You kiddies are all being tremendously naive, trying to explain mass murder by religion or politics. In reality, religion and politics are merely excuses, or vehicles, that rulers use to manipulate the masses to their own personal will. Usually the explanation for such mass killings is very simple: tribalism (funnily enough I mentioned this in another thread recently). That is, the tendency to associate oneself with a group, and to see other groups as "rivals" or "enemies" or whatever. Those with power simply use religion or politics to enforce their tribal views.
If there's anything I've learned from my readings or from sociology courses, there is never one sole cause to societal problems. Authoritarianism on the almost libidinal or psychological level may be caused by tribalism, but it's certainly also caused by things like greed or hate and there is also the question of the structures that allow those killings to take place (which is mainly what I'm talking about). To say that we're both wrong would definitely be an oversimplification of the problem.
As for Marx vs capitalism, as the discussion seems to be heading towards, I think the proof is in the pudding. Where would you rather live right now; one of the capitalist countries, or a child of communism? You might not like the underlying principles, but the final consequences of capitalism are a more open, more accepting, and more free society. The embracing of all ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, religions, etc. will only be found in a capitalist society.
I think you and One Wheel are misinterpreting my stance. I'm not trying to prove communism is a good thing and I've stated this in a previous post, rather, I am saying that the countries that have implemented "communist" ideals are the exact opposite of communist ideals. Marx thought the proletariat should take back what's theirs from the bourgeoisie, yet the countries that were supposedly communist killed the proletariat. What is really at play here is the manipulation of people's perceptions of communism and marx to think that Mao, Pol Pot, etc were perfect examples of Marx's ideals, when in reality it's completely false. Just because people do it wrong doesn't mean it's not a good philosophy.
What I'm actually talking about here is the idea of democratic socialism or a capitalist economy which is regulated by the government in such a way that huge corporations are not allowed to oppress the masses. If you want to talk about how the proof is in the pudding, look at places like the US vs Scandinavian countries. The US is heralded for being one of the most economically free nations yet it has enormous rates of poverty, mass incarceration, and use of fossil fuels, and income inequality is ridiculous. All of these are a direct result of unregulated capitalism. Poverty and income inequality are made possible by keeping the poor in their place with an absence of a higher minimum wage among lots of other things, while corporations get tax breaks from politicians. Mass incarceration is fueled by the massive waste of time and money called the War on Drugs as well as for-profit prisons, giving an incentive for the government to incarcerate people and basically make them do slave labor for extremely low pay. The use of fossil fuels is symptomatic of capitalism's inherent drive to produce, and insofar as renewable energy is not the most cost effective at the moment, big oil companies would much rather produce as much energy as cheaply as possible without caring what happens to the environment. Plus, you also talk about how capitalism allows for the most acceptance, but what about the image of the black male thug that has been produced by society as a result of continuing cycles of poverty and mass incarceration? Or what about the fact that slavery was inherently tied to the capitalist drive for unregulated labor? Or the commodification of various identity politics movements by capitalism? Or the production of the ideal body image of women by clothing companies? There are many example of how a purely capitalist society does not create acceptance. However, it's not even a question of acceptance anymore as the way oppression is manifested nowadays is in societal structures, which capitalism alters in such a way that people experience lots of hard times, most of which are linked to poverty. Now, let's look at Scandinavian countries. They have what most would consider to be a socialist economy, yet they do not have high tensions with other countries, they don't have a lot of corruption, and they have one of the highest happiness rates in the world. There's your proof in the pudding. It also disproves your tribalism hypothesis since Scandinavia was pretty much the origin of tribalist conquest, with the Vikings a long time ago.
E: Also, the communist countries today that people often reference (China, NoKo) are not communist. China is "communist" because it is technically led by the communist party, but they trade freely with other nations and have a booming capitalist economy. The reason why living conditions are bad in some areas of China is because of the huge amounts of production and capitalist exploitation that takes place, which is actually a result of capitalism, not communism. See, just another example of the subtle ways our perception is tainted by capitalist structures. And North Korea is really just fascism, I doubt there's a single thing in the Communist Manifesto that Kim Jong-un actually abides by.
