Is democracy better than communism

Answer 1

democracy and communismDemocracy and Communism are not mutually exclusive. You can have both at the same time. The people need only vote for a communist economic system. Communism is an economic system and democracy is a form of government. A better question would be; "Is democracy better than a monarchy or better than a Dictatorship?" Answeryes because in communism the people have little rights. every thing is run by the government. in democracy people have more freedoms/rights AnswerThe first response is incorrect. Both democracy and communism are POLITICAL theories, not economic ones. The prior answer confuses communism with communalism, which is a form of economic theory. More specifically, Communism is a political theory that tries to implement the Marxist economic idea. Democracy, on the other hand, is not directly tied to any form of economic idea, though it is often associated with Capitalism.

In practice, Communism has turned out to be a really horrible form of government - the problem is that its concept of requiring a authoritarian single-party government to handle the transition to the utopian stateless form is a recipe for abuse by strongmen. The reality is that in all places that Communism has been tried, it results not in an egalitarian society, but a rigidly stratified one controlled by either a dictator, or a very strong junta/oligarchy of a very few people. Communism has resulted in the concentration of power in very few hands, with mechanism to empower those outside the ruling circle - thus, it ends up being a dictatorship.

Democracy, with all its flaws, does at least empower ordinary citizens to effect real meaningful change in their government; that is, democracy does, in practice, result in a government that is responsive to public opinion and desires.

Answer 2

Communism is a form of economic organization and democracy is a form of political organization. They are not comparable.

The answer to this depends on whether the original question intended the words "communism" and "democracy" to be capitalized or not, as each of those two words has different meanings based on whether they are to be treated as proper nouns or not.

"communism" is a form of economic theory, not specifically linked to Marx & Engels theories of worker ownership of capital. In fact, "communism" as a generic noun is practically synonymous with "communalism", where property is owned by everyone, but nothing about economic planning or organization as such is specified.

"democracy" is a political theory, which involves the citizenry being able to vote for their government (either directly in large meetings, or via representatives who rule in the citizenry's stead). In most contexts, when applied to anything larger than a town or small city, it implies a representative democracy.

"Communism" is a political theory, designed to implement the economic theories of Marx and Engels. Very specifically, it includes a strong central government, with ruling "soviets" at several levels (depending on the size of the region being ruled), which, while they outwardly resemble the elected legislatures of representative democracies (or republics), are not actually determined in a democratic way. It is the duty of the central government to plan all aspects of economic activity to insure that the goals of the worker's soviets are met (as the workers are the true citizens under Communism, all other resident's needs are secondary), with a generally semi-communal economic policy being pursued.

"Democracy" as a proper noun has all the same meanings as the generic noun, with the additional connotation of implying some form of the liberal representative republic variation of democracy - that is, generally referring to a form of government similar to the UK's parliamentary democracy or the US's presidential/congressional democracy.

To answer the original question, if both terms are to be the generic nouns, then the first answer above is correct - you are comparing an economic theory with a political theory, which is not possible.

However, as most people think of the proper noun form of the word Communism when using it, answering the second question where both refer to political systems is possible:

Theoretically, Communism could be a very pleasant system to live under, where everyone's needs were taken care of, and the desires of the workers (the vast majority of society) were prioritized over others. In practice, Communism has turned out to be a really horrible form of government - the problem is that its concept of requiring a authoritarian single-party government to handle the transition to the utopian stateless form is a recipe for abuse by strongmen. The reality is that in all places that Communism has been tried, it results not in an egalitarian society, but a rigidly stratified one controlled by either a dictator, or a very strong junta/oligarchy of a very few people. Communism results in the concentration of power in very few hands, without a mechanism to empower those outside the ruling circle - thus, it almost automatically ends up being a dictatorship, and one where a particularly evil form of megalomaniac seems to be especially drawn to (and able to dominate).

The Western Liberal Democracy form, with all its flaws, does at least empower ordinary citizens to effect real meaningful change in their government; that is, such a Democracy does, in practice, result in a government that is responsive to public opinion and desires, and (particularly in the Constitutional Republic form of a Democracy) protects minorities from abuse by the rest of society.