Do the people saying that communism is bad think capitalism is good?
Some do
you knoe there isn’t only 2 choices right? Thay can both have good and bad sides. Maybe try some mix of it fisrt
Dialectical Materialism. Right now, they are. You either work towards communism or capitalism moves towards consolidation of capital. Those are your choices.
also there are more than 1 proposed way to achieve communism, even though i tend to favor socialism.
Imma be real, chief, I don’t think DiaMat is going to work on Non-marxists, even if I agree.
there’s capitalism and its variants (the current system), and there is anti-capitalism in various flavours. (socdem, ML, anarchism)
you can choose your favorite flavour, but its either moving towards capitalism, or moving away from it.
I would like a third pill.
Feudalism?
Traditionally the “Third Way/Position” is fascism. So, ultimately, kinda, but with race science.
fascism isn’t a third way. It’s liberalism in crisis
I mean, it’s just literally what they call themselves. Sure, they lie or don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, but that’s kind of their whole deal.
fascism is just extreme capitalism
Ok fine, 4th pill then. The nerve them ! Nazi think they own the idea of rejecting the current order and its ditect opposition.
Power dichotomy will always slander any “third option”. They’ll even say something dumb on its face like third way is “x”. There are only two solutions, “with us” or “against us”. Anything outside these choices is literally unthinkable for the power structure. The power structure cannot imagine a future where it does not exist. If you ask the unthinkable alternative, they will default to “oh you must be one of the enemy”. We know that category well. They stand for every thing we don’t stand for.
Describe what you consider the “third way” that isn’t capitalists owning the means of production, workers owning the means, or the state owning the means.
its take it or leave it i guess.
At least we’ve still got cyanide pill when red or blue doesn’t cut it.
Yes. It’s just those are the two mentioned, and I’m slightly communist. So there’s some bias.
We did that already. We could do it again.
thats not a mix though, it was just a bandaid over capitalism, borrowed from socialistic ideas. the capital accumulating class was never extinguished, eventually leading to the same problems today all over again.
hence why we advocate for a systemic change, if you can’t accumulate capital, you can’t buy back the system again like it is rn. this is pretty much the crux of the issue here.
No
As usual the best answer lies somewhere between the two extremes
we tried that before though, improving things temporarily, but it will never be permanent until we extinguish the owner class.
The trick is not falling for the lie that social democracy is meeting socialism in the middle.
Social Democracy is just liberalism with enlightened self interest. Is it better than other capitalists models?
Sure. That doesn’t make it the end goal.
you put it in better words than i did.
Yes, we must have a middle ground between having parasites and not having parasites. Thank you enlightened centrist.
I think capitalism is good, but not perfect. Communism is bad.
Why do you think that way?
I think human nature is inherently greedy and selfish, and capitalism is best equipped to use this in a way that benefits society. Workers are motivated to work harder and learn new skills to find the most rewarding job they can. Businesses are motivated to create products and run as efficiently as possible. Consumers are motivated to get as much value as the can out of their money. Everyone in the equation is acting selfishly and in their own self-interest (which I believe humans are inclined to do anyway) but when applied on a societal level, everyone benefits. However I will concede that this is a balancing act that requires some level of government regulation to maintain.
On the other hand, I think communism only works when everyone acts altruistically. Which is noble, but unrealistic.
Explain open source, free software, linux community, lemmy / the fediverse, and many many other things not formed around profit, largely maintained by people in their free time motivated by community over profit.
People aren’t inherently greedy. People are born into a system that rewards greed, and punishes altruism. There have been many different societies with many different political and economic systems, and capitalism is a fairly new one all things considered.
Rational self interest is irrational. If only a few can succeed, chances are you fail. If everyone only looks out for themselves, then everyone fails. Humanity’s biggest strength — what set us apart from many other animals — is our ability to work together and look out for each other.
Capitalism doesn’t work, and is destroying the Earth.
You brought up open source and linux, but how many are maintainers vs. freeloaders?
If communism could be upheld by a select few and enjoyed endlessly by everyone… Utopia.
Freeloaders, like large corporations taking open source and then not giving back, is yet another symptom of a system that rewards extraction and self interest.
FOSS exists despite capitalism. The fact that people are willing to work on something out of their own passion, or sense of community, directly contradicts the fundamental assertion of capitalism.
Humans are not inherently greedy.
Nope.
Human nature is co-operative and altruistic, there’s evidence going back to barely recognisable AS human and it’s literally a key reason why we’re the dominant species.
Capitalism rewarding sociopaths is the outlier
@Taleya Is there any scientific material on this? I’ve had this discussion again and again with my family, from the far side of ultimately altruistic to vastly egoistic… and if there is (hopefully unbiased) scientific material on this, we might settle this argument.
off the top of my head there’s the ancient remains found multiple times of disabled and/or badly injured hominids who were treated (signs of healing) and lived long into adulthood despite requiring extensive care from others, the fact an extended childhood in our species means that our young are vulnerable for a far longer period than any other animal (a necessity since you can’t fit a fully formed adult brain through a human pelvis) and require cooperation with others to raise and continue the species, the fact we have developed specialised skillsets (that are shared between us rather than developing and being held isolate and then lost when the person who holds then dies).
When you have a group that works together go up against one that doesn’t, the former comes out on top. When this competition is for resources and survival, it becomes an evolutionary pressure.
If you do a quick googs you should find scores of whitepapers - but the egoistic argument falls flat on its face out of the gate because we have the word ‘sociopath’ and it’s not considered something to emulate. Neither is ‘egotistical’. We’ve literally got coded into our language that isolation, self-absorption and ‘self serving at the cost to others’ are bad concepts. Being a self absorbed shithead is documented as wrong as far back as our tales can possibly go.
@Taleya Will traue this to start the discussion again, maybe thanks. 🙏
See “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution” by Kropotkin
Lol, lmao even. Capitalism rewards greed it doesn’t mitigate it. You’ve got it twisted.
It’s the inability to see the forest for the trees. We were raised in a capitalist economic system, as were all of our past family members. The failings of capitalism appear to be the failings of human nature. In reality, meta analysis of multiple studies on human greed show that people will be inherently more kind to each other than be cruel. Quick search will bring up many articles on these studies. Plus, exchanges in material goods within communities where money hadn’t been invented would show that people didn’t barter, they gave their goods away to their neighbors, and the good deed would be remembered and reciprocated in times of need. You can look up “Gift Economy” in Wikipedia.
I also highly recommend reading or listening to the audiobook for The Dawn of Everything A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wingrow. It is extremely interesting and eye opening.
Not going to downvote, but I do think you’re lacking quite a bit of insight into the reasons human society exists at all. Cooperation is the reason human society exists at all, so saying we’re inheritly selfish is kinda laughable in that context.
I would encourage you to look up information on dialectical Materialism and the necessity of capitalism as a stage in that dialectical.
Capitalism had a purpose, and it’s past time for us to move on.
Even if it was true that human nature was inherently greedy and selfish then it would be an argument for creating systems that discourage such behaviors. What you’re arguing is akin to saying that you should encourage a person struggling with alcoholism to drink more.
Let’s concede the point: humans are inherently greedy and selfish.
But greed and selfishness are bad, right? We want less greed and selfishness in the world.
Given these two assumptions—humans are greedy, greed is bad—shouldn’t we architect society to explicitly disincentivize greed?
Fuck that, I do not concede the point. At least, I don’t concede that humans are /more/ selfish than we are compassionate. Our emotional wiring evolved for hundred-human tribes that required a lot more empathy and cooperation than competition.
You don’t have to go so far as to disincentivize greed. Greed is socially useful in small doses. Adam Smith wasn’t a total idiot. Just stop letting the people who shape society make it so only the greedheads survive.
You’re preaching to the choir. “Concede the point” is a figure of speech which means the speaker is going explore an assumption despite not believing it themselves.
My point is that the whole “capitalism is the best economic system we know about because humans are greedy” argument is sophistry. It doesn’t even make sense in the context of its own flawed premise.
Greed, selfishness and our hyper-individualism is a product of our society, not society as a product of our nature
These sentiments are something encouraged by those in power as it is advantageous for them to have the masses in want
There are underlying instincts for survival and dominance that have manifested today as greed and selfishness, but that is something an equitable society can address given the chance
To suggest otherwise is incredibly degrading humanity
Thank you for answering. The problem with capitalism is it’s got out of control.
I agree. Businesses and owners have too much influence. I want more unions, trust-busting, and consumer protections. Workers seem to be organizing more at least, which is a good start.
Delaware gave corporations the right to vote…
@Gigan @SouthEndSunset
Human nature is not inherently greedy and selfish because human beings possess an inherent capacity for empathy, cooperation, and solidarity, which when nurtured within equitable social structures, can create a collective ethos centered on mutual aid, communal ownership, and the pursuit of the common good, transcending the narrow confines of greed and selfishness perpetuated by systems of exploitation and inequality like capitalism.
@Gigan @SouthEndSunset
There is nothing bad about the collective ownership of the means of production. I can, however, think of many things that are bad about one person owning the entire means production despite not doing any work, which is what exists under capitalism.
Theoretically, anyway
Yeah. Nobody’s ever done real communism on a national scale. As in, not just being a dictatorship in charge of everything that funnels money and power to the top while giving communism lip service and the people get screwed.
I’m sure they were able to pick themselves up by the bootstraps right?
Nice…
Let’s see: Communism A system of government where the country’s wealth is concentrated into a small, ruling class of billionaires, who use the media they own to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money.
Oh wait. that’s capitalism. I don’t know how I got those two systems confused.
Stalin: “Why not both?”
He did adopt a tougher stance, because of the looming world war. However, Stalin wasnt nearly as much of a tyrant the west paints him to be. Not to the honest working class.
Also victims of communism: anyone aged 1-99 who happens to be the wrong family, who practices wrong think, who has family members who practice wrong think, who have an opinion, who like to be different, and I can go on for a while…
People like you should maybe watch 'the chekist". Once you’re done and not crawled up in fetal position while crying maybe you can think for a little bit about what it is that you really want.
Seriously, you tankie types are nauseatingly naïeve.
That’s just regular authoritarian statism, tribalism and human herd behaviour.
Anyone unfortunate enough to have lived through high school knows how dangerous the little human empires are.
Yeha, I could also point far right authoritarian governments and say that capitalism is bad… But that would be stupid.
Somehow I assume you don’t associate capitalism with chattel slavery and apartheid. But you do associate corrupt authoritarianism with economics when it is system that you don’t like.
Slaves are e human capital. So by definition weren’t plantations capitalist?
I think they are very much capitalist. And then surely the Civil War that poors fought on plantation owners’ behalf should also be blamed on capitalism?
What is it with people here thinking that earning a wage is slavery? That requires either a complete lack of understanding what slavery or just some serious impressive mental gymnastics.
I associate corrupt authoritarianism with communism because it’s an inevitable outcome. Communism only works of you remove individual freedoms and force people into it. This, by design, requires a dictatorship. Dictatorships foster corruption because you can’t have transparency.
Rent seeking behavior is wrongthink. Being Royalty is practicing wrongthink. Communism is built on Critical Theory making criticism of society its bedrock. I dont consume propaganda, I try to stick to primary sources as close as possible and make my own.
Seriously you Capitalist Apologists are so brainwashed by literal Cold War Propaganda its pathetic.
I don’t disagree but this meme is ass lmao
memes are usually all ass
Without regard for the political content (which I agree with), this is a very bad and unfunny meme.
Keep in mind that many Americans don’t know Socialism from Communism, as they’ve been schooled that everything responsible for happy Scandinavians is somehow bad.
Which is probably why they often confuse Socialism with Social Democracy.
Should I also keep in mind that most people don’t know how nice Communist counties were to live in? Seriously, give me one, just one country that did communism successfully and where all the people could live in freedom and pursue happiness. Just a single example.
There’s no country where every single person lives in freedom and happiness. But there are numerous countries that have significantly improved the quality of life for the vast majority of people compared to what they had before, including Cuba, Vietnam, and China.
It may be true that in some cases the quality of life is higher in capitalist countries. But there’s a good reason for that! Historically, the countries most prone to socialist revolutions… were countries with some of the lowest standards of living in the world!
Despite this, China has recently eclipsed the United States in life expectancy. If you compare the two countries’ life expectancies before the Communists came to power, no one would expect that to happen! Why? Because for the average rural Chinese person, their way of life was virtually unchanged since ancient times with a life expectancy of 35, comparable to that of the Roman Empire.
Anti-communists would have us compare communist countries against either an imagined utopia, or against countries starting from a significantly higher level of industrial development. But those comparisons are not relevant to the question at hand! In order to evaluate the efficacy of socialism, the relevant comparison is the system that actually existed before, and what it was on track to do! And in cases like China, we can clearly see that the quality of life was miserable and stagnant for the vast majority of people, until the communists came to power!
Why do Westerners fail to account for this vital evidence? Because people used to a higher standard of living would take these improvements for granted! For a village tailor, being able to afford a sewing machine could be life-changing - but someone living in the imperial core would have no relevant experience to relate to that! The only thing they would notice is how poor the person still is, regardless of how much or how quickly their life is improving!
Is there a Capitalist country where all people can “live in freedom and pursue happiness?” What does that even mean? What are the solid metrics by which you track that, so you can say a country passes or fails that?
Yeah, try just about all northern European countries. Are there people that have fallen off the band wagon? Of course there are, shit happens everywhere. However, everyone there loves better and more meaningful lives than in ANY communist country.
I don’t recall the last time in northern Europe (second world war aside) where literally everyone except a few elites (hello Russia) had to stand in line for hopefully some food
Why do you believe Northern European countries have it better than AES countries? Do you believe if an AES country copied the Northern European model, their metrics would match Northern European countries?
Why do you believe inequality is rising in Northern European countries and safety nets are being cut over time?
First of all, communism isn’t utopian. Even communists don’t think it will be some paradise where all worries disappear. You’ll still have to fight racism, sexism, bad weather, famines, etc.
But it’s often better for an average person from a country of a starting equal level of economic development. You’ve got to give it the “If I was reincarnated in a random person’s body, where would I want to be?” test. US is a good answer, but it’s got a way higher level of economic development with a big headstart. Even then, you could end up in the hood and die early and stressed. When you give the test comparing countries of equal starting economic development, it becomes a lot more muddled.
Like, would you rather randomly live in Cuba, or Somalia? The place where you get free education, health care, etc or a place that is also extremely poor but you don’t get that stuff? You could reincarnate as some rich, warlord there, but would you want to take that chance when you could reincarnate in Cuba as literally anyone and not be worried about ending up homeless? When giving realistic comparisons like this with proper historical context, and you do it over and over again, they tend to come out on top.
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Bruh i see people starving in the streets of America every damn day.
Russian and Chinese famines weren’t intentional though. In China, because they were literally coming out from being the hungriest country in the planet, and decided to change too much too fast, you can’t really turn such a huge country around overnight. In Russia because they needed to collectivize really quickly in preparation for WW2, and the landlords at the time decided to literally burn grain and kill cattle instead of handing their big estates. The numbers offered by western authorities on both are greatly exaggerated without adequate proof.
After the tragic events, both countries saw unprecedented improvements in quality of life, nutrition and life expectancy. These events didn’t really repeat after they stabilized, something that can’t be said of most capitalist countries to this day.
In capitalism the owner class needs people to be in despair for them to be willing to work such shitty, desperate jobs. Millions of poor and starving people have to exist either in your own country, or elsewhere in a neocolony for one billionaire to be able to steal so much accumulated capital to himself. It’s common to see them taking decisions that help with their accumulation at the expense of everyone else (eg. Oil companies covering up climate change). We are already making more food than we would need to be able to feed everyone fairly, yet capitalist countries don’t.
You could do that with any country that’s had famines and disasters.
United States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
Ireland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)
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Why do you believe Communism isn’t achievable as envisioned? Is it possible that you don’t actually know what is envisioned in Communism, just a few slogans and buzzwords?
There’s never be a full communist or capitalist society. What wears arguing over how far towards either we should go. Also, FYI for those that don’t know The USSR and China are not communist. Both are/were dictatorships that call themselves communist.
Look up dialectical Materialism. China is ‘communist’ as they are progressing along the roadmap Dialectical Materialism provides towards achieving communism.
Are they making actual progress on that path, though? They have tons of billionaires, lots of people go bankrupt there from medical bills or are homeless (unlike some other communist countries). The state owns a lot of businesses, but then so does Norway. All their initiatives seem to be related to hurting gay people or making it harder for kids to play video games. They’ve arrested some rich people and cracked down on some corruption, but that also sounds like it could come from a capitalist country. I can’t really find any sort of long-term plan.
The problem is that you won’t ever get a full communist country, at least not for a very, VERY long time, because you always get those few fartweasels who end up hijacking it and turning it into a dictatorship. You need to eliminate that problem first, and with how the world is sliding into fascism, it doesn’t look like we’re any where near close to solving that dilemma
Read ‘State and Revolution’ by Lenin. It’s quite short and not that bad a read. Addresses exactly what you are talking about.
I thought I was still on Lemmy.world and was wondering why this thread was going so hard on theory. Carry on.
Upvote for fartweasel.
Even when they don’t turn it into a dictatorship, they may just turn it back into capitalism, like Russia did. And when that happens, they just sell all the old estates to the highest bidder, making them richer and turning them into oligarchs. And that becomes functionally equivalent to a dictatorship of the bourgeois.
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I’m pretty sure the leftcommunists and anarchists and worker councils requesting for power to be really handed to the soviets which were purged by Lenin and Trotsky weren’t actually landlords. But you never know, people from .ml may think people unwilling to obey the bolsheviks get labeled landlords too.
Weird, I was under the impression that the purges happened after Lenin died. Can ghosts lead a purge?
Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror#Industrial_workers
Do also take a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Russian_Constituent_Assembly_election
And this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Revolutionary_Party
Selected quotes:
The SRs were agrarian socialists and supporters of a democratic socialist Russian republic. The ideological heirs of the Narodniks, the SRs won a mass following among the Russian peasantry by endorsing the overthrow of the Tsar and the redistribution of land to the peasants.
In the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly held two weeks after the Bolsheviks took power, the party still proved to be by far the most popular party across the country, gaining 37.6% of the popular vote as opposed to the Bolsheviks’ 24%. However, the Bolsheviks disbanded the Assembly in January 1918 and after that the SR lost political significance. (…) Both wings of the SR party were ultimately suppressed by the Bolsheviks through imprisoning some of its leaders and forcing others to emigrate.
Following Lenin’s instructions, a trial of SRs was held in Moscow in 1922, which led to protests by Eugene V. Debs, Karl Kautsky, and Albert Einstein among others. Most of the defendants were found guilty, but they did not plead guilty like the defendants in the later show trials in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and the 1930s.
Note that these guys won the elections because they were the actually existing socialist movement in Russia and had been for decades. Lenin only led the government instead of them because he had the organization to overthrow the Mensheviks, not because the Bolsheviks were a better representative of socialism.
That’s not true at all. The Mensheviks wanted to cooperate with the bourgeoisie and were therefore a bad representation of socialism. Lenin formed the Bolsheviks because the Mensheviks were being stupid. The country was also fractured after the revolution and many groups of counter-revolutionary groups were trying to overthrow the barely formed government. Meanwhile famines were ravaging the country. Understanding the historical context of Russia in 1917 and the economic struggles the people were dealing with is very important to understanding why things happened the way they did. Looking at the aftermath of a revolution where everyone is vying for power and killing each other doesn’t automatically make the winner of that power grab the bad guys.
How about you read anything of what I’ve sent you and you realize that I’m not talking about the Mensheviks
It was many factions. I’m just saying all of them were trying to have third revolutions while the people starved to death. At some point, revolutions end with a unifying government that isn’t trying to murder each other. Lenin was not the villain you’re painting him to be.
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Yeah continue ww1, so fucking based
When people complaining about your side latch onto factions that they know nothing about it is kinda really funny
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If you didn’t willingly ignore the sins of “your side” that’d be valid.
Meanwhile, the only criticism you launch at the Mensheviks is… They wanted to keep fighting the imperial powers?
Don’t get me wrong, it was just a bad decision, but it wasn’t, ya know, genociding fellow socialists.
I’d personally criticize them for thinking they needed to follow the traditional Marxist thought that economic liberalism was a required stage on the path to socialism.
Meanwhile, the only criticism you launch at the Mensheviks is… They wanted to keep fighting the imperial powers?
Bwahahahaha yeah that’s why Tsarist and Kerensky Russia was aligned with France and England
Bwahahahaha
At some point you gotta just come to the conclusion that you haven’t read enough on this topic and pick up some books instead of speaking garbage.
Also “the only criticism” that’s the fucking big criticism that got them overthrown, which you’d fucking know if you studied history.
The imperial powers that were direct threats to the revolution and they were already fighting, buddy, aka the Ottomans and the Germans. Hey, remind me how that worked out in the end? Did the People’s Government get a seat at Versailles? No? Had to fight a war against fucking Poland first and then get even more people killed by Germany later?
And your argument is “the decision was unpopular,” not that it was wrong.
You also find that they were not overthrown. Their political alliance was couped, like what happens in a “real democracy” when you push an unpopular policy. Even then, they supported the Bolsheviks anyways in the civil war.
Generally speaking, it’s considered rude to murder all of your fellow socialists anyways if that happens.
Hey, remind me how that worked out in the end? Did the People’s Government get a seat at Versailles? No? Had to fight a war against fucking Poland first and then get even more people killed by Germany later?
And your argument is “the decision was unpopular,” not that it was wrong.
Wait are you out here arguing that Russia should have continue fighting ww1? Seriously? And that refusing to fight the war led to nazi Germany and their exterminationist war against the soviet union?
Bwahahahahahaha
Eh, as you mentioned, it was deeply unpopular.
But yes. It would have.
Why would you think changing history would not change history?
I don’t think the Mensheviks were the good guys either. Mensheviks would allow a way out for the old elites to remain elites if they kept on with the times (from aristocracy to bourgeoisie), the Bolsheviks just laid the way out for new elites (party apparatus) by choosing not to empower the working class. The leninist model followed somewhat similar structures everwhere from Hungary to Vietnam, and they always ended the same way: with the party elites opening the way to privatization after one or two generational changes and the heirs of the new system realizing that they’d get more material privilege by establishing capitalism, and without an organized, conscious working class capable of stop them.
I agree. A viable long-term economy needs an organized working class that isn’t sleepwalking through life. Would be cool to make the economic system not inherently hierarchical also.
So the tens of millions of people that died under communism were all landlords? Wow, what are the chances of that
What is with the tens of millions dying under capitalism
In fairness, everyone dies in every political system. Yes I’m fun at parties
No they die under F R E E D O M.
Freedom to die on the street baby
That’s different, because of reasons. When someone dies within a communist system that is communism’s fault. When someone dies in a capitalist system, that’s their own fault for not tugging on those bootstraps.
No alot of them wete Nazis.
The “black book of communism” includes german soldiers who died during WW2, it includes people who might have had 4 kids but only had 2, it includes victims of the US in vietnam.
Communism is a bit different than what those “communist” countries had. If anything it was socialism, but that still doesn’t fit completely. These “communist” countries are just one-party states in which the government controls the economy. The idea of putting the working class in power is useless if you create a government that can make decisions against the opinions of the working class. Socialist one-party state ≠ Communist democracy
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Communism is a society without social classes, money, or a state.
Feel free to name one so-called communist country that implemented that.The eastern block was as communist as North Korea is democratic.
They did however socialize ownership of factories etc, so they did have an authoritarian form of socialism.Removed by mod
Name a real-world implementation of communism that either isn’t Marxist–Lenninist, or one that is and has moved beyond the “dictatorship of the proletariat” stage. I’ll be waiting.
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ew a revisionist, it was REAL socialism led by REAL communists and it was based as fuck and the one that are still around are real and they are based. also theres no such thing a one party socialist state that is a myth at most u could say past and present socialist countries has a dominant political party but by no means was there only one, and other parties were and are allowed in those countries.
Yeah. You don’t get to revise away anything uncomfortable. USSR and China were socialist experiments that succeeded in raising quality of life and transforming rural countries into industrial, scientific states. If people wanna talk about what went wrong, great. Pretending they “don’t count” just puppets capitalist apologia and doesn’t help
From a theoretical point, they don’t count as communist. They entirely dropped the all-important aspect of giving power to the working class.
Both the USSR and China, in their self-described “communist” periods, were ruled with absolute power and directed by a head of state. The USSR collapsed, and modern China is about as communist as North Korea is democratic.
i was a little worried there comrade but im glad to see u have a good unstanding of just how great the PRC is, after all what could be more the democratic than the glorious DPRK.
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I really can’t tell if this is /s. Could you please clarify
Do you have a real-world example of a successful communist state? Because you may not like it, but those “communist” countries are humanities best attempts at enacting communism and they resulted in millions of people dying.
@Gigan
There are none! There’s a reason pure communism is called a utopia. Because it is! While it may work for a small community of like-minded individuals, is just not scalable. The more people there are the more difference of opinion there is.
@RmDebArc_5Pure Communism, ie the formation of society after the contradictions within Socialism have been resolved, is not called a Utopia except by anti-communists.
@Cowbee
Resolved how? Did I somehow miss a memo?There’s a reason that all past attempts at the establishment of communist states have failed. Lenin, Mao, et al, had grand ideas steeped in Marxist teachings. All of them ended up in an authoritarian state. Cuba, North Korea, China, USSR. All failed because of the human factor.
Contradiction refers to the remaining vestiges from Capitalism, ie a State, Class, and Money. I suggest reading up on Historical Materialism and Dialectics.
Secondly, failing because of “the human factor” is a purely idealistic outlook and not a materialist analysis, you’re arguing off of vibes.
@Cowbee that’s funny, you calling me idealist, and you proposing classless, stateless society.
Hilarious.
Millions less than the previous government forms, like Feudalism. Famines disappeared quickly and industrialization allowed for life expectancy to double in the USSR and Maoist China, despite issues like Civil War, World Wars, and so forth.
Did a lot go wrong? Absolutely. Were they massive improvements? Also yes.
No. But that doesn’t mean something like a socialist democracy couldn’t be achieved. Socialism isn’t bound to have a certain type of government and if we get rid of capitalism I would still like to have a say in what happens next
AES countries were and are legitimate attempts at building Communism. People have died in these countries, but at the same time many saw drastic increases in quality of life and industrialization. Dismissing AES is usually a sign of not understanding Marxism.
@Cowbee
I understand Marxism and reject AES countries because they not only abandoned many of the core principles of communism but weren’t even successful at achieving communism.What “core principles of Communism” were abandoned?
Why do you believe a country can achieve a global, worker owned republic without class, money, or a state while Capitalist states exist?
@Cowbee
Countries like the Soviet Union deviated from some core principles of communism, including classlessness by introducing a new bureaucratic class, statelessness (the withering away of the state as envisioned by Marx never happened), and a moneyless economy by retaining wage labor and currency.-
There was not a new “beaurocratic class.” Government ownership of the Means of Production is Socialist, as profits are controlled collectively, rather than by Capitalists. Beaurocrats and state planners were not a “new class” but an extension of the workers.
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The whithering away of the state is IMPOSSIBLE until global Socialism has been achieved. The USSR could not possibly have gotten rid of the military while hostile Capitalist countries existed. Additionally, Statelessness in the Marxian sense doesn’t mean no government, but a lack of instruments by which one class oppresses another.
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Wage Labor did not persist for the sake of Capitalist profit, but to be used via the government, which paid for generous safety nets. To eliminate money in a Socialist state takes a long time, and cannot simply be done overnight.
I really think you need to revisit Marx. I suggest Critique of the Gotha Programme.
- There was a Bureaucratic class in the Soviet Union that was above everyone else. Bureaucrats held significant power and privileges distinct from the working class, which led to a stratified society rather than the classless society envisioned by socialism.
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@Cowbee
Achieving a global, worker-owned republic without class, money, or a state while capitalist states exist presents significant challenges. It would require widespread international cooperation, grassroots movements, and a shift in global consciousness toward socialist ideals. International solidarity, mass education and organization, and an immediate introduction of a communist economic model would make it much easier.Yes, so I am not sure why you are criticizing AES countries for leading the effort but not achieving them yet. This is anti-dialectical reasoning, which goes directly against the philosophical aspects of Marxism.
ITT: That doesn’t count!!!
Well. Stop using strawmen. Communism is defined by progress through dialectical Materialism. Has any nation finished that progression?
Removed by mod
No. Moving goalposts means there is no definitive measure of completion. Communism has one. If you’ve read anything at all about it, you would know that. But hey you were told it was bad in school, and thinking for yourself is difficult. You do you.
‘We’re only defending the imaginary ideal!’
That’s not how words work. Things mean what they are used to mean.
Y’all understand this perfectly when describing “capitalism.” That word becomes synecdoche for every level and aspect of modern reality. By definition, capitalism is only really the part where having money makes money, but nobody has any trouble understanding what you mean when you refer to its consequences and implications. Nor would you respect if libertarians split hairs about “corporatism.” Like oh, this isn’t capitalism, because it lacks X and Y and Z, which have never existed, so how dare you talk about bad things that actually happened.
It’s more that anticommunists judge Socialist states by their inability to fulfill Communist ideals at the level of development AES countries are at, as though they exist in a perfectly frozen picture absent history and trajectory.
Yeah sure dude, existing in a context is why people condemned police states.
‘People who don’t know the difference between these terms must be using the more-recognizable one as an oblique criticism of the gap between theory and practice’ is the most .ml take I have ever seen.
Condemning the USSR and PRC for not achieving a global stateless, classless, moneyless society is ridiculous. This isn’t a gap between theory and practice, lol. Communism isn’t anarchism.
… do you understand that criticism can come from outside your own belief set?
Yep, but I also understand what Communists actually advocate for and understand that countries building Communism should be judged like every society: with respect to trajectory, not as a snapshot.
Communism isn’t a goal because it is stateless, classless, and moneyless. Rather, Communism is a goal because the process of getting there is to create a society benefitting all and directed for the working class, by the working class.
I just got permabanned for evading ban on alternative account on reddit. |
Fuck reddit
Fuck wallstreet.
Communism hasn’t yet been implemented the original way so we don’t actually know if it works
Communism is still being built. What is the “original way?”
Pure Ideological Marxism Gang Will Rise Eventually
Whatever is written in a book is right — such is still the mentality of culturally backward Chinese peasants. Strangely enough, within the Communist Party there are also people who always say in a discussion, “Show me where it’s written in the book.” When we say that a directive of a higher organ of leadership is correct, that is not just because it comes from “a higher organ of leadership” but because its contents conform with both the objective and subjective circumstances of the struggle and meet its requirements. It is quite wrong to take a formalistic attitude and blindly carry out directives without discussing and examining them in the light of actual conditions simply because they come from a higher organ. It is the mischief done by this formalism which explains why the line and tactics of the Party do not take deeper root among the masses. To carry out a directive of a higher organ blindly, and seemingly without any disagreement, is not really to carry it out but is the most artful way of opposing or sabotaging it.
The method of studying the social sciences exclusively from the book is likewise extremely dangerous and may even lead one onto the road of counter-revolution. Clear proof of this is provided by the fact that whole batches of Chinese Communists who confined themselves to books in their study of the social sciences have turned into counter-revolutionaries. When we say Marxism is correct, it is certainly not because Marx was a “prophet” but because his theory has been proved correct in our practice and in our struggle. We need Marxism in our struggle. In our acceptance of his theory no such formalisation of mystical notion as that of “prophecy” ever enters our minds. Many who have read Marxist books have become renegades from the revolution, whereas illiterate workers often grasp Marxism very well. Of course we should study Marxist books, but this study must be integrated with our country’s actual conditions. We need books, but we must overcome book worship, which is divorced from the actual situation.
How can we overcome book worship? The only way is to investigate the actual situation.
Good ol Marxism
Yes, which is and has been practiced in AES countries. Just because higher-stage Communism, ie a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society hasn’t been reached globally yet doesn’t mean we don’t know if it will work or not.
The less communist theory a lib has read the more of an expert they are. Every fucking time.
Yep, the “worst” is Anarchist-washing Marx in my experience.
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!
It also keeps being built in third-world countries, usually blockade, sanctioned, or regime changed by Western countries so it’s also hard to tell without those variables. Although so far it has a pretty good track record for equal levels of starting development.
Real everyone-eats-ice-cream-and-dances-all-day hasn’t been tried either. Just because you describe a set of circumstances doesn’t mean those circumstances can exist, and it especially doesn’t mean they can be stable long term.
Scarcity is a fact of nature. You cannot rationally distribute scarce things without knowing people’s preferences, so you either need to continuously solve the economic knowledge problem (which requires a huge state apparatus, which will be taken over by a dictator), or a means of exchanging goods between people to better suit their preferences (at which point you have invented capitalism).
I know, also I didn’t say I’m a communist fan, all I’m saying is that they rebranded totalitarian form of governments under communism so we don’t actually know if Marx communism works or it’s a flop
The Western concept of totalitarianism was constructed by Hannah Arendt, who came from a wealthy family and so unsurprisingly was anticommunist. Her work was financially supported and promoted by the CIA. It’s a bourgeois liberal, intentionally anticommunist construct that lumps fascism and communism in the same bucket.
Monthly Review, The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
