This is generally the thought process that Marxists have. The USSR definitely wasn’t perfect, but it is the first real example that the proletariat was capable of uniting and other throwing the capitalist system. The USSR is fantastic to study to try and determine why it failed. Similarly China is a great resource to study to understand how capitalism can be re-established from within the party.
Most modern communist groups actively engaging in an attempt at revolution were inspired by the Chinese revolution and the cultural revolution that came after it, but none of them are trying to recreate the USSR or China because as we can clearly see those states failed to maintain a socialist character.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but if you boil it all down communism is when the state acts as a central power to decide how to allocate wealth and resources to the people. Does anyone here actually think you could trust the state ever ever ever to do this right? You can’t trust a centralized power no matter how much they claim to be of the people. It’s not that the state is inherently evil, it’s that humans are incredibly biased and flawed.
Communism is a community dictating how it should behave itself and how it allocates skills and resources.
If authoritarian centralized power focused on capital is Reddit, decentralized independent federated communities that dictate how they should behave themselves and allocate skills and resources would be lemmy
Thanks for the reply and I hear what you’re saying however I think the issue with that argument is that each federated community still has centralized admins with authority. For example Ruud at lemmy world could wake up one day and impose some crazy shit. Or he could give his friends better moderating positions than others, etc.
My point is that even in community based organizations you still have human administrators who have to make decisions for the community which ultimately leads to corruption of the system. That’s what my original argument was.
Edit: will go ahead and add that the same thing happens in capitalism however the huge difference is that there any many capital owners to distribute resources (ie companies, corporations, the state) VS in communism it is only the state that distributes the resources.
Maybe so. But, in reality every communist country has a state. I get that could be the “transitory” stage between capitalism and pure communism, or a tainted form of communism altogether. Cool. Let’s assume we get past that and are able to get to that idealized version of communism. Let’s have a thought experiment. Let me preface by saying I am not trying to have a gotcha moment, but honestly think this through out loud. In pure communism, who manages the water utilities? Like, who makes sure that water is delivered to the people and that it is safe to drink?
I don’t really think you need a state to have administrative powers over large things like food production, power, and other utilities. Ideally the communities would be fully self sufficient in power, food, water, housing, etc. Big power plants that supply power to a massive amount of people would be difficult to set up, but is still possible with enough community effort.
The biggest threat to communism and socialism is that capitalist countries will starve them out of international trade (or do more active things to try to prevent a successful communist movement) because they won’t play ball. It would be extremely easy for a capitalist team to destroy a few small crops and kill any chance of self sufficiency- meaning they’d have to depend on trade with those capitalist countries.
Yeah it’s not a perfect metaphor. Though, I guess even if an admin is terrible and abused their power, it has way less influence on Lemmy as a whole than if Spez abused their power on Reddit. Also, you’re free to create and host your own instance and run it however you’d like.
To make the metaphor more apt, every member of the server would own a part of the server and could vote democratically on how they want the server to run. It would involve no hierarchies of power, so there’s no mods and admins. Though, I really don’t know how this would work technically in regards to having thousands of people own a server (or if it’s even possible).
So like the Lemmy platform, communism would be easier to manage the less people are involved. That’s why people say that communism only works in tribes and small villages. I’m not under the illusion that it wouldn’t be difficult, and I think communism would lead to a bit more of an insular society as a whole, but I think that if everyone had realistic expectations and goals, it definitely seems more ideal that the current situation where we’re just being yanked around by the whims of ultra rich people trying to skim more from the top of the people doing actual work.
I am from Eastern Europe and I share this sentiment when I see anyone from the West defending communism. The issue is complicated but, to put it bluntly:
No, Timothy, communism didn’t fail in Eastern Europe because it was implemented wrongly. This is a very complicated topic but the tldr summary is “It is a broken idea, it did not work and it will never work. The natural and logical outcome of any attempt at Marxism is a bloodbath followed by autocracy.”
That being said, communism isn’t the only way to achieve a more equitable society. You have social democracy (in Lennin’s words - communism’s greatest adversary); organized labour movements; collectivist anarchism; communitariasm, etc.
Communism, as applied in the 20th century, violently fought against or oppressed all of these movements and is incompatible with any of them.
Not to mention that in most countries nowadays orthodox communists have been hugely discredited for excusing the Russian war of annihilation against the Ukrainian people.
In conclusion, if you live in the USA or Western Europe and you are unhappy with how corporate greed has ruined society, don’t look to communism for answers. There are many other proposed solutions out there - go and research these. Communism is very well known, which makes it easily accessible to people who want change - but it is never, ever the solution.
Yeah, in the West, we are suffering from unregulated capitalism and it’s hurting us badly. But that certainly doesn’t mean communism is good, especially authoritarian communism (which is exactly what we have historical examples of). We need social safety nets, better taxation, and fucking choices in the west.
Communism is authoritarian by nature. If everyone doesn’t subscribe to the communist ideology, then the model simply doesn’t work. This means you literally have no choice in a communist society but to be subjected to it. You also need some sort of authority to enforce the redistribution. Who decides who does that, and who gets what? My opinion is that the only way it’d work is maybe with AI, but even then, those in power will likely just manipulate the technology to continue to benefit themselves.
On the same hand, even if you don’t subscribe to capitalist ideology you’re forced to participate.
We (at least in the U.S.) have no real safety net for people who are unable to provide for themselves for whatever reason. Capitalism is great if you’re the one with the capital but if not the world can be a brutal, uncaring place and you can quite literally die on the street.
Crime is endemic to capitalism and I feel like better social safety nets would pay huge dividends in a lot of ways.
At the same time I had a colleague that had to immigrate to Canada from Yugoslavia in her 40s and she told me life there even as a Serb + Catholic couple was the best she has ever experienced until things started to go bad in the 80s…
I really find all these posts entertaining, there are a bunch of reddit refugees that are trying to impose their ideology on Lemmy. It’s almost like they’re trying to ironically colonize the space.
It’s a fantastic ideology; arguably perfect. Unfortunately, it has never worked and will never work because it is incompatible with human nature. The more humans involved, the more extreme the incompatibility.
does anyone using the “human nature” argument even know what they’re saying?
what about “human nature” or “humans aren’t perfect” undermines socialism or communism? by what mechanism?
it feels like it’s a talking point that means absolutely nothing when viewed critically, and is only mindlessly repeated because it sounds cynical and “smart”
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.
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)
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!”
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
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. https://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.
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.
Didn’t the USSR just do state capitalism, and not actual communism or socialism? And weren’t they also totalitarian & also not a democracy? Are people actually asking for what was happening in astern Europe or something else?
Yup. Also shot the anarchists, that worked with them and wanted democracy, in the back of the head during a meeting, The USSR then also did imperialism in their neighboring countries, deported a ton of people from those countries to death camps in siberia and allied with the nazies dividing Europe in their treaty
In Germany the left leaning parties want that shit.
It sucks.
They side with Russia atm as well and a lot of them just have this odd nostalgia for the time
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
Pfizer doesn’t have a monopoly on insulin, it’s primarily produced by Eli Lilly (who were the first), Novo Nordisk and Sanofi.
„The government“ also doesn’t „enforce“ patents, companies have found a way to make small changes to drugs to keep them perpetually patented. The recent price drops of insulin in the US are the *result of government intervention *.
Please do get lost with you Alex Jones r/conspiracy drivel, thx.
Crony capitalism is just capitalism. The agorist free market capitalism is just starting the whole thing over under the mistaken belief that it’ll end up different.
I know you’re trying to use sarcasm, but communist countries don’t generally repeat the mistakes of other communist countries. They famously at least try to share knowledge openly with each other.
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.
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.
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…”
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.
That’s pretty much the opposite of what I said. Bangladeshi children sewing your clothes under horrible conditions while H&M and it’s shareholders make billions isn’t (for the most part) your personal moral failing, but a systemic issue within and due to capitalism.
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This is generally the thought process that Marxists have. The USSR definitely wasn’t perfect, but it is the first real example that the proletariat was capable of uniting and other throwing the capitalist system. The USSR is fantastic to study to try and determine why it failed. Similarly China is a great resource to study to understand how capitalism can be re-established from within the party.
Most modern communist groups actively engaging in an attempt at revolution were inspired by the Chinese revolution and the cultural revolution that came after it, but none of them are trying to recreate the USSR or China because as we can clearly see those states failed to maintain a socialist character.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but if you boil it all down communism is when the state acts as a central power to decide how to allocate wealth and resources to the people. Does anyone here actually think you could trust the state ever ever ever to do this right? You can’t trust a centralized power no matter how much they claim to be of the people. It’s not that the state is inherently evil, it’s that humans are incredibly biased and flawed.
Communism is when no state as central power.
Communism is a community dictating how it should behave itself and how it allocates skills and resources.
If authoritarian centralized power focused on capital is Reddit, decentralized independent federated communities that dictate how they should behave themselves and allocate skills and resources would be lemmy
Thanks for the reply and I hear what you’re saying however I think the issue with that argument is that each federated community still has centralized admins with authority. For example Ruud at lemmy world could wake up one day and impose some crazy shit. Or he could give his friends better moderating positions than others, etc.
Seems like an analogy to help you understand, not an argument. No analogy is perfect.
My point is that even in community based organizations you still have human administrators who have to make decisions for the community which ultimately leads to corruption of the system. That’s what my original argument was.
Edit: will go ahead and add that the same thing happens in capitalism however the huge difference is that there any many capital owners to distribute resources (ie companies, corporations, the state) VS in communism it is only the state that distributes the resources.
How does the state distribute resources if the state doesn’t exist under communism? I think you might be misunderstanding the basics of communism.
Maybe so. But, in reality every communist country has a state. I get that could be the “transitory” stage between capitalism and pure communism, or a tainted form of communism altogether. Cool. Let’s assume we get past that and are able to get to that idealized version of communism. Let’s have a thought experiment. Let me preface by saying I am not trying to have a gotcha moment, but honestly think this through out loud. In pure communism, who manages the water utilities? Like, who makes sure that water is delivered to the people and that it is safe to drink?
I don’t really think you need a state to have administrative powers over large things like food production, power, and other utilities. Ideally the communities would be fully self sufficient in power, food, water, housing, etc. Big power plants that supply power to a massive amount of people would be difficult to set up, but is still possible with enough community effort.
The biggest threat to communism and socialism is that capitalist countries will starve them out of international trade (or do more active things to try to prevent a successful communist movement) because they won’t play ball. It would be extremely easy for a capitalist team to destroy a few small crops and kill any chance of self sufficiency- meaning they’d have to depend on trade with those capitalist countries.
Yeah it’s not a perfect metaphor. Though, I guess even if an admin is terrible and abused their power, it has way less influence on Lemmy as a whole than if Spez abused their power on Reddit. Also, you’re free to create and host your own instance and run it however you’d like.
To make the metaphor more apt, every member of the server would own a part of the server and could vote democratically on how they want the server to run. It would involve no hierarchies of power, so there’s no mods and admins. Though, I really don’t know how this would work technically in regards to having thousands of people own a server (or if it’s even possible).
So like the Lemmy platform, communism would be easier to manage the less people are involved. That’s why people say that communism only works in tribes and small villages. I’m not under the illusion that it wouldn’t be difficult, and I think communism would lead to a bit more of an insular society as a whole, but I think that if everyone had realistic expectations and goals, it definitely seems more ideal that the current situation where we’re just being yanked around by the whims of ultra rich people trying to skim more from the top of the people doing actual work.
I am from Eastern Europe and I share this sentiment when I see anyone from the West defending communism. The issue is complicated but, to put it bluntly:
No, Timothy, communism didn’t fail in Eastern Europe because it was implemented wrongly. This is a very complicated topic but the tldr summary is “It is a broken idea, it did not work and it will never work. The natural and logical outcome of any attempt at Marxism is a bloodbath followed by autocracy.”
That being said, communism isn’t the only way to achieve a more equitable society. You have social democracy (in Lennin’s words - communism’s greatest adversary); organized labour movements; collectivist anarchism; communitariasm, etc.
Communism, as applied in the 20th century, violently fought against or oppressed all of these movements and is incompatible with any of them.
Not to mention that in most countries nowadays orthodox communists have been hugely discredited for excusing the Russian war of annihilation against the Ukrainian people.
In conclusion, if you live in the USA or Western Europe and you are unhappy with how corporate greed has ruined society, don’t look to communism for answers. There are many other proposed solutions out there - go and research these. Communism is very well known, which makes it easily accessible to people who want change - but it is never, ever the solution.
Yeah, in the West, we are suffering from unregulated capitalism and it’s hurting us badly. But that certainly doesn’t mean communism is good, especially authoritarian communism (which is exactly what we have historical examples of). We need social safety nets, better taxation, and fucking choices in the west.
Communism is authoritarian by nature. If everyone doesn’t subscribe to the communist ideology, then the model simply doesn’t work. This means you literally have no choice in a communist society but to be subjected to it. You also need some sort of authority to enforce the redistribution. Who decides who does that, and who gets what? My opinion is that the only way it’d work is maybe with AI, but even then, those in power will likely just manipulate the technology to continue to benefit themselves.
On the same hand, even if you don’t subscribe to capitalist ideology you’re forced to participate.
We (at least in the U.S.) have no real safety net for people who are unable to provide for themselves for whatever reason. Capitalism is great if you’re the one with the capital but if not the world can be a brutal, uncaring place and you can quite literally die on the street.
Crime is endemic to capitalism and I feel like better social safety nets would pay huge dividends in a lot of ways.
That may be accurate, but we were discussing communism, not capitalism.
At the same time I had a colleague that had to immigrate to Canada from Yugoslavia in her 40s and she told me life there even as a Serb + Catholic couple was the best she has ever experienced until things started to go bad in the 80s…
Nostalgia is huge in the eastern block. That’s a separate topic of discussion, all on its own.
Marxism is a broader less problematic term
I really find all these posts entertaining, there are a bunch of reddit refugees that are trying to impose their ideology on Lemmy. It’s almost like they’re trying to ironically colonize the space.
Or maybe your echo chamber is getting a taste of centrism.
Lol centrism is just Neoliberalism that’s pretending not to be right wing.
dude im just glad here we can educate them
I expected this shit here tbh
this is DANGEROUS ground to tread on lemmy ☠️
comment section frustratingly filled with McCarthy-brained liberals who have never critically examined their preconceptions about communism
I find Communism quite simple.
It’s a fantastic ideology; arguably perfect. Unfortunately, it has never worked and will never work because it is incompatible with human nature. The more humans involved, the more extreme the incompatibility.
does anyone using the “human nature” argument even know what they’re saying?
what about “human nature” or “humans aren’t perfect” undermines socialism or communism? by what mechanism?
it feels like it’s a talking point that means absolutely nothing when viewed critically, and is only mindlessly repeated because it sounds cynical and “smart”
It’s funny because if you look at living standards in eastern Europe during communism’s peak they were wayyy better than they are now
That’s a joke of course. Who says that, Russia Today?
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.
They were still worse off than western europe
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.
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)
And I’m sure you’re an independent reporter from a neutral country that doesn’t benefit culturally from propaganda making communism look like fascism…
excelente point my dude
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,
dont you know he always believes what hd is told by authority figures~~~~
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
a yes the mexican border wall the perfect example.
capitalist mexico and central america sure can keep people in their country 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
? I’m talking about the Berlin wall
Not because of capitalism, because of corruption, etc. Anyway, they try to escape to other capitilist countries
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!”
It is a trait of our system, noone said capitalism is perfect, its just better than communism
dang really tripped you huh
sucks to lose an argument huh 😂😂😂
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸liberty 🗽 intensifies
Just the fact that you made this comment shows me YOU lost the argument, imagine needing to point out you won the argument
The public actively spying and ratting each other out was a nice bonus.
this happens here more
try again
Thank GOD capitalist countries don’t have spies and police informants…
They had public transit, jobs, and housing for all.
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
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. https://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.
And what about the victims of capitalism? There are endless victims.
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.
Meanwhile, Eastern Europeans:
counterpoint and some reading material for capitalism stans on here https://ia800309.us.archive.org/26/items/fp_Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum/Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum.pdf
Based comrade
Didn’t the USSR just do state capitalism, and not actual communism or socialism? And weren’t they also totalitarian & also not a democracy? Are people actually asking for what was happening in astern Europe or something else?
Yup. Also shot the anarchists, that worked with them and wanted democracy, in the back of the head during a meeting, The USSR then also did imperialism in their neighboring countries, deported a ton of people from those countries to death camps in siberia and allied with the nazies dividing Europe in their treaty
Yes, because there’s no other way to implement communism. They tried hard and it still didn’t work
In Germany the left leaning parties want that shit. It sucks. They side with Russia atm as well and a lot of them just have this odd nostalgia for the time
not to defend them, but capitalism is not doing very good recently, so that might give them points
Yes, I know. I’m not a fan of that myself.
But the idea that current day Russia has it better is insane. The Propaganda has survived through 30 years of non existence
Stop at socialism. You never go full daddy-state.
There were no actual efforts to establish communism in eastern europe. Only autocratic regimes backed by soviet russia.
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.
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.
Can you say what are the jobs?
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?
You can tell us the field of work, that wouldn’t Dox you to know it’s programing versus electrician or something.
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.
While I agree with you, this doesn’t mean that Eastern Europe was communist.
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.
What did they do to be communist? And what about a society where there is no such thing as ‘in charge’?
How would a society like that work?
And here comes the guy who thinks he can do it better, this time without mass killings.
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).
With capitalism we just outsource the death to 3rd world countries.
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).
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.
Can’t critizise something that has never been tried! Also we already got a comment critizising capitalism as a counter argument :D
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.
I’m no too learned in the subject but what would “true” communism even look like on the large scale like a country? Would it even be feasible?
True communism in a country is impossible.
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.
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“.
It’s… complicated.
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.
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)/¯
Aha, is that so?
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’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.
What do you think is anarchy? Without searching engine please.
How is this question relevant?
deleted by creator
Why?
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.
So i was wrong. Sorry for the ‘nuanced’ question.
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.
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.
Full no true scotsman.
Yes yes. And America is not real market economy capitalism either, that’s the only reason why it sucks so much.
America is very close to being real market economy, that’s why it sucks so much.
By what standard? According to https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking for instance, there are 24 countries in the world with freer economy than USA.
Also indicentally many of those countries are on this list: https://www.yourinvestmentpropertymag.com.au/expert-insights/revealed-the-20-happiest-countries-in-the-world-for-2023 – it seems like free economy often correlates with happy society.
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.
So are you claiming that their methodology is wrong or that they falsify their data? Do you have a better source for similar information?
Care to explain why that is?
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
capitalismeconomy 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.)Lol, what utter bullshit.
Pfizer doesn’t have a monopoly on insulin, it’s primarily produced by Eli Lilly (who were the first), Novo Nordisk and Sanofi.
„The government“ also doesn’t „enforce“ patents, companies have found a way to make small changes to drugs to keep them perpetually patented. The recent price drops of insulin in the US are the *result of government intervention *.
Please do get lost with you Alex Jones r/conspiracy drivel, thx.
Crony capitalism is just capitalism. The agorist free market capitalism is just starting the whole thing over under the mistaken belief that it’ll end up different.
Yes yes and communism will never repeat it’s past mistakes because that wasn’t real communism, I know.
I know you’re trying to use sarcasm, but communist countries don’t generally repeat the mistakes of other communist countries. They famously at least try to share knowledge openly with each other.
Hey at least millions of people die in new mistakes! Or is that all “western propaganda товарищ?”
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.
Oh here we go with “That wasn’t real communism!” as if any other communist state on this planet is any different.
Give me an example of a capitalist society. Waiting.
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.
Why do we put so much stock into the handful of failed communist experiments but not the capitalistic societies that have turned autocratic?
Because that doesn’t fit the narrative.
No, because that’s not the topic of discussion. Not here to entertain projection and whataboutism as a defense mechanism of hurt feelings.
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…”
Just IMHO.
They are though. China, Vietnam and Cuba are all pretty drastically different and they are all communist countries.
China is state capitalist, not communist
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.
“You criticize society, yet you partake in it. I am very smart.”
That’s pretty much the opposite of what I said. Bangladeshi children sewing your clothes under horrible conditions while H&M and it’s shareholders make billions isn’t (for the most part) your personal moral failing, but a systemic issue within and due to capitalism.
Very very far from what they just said, but hey, you wanna reference a meme, who am I to stop you
Mmmmm, child labor