Reflecting back on the breakup of the Soviet Union that happened 22 years ago next week, residents in seven out of 11 countries that were part of the union are more likely to believe its collapse harmed their countries than benefited them. Only Azerbaijanis, Kazakhstanis, and Turkmens are more likely to see benefit than harm from the breakup. Georgians are divided.
A remarkable 72% of Hungarians say that most people in their country are actually worse off today economically than they were under communism. Only 8% say most people in Hungary are better off, and 16% say things are about the same. In no other Central or Eastern European country surveyed did so many believe that economic life is worse now than during the communist era. This is the result of almost universal displeasure with the economy. Fully 94% describe the country’s economy as bad, the highest level of economic discontent in the hard hit region of Central and Eastern Europe. Just 46% of Hungarians approve of their country’s switch from a state-controlled economy to a market economy; 42% disapprove of the move away from communism. The public is even more negative toward Hungary’s integration into Europe; 71% say their country has been weakened by the process.
The most incredible result was registered in a July 2010 IRES (Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy) poll, according to which 41% of the respondents would have voted for Ceausescu, had he run for the position of president. And 63% of the survey participants said their life was better during communism, while only 23% attested that their life was worse then. Some 68% declared that communism was a good idea, just one that had been poorly applied.
Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an “illegitimate state.” In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.
Roughly 28 percent of Czechs say they were better off under the Communist regime, according to a poll conducted by the polling institute SC&C and released Sunday.
The majority of Russians polled in a 2016 study said they would prefer living under the old Soviet Union and would like to see the socialist system and the Soviet state restored.
The above memes are almost always made by Americans, whose brains are riddled with red scare brainworms and are completely devoid of any knowledge or understand of what the left thinks in Europe because Americans do not have a left.
The polls quoted are not representative because of the demographics change. The oldest part of the population, who grew up after WW2, prefers soviet union, but it’s because it was their youth. Their children, who spent most of their lives in “developed socialism” are much less happy about it. Young people, who grew up in independent states, are overwhelmingly against soviet baggage. And since 2010, when some of the quoted polls were made, older people died.
The only ones who actually regret the decay are russians who morn loss of their empire. Soviet union was just another incarnation of it. Also serbs and hungarians who are a bit isolated in their space.
It is especially strange to see this comment while ukrainians, one of the largest postsoviet states, overwhelminly support and enact literal fight against russian restorational imperialism which tries to bring russian-dominated soviet state back. Or are you questioning this proposition too?
Every single left wing party in ukraine was banned, and my friends in the country were arrested for being socialists. Speech in the country can not be considered free and opinion can not be measured accurately at the current moment in time. It would also be sort of foolish to attempt this with the country split into 4 regions between Ukraine proper, Crimea and the two Donbas republics. Ideally you would include all of them in that data, and if we went back in time and looked pre-2014 (when the civil war started) we’d see a lot of support in those regions. But now? Everything is a mess and I wouldn’t trust either states at war to give us reliable data.
I of course don’t consider the factions pursuing a restoration of the Russian empire to have anything to do with socialism either. For the record.
What is banned is communist party, and not because it was communist (it was not) but because it was pro-imperialist restoration, and also just for old people who wanted to remember their youth.
I am ukrainian and have ukrainian communist friends, and they are now just as fiercly antirussianimperialism as every one I know in Ukraine. It just shows that the leftist ideas live on, especially among young people (but also their parents, who in 2014 protested for ideas of their children, when children were assaulted for now good reason, starting all the violence). The problem is that any explicit reference to communism or state socialism is very tainted. So you can see why the title meme makes a lot of sense.
Those are just reformulation of the same concept which has nothing to do with communism, just with soviet state nostalgia. Plus a few were banned after Russia’s invasion for supporting the invaders (and they are related to the soviet nostalgia kind). Anyway they lost almost all support, I was even a bit surprised that any Ukrainian I know, even Russian-speaking pro-Russia-ties people are very anti-Russia now - being invaded feels even more like an betrayal for them. Of course I do not exclude that some Ukrainians genuinely support the Russia’s narrative, but among hundreds I know personally there is not a single one.
Banning certain parties is along the same lines as Germany banning Nazi party, or would you suggest that’s oppression of freedom as well?
Clearly, I do not enjoy this division with Russia, I have Russian family, friends, colleagues. But what their state did is just not the way to do things, it damaged irreparably relations and any remaining pro-Russian political parties or sentiments in Ukraine for a generation. I rather prefer some balance and discourse would continue but nobody did more to push Ukraine away from any pro-Russian politics (even shaped as soviet nostalgia with “communist” banner) than Russia itself.
Wow, the level of dishonesty in your post is startling. Almost all (or perhaps all?) of your links have serious problems with them. I wish I had time to debunk them all, but let’s go with just the first one for now.
7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them
According to the article itself, there are 15 countries that came from the Soviet Union, not 11. And obviously Estonians, Latvias, and Lithuanians would not say that the fall of the SU hurt them. (For the fourth, Uzbekistan, I don’t know which way they would go.) But “7 (or 8) out of 15 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them” doesn’t have the same ring to it, so you didn’t post that, because you are dishonest.
And that the study didn’t conclude that these countries wanted to return to communism or return to the Soviet Union (they don’t, other than Russians, the imperialists), it concluded that they believe that the fall of the SU hurt them. Which is plausible: collapse events aren’t pretty, even if it’s the collapse of an evil regime (see Iraq with ISIS filling the void for another example). You of course conflate the these points to pretend that these countries want communism and the SU back.
Maybe if you didn’t have such a ideological agenda you wouldn’t dishonestly cherry pick headlines for propaganda purposes?
The only problem with the Gallup link is only the title, which is (probably unintentionally) misleading. I didn’t say anything about it being propaganda, that’s just more of your bullshitting.
Spiegel? Propaganda? It’s literally the largest German news website mate. Trying to attack the authority of the source here is nonsense. And gallup is one of the most internationally recognised polling companies in the world largely for its refusal to do polls funded by any political party.
Authority source? What? It clearly shows where you come from (not referring to a specific country, just your environment). And yes, of course, those are “news” outlets like fox news and rt, right? /s. Oh look, Wikipedia article, it must be truth. /s. Sorry, I can’t be nice with propaganda agents. Bye.
And? Socialism does not mean not having a multiparty system. I get that you’re trying to imply that approving of a multiparty system or a market economy is somehow evidence of being against socialism but both of those things exist under socialism. Yugoslavia was a market economy in eastern europe under socialism.
Yugoslavia was a market economy in eastern europe under socialism.
There was a limited amount of pseudo-private “workers collective” (OOUR) companies starting from the mid 70s all the way to the breakup. It was certainly not a market economy in any meaningful way. The entire economy was propped up by foreign loans, which was a cause of so much inflation that the currency had to be re-adjusted twice, starting from the late 60s.
This is getting too semantic for my liking we would argue all day about whether Tito’s efforts were a market economy or not. You acknowledge that market economies and multiple parties do exist in socialist countries though correct?
The word “Socialism” is too broad to be useful here, it can refer to democratic socialism, which is the dominant political stance in Nordic countries, so yes, market economies and social programs can co-exist.
The nordic countries aren’t socialism ffs. They are social democracy, capitalist states with welfare policies and a ruling class of bourgeoisie. This is political illiteracy. Adding welfare to capitalism does not make socialism, it makes ““friendly”” capitalism (backed by imperialism of the global south). Read Imperialism in the 21st Century, it is suicide fuel for socdems.
A real example of democratic socialism to discuss would be any of the states created by the Bolivarian revolutions. Venezuela under Chavez. Bolivia under MAS. Etc. Socialist states with a proletarian ruling class.
7 out of 11 countries believe the end of the USSR harmed their countries rather than benefited them
That’s because USSR was designed intentionally so that its end would be a catastrophe. To prevent that end. However, since it was simply unable to exist further even on life support, what happened happened still.
End of USSR being bad doesn’t mean USSR being good. It’s just a choice between horrible end and horror without end.
Which area of Russia do you live in and what do the local people over 60 that actually lived in the USSR have to say? I already know of course and could post video interviews of such, but perhaps you could tell the thread what those people say.
Forgive me for assuming but I’m willing to bet you’re in your teens or twenties, making you at best 10 years old when it ended, meaning you have little to no actual recollection of what living and working was like. I could be wrong of course.
Moscow, I also had relatives in SPb (not anymore), other relatives in Nizhny Novgorod, other relatives in Voronezh, and some in Rostov-on-Don.
and what do the local people over 60 that actually lived in the USSR have to say
Different things for different people.
Educated people in general have to say on politics the same things that I said earlier, but they are very nostalgic over less criminalized popular culture, better technical education and rules being followed. So am I to some extent actually.
Less educated and poorer people would have uncritical approval of whatever they approve now. USSR, because “people had everything and everything was cheap and deficit is a lie”, even though they lived to see it and themselves mention it in unconnected conversations, but it’s always some enemies behind it, or maybe of Putin and so on.
Can be seen with my aunts in Armenia too, one of them is a pharmacist and sees things adequately, if pessimistically. Another is an accountant and goes into complete denial in any honest conversation about anything political, she just can’t bear it as some people can’t bear honest conversations about sex.
There may be gradations.
I already know of course and could post video interviews of such
That’s not an argument. You can make video interviews with all kinds of people of all kinds of demographics to say what you want. That’s what propaganda does since “video” became a thing. Discarded.
but perhaps you could tell the thread what those people say.
Yes, see the above.
Forgive me for assuming but I’m willing to bet you’re in your teens or twenties, making you at best 10 years old when it ended, meaning you have little to no actual recollection of what living and working was like. I could be wrong of course.
No recollection at all, I’m 1996, but since transition from USSR to modern Russia didn’t happen in an instance, in various institutions and organizations you can still see in some ways how it was. More in my childhood than now, but still.
Also naturally I have parents and grandparents, and friends’ parents and their grandparents, and parents’ friends, and so on, you get the idea.
I live in this society and you don’t, so I know more than you, which could help you if you weren’t in denial.
Educated people in general have to say on politics the same things that I said earlier, but they are very nostalgic over less criminalized popular culture, better technical education and rules being followed. So am I to some extent actually.
In Moscow? You’re not being fair. Educated people in the soviet union from Moscow lived extremely well and have very positive views. Engineers, scientists, etc will all say positive things. You know as well as I do that hundreds of video interviews will confirm this. Be fairer, claiming that everyone that supports the ussr among the over 60s is just uneducated is definitely untrue. This particular video series is in Moscow and this lady is exactly what I am talking about.
You can’t live in Moscow and say this is untrue. You’re being unfair.
No recollection at all, I’m 1996, but since transition from USSR to modern Russia didn’t happen in an instance, in various institutions and organizations you can still see in some ways how it was. More in my childhood than now, but still.
Brought up in shock therapy then.
if you weren’t in denial.
I’m not in denial. I’m asking you to be fairer. The data does not support your position. You know as well as I do that 75% of the country consider the soviet era to be when the country was at its greatest (and that this is easily verifiable from many sources), and you know damn well that 75% of the country aren’t all uneducated people. You are not being fair.
According to the absolute majority of respondents (54%), the majority of Hungarians had a better life under the Kádár regime (pre-1990) than today
The Kádár regime was the communist government.
there were even more respondents (61%) who said that the conditions for individual financial prosperity were more favorable under the Kádár regime.
lol
It is also worth noting that almost two-thirds of Hungarians (63%) said that there was predictable order and social peace under the Kádár regime
lmao
I like this research. Thanks for sharing.
EDIT:
The older an age group, the higher the proportion was of those who agreed that the majority lived better before the regime change. A significant correlation can be observed when looking at the educational background: citizens with lower education tend to believe that most Hungarians lived better under Kádár. Among the lowest qualified citizens, 62 and 27 percent are the share of the two sides, but even according to the relative majority of graduates (45%), most Hungarians lived better before 1990 than today.
So the older the Hungarian the more likely they are to believe that things were better under communism. So the people that actually lived in communism support it even more. Oh and the more educated people are the more likely they are to support that position too. I think the age thing will explain why the stat is slipping over time, the people that actually lived in communism are the people that support it more, and as they are dying they are being removed from the data.
Another hungarian here. Definitely before 1989 Hungary was probably known for having one of the best living conditions under the USSR’s sphere. It went pretty good in terms of spending power (heavy censorship in media if not aligned with the regime’s view, forced labor, government spying agents everywhere, couldn’t talk about 1956, etc.) until the 70’s when Kádár (the dictator of the country) realized that he can’t keep up these living standards, except if he takes up debt. So he literally taken up debt to keep up this facade, which really hit to us when we replaced the regime, and since the people have been so used to this kind of populist leadership type, they have chosen Orbán (current president) several times, despite the horrendous amounts of corruption, stomping freedom of speech, fearmongering, spying on opponents phones etc, just because he is really good at continuing the populist ideology which Kádár has done.
EDIT: I’m not saying capitalism is good, I rather support a hybrid model which the EU does currently. Too much state intervention is bad, and too much freedom for corpos are also bad too. In my case my government happily accepts building factories in this country which 100% is better for agriculture, and these corpos doesn’t have to pay much tax, can overtime workers and only pay them like 4 years later (yes this is legal).
Regulated capitalism can be a lot of things. Even good things, I claim. Furthermore, unregulated capitalism turns into feudalism, which is someything we see now in digital sphere a lot. EU tries to regulate capitalism to get the best parts of it, like rewarding fair competetive environment - paradoxically, fair competetion favors collaboration. An alternative to favoring individual and collectove agency is authocracy, and dictors never remain benevolent for long.
Capitalism as it exists outside of the Imperial Core tends to be shit. Eastern Europe is still outside the core for the most part, as is most of the world.
It’s shit inside the Imperial Core as well. There are few people profiting a lot from it, and they try to give barely enough leftovers to enough of the population to stop them from resisting.
Hungarian here. We had ten good years, then the same ruling class started to do the same shit they did back then but under a different name. But at least nowadays you can leave the country, which many do since – the frequent attempts to do so were an important cultural touchstone here in the 45 years of soviet occupation.
Trust me, no one wants the same shit back, that’s just a political talking point propping up Orbán’s pro-russian bullshit.
Of course nobody wants the same shit, I don’t want the same shit either, I know for sure that the hard left of mszp sit around where I am. Things can be so much better.
They did lead our last good government. And yes, I’d like that too, I voted for the coalition they were in in every election since I had the right to vote. I’m just saying that things being better is not the same as reinstating the same regime we had under the soviets, that would be pretty universally things going worse.
We’re in a failing capitalist system, but it still manages to be less oppressive than the failing socialist/communist/call it whatever you want system we had before.
Just wait until climate collapse hits and the food supply goes through cascading failures creating famines affecting 6 billion people. Then we’ll see when shit really hits the fan.
Eh, it’s kinda both. Yes, it’s nice to stay on one topic like how we can make communism the best it can be and learn lessons of the past. But when people look at some of those decisions/theories and say “that sounds terrible, I’d rather keep what I have” then you really gotta cross-compare. America is only as well off as it is because of slavery, corruption, death and destruction. It’s just not death and destruction of their own people and land, so most American citizens don’t “see” that. Or if they do, it’s a “well, that sucks, we should do better” kind of thing, but lack real recognition that the system benefits them so much. As well, the capitalist autocracies have been way more deadly and authoritarian and corrupt than anything communist, and it’s important for people to learn about the differences.
A: “Communism is authoritarian” B: “Wehll, sometimes, but capitalism is too, and it is MUCH worse” A: “Don’t commit whataboutism” B: “Uhhhh, but we have to compare systems to know which is better and which is worse…”
I mean they violated some if tge main principles outlined by Marx, like the other states, who almost all followed the lenin-stalin-model, so yeah. Prove me wrong.
The functioning of their government is absolutely unequivocally communist. They have allowed some form of capital interests, which I would not consider communist in definition, but the government retains control over nearly all those interests and the plan they’ve put forward from the beginning is to renationalize industries as they reach a point of competitive development with the western world.
I’m going to preface this with saying I don’t support communism or centrally planned socialism, so this isn’t me handwaving things away. It’s just that this is a nuanced topic and definitions are important, and the red scare has sucessfully lied to most people about what these words mean.
The government being in control of everything is not the sole defining feature of communism. Socialism is where the people own the means of production (business assets), typically through the government owning it all. Communism takes that a step further by removing currency and markets from the system and using some other system to determine how to create and allocate goods and services. And for the people to own the means of production through the government, they need to have an actual say in the government.
Basically to have centrally-planned socialism or communism, you need the government owning all business assets in addition to something like a democracy or republic form of governmental policy. If you don’t have a governmental policy that is controlled by the people, then the people don’t own the means of production and by definition you don’t have socialism or communism. You have one of the various forms of autocracy/oligarchy/etc.
The issue we see here with people conflating modern day China, the USSR, etc with communism is that the change in government started out as socialist or communist movements, but then got coopted by fascists who removed political agency from the people, but also decided to keep calling themselves communists. However, overthrowing a form of government and pretending you’re still that form of government doesn’t magically make it true. North Korea isn’t democratic or a republic just because the rulers call themselves it. Similarly, China’s government is defined by its actions: state capitalist and not communist.
I’m far from an expert on communism. But the government, and especially a single person, retaining power over the state and economy is far from communism, it’s more authoritarian. Communism in it’s very base is the citizens owning the means of production, not the state owning those. This in no way is represented in China, where the state has a lot of power over the economy and owns parts of some companies, but there are still capitalists owning factories and workers working there.
But that is no joke at all. It is what every honest historian will tell you. If you take communism as it was defined by Marx (not that this would be the best system or even what I would propse, parts of it maybe) then no society actually tried that.
According to www.heritage.org/index/ranking for instance, there are 24 countries in the world with freer economy than USA.
The right wing, climate change denying, Heritage Foundation is not a reliable source. That’s nowhere near an unbiased analysis, but an opinion piece. No one can seriously believe the US to be less “free market” than like half of western Europe.
That’s like asking the North Korean government to create an index of democracy.
And that’s why we have barriers to entry stifling competition lobbied for by the big players in said industry? Insulin is only the price it is because the government enforces the patent that says pfizer is allowed to have a monopoly on it, if other people were able to produce and sell affordable generics pfizer would have to drop their price or go out of business, but if you try the government comes, kidnaps you, and if you resist kidnapping, kills you.
Try to sell a product that the government decides you owe them money for: Weed? Jail. Moonshine? Jail. Weed in a legal state but didn’t break off the 50% protection money to the government? Jail. Unlicensed insulin? Jail. Drawing of a mouse too close to a famous one? Jail.
The US has what is called crony capitalism, not free market capitalism. Free market capitalism economy is what the Agorists like SEKIII want (but they refuse to call capitalism arguing that “real capitalism” is crony capitalism and “free market economies” are not “capitalist” at all and is actually leftist in nature.)
Communism fails every time it is tried because it goes against human nature of constantly comparing yourself to others and trying to improve yourself. You will never do harder work if you can get the same reward for easier work, and you will look for other, less moral ways of getting the bigger reward.
Communism sounds great but it will never work until we have unlimited resources and completely automated labour.
They did attempt to be communist, but they failed like every other attempt will fail. Greed is basic human nature, and those who have it more than others will find a way to abuse the system, get in charge and ruin it.
I’m not arguing your other points, but this isn’t always true. Humans seem to crave respect, not necessarily monetory wealth. If you want you can read more about gift economies.
That’s funny because I do easy work for a great paycheck yet we have a harder time hiring than in my previous job which didn’t pay as well and was harder.
I’m in my mid thirties, my current job (first time for this employer) is the best paid and offers the best conditions and is the easiest one I’ve ever worked and they need to give us a retention bonus so people don’t leave for another department.
I’ll leave it at that so I don’t dox myself.
Edit: Don’t know why people are downvoting? It’s an office job that requires a high-school diploma, I’ve worked physical jobs before that paid less and where we weren’t short staffed as we are in my current job. Happy?
Nah, that’s just wrong. You can compare yourself in other ways than how much fake money you earn. Fun thing is: truly communistic society would mean easier work for most people.
And communism does work in small scale enviroments. Families, cooperatives, tribes. Sometimes neighborhoods.
This whole “Sounds great but won’t work” rhethoric is just what the ones that would loose their power in communsim want you to think. If you dig into it you will see, that there were and are a lot of efforts to discredit the idea.
In what sense was it not an actual effort? Just because it quickly slid into non-marxism doesn’t say anything about the initial idea of the revolutionaries. Bakunin predicted exactly what would happen with Marxism, and it did every time.
If you are against an authoritarian state, the only viable way to communism is to skip the dictatorship part directly and just have anarchism.
True communism is pretty much impossible, same as true capitalism.
There have been some short-lived small-scale experiments like the “United Order”, but nothing that actually survived more than a few months with more than a few thousand people.
Well, it is feasible. You just need to give people replicators and free living space, and they will eventually learn to use their skills to enrich the world we live in. And boldly go where no one has gone before.
Realistically, it would look something like how the Anarchists organized society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, or how Rojava is organizing today with communal federations. Anarchism sidesteps the inevitable authoritarian regime that various Marxist theories have by not installing a ‘temporary’ vanguard state that quickly becomes autocratic and dictatorial, they just jump straight to decentralizing power immediately by giving it to the people.
You can have socialism, or anarchy, which we’ve seen before, but communism cannot function in one country alone, unless said country is completely and absolutely self reliant.
A major part of communism is internationalism, which is why socialist countries had the Comintern. (Communist International). Besides a political/social system, communism has a strong basis as an economic system. You can’t apply communist economic system principles to the capitalist market.
To my knowledge, no existing country is self reliant to the point that they can completely cut off trade with the rest of the world. USSR didn’t do it, China didn’t do it and they were the two biggest countries at the time.
That, of course is all a very surface level ELI5, and if you want to ask something more specific or in depth, feel free to.
Without search engine and without going into detail that is out of the scope, anarchy is a different path to a classless system. Said classless system is different enough from communism to warrant discussion but close enough for that discussion to be devolving into anarchy vs socialism most of the time to differentiate the path to that system.
Said path in anarchy is comprised of setting up collectives that start small, neighborhood small, and gradually evolve. Each collective shares almost everything between its members and there’s no leadership or ranking across its members.
Anything deeper than that leads to a long discussion that is out of the scope of this thread and definitely out of the scope of the ELI5 the post I originally replied to needed or had the philosophical basis to understand possibly. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but they are quite different approaches to a similar goal, a classless society that money does not rule all.
Anarchist checking in, so, y’know, bias and all that. But I’d say it’s just as impossible to have anarchism in one country. Bearing in mind, I’m an anarcho-communist, and not terribly familiar things like mutualism, so that may be different. I tend to view, as do (to my knowledge) most ancoms, communism and anarchism as synonyms. The difference is how we get to the end point, not the end point itself. A stateless, classless, moneyless society. We’ve had the Spanish anarchists, and some examples of societies like Madagascar, where there are villages and region that function in an anarchistic way, but True Anarchism™ couldn’t function in a single country/region. It needs to be international in it’s scope for all the same reasons communism needs to be international in it’s scope. Anarchist political methods can function at a smaller scale, but we can’t have a fully anarchist society until it’s global.
Which all just means that I’m an anarchist because I prefer the methods to achieving the shared goal, not because I disagree on the goal itself, if that makes sense.
Unless you’re an ultra-orthodox marxist, there is no such thing as trüe communism™.
There always have been many different ideas what „communism“ is, e.g. there have been various „nationalist communist“ ideologies (complicated by the fact that the Russian SFSR called everything „nationalist“ that wasn’t 100% aligned with its ideas of the Soviet Union, e.g. Hungary).
There are also no clear boundaries between communism, socialism, and anarchism, e.g. Kropotkin with his theories of anarchist communism.
That being said, I don’t think communism is a system (either social or economic), it’s strictly an idealogy, meaning it’s a way to achieve something, i.e. the classless and stateless society. If you follow that thought to its logical end, you cannot even „achieve“ communism at all, since at this point e.g. the proletariat ceases to exist, and as a result you cannot have a „dictatorship of the proletariat“.
In feel like you make it complicated to arrive at your conclusion here. Communism, as described by Marx and Engels and to some degree Lenin, is something very specific that covers most aspects of the society. Political, social and economic. Marx himself wrote books upon books on the economy of a socialist, communist system.
It is not an abstract “I don’t like capitalism so let’s try something different” approach. And yes, many have tried to adapt it, as you mentioned which is why those different approaches carry a different name ‘anarchist communism’ in your example. Because they are different enough from flat out communism.
No, I have a very easy explanation what communism is, it’s just that nobody else agrees is the issue.
different approaches carry a different name
Yeah, well… So let’s see, we have: Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Titoism, Gulyáskommunizmus (both, as mentioned before, considered „nationalist communism“ by other communists), Rätekommunismus, Realsozialismus, Maoism …
So, which one of those is the true communism?
Joking aside, most of the 20th century was spent with people killing other people because they had slightly different opinions on what true communism means, so it’s really not me who made things complicated.
And you keep using different names to describe them. As you should. Communism is not one thing and never was. But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.
It’s how it was defined in the communist manifesto in 1848. You could say it’s Marxism, but I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well, like Engels and others who based on Marx’s mostly economic study added the philosophical and political angles.
Every theme or name change after the manifesto (that is not found in later revisions by the communist international) is attempts at adapting it with different angles and for different purposes and circumstances, aka NOT base or pure communism. Don’t bundle everything in one basket and try to make sense, same way that bundling Putin’s Russian form of Capitalism with US’s imperialism and French Revolution’s early capitalism together doesn’t make sense either.
He asked for pure communism, I answered for that. If he asked about Trotsky, I’d focus more on the permanent revolution and the Fourth International. If he asked of Stalin, I’d talk about his socialism in one country theory
Yeah well, so you’re an orthodox Marxist and I disagree with you ¯*(ツ)*/¯
But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.
Aha, is that so?
I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well
Yeah, you could say that!
So! Let’s talk about Restif de la Bretonne who was using „communist“ and „communism“ 60-70 years before Marx writes the „Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei“. Babeuf (who called himself a „communalist“) already tried to incite a communist revolution in the 1790s. De La Hodde calls the Parisian general strike in 1840 „inspired by communist ideas“. In 1841 the „Communistes Matérialistes“ publish „L’Humanitaire“, which Nettlau calls „the first libertarian communist publication“.
And how come that a certain bloke named Karl Marx in his 1842 essay „Der Kommunismus und die Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung" finds that communism had already become an international movement. Hey, I know that name! 🤔
Tell me, how exactly is Marxism (or whatever you want to call it) the one and only trüe communism™ when there’s decades of different variances of communism and movements of people calling themselves communists before the „Manifest“?
Just face it: your beloved Marxism is just one variant of communism, which for a variety of reasons has become the best known. But it’s certainly not „base communism“.
I’m actually not. I think many approaches have their pros and cons. Anarchy sounds a lot better as a path to a classless system, I don’t disagree with Trotsky’s permanent revolution, though I am heavily against his 4th International (and to a big degree the 3rd one as well) and I think that socialism is the hardest way to make it work, but if it does, is probably the best since it prepares the populace to think in a different way.
But good for you for figuring me out when I haven’t done that myself in over 20 years I’m in politics.
As for that dick contest about communists before Marx and their books, because it is a dick contest at this point, I never claimer Marx was the first to talk about communism, or use that word. Even the manifesto was commisioned by a pre existing party namely the Communist League. A party that existed before Marx and Engels came in contact with them.
But Marx was in fact the first to bring those ideas together, from philosophy to economy to politics etc and describe a full featured system that covered it all (for his time, times changing and things adapt), which is why is the one most well known and remembered with his name attached to it. Take it further, back to ancient Greek philosophers why don’t you?
The original poster asked an ELI5 of communism. While what you say is not wrong, it’s far from ELI5. Even for someone like me who spent years reading on all that, there were a couple of things you mentioned I didn’t know about. At the end of it all there’s a reason that if you look at the history of communism most will refer to Pre-Marx and after. And a simple answer to a simple question of “what be?” has to start somewhere. I chose Marx since it’s probably the best entry point for someone who has no idea.
Nothing of that changes that calling Marxism „the one and only true/base communism“ is ridiculously wrong on several levels and absolutely not helpful for an „ELI5“ on communism.
And if you’re so concerned about leftist infighting you might just stop acting like there was an apodictic definition, that would certainly help. Someone already pointed out the irony to you hours ago, it seems you still haven’t realized that.
That’s also not what I said, that Marxism is the one and only true communism. The fuck is that supposed to mean in the first place. For someone so intent on digging relics and using big words, you either can’t read or refuse to do so. He asked what communism is, I mentioned Marx. Go ahead and mention Aristotle for all I care. Hell I didn’t even mention Marx until you answered me.
As for the infighting you’re the one with your knickers in a bunch because I answered Marx. I am not fighting anyone and the two people that disagreed with me, it was polite and we reached an understanding while in disagreement. You on the other hand put on a great show of that infighting. I’m done with that charade. Have a good day.
And the fact that you don’t consider communism partly an economic system is baffling. From Marx onwards the entire idea of socialism and communism is based on the Capital.
That’s also not what I said, that Marxism is the one and only true communism.
But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.
🥱
And the fact that you don’t consider communism partly an economic system is baffling
It’s rather baffling that you, considering orthodox Marxism „true communism“, would think that. What kind of „economic system“ did Marx promote? And where do I find that in the Manifest?
Are you referring to central planning? That’s a feature of Soviet style communism, it was invented at the beginning of the 20th century.
As a matter of fact, Marx actually had little to say about how a post-capitalist society should actually look like, besides some commonplace quotes like „production organized on the basis of common ownership by the nation of all means of production“, which is neither original nor chiefly communist.
describe a full featured system that covered it all
Yeah, and do you know what the system Marx wrote about was? It was capitalist society. Marx was an analyst.
If you knew what Marx actually wrote and thought, you’d find that he was heavily influenced by classic economists like Adam Smith and was rather fond of free trade (as were his peers).
Also you’re completely wrong about:
You can’t apply communist economic system principles to the capitalist market.
Again, you would need to specify what exactly you mean, but there’s not much that hasn‘t existed short of taking full control of the market. Pre-neoliberal Europe was quite heavily invested in state owned companies and production, France had for most of the post-war era what can be classified as centrally planned economy.
You on the other hand put on a great show of that infighting.
Another mistake you make: I’m not infighting. I’m merely calling out the bullshit you hand out as „ELI5“, because quite frankly you haven’t got the faintest clue about what you call „base or true communism“ in the first place.
That only tells me that you’re scouring Wikipedia and the Internet for surface reading to be feeding your imaginary conflict.
Marx supported free trade. That’s true. Why? Because it would hasten the economic imbalance between the classes and help create a revolution. No, he was not Ben Shapiro of the 19th century. He thought that things must get worse before they get better and that free trade would make them worse.
You also mention how he was heavily influenced by Adam Smith. He critiqued him heavily in both Das Capital and the Theories of Surplus Value.
That’s like saying Engels was a fan of Duhring because he wrote a doorstopper called Anti-Duhring. That’s plain wrong and trying to murk the waters.
As for the central planning it was first established as a method from planned economy in social states by the Soviet Union, that’s true. But its theoretical basis stems from Marx’s work and words. “To my mind, the so-called ‘socialist society’ is not anything immutable… It’s crucial difference from the present order consists naturally in production organized on the basis of common ownership by the nation of all means of production.” that sounds familiar? Written in Marx’s letters in 1890.
But no, I was not referring to central planning, but the abolishment of capitalist goals as surplus value, profit driven economy etc, that are most definitely based on his works. Yes, he was not the first to propose that “Oy, killing miners for scraps is bad and you’re bad for doing it.” but nobody before (to my knowledge) had done such an extensive work on the downfalls of capitalist economy and how something else could even be planned or work.
I’m getting tired of you using catchy article headlines and wiki skims to prove me wrong because you don’t like Marx. In fact, I don’t care if you do or not, or what type of communism you prefer. But stop spreading lies for the people that are not familiar with the subject.
In fact, I don’t even care much about Marx. Of the big ones to speak on socialism/communism, I much prefer Engel’s more philosophical approach than Marx’s economic analysis. I find the analysis boring.
So, just to let you know before I block you utter <bleep>, I was reading Marx when you were just a wet spot, and I actually do happen to „like“ him. But funny that you only now come quoting him, after I handed you half of the exact quote you’re giving. But I’m the one scouring Wikipedia 😂
Resorting to personal attacks. Typical. Way to come up on top in an argument. Attack the person, not the argument.
And I don’t. Give me philosophy over economics any time. That doesn’t mean I don’t see his value. And how comes you’re still confused after giving me the quote already?
I’ve got no horse in this race, I just want to point out the irony of asserting that there is only one “true” communism in reply to a comment about how leftists have spent the last century arguing over what “true” communism even is.
Wish it was that simple. Left is fighting over it for decades, if not centuries. Even killing each other, instead of focusing that energy against the right. And yes, it’s as stupid as it sounds.
There were no actual efforts to establish communism
Period. Relying on the “temporary” government to relinquish their power is…foolish. If you’re building a system for the greater good, hierarchy will always undermine that goal. Unequal amounts of power does not a just system make.
This time without hierarchy wherever possible. And we’ll keep most of the capitalistic economy as is, just redistribute the wealth so that everybody is safe and happy. Cut the bullshit jobs, make produced goods more durable and sustainable, so that the last at least ten times as long, cut more jobs in producing, distribute the remaining work to all the people, everybody who wants to get a little extra can do this by working, most will. I certainly would still work even if i did not have to, even if there is no monetary benefit. Doing a job that is nice and that you like is fun, because you’re doing your part.
Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.
Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).
Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.
Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).
It's like saying democracy sucks because look at states like Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo and German Democratic Republic.
When people proclaim to be something doesn't make it true.
The main issue is that they communism is economic policy, NOT social policy. While they do go hand in hand people often conflate the two. Many dictatorships use communism as a way to control the people but that doesn’t mean that communism leads directly to dictatorships.
Is true Communism even possible if it’s being attempted by flawed humans? Seems like it doesn’t matter the economic system so much as the fact that people will ruin anything given enough time.
It’s about incentives. Worker oppression in Monarchy requires a bad King, in Feudalism bad lords, in Capitalism bad shareholders, and in Socialism self-hating workers. If you shared your workplace, would you push to remove your rights? Or to screw over your customers? And then argue for that against everyone else you share power with? The incentives are plainly better in a worker owned economy.
@tara@Sharkwellington, agree, it is precisely one of the many reasons why I use Vivaldi, it is from a European cooperative, owned by it's employees and without external investors who can influence in it's decisions. Company ethics are important.
Do you want to know what's not controlled by a company at all, doesn't give google a monopoly in web browsers (google "chromium" in a search engine like libreX or searxng), respects you freedom through a foss license? Librewolf
Respectfully, I can easily see a shared workplace at least encouraging screwing over customers. To me its an even more intense instance of the shareholder problem. Shareholders are obsessed with the money they’re getting back with no real work but the risk inherent in the bet they made. The workers are working, for a livelihood, and of course will want to improve their quality of life. They’re even more motivated to do so. And some of the best ways to do that, in the “make monkey brain happy” obvious short-term are the same policies the shareholders are already pushing. Will there be some pushback? Definitely, but you only have to sell a bunch of people on short-term easy money. And the lottery isn’t popular because people are smart about this stuff.
You can’t have a communist economic policy without being authoritarian. It’s human nature - once money is removed as a motivator, society breaks down unless you motivate people some other way (not being sent to the gulag).
I guess the main issue is with the government having absolute control over the economy. I would not want the most prominent politicians in my country having control of the economy. No matter how much I dislike capitalism.
Just put the people who work for a company in charge of the company. Have them elect who calls the shots. Also have them directly benefit from the company doing well. I guess that is like end-stage unions or smth. All power to the workers. Should be doable within capitalism, maybe, probably.
Yeah, any economic system that concentrates power into one group is bad, whether it’s corporate monopolies or a single government (which ends up kind of like the ultimate monopoly in a communist state). Communists IMHO have a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature and how incentives can be exploited for the benefit of everyone. We need a form of capitalism that promotes competition (because profit is possibly the most powerful motivator of innovation), but also keeps companies in check with strong regulations, strong workers unions, and profits taxed appropriately. It’s also important to recognize that some basic needs should be met by the government like public education, public utilities, correctional systems, national defense, welfare, healthcare, etc. But even with public services, there should be room for private companies to innovate and provide premium alternatives to keep the government in check (with exceptions obviously, we don’t want private military and private prisons for example).
While I mostly agree with you I don’t think country-owned companies or even monopolies are always bad. There needs to be a huge amount of real separation between politicians and those companies but it can work. In mine, both gambling and alcohol spirits stores are monopolies and owned by a country. Profits from gambling are distributed to grants for health and social welfare nonprofits. The question is if my country with very little corruption is the exemption that confirms the rule or if, if you do it right, it can work.
I also do not believe communism without very solid safeguards can work and those would need to be applied almost at the start. I am also pessimistic about human nature these days and am not sure if there can ever be enough safeguards to protect that model from misuse. I am what you could call a democratic socialist. I believe in mix and match where public and private companies can work in the same economy. Although I do oppose land resources being sold, especially as they are usually sold with a pittance for companies to profit. And I am not talking about private persons selling their land’s resources but government land resources. Selling them really doesn’t often make economic sense unless extraction would require a really high investment. Ecologic considerations should also be taken a lot more into account.
(because profit is possibly the most powerful motivator of innovation)
I agree with most of what you finished with, but strongly disagree here. Scarsity, artifical or natural drives a need for resource distribution which then gives rise to a greedy profit motive.
The internet and computers in general have largely shown that when resources are plentiful people will create for the shear desire to create. So much of the internet, and modern technology runs off software and hardware designed for free, or at extremely low cost.
Linux, OpenSSL, heck Open anything, all built because people were dissatisfied with the existing commercial available model, or just wanted to create something new.
Going beyond software the amount of free entertainment on the internet is staggering. Much of it created without seeking to use it primarily or even at all as a means of income.
I probably could’ve worded that statement better and you bring up good points when it comes to individuals. Innovation clearly does not require profit motive to occur. The type of innovation you’re talking about does require time to achieve, however. For individuals, this is leisure time, for organizations this is billable time. Regardless of the structure of an economy, the creative pursuits you’ve described can’t occur if people are being worked to death.
One thing I will say about open source software, though, is that a lot of projects don’t exist because of pure altruism. A lot of projects have been corporate funded (sometimes significantly funded) in order to specifically kill closed source competitors. I’m a pragmatist, though, I see open source software as a universal good for humanity regardless of its raison d’etre. Open source software is a form of competition that pushes closed source software vendors to innovate in order to justify their value. I could also argue that a lot of free content on the Internet is only free in the sense that it was produced by people who didn’t have a profit motive and it’s still often subscription or ad supported. YouTube, for example, still makes a lot of money on it.
The main point I was driving at is the choice of economic system doesn’t matter much for personal creative endeavors as long as it allows people time to pursue them. But market competition for profits is absolutely one of the most powerful motivators for product and service innovation for corporations. So if you adopt an economic system that essentially eliminates competition and profits, you kill that motivation to innovate.
Eeehhhh there are plenty of Tankies around here that unironically simp for Stalin and Mao, (never Pol Pot for some reason though), and those regimes were frought with corruption and are often called “red fascism,” so I wouldn’t be so quick to say “we” here. “You” maybe, “me” definitely, but “we” is too strong of a word when there are plenty of people doing just that on lemmygrad right now, and lemmy.ml being a marxist instance some there as well (though the refugees mostly drowned them out now).
And you can be a tankie without being a communist considering how many of them simp for Xi and China. Basically it is just pro-dictatorship with a very thin socialist façade.
The thing that sets off alarm bells in my head for “Tankie but not communist” is someone who uncritically upholds Russia and/or Iran. Take, for instance, one Caleb Maupin. A guy who calls himself a Marxist, but hangs out with noted fascist Alexander Dugin, and was recently outed as a creepy sex pest.
While true, that still falls in the “you” category, not the “we” category. The fact that there are plenty of people here doing that very thing sort of precludes us from being able to use the word “we” in this capacity.
Again, “you” maybe, “me” definitely, “we” becomes no longer true once some of the “other we’s” do the thing.
Mao and Stalin (though to a noticably lesser extent) actually had insightful things to say though. Mao’s essays on epistemology are genuinely really fantastic. And that can be true alongside all of the show trials and sparrow murder which was genuinely really fucking bad.
Pol Pot meanwhile admitted to never having really ever read Marx, and his faction of the Communist Party of Cambodia was more concerned about Khmer ultranationalism and anti-Vietmamese sentiment that had been brewing over the course of French colonialism, then with anything to do with building socialism.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that we ought to take a nuanced, grounded view of historic socialisms that accounts for their success and failures, and doesn’t fall into either mindless exoneration of awful shit, nor reflexively screeching “TANKIE TANKIE!!!” Every time anything vaguely socialist oriented comes up in discussion.
Stalin botched Marxism into an authoritarian system that suited him. It was successful and he sponsored other authoritarians that liked his ideas. Those are all about the concentration of power and have fuck all to do with Marxs ideas.
Mao and Stalin (though to a noticably lesser extent) actually had insightful things to say though. Mao’s essays on epistemology are genuinely really fantastic.
And Hitler was a Vegetarian. Does that mean vegitarians should simp for Hitler because “he had at least one good idea?” I should hope not! Furthermore if they do, even if they only simped for his vegetarianism and not his “political career,” it is gonna come off a bit different than they intend to most people.
By all means, keep those subs dedicated to defending all those atrocities and simping for despots, but people likely won’t be fooled into thinking they only care about epistemology while they say nothing happened in Tienanman Square without a shred of irony.
LOL I see I struck a nerve. Keep downvoting, the salt seasons my post.
And Hitler was a Vegetarian. Does that mean vegitarians should simp for Hitler because “he had at least one good idea?” I should hope not! Furthermore if they do, even if they only simped for his vegetarianism and not his “political career,” it is gonna come off a bit different than they intend to most people.
Hitler being a vegetarian had nothing to do with his fascism. Mao’s Epistemology was built on Stalin’s synthesizing of Marxism-Leninism from the works of Lenin and the experiences of the Russian Civil War, etc.
There’s actual political philosophy here that we can think through, debate, apply, update, and revise. Mistakes or outright malicious behavior can be learned from or discarded as necessary, because Marxism has within it mechanisms for self criticism and recitification.
You can ascribe to that philosophy or not, I don’t care. But this kind of kneejerk reaction isn’t in line with the way these discussions actually happen within Marxism.
Do dogmatic Marxists who blindly defend bad shit exist? Yes. But they’re commonly denounced and criticized for their garbage analysis.
You’re taking a small subset of, mostly online weirdos, and stawmanning my position, and an entire branch of political philosophy.
By all means, keep those subs dedicated to defending all those atrocities and simping for despots, but people likely won’t be fooled into thinking they only care about epistemology while they say nothing happened in Tienanman Square without a shred of irony
Buddy, I’m not trying to pull wool over your eyes or be sneaky. I literally said to not do this shit. I’m trying to get people to engage with these topics with nuance and critical thinking skills. Not blindly screech uniformed praise or condemnation based on kneejerk, emotional, preconceptions.
Ok so the analogy isn’t the best, but the point still stands that simply because they did a good, that doesn’t mean that simping for them and ignoring the bad is a good idea, nor does it mean that those simping for “the guy” will be taken as simping only for “the good” and not also “the bad” he did. Those subs/instances I mention and the people that populate them are literal genocide denialists, they aren’t posting on “c/epistemology” and they aren’t talking specifically about epistemology, they are denying the holodomor, the armenian genocide, and the tienanman square massacre, among other things they support like China’s current Uyghur genocide because “America did an Iraq, and while we said that was bad, China is good for doing the same thing, because America did the bad” which is among the dumbest circular logic available to be found on lemmygrad.
Yes yes, but the people I’m complaining about aren’t doing that, they’re simply doomposting about late stage capitalism and denying genocides, simping for their preferred cults of personality. In essence to use my bad analogy, it’d be like if an instance of nazis doomposted about communism and denied the holocaust, but it was fine because they could sometimes also discuss his vegetarianism if they so chose, they just happen to not do that very often.
In “marxism,” or on lemmygrad, “internet marxism?” If you suggest these things are different, maybe, but if you’re suggesting that I’m wrong about the specific people I’m talking about, I’ll have to disagree having seen it for myself.
Do dogmatic Marxists who blindly defend bad shit exist? Yes. But they’re commonly denounced and criticized for their garbage analysis.
Again, on lemmygrad or somewhere else? Because I’m complaining about the Tankies on lemmygrad specifically and all who think as they do, and they certainly do not denounce and criticize that garbage analasys, rather they encourage and fester it.
You’re taking a small subset of, mostly online weirdos, and stawmanning my position, and an entire branch of political philosophy.
Again, do you mean a small subset of lemmygrad, or do you mean marxists as a whole? In any case, I’m actually inclined to believe the subset isn’t quite as small as you believe, or would like others to believe. I run into those people all the time and rarely your camp, suggesting either they are more numerous, or they are more loud, in which case I’d suggest your camp attempt to be louder to drown those crazies out, because they’re doing a pretty good job at convincing people they’re the bigger camp.
That’s great that you’re trying to do that, but the people on lemmygrad still exist, and hand waving my complaints about them away as simply nuance saying they’re just discussing epistemology is patently false. You’re basically just saying “not all communists” here, like “not all men.” Well, as the “not all men” camp was told, “it’s enough that it’s a problem, and you need to teach men communists not to rape deny genocides.”
@SpookyBogMonster@ArcaneSlime, I'm a left commonsensist in my ideology, and I only can say, that any system which lacks of the sovereignty of the people, based only on a leader or a small elite, be it from the right or the left, necessarily becomes a fascist and corrupt dictatorship. It is irrelevant if it is called Stalin or the fat boy of North Korea on the left or banks and multinationals in capitalism that make the rules, the result for the people is the same. Fascism
It’s difficult for people. When Mao/Lenin/Stalin or even Marx are discussed they all go to the “takie” slur. Their brains turn off and all they can think about is their propaganda.
Everyone is so quick to write off the atrocities of the USA and Europe. Japanese internment camps, destruction of democracies and creation of fascists dictatorships. The funding of terrorists (before and after we called them terrorists), the destruction of the environment in pursuit of profits, child labor and slave labor also in pursuit of profits.
But damn, because communists took businesses away from their oppressors, they are just as bad as fascists. /Shrugs
Making this meme took longer than opening a book to understand what communism actually is.
What everyone points to as “communism” shares more in common with capitalism than anything else. They had authoritarian rulers and a small wealthy class that lords over the rest of the populace.
There is nothing “worker owned” about these examples and it only serves to spread FUD about moving away from capitalism towards a more human centric economy
But this is the no true scotsman fallacy. Is there any evidence that your definition of communism is possible to attain, without devolving into things similar to real world countries that attempted to become communist? And couldn’t an ancap just as easily claim that all of the negative sides of capitalism are communist because they are all in some way a perversion of a freely negotiated deal?
The Red Scare is still working it’s magic I see. I don’t think many people think that communism is the perfect system. Even the ones who support it. It’s just that after living in a capitalist hellhole our whole lives and watching the world burn, some of those ideas start to look like they are worth trying.
Star Trek is a good example of what the endgame of communism is supposed to look like. It’s just the process of getting there that is hard to figure out.
Looking into it again, you are right. I am not a big trekkie. I just always thought it was a good example of a moneyless stateless society, but the post scarcity definitely changes things. Thanks for the correction.
I guess we are on the brink of reaching post scarcity, and we kind of already have with our basic needs, just not our luxuries.
I don’t know if communism or socialism is the actual answer at all, btw. I’m just not scared of it and willing to see what good ideas might be in there even if it is a flawed system. I hate the authoritarianism that always seems to inevitably come with it. I just think we probably have outgrown capitalism a bit.
Star Trek isn’t even communist. It’s a Post-Scarcity society which has traded physical currency for the currency of position and rank. Wealth becomes the power you are able to wield as everyone has access to everything from their synthesizer. Until such a device is feasible communism and socialism are just crackpot plans made up by deranged idiots that don’t want to work.
Idk if I speak for other people here but being critical of capitalism doesn’t necessarily mean you want to copy paste North Korea. Or the Ukrainian SSR.
weed is legal in north korea. in the United states i was busted for pot. lost my right to vote, can only work in fast food now, am subject to search and seizure with out warrant.
i am am now basically a noncitizen
Lithuanianz have just never lived in a capitalist police state
classic grass seems greener on the other side.
can someone help me get my rights back (i. e. become a refugee in north korea)
Well in North Korea you do not have a right to vote, work where they tell you to, and you are subject to imprisonment without a warrant or any probable cause. And make sure to not get pregnant in your prison camp since the guards have no qualms tying you to a tree and cutting it out of you.
But sure, be a refugee in North Korea. Sounds fun. /s
I kind of doubt you do live in the US. My information comes from people who have been in prison camps there. I really do not give two shits about your testimony.
I think the way we argue over labels hurts us. If I use heavy regulation and government aid to limit the abuses in a capitalist system, at what point does the label change to “socialism”? I think we do ourselves a disservice to create these strict conceptions of systems like capitalism, socialism, or communism. Then when one fails we get to say “well that wasn’t true x”. And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea. And worst of all, we eliminate the possibility to take good lessons from multiple different systems and incorporate them into our system. I think we would be better served promoting policies on a case by case basis instead of using these huge words. And to be clear, I’m a bit of a hypocrite here. I’ve been mostly telling people I’m a “social democrat” or that I support “capitalism with heavy regulations”. But even those words can get picked apart and don’t really capture nuance. My main point is that I think this thread is a perfect encapsulation of how these arguments stop us from getting behind good policies when we bicker about the definitions of words that mean different things to different people.
Then when one fails we get to say “well that wasn’t true x”. And the labels allow people to boogeyman an idea.
Essentially a No True Scotsman fallacy.
I think it’s better to simply state that things like Stalin’s USSR weren’t communist. Period.
It wasn’t “almost communist”; it was a dictatorship. So to say it wasn’t “real communism” is like boiling a sock and saying it’s not “real dinner”. It’s not dinner at all, it’s a sock.
There was a soviet joke about a banner “our party is fighting for the title ‘communist’”. I can not translate it well, but it shows that people sensed the absurdity of the continious slogans about fighting for something they forgot is related to the meaning of the world communism. In the last decades especially, thd pride in building a better future through emancipation was replaced by simply nationalist pride and the pride in ww2 victory.
I find this arguing over labels more and more as I browse online, and it is sooo exhausting. I have noticed so many instances of arguing and discourse where both sides have similar ideals and want the same things, but argue with each other over stereotypes of labels on the other side, and point to the faults of the vocal rabid minority on the other side as if to prove a point. Sigh.
The label changes to socialism on the same day that the old institutions are thrown out and the new institutions are introduced.
Socialism is the transitionary stage of society between capitalism and communism. Its defining feature is that it is a society run by the proletariat as the ruling class instead of the bourgeoisie. Everything else about it can be in some state of flux based on the conditions, because it is transitional. Socialism is a process, not a magic button.
Social democracy is not socialism. You are just a capitalist that likes welfare. Your ideology has absolutely no desire to change the ruling class or overturn the system that is currently burning the world and leading us to destruction.
You are just a capitalist that likes welfare. Your ideology has absolutely no desire to change the ruling class or overturn the system that is currently burning the world and leading us to destruction.
I don’t think you help your case arguing this way. I’m not even dissecting socialism when I say that - just your approach to argument. You don’t know my ideology. Creating a strawman of my views isn’t going to convince me or anyone else that you have a good point. Hell, for a long time I did consider myself an actual socialist. I would love to lay out my reasons for my movement away from that, but I’m not sure you’re ready to have that respectful exchange of views.
The liberals obsessed with the “nordic model” still would’ve downvoted it. They don’t like having to wrestle with the reality of climate change. Our options are socialism or extinction.
Beginning an argument with “Your head is up your ass so far that I won’t bother arguing. I’m right no matter what.” is a sure way to have people dismiss your arguments outright. I say this all because I want my opponents to be good at arguing. I want to hear persuasive viewpoints. I don’t believe for a moment that I have all the answers, so I welcome any opposition to the beliefs that I’ve come to possess. If you believe that you have the answers, then I’m genuinely all ears. But unfortunately, arguing isn’t about being right - it’s about persuading other people that you are. The internet has made it easy to lose sight of this and argue with hostility instead of respect. I’m trying to be sincere here. Please consider the purpose of getting into these internet spats. I see so much hostility outright from people on the left and it genuinely sucks. I find that when I try to dig even a little bit into arguments for socialism or communism that I often hit this barrier of hostility. It’s not a good way of selling a viewpoint. And you can say that it’s not your job, but then I ask why we’re even here having this conversation.
Now, I’ll stop patronizing you. I’ll throw my argument out there so you can tear it to pieces. Back to labels - what socialism looks like to you depends on who you are. You say it’s when “the old institutions are thrown out and the new institutions are introduced”. I’ll take that to mean some form of government is in possession of the means of production across the board? My hesitancy towards socialism is mostly centered on my knowledge of history and the repeated trends of powerful institutions decaying into corruption and greed. I think socialism could genuinely work really well as long as the people in charge were kept honest. But my skepticism is towards the long term sustainability of such a system. Time and again we see institutions decay and fall prey to humanity’s worst impulses. The fall of the Roman Republic (and the regular chaos of the Roman Empire for that matter) is my classic go-to for this, but there are plenty of non-western examples as well. The best cases I’ve seen in my studies of various histories seem to be centered around cultures that dispersed their power into many smaller institutions. My problem with socialism is that it inherently says “we’re going to get rid of business corruption and government corruption by combining the two”. I think creating an even smaller, more focused center of power in society is a dangerous proposal - it becomes all the more easy for the wealthy elites to worm their way into that power and take control. Essentially you’re taking all of those wealthy capitalist greedy dirtbags and then moving them into the government.
Capitalism, on the other hand, removes business from government which allows, in theory, for the government to act as a counter-weight to business. Now, you and I both know that that hasn’t stopped wealthy elites from worming their way into capitalism and capturing government interests. But my main point here is that socialism isn’t solving that problem. It’s throwing fuel on the fire by cutting out the one supposed protection we do have, which is a separation of government interests and business interests. Ostensibly, when capitalism is working the way it should, the government is acting as a counterweight to business greed. I think there are better ways to strengthen that counterweight that don’t necessarily fall under the label of “socialism”. I think heavily regulated capitalism is better than outright socialism because in the ideal case the government is still acting as a tool of the people, flexing its power in opposition to businesses. The ideal case in socialism has the government acting as the businesses itself, which I believe would encourage greed and would actually cause even less incentive to address things like climate change.
Now, I’ll stop patronizing you. I’ll throw my argument out there so you can tear it to pieces. Back to labels - what socialism looks like to you depends on who you are. You say it’s when “the old institutions are thrown out and the new institutions are introduced”. I’ll take that to mean some form of government is in possession of the means of production across the board? My hesitancy towards socialism is mostly centered on my knowledge of history and the repeated trends of powerful institutions decaying into corruption and greed. I think socialism could genuinely work really well as long as the people in charge were kept honest.
Nah man this is nonsense and it comes from people who exist on the fringe of politics who don’t actually participate and have never actually had a political education or tried to give themselves one.
Socialism is exceptionally well defined as an ideology. You take Marx’s historical materialism and come to the conclusion that all of human history is driven by class struggle and revolution. You then reach the understanding that there is a possible ending of all class struggle through the abolishment of class (communism). After that you accept that communism can not be jumped to straight from capitalism because it would simply be crushed by capitalist states through being unable to defend itself. This leads you to the belief that a transition exists between capitalism and communism - socialism. What is the socialist state? A state in which the proletarian class of society overthrew the bourgeoisie(capitalist class of society) and built a dictatorship of the proletariat. This of course is not a dictatorship of an individual but a dictatorship of class, the opposite of capitalism where the bourgeoisie have designed a system and institutions that always comes to the outcomes that benefit them the most, instead it is a society where the proletariat designed their institutions to always come to proletarian outcomes. Economics and everything else within this socialist state differ from country to country, because conditions differ and what is possible differs. The important aspect is that the proletariat control the power.
This is a basic 101. The fact that you see liberals misusing the word socialism does not change the fact that this is definitionally what socialism is. We’ll argue about whether market economies or single party or multi party or completely centralised planning or something in between are best, but all socialists will agree on the above. It is the core definition of socialism and is more or less what Engels and Marx laid out 200+ years ago. It is materialist and it is non-utopian because it accepts that these states will have their flaws, socialism isn’t a magically perfect society, it has problems and struggles, the difference is that it comes to better outcomes for its populations than capitalist societies when compared at an equal level of development. (This is a very important point with regards to the difference that proletarian rule vs bourgeoise rule has.)
But my skepticism is towards the long term sustainability of such a system. Time and again we see institutions decay and fall prey to humanity’s worst impulses. The fall of the Roman Republic (and the regular chaos of the Roman Empire for that matter) is my classic go-to for this, but there are plenty of non-western examples as well. The best cases I’ve seen in my studies of various histories seem to be centered around cultures that dispersed their power into many smaller institutions. My problem with socialism is that it inherently says “we’re going to get rid of business corruption and government corruption by combining the two”. I think creating an even smaller, more focused center of power in society is a dangerous proposal - it becomes all the more easy for the wealthy elites to worm their way into that power and take control. Essentially you’re taking all of those wealthy capitalist greedy dirtbags and then moving them into the government.
This is contrary to what socialist institutional design actually is. You don’t get smaller numbers involved, you get much bigger numbers involved. The basic socialist democratic system implemented in the single party states is one where you start with a small group of people, 150 or so, called a worker’s council, these people select a representative and are intended to physically know their representative. This person then represents them at the local workers council. Then every representative on this council selects from among their reps someone to represent that council at the next tier. And the next and the next. 12 tiers up until the national congress, where the final tier selects leaders councils and various committees etc. This design removes popularity contests from the leadership and builds a democratic meritocracy where anyone at the top has also worked their way up through the entire system demonstrating actual ability to improve the lives of the people to their peers at every single level. The design of this differs slightly from country to country of course but these fundamentals remain the same. My point here is that you don’t have less leaders, or bigger centralisation of power, you actually have a larger spread of power across more people. Even the highest councils like the politburo don’t typically have a leader with special powers above anyone else on the council, even if we go to controversial figures like Stalin, he didn’t have special powers, he had exactly the same powers that the other 5 members of the Politburo had. But let’s stay off controversy. There’s a neat video of Cuba’s system here that I strongly recommend
Capitalism, on the other hand, removes business from government which allows, in theory, for the government to act as a counter-weight to business.
This is not really true is it? Capitalism is designed from the ground up to ensure that the people in power are the bourgeoisie - the financial elite. Assuming you’re american (correct me if not) who runs your country? The people on Wall Street do that’s who. No not the people. No not the government. The people on Wall Street run the country through the think tanks they fund dictating policy, through the media they own deciding who wins and who loses, through the political parties and representatives that they fund with hundreds of millions of dollars. This system is designed from the ground up to ensure that it does not produce proletarian outcomes, in fact there are several quotes I could give you where founders explicitly state such.
It’s throwing fuel on the fire by cutting out the one supposed protection we do have, which is a separation of government interests and business interests. Ostensibly, when capitalism is working the way it should, the government is acting as a counterweight to business greed. I think there are better ways to strengthen that counterweight that don’t necessarily fall under the label of “socialism”.
Under capitalism you have a system that is designed to chase profit. Everything about it is built around that central point. A very good way to chase profit is to hold the levers of power in order to wield them in a way to chase more profit. You can not counterweight this in a society where the people chasing the profit have all the money, own all the media, own all the politicians, own all the policy tanks, etc etc etc. This is the way bourgeoise-democracy is designed to come to outcomes that benefit the bourgeoisie. It is a dictatorship of class built for them.
The proletarian democracy on the other hand is a dictatorship of class built for the people. And it does a lot of shit things, because it’s a state and states do shit stuff. It does all the shit stuff that the capitalist states do in fact (and oh boy they’ve done a lot of shit things we could reel off). But what it also does is come to outcomes that are proletarian, and thus benefit a massively larger number of the population than the bourgeoise-democracy does.
You talk about needing government to mitigate business and I AGREE. But the reason government does not mitigate business in the bourgeoise-democracy is because the bourgeoisie run the government, so they obviously do what benefits their class. When you put the proletarians in power on the other hand you get a government that DOES mitigate the power of business, oppressively so in fact (oh boy they love to remind us of that). In exactly the same ways that the bourgeoise state oppresses the proletariat, the proletarian state oppresses the bourgeoisie. This is your government that mitigates the worst aspects of business. Properly.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think both of you have the same general ideas, I enjoyed reading both you and Grays thoughts.
You both argue that a heavily regulated capitalist system is preferable to current state, but you believe that is mostly impossible since the bourgeois/ruling class makes the rules and wouldn’t voluntarily self impose restrictions on themselves. How can that be prevented or mitigated within something like the American political framework?
How can that be prevented or mitigated within something like the American political framework?
You’d need a revolution or an economic collapse to happen first to trigger an absolutely massive amount of introspection among their class. I doubt revolution is viable at the current moment in time with the size of and loyalty that the american military has to the american civil religion and see no likelihood of it becoming viable in the near future so economic collapse is likely the only possibility. Two things will happen as a result of it, the military around the world will have to be reined in because it simply won’t be able to continue to afford it while also keeping the population in check, and also the bourgeoisie will get a scare from it occurring and have to ask themselves whether they want to continue to risk their existence in the global headquarters of capitalism. This would likely trigger new interest among them for a New Deal similar to the one Roosevelt implemented, which contrary to what americans think about him and other bougies of his time being “nice” it was actually implemented for the same reasons - stopping the threat of a working class revolution from occurring.
It might sound odd that an economic collapse would need to happen (which would make the country poorer) before seeing the ruling class implement better standards of living, welfare and protections. But it makes sense when you realise that these things are implemented not because the ruling class are nice but because they are threatened. Revolution is and always has been the primary threat that the working class can use to extort compromise from the ruling class. As we saw with Bernie, they are unwilling at the current point in time to allow it to go ahead, anyone that watched the democrats all conspire together to ratfuck him out of the race saw that.
This of course wouldn’t fix capitalism. It would just make the poor live a little better and rein in some of the worst excesses of their class in society for the sake of maintaining their rule.
Is economic collapse likely or possible? Not right now. The american dollar being the world’s global reserve currency allows them to print infinite amounts of money to prop up the system whenever it’s under strain. Dedollarisation is underway worldwide as an effort to remove that ability from their toolkit, when a financial crisis hits and they no longer have that ability then such a collapse is quite likely, this of course depends on when the next 2008 happens but you can count on those occurring every 10-20 years or so because it’s capitalism and the boom/bust is never ending.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I definitely agree. I strongly believe the best avenue of success is through removing the dollar dependence. It feels like there was some rustling when Bitcoin started to gain traction but I believe that threats been coopted by the rich.
How can I subscribe to Lenincatfacts? You have a mastodon or something?
Nope just follow me around here I suppose. I’m more active on Hexbear.net though and there’s much much better and more educated comrades than myself there. I don’t really think crypto was ever a threat, it certainly manage to convince people it was to sell itself to libertarians though.
There’s no use arguing with Lenins2ndCat. I’ve argued with them before, and they already know they’re right despite any arguments or evidence to the contrary.
The liberals obsessed with the “nordic model” still would’ve downvoted it. They don’t like having to wrestle with the reality of climate change. Our options are socialism or extinction.
Climate change will not cause human extinction. Even the worst predictions aren’t close to extinction level. There’s 8 billion of us and we have technology.
Climate change will cause bad shit to happen. It already has. But bad shit is not the same as extinction.
Near-total collapse of the ecosystem is not something we are anywhere close to teching through. Whether there are a few enclaves of civilization clinging to life or not, life on Earth as we know it is being destroyed by industry.
Oh man we won’t go extinct so we shouldn’t worry about 80% of us dying ! Nevermind the absolutely hostile and inhospitable conditions those who do make it through will have for the rest of eternity.
Yeah, all these sources pushing communism aren’t telling them how the Bolsheviks killed everybody that knew how to do anything: farmers, lawyers, doctors because they were deemed part of the problem, probably because they were the only ones saying “this is a bad idea.”
Then the soviets were back in the dark ages, and only got up to speed because of Germany fucking with them in WW2, and not accounting for the winter. So they were saved by the winter, and Stalin, under threat, threw everyone into the machine.
Millions of the workers were being killed - overworked to death - to get the Soviet war machine up to snuff in factories producing ammo, weapons, planes, whatever. No food, no water, just munitions to fight Germany, then to build bomb, then space flight, the. Collapse.
But, to be fair, all that stuff crippled the US too. In 1970, when everything started going tits up, that’s when it caught up with us, and we’re still paying the bill with ious to the Chinese. When those loans come to call, there will probably be another revolution, or at least war because some asshole is going to say “Look what China is doing to us.”
As someone from postsoviet state, I could not agree more. Those pushing soviet union as example of comunist project are really not doing any good for the comunist projext.
If I spent the time to dump the human boss off my back, I would not turn around and give that power to a computer. Worker controlled labor puts the power in workers’ hands.
Computers can help with communication of needs, but power should stay with workers.
But the power is not with the workers, it’s with a representative body. And in a perfect union, the body would be able to consider and weigh workers needs with production costs. So why not let a computer do it?
As AI gets more involved in decision making, the politics of AI will become a big point I think. Reponsibility, accountability, and maybe something resembing rights, or maybe access capacities. It may be a tool, but it is gaining something like an agency. So the polics of AI might be communist one.
Lol no. I’m in Eastern Europe, living standards are way better now. The only good thing the USSR did here was trains and houses and those are better now. Those 2 was not worth death camps and criminalisation of my culture and language.
Weird argument here, because crossing the Berlin Wall was a way for many to escape punishment for their past Nazi crimes. West Germany was also infamous for refusing to complete de-nazification and allowed former Nazis into their ranks, controlling the political system.
And when people who actually lived in these area during that period almost ALL of them say communism was better! But OP and their ilk would rather focus on the imaginary eastern Europeans in their head, or perhaps the gusanos whose family ‘fled’ to the west after their fiefdom got collectivized
And when people who actually lived in these area during that period almost ALL of them say communism was better!
Lol. Almost all of my grandparents and greatgrandparents disagreed and personally told me about their life during USSR occupation, and the two that don’t were well connected with officials and generally lived much better than the average person, enjoying vacations to Cuba frequently, something tue average person could never afford.
Everyone else just lived in pretty poor, if stable, conditions. None of that “communism = starve to death” meme nonsense that some try to push, but it just wasn’t good. After fall of the USSR, things went worse before they became better, but now things are significantly better for the average person.
Everyone else just lived in pretty poor, if stable, conditions.
That’s the thing, they lived in a poor country. Not strictly because of their political system (as many flaws as it had), but because of global economics, and trade hostility from the USA that intentionally hampered growth. It’s not like they were purposely kept poor for funsies or cause the government were big meanies (sure, they were meanies in other ways). The wealth inequality between modern political leaders and funding sources (where the real power comes from) and the average citizen (particularly in the USA) is far greater than it ever was in the USSR.
Things are better for some and worse for many since then in Russia, but in other places like Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova everyone lost except for the rich guys who pillaged all the private infrastructure.
Back when I was a USSR style tankie I was very open about it and people would talk about communism with me at work. I had a Ukrainian woman join my team and I wanted to make sure I didn’t say anything to offend her because even though I thought at the time that the USSR system was ideal I acknowledged the evils that occured especially against Ukraine. So I asked her to tell me if I ever said anything that crossed a line and that I’d try and make sure I didn’t do that as well. Imagine my surprise when she told me she actually thought communism was great because before the USSR collapsed her city had everything they needed and her family was doing great. Her parents had higher degrees of education for free. It was when the USSR collapsed and capitalism came in that life in Ukraine got super hard again.
People might not like it, but you can watch a couple of people who are living in Eastern Ukraine (yes, the literal warzone) in this video talk about how shit was better until 1991. Cause, you know, they wouldn’t be living in a warzone for one thing. Watch from 03:15 till about 20 minutes in, if you’d like:
Easier to make it seem bad if you were born in that area after 1980ish and washing it all down as Bad Communism instead of the Capitalism that actually made it this way.
So they just built all those museums dedicated to the hardship and terror of those years as a little joke to mess with westerners like me as I traveled through their countries?
Interesting side fact, in places that were occupied by both sides in WW2, some museums could do double duty. The places the Gestapo used to imprison, torture, and murder were often the same places the communists used for the same purposes.
Yes. Turns out smearing communism is very lucrative for powerful people. And no, the only communists that set foot in concentration camps were prisoners there alongside Jews, homosexuals, Romani, and other minorities. EDIT: forgot to mention the communists who liberated the camps too
Your do a great disservice to the tens-of-thousands of victims of the communist states. I spent a lot of time in these places, looking at mugshots and intake forms and reading about what happened to them.
What do you think when you hear about a fascist antisemite standing in front of a pile of children’s shoes in a Holocaust museum saying “it didn’t happen”? Because that’s what I think about you right now.
And I never said concentration camps (edit: although these museums do tell the stories of the tens-of-thousands “deported” to camps in Siberia and other places), I was taking about buildings used for the imprisonment, torture, and murder of mostly political prisoners, but also others that upset the Nazis/communists in some way. Here is one example of many. www.terrorhaza.hu/en
You’re the one conflating Nazis with the very people who did the world the service of defeating them so I think that very thing about YOU right now. Did certain communist organizations overstep their bounds and even commit crimes against humanity? Yes, tragically. And that’s disgusting. Did that happen on anywhere near the scale that Fascists did, or that the current capitalist class IS CURRENTLY DOING?? Not even close, not even in the same galaxy. What you’re condemning is the exception for communism and the rule for capitalism, and I condemn it as well.
I am not conflating Nazis and communists. I am comparing you to a Holocaust denier because of your conspiracy theories about the existence of these places established to educate people about the well documented atrocities of the communist states. I didn’t say they were as bad as the Nazis overall, I pointed out they happily used the cramped cells, torture implements, and kill rooms left behind.
It is very much not the exception in communism. I have been to almost every former Warsaw pact country and a few countries that were part of the USSR and these museums are universal.
To quote a random politician who was talking about the eastern Germany wall: "Capitalism might not be perfect but at least we don't have to build a wall to keep our citizens in"
Capitalist citizens tend to do better because their private organizations & government are willing to oppress the people in other parts of the world in order to extract their wealth. Communists respect the lives of poor people and refuse to take advantage of that, or oppress them further.
If a capitalist nation is completely cut off from the rest of the world they become fascist very quickly (Germany, middle east, etc. etc.), when a communist nation is cut off from the rest of the world they become poor (Cuba, USSR, East Germany, etc. etc.).
I don’t think the argument of “I’m rich therefore I’m better than you” is really a strong one.
When all else is equal, life is better under communism for the vast majority of people, just not the wealthy people of capitalist nations. But even for the capitalist “middle class”, when it comes to the essentials (Food, water, housing, healthcare, equality among women, minorities, etc.), communists still beat capitalists.
If a capitalist nation is completely cut off from the rest of the world they become fascist very quickly (Germany, middle east, etc. etc.), when a communist nation is cut off from the rest of the world they become poor (Cuba, USSR, East Germany, etc. etc.).
North Korea (communist) got cut off from the rest of the world and they became poor AND fascist (well not fascist, they became worse than fascist)
North Korea became fascist? It’s strange how that’s what we call it when you fight agaisnt an attempted genocide by the US that deployed chemical weapons and bombed all major cities.
Funny that you bring up East Germany, since they had some of the best living standards in all of Europe in general. Universal healthcare, right to a job, free daycare AND over a year of maternity AND paternity leave?? Come on. The Berlin Wall was to stop tourism and trade as a tactic in the cold war, it’s not like people were fleeing to West Germany (where many former Nazis were still in power) in droves. Dubious morally for sure, but not what you claim it to be. Maybe that random politician you’re quoting benefitted from the corrupt system he was endorsing? In the words of Assata Shakur, don’t let your enemies tell you who your enemies are,
it's not like people were fleeing to West Germany (where many former Nazis were still in power) in droves
They were though, when it was announced that the Berlin wall would shut down everybody was pretty much camping outside and the guards had to remind people that it would only happen at midnight through force
When stuff goes poorly in a socialist regime it’s always “this is proof of socialisms short comings and shows the inherent inhumanity of such an ideology!” but when it comes to capitalism it’s always “individual people who are corrupted misused the system to do harm, and yeah it keeps happening but it’s not an inherent trait of our system!”
Is Putin in the room with us right now? Don’t worry, he can’t hurt you.
This is completely wrong, because of course Putin absolutely does hurt people. He ordered the invasion of Ukraine and the killing of Ukrainians. His forces deliberately target civilians, or massacre them, like in Bucha. His actions have also killed innocent people from other countries, such as those on board flight MH17, who were killed by a Russian missile. He also orders the murders of people he doesn’t like, such as Alexander Litvinenko and Alexei Navalny (the latter’s murder being unsuccessful, but nevertheless ordered by the Kremlin). And one such assassination attempt, on Sergei Skripal, killed an innocent British woman, Dawn Sturgess. So no, it is clearly untrue to say that Putin can’t hurt someone, unfortunately.
Alexei Navalny, the one who was too far right for the Russian right wingers? The one who compared Muslims to roaches and implied that he would hunt them? The one who openly claims that he lied to gain support? The United States created Russia with Boris Yeltin, and purposely left it unstable. Putin simply fixed the system that the Americans gave him, without returning to socialism. If the USSR was still up, none of this would’ve happened
A lot of eastern Europeans actually miss/look back fondly on the USSR days… I’m not exactly a fan of them or other “communist” regimes, as they were all basically thinly veiled dictatorships, but standard of living was higher for most of the former block countries.
I really don’t get all the china dick riding going on. I gotta think it’s driven by bots and Chinese netizens. The west is a little unfair on their views of China, but they grab descenters with secret police and quash any form of opposition to their one party system. People who praise them and act like that’s a better system are crazy. Really wish we could build some decent highspeed rail network in America though…
Yup. There’s basically never been a true communist state. Theyve all been dictatorships that attempt to establish communism. Which is a long drawn out process. The dictatorship gets entreched and never really gives up power.
The ruling class/wealthy if a country will never willingly agree to communism. They have too much to lose. So it always happens by revolution, which will always have a strong military leader to succeed. Human nature makes this always play out in a similar fashion regardless of that leaders initial intent.
The political climate in china is a lot more complicated than we in the west generally understand. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around a lot of the pro-china stuff I see in online left spaces. I don’t feel prepared to make any for or against points in regard to China, but when you start asking more precise questions about Chinese government and society it becomes easier to see the bigger picture. Economically, they’re very odd, but a lot closer to a socialist economy than the US or Europe is. My biggest criticisms are social issues, the Uyghur concentration camps, LGBT rights, the COVID lockdowns, etc. But to simply call them fascist is incorrect
So what reforms have they enacted the last decades that could be considered socialist. To me the chinese communist party seem closer aligned with the ideals and actions of the NSDAP.
I’m from an ex soviet country and I can tell you that the people who miss it are the ones who got free apartments and property from people who were kidnapped and sent to the soviet death camps in siberia. I have not met anyone else who misses that time when you had to live in constant fear being deported and worked to death and when your culture and language was basically criminalised.
That never happened in a lot of ex soviet countries. Not saying that type of communism was good but there were enough positives under that system where normal people benefited in some ways and that is why a lot of older people remember those days fondly even if they were just normal unconnected wokers.
It’s possible some ex soviet countries didn’t get their dose of ethnic/cultural cleansing and maybe even had a good life under it but by no means were living standards better back then unless their countries have really gone down the toilet now and most countries are doing better now.
I can’t say older people mentioned food was higher quality which might be true due to how modern companies minmax the quality of it for profit and housing market today does feel slavelike. It’s probably overall better due to more freedoms but not as good as it should be due to corruption and lobbying.
Huh? Food was incredibly one sided in soviet times, that’s like the one thing that everyone knows if they know anything about the soviet occupation. Like you had to have connections to get any variety. My parents for example made their own vodka and cooking greese and traded it for more varied food. What the soviets did good was apartment design because before apartments didn’t commonly come with a kitchen and bathroom.
Also housing was different then, you usually got an apartment with your job and you kept it while you had that job but most of Eastern Europe still has affordable housing. Like I bought a newly built 3 room apartment in the capital for 100k euros fairly recently.
I have no idea what it was in Soviet Union but other countries have a variety of foods and candy made by local companies and people that ate those in those days and eat current ones say the quality is worse. This is backed up by the companies changing the recipes and ingredients. Though this basically happens everywhere now. 100k is fairly cheap other countries and capitals costs way more than 100k. I doubt you would get something like that even in the cheaper boroughs.
You can check Estonian real estate sites if you don’t believe me. You can get a cheaper apartment easily. Like the cheapest 1 room ones are like 40k and outside the capital it’s way cheaper still or it was last I checked but that was no more than 5 years ago.
Local candies and food production is definitely a thing here now but according to my parents it was less prominent during the soviet era because you were obligated to give some of your production away to the occupiers. The most famous local candy companies is definitely still running and taste the same according to my mom, they are called Kalev if you wanna look them up.
I looked at Prague prices and it’s insane and Nestle bought a ton of candy companies in the EU and cheapened the product which is as expected from Nestle.
You can get a cheaper apartment easily. Like the cheapest 1 room ones are like 40k and outside the capital it’s way cheaper still or it was last I checked.
??? No idea what this is referencing, as far as I know nothing like that has happened. The soviets gulaged a lot of people and many fled during that occupation but nothing as dramatic like half the population.
Not really. A lot of Russian citizens left or where made to leave when Estonia got it’s independence back but outside of that I don’t think there has been a major population shift.
According to the Estonian census it dropped between 1990 - 2015 (period after we got our independence back) and has been on an uptick since then. Though the massive drop right after 1990 is when soviet citizens left.
No idea why that graph is predicting that the population will halve in 80 years, seems a little ridiculous considering Estonian birth rate is fine and the population has been increasing for like 8 years.
A lot of eastern Europeans actually miss/look back fondly on the USSR days…
Being from here, I can say that those are are people who either 1. Look back fondly just because they were young back then, and now they’re old, or 2. Were connected enough to the party to be privileged.
Grandparents from one side of my family were the latter, and their political views nowadays are strongly pro-Russian these days, while everyone else(whose lives were improved after fall of USSR) is pro-Western. Funny how that works.
From my eastern block friends they are very confused how the USA could have allowed homelessness, they remember the bread lines so it’s not all great memories, but they do talk about how everyone at least had a home, a job and some standard of living - where it seems the standard of living is higher in Western countries.
From my eastern block friends they are very confused how the USA could have allow homelessness
Yeah, looking from the outside, the USA seems like it’s in a mess that it needs to fix.
but they do talk about how everyone at least had a home and some standard of living - where it seems the standard of living is higher in Western countries.
It is easy to look back at worse times in the past with pink glasses of nostalgia… Yes, everyone did have a home, but the standard of living was piss-poor - except for people with connections, who had it much muuuuch better, like my aforementioned grandparents.
I’m from one of the Baltic states, and honestly the standards of living now are much better for the vast majority of people than it was in the USSR, even for minimum wage earners.
Since China is communist like tankies believe, you also forgot a fascist police state with total control over the internet tot he point where you’ll get a police visit if you post a meme critical of the government.
Why are there so many Chinese people reading American news and posting memes on WeChat? They just keep getting arrested and censored while being able to post in jail, and no one removes their old or new posts?
Answer the question. Why are all these Chinese people reading foreign news with a VPN and posting memes on Chinese sites (with their real name and info attached) with no punishment? Even people in North Korea have seen how American cops treat black people, and they weren’t punished for finding that information. How did all these people do it? How did they dodge the government while using their real face, name, cell info, and identity attached?
Reading arguments about these concepts while many people completely disagree what their definitions are feels like treading water waiting to exhaust myself and drown.
Maybe the point is the policies and anyone who argues about words is part of the problem.
Well the definitions are pretty clear, some people might just be uninformed because mixing the two has been very common in the right’s communication for decades.
Your first and second point combined basically means that everybody has to live in some government designed and funded flat. If you don’t like that, there’s nothing to be done. Same with food and everything. Oh you don’t like the government mandated 1500kcal protein slurry per day? Sucks to be you then… Of course it doesn’t have to be bad, but you are enabling a system where it could be bad and nobody could do anything about it.
Yeah, I don’t see why #2 is necessary. Make the government have to compete with the free market. If you’re poor, you get a government-funded apartment, but if you’re wealthy, you can afford a luxury condo.
There are food banks in my city, and nobody believes that they’re a threat and they’re going to put supermarkets out of business. You could just have standardized, ubiquitous food banks run by the government.
I think they mean all this business with water and housing. Investment properties are a plague all over this country. They inflate the price of housing so that someone can make a living off of someone else’s need for shelter.
It’s true that this should not be about communism, but about soviet state, which was an authoritharian state dominated by russian nationalism, but under banner of communism. Their kind of messed up the banner of communism for everybody. If used, it should be discussed with care.
common ownership and control of the means of production in a classless moneyless stateless society governed via collective mutual determination or similar horizontal system of power.
oh, i see, makes sense then why it was never tried. how are we going to have a society without a state to govern it? (i mean not to concern troll here, if a solution can be created for this that would be genuinely interesting, but for example that council the soviets created a century ago was clearly a state)
I love how you just keep flaunting your ignorance here. Communists aren’t imbeciles who think that you can simply snap your fingers and abolish the state, they recognize the need for a transitional socialist period from the current system to a communist one.
and how do you wish to avoid that the leaders of said transitional socialist period just cling to power?
as someone who has to live in the aftermath of one of those “transitional socialist periods” that predictably went nowhere and just broke the country’s spirit completely, i’m really damn curious. we are not talking about hypotheticals here.
I grew up in USSR and I certainly preferred it to what followed after the collapse. Claiming that it went nowhere is just brain dead. The fact is that USSR had to compete with the US empire after the war, and US being across the ocean was completely unscathed while USSR had to rebuild under duress. Of course, if you just ignore all that then you can make intellectually dishonest statements of the sort you do.
nice copium, but over here in hungary, one of the countries your glorious ussr managed to colonize that’s not really the picture we got. the ten years following the collapse of the soviet system were by far the best ten years of this country in living memory, until the dust settled and an amalgamation of the old elite and the supposed revolutionaries took back control and re-instituted the same oligopoly, albeit with somewhat less oppression this time.
the whole point of having a transitional period between market capitalism and true communism is to reach that communism. that never happened. instead, the people were robbed of everything of value by an elite who claimed to represent the proletariat but was anything but that, and then it was re-privatized at the end of this period into the hands of a new elite. to give credit where it’s due, this is in fact a redistribution of wealth, it just goes the other way than what’s often heralded, and only made the rich richer and the average person more powerless.
i voted against it every single time and i’ll gtfo as soon as i can because i lost hope that we can turn this ship back to democracy. but yes, i’d gladly take this over the soviet system that prevented us from leaving. the crazy attempts to cross the border to austria is a massive part of our culture thanks to the occupation in those 45 years of a “transitional period”
idk what you’re gonna do with me being on record on preferring a somewhat less authoritarian system to your more authoritarian system that comes with a promise of snake oil but go off i guess. (while, mind you, i already dislike the less authoritarian system enough to actively work on leaving the country)
it’s amazing how much you hate fascists despite openly advocating for a system that’s exactly like it in all but an but a lie about what it will eventually, hopefully, pinky promise transform into, exactly as it always did when it was attempted. like are you naive enough to believe that this time it will work, still completely ignoring how the general idea of keys to power functions, or are you just waving the opposing flag and larping that your ideas are good because they’re bad and you oppose them so it must be so?
Trying to create an equivalence between fascism and communism further underscores just how utterly morally bankrupt you are. You’re a truly contemptible individual.
no, i’m trying to create an equivalence between fascism and socialism, or whatever you call that transitional dictatorship that’s hopefully benevolent. because that’s the notion by which fascism works too, it just doesn’t make an impossible promise about a system it will transform into.
your hilarious “if you are not with me you are my enemy (and also a nazi)” bullshit probably works on someone who also drunk the kool-aid on “this system will totally lead us to communism, we know that was a lie the previous 40 times but we totally fixed it now, trust me bro”, but the errors in it and the sweaty attacks on character to mask them should be obvious to anyone not already indoctrinated into your particular idea of a “good” dictator.
I’m lightly amused by the interpretation that socialism necessarily means dictatorship, as if other democratic forms of government are somehow incompatible with socialist economic structures and policies.
well, i can actually support democratic socialist governments, and i actually have voted for a party trying to build that out on every single occasion so far while i had a vote. i’m also all for integrating socialist principles into a capitalist society – i do actually believe capitalism is a great tool for the luxuries in life, but the necessities must be provided to all for it to actually work. like supply and demand both need to be variable for it to work, if everyone needs a home you can’t have the market “just figure it out” on the pricing of hosing, it’s going to result in rampant exploitation, but a market for upgraded housing compared to a baseline would very much work.
mostly i was just directly responding to the notion communicated to me in this conversation, which is that the path to communism is a state that takes power away from people for their own good, builds a society for them, and then gives back that power, or at the very least allows the people to take back that power with force. that promise is bogus and has been the previous 40 times a nation has been sold on it. as someone who has to live in the aftermath of one of those attempts, i’m not going to not blame it for its lies and its oppression. especially when the system it’s trying to reach, as described in this very thread, has been technologically impossible to reach on the scale of even just hungary, let alone the whole soviet bloc
well, i can actually support democratic socialist governments, and i actually have voted for a party trying to build that out on every single occasion so far while i had a vote.
Congratulations on your contribution to the communist cause!
assuming you’re being honest here, you’re welcome. but if that is indeed the passive-aggressive mockery it sounds like then that might explain why people can’t take you seriously outside of echo chambers.
i don’t see anything contradictory in there, i’m just not an extremist. not a centrist either, but the world doesn’t just consist of commies and fascists and people who haven’t picked a side yet. in fact, those aren’t even the two ends of the spectrum, and it’s actually rather insulting to most people to suggest so.
fascists can burn in hell as far as i’m concerned, but so can most of the authleft part of the spectrum. in general, it’s authies i’m the most opposed to. the economic right is stupid but a failing libright system tends to suck less than a failing authleft one. although neither suck as much as a failing authright one, that one i do agree with
(and imo even the two-axis political compass is super reductive but at least it gets the point across that i stand with neither fascists not communists)
i’m trying to create an equivalence between fascism and socialism, or whatever you call that transitional dictatorship that’s hopefully benevolent
i can actually support democratic socialist governments, and i actually have voted for a party trying to build that out on every single occasion so far while i had a vote
“Socialism is a transitional dictatorship” -> “I oppose dictatorships” -> “I vote for socialist politics”
i don’t see anything contradictory in there
If you’re relying on political compass memes to understand politics, then that might explain your misunderstanding.
i have no problem with socialist economic policies but i do have a problem with using authoritarianism and the facade of a “benevolent dictatorship” to achieve them.
the misunderstanding stems from the constant twisting of terms. like is communism what happened in the soviet bloc, or is it an as yet unachieved (and still probably technologically unachievable) dreamland that has never been tried? is socialism what the soviets had? or is that just a specific set of economic policies that the soviets did in fact have but completely divorced from its oppressive system? what did the soviets and its colonized countries actually have?
there is a certain system that the soviets have tried and it failed miserably. i would never support that system after seeing what it does to a country. but the way it comes off to me through this discussion is that socialism both is and isn’t that system, until observed, where the waveform collapses to whatever is more beneficial for the socialist’s argument here.
and yeah, i do think the political compass is also extremely reductive, but at some point we gotta figure out how to communicate whatever the hell we’re talking about.
Communism (as imagined by Marx and Engles) is broad and theoretical, and written in the revolutionary glow of the 19th century. “Leftist” discourse is still broad and theoretical, even 130 years after the final volume of Kapital was published. The people insisting on a single “socialist” model are often the people attempting to reduce it to a single (admittedly quite fascinating) period of history. All the reasons that period between 1914 and 1991 capture our collective imagination so frequently are the same reasons why it would be quite naieve to attempt to attribute any one ideology to the failure and collapse of any of the political projects of the time (of which there were a number, including the Soviet Union). The collapse of the Soviet Union was drawn out and complicated by international politics and post-war reconstruction; attempting to define socialism through the lens of that failure can really only be done in bad faith, or else is done while being willfully blind to the actual qualities of socialism and the actual conditions of the soviet collapse.
It’s not enough to say “I don’t want the soviet union again” unless you have an understanding of what it is, exactly, you are opposing. Will you simply sit around until a Lennin comes back around? If the Soviet Union was ever being remade in 2023, it wouldn’t look anything like it did when it was formed almost 100 years ago. If you’re opposed to authoritarianism, then oppose authoritarianism. Stand for democracy. If you believe in the socialist ideals, then stand for them, too. You don’t have to call yourself a socialist, but it sure as hell doesn’t help you if you willfully misinterpret people with shared interests because you’ve naively accepted a definition of socialism that is conveniently constructed around the failure of a single political project of the 20th century and is otherwise blind to any of its details.
It honestly just sounds like you’re confused, or otherwise quite determined to collapse a complicated and nuanced political and economic theory into a single failed entity (which you strongly oppose, I gather). I’m not really interested in playing this game of definitions or political compass navigation with you; if you’re interested in where your political values might overlap with socialist theory then I recommend you read a fucking book (pardon my french).
If you’re not interested in debating this, fine. Neither am I, tbh.
I’m just generally aggravated by this pattern where people posit that anyone who criticizes communism/socialism/any adjacent ideology just doesn’t understand what they’re talking about, and then when you actually make an attempt to figure out what the hell everyone supposedly doesn’t understand you get this mess of conflicting definitions expressed very confidently, where the only real pattern is that if you agree with communism/socialism/whatever that’s good, if you don’t that’s bad, now go figure out why. It kind of feels like talking to christians, actually.
You were given a very clear definition, multiple times, and you were dissatisfied, multiple times, because you were trying very hard to draw a line from that definition to that thing you don’t like. You fishing for an explanation is very clearly just an attempt to bait tankies into defending stalinism.
The amusing part is (still) that you seem to be a closeted socialist yourself.
how? abolish the standing beaurocratic heirarchy which perpetuates and expends its own power and the interest of the ruling class by inflicting violence on the working class. what that looks like depends on how the people who make up a community choose to govern themselves.
realistically I don’t expect a revolution of the proletariat to take place, so I promote the institution of robust mutual aid networks, radical solidarity (organized labor, intersectional liberatory philosophy), and resilient autonomous communities, to compete with the prevailing system of power.
attempts at anarchist-adjacent organizing have existed, and continue to in some communities, though of course execution varies, as does identity.
the USSR was not an attempt towards a stateless society, being a state-capitalist imperialist kleptocracy.
Nah, people who advocate for communism are actually educated and can define it very easily. Communism is a political economic system where the working class holds power in society and the means of production are under a combination of public and cooperative ownership. Thinking that communism is difficult to define is the height of ignorance.
Lemmygrad and Lemmy.ml were formed because Reddit was hostile to them. It’s not their fault, it’s the fault of people from Reddit turning this into Reddit.
Doesn’t create a global and national elite of rich people
For a long time I’ve seen communism, as in: planned economy, and no ruling class (the latter the USSR failed to achieve, it seems) as the solution. But nowadays I don’t know. I don’t know if marxism in it’s original form is enough to explain society, and I don’t think anarchist communism, collectivism, mutualism whatever can work on a large scale. Social democracy doesn’t seem like it’s enough, either.
What do you mean “now what?” lol. Assuming an American-centric or Euro-centric point of view, they would use their extremely expensive military armaments that can’t be purchased in large quantities by private organizations, and crush the rebellion. The government is the government because they have a monopoly on violence.
I mean, really. Their money is in banks subject to the oversight of the countries they’re trying to raise an army against. People may be relatively cheap, but they still need to be paid quite a bit to attempt to fight the military head on. Freeze their accounts and they’re screwed. Musk’s entire fortune isn’t even a single years worth of funding for the US military, and even if all the billionaires pooled their money it would take years to accumulate the excess hardware that is allowed to be sold and then train their PMCs on hardware. Years that they wouldn’t have if a bill was passed to cap wealth inequality.
We may yet reach the corporate dystopia where businesses can directly challenge governments, but we’re not quite there yet. At least not in the first world. Russia may have shot itself in its confusion, but that’s because the rich already are the government there.
To authorize repelling a slowly gathering military coup? That’s an incredibly low bar to commit treason, since honestly, even at the highest levels military bureaucrats aren’t going to be much wealthier than 10 mil. Unlike Congress, there’s a much closer eye kept on the finances of military leaders because they’re paranoid about foreign nations bribing them. It’s physical national security, which is one of the few areas that money doesn’t hold absolute power.
Even if they stood to lose a few million, there are plenty of genuine patriots, as well as people smart enough to realize that overthrowing the government by force does not mean the law instigating it gets repealed, but that the entire legal structure of the United States is no longer functioning. That’s fifty different militias reporting to states, Naval, Army, and Marine branches with hundreds of billions of dollars in ordinance that’s explicitly empowered to not follow unethical or illegal orders. It’d be a disaster for the coup throwers unless they managed a movie villain level simultaneous takeover of the Pentagon.
I’m not saying a coup is impossible, but the idea of rich people successfully overthrowing the American government by “hiring an army” is so cursed to failure that I almost don’t know where to even start. Could they cause unprecedented chaos and potentially kill a large portion of the government? Possibly. Could they succeed? Absolutely not.
Also, this whole chain completely ignores the fact that Congress would never set the cap at 10 million. I doubt they’d set it at a hundred million. My bet would be one billion, where it wouldn’t actually affect any of them. Were they to actually pass a 10 million dollar cap, the world would be such a different place that we wouldn’t need to worry about a handful of grumpy generals inciting treason.
That’s a bit of an arbitrary figure. Also wealth isn’t really money as much as it is things.
Take a house, for example. You only really need one. The monetary value of the house depends on a few factors, but it’s primary value is that it gives you shelter. It probably fluctuates in monetary value but the actual value doesn’t change. If you cap wealth based on monetary value, how do you deal with homes in different places that are valued differently? I think it’s going to be more complicated than it seels at first glance.
Assuming you mean dollars, since everyone on the internet is American. 10mil seems like a lot all together. But if you had to feed your entire family for the rest of your life on 10mil you might struggle, depending on where you live.
Maybe you mean 10mil income per year and not overall wealth. That’s different, but I can understand this. A progressive tax system could impose a cap of sorts but tax avoidance (the legal kind) would render it useless.
I don’t have any answers, just felt like continuing the thought train.
1st, don’t read to deep into this, It’s not even a pipe dream is a barely thought that crossed my mind but ain’t smart enough to even process in any meaningful way, but thought it would be ok to vomit here.
I mean total wealth including houses, cars, personal belongings, clothes, groceries, bank accounts, shares at some company, pocket change, everything. Yes, I was thinking dollars. It could be per person. And yes, it’s a VERY arbitrary number, but it could be adjusted.
It would be like a rolling cap, if you’re at the limit, you could buy food, and after you eat it, that expended budget would be available for you to earn more money again.
There is no such thing as no ruling class, and generally, anyone who sells you that is aiming to become the ruling class themselves. In the best case scenario, they want to be a benevolent dictator, and we might have seen a few people get close to that over the course of history but no benevolent dictatorship lasts longer than two generations and many fail even sooner than that. In the worst case, they are just riding on this political train and aim to be a not so benevolent dictator themselves.
Any system that does not account for human nature and build an incentive structure that guarantees the maximum possible equality/equity while assuming everyone involved is selfish is a system that’s ill suited for humanity. And if you force an ill-suited system, someone will inevitably swoop in and use it for their personal gains. Like as bad as our current system is with wealth inequality, the soviet system had an even slimmer and richer elite, they just hid it well.
I agree with all of your goals, but we need to do this the smart way, and that involves setting the priority exactly as your list goes and actually accounting for how people behave. The result might not be perfect, but we can do better than we do currently, I think that should be the goal rather than going for perfection and falling for snake oil on the way.
A really good perk in Eastern Europe is that the brief period of communism flattened inequality and nationalised all infrastructure, and both have been kept under democracy and capitalism. Which means that those countries now kinda have the best of both worlds. Although with the snowballing of wealth that is inevitable under capitalism (unless regulated), it is a question of if, and not when, that starts to change.
No one said Marxism was all done and finished out of the box… feel free to workshop it as needed since it’s barely been attempted to put into practice at all.
Well, neo-marxism is a thing, but I have barely seen any movements based around it. Sometimes it seems that the intellectuals that build these new ways of understanding society don’t really care about putting it into practice, so that’s another thing.
Do you know of a community to discuss this? I feel like people stop criticizing economic systems once they benefit from it, and so people just default to communism or capitalism without actually considering the game theory behind it all.
Western politics already has a vehicle in which to accomplish your 3 bullet points called regulation. The problem is children in charge and the voters apathy to hold their feet to the fire.
People should get mad, not at each other but at their “masters” that aren’t supposed to exist. The powers that be want us to argue amongst ourselves
I seriously believe we must build an A.I. to replace human leadership since we proved time and time again that we are corruptible, and that when that happens you start getting your poor and elite classes and rampaging exploitation of resources and its refusal to imorove to better technologies and processes (ie oil companies). We need something avobe humans to administer resources and solve politics since we just made both into ridiculous games that are alreaddy fixed so that everybody , exept those that a where winning already, loosses. I believe that the survival of the human race hinges on this.
I think that such A.I. should be build with the principles of sustainability of resources, the preseevation of human and animal life inluding but not limited to mental health, phisical health, fullfilment, and perception of freedoom. When it comes to penalties while i would like to get rid of any type of penal system i understeand its nececity due to people being people, so i would like for that system to focus on rehabilyitation rather than punishment as long as its possible and if not then just on keeping bad actors from causing any more harm into society. It should distribute resources to the human populance according to their necesities when it comes to basic needs being housing, energy, plumbing, food, medical suplies and services, clothing, transport, entertainment, social fulfilment, etc. when it comes to other things like nicer furniture, software, specialiced tools or anything on the frivolous nature or customisation then it shouldnt be a problem asking the a.i. as long as requests are reasonable since resources should be exploited sustainably enough so that this tyoes of needs could be fullfiled, like what i mean is “i whant a wooden table like this design i found” would be fullfilable request and not " i want a chair that looks like this made out of plutonium" since plutonium is toxic and should be used with care and only for cientific and energy producing porpuses. It should have as a goal to automate as much labor as posible, from agriculture, metallurgy, transport,etc. all the way to accounting, administration, executive decisions, software design, and even science, in the way as to research technologies and other fields for the benefith of humanity be it medical, technological or even space travel, all of this would leave humans to pursue more recreative activities like self fullfilment, socialising, pursuing artistic endeavours like music, painting, literature, cooking, plastical arts, teather (traditional or movies) and cientific research and studying, or just living it with their loved ones, friends or alone in the woods, if anyone whants to labor because they hate themselves (i mean in an ironic way) then they very much can. Also while it would sound bad, it should have control over all weapon and defence systems in the world and have the ability to create more if the need arises and be able to operate them at discretion in case of an external attack on humanity. It should also be able to better itself and self preserve and be abble to feel love for humanity but in a good way so that it doesnt turn against us. Look what im proposing is that we create god pretty much since its the only way we are gonna survive global warming and end war between ourselves for ever. But since your comment is givving me the vibes of being in a condecending manner in the: “AHA GOTH YA DAM LIB” sence, i dont think you are gonna read any of this and if you do you are probably gonna argue that i didnt tell you exactly step by step how to build an A.I. overlod so to that i tell ya of course i wouldnt because i dont know how since im just some dumb dumb on the internet, and while i would like to work building A.I. thats kinda far away from me at this point in my life. And if the down to upvote ratio on my original comment and your response is telling of anything, then its probably gonna validate any point you are gonna trow against mine since im the unpopular one and every one is gonna be able to rule me out as some jerk with a wrong opinion so have fun with that i guess.
In all seriousness though, I can understand your desire for utopia and for technology to solve all our problems (I desire those things too!), but I think people generally view those two desires as naive. The world’s problems usually don’t have simple solutions, AI is still somewhat of a new area of research with its own potential dangers, and putting all your stock into AI solving our problems ignores the very real solutions that could be implemented sooner rather than later.
But don’t beat yourself up too much over meaningless internet points, learn about what you’re interested in more! If AI is your cup of tea and you want to learn more about the potential issues with creating super powerful AI, I can strongly recommend the channel “Robert Moses AI Safety”. Particularly his videos about The Orthogonality Thesis and Mesa-Optimizers.
I think fundamentally most people would agree with that. The problem with communism though is that it’s not just a staple of the USSR. There is something on the order of 48 countries that have experienced state-sponsored communism in relatively recent times and it has never once succeeded in achieving these goals but tends to exacerbate poverty, class division, and government oppression of human rights, if not resulting in completely failed states.
Some will read this and assume I am advocating for capitalism. I am not. Asserting problems with communism does not imply capitalism is perfect or even good. But if we do choose to abandon capitalism, the wrong decision is to move to a system with a 100% failure rate of achieving its goals over dozens of historical attempts. As the meme suggests, many Eastern Europeans are old enough to have personal experience with those failures.
Where communism can work well is on a smaller, voluntary scale. When people choose to get together and establish their own rules for pooling resources, small communities can sometimes live quite satisfactorily this way. But no, if we are willing to call capitalism a failure based on its history we have to be honest enough to say the same thing about state-sponsored communism.
Another interesting point is whether we attribute the successes and failures of a state on it’s particular social, economic and political situation or it’s ideology as the root cause of anything. Most people, when they agree with an ideology, will attribute the good things to the ideology and the bad things to specific circumstances, and the opposite with ideologies they do not agree with. The more nationalist Americans will tell you that Cuba is poor because it is communist, and that Bush invaded Iraq either because he was corrupt or because he was promoting freedom. However there’s also the argument that Cuba is poor because it is sanctioned to hell by the US, and that Bush invaded Iraq because of American capitalist imperialism. Which one of these you agree with pretty much entirely depends on your ideological opinions rather than what actually happened, and as far as making a valid argument either one is at least a coherent point.
The reality is that you have elements of both the fundamental ideology and the specific political circumstances in every social outcome you see. Which is an idea quite fatal to most of the rhetoric you see nowadays and part of why it’s impossible to have any political discussion with people you have fundamental disagreements with.
I’m not quite sure how to reply to that, because you make some good points. I flatly disagree that communism can’t work. It’s like saying Capitalism couldn’t work because for a whole century the French revolution was failing before 1789. Which is not even the first humanity’s attempt for a capitalist system, but the first well known one. We still have ways to go and failed attempts to try to get it right.
However, the most important thing in my eyes is to learn from the past. Being in a country that was surrounded by communism, tried, and was refused help from the then socialist states, I know very many people that still look back to those times with fondness. From my country and neighboring ones that were parts of the socialist block. But all those implementations had their problems and these same people would be the first to admit that. Our job is to go through all that history and judge it with clear heads, see where it went wrong and how or why, so in the next attempts we’ll fail in a different way, until we get it right. Similar to how every socioeconomically system did so far.
I don’t care about Anarchy or Socialism or Trotskyism or whatever, as long as it gets us to the end goal of a classless system without economic or power elites that see us as data nodes to profit off. Each of those approaches has its pros and cons and there are many others as well.
But saying it failed so we best move on, because the first handful of attempts went wrong is not going to bring any change whatsoever.
Yeah I get you. But it’s important to realize that we’re talking about much more than a handful of attempts. I see the value in learning from history and iterating on processes to try and get better over time. But if we’re honestly striving for the best system for humanity, what we shouldn’t do is say, “I really want it to be communism so let’s just assume that must be the right answer and keep trying it over and over again until it works.” At some point you do have to be willing to try something new.
It’s my opinion that communism has had more than a fair shot and has been eliminated from the running. But I am also not so crazy as to immediately disregard some new communist paradigm that theoretically works in some new way that is designed to fix the problems that continually appeared in communist systems historically. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen it presented yet. And it’s also not what these “western teenagers” (as the meme calls them) are advocating for. They use language and symbols characteristic of very specific brands of communism that were massive historical failures in terms of preserving human rights and eliminating poverty and class divisions.
I disagree about the part of enough attempts and fair share, but honestly, I don’t care much. Could very well be something completely different and as long as it kept the basis of no inequality, no ruling elite, free education and medical care and so on, I’d be in. I just haven’t found anything that does that even half convincingly.
My belief is that similar to how back in the 18th century, they couldn’t see past the following system, namely capitalism, we can’t see and plan for past a classless system now, which for the moment is communism, regardless of the path there. That doesn’t mean that societal evolution will stop there.
In what world is a country with billionaires and an autocratic ruling class in which the workers decidedly do not control the means of production, “socialist”?
I think you must have inferred something from my comment that I didn’t actually say. I didn’t say every communist country ceases to exist. I also didn’t say that communism can’t generate a large economy.
What I said was that it has a 100% failure rate of achieving its goals, where those goals are economic equality, and elimination of poverty and class divisions. Most open pro-communists today have an additional goal of increasing access to basic human rights which communism has historically failed at as well. I did mention that some communist states have failed outright.
In the case of China, which you alluded to, note that China deliberately weakened their communism in the 90s as part of a series of economic reforms that introduced capitalist principles designed to stimulate growth. Specifically, agriculture was de-collectivized, Chinese business were opened to foreign investment, permission was granted for entrepreneurs to start businesses, state-owned industries were privatized, and many price controls were removed. By 2005, the private sector was responsible for 70% of China’s GDP. There is no reason to believe that China’s economy would be anywhere near as large as it is today absent these reforms.
But is that what you personally want out of your system? A large economy? Is that what matters most?
It’s also an oppressive police state where huge portions of the population live in poverty and endure awful working conditions. Oh and they’re actively engaged in genocide against a minority ethnic group. But sure if we just ignore all the downsides it’s great.
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