Singapore is Socialist, not Communist.

At first PAP follow Leninist ideology but after some incident where far-left wing supporter kena kick out from PAP, the party change to the more centre Socialism.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Action_Party

Perhaps you can elaborate on what are the criteria that are fulfilled for them to be 'understood' as such? Come to think of it, what exactly are you making a reference to anyways? Single party states? Or Communist States? If you're making a reference to Communist States, then what is your definition of a 'Communist State' anyways, considering that there's no one working template of what a communist state is to be.

Mind you, a lot of self termed communist regimes tends to use the term "People's" quite a lot. Looking at when the PRC was first called the PRC, there's nothing about the people in there, it was basically swapping one set of dictators with another.

It was only during Deng Xiaoping's time that the PRC actually tried out having elections. The PRC today is very different from the time when when the term 'PRC' was first coined, when at that time, the 'group' of people is limited to a selected few.

My point? labels are just labels. they may not be accurate. PRC has gone a long way, but they've still got quite a bit left to do still.

they can call themselves anything... it is all just labels...

no lar.. even during mao's time there's election... the republic was founded with a few collision of other parties including democratic ones... deng xiaoping reform d economics

everywhere is also limited to a few mar.... look at US, still between elephant and donkey, msia dont need to say, sg also dont need to say...

So what is the criteria that you had used to place the label that you had placed on them?

Perhaps you can provide more details of the elections that were held during MTZ's time?

the rule of thumb that I use to measure this is if it corresponds to universal suffrage or not. that is, if everybody above a certain age is eligible to vote or not. of which is not the case before DXP.

And perhaps you can elaborate by what you mean by the US being limited to a few, Malaysia being limited to a few, and Singapore limited to a few?

Communism is an "ideal" ideology in creating classless utopia world.

It is pretty in theory however it is not practical.

Human Needs:
- Food to eat
- Education (food for thought)
- Ownership of things
- Differentation/Superiority

It addresses the fundamental needs and not the others.

Many society started with socialism/communism, as it evolves/improves, democracy with capitalism structure start to take over.


As many forumer mentioned here already, it creates a divided power to top tier of the hierarchy and fails to address the greed and the will to be superior within human being.

It is an idea resulted from the society observation during the non structured/chaos era.

Example, if 1 billion people lives life in poverty, hardly enough food to eat, jobless, education is out of the question, what is the best society structure to address this issues temporary? Sharing resources would be the best temporary solution.

Just take PRC as an example, after WWII, as the entire nation is still in poverty, socialism idea at least address the hungry mouth issue first. Once the nation as a whole is progressing, then the policy is gradually structured/transformed to capitalism.

In my opinion, this progression ideology is a better model for such a large population society.

Looking at the other two examples, Soviet and India, they started with socialism ideology. However, the introduction of democracy is too drastic until the whole nation collapsed (Soviet, every state wants to have their own rights, independent and currency) or the gap of the wealth is huge (India).

In certain so called democratic countries, as the gap of the wealth is huge, instead of sending their children to school, the poor parent makes them children labor, which receive 50 cents a day or so.

In summary, one ideology that fits one country does not necessary fits another. The leader need to look into the history, culture, society and modify the ideology accordingly. Else it would becomes another fallen empires like what we always saw and learned from the history.

criteria... 1 party ruled by people from the professional/medium class, everything owned by the people, and noone owns more than a certain amount of wealth.. but i guess only the political system of communism is praticed now

during the establishment of the PRC, the 1st meeting held to choose d national anthem and flag.. etc etc was done through voting... among prominent people... warlords, wife of dr.sun, head of democratic parties...

in the US, there's only 2 ruling party since after the civil war i think... although the heads change but the core people remains the same..

in msia, we have d ruling collision eversince birth with leaders most of the time pick by the previous leader... sg PAP & mr.lee

so how democratic is this? once a party gets into power, they will use whatever means to stay in power.. democracy is not all about voting..

the only onces that truely pratice democracy are the europeans and scandinavian countries... d rest are just borrowing the name

There's more than just 1 party in Singapore if you're not aware. So this violates the one single criteria that you had put out now. And besides, having people who are either professionals and/or from the medium class in the ruling party, is this a trademark of communism only?

ie. no universal suffrage.

Democracy is more than just having a lot of parties involved in the system. What it really means is that the power to govern is determined by elections by the people via universal suffrage.

In both Malaysia & Singapore, despite a successor getting chosen by the previous leader, that successor will not be able to succeed should the people in the area that they run for their parliamentary seat in happened to reject them.

And the US has got far more than just merely 2 parties only too. Just that most people only know of either the Democrats or the Republicans. There's nothing stopping the other parties from attempting for the presidency, apart from the people's vote.

Socialism =/= Communism.

So no, Singapore is still not a communist country and can't be labeled as one.


Democracy is all about check and balances, alaskanbunny. So numbers of party doesn't equate how "democratized" a country is.


p/s : no offense. Read more about governmental system instead of knowing only democracy and communism cuz you pretty much trying to generalized different type of governments into a single category which is wrong. Oligarchy doesn't necessary mean that country is a communist country k?

This post has been edited by JunWisewar: Dec 3 2009, 09:53 PM

This is an interesting topic Awakened Angel.

I've been pondering about this myself. Is communism really Bad....

Over here, we watch war movies, where our heroic soldiers destroy the communist. Over in China I've been watching movies, of communist heroes eliminating, the treacherous democrats.

Actually, both systems have their pros and cons, but evidently Democracy is better, because communism breeds dictators, and are more prone to corruption.

In an ideal communist state, of course, it would be better, but in reality, it is difficult to achieve.

Through out history, communism, were used merely as an excuse by the elite, to rule over their country. "We love you dear leader" this should be a hint of what's going on.

If we look at north korea, teachers are discussing, how they can glorify their dear leader to the kids. It is no wonder they love their dear leader whom they have not met, and whose policies left them in the slumps.

Chairman Mao? hasn't anyone watched that doco on astro? He caused the Catastrophy of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_leap_forward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

The former, many people died in famine.
The later, caused young adults to go against their parents and teachers, to pick up arms and farm implements, instead of continuing their studies.

It was a bloody mess.

As for the later chinese government, nobody watched, the masacre at Tian men square? The chinese government open fire at defenseless students, who asked for democratic reforms.

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Added on December 9, 2009, 3:55 pmBut the ideals of communism, as some mentioned, are quite good. A state where all man are equal, etc.

All these systems of government were created by us. Why hasn't anybody considered having a government with a combination of the two major systems?

- Free media, where it's everybody's responsibility to spread info, be a whistle blower if an official is taking bribes, etc
- A sense of ownership of the country, collective effort, where it's everybody's responsibility to improve the country.
- Selection of leader, by the people, and not an elite few.
- Fair and concentration on individual rights and to stop the elite from opressing the common man.

To name a few things I can think off.

Actually, if we talk about tyrants, there's no different between one in a democracy and one in communism, both tries to brainwash the people, with fake information, glorifying the leaders. We don't have to look far for a democratic example.


This post has been edited by TheDoer: Dec 9 2009, 03:55 PM

No matter how you look at it buddy, politics is a dirty game. There are no two ways about it, and there has and will never be an innocent politician. The very word is an oxymoron. In that sense, all types of ruling will eventually fail, be it communism, democracy or any other you wish to insert here.

in our democrate malaysia.... aint the politics here somehow indirectly practise communism? the leader call the shots and with ISA the same as ruthless dictators?

one word, I think will change all politics scene..... TRANSPARENCY.. which is very very hard.........

can we see all our government spendings? what they did? what they buy? where the money goes to?

The nearest to communism is socialism.
Most democratic government who practices capitalism also includes a lil bit of socialism in the government to help the poor..

Fat chance that they'll post their financial statements out like that. We all know where it goes don't we?

you've somehow connected the ideals of 'communism' with 'dirty politics' and 'people doing stuff to cover up their shit' which is how we have a lack of transparency. 2 very different things here, man

IMO for humans to achieve near communism we would need to have superb technology in all areas which usually found in science fiction. Software will be in open source, basic task would be handled by robots but even so it's not close to perfect as greed is still there unless we even resort to make use of technology to alter genetics where all will have similar skin color and build, the way we think and so on. It may sound like those in the movies but we never know.

You're right, both systems have it's fair share. but we can see that one tends to be worst then another isn't it?
Instead of stating what we know, why don't we, talk about creating a system which can reduce corruption, misuse of power, and making sure we have choosen the right leaders.

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Added on December 14, 2009, 10:56 amYep that's right. We can't blame democracy for that, blame the people for not knowing what democracy is and not caring to uphold it.

I completely agree with you. Transparency is a key ingredient if we want to eliminate abuse. Perhaps we can include that in our new Political system?

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Added on December 14, 2009, 11:03 amDoes anyone realise, the difference and the problem, about the way people think under different political systems?

In a democracy, people are trying to fight for human rights, freedom of speach, and information.

in communism, people are trying to prove that their system is the best. And constantly fighting against other systems. They will lie to others and even themselves, for national pride.

In otherwords, communism, is just good on paper.

No, hold on, I'm not proposing we scrap communism, what do you feel we can do, to make it more practical? How can we incooperate it with democracy and other ideas?



This post has been edited by TheDoer: Dec 14 2009, 11:03 AM

do you think malaysia a capitalism islamic country can achieve that the prime minsiter could be like USA where it is not native?

hard to imagine huh

A little request to everybody here, when speaking on communism, can you all state if you're making a reference to either:
- communism as envisioned by Karl Marx, or
- communism as practiced by the self proclaimed communists?

There's a huge world of difference between the 2 actually, because there has never been a communist state ever.

I agree, I'm refering to Karl Marx most of the time. But in the above example, I was refering to how some countries, are trying to practice communism.

Perhaps it's too idealistic to be practical?

Communism used by those self proclaimed countries, is like, *ahem, some asian country (in the vicinity of Singapore), that claims to be democratic.

I think the problems with Communism or Democracy in the purest sense, is how easy it is to abuse and exploit those systems.

It's like putting a gun to ones head, and asking them to vote. "Heck, who says we aren't democratic".

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Added on December 14, 2009, 11:36 amI'm sorry, can you please explain?

This post has been edited by TheDoer: Dec 14 2009, 11:42 AM

in malaysia,

can a non malay and non muslim be prime minister?