There seems to be a debate over whether this movie is really anti-Communist or not. Since the film never really talks about economics, redistribution of wealth, etc... and is about toltalitarian control over personal freedoms I see it as more anti-toltalitarian than anti-communist.
shareVery astute observation. It is about totalitarianism. Communism and capitalism are economic systems, as is fascism. Democracy and totalitarianism are political systems. Unfortunately debate is too often an 'apples vs. oranges' debate of 'democracy' vs. 'communism' or 'socialism'.
Let's never come here again because it would never be as much fun.
Fascism is not an economic model.
Fascism is an order of society. Whether it incorporates elements of capitalism or socialism depends on the group that endorses it and is secondary in importance when it comes to defining it.
Communism isn't an economic system in the same sense as capitalism. What you're referring to is planned economy which is used by socialistic countries. Neither is fascism. They are ideologies, as liberalism and such.
Capitalism is on the other hand the economic system that liberal countries use. That is because that is a system where the people chose how to spend their money while in a planned economy the government does. The only way to make sure the people do as they're told is with the end of guns.
That's why socialism, ordinary or national, always are totalitarian. If the people would do as the elite wanted by will there would be no need for totalitarianism. People on the other hand like to chose for themselves, which is where the marching boots come into the picture.
Klas,
Do the American people really choose how to spend the tax monies collected by their government?
When the US government/military "intervened" in the Vietnam War, Chile (Allende), Australia (Whitlam), Grenada, Iraq (Saddam), Honduras (2009), etc. were the American people consulted that this was the way they wanted their taxes spent?
Or was this actually mostly the will of some large corporations that lobbied the Congress and Executive branch for changes in the government of those countries so that they could achieve greater profits?
The mainstream media corporations in the US were either totally uncritical or tacitly supportive of these actions, rallying sufficient support and thereby enabling anti-democratic actions to be carried out in the name of the American people.
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When the US government/military "intervened" in the Vietnam War,
Chile (Allende),
Australia (Whitlam),
Grenada,
Iraq (Saddam),
Honduras (2009),
were the American people consulted that this was the way they wanted their taxes spent?
Hahaha I just love you brainwashed republican patriots. You are so funny with all your pathetic *beep* You can never acknowledge any of the issues or flaws that America has. In your eyes, USA is the most perfect country in the world and they don't have any issues at all and they are very nice to every country in the world. Thats what you guys seriously believe. It's just laughable to say the least.
And yes, a lot of people did support the Vietnam war in the beginning. But then they started to see broadcasts about the war and 100s of millions around the world and in USA began to protest againts the war. Lyndon B Johnson was so hated because of the war so that he even choosed to not run in a re-election.
"Brainwashed" my ass! The news broadcasts about the war were slanted against America! Reporters were telling people that we lost battles that we actually won, and falsely claimed the Viet Cong were innocent and had legitimate grievances against the South Vietnamese government. That was why there were hundreds of millions of protests against the war. In reality, everything our government was saying about them was right all along.
The governor general Kerr canned Whitlam, on his own sense of the financal crisis and the lack of public confidence.
share"The people of Chile rejected Allende's policies."
What happened in Chile cannot be explained by these words.
"Despite declining economic indicators, Allende's Popular Unity coalition actually increased its vote to 43 percent in the parliamentary elections early in 1973..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile_under_Allende#Economics
There is no argument that can justify the coup in Chile.
Capitalism is on the other hand the economic system that liberal countries use.
"and is about toltalitarian control over personal freedoms I see it as more anti-toltalitarian than anti-communist."
They go hand-in-hand. Like all human systems Communism shows the abuse of that inevitably corrupt way of rule. The movie didn't get into the finite politics of Communist corruption, but showing you how real people lived should be enough of a message. The everyday citizens of East Germany didn't give a *beep* about politics, they were just trying to survive.
Showing the truth isn't "anti" anything, but if you're going to have an "anti", why shouldn't be this vile form of exploitation?
In my opinion, this film made me thankful for my freedom. Thankful to live in a country where I can post here and not worry for my safety. The Lives of Others showed me what I take for granted. If that's "anti" communist, then that answers your question.
"In my opinion, this film made me thankful for my freedom. Thankful to live in a country where I can post here and not worry for my safety. The Lives of Others showed me what I take for granted. If that's "anti" communist, then that answers your question."
So you clearly don't live in the USA...
An easy joke, I know, but nonetheless with a bit of truth to it. While it is true that any totalitarian system will go hand in hand with a suppression of freedom, the converse argument - that a non-totalitarian or democratic system does NOT curtrail personal liberties - does not hold. Every western country is proving that at the moment, our personal liberties are drastically reducing.
If you look at the US for example, and claim "freedom through democracy", I would just like to point out things like McCarthyism, torture, online search of personal computers without warrents, email and phone monitoring or blocking free press (like the ban on pictures of coffins of US Soldiers - though now lifted) make it obvious that we are nowhere near as "free" as we are constantly being told (not to say force-fed) that we are. As for being able to "post here and not worry about your safety", try posting here that you will go on a amok run tomorrow in your local school and see how long it takes to be visited by a couple of friendly FBI agents.
I wouldn't call it anti-communist, though it does depict some of the downsides of communism... There's the youngfella joking about the Sun disappearing to the west... and it is shown that the main characters would prefer live in the West. But this just shows that the West is a better place to live, not necessarily due to Socialism or Capitalism... Furthermore, one of the sympathetic characters (Albert) was said to be loyal to socialism, despite having been black-listed by the regime.
__________________
I've come to warn you! In three million years, you'll be dead!
I find it interesting that there is an assumption on some posts in this thread that assumes that a communist society will automatically be corrupt, that such a system inherently breeds corruption; whereas a western capitalistic society will not.
The events of the last decade, most noticably over the past 1-3 years, prove that is not the case. Western capitalistic countries can also become quite corrupt as anyone looking on the final years of the Bush Administration objectively has to realize.
The more I think about this the more it seems to me that it is the people within the system and their actions that really are the deciding factor as to whether a system becomes corrupt. Each system has its ideals, but it is the behavior of the people in power within the system that will determine the outcome. In addition to the extent that that power is not answerable to any sort of judicial or regulatory system designed to oversee and maintain some sort of ethics consistent with the ideals of the system, not having to answer to 'anyone' is an invitation to systemic corruption. We see that in the East German power elite in this film and we see it in corporate America today.
Funny thing, on the subject of 'poltical systems' vs. 'economic systems' and how they mix and match, it seems apparent that many of the Scandinavian countries tend to be very democratic in their poltical systems and very socialistic in their economic systems. And in polling of which countries' citizens around the world are happiest, it is the Scandinavian countries that are consistently at the top in terms of reported happiness and satisfaction with their lives and life chances.
Let's never come here again because it would never be as much fun.
Hasn't there always been corruption? In capitalist countries there are just more ways to (for the lack of a better word) "practise" it. And Scandinavia...
if we talk about northern Europe, they (we) have a reputation of being free from corruption but it also makes us a bit naive. Everyone here thinks automatically that there is none, but that means that we just don't know where to look.
Such as it is, in my country we're in the middle of a scandal involving our Prime Minister, the government and actually the ENTIRE PARLIAMENT. Everyone seems to have a little bit dirt on them, we'll see what happens in the next election.
(If I know anything about our voting habits, nothing will change.)
"Politics" is nothing but euphemism for "corruption". Period.
shareSo you clearly don't live in the USA...
As for being able to "post here and not worry about your safety", try posting here that you will go on a amok run tomorrow in your local school and see how long it takes to be visited by a couple of friendly FBI agents.
"They go hand-in-hand", you claim. Ah, but that's the O.P.'s point: They don't!
You may claim that all communism is totalitarian (and you may even be right - but that's beside the point here), but you cannot support a statement that all totalitarianism is communist.
In my opinion there is only one spectrum, the amount of government interference we allow into our lives. Call it what you like, but the centralized power of the state is the real problem whether we live in the east or the west.
I would say that the decline of any society is caused by the growth of government interference. Eventually we get tyranny.
The amount of government interference isn't the problem, as long as government is democratic. Tyranny is government that doesn't respond to the will of its citizens, either by being co-opted (from the inside or the outside), or democratic government abdicating its responsibilities - leaving a power vacuum for other non-democratic players to take over.
L, do you know gods of death love apples?
Death Note
well said!
shareThe everyday citizens of East Germany didn't give a *beep* about politics, they were just trying to survive.
One must be careful when using the world "totalitarian", the only certain examples of totalitarianism include Nazi Germany and the USSR under Stalin. Ba'athist Iraq and Iran under the Shah are better described as Sultanistic-- a personalistic regime. All power is centered around one person (Saddam Hussein, the Shah, etc.) and there is little by way of ideology, mobilization, a communications/weapons monopoly, mass surveillance, or police control. Corruption is rampant and the ruler governs purely by force of will, staffing the government as he sees fit, ruling the nation as his own personal property.
Even East Germany was not totalitarian by the time this film took place-- it was a post-totalitarian form of authoritarianism. Erich Honecker certainly was not the charismatic dictator that is typical of totalitarian regimes.
It seems to me that East Germany couldn't afford to look too brutal to the West. After all, they were on the absolute frontline of confrontation between the Eastern Bloc and the West. This must have kept any totalitarian impulses in check and caused a covert system like the Stasi to evolve, in a way that it never really did in Russia.
And yet, the East Germans did have a reputation for brutality (shootings at the Wall, etc) in the West.
I wonder how many resources were being devoted to the Stasi by the time the Wall fell? Such a bureaucracy, so many files, so many informers, etc must have taken a toll on resources, not just on people.
That's a good observation, but I believe that East Germany "loosened up" (for lack of a better term) because of the natural progression, or rather the natural political decay, of totalitarian systems. We will never know if Nazi Germany would have decayed into a post-totalitarian system, because the Third Reich, the only example of right-wing totalitarianism, was utterly destroyed and its host country rebuilt along a capitalist democratic model (half of it, anyway). We only saw what happened to left-wing totalitarian regimes such as the USSR and its satellites. The GDR wasn't trying to impress the West, given the confrontational Soviet rhetoric its government parroted, and it's not like the U.S. and its allies would invade in order to bring down the repressive regime (in fact, East Germany itself had plans for the invasion of West Berlin). Rather, totalitarianism across the Eastern Bloc decayed into post-totalitarianism because of internal politics and relations among the Warsaw Pact countries.
The Stasi, while covert, was yet another secret police force of Eastern European communist states, following the model of the Soviet secret police (I'm not naming it only because it went through so many name changes). The GDR was not the only country with an extensive system of informers to supplement the actual secret police, Romania's Securitate also had a large amount of informers. Finally, the existence of a wide, intrusive secret police force is in itself a totalitarian characteristic, the GDR had one because it was a state founded on the totalitarian model.
I'm not sure why people think this movie is anti-Communist or pro-Capitalist. It's pretty clear, from little we are shown after the Wall falls, that life in a unified Berlin is no nirvana either. We see people sitting around aimlessly on the streets after dark, tons of graffiti, and Wiesler working in a boring, soul-killing capitalistic job (BTW, he's not a mailman... he's only stuffing people's mailboxes with advertising leaflets, and it looks from the expression on his face that he doesn't like this job any better than steaming open people's mail).
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the capitalist way of life.
There seems to be much discussion on differentiating political systems from economic systems, and the assertion is often made that the two are distinct and unrelated. But there is an important relationship between economics and politics, and it is not possible to combine any political system with any economic system. For example, socialism by its very nature requires a strong and authoritative central government and is not compatible with liberal concepts such as democracy and individual liberty. To deny this is to show that you don't understand socialism.
It is true that the movie does not deal with economic concepts but Communism is what led to the state of affairs in GDR, so a criticism of the GDR must also partly be a criticism of Communism.
Spot on, straker76. For anyone wanting a more thorough analysis of why centrally-planned economies (socialist or communist) necessarily lead to totalitarianism, read F.A. Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom." (Published in 1944, I think you'll find it uncannily prescient.)
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I didn't see it as anti-Communist at all. It just portrayed accurately the suffocating political atmosphere in the DDR. That didn't have anything to do with Communism or Socialism, and that kind of repression can be found in many countries, not just Socialist ones.
Lenin zhil, Lenin zhiv, Lenin budet zhit'!
Yes, but while the deterioration of capitalist countries into totalitarian regimes is possible, the progression of communist countries into totalitarianism is inevitable. Big difference.
shareAllende's Chile progressed into totalitarianism indeed, after Pinochet staged a coup. There are no historical laws. Nothing proves a priori a communist government will inevitably turn into a totalitarian state.
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
Just because you use a latin phrase (incorrectly, in this case, unfortunately) in your post doesn't make it intelligent, or even meaningful...Oh wait, I'm sorry, you're completely right, it is just a coincidence that every attempt at communism devolves into a totalitarian regime.
If you don't understand that communism fails because of human nature, there is no point in arguing. It motivates all the wrong people and marginalizes all the right ones, to put it as simply as possible. As much as I'd like to debate with you over the internet, I've already wasted too much time on this.
Btw, I find it strangely fitting that someone defending the usefulness of communist ideas quotes someone in their post signature who was an anti-utilitarian.
Fact (a priori or a posteriori, whichever you like): Communism doesn't work, good day sir.
I don't know if you value things like labor laws; perhaps you don't, many people in the West no longer do. But many labor laws were achieved throughout the past century thanks to workers' movements organized by communists, as well as socialists and anarchists. Things like children shouldn't work, women should join the work market, 8-hour shifts, companies should be responsible for the safety of their workers, workers should receive compensation if they have accidents because their employers didn't want to spend money on safety measures... things like that weren't given to workers thanks to the kindness of capitalists.
It's a pity you can't see what a positive force in the world communism has also been.
This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.
Don't worry, everybody knows can see through the obvious emotional attachment to religion and race of anticommunists, sadly funny, as simple (minded) as that, no argument.
shareDon't worry, everybody knows can see through the obvious emotional attachment to religion and race of anticommunists, sadly funny, as simple (minded) as that, no argument.
As if communism was proven successful ANYWHERE it was ever adapted. Anyone with half a brain is an anti-Communist!
Great points, leonardvole. Unfortunately, communism’s defenders like to ignore simple historical facts. They have to. Communism has never worked and never will. I seriously doubt that any of these people you’re debating have ever actually lived in a communist country to experience this "worker’s paradise" that’s been advertised.
share[deleted]