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Quoth Mod:
Yeah, all the people out there who would be dead without socialist health care, food, heating or housing benefits would sure thrive alright, as would everyone who got a socialist education or who has to drive on socialist roads on their way to work, had the misfortune to grow up in a socialist orphanage, become a mentally ill (because of socialism) or rely on the socialist police for protection.

Unless by 'people thrive' you mean 'wealthy people buy DVDs', in that case yeah, you're right.

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So in your world "thrive" means "forced mediocrity at best"? The question, of course, is why it's a good idea to punish successful people in order to take care of those who can't or won't take care of themselves.

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And now, we sprinkle Bloodsage liberally with Old Spice!
So in your world "thrive" means "forced mediocrity at best"? The question, of course, is why it's a good idea to punish successful people in order to take care of those who can't or won't take care of themselves.

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<PLACEHOLDER>

A few of ethical arguments can be made for such behavior, and, of course, several religions' moralities demand such behavior. I'll elaborate on this later, as I'm planning on vamoosing from work shortly.

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Bloodsage wrote this stupid crap:
So in your world "thrive" means "forced mediocrity at best"? The question, of course, is why it's a good idea to punish successful people in order to take care of those who can't or won't take care of themselves.

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Because in theory, nobody gets punished for being successful. Mind you, that's theory. Practically, I fear my webhosting actually taking off, because I'll get raped on taxes. Currently I'm out 37% on just my income that I get off the business, the business itself has to pay 20% taxes on all revenues, and if I get 2 more customers, I'll be up to 25%.

Although I do have to admit that having that social security net dangling below you makes it easier to get things done, because although there's a definite risk in being self employed, if it bombs, I can still afford to have somewhat of a life, due to the whole socialism thing.

On the whole though I'd rather be in the US. At least I won't get gouged on taxes... (never thought I'd say that really )

So anyway, 'sage, you still in Germany?

*Runs like hell!*

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Bloodsage was naked while typing this:
So in your world "thrive" means "forced mediocrity at best"? The question, of course, is why it's a good idea to punish successful people in order to take care of those who can't or won't take care of themselves.

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Your use of the word mediocrity somewhat bugs me honestly, look at how many people kill themselves every year on the US border trying to attain something far, far less luxurious than what you describe as mediocrity. Yes, I would describe a country in which everyone could attain your definition of mediocrity as absolutely thriving on any realistic scale of standard of living. I would consider an individual who can secure his retirement, feed a family, satisfy all his basic needs, buy himself some day-to-day entertainment and still have money left over at the end of the day to invest, travel or buy luxury items as someone who is thriving.

It's a not a good idea, but a necessary evil, to reduce the rate at which those who through random luck, ability, innate talent, hard work or some other factor have become wealthy accumulate wealth because it is the only way to prevent massive amounts of human suffering. Yes, even the suffering of those who are stupid, unmotivated, crippled, mentally ill, uneducated or in some other way deficient, they are still sentient and capable of suffering.

Of course there is a value judgement at the center of this argument, if you value property rights over life and I value life over property then we'll be about as effective debating this as a Hindu and a Christian would be in debating whether to save a bus full of cows or a burning Church.

Mod fucked around with this message on 11-23-2005 at 07:57 PM.

I'm not against a safety net for those truly unable to take care of themselves through no fault of their own, but I honestly don't care if people who fail to plan for their futures have miserable futures. And I don't care if someone who drops out of school starves on the street.

American social security is going to have trouble keeping up with the baby boomers--Europe is well and truly screwed, and we're just seeing the leading edges of the problem now. It'll be interesting to see which countries implement which tough solutions, because few will be able to withstand the next few decades without drastic economic changes.

But, hey--if you consider being lower middle class "thriving," far be it from me to argue. Sure must take the pressure off, knowing that others are working their asses off to pay for your bennies.

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Bloodsage had this to say about Robocop:
Came back to the US for a brief stint for language school, and I'm off to Paris in January as an exchange officer at their national defense college. Should be interesting--we've never lived downtown in a big city before, so we're having to adjust all sorts of expectations in terms of privacy, parking, and home size.

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You're in for a shock I think, if you're bringing your bike with you, make sure you've got locks out the wazoo, or a place inside to park it, or it'll be gone the minute you turn your back on it. Oh, and the french? Their idea of driving is assuming they're in a bumpercart. Expect dents, dings, scratches, and the like.

Paris oughta be fun though, if it settles down there, with the rioting and all. I still say you oughta get over to NL some day and taste some of our socialism

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Led had this to say about Cuba:
Speaking of old people dying, have you put me on your SGLI yet, Bloodsage?

*Runs like hell!*

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o_O

omg.. the led is alive...

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Bloodsage had this to say about Tron:
Interesting thought: punish those able to do well, in order to provide for those who choose not to. Removes any incentive to better oneself, doesn't it?

I'm not against a safety net for those truly unable to take care of themselves through no fault of their own, but I honestly don't care if people who fail to plan for their futures have miserable futures. And I don't care if someone who drops out of school starves on the street.

American social security is going to have trouble keeping up with the baby boomers--Europe is well and truly screwed, and we're just seeing the leading edges of the problem now. It'll be interesting to see which countries implement which tough solutions, because few will be able to withstand the next few decades without drastic economic changes.

But, hey--if you consider being lower middle class "thriving," far be it from me to argue. Sure must take the pressure off, knowing that others are working their asses off to pay for your bennies.

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Most of that has been, to some extent anyway, taken care of in our social security system; you get the usual things such as sick pay, if you have an accident at your job and are unable to work you get compensated for that as well, if you end up unemployed and it's not your fault, you can get 70% of your last earned wage every month, and for those who don't have anything else, there's something similar to welfare.

With all though, there's a wad of rules and regulations one has to follow; for the welfare and the unemployment stuff, you -must- apply for at least 4 jobs a month, until you find something, or take anything the unemployment office will throw at you. Unfortunately it doesn't work as well as it should, and there's still plenty of assfucks out there that abuse the system.

And yes, Europe is thoroughly fucked when it comes to the aging of the general population. It's predicted that, given my situation as an example, in about 10 years, 20% of my income is going towards all the taxes relating to pensions and such things. Now on one hand I really don't think it's a bad thing, but considering that the amount of people who support the system is getting smaller by the day and the amount of people using the system only gets larger, it's going to fall over, spectacularly at that.

Which neatly ties back in to the original subject; death to all old people. Strangely, that would be the problem solver. Although if you look at it from a moral standpoint it's totally ridiculous to even think about it.

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Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, MadCat the 2nd absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
You're in for a shock I think, if you're bringing your bike with you, make sure you've got locks out the wazoo, or a place inside to park it, or it'll be gone the minute you turn your back on it. Oh, and the french? Their idea of driving is assuming they're in a bumpercart. Expect dents, dings, scratches, and the like.

Paris oughta be fun though, if it settles down there, with the rioting and all. I still say you oughta get over to NL some day and taste some of our socialism

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Just made the call not to bring my bike--I'm going to store it here. Was less the threat of theft, though, than the cost of parking! Was quoted 200-300 Euro/month for a parking space, and I didn't want to shell out double just to have a place for the motorcycle. Ah, well.

I did get by your neck of the woods last May, but you were still on hiatus. A few of us went up to Soesterberg for a reunion of the squadron that used to be there. Was quite pretty.

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Bloodsage had this to say about Captain Planet:
Interesting thought: punish those able to do well, in order to provide for those who choose not to. Removes any incentive to better oneself, doesn't it?

I'm not against a safety net for those truly unable to take care of themselves through no fault of their own, but I honestly don't care if people who fail to plan for their futures have miserable futures. And I don't care if someone who drops out of school starves on the street.

American social security is going to have trouble keeping up with the baby boomers--Europe is well and truly screwed, and we're just seeing the leading edges of the problem now. It'll be interesting to see which countries implement which tough solutions, because few will be able to withstand the next few decades without drastic economic changes.

But, hey--if you consider being lower middle class "thriving," far be it from me to argue. Sure must take the pressure off, knowing that others are working their asses off to pay for your bennies.

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It doesn't remove any incentive, it somewhat reduces the incentive, but the incentive is still clearly there. A surgeon or engineer will have more a lot more prestige, quite a bit more money, a lot more women, a lot more income security and countless other things over someone living on benefits. Hell even if he himself ends up on benefits one day between jobs his will be much higher due to the large amount of money he's paid into the system previously.

Retirement age will have to go up unless people accept a ton of immigration, there's no question in that regard. The current levels were set at a time when life expectancy and people's health was much worse and with the improvements to medical care and such it would probably be possible for people who want state pensions to work to 70 or 72 today (with exceptions for those who become disabled for medical reasons, but those are in place today already), those who want to retire before that on their own money would still be able to do so.

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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Bloodsage said:
Just made the call not to bring my bike--I'm going to store it here. Was less the threat of theft, though, than the cost of parking! Was quoted 200-300 Euro/month for a parking space, and I didn't want to shell out double just to have a place for the motorcycle. Ah, well.

I did get by your neck of the woods last May, but you were still on hiatus. A few of us went up to Soesterberg for a reunion of the squadron that used to be there. Was quite pretty.

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That sounds like the going rate yeah, parking's a bitch in most major cities in Europe. That's why everyone drives mini-mobiles here They're easier to park in wack places

Soesterberg is indeed very nice, I've been there a few times for airshows when they still did those there. Still wondering though what they're doing with it these days, last time I came by there the place looked totally deserted.

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Mod had this to say about John Romero:
It doesn't remove any incentive, it somewhat reduces the incentive, but the incentive is still clearly there. A surgeon or engineer will have more a lot more prestige, quite a bit more money, a lot more women, a lot more income security and countless other things over someone living on benefits. Hell even if he himself ends up on benefits one day between jobs his will be much higher due to the large amount of money he's paid into the system previously.

Retirement age will have to go up unless people accept a ton of immigration, there's no question in that regard. The current levels were set at a time when life expectancy and people's health was much worse and with the improvements to medical care and such it would probably be possible for people who want state pensions to work to 70 or 72 today (with exceptions for those who become disabled for medical reasons, but those are in place today already), those who want to retire before that on their own money would still be able to do so.

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You're partially right about the incentive, but lately, there are people that have rejected raises because it'd bump them up into a higher tax bracket where they end up with 50% income tax, instead of 37%, which would in turn result in the crazy situation that gross they make more, but after taxes they actually lose money.

As far as paying into the system, that isn't actually counted. Things like unemployment benefits and such things are based on a percentage of your last earned salary, but if, say, you have a job that pays 100.000 a year, and after 5 years you get a job that pays only 50.000 -- guess which one will be used to determine the 70%? So you paid handsomely into the system when you made a big wad of cash, but the return in the end would be similar to a steaming pile of dog poop.

Retiring with your own cash is also a possiblity, if it wasn't for the fact that once you stop working and do the retirement thing, you still get jacked up on taxes, so not many people do it. Those that can, usually leave the country to go to Belgium, or another country where taxes are a bit easier on the wallet.

Socialism in theory works, but if I see the practical example put down by life in the Netherlands, it's more of a burden than a blessing. The safety nets are nice to have, but often one pays more than you ever get out of it. See the pensions for example, there's more and more older people, and they either raise taxes, or cut their pensions. Most older people are living just above poverty level as is, so this system can't hold up for much longer before it will collapse on itself.

And as I said before, I don't really intend to be here when that happens.

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MadCat the 2nd had this to say about Robocop:
You're partially right about the incentive, but lately, there are people that have rejected raises because it'd bump them up into a higher tax bracket where they end up with 50% income tax, instead of 37%, which would in turn result in the crazy situation that gross they make more, but after taxes they actually lose money.

As far as paying into the system, that isn't actually counted. Things like unemployment benefits and such things are based on a percentage of your last earned salary, but if, say, you have a job that pays 100.000 a year, and after 5 years you get a job that pays only 50.000 -- guess which one will be used to determine the 70%? So you paid handsomely into the system when you made a big wad of cash, but the return in the end would be similar to a steaming pile of dog poop.

Retiring with your own cash is also a possiblity, if it wasn't for the fact that once you stop working and do the retirement thing, you still get jacked up on taxes, so not many people do it. Those that can, usually leave the country to go to Belgium, or another country where taxes are a bit easier on the wallet.

Socialism in theory works, but if I see the practical example put down by life in the Netherlands, it's more of a burden than a blessing. The safety nets are nice to have, but often one pays more than you ever get out of it. See the pensions for example, there's more and more older people, and they either raise taxes, or cut their pensions. Most older people are living just above poverty level as is, so this system can't hold up for much longer before it will collapse on itself.

And as I said before, I don't really intend to be here when that happens.

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You've pointed out some specific examples of the Dutch social system being broken or working in unintended ways. Those can be fixed without turning the country into libertopia, tax bracket jumps can be adjusted and gradualized, calculation bases for benefits can be changed. Saying that badly planned tax brackets are a reason to abolish the whole social system is like saying that lacking antitrust legislation is a reason to abolish the market economy.

As for the pension system, as I said, we'll have to move to something like a system of medical evaluations from our current retirement age on up to a higher retirement age, also immigration will have to be increased. The alternative being the abolishment of a state social security system and mass starvation, since, as you said, many people live slightly above poverty levels even with the system still in place.

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Pvednes had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
I think it's sound social policy to maximize quality of life for the overwhelming majority of people, as compared to allowing the majority to suffer in the hopes that a small minority will rise to an extreme quality of life.

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When a minority suffers to provide comfort for a majority, that's slavery.

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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about Knight Rider:
When a minority suffers to provide comfort for a majority, that's slavery.

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Uhh huh, and what do you call it when the majority suffers for the minority?

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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about Duck Tales:
When a minority suffers to provide comfort for a majority, that's slavery.

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Channeling the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, Pvednes absently fondled Watson and proclaimed:
I think it's sound social policy to maximize quality of life for the overwhelming majority of people, as compared to allowing the majority to suffer in the hopes that a small minority will rise to an extreme quality of life.

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Except that it's not the overwhelming majority of people who can't provide for themselves. Socialism punished the vast majority in order to provide for an extreme minority--and it's a small minority of them who genuinely can't provide for themselves, where the rest put themselves in the position through choice.

There are ways to provide better opportunities for the disadvantaged without punishing those who do well. Success is not a sin.

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Noxhil2 has the right stuff
Uhh huh, and what do you call it when the majority suffers for the minority?

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Laziness.

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Mod had this to say about dark elf butts:
You've pointed out some specific examples of the Dutch social system being broken or working in unintended ways. Those can be fixed without turning the country into libertopia, tax bracket jumps can be adjusted and gradualized, calculation bases for benefits can be changed. Saying that badly planned tax brackets are a reason to abolish the whole social system is like saying that lacking antitrust legislation is a reason to abolish the market economy.

As for the pension system, as I said, we'll have to move to something like a system of medical evaluations from our current retirement age on up to a higher retirement age, also immigration will have to be increased. The alternative being the abolishment of a state social security system and mass starvation, since, as you said, many people live slightly above poverty levels even with the system still in place.

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Correct, things can indeed be fixed. But the government doesn't want to fix it, because fixing it will cause all manner of people to become unhappy, which in turn will lead to a world of shit.

As far as the retiring later thing, it's been tried. Not many people want to do it, because they suffer from the "well fuck you, I'm gonna retire at 65, because everyone else did too!" syndrome. If it's bumped up, there's bound to be some backlash.

And these changes? They wouldn't do much good. The way the system is now is how it's been mostly since the 1930's, with some major changes during the Nazi occupation, and mostly unaltered since 1960 -- maybe adjustments for inflation and some modern day concerns, but it's so ingrained into the population that any talk of changing it causes a rumble, and hence the government doesn't -want- to change it.

So talk about change is all fine and dandy, but if change doesn't happen, socialism is still well and truly fucked.

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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about John Romero:
Beyond all of this, I'm just not sure how any logical person can think that a few successful people carrying the weight of everyone else can have any positive effect.

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Because, in theory, everyone ends up paying into the system, except the bottom part of the people who use the system. So it's not a "few for the many", more a "many for the many" relationship there.

Unfortunately, too many asshats abuse this, too many immigrants from various middle-eastern countries abuse this as well (I think last time they did some sort of count it appeared that about 10% of the population in the Netherlands is from the middle east) -- ofcourse you have students who abuse it, people who are just fucking lazy abuse it, grannies abuse it, and so on.

It's still, in theory, a good way of doing things. Practically it always ends up fucking itself up the nose with a blunt spoon though.

In theory, we should be able to put religion aside to find a logical solution to world conflict.

In theory, the benefits of stem cell research should outweigh the moral hurdles.

Lots of things look good in theory, but if you could apply logic and theories to humanity, it wouldn't be humanity anymore.

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And coming in at #1 is Mr. Parcelan with "Reply." I'm Casey Casem.
Beyond all of this, I'm just not sure how any logical person can think that a few successful people carrying the weight of everyone else can have any positive effect.

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Strawman. Examine the unemployment rate vs. the employment rate, as well as the average income of the employed, and it works out that the majority support a minority. It's true that it is on its way to changing, and that financial insolvency of social safety nets all over the world is imminent if changes aren't made, but it's a pyramid scheme. As long as the pyramid is maintained, so can the safety nets. As Madcat pointed out, however, change has been resisted, so collapse is more likely.

And fuck everyone, I'll get to my placeholder post when I'm good and ready.

Karnaj fucked around with this message on 11-24-2005 at 10:20 PM.

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Aw, geez, I have Bloodsage all over myself!
The fundamental flaw with any form of socialism is that it relies on altruism to function smoothly. If everyone were basically altruistic, it would work exactly as adverstised. People are naturally competive and selfish, however, and that spoils the effect, which makes any socialist experiment a battle against human nature. And the more radical the version of socialism, the larger the conflict and the shakier the system overall.

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Of course, but you can combat this via education, or, for the more radical, indoctrination, be it secular or religious. The concept of "social justice" is probably taught all throughout Europe; I know for a fact that it's taught in German schools. Isolated, or rather, atomic, socialism works just fine. If you don't know that greed is good, or don't know that wealth=power, you won't bother to try to accumulate it. You'll work for some sort of post-socialist communist ideal, like in Star Trek, because that's the only justification you have to do so.

Tangentially, that's the scariest part of 1984: when you get right down to it, there's no way to beat the system. The entire world is in a totalitarian socialist grasp, and the control is so complete that by the end of the book, no one knows that it was ever any different, so no one even considers trying to change it. I've thought long and hard about a way that Winston could "win," and the best I could come up with is for him to stand on top of a tall building, proclaim some sort of anti-Party heresy, and jump off before the Thought Police could catch him and reprogram him to love Big Brother. Some smashing victory, indeed.

Yeah. . .sign me up.

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Karnaj probably says this to all the girls:
the best I could come up with is for him to stand on top of a tall building, proclaim some sort of anti-Party heresy, and jump off before the Thought Police could catch him and reprogram him to love Big Brother. Some smashing victory, indeed.

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Sounds pretty smashing to me!

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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
In theory, women should be judged on something beyond the size of their bust.

In theory, we should be able to put religion aside to find a logical solution to world conflict.

In theory, the benefits of stem cell research should outweigh the moral hurdles.

Lots of things look good in theory, but if you could apply logic and theories to humanity, it wouldn't be humanity anymore.

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Exactly, it would be something better than our current concept of humanity, something we should aspire to, no matter what our view of betterment is. Just saying "Well THIS is humanity, humanity is selfish, prejudiced, gut-driven, greedy, rotten and evil, we are humanity and thus always will be those things, so we better get used to it." is pretty defeatist.

Edit: The above is not related to the socialism argument, but to your use of the concept of humanity.

Mod fucked around with this message on 11-24-2005 at 10:48 PM.

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Mod thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
Exactly, it would be something better than our current concept of humanity, something we should aspire to, no matter what our view of betterment is. Just saying "Well THIS is humanity, humanity is selfish, prejudiced, gut-driven, greedy, rotten and evil, we are humanity and thus always will be those things, so we better get used to it." is pretty defeatist.

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I'll say "realistic," instead, or even better I'll say that your idea is premature. If this sort of thing can be combatted with education and enlightenment, fantastic, but, as we have seen in the current forms of socialism (ranging to communism), humanity is not ready for it yet.

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How.... Bloodsage.... uughhhhhh:
The fundamental flaw with any form of socialism is that it relies on altruism to function smoothly. If everyone were basically altruistic, it would work exactly as adverstised. People are naturally competive and selfish, however, and that spoils the effect, which makes any socialist experiment a battle against human nature. And the more radical the version of socialism, the larger the conflict and the shakier the system overall.

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If everyone were basically altruistic there would be no need for socialism, you could abolish about 90% of the government structure and people would organize charities on their free time to help the needy, organize free schools to educate the poor, etc. They would be infinitely more efficient than any government at this too since they'd actually be doing it out of the kindness of their hearts and not out of government coercion (even those that like social programs mostly hate taxes).

Sadly people are not altruistic and thus we need government to prevent some of the possible results of human acting according to their nature, I'm not just talking about poverty here, but just like socialism an impartial criminal justice system or a system of preservation of property rights run contrary to human nature, just look at the more lawless parts of Africa to see those repressed parts of humanity in action.

The very idea of socialism is a bad one. Forcefully equalizing outcomes is not freedom. Punishing success in order to reward failure does not produce an ideal set of values. It's not as if socialism is a good idea held back only by the base nature of humanity; it's a bad idea rendered unworkable by human nature.

It's an important distinction.

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Mr. Parcelan had this to say about Duck Tales:
I'll say "realistic," instead, or even better I'll say that your idea is premature. If this sort of thing can be combatted with education and enlightenment, fantastic, but, as we have seen in the current forms of socialism (ranging to communism), humanity is not ready for it yet.

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Every single developed country on the planet has some implementation of socialist principles and redistributes wealth in some fashion (Yes, even the USA), we're just debating varying degrees of socialism, the basic idea has been part of many governments for a long time.

It's not just things like social security either, even a system that only leaves common defense paid for by a flat percentile tax to be paid by every citizen without exception is redistributing wealth (those who pay more have to give up a larger amount of net worth into the system for the same amount of protection, those who benefit from a military, like people who live in disputed border areas or urban areas likely to be hit in wartime, pay in the same amount as those who live in non-threatened areas) and I think no one on this board is libertarian enough to demand a privatized military.

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Mr. Parcelan stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
In theory, women should be judged on something beyond the size of their bust.

In theory, we should be able to put religion aside to find a logical solution to world conflict.

In theory, the benefits of stem cell research should outweigh the moral hurdles.

Lots of things look good in theory, but if you could apply logic and theories to humanity, it wouldn't be humanity anymore.

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And that's what I mean. In theory, socialism is cool, nifty, and will bring much good. Practically, the minute you unleash humanity on it, it goes to hell in a handbasket. Basic flaw of humanity in my opinion is coming up with ideas that make one feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but aren't practical to execute due to the inherent flaws of humanity.

Some expert came by (from the old farts insurance company) and decided I'd get about $1500 back, and could keep the car. Okay, score! Or so I thought. Since the car was at the shop anyway, I figured I'd get an oil change too. So I drove the car from where it was parked over to the shop to get it on the bridge (or whatever you call that thing that you can lift a car up with high enough to stand under it).

And lo and behold, the first thing everyone sees is the thing literally pissing out all of it's coolant. Apparently the gasket between the block and the water pump gave out just as I pulled into the shop...

And there's a $800 repair for you.

So the car's going to the wreckers yard next week, gotta strip out my radio and some other miscellaneous junk. Then wait for the insurance to get me my dough, and then I'll be purchasing... oho.. the exact same car.

Only the one I'm getting is white. And has a sunroof. And it's 2 years newer. And 90k miles less on it. And it's the sooper sekrit not-often-seen Sport version. (Think bigger brakes, spiffier interior, etc.).

Now all I need to do is figure out how to get from this end of the country to the other end, using public transport, and have it not take all damn day.

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And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Karnaj was all like:
Of course, but you can combat this via education, or, for the more radical, indoctrination, be it secular or religious. The concept of "social justice" is probably taught all throughout Europe; I know for a fact that it's taught in German schools. Isolated, or rather, atomic, socialism works just fine. If you don't know that greed is good, or don't know that wealth=power, you won't bother to try to accumulate it. You'll work for some sort of post-socialist communist ideal, like in Star Trek, because that's the only justification you have to do so.

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"Greed is good" is more a relic of the 1980s than a fact of human nature. It's kind of like the mullet haircut in that respect. Wealth as an end, instead of a means is not a particularily good goal at all.

As for social justice, it's a philosophy I'm sure you'll find in almost all of the OECD countries. It really is a staple of the modern democracy.

Also, the Federation are lacking in the communism.