Whoopi Goldberg: 'Communism is a Great Concept'
Actress Whoopi Goldberg has announced on “The View” yesterday that she believes communism “is a great concept.”
Goldberg is one of five panelists on “The View” and has frequently offered her outspoken opinion. Yesterday’s comment came during a discussion of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Communism, she said “is a great concept. On paper it makes perfect sense.”
Goldberg went on to caution: “Once you put a human being in power, it shifts. We saw it in Russia; we’ve seen it all around the world. It’s nuts.”
Communism is an ideology that aims to have a society of shared goods and common ownership. It seeks to get rid of all classes, money, and government systems. Karl Marx was a proponent of the communist movement and wrote: “Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse.”
“For the first time, [communism] treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals,” Marx wrote.
In 1917, a revolution in Russia led to the uprising and power of the Bolsheviks, who promoted communist ideology. As the communist party grew, it flowed into China, North Korea, Cuba and other Eastern countries. The movement lasted until 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev was named Head of State of the Soviet Union, and one by one countries moved from communism to capitalism, though China still practices a form of communism.
The United States has never supported communist ideology, and in 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy led the charge against American communism. He famously questioned anyone whom he suspected of communist ties or practice, most were actors and people in Hollywood. If someone was found guilty of having communist ties, he or she was blacklisted and found life considerably harder.
Critics of communism argue that it promotes classism rather than dissolving it. Those who have more will keep more instead of sharing the wealth, which communism idealizes.
