The more I learn about #history of the Soviet Union, the more I realize just how much my native #Ukraine was actively stifled, prevented from developing and innovating, and forced into this image of a backwards and hopeless nation.
Our people have always been so phenomenal, talented, ambitious, kind, and creative. But they’ve been punished, scared, and intimidated into a terrible subservient existence for so many decades and centuries.
@mariyadelano I recently started to understand that for countries colonised by soviet Russia, the end of WW2 wasn't really a celebration. It was just a different country oppressing them.
It's no surprise that they were desperate to join NATO when the soviet union collapsed and are the countries being most vocal at the moment.
Btw this is often hard for me to explain to Westerns - I’m politically on the left, but I never call myself a communist or a socialist and I do not align with people who espouse those views.
It’s very hard to talk to people who quote Lenin and admire communist regimes without having lived there or having had their families killed by them for not falling in line.
Capitalism does, unfortunately, have a lot of good to it.
@mariyadelano I think it's worth pointing out that the authoritarian communism carried out in the Soviet Union only superficially resembles what Marx had in mind, and the megacorp capitalism in the United States only superficially resembles the "American dream" of old. Both are, in my opinion, deranged versions of the intention.
@jon404 yes! That’s also why I kind of hate these labels of “communism”, “socialism”, and “capitalism” - they were made up over a hundred years ago by a couple of white dudes who had good observations but who weren’t some all-knowing gods.
They got a lot of things wrong AND the world has changed. I feel like we need new labels but coming up with those is tough
Like I resonate with arguments about consumerist waste, of course I do. We don’t need to buy new phones every year or get cheap clothes that fall apart after 2-3 months, or waste our money on software subscriptions for every single thing.
BUT. I’ve seen the other side. When I was little my hometown still hadn’t really Westernized. I remember the day our first ever supermarket opened.
And a life without ANY consumerism is a miserable one.
Not having any choices in what to buy or own takes so much pleasure out of life.
I remember when we first moved to the Philippines, walking around giant supermarkets and toy stores and book stores and clothing stores with my jaw on the floor.
The colors, the possibilities, the methods for self-expression. I felt so free for the first time.
Maybe that’s why I love marketing - I remember how cool I thought ads were.
I’m not an economist so I’m sure I am getting things wrong.
But my fundamental principle in politics and my life philosophy is the pursuit of long-term freedom and happiness for the largest number of people possible.
Some people need to be restrained because their greed and selfishness means their happiness costs too many others their freedom.
Corporations destroying the planet means short-term profit but long-term destroying freedom for us all.
@mariyadelano
I often use exactly the same phrase: "highly regulated capitalism". However, some sectors of the economy are probably more efficiently run in a "socialist" way, like healthcare. Season 2 of the Dr. Death podcast shows how capitalist healthcare literally incentivizes murder - if the US properly regulated healthcare to counteract that incentive, the cost would be prohibitive. I believe public utilities should also be publicly owned/"socialized", as they used to be when I was a kid.
@gardenvarietylinguist yep, and I guess for me the “regulated” part is a catch all term that includes the sense that certain industries should be so regulated they are no longer really private.
I think more aspects of our societies need to be viewed as public good and taken out of the profit motive, for sure
@mariyadelano I found this exploration really helpful, of capitalism as a system for extracting and protecting wealth entirely outside of free markets and private ownership. I think it speaks to the distinctions you’re drawing here.
@mariyadelano Indeed. When I rail against capitalism here, it’s very specifically against the idea that capital is in charge, that profit should be the primary (or only) guiding principle. But I’m not doing it as a Marxist—I want there to be markets and entrepreneurs and consumer and employee choice. I have two degrees in business, for crying out loud!
@mariyadelano Not only Ukraine. I've just finished a book about how parts of modern China were devastated and terrorized by communists. Red plague and brown plague are basically the same.
@mariyadelano Well, I'm also Ukrainian, but still it's relevant for all of our poor planet. So many peoples oppressed, exiled, terrorized, murdered, just horrible.
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