout central and eastern Europe, and in 1949, the Communist Party of China established the Peoples Republic of China. Communism also emerged in Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique and other countries. By the early 1980s, almost one-third of the worlds population lived in Communist states.

The first nation to become democratic in modern history was the Corsican Republic in 1755. However, it was short-lived, and the first modern nation to establish an official democratic system was France, which established universal male suffrage in 1848. The founding fathers of the United States did not describe their new nation as a democracy, but they also espoused principles of national freedom and equality. All men in the US were nominally given the right to vote in the late 1860s, and full enfranchisement of citizens was secured when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Democracy was a popular government system after World War I, but the Great Depression led to dictatorships throughout much of Europe and Asia. After World War II, the American, British and French sectors of Germany, Austria, Italy and Japan became democracies. By 1960, the majority of countries were nominally democracies, although many had sham elections or were, in reality, communist states. Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Boliva, Uruguay, Brazil and Chile all became democracies in the 1970s to 1990s.

In its ideological form, communism has no governments. However, it considers a dictatorship to be a necessary intermediate stage between capitalism and communism. In practice, communist governments take many different forms, but usually involve an absolute dictator.

Democratic governments take many forms, but in modern democracy, they usually involve elections, where citizens vote for individuals and parties to represent their concerns in government.

There are a wide range of interpretations of communism, usually named after the dictator who created them. They include Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Titoism and Eurocommunism.

There are many forms of democracy. They include representative, parliamentary, presidential, constitutional, and direct democracy, as well as constitutional monarchies.

Current communist states are the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of Cuba, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Some people also consider North Korea to be a communist state.

According to Freedom House, there are currently 123 electoral democracies in the world. The World Forum on Democracy claims 58.2% of the worlds population live in democracies.

Communism has been criticized as an ideology because it leads to slow technological advance, reduced incentives, and reduced prosperity. It has also been criticized as unfeasible. Communist states have been criticized for poor human rights records, with the belief that Communist governments have been responsible for famines, purges and war. Stephane Courtois argues that communism was responsible for the deaths of almost 100 million people in the 20th century.

Democracy has been criticized as inefficient and a creator of wealth disparity. It is criticized as a system that allows the uninformed to make decisions with equal weight as the informed, and one which allows for oppression of minorities by the majority.

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Communism vs Democracy - Difference and Comparison | Diffen

Defining Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Socialism

Caveat: There are some inherent pitfalls trying to offer simple, bite sized definitions of capitalism, socialism, communism and fascism the first being that these are complex concepts concerning both economics and government, so short definitions will be incomplete; the second being that these concepts are not always mutually exclusive (most modern states combine elements of more than one); the third being that historical states defined the terms differently; and finally, some of the terms refer strictly to economic systems (capitalism) while others (fascism) also refer to government and economic systems (communism and fascism).

For a point of reference, the United States is a Constitutional Democratic Republic that has long embraced both capitalism (free markets) and socialism (public schools and universities, and public works parks, roads and highways, sewer and water, dams, harbors, as well as social welfare, such as workers comp, unemployment insurance, social security etc.).

Capitalism In common usage, the wordcapitalismmeans aneconomic systemin which all or most of themeans of productionareprivately ownedandoperated, and theinvestmentofcapitaland theproduction,distributionandprices ofcommodities(goodsandservices) are determined mainly in afree market, rather than by thestate. In capitalism, the means of production are generally operated forprofit.

Socialism Most generally, socialism refers to state ownership of common property, or state ownership of the means of production. A purely socialist state would be one in which the state owns and operates the means of production. However, nearly all modern capitalist countries combine socialism and capitalism.

The University of Idaho, and any other public school or university, is a socialist institutions, and those who attend it or work for it are partaking in socialism, because it is owned and operated by the state of Idaho. The same is true of federal and state highways, federal and state parks, harbors etc.

Communism Most generally, communism refers to community ownership of property, with the end goal being complete social equality via economic equality. Communism is generally seen by communist countries as an idealized utopian economic and social state that the country as a whole is working toward; that is to say that pure communism is the ideal that the Peoples Republic of China is (was?) working toward. Such an ideal often justifies means (such as authoritarianism or totalitariansim) that are not themselves communist ideals.

Fundamentally, communism argues that all labor belongs to the individual laborer; no man can own another man's body, and therefore each man owns his own labor. In this model all "profit" actually belongs in part to the laborer, not, or not just, those who control the means of production, such as the business or factory owner. Profit that is not shared with the laborer, therefore, is considered inherently exploitive.

FascismThe word descends from the Latin fasces, the bundle of sticks used by the Romans to symbolize their empire. This should clue you in that Fascism attempts to recapture both the glory and social organization of Rome.

Most generally, a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

Unlike communism, fascism is opposed to state ownership of capital and economic equality is not a principle or goal. During the 1930s and WWII, communism and fascism represented the extreme left and right, respectively, in European politics. Hitler justified both Nazi anti-Semitism and dictatorship largely on the basis of his working to fight-off communism.

The church also played a major role in all of the European fascist countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal) as the authority on religious and moral issues, which was opposed to the threat of "godless communists".

Mussolini, the Italian father of Fascism, writes that: ..Fascism [is] the complete opposite ofMarxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

* A-moral simply means neither moral or immoral. A rock is a-moral. Driving a car is usually a-moral. Killing someone with a rock is usually immoral. Driving drunk is immoral.

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Defining Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Socialism