Love the shear blindness that those thinking any form of communism is on our doorstep
Look at what became of communism in China, Russia, one now bent on using free trade to power its wish to dominate the other a crime lord rules interested in making money
It remains my view the biggest threat is the lost right using it as a club

Aidan,

Addressing your points:

1 The number of people killed by Marxism vastly outnumbers those killed trying to suppress communism.

2 The free market economy was introduced in China largely due to the failure of Marxist socialism and is probably closer to Fascism.

3 All socialists have proven to be bad economic managers. That Venezuela was not wealthy before does not explain the rapid collapse under socialism.

David,

Theoretically, communism/marxism need not be oppressive, however, they always have been.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Communism is essence holds that society or the state owns the means of production rather than capital which allows the means of production to be under private ownership. Both forms of ownership can be oppressive or not oppressive. However, in the atmosphere of the Cold War the less oppressive form of communism was not allowed. It was a good thing when Mossadegh of Iran nationalised the production of oil in 1953. The profits from the sale of oil went to the government and people of Iran rather than to the pockets of the foreign owned oil companies. A CIA sponsored coup got rid of the Mossadegh government and installed the Shah. Later the Shah's government was overthrown by a reactionary fundamentalist religious government which has sponsored terrorism. The Shah's government was overthrown because his secret police were terrorising the Iranians. We might not have the present conflict with Iran had the Iranians been left in peace to enjoy the profits of the oil. Obama and many of the governments of the western countries tried to make peace with the present government of Iran. That does not satisfy Trump and the oil companies which back him. They want their profits. If Mossadegh had been left alone we might be at peace with Iran now.

David,

By less oppressive communism I guess you mean that fewer people were murdered and imprisoned. There has not been a communist regime that hasn't murdered and abused its people and shredded the economy ever since the cold war. North Korea is a prime example.

That Mosaddegh was democratically elected also means that he was not communist. That he essentially confiscated the assets that the British and Americans had built at the cost of $bns follows the lines of what was done in Venezuela, and if he hadn't been toppled, Iran would most probably follow the same economic trajectory as the foreign investment would fall to zero.

That the radical left frequently flies the hammer and sickle and employ hooded thugs to shut down dissent even in Aus is a matter for concern.

Quite a few of our posters on this forum are infected with the jordan peterson virus. Thats why they keep banging on about marxism. and lobsters hahaha

I think we have to get away from the simplistic notion that political philosophies can range only on a spectrum from extreme-let to extreme-right. Hayek proposed instead a three-way differentiation, with democracy in now corner, extreme-left positions in another corner, and extreme-right positions in the other.

In other words, three spectrums/spectra:

*. between extreme-Left and Democracy;

*. between extreme-Right and Democracy;

*. between extreme-Left and extreme-Right.

This gets us away from the either/or thinking, black/white, Manichaean, adolescent thinking into more complex political world-views. It suggests that alliances are possible across all three spectra, or at least some way along each one, usually with the excluded party being seen as the Deadly Enemy.

On this schema, we shouldn't forget that Hitler called his party the German National Socialist Workers' Party: German, National - verging on the extreme-right; and socialist, workers' - verging towards the extreme-left. Since both are fundamentally anti-democratic, this similarity of purpose shouldn't surprise us.

So we can have governments which are uneasy alliances between democratic forces and the extreme-left OR extreme-right. Or fascist regimes which employ both extreme-left rhetoric and tactics (all fascist regimes seem to claim to speak for 'the people'), and extreme-right forms (the Party as the champion of the 'Nation').

I suppose, once philosophies move away from the values of the Enlightenment (which are constantly evolving, their evolution didn't stop in 1800) and the values of freedoms (of speech, association, etc.) and equality, they can't help degenerating towards those extremes, even as they pretend to be creating the 'perfect society'. Democracy on the other hand is always going to be imperfect, unfinished, and thereby full of promise.

Joe