"...many ordinary people see communism as something that just cannot work in an imperfect world - even though it has good at its centre.When you say that "Communism is good in theory, but doesn't work in practise" you are in fact saying that in theory it's good to use violence and force to make people live their lives according to the wishes of the state, but that such a system breaks to pieces the very things that make human society work. Is that really what modern-day socialists believe?
They are mistaken. There is nothing moral about communism. At its centre is the idea that it is legitimate to force people how to live and where to work - turning citizens into mere pawns. Communism's failure in practice derives from its rotten centre."
Glen Whitman at Agoraphilia discusses the Theory-Practise argument in a recent post and quotes Arthur Schopenhauer:
"'That's all very well in theory, but it won't do in practice.' In this sophism you admit the premisses but deny the conclusion, in contradiction with a well-known rule of logic. The assertion is based upon an impossibility: what is right in theory must work in practice; and if it does not, there is a mistake in the theory; something has been overlooked and not allowed for; and, consequently, what is wrong in practice is wrong in theory too."Hat-tip: Catallarchy.
