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Tourist

Tourist

.]] , France ]] :"Tourist" redirects here; for the album by Athlete, see Tourist (album) Tourism is the act of travel for the purpose of recreation, and the provision of services for this act. A tourist is someone who travels at least eighty kilometres (fifty miles) from home for the purpose of recreation, as defined by the World Tourism Organization (a United Nations body). A more comprehensive definition would be that tourism is a service industry, comprising a number of tangible and intangible components. The tangible elements include transport systems - air, rail, road, water and now, space; hospitality services - accommodation, foods and beverages, tours, souvenirs; and related services such as banking, insurance and safety and security. The intangible elements include: rest and relaxation, culture, escape, adventure, new and different experiences. Many countries depend heavily upon travel expenditures by foreigners as a source of taxation and as a source of income for the enterprises that sell (export) services to these travellers. Consequently the development of tourism is often a strategy employed either by a Non-governmental organization (NGO) or a governmental agency to promote a particular region for the purpose of increasing commerce through exporting goods and services to non-locals. Sometimes Tourism and Travel are used interchangeably. In this context travel has a similar definition to tourism, but implies a more purposeful journey. The term tourism is sometimes used pejoratively, implying a shallow interest in the societies and places that the tourist visits.

Tourism Classification

Tourism may be classified into the following types:
- Inbound international tourism: Visits to a country by nonresident of that country
- Outbound international tourism: Visits by the residents of a country to another country
- Internal tourism: Visits by residents of a country to their own
- Domestic tourism: Inbound international tourism + internal tourism
- National tourism: Internal tourists + outbound international tourism

Required factors

The following are required, to make travel possible: # Discretionary income, i.e. money to spend on non-essentials # Time in which to do so. # Infrastructure in the form of accommodation facilities and means of transport. Individually, sufficient health is also a condition, and of course the inclination to travel. Furthermore, in some countries there are legal restrictions on travelling, especially abroad. Communist states restrict foreign travel only to "trustworthy" citizens. The United States prohibits its citizens from traveling to some countries, for example, Cuba.

History

Wealthy people have always travelled to distant parts of the world to see great buildings or other works of art; to learn new languages; or to taste new cuisine. As long ago as the time of the Roman Republic places such as Baiae were popular coastal resorts for the rich. The terms tourist and tourism were first used as official terms in 1937 by the League of Nations. Tourism was defined as people travelling abroad for periods of over 24 hours.

Health tourism & leisure travel

It was not until the 19th century that cultural tourism developed into leisure and health tourism. Some English travellers, after visiting the warm lands of the south of Europe, decided to stay there either for the cold season or for the rest of their lives. Others began to visit places with supposedly health-giving mineral waters, in hopes of relieving a whole variety of diseases from gout to liver disorders and bronchitis. Leisure travel was a British invention due to sociological factors. Britain was the first European country to industrialize, and the industrial society was the first society to offer time for leisure to a growing number of people. Initially, this did not apply to the working masses, but rather to the owners of the machinery of production, the economic oligarchy, the factory owners, and the traders. These comprised the new middle class. The British origin of this new industry is reflected in many place names. At Nice, one of the first and most well established holiday resorts on the French Riviera, the long esplanade along the seafront is known to this day as the Promenade des Anglais; in many other historic resorts in continental Europe, old well-established palace hotels have names like the Hotel Bristol, the Hotel Carlton or the Hotel Majestic - reflecting the dominance of English customers.

Winter tourism

Winter sports were largely invented by the British leisured classes initially at the Swiss village of Zermatt (Valais), and St Moritz in 1864. The first packaged winter sports holidays (vacations) followed in 1903, to Adelboden, also in Switzerland. Organized sport was well established in Britain before it reached other countries. The vocabulary of sport bears witness to this: rugby, football, and boxing all originated in Britain, and even Tennis, originally a French sport, was formalized and codified by the British, who hosted the first national championship in the nineteenth century, at Wimbledon. Winter sports were a natural answer for a leisured class looking for amusement during the coldest season.

Mass travel

Wimbledon, Italy.]] Mass travel could not really begin to develop until two things occurred.

- improvements in technology allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, and
- greater numbers of people began to enjoy the benefits of leisure time. A major development was the invention of the railways, which brought many of Britain's seaside towns within easy distance of Britain's urban centres. The father of modern mass tourism was Thomas Cook who, on 5 July 1841, organized the first package tour in history, by chartering a train to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough, some twenty miles away. Cook immediately saw the potential for business development in the sector, and became the world's first tour operator. He was soon followed by others, with the result that the tourist industry developed rapidly in early Victorian Britain. Initially it was supported by the growing middle classes, who had time off from their work, and who could afford the luxury of travel and possibly even staying for periods of time in boarding houses. However, the Bank Holiday Act 1871 introduced a statutory right for workers to take holidays, even if they were not paid at the time. The combination of short holiday periods, travel facilities and distances meant that the first holiday resorts to develop in Britain were towns on the seaside, situated as close as possible to the growing industrial conurbations. For those in the industrial north, there were Blackpool in Lancashire, and Scarborough in Yorkshire. For those in the Midlands, there were Weston-super-Mare in Somerset and Skegness in Lincolnshire, for those in London there were Southend-on-Sea, Broadstairs, Brighton, Eastbourne and many others. In travelling to the coast, the population was following in the steps of Royalty. King George III is widely acknowledged as popularising the seaside holiday, due to his regular visits to Weymouth when in poor health. For a century, domestic tourism was the norm, with foreign travel being reserved for the rich or the culturally curious. A minority of resorts, such as Bath, Harrogate and Matlock, emerged inland. After World War II holiday villages such as Butlins and Pontins emerged, but their popularity waned with the rise of package tours and the increasing comforts to which visitors became accustomed at home. Towards the end of the 20th century the market was revived by the upmarket inland resorts of Dutch company Centre Parcs. Other phenomena that helped develop the travel industry were paid holidays:
- 1.5 million manual workers in Britain had paid holidays by 1925
- 11 million by 1939 (30% of the population in families with paid holidays)

Outside Britain

Similar processes occurred in other countries, though at a slower rate, given that nineteenth century Britain was far ahead of any other nation in the world in the process of industrialisation. In the USA, the first great seaside resort, in the European style, was Atlantic City, New Jersey. In Continental Europe, early resorts included Ostend (for the people of Brussels), and Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais) and Deauville (Calvados) (for Parisians).

International mass tourism

Increasing speed on railways meant that the tourist industry could develop internationally. By 1901, the number of people crossing the English Channel from England to France or Belgium had passed 0.5 million per year. However it was with cheap air travel in combination with the package tour that international mass tourism developed after 1963. For the worker living in greater London, Brindisi today is almost as accessible as Brighton was 100 years ago.

Recent developments

There have been a few setbacks in tourism, the latest being related to the September 11, 2001 attacks and terrorist threats to tourist destinations such as Bali and European cities. Some of the tourist destinations, including the Costa del Sol, the Baleares and Cancun have lost popularity due to shifting tastes. In this context, the excessive building and environmental destruction often associated with traditional "sun and beach" tourism may contribute to a destination's saturation and subsequent decline. This appears to be the case with Spain's Costa Brava, a byword for this kind of tourism in the 1960s and 1970s. With only 11% of the Costa Brava now unblemished by low-quality development (Greenpeace Spain's figure), the destination now faces a crisis in its tourist industry. Attempts to move towards "quality tourism" are difficult given competition from cheaper, unspoilt holiday destinations on the one hand and the legacy of decades of over-exploitation on the other. Tenerife provides an example of the negative impact of mass tourism. Organizations like Greenpeace and [http://www.atan.org/en ATAN] are particularly critical of development on the island, arguing that Tenerife's current tourism industry is both economically and environmentally unsustainable. Receptive tourism is now growing at a very rapid rate in many developing countries, where it is often the most important economic activity in local GDP. In recent years, second holidays or vacations have become more popular as people's discretionary income increases. Typical combinations are a package to the typical mass tourist resort, with a winter skiing holiday or weekend break to a city or national park. On December 26 2004 a tsunami, caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake hit Asian countries bordering the Indian Ocean, and also the Maldives. Tens of thousands of lives were lost, and many tourists died. This, together with the vast clean-up operation in place, has stopped or severely hampered tourism to the area.

Special forms of tourism

For the past few decades other forms of tourism, also known as niche tourism, have been becoming more popular, particularly:
- Adventure tourism: tourism involving travel in rugged regions, or adventurous sports such as mountaineering and hiking (tramping).
- Agritourism: farm based tourism, helping to support the local agricultural economy.
- Armchair tourism and virtual tourism: not travelling physically, but exploring the world through internet, books, TV, etc.
- Bookstore Tourism is a grassroots effort to support independent bookstores by promoting them as a travel destination.
- Cultural tourism: includes urban tourism, visiting historical or interesting cities, such as London, Paris, Cracow, Rome, Prague, Beijing, Kyoto, Warsaw, and experiencing their cultural heritages. This type of tourism may also include specialized cultural experiences, such as art museum tourism where the tourist visits many art museums during the tour, or opera tourism where the tourist sees many operas or concerts during the tour.
- Dark tourism: is the travel to sites associated with death and suffering.
- Disaster tourism: travelling to a disaster scene not primarily for helping, but because it is interesting to see. It can be a problem if it hinders rescue, relief and repair work.
- Drug tourism: for use in that country, or, legally often extremely risky, for taking home.
- Ecotourism: sustainable tourism which has minimal impact on the environment, such as safaris (Kenya), Rainforests (Belize) and hiking (Lapland), or national parks.
- Educational tourism: may involve travelling to an education institution, a wooded retreat or some other destination in order to take personal-interest classes, such as cooking classes with a famous chef or crafts classes.
- Gambling tourism, e.g. to Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Macau or Monte Carlo for the purpose of gambling at the casinos there.
- Heritage tourism: visiting historical (Athens, Cracow) or industrial sites, such as old canals, railways, battlegrounds, etc.
- Health tourism: usually to escape from cities or relieve stress, perhaps for some 'fun in the sun', etc. Often to "health spas".
- Hobby tourism: tourism alone or with groups to participate in hobby interests, to meet others with similar interests, or to experience something pertinent to the hobby. Examples might be garden tours, ham radio DXpeditions, or square dance cruises.
- Inclusive tourism: tourism marketed to those with functional limits or disabilities. Referred to as "Tourism for All" in some regions. Destinations often employ Universal Design and Universal Destination Development principles.
- Medical tourism, e.g.:
- for what is illegal in one's own country, e.g. abortion, euthanasia; for instance, euthanasia for non-citizens is provided by Dignitas in Switzerland.
- for advanced care that is not available in one's own country
- in the case that there are long waiting lists in one's own country
- for use of free or cheap health care organisations
- Perpetual tourism: wealthy individuals always on vacation, some of them, for tax purposes, to avoid being resident in any country.
- Sport tourism: skiing, golf and scuba diving are popular ways to spend a vacation. Also in this category is vacationing at the winter home of the tourist's favorite baseball team, and seeing them play everyday.
- Space tourism
- Vacilando is a special kind of wanderer for whom the process of travelling is more important than the destination.

Trends

The World Tourism Organization forecasts that international tourism will continue growing at the average annual rate of 4 percent [http://www.world-tourism.org/market_research/facts/market_trends.htm]. By 2020 Europe will remain the most popular destination, but its share will drop from 60 percent in 1995 to 46 percent. Long-haul will grow slightly faster than intraregional travel and by 2020 its share will increase from 18 percent in 1995 to 24 percent. Since e-commerce has taken of on the internet, tourism products have become one of the most traded item on the net. Tourism products and services have been made available on the net at bargain prices through intermediaries like expedia.com or travelocity.com. In recent time, tourism providers (hotels, airlines, etc.)have started to sell their services through the internet. This has put pressure on intermediaries from both the virtual and the traditional brick and mortar stores. Space tourism is expected to "take off" in the first quarter of the 21st century, although compared with traditional destinations the number of tourists in orbit will remain low until technlogies such as space elevator make space travel cheap. Technological improvement is likely to make possible air-ship hotels, based either on solar-powered airplanes or large dirigibles. Underwater hotels, such as Hydropolis, expected to open in Dubai in 2006, will be built. On the ocean tourists will be welcomed by ever larger cruise ships and perhaps floating cities. Some futurists expect that movable hotel "pods" will be created that could be temporarily erected anywhere on the planet, where building a permanent resort would be unacceptable politically, economically or environmentally.

External links

- [http://www.holidaysforum.com/ Holidays Forum] (Tourism discussion).
- [http://www.altaionline.ru./ Tourism in Siberia] (Tourism in Siberia). Category:Service industries Category:Recreation Category:Entertainment ko:관광 ms:Pelancongan ja:旅行 simple:Tourism th:การท่องเที่ยว

Tourist (album)

Tourist is the second full-length album by British rock band Athlete, first released in early 2005 (see 2005 in music). For their sophomore album, Athlete has shown a maturation in their musical style. While their Mercury Music Prize-nominated debut Vehicles and Animals was jolly Britpop, Tourist is slower, sadder and more sensitive (i.e. from the likes of Coldplay). "Wires", the first single taken from the album, entered an amazing number 4 position in the UK Singles Chart. The album itself climbed to #1 on the UK Album Chart on the week of its release. Despite it being a huge success, many professional critics were decidedly harsh with Tourist, who believe Athlete have mislead the unique style of their last album. However, most people interpret it as a progression from their old sound.

Track Listing

- All tracks written by the band. #"Chances" #"Half Light" #"Tourist" #"Trading Air" #"Wires" #"If I Found Out" #"Yesterday Threw Everything At Me" #"Street Map" #"Modern Mafia" #"Twenty Four Hours" #"I Love"

Bonus tracks

- "Lay Your Head" (Japan)

Disc two: Bonus DVD (special edition)

#"Wires" (video) #"Tourist" (Behind the Scenes Documentary) #"Wires" (live video - Shepherds Bush 2004) #"Tourist" (live video - Shepherds Bush 2004) #"New Project" (live audio - Shepherds Bush 2004) #"Vehicles And Animals" (live audio - Shepherds Bush 2004) #"You Got The Style" (live audio - Shepherds Bush 2004) #"Shake Those Windows" (live audio - Shepherds Bush 2004)

Singles

- Wires, released January 17 2005. It hit #4 in the UK Charts.
- Half Light, released April 25 2005. It hit #16 in the UK Charts.
- Tourist, released August 15 2005. It hit #43 in the UK Charts.
- Twenty Four Hours / Stand In the Sun, released November 14 2005. It hit #42 in the UK Charts.

Release details

The album has been released in various countries.

External links

[http://www.hotlyricz.com/A/athlete/athleteindex.html Athlete "Tourist" 2005 Lyrics] Category:2005 albums Category:Second albums Category:Parlophone albums Category:Capitol Records albums Category:Astralwerks albums

Travel

Travel is the transport of people on a trip or journey. Reasons for travel include:
- Tourism—travel for recreation. This may apply to the travel itself, or the travel may just be the necessary investment to arrive at a desired location.
- Visiting friends and family
- Trade
- Commuting–going to various routine activities, such as work or meetings.
- Migration—travel to begin life somewhere else; nomadic people do this
- Pilgrimages—travel for religious reasons The word originates from the Middle English word travailen ("to toil"), which comes from the French word travailler ("travail"). Travel or traveling is also a name applied to a specific violation in the game of basketball. See Traveling (basketball term).

In Fiction

- To Travel or Traveling refers to using a Gateway (in fiction) or 'fold' in the pattern created by either Saidar or Saidin to move from one place to another in The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.
- Travels is also the title of a non-fiction novel by Michael Crichton.

External links

- [http://www.instatravel.org/ Instatravel] Travel site offering news and updates on worldwide travel
- [http://europestring.com/ Europe String] Travelling Europe on a Budget
- [http://flyaway-weblog.com/ Flyaway-Weblog] Travel Tips and Reviews
- [http://escapeblog.com/ Escape Blog] Getting there is only part of the equation, making sure you don't piss off the locals is where the excitement begins.
- See Wikitravel at [http://wikitravel.org/en/Main_Page wikitravel.org] for more travelling information.

World Tourism Organization

The World Tourism Organization (WTO) is a United Nations agency dealing with questions relating to tourism. Its headquarters are in Madrid, Spain. It compiles the World Tourism Rankings.

External link

- [http://www.world-tourism.org/ Official homepage] Category:Tourism

Service industry

The service sector or the service industry, is one of the three main industrial categories of a developed economy, the others being the secondary industry (manufacturing and primary goods production such as agriculture), and primary industry (extraction such as mining and fishing). The tertiary sector of industry involves the provision of services to other businesses as well as final consumers. Services may involve the transport, distribution and sale of goods from producer to a consumer as may happen in wholesaling and retailing, or may involve the provision of a service, such as in pest control or entertainment. The goods may be transformed in the process of providing the service, as happens in the restaurant industry. However the focus is on people interacting with people and serving the customer rather than transforming physical goods. For the last 20 years there has been a substantial shift from the other two industry sectors to the Tertiary Sector in industrialised countries. The sevice sector consists of the "soft" parts of the economy such as insurance, tourism, banking, retail and education. Others include:
- Franchising
- Restaurants
- Retailing
- Entertainment, including the Record industry, Music industry, Radio, Television and Movies.
- News media
- Leisure industry
- Transport
- Healthcare
- Consulting, Investment and Legal advice and services. Public utilities are often considered part of the tertiary sector as they provide services to people, while creating the utility's infrastructure is often considered part of the secondary sector, even though the same business may be involved in both aspects of the operation. Economies tend to follow a developmental progression that takes them from a heavy reliance on agriculture, toward the development of industry (e.g. automobiles, textiles, shipbuilding, steel, mining) and finally toward a more service based structure. Whereas the first economy to follow this path in the modern world was the United Kingdom, the speed at which other economies have later made the transition to service-based, sometimes called post-industrial, has accelerated over time. The term service economy, in contrast, refers to a model wherein as much economic activity as possible is treated as a service. For example IBM treats its business as a service business. Although it still manufactures high-end computers, it sees the physical goods as a small part of the "business solutions" industry. They have found that the price elasticity of demand for "business solutions" is much less elastic than for hardware. There has been a corresponding shift to a subscription pricing model. Rather than receiving a single payment for a piece of manufactured equipment,many manufacturers are now receiving a steady stream of revenue for ongoing contracts. Manufacturing tends to be more open to international trade and competition than services. As a result, there has been a tendency for the first economies to industrialize to come under competitive attack by those seeking to industrialize later, e.g. because production, especially labour, costs are lower in those industrializing later. The resultant shrinkage of manufacturing in the leading economies might explain their growing reliance on the service sector.

Issues for service providers

Service providers face obstacles selling services that goods-sellers rarely face. Services are not tangible, making it difficult for potential customers to understand what they will receive and what value it will hold for them. Indeed some, such as consulting and investment services, offer no guarantees of the value for price paid. Since the quality of most services depends largely on the quality of the individuals providing the services, it is true that "people costs" are a high component of service costs. Whereas a manufacturer may use technology, simplification, and other techniques to lower the cost of goods sold, the service provider often faces an unrelenting pattern of increasing costs. Differentiation is often difficult. How does one choose one investment advisor over another, since they (and hotel providers, leisure companies, consultants, and others) often seem to provide identical services? Charging a premium for services is usually an option only for the most established firms, who charge extra based upon brand recognition. Category:Economics

Hospitality Services

The concept of Hospitality Services, also known as “accommodation sharing”, “hospitality exchange”, and “home stay networks”, refers to centrally organized social networks of individuals who trade accommodation without monetary exchange. While this conceptualization could also include house swapping or even time share plans, it has come to be associated mostly with travelers and tourists staying with one another free of charge. Since the 1990s, these services have increasingly moved away from using printed catalogues and phone trees to connect users towards Internet websites to store info in databases. They have grown exponentially since 2000 and today it is estimated that well over 100,000 people are registered users of these networks. These vary in operational structure, place different emphasis on graphical vs. textual formatting, and cater disproportionately to specific geographic regions.

History

In 1949, Bob Luitweiler founded the first hospitality service called Servas Open Doors as a cross national, non-profit, volunteer run organization advocating interracial and international peace. The next earliest began in 1965 when John Wilcock set up the Traveler's Directory, originally as a listing of his mutual friends willing to host each other when traveling. This later became the Hospitality Exchange in 1988 when Joy Lily rescued the organization from imminent demise. Hospitality Club is the direct successor Hospex, the first Internet-based service, operating out of Poland since 1992. Just as all the individual services have their own individual creation stories and organizational histories (often including demise and resurrection), many also have specific niche markets that they cater to including students, activists, religious pilgrims, and even occupational groups like police officers. However, the trend in recent years points to a greater consolidation of users in networks without an overt group, value, or lifestyle affiliation.

How They Work

In essence, these systems employ fundamental reciprocity – users gain access to other users’ information only by posting their own. Requisite fields normally include name and contact information, though newer services encourage users to include more detailed personal material, including likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, and even photographs. Of course, more information included tends to improve the chances that someone will find them trustworthy enough to host or stay with while traveling. It is very much akin to today's online dating services.

Benefits

Monetary Savings

Staying in private homes means that travelers can save lots of money on accommodation that they would usually be spending on hotels or hostels. Used over a long period of time (2 to 4 weeks), this strategy can cut overall travel budgets in half. These savings can then be passed on towards more generously patronizing local establishments or simply staying abroad for longer periods of time, which is said to make the tourist experience significantly more authentic.

Local Economic Sustainability

Many tourist vacations today are sold in package form, often including flights, hotels, rental cars, sightseeing tours, and coupons for chain restaurants and bars. While this makes purchasing more convenient, it also puts more money in the hands of large multinational corporations exploiting the synergy strategy of marketing their products in the context of their subsidiary companies operating in other markets. Many years ago, this might have been termed collusion, today, it is the norm. This comes at the expense of locally owned independent businesses. Accommodation sharing helps to break apart this monopoly and hopefully redirects some of the tourist revenue back to the local or national economy.

Ecological Sustainability

While this is especially important in more rural travel venues where hotels are often built in very picturesque, though fragile environments, every night stayed at a local’s home means that much less demand for such hotel rooms. Also, if accommodation sharing does in fact increase the length of average stays, it may reduce the amount of trips to and from different locations and back home again, thus reducing the overall fuel expenditures in the process.

Local Contact

Ostensibly, one of the primary reasons we travel is to experience what life is like for people living in other countries. Making interpersonal connections and fostering understanding of different cultures may in the long run also be important to international relations. However, even in our increasingly globalized world supposedly rife with diversity, in many popular travel destinations we find tourists milling around “tourist enclaves” where the companies they patronize back home have set up shop to cater to their desires while they are abroad. Sociologist George Ritzer has referred to this phenomenon as the "McDonaldisation of society" and the more recently, the "globalization of nothing". The location of hotels near these centers only fosters more convenient envelopment of the tourist dollar. During hospitality exchanges, hosts want to show off their local knowledge and exciting “off the map” venues. Not only will travelers get a distinctly different experience, but they will also get a feel for the everyday lives of local residents.

Reciprocity

These systems foster richer and more convenient travel experiences not so much on the premise of altruism, but on the basis of social exchange theory. Implicit in the agreement to host travelers is the ability to ask to be hosted by them in the future. If one enjoys having interesting guests in their home, this works out well for both parties. It works comparatively better if you are visited by travelers from a locale you find particularly attractive. Thus, hosting someone from New York City in Gainesville, FL seems to be an unbelievable opportunity. Moreover, if you are a Westerner visiting someone in a developing nation, your stay might be the only way that this individual or family could afford a trip to a rich nation. This may mean more than just a relaxing vacation for such disadvantaged parties.

Authenticity and Adventure

Tourism has always searched for these two qualities, but much like Midas and his golden touch, the reach of tourism has to a large extent destroyed the opportunity to encounter them in most places. Unluckily, the experience has been thoroughly commodified by everyone who wanted to secure their opportunity to make a buck in the process. Accommodation sharing offers a way out of this bind and a viable alternative to having one’s desires manipulated by corporate conglomerates who never had the best interests of the place or the people foremost in their minds.

Drawbacks

Lack of Guarantee

There is no contractual agreement between users in these systems. Reservations are made, but if they are for some reason broken, there is no higher authority to which one could plead for a refund or other compensation. The only repercussion will be the poor rating you give that user and your only consolation will be that your warning will deter others from visiting or hosting them. For those who feel insecure unless their travel arrangements are written in stone before departure, this system will not be comforting.

Potential Interpersonal Conflict or Awkwardness

There is a chance that guest and host will not get along. Perhaps there will be scheduling or ideological conflicts. Maybe you will find that hosts or visitors have misrepresented themselves. Perhaps the experience will not live up to your expectations. Intense interpersonal communications in advance and a flexibility once you have arrived is your best bet. These experiences require additional planning and courtesy towards the demands of your host. Thus, your living conditions, length of stay, and overall experience will be circumscribed by the living conditions you enter into.

Digital Divide and Demographic Segregation

The average user is a young white male who speaks English and lives in a developed nation. (see couchsurfing.com statistics [http://couchsurfing.com/statistics.html/]) While there are many users who do not fit this description, the more different they are, the less likely they will be involved. This is especially true for persons living in the developing world who likely do not have easy access to the fundamental prerequisite for using these services: computers and the Internet. Thus, the sample population found in searches of these databases are really much less diverse than a geographical representation of worldwide users might suggest.

Security

Everyone realizes there is a distinct possibility that someone will abuse the system and that innocent users (especially women) will get hurt. All services include disclaimers that require users to waive their rights to hold anyone but themselves responsible for any harm that may come to them in using the system. They advise that the best defense mechanism is to only involve oneself with users that have extensive personal information and interpersonal networks within the system that have been verified by others. It does seem entirely plausible that someone clever and patient enough might be able to invent an entire group of complex user identities and build histories convincing enough to fool even more cautious patrons. Still, the difference between these systems and the other social networking platforms popular nowadays on the web (MySpace, Tribe, Orkut, LiveJournal, Ebay) is that any agreement reached hrough the accommodation sharing medium is contingent on actually meeting other people face-to-face. Other web scams are easier because interpersonal interactions rely so much on putative identities that are never actually verified in the real world. However, this does not diminish the greater risk to physical well being that this kind of traveling by definition must entertain. The best advice is to meet unknown persons in public spaces first, and try to meet some of their acquaintances in person before agreeing to a hospitality exchange.

Potential as a charitable service

The concept

At present, the hospitality exchange phenomena is very much enclosed within the purview of highly advantaged populations in the global North. However, it would seem that the kind of people who are at present most interested in using this system: young, educated, idealistic, trusting, liberal, and international in nature, would be very much inclined to convert at least some of their tourist time to volunteering overseas in a worthy cause. Let's just say group of Americans students from Austin, Texas wanted to drive across the U.S.-Mexico border, travel for a couple of months on their summer break in Central America, and do some good works along the way. If they went to the Internet to try and find some locations conducive for volunteers in their position, they would be summarily disappointed. There are options available for volunteers, but they remain highly formalized. In fact, most programs require that you pay a fairly large nonrefundable fee (often exceeding $300) up front and stay for an extended period (at least ten days or so). Furthermore, they require extensive documentation and institutional references. These restrictions would likely deter these students from pursuing volunteer efforts at all and they would likely fall back onto the hosteling/tourist circuit exclusively. There are many worthy causes to be found (educational, environmental, organizational, structural), especially in poor nations, but they aren't well publicized outside of the local community in which they take place. A potential issue could be that the training required for many volunteer opportunities is extensive, but there are certainly jobs that require far less. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may be reluctant to involve short term, non-paying volunteers because they have more structured continuous programs requiring many extraneous adminstrators who must receive a salary. However, there are many needs in poor countries that cannot be filled by NGOs and their programs. This is especially true with short term projects. Many of these services are organized by local churches, which may attract some faith-based volunteers from abroad, but may also put off potential non-religious volunteers. Accommodation sharing could connect truly grassroots community development projects with potential volunteers from the developed world. During their stay, they could lend skilled and unskilled labor and reap the benefits of a truly rewarding relationship with local peoples in need.

What needs to be done

An action research approach will be used to test the feasibility of integrating accommodation sharing with community-based development projects. The first step would be to choose and screen different potential programs with different environments, requirements, and themes. It would be necessary to sample a diverse array of settings in order to determine how differences would affect the overall experience of hosts, volunteers, and the projects themselves. This demostration project would be undertaken with the support of one accommodation sharing site which would create a special link on their home page with an explanation of the project and links to the profiles of different host organizers. Volunteers would be screened through the same accommodation sharing format as the general user population. The organizers would have full discretion on who to invite, but the process they use to select invitees would be recorded. Perhaps it would be possible to line up a potential "volunteer circuit" through multiple programs in the region. The variables in programs would include: wealth of nation and locale, rural vs. urban settings, nature of work performed, its purpose and ideological justification, size of project, skills and funding of organizers, skills and demographic background of volunteers, linguistic conditions, living conditions for volunteers, and the duration of their stay. The data collection would be decentralized, having no lead researcher in charge at specific sites. Participant observation and personal journaling would comprise the primary methods for gathering information about ongoing activities. The local organizers and volunteers would both be required to keep these kinds of detailed records of their experiences, which they would duly record each evening on an individual basis. In addition, all participants and organizers would be asked to write an autoethnography about themselves and their expectations before participating in the program and the conclusions they came to about their experiences after they had left. These materials would then be sent to a team of qualitative data analysts who would code the information for specific themes and call participants to discuss/clarify their experiences in a debriefing session. When emerging themes reached a near saturation point, their analysis would inform an in-progress research report that would be shared with organizers at the specific sites. Furthermore, this information would then lead into face to face interviews with organizers/participants and on site focus groups including both groups. When all programs had reached completion, the data would be compiled into a comprehensive report assessing their benefits and shortcomings of the programs along with concrete policy proposals for the future. This information would be first distributed to the organizers, who would be given the opportunity to review and comment. These suggestions would be taken into account in the final version which would then be made fully public and translated on the Internet.

Press

- [http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-tr-internet1aug01,0,4872768.story?coll=la-headlines-technology/ LA Times Technology Review]
- [http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20040827/dd_voyager27.art.htm/ USA Today Travel Section Article]
- [http://couchsurfing.com/press.html?PHPSESSID=f99a16ba3ac7e99e611da5df1bbf8ba2 The Couchsurfing.com press page]

External links

- Hospitality Club [http://www.hospitalityclub.org/] -- currently the largest community
- CouchSurfing [http://www.couchsurfing.com/]
- GlobalFreeloaders [http://www.globalfreeloaders.com/]
- Servas International [http://www.servas.org/] - human rights and global peace oriented
- Pasporta Servo [http://www.tejo.org/ps/]- for Esperanto speakers
- TravelHoo [http://www.travelhoo.com/dotnet/main.aspx/] - a smaller international service
- Agritourism [http://www.agritourismworld.com/]
- [http://www.homeshare.org/ Homeshare International], charity organisation providing exchange of housing for help in the home
- [http://www.hospitalityguide.net Hospitaliy Guide] - overview over the hospitality networks Category:Travel Category:Tourism Category:Alternative economy Category:Social networking Category:Hospitality service

Export

In economics, an export is any good or commodity, shipped or otherwise transported out of a country, province, town to another part of the world, typically for use in trade or sale. Export products or services are provided to foreign consumers by domestic producers. Export is the legitimate transportation of domestic or nationalized goods and services from a country intended for use or consumption rendered abroad. Exports can be any good that is shipped out of a government's border for commercial purposes. Exports are usually carried out under specific conditions.

Discretionary income

Disposable income is the amount of an individual's total income left after taxes, plus any transfer payments (grants) received from the government or elsewhere. This income is available to be "disposed of" as either spending or saving. Another concept that is often confused with disposable income is discretionary income. This is equal to disposable income minus the cost of the fixed expenses of life (such as rent/mortgage, food, car payments, insurance, etc.). It is income that can be saved or spent on goods and services wanted, not needed. Unfortunately, the definition of discretionary income is fuzzier than that of disposable income, making it harder to measure.

External link

- [http://www.disposableincome.net/ A simple discretionary income calculator] -- even though this says it's measuring "disposable income," using the economist's language, it's discretionary income. Category:Taxation Category:Income

Infrastructure

Infrastructure, most generally, is the set of interconnected structural elements that provide the framework for supporting the entire structure. It usually applies only to structures that are artificial. The term is used differently in a variety of fields; perhaps the single most well-known usage is in economics, where it refers to physical infrastructure such as buildings and roads. The notion that a structure has an in-ternal fra-mework is popular especially in business organizations where a dependency on interconnected information technology systems has become as prevalent as a city's dependency on interconnected conveyance systems for power, people and things.

Definition disputes

The term is often used very abstractly. For instance, software engineering tools are sometimes described as part of the infrastructure of a development shop, and the term infrastructural capital in economics may be overly broad, as it includes a range from clothing to a continent-spanning canal system. This term can overlap with the notion of internal improvements and public works (see American System (economics)). In national security, the term "critical infrastructure" is also extremely broad (although it should be less inclusive as not all infrastructure should be considered critical) and includes support, e.g. for banking, and other such processes of questionable merit. One issue is the necessity of means of protection, and of accounting, in increasing value of life. Advocates of a broad definition usually argue that without these "critical" systems, the rest of the infrastructure is looted, burned, or not safe to use. Another issue is whether means of persuasion, like computer or radio or television technology, can qualify as infrastructure in any sense, as it is more belief-sustaining than life-sustaining. The arguments parallel those for means of protection, with conservatives generally asserting that belief in a common view of reality, especially in emergency services, is critical to survival.

Urban planning usage

The fantastic term is used most often in an urban planning context to denote the facilities that support specific land uses and built environment. This article focuses on these urban infrastructure concerns to avoid the more political issues above. See also public infrastructure, municipal infrastructure and rural infrastructure. Typically, infrastructure in the urban context denotes two general groups of support systems: transportation modalities (roads, rail, etc.) and utilities. These typically compose both public and private systems, and some ambiguously held in common. Infrastructure may also refer to necessary municipal or public services, whether provided by the government or by private companies. If provided by nature, e.g. the flow of a river, they are called nature's services and are defined (at least in economics) as the product of natural capital. This may be augmented or directed by infrastructural capital, e.g. a dam or canal or irrigation ditch. In general what is called infrastructure tends to be very embedded in the natural landscape and cannot be moved from place to place. Even municipal services rely necessarily on fixed locations, e.g. fire stations in central positions in a city, radio towers on tall buildings, etc.. Infrastructure (in the civic sense) includes:
- Transport
- Roads
- Highways
- Railroads
- Public transport
- Airports
- Ship transport such as ferry and barge
- Bike paths
- Sidewalks
- Public utilities
- Electricity
- Natural gas
- Coal delivery
- Water supply
- Sewers
- Telephone service
- Radio and television bandwidth allocation
- Cable television service
- Public services
- Fire service or fire department
- Flood protection
- Police protection
- Waste management
- National Services
- Defense
- Monetary systems or currency, including the minting of coins, and printing and backing of banknotes.
- Postal system
- "Soft Infrastructure" is a term that denotes institutions that maintain the health and cultural standards of the population. Principally, this refers to
- Public education
- Public health systems including public hospitals
- Public libraries
- Social welfare

Communist state

:This article is about one-party states governed by Communist parties. For information regarding communism as a form of society, as an ideology advocating that form of society, or as a popular movement, see the main Communism article. A Communist state is a term for a state governed by a single political party which declares its allegiance to the principles of Marxism-Leninism. It is claimed by some that this term is technically an oxymoron because Communism's ultimate goal is the creation of a classless society, without a state. Marxist-Leninists, however, consider such a state a necessary transitional phase and a means for the proletariat to establish power beforehand in what they call a Socialist state. The term "Communist state" originated from the fact that most of such states are or were run by Communist parties. However most of these states called themselves socialist (such as in the name Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), since in Marxist political theory, socialism is the intermediate stage in reaching communism.

Definition of a "Communist state"

:See also: Socialist republic A "Communist State" is defined as a state ruled by a Communist Party. But the term Communism as defined by Marx is a classless and stateless utopian society where the resources and means of production are owned by communities rather than by individuals and provides for equal sharing of all freedoms, all work and all benefits. The intermediate stage of Socialism is meant to create a 'new man' who voluntarily acts in the best interest of the community. In an ever stricter sense of Communism, there is no ownership, not even by communities, and everyone works according to their ability, and takes according to their needs of their own volition. Certain socialists and social democrats reject historical "Communist states", viewing them as representing a distortion or rejection of socialist values. Trotskyists, communists who follow the ideology of Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, became especially opposed to the official ideology of the Soviet Union following Joseph Stalin's consolidation of power. Trotsky criticized the Soviet Union under Stalin as a degenerated workers state and, following World War II, Trotskyists coined the term deformed workers state to refer to the governments in Eastern Europe as well as other Communist states that arose. Other communists went even further; anarchist communists and left- / council communists went very far in their critique of marxism-leninism and the communist (pseudo-)parties and they were often a driving part in uprisings against the communist states, for example the Hungarian revolution. Alternative terms for a "Communist state" include Communist Party-run state and Marxist-Leninist state. These terms are not used by Marxist-Leninists, who describe them as Socialist states, or societies in the transition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They consider the term Communist state an oxymoron. Libertarian socialists and communists, left communists and anarchists often use terms such as "state socialism" or "state capitalism".

Historical examples

As noted in the introduction, a "Communist state" is a state where a Communist Party holds power within the context of a single-party system of government. In this definition, 'Communist State' and Democracy are mutually exclusive. Thus, a country where a Communist party is part of the government is not automatically a "Communist state." Furthermore, the historical states of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Slovak Soviet Republic and Bavarian Soviet Republic were short-lived revolutionary entities that are difficult to define as Communist states, because the status of non-Communist political parties and movements within them remained unclear. Communist governments have typically arisen during times of general political instability. Most have come to power through revolutions led by Communist parties. Several of these parties operated illegally for a long period of time before the revolution, and developed disciplined and effective structures, together with a cadre of committed leaders able to mobilize elements of society dissatisfied with the current government. The support base of the communists typically consisted of poor laborers, intellectuals, and, especially in the case of China, peasants. Following a successful revolution, the Communist Party took on the goal of building a new society.

Early examples of communist societies

:See also: Communism: Other forms of communism Societies based on communism and ideologies similar to communism have existed throughout history, and many exist today, but it was not until the 20th century that highly organized Communist Parties based on Marxist-Leninist ideology gave rise to Communist states. Information regarding early, traditional and/or religious forms of communism (as well as information on other socialist societies in the Marxist meaning of the word, such as the Paris Commune) is to be found in the Communism article. Many researchers prefer to use the term communalism to distinguish various communal societies from communism, which is generally associated with Marxism.

20th century

communalism In the 20th century, a number of Communist Parties based on Marxist-Leninist ideology established governments in various countries. In those countries, the aforementioned Communist parties made themselves the only legal political parties. The history of Communist states is often closely related to the history of non-Communist governments, and to the history of the Communist movement in general. As such, the following historical account is not restricted to Communist states: Following the October Revolution in 1917, which established what later became the Soviet Union, there was a revolutionary wave throughout Europe. Communist revolutions, uprisings or attempted uprisings took place in many European countries. However, Russian Communists, engaged in the Russian Civil War, were unable to provide any significant support to communist movements outside Russia. Eventually, in the first decades after the Russian revolution, only five revolutions outside Russia were able to take power, and these for short periods of time. They resulted in the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic in 1918, the Bavarian Soviet Republic from November 1918 until May 3 1919, the Slovak Soviet Republic in 1919, the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, and the Persian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1920 to 1921. All of them were soon abolished, and with the defeat of the Red Army in the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, the Russian Communists were forced to abandon any plans of military aid to Communist movements in Europe. On the other side of the world, Mongolia had been a protectorate of the Russian Empire from 1912 until 1919, when the Chinese took control during the Russian Civil War. The Russian monarchist White Army took control in 1921, but was driven out by the Red Army that same year. Mongolia was not absorbed into the Soviet Union, but was renamed the People's Republic of Mongolia and became the Soviet Union's first satellite state in 1924. From 1924 until World War II, there were no successful Communist revolutions, and no more Communist states were established. Most of the Communist states in the world were established in the aftermath of World War II in Eastern Europe, either in countries which were liberated from the Nazis by the Soviet Red Army and subsequently occupied by Soviet troops, or in countries where Communist-led partisans succeeded in driving out the Nazis and taking power themselves. The Red Army arranged for the establishment of Communist governments in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania, which became Soviet satellites. Communist partisans established Communist governments which were initially pro-Soviet in Albania and Yugoslavia. Furthermore, in East Asia, the Red Army joined the war against Japan and established a Communist state in North Korea. With extensive Soviet military aid, Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War and established the People's Republic of China in 1949. The First Indochina War led to the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in northern Vietnam in 1954. Later, the Vietnam War ended with the takeover of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamese Army and the establishment of a unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. The broader Indochina conflict also saw Communist states established in Laos and Cambodia in 1975, though the latter government (known as Democratic Kampuchea) was toppled in a Vietnamese invasion and denounced by Vietnam and its Communist allies. (see Khmer Rouge) In 1959, the Cuban Revolution eventually led to the first Communist state being established in the Western Hemisphere, the Republic of Cuba. Some also call Nicaragua under the Sandinista National Liberation Front and Grenada under the New Jewel Movement "Communist States" as both nations came under Marxist military junta control in 1979. A civil war led to the establishment of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen in southern Yemen in 1969. For several years, Communist states also existed in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Benin, Somalia, and the Republic of the Congo, although these were short-lived. By the early 1980s, nearly one third of the world's population in 25 nations was ruled by Communist governments (due largely to the size of Russia and China). There have been several wars or military conflicts between Communist states: the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Prague spring, the Ogaden War, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. However, due to internal economic problems, foreign entanglements, and pressures for reform, the Soviet Union itself was growing increasingly unstable. In the late 1980s, Eastern Europe grew increasingly unstable as people rose up against their governments, and in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. None of the Eastern European Communist governments survived these events. As of 2005, there are five Communist states in the world: China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Despite a common Communist ideology, they possess certain distinct characteristics, both politically and economically.

Communist theories and ideologies of government

:See also the articles on Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism and Maoism. Communist states base themselves on a form of Marxist-Leninist ideology. All historical Communist states that existed for significant periods of time during the 20th century had their roots in either Soviet-inspired Marxism-Leninism or Maoism. Whether these states were faithful to Marxism is a matter of dispute. Trotskyists have been vocal communist opponents of the Stalinist and post-Stalinist Soviet Union, and Maoism on the grounds that they were perversions of Marxism-Leninism and communist ideals. Marxism holds — among other things — that human history has had and will have a developmental structure, alternating between slow development of technology/economy (and the according philosophy/religion) and short periods of rapid change in technology and economy (as well as philosophy and, sometimes, religion.) The short periods of rapid change take place immediately after revolutions of one kind or another. Marx envisioned communism as the final evolutionary phase of society at which time the state would have withered away. He specified that the workers should rise up to destroy capitalism and replace it with socialism, a transitional stage during which the state is to gain control over all means of production on behalf of the proletariat. Marx theorized that socialism would give way to communism, a classless society in which full collective ownership has been attained and the state no longer plays a role. Communist states have never actually claimed to have reached communism. They described themselves as socialist states in which the working people's will was represented through the Communist Party and (affiliated) mass organizations. This is because Marxist theory says a society cannot advance from capitalism to communism overnight. A transitional stage is needed. (see dictatorship of the proletariat). Leninist theory, developed by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, emphasises the role of a well-organized group of revolutionaries in planning and carrying out the transition to socialism. According to Leninism, a Communist party must be organized along the principles of democratic centralism in order to maximize efficiency. Leninism departs from original Marxist theory in arguing that the revolution will not begin in the most advanced capitalist countries, but in poor, underdeveloped countries where the capitalist ruling class is weakest. From there, the revolution would need to spread quickly to the advanced industrialized nations, who would provide the underdeveloped country with the resources necessary to build socialism. With these principles in mind, right after the Russian Revolution, Lenin argued that the success of socialism in Russia depended on the victory of socialist revolutions in other countries (most notably the German Revolution.) However, all the socialist revolutions that flared up across Europe in the years 1918-1922 were crushed. Russia found itself alone in its attempt to build socialism. Lenin did not live long enough to formulate a solution to this problem. Instead, the role fell on his successors, the most notable of whom were Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Trotsky proposed his thesis of the "permanent revolution," while Stalin proposed "socialism in one country." Over the following years, Stalin gradually succeeded in eliminating his ideological opponents (including Trotsky) and taking over the Soviet government. He upheld and implemented the idea of "socialism in one country," which argued that socialism could and should be built in the Soviet Union without the help of other nations. Throughout the 1930s, Stalin created the State and Party structure on which all subsequent Communist states were to be based. Power was centralized in his hands, and democratic centralism was gradually removed from the decision-making process of the Communist Party (a process which culminated in the Great Purge.) Later, the ideology of Mao Zedong in the People's Republic of China (Maoism) diverged from traditional Stalinism by emphasizing the peasantry over the urban proletariat in both the revolution and post-revolutionary development. Communist governments have historically been characterized by state ownership of productive resources in a planned economy and sweeping campaigns of economic restructuring such as nationalization of industry and land reform (often focusing on collective farming or state farms.) While they promote collective ownership of the means of production, Communist governments have been characterized by a strong state apparatus in which decisions are made by the ruling Communist Party. Dissident communists have characterized the Soviet model as state socialism or state capitalism. Further, critics have often claimed that a Stalinist or Maoist system of government creates a new ruling class, usually called the nomenklatura.

Relationship between party and state

Political scientists have developed the concept of the Communist state to reflect claims made by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and others that the revolutionary state must be led by the dictatorship of the proletariat, in which the working class is represented by the Communist Party. In practice, according to this theory, state and the party are effectively identical, and govern all aspects of the society. In the Soviet Union for example, the General Secretary of the Communist Party did not necessarily hold a state office. Instead party members answerable to or controlled by the party held these posts, often as honorific posts as a reward for their long years of service to the party. On other occasions, having governed as General Secretary, the party leader might assume a state office in addition. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev initially did not hold the presidency of the Soviet Union, that office being given as an honor to a former Soviet Foreign Minister. Within Communist states there have rarely been restrictions on state power, resulting in state structures which are either totalitarian or authoritarian. Marxist-Leninist ideology views restrictions on state power to be an unnecessary interference in the goal of reaching communism. Dissident communists have argued that a state with absolute power naturally becomes corrupt and is thus incapable of moving society toward communism. Communist states have maintained a large secret police apparatus to closely monitor the population and silence those deemed "enemies of the state." Arrest, torture, "reeducation," and summary execution are all methods that have been employed. Some political scientists have argued that there are deep similarities between Communist states and fascist ones and that both are examples of totalitarian states. The nature of each individual Communist state differs widely both between countries and within each individual state. States that incorporate the policies and techniques of the orthodox Stalinist state of the 1930s are characteristically more totalitarian, impoverished, militaristic, and static, as can be seen in North Korea and Communist Albania. States such as China have benefitted from market reforms introduced by the Communist Party, but attempts to dramatically reform the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev contributed to its collapse as the Communist Party was unable to maintain its grip on power. The People's Republic of China and to a lesser extent Vietnam and Laos have all moved toward market reforms after the command economy failed to produce necessary development.

Criticism and advocacy

:See also: Criticisms of communism Advocates of Communism praise Communist parties for running countries that have sometimes leapt ahead of contemporary "capitalist" countries, offering guaranteed employment, health care and housing to their citizens. Critics of communism typically condemn Communist states by the same criteria, claiming that all lag far behind the industrialized West in terms of economic development and living standards. Central economic planning has in certain instances produced dramatic advances, including rapid development of heavy industry during the 1930s in the Soviet Union (a belated industrialisation) and later in their space program. Another example touted by Communists is the development of the pharmaceutical industry in Cuba. Early advances in the status of women were also notable, especially in Islamic areas of the Soviet Union. See Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia: 1919–1929, Princeton University Press, 1974, hardcover, 451 pages, ISBN 069107562X. Critics however cite counter-examples: the failure of the Soviet Union to achieve the same kind of development in agriculture (forcing the Soviet Union to become a net importer of cereals after the Second World War), as well as the continued poverty of other Communist states such as Laos, Vietnam or Maoist China. Indeed, they point out that China only achieved high rates of growth after introducing Capitalist economic reforms — a sign, claim the critics, of the superiority of Capitalism. The rigid execution of economic plans has had negative results, such as the 5 year plans in the Soviet Union, the total focus on agrarian reform at the expense of industrialisation in China and the plans to achieve an enormous sugar production at all cost in Cuba in the 1960's, which left the rest of the economy in shambles. Other claims include generous social and cultural programs, often administered by labor organizations. Universal education programs have been a strong point, as has the generous provision of universal health care. This is illustrated by the high levels of literacy enjoyed by Eastern Europeans (in comparison, for instance, with Southern Europe), Cubans or Chinese. Critics charge that Communist compulsory education was replete with pro-Communist propaganda and censored opposing views. Critics also note that the Communist states do not compare favourable when comparing states with similar culture and economic development before the Communist takeover. Examples include North Korea vs. South Korea; China vs. Hong Kong and Taiwan; and East Germany vs. West Germany. Critics also point out that some Communist states have been involved in the destruction of cultural heritage: Romania (planned destruction of historical centres of most towns — partially achieved in Bucarest), China (repression of Tibetan culture, destructions during the Cultural Revolution) and the Soviet Union (destruction, abandon or reconversion of religious buildings) are the most cited examples. Also pointed out are environmental disasters which, critics claim, were due to the Communist governments in place. The most cited example is the disappearance of the Aral Sea in today's Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which is believed to have been caused by the diversion of the waters of its two affluent rivers for cotton production. This is, however, at least partly due to the belated industrialisation in the Soviet Union. The Soviet practice of making it illegal to quit one's job, to hire a dissident, or to hire relatives, is regarded by the critics as tantamount to slavery. In the Soviet Union scientific research was at a high level, as illustrated by the space program and the fact that one third of the world's scientific literature was written in Russian. Critics, however, argue that the Communist states corrupted science. One example is censorship and revisionism of history. Others are Lysenkoism and Japhetic theory. Many of the Communist states used an extensive network of civilian informants to spy on their own population. Critics argue that this created a society where no one could trust other citizens, who might report real or fabricated criticism of the Communist system to the secret police. Another objection is the practice in some Communist states of classifying internal critics of the system as having a mental disease and incarcerating them in mental hospitals. The personality cults of many of the leaders of Communist states and the fact that in some cases the leadership of the state has become inherited has also been criticized. Critics argue that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Prague spring, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution were imperialistic wars where military force crushed popular uprisings against the Communist system. Extensive historical research has documented large scale human rights violations that occurred in these states, particularly during the regimes of Stalin and Mao, but starting immediately after the October Revolution during the regime of Lenin and to have continued to occur in all communist states during their existence. Most prominent being deaths due to executions, forced labor camps, genocides of certain ethnic minorities, and mass starvations caused by either government mismanagement or deliberately. The exact number of deaths caused by these regimes is disputed, but extensive historical research shows at least tens of millions (see, e.g., the estimates reached in The Black Book of Communism and the references below). Other widespread criticism concern the documented lack of freedom of speech in Communist Party regimes, religious and ethnic persecutions, lack of democracy and systematic use of torture. And although the birth control program in China may have averted a demographic disaster, it was also a violation of human rights. The restriction of emigration has also been criticized, the most prominent example being the Berlin Wall. Others find this approach simplistic, noting that executions, forced labor camps, the repression of ethnic minorities, and mass starvation were patterns in both Russian and Chinese history before their respective Communist takeovers. Critics argue that past evils in an old regime cannot be used to justify new ones; otherwise supporters of Hitler could justify his deeds by pointing to past human rights crimes by the German Empire in Africa. Also, communists may argue that (Capitalist) western countries have gathered much of their wealth through exploitation of workers, slavery and imperialism. Many Marxists and some Marxist-Leninists argue that most Communist states do not actually adhere to Marxism but rather to a version heavily influenced by Leninism and Stalinism, which sharply diverges in practice from the humanistic philosophy of Marxist revolutionaries. This critique is common, for example, amongst democratic socialists and some critical theorists who hold that Marxism is correct as a social and historical theory, but that it can only be implemented within a multiparty democracy. Trotskyites similarly argue that the bureaucratic and repressive nature of Communist states differs from Lenin's vision of the socialist state. Some Marxists (for example Milovan Djilas, James Burnham) described Communist states as systems in which a new powerful class of party bureaucrats emerged, exercised complete control over the means of production, and exploited the working class. This new ruling class is usually called the nomenklatura.

List of current Communist states

The following countries are generally considered to be "Communist states" according to the way the term has been generally used since World War II as they are states in which a ruling Communist Party has a monopoly on political power. The degree to which these states are socialist is a matter of contention due to differing definitions of socialism but it is generally acknowledged that they are Soviet-style systems emulating the former Soviet Union. Even so, there is a wide degree of variation from the People's Republic of China, on one end, which follows market socialism, to North Korea, which follows a system similar to Stalinism and practices a rigid command economy. Current Communist states and their ruling parties are:
- People's Republic of China (since 1949); Communist Party of China
- Republic of Cuba (Cuban Revolution in 1959, socialist state declared in 1961); Communist Party of Cuba
- Lao People's Democratic Republic (since 1975); Lao People's Revolutionary Party
- Democratic People's Republic of Korea (since 1948); Korean Workers' Party
- Socialist Republic of Vietnam (since 1976); Communist Party of Vietnam See also: List of Communist parties

Defunct Communist states

Defunct Communist states and their ruling parties (where applicable):
- Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (1918–1922) founded as a result of the October Revolution by the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party. Incorporated into:
- Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991) — Communist Party of the Soviet Union
- See also Republics of the Soviet Union for various Soviet republics, some of them short-lived, which were eventually included into the USSR.
- Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Jan 1918–Apr 1918) in the south of Finland only — Social Democratic Party of Finland.
- Alsace Soviet Republic (November 1918)
- Slovak Soviet Republic (1918–1919)
- Hungarian Soviet Republic (1919) — Hungarian Communist Party
- Bavarian Soviet Republic also known as the Munich Soviet Republic (1919) — Independent Socialist Party
- Galician Soviet Socialist Republic (July 9 1920 - September 21 1920), created in Soviet occupied territory during the Polish-Soviet War.
- Persian Soviet Socialist Republic also known as the Soviet Republic of Gilan (June 1920–September 1921)
- Mongolian People's Republic (1924–1992) — Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party
- Hunan Soviet (ca 1927) — Chinese Communist Party
- Chinese Soviet Republic also known as the "Jiangxi Soviet" (1931–1934) — led by Mao Zedong's faction of the Chinese Communist Party
- Finnish Democratic Republic also known as the Terijoki Government (1939–1940), established in parts of Finland occupied by the Soviet Union during the Winter War — Communist Party of Finland
- Poland (1944–1989; name changed to "People's Republic of Poland" in 1952) — Polish United Workers Party
- Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Democratic Federal 1945–1946; Federal People's Republic 1946–1963;Socialist Federal Republic 1963–1992) — League of Communists of Yugoslavia
- People's Socialist Republic of Albania (People's Republic 1946–1976; People's Socialist Republic 1976–1991) — Albanian Party of Labour
- People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990) — Communist Party of Bulgaria
- Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) (1946–1976) — Communist Party of Vietnam (incorporated into Socialist Republic of Vietnam)
- Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia (People's Republic 1948–1960; Socialist Republic 1960–1990) — Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
- German Democratic Republic (1949–1990) — Socialist Unity Party of Germany
- Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) — Hungarian Workers Party (until 1956), Hungarian Socialist Workers Party
- Socialist Republic of Romania (People's Republic 1947–1965; Socialist Republic 1965–1989) — Romanian Communist Party (Romanian Workers' Party prior to 1965)
- People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (1969–1990) — Yemeni Socialist Party
- People's Republic of Congo (1970–1992; Communist rule 1969–1992) — Parti Congolais du Travail (Congolese Labour Party), only legal party 1979–1991
- Somali Democratic Republic (1969–1991; officially declared socialist in 1970) — Supreme Revolutionary Council or SRC from 1969–1976; Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party from 1976–1991
- People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Communist rule 1974–1991, People's Democratic Republic formally established in 1987) — Workers' Party of Ethiopia also called Ethiopian Workers' Party
- People's Republic of Benin (1975–1990; Marxism abandoned 1989, one party rule until 1990) — Parti du Revolutionare Popular du Benin (Popular Revolutionary Party of Benin) or PRPB
- Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (1975–1976) — Communist Party of Vietnam (incorporated into Socialist Republic of Vietnam)
- Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1979) — Khmer Rouge
- People's Republic of Angola (1975–1992) — Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola -Partido de Trabalho (Popular Liberation Movement of Angola-Labour Party) popularly known as the MPLA
- People's Republic of Mozambique (1975–1990) — Frente da Libertação de Moçambique (Liberation Front of Mozambique) popularly known as FRELIMO
- Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978–1992) — People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
- People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979&ndas