altruistic socialism and mass murder

[BOG]

If the former self described altruistic socialist governments of Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot had been  magically restricted in some manner to simply protecting individual rights rather than  being "free" to pursue each of their leader's utopian aims regarding the   "good of society". Would mass murder have occurred as it did ?

[usnlt7676]

If the former self described altruistic socialist governments of Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot had been  magically restricted in some manner to simply protecting individual rights rather than  being "free" to pursue each of their leader's utopian aims regarding the   "good of society". Would mass murder have occurred as it did ?

Humans are fallible, so this cannot be avoided. It's inevitable...anytime dictators take power for the good of the people, it ends with being for the good of themselves only b/c there will always be people who oppose them. And in that system opposition is repressed violently. Revolution is great as long as it isn't a revolution against you.

[BOG]

If the former self described altruistic socialist governments of Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot had been  magically restricted in some manner to simply protecting individual rights rather than  being "free" to pursue each of their leader's utopian aims regarding the   "good of society". Would mass murder have occurred as it did ?

Humans are fallible, so this cannot be avoided. It's inevitable...anytime dictators take power for the good of the people, it ends with being for the good of themselves only b/c there will always be people who oppose them. And in that system opposition is repressed violently. Revolution is great as long as it isn't a revolution against you.

 I agree.
The so called altruistic dictatorship established to create the leaders utopia will also always need scapegoats to blame it's own failures on. This is the pretext which leads to mass murder.

[ocianain]

The desire to create heaven on earth leads to hell on earth for someone.

[Anonymous]

Can't much the same be said for any attempt to create a utopia of sorts?  A completely free market with no regulation would lead to exploitation in some fashion or another.

[ocianain]

I don't believe in laizze faire economics because, as you note it leads to horrible exploitation

[Anonymous]

I don't believe that neither Hitler nor Stalin were trying to create a socialist utopia.  Neither had their constituents in mind when they centralized all the power.  It was about creating a dictatorship.

[BOG]

I don't believe that neither Hitler nor Stalin were trying to create a socialist utopia.  Neither had their constituents in mind when they centralized all the power.  It was about creating a dictatorship.

They both used propaganda to persuade their country's citizen's to centralize all power in themselves. Dictators use envy and  fear to achieve power.

[jpv]

I don't believe that neither Hitler nor Stalin were trying to create a socialist utopia.  Neither had their constituents in mind when they centralized all the power.  It was about creating a dictatorship.

They both used propaganda to persuade their country's citizen's to centralize all power in themselves. Dictators use envy and  fear to achieve power.

BOG, you conveniently ignored jvscrub's point, which was that most of these mass murders you go on and on about weren't actually trying to form a Utopia. Pol Pot's regime might be the best example, but I would say that was an anomaly.

What about socialist societies like Sweden, England, and Canada?

[BOG]

It's pretty simple. If socialism attains total authority in a state folks will be killed to justify the continuance of a failing system. In the states you listed some free market is still allowed to keep their brand of socialism-lite on life support.

[ViseGrip]

The Swedes, Argentinians and Finns were pretty much socialistic but they didn't do the genocide thing, so I said maybe.

[ViseGrip]

I don't believe that neither Hitler nor Stalin were trying to create a socialist utopia.  Neither had their constituents in mind when they centralized all the power.  It was about creating a dictatorship.

They both used propaganda to persuade their country's citizen's to centralize all power in themselves. Dictators use envy and  fear to achieve power.

BOG, you conveniently ignored jvscrub's point, which was that most of these mass murders you go on and on about weren't actually trying to form a Utopia. Pol Pot's regime might be the best example, but I would say that was an anomaly.

What about socialist societies like Sweden, England, and Canada?

They (Hilter, Stalin, Mao etc) also claimed that their policies would lead to a utopia.

[BOG]

Socialism doesn't work long term since increased government intervention will just create further economic havoc. Mass murder is the option totalitarian socialism often chooses to temporarily ward off total  economic failure . Communist China chose to allow more of a free  market in their society to avoid the need for mass murder. Both Russia and mainland China are fascist states now imho. A fascist state simply allows some aspects of a free market to operate under total governmental control to prevent economic collapse. A fascist state doesn't try to micro manage every aspect of their market. In a Communist state the government actually does try to micro-manage every aspect of their market  .This is the major difference between fascism and Communism which are "peas in the same socialist pod".