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Maybe there will be a system that taxes the rich in a progressive manner, will give working individuals freedom, will not tolerate corporations as humans and will keep everything somewhere in the middlem
As we all know this approach is infallible as the capitalists will simply give up on changing laws if we just tax them.
Every system is going to end in oligarchy except for the one that directly gives people the power and material incentives to create an oligarchy.
I am a very smart Social Democrat.
Embrace nihilism and become the real change in the world? Inspiring!
And it’s a holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll what you’re told
Holiday in Cambodia
Where the slum’s got so much soul
When people ask me what communist country was successful I usually say all of them until cia decided to go there and spread freedom 🇺🇸🦅
Well… There was this thing called Soviet Union. They decided to try to speed up the transition to communism by using repression and violence. And ended up being a totalitarian state, a direct opposite of what a communist state is supposed to be like.
Of course you can argue that Soviet Union was not communist, it was just a state that had chosen to call itself communist for propaganda reasons… But still, Soviet Union is an example of a communist country that was unsuccessful as a communist project already by itself. Then came outsiders and helped make it even worse, but bad doesn’t become good by some people wanting it to be even worse. Burma is another example. I’d say they hacked away their own leg before anyone else, such as CIA, had time to interfere in their business.
The USSR had to deal with a civil war, rising up during WWI and being sabotaged by the Germans, more civil war, foreign meddling, and all while being the first successful communist revolution. Yet they still managed to raise literacy, raise health outcomes, raise average life expectancy, gender equality, science and technology, end the cycle of famines (after the first one or two they had when they were still building up), had faster growth during that period than any capitalist country (except maybe the US, which was doing imperialism at the time and the biggest hegemon), all while helping sustain other socialist countries, like Cuba, Venezuela, or North Korea.
What no theory does to an mf
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Luckily the US is dismantling the CIA so that’s good news for communism!!!
JDPON DON
Is this true?? I suspect something closer to the way the KGB was “dismantled” and then re-assembled around the entire government.
Hopefully the ATF too
you know, i tell you what. i’m fed up with all this gringo self-righteousness when you talk about “oh communism was bad, oh people where killed, oh people had no food, oh people had no liberty, oh people could not buy ataris, oh our countries are so democratic”. your countries were democratic during the cold war in the first place because you had people to sort things out for you here in the global south. for each person complaining about how the food rations in eastern europe were not tasty enough, there were 10 dying of hunger or malnourishment here in the global south. for every person complaining they had to wait 5 years in a queue to buy a trabant or an oka, there were 10 who got no school in a range of 50 km. for every person complaining that their 8 hour shifts in state owned factories were overwhelming, there were 10 who were indentured workers. for every person complaining about how the stasi, kgb or the stb had bugged their apartment, there were 10 suffering the most horrific tortures inside black sites of the military of u.s. allies here in the “third world”. for every person complaining about dull standard apartment blocks in mikrorayons, there were 10 who lived in mud shacks and slums, and those are just who were lucky enough to have a roof over their heads. finally, for everyone complaining about chinese sweatshops, which are indeed a problem, there are 10 americans who work and yet cannot afford proper housing.
you wanna complain about how communism was bad? go ahead. you wanna complain how your parents lived under communism and could not drink coke? do so if you wish. but there are still millions of people down here who would give an arm and a leg to have a polish ration, an apartment in a russian gray building, or a yugoslav job. and while the chinese maoist red guard was bad, surely it won’t be an inch closer to the harassement people endured on a daily basis by our police forces.
again: you wanna complain? be my guest. but for me that’s an encyclopedic example of white privilege.
This, so much this. Having a job and a roof over your head is such a luxury in the ‘global south’, the true face of capitalism
Why would you not compare european communist countries woth european capitalist countries? Sure, africans and asians were poorer, but that goes without saying, honestly, what does that even have to do with this matter?
East Germany was poorer than west Germany. That tells us something. The fact that Ethiopia or whatever was poorer does not really tell us much about ehich economic system is better.
Loool it’s easy to say East Germany was poorer when they had to deal with all the sanctions. But be my guest, how many homeless people in USA and how many in Cuba?
If only there was a superpower leading a blok of nations rivaling the west that could have supported east Germany…
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“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.”
So… “man doesn’t exploit man”? Sounds good!
Its a Galbreth quote.
I’m gonna be real with you, I don’t know who or what that is and I deliberately chose to ignore the likely sarcasm, but feel free to enlighten me.
I wonder if anyone ever said “Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens”.
Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don’t believe communism is an effective form of government, it’s still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.
There isn’t really a single form of communist government, same as there isn’t a single way to do democracy or capitalism. Every country does it different, experiments a different way. For all we know, the perfect way to do it is just waiting for us to discover.
For example, I’d say the US’s form of liberal, bourgeois democracy is one of the worst ways to implement it, but it was also an early experiment with it and deserves credit for at least trying it and helping us learn what to do and what not to do.
There is a poem in Polish, it goes in fast and dirty translation: “Today you scare us with communists, just as years ago, you scared our fathers with the democrat name”.
The more I study history, the more I see the great wheel of humanity. Communists now, Jews in the 40s, Muslims in the early middles ages, the barbaric Gauls before Christ was even born. It never stops. The people with wisdom die off leaving remnants of their culture and ideas while the next generations tries to piece it all together.
14·20 hours agoSomeone between 1804 and 1830: Democracy doesn’t work, just look at France, it dissolves into an empire
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Well the ideal end result depends on the person, doesn’t it?
I’m sure Karl Marx and Stalin had very different ideas of what the ideal end result of communism would be.
From my understanding; Marx envisioned a worker’s utopia, while Stalin instead used communism to garner as much power for himself as possible.
whoops, brazil. we had a budding workers movement that was absolutely crushed by the traitorous brazilian military, in the name of the US of course.
that hasnt stopped syndicalism to take root here and improve our lives a bit, but the communist organizations responsible were all crushed and we see our rights being taken away ever since because no one is left to defend them. we are scrambling rn to see if we can stop fascism.
to anyone who says “why don’t you compare communist eastern europe to democratic western europe?”. sure, first thing to notice is that eastern europe didn’t had companies exploiting underdeveloped nations for their cheap labour and raw materials, their oppression of labour organizations and the support of corrupt rulers. since brazil was mentioned (heh), let us remember that west german companies such as vw or mercedes-benz used to report on syndicalists and communists working and organizing on their plants to the brazilian military during the dictatorship, and sold equipment to the military and police. that siemens sold nuclear reactors to the dictatorship during the late 70s. that many former officials of the dictatorship got leadership jobs in these companies and in basf, hoescht, atlas-schindler, mwm. behind the “economic success” of the rich countries of the west there’s always some degree of exploitation of poorer countries.
Death to America
as an american, hell yeah!
Same, man, same lol. I’m still patriotic during the Olympics, but if we’re going to be funding genocides, assassinating leaders, and starting wars and shit, fuck it, I hope we lose them all lol. Let’s just start over on the whole project.
I invite US balkanization at this point so I can go hang out in the new sovereign state of whatever CA, WA, and OR will be called. Hawaii can come, too.
Yeah.
The CIA is why the Soviets fell. Not corruption or incompetence.
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Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line. To this very day, the Thatcher/Reagan ideal of “market liberalisation and privatisation” has ALWAYS resulted in the centralised accumulation of capital that became a massive societal divider.
No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]
I know you like to cope with “Oh no, the evil minority of bad apples in the owner class again. >:(” but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.
Edit: typo. And to the cunt who removed Realitaetsverlust’s comment: you can suck a cock and die, I wanted to have a normal discussion with them.
It’s very frustrating to me to see people say things like “socialism/communism always ends in a dictatorship” while ignoring that capitalism tends towards oligarchies and monopolies. I’m glad to see someone else pointing out that “capitalism only works on a small scale.”
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My comment was a mirror of another user which got removed. And so it doesn’t make sense now. Thanks to the great modding team here. He didn’t say anything harmful, why censor it???
Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line.
Wrong. Half of europe relied so much on american protection that they had barely any military spending. Germany at the forefront, we only have ammunition for like 2 days of combat. So ye, that’s nonsense.
No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]
The US has been democratic for a major part of their existence. There were up and downs, sure, but it was largely a democratic system. So have many other big capitalistic countries by the way.
Russia, while being capitalist, is an authoritarian system - I’m pretty sure that would’ve also happened if they were communist. But the oil money they got from the west probably tasted too good.
but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.
Uuuuh, did you use AI to write this? Because it makes no sense. Personally, I wouldn’t mind some regulations. Not sure what your point is here.
I mirrored your comment, because I think it works backwards. From the way it sounds to me, you started with your conclusion/opinion and searched for proof of why it is right. Real socialism and the Soviet unions were deeply, deeply flawed systems from the start, but only because some implementations failed, due to essentially the same problems as capitalism, does not mean the idea as a whole is rubbish. If you read the communist manifesto and “the capital” from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, you will read a brilliant critique of our modern contemporary system. There are some very fine ideas in there, and I think it’s dangerous to discard another perspective because some implementations have failed. The USA are the living proof of how two radically different systems can suffer from the same problems and collapse because of them. Why is it such a culture war against some genuinely very fine points that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have made over a hundred years ago, which are relevant to this day?
Edit: typo. I apologise for forgetting about Friedrich Engels.
Independently of who I side with, I am blocking this community because of the stifling of Realitaetsverlust’s comments.
edit: was baffled by the stifling and just researched and learned about Lemmy.ml
it all makes sense now. It is a Socialist Communist instance that censors those not aligned with them. Political leanings don’t bother me, but the censorship does so I will be avoiding anything Lemmy.ml in the future. They of course have a right to run their instance how they wish. peace out
Im sure the uyghurs and tibetans see it differently
EDIT: \s
LOL
The horrible feodal system with serfs/slaves the Tibetans has was sooo much better.
Some CIA poking didn’t work to bring that back.
And there was a small minority radicalised terrorists by Turkey and OC again the CIA to cause trouble, which they did.
blew up a plane with civilians, multiple other attacks on busses, trainstations, etc…
The majority never liked them and are glad it’s over.
But nice try.Im sure they love making iphones until they jump off a roof
What, did a suicide happen years ago in a country you don’t like? Quick, use that as a weak excuse to throw mud.
I’m sure suicide doesn’t happen in companies from the fascist US, where they have to pee in bottles.
Sometimes a known fascist boss demands to keep his Tesla factory open in full covid peak and his slaves get sick and die.
Plenty of them die homeless or from drugs anyway.
No paid sick days, universal healthcare, unemployment, etc. Really a pathetic 3rd world country.
Not to mention no other regime puts more of its citizens in jail.This is the embarrassing US banana republic.
Want to try again?Ita wild to me that you can see the USs mas incarceration and tell its bad, but when the chinese govt imprisions and entire population based on their religion you act like its a good thing
"imprisions and entire population based on their religion "
That is a called a lie, or wild, baseless accusation at best.
It can be proved the US is the most authoritarian regime because facts and data about their prison slaves.
You just say stuff out of your unhealthy fixation with communism, which you even need to mention in your bio.
If that’s all you’re going to do then go away, not worth it.
Not sure what you’re trying to say. Uyghurs are systematically eradicated and tibet is controlled by china since their invasion in the 1950s. Not exactly speaking in favor of communism.
So, if you’d like to expand on your point, I might be able to discuss this further.
eradicated LOL, their population is growing, despite the many some US backed terrorist killed.
And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll waiteradicated LOL, their population is growing
According to who? The chinese government? Lmao. Ye I would DEFINITELY trust the ones that are performing the killings on reporting accurate numbers.
And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
Imperialism good when country does bad things?
Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll wait
I could, but if you want some originality, I can also bring up one of the other atrocities directly ordered by communist regimes, like the Prague Spring, Hungarian Revolution or the mass executions by the Khmer in Cambodia.
oh, the khmer rouge, that one that the u.s. supported along with britain, china (not so dirty back then, right) and who were toppled by the socialist regime of vietnam?
I already answered that to someone else so I’ll just copy and paste it:
The US never directly supported pol pot. Before 1975, they supported Lon Nol, who was fighting against the communist Khmer Rouge.
The part that IS true is that the US did support China and Thailand at the time, which in turn used that aid to support resistance groups in cambodia because vietnam invaded cambodia in 1979 - something the US had no problem with since vietnam was backed by the soviets. Also, it is true that the US and other western countries supported keeping the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia’s official UN representative, however, that was mostly done to undermine Vietnam’s rule over cambodia.
So, yes, by extension, the US supported pol pot, but it’s not the big “gotcha” you think it is - it was the cold war, an extremely complex geopolitical time.
I don’t need to prove something that didn’t happen which isn’t possible, you show me proof of your fantasy eradication that isn’t from the sick nutbag Adrian Zenz. Must be easy if it’s such a genocide.
Imperialism good when country does bad things?
Hypocrisy good in the name of bringing democracy.
Lol I meant to reply to the main thread, but you could pretend im being sarcastic and it kinda works
Makes sense, I just was kinda confused and wasn’t sure.
It doesn’t matter what ideology. If the people running it are rotten, any system can be corrupted.
So then the solution is to decentralize so everyone is running it.
And have a way for it to be trustless as well
It’s simple: teach everyone to make everything they need for themselves, so they can’t be expoited
Sure bro lemme teach my aunt to make her insulin, her own needles, her own glucose test strips and all that cheers
There is a group actively working to open source Insulin manufacturing to make it practical to self produce.
Maybe we should all specialize, and pay each other with our own goods, or better yet, a sort of representation of goods we all agree is valuable, so you can get one persons goods with anothers.
Kinda seems unfair that somebody’s aunt should have to purchase insulin she needs to survive, like she shouldn’t have to work harder to have the same lifestyle as someone without a disability. Maybe we should just give her the insulin she needs to survive, and compensate the people who make it out of some sort of common pool of resources everyone is required to contribute to, in order to distribute the costs more fairly.
When I was younger, I tried to design an universal constructor.
Unfortunatelly, I was using Roblox studio to do this.
How’s that for insanity?
I also carved a log with a knife, hacking off pieces in an attempt to make a 3D printer
It’s not insane! 3D printing is making huge strides. You were just a little ahead of your time.
If we can run Doom on 16 billion crabs, then you can carve a 3D printer.
Something something darwin
What does Darwin have to do with enslavement of the human species?
Like how people were gifted ability to have more knowledge at their hands than previous generations and rapid communication, and then came to the conclusion that the earth is flat, vaccines are poision, and facism is holy?
Humans are dumb fucks. They will inevitably fuck up even the most perfect utopia they arrive in short of some mass hive mind brain washing Equilibrium style. i don’t hold that high an opinion of human society.
Leave the world to the animals. Humans are a failed experiment and a virus to the world.
Start from yourself
Deeply anti-materialist take.
Can you explain how you disagree? Is it about incentives to be corrupt (or against) depending on the system?
They didn’t seem to express an argument or value judgment in their comment regardless of their actual opinion.
Don’t feed the troll.
I am not that person, but I guess you wouldn’t like the ambassadors of fascism to be efficient and competent.
Yeah, I remember how my grandfather and everyone he knew fought tooth and nail just to stop America from dismantling communism in eastern Europe!
Oh, wait, he didn’t. Everyone celebrated when it fell.
Because no one who experienced it thought hmm is briliant, yeh nah, socialist policies are needed but not any form of totalitarian communism
Nah communism is shit, same with trickle down economics… you can have a bit of capitalism and a bit of socialism in a healthy mix of free trade economy with regulations.
Like we do in Europe, because if you do not regulate the free market it’ll stop being free in a generation. Like it’s happened in the US.
Oh boy, another batch of centrists coming in from the Reddit shitstorm… This one oblivious to the fact that far right parties are gaining traction all over Europe.
Yeah, or like they do in China.
Unfortunately for many parts of the world, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to go full socialist or not, if you get in the way of multinational exploitation and neocolonialism, you’re gonna get couped. There’s no shortage of left-leaning non-socialists who have also been targeted by the CIA. Like Guatemala, where they just wanted to do basic land reform so farmers could work their own land, but Chiquita didn’t like that so it became the origin of the term “Banana Republic.”
What do they do in China, exactly? It looks like single-party fascist corporatism. If it’s communism, why do they have a rising number of billionaires and worse conditions for workers than many european countries?
What do they do in China, exactly? It looks like single-party fascist corporatism.
The funny thing about discussions about China’s economy is that you can use pretty much any term to describe it as long as it’s bad. If “socialist” or “communist” is understood to be a bad thing to those in the conversation, you can use those terms without objection, but you can also say stuff like “Feudalism” or “Fascist Corporatism” or “Colonialism” or “Capitalist” or “State Capitalist” or whatever tf else, it’s all just vibes-based and the only requirement is that the vibes be bad.
China has a mixed economy with a combination of state ownership and private investment, with the state maintaining a controlling share in certain key industries, and preventing (at least so far) economic elites from infiltrating the government for the purpose of widespread regulatory capture and deregulation. Billionaires exist but sometimes face real consequences for illegal activity, and the balance between public and private ownership tips more heavily towards public when compared to other countries such as those in Europe.
The partial liberalization of the economy is meant to encourage economic development post-industrialization, and prevent the challenges the USSR faced with economic stagnation post-industrialization. Central planning works great if you’re just trying to meet people’s basic needs like food or shelter, but the demand for consumer goods is more fluid. This policy is also adapted to the global situation, China has benefitted greatly from industry moving there and by becoming a major trade partner of the US and other countries (while also holding the bulk of manufacturing output), that makes it difficult for outside forces to go to war or level sanctions/tariffs on them.
It is not a “communist” country in the sense of having achieved communism (in this sense, a “communist country” is an inherent contradiction). It could be called a communist/socialist country in the sense that it is governed by (self-identified) communists. Socialism, or I should specify Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, aren’t a set of specific policies but rather a materialist and class-based mode of analysis to be applied and adapted differently depending on material conditions.
Some hardcore Maoists would argue that China’s current system is a deviation from the correct socialist ideas, as espoused by Mao. However, there’s also this odd branch of Westerners that don’t like China’s liberalized system because “it has billionaires,” but also don’t like what they had before under Mao when they didn’t have billionaires, but also claim to dislike full-on capitalism - so as far as I can tell, they just dislike China regardless of what they do or don’t do. I’ve yet to find any such person who’s actually willing and capable to engage in a discussion of “what should they do/have done economically” as opposed to just bashing them. And in fact, when asked what kind of economic system they support, they’ll often describe a mixed system similar to what China has, but then be like, “but not like that.”
I’ve yet to find any such person who’s actually willing and capable to engage in a discussion of “what should they do/have done economically” as opposed to just bashing them.
I didn’t say they weren’t doing fine or that they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.
I just said that they’re not communists. This is not a bad thing! But lying about it is of course somewhat distasteful, especially for those people who think themselves as being communists.
I didn’t say they weren’t doing fine or that they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.
So your position is that their system is “Fascist Corporatism,” but also… that’s fine, actually?
I just said that they’re not communists. This is not a bad thing! But lying about it is of course somewhat distasteful, especially for those people who think themselves as being communists.
Whether they’re “lying” is a matter of interpretation and ideological differences. Like, if I’m a hardcore, traditionalist Roman Catholic, maybe from my perspective, all Protestants are “lying” about being Christian because “true Christianity” means my interpretation of it. Likewise, if you’re a hardcore Maoist, then maybe you’d argue that China is governed by revisionists who are “lying” about being communists.
If we want to look at it from a relatively objective point of view, the largest number of self-identified communists in the world are Marxist-Leninists, who don’t view China as “lying about being communist” but rather agree with or at least critically support their approach. So, idk, if you want to join some fringe Christian sect that claims every other sect as being heretical and themselves as the sole defender of the faith, or if you want to join some fringe communist group that denounces every other communist group as revisionist and themselves as the only “real” communists, then idk, you do you ig. But not everyone who believes different things from you is “lying.”
So your position is that their system is “Fascist Corporatism,” but also… that’s fine, actually?
Great point. That was a mistake from my part. So what China is doing is indeed not fine at all, even though it kind of works for them.
I’m sure that your branding of the Chinese economy is based on a very high degree of intellectual rigor and definitely not just pulling words out of your ass based on vibes.
Needs v wants
Needs: healthcare, utilities, public transport, even a minimal but quality food source. Even to the point of utilitarian but working phones/devices. State ownership where profits are minimal but go back into the state. The services aren’t necessarily free, but are run without massive shareholder payouts.
Wants: upgrades and luxuries. iPhones, treat foods, nice cars, silk bedding and those ridiculous marshmallow shoes everyone loves. Regulated but free market.
Now all your basic needs are covered by the community together. You could probably live a simple life with very little income. If you want luxury or fancy, feel free to work too get it.
I have been trying to put together a document that attempt this concept of ensuring the survival of people, while making money into something used for lifestyle upgrades. Also, heavy emphasis on wealth limits and preferring people over corporations. IMO, corporations are great for personal interests, but are beyond terrible when it comes to the wellbeing of people. Thus, we should make having a job optional, but rewarding.
UNIVERSAL RANKED INCOME
Yo, how do you have lumberjack in the same tier as astronauts ? One goes to space, and other is a guy in flannel swinging ax in the woods lol
High injury and fatality rates. An astronaut risks their life everytime they ride an occaisional rocket, but a lumberjack has to deal with falling trees on a daily basis.
Ok, I see where you are going with that. I don’t personally agree, but I see where you are coning from
if you do not regulate the free market
Wtf are you talking about. There is no such thing as a free market.
Sir, this is lemmy. Moderate politics are highly upvoted and deeply resented here.
I can see that, wild that there are people here thinking Communism is ok
This is a sane take. This is the only form of economy that actually works with great success.
Is-ought fallacy? Understand me correctly, I like the EU system, but to pretend that it’s the end of history and that we’ve reached perfection in this space is wrong.
Unless the population pyramid is destroyed, but that won’t happen right?
can communism survive in a single country was always a big question.
I think the original idea was to try a world revolution but that didn’t work out.
Us is the main holdout. Russia is basically socialist, EU is basically socialist. China is communist.
Us is the only serious holdout
Could a Communist Nation be considered viable if such a hostile force can take it down? Does it all come down to survival of the fittest (in the best use of the term)?
