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Give me one example of a communist country that didn’t immediately devolve into totalitarianism.
That’s the problem. Patch Communism to remove the dictator/elite class exploit please. I wanna like this game but I can’t support a movement that just reshuffles the elite class. Classless. No hierarchy. Nerf ambitious psychopaths. Nerf people’s tendencies to simp for them.
The problem with communism is that Russia was the first to try it and their culture revolves around corruption so much that it is unable to separate “us vs them” and the idea of personal gain from the ideals of communal wealth, which is the core of what communism is.
Russia then exports their flawed model to countries flipping due to frustrations born from the system capitalistic imperialism. The world has only ever had Russian style communism - either Lenin or Trotsky. No one uses German communism, like what Marx was proposing, ACTUAL communism.
Right. And now most (loud) internet communists simp for the hammer and sickle and act like Stalin did nothing wrong but from my POV there’s no actual difference between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union or CCP. The end result is identical. Oppression.
I honestly don’t think humanity is capable of true communism because somebody somewhere with a high CHA score and a complete sociopath is gonna herd the sheep into yet another bullshit dictatorship. And people can’t help but simp for these people. To me it’s completely crazy and when I bring this up to people IRL they look at me like I’m the crazy one.
This is not a defense for the status quo however.
I don’t see anyone simping for Stalin in this thread and rarely do tbh.
Not only is simping for sociopaths with charisma completely possible under capitalism, it’s pretty much required lol. All the better if you can be sociopath yourself; as long as you get money you’ll have won by every metric that matters in the U.S.A., that’s the sad part.
Simping for charismatic sociopaths is a HUMAN trait not specificly capitalist or whatever. Everyone does it.
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To invoke Bill Burr: why don’t Stalin’s kills count? He’d be sitting up at the top of the scoreboard with Mao if you counted them.
Political murder isn’t inherently better than ethnic murder. Stalin and Hitler both murdered out of malice, the fact that you’re clearly more comfortable with political murder shows a dangerous bias
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Killing “counter-revolutionaries” was just Stalin putting a different label on whatever enemies he wanted killed. It’s no different. Because the USSR was ostensibly a revolutionary and progressive government they just used more palatable phrasing and staged sham trials, but it amounts to the same.
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There is non-state communism. This whole state or national communism thing is the new creation. With which Lenin shit the bed on multiple fronts. Centralizing power, to be wielded by a somewhat benevolent dictator. A thing that generally does not exist. And in the small instances it ever did was short-lived. Counting that they would be good judges of character and would never let control fall into the lap of monsters like Stalin Etc. Lenin may have had good intentions. But he is the Bad Luck Brian of good intentions. And his road to hell was definitely paved with them.
Traditional communism, of the variety Marx discussed was a significantly different beast. That’s why the Soviets, China, and North Korea are all specifically classified as ML Communism. The L being for Lenin. Anarcho communist are anti-totalitarian. They are also anti-government structure in general. Well at least at the extremes. There is a bit of a gradient. But communism isn’t what a lot of us have been educated to think that it is.
All this ML and vanguard theory is designed to buff the corruption / exploitation tendencies. If you start from and accept flawed theory, you get a flawed state.
I agree. My only point was that there are other types of communism than the ones we are propagandized and indoctrinated with. And that not all of them are flawed. Like Lenin’s monstrosity.
Finally an anarchist meme. I’ve had it with all the tankies on Lemmy.
You’d think a decentralized network would have more anarchists
I think that for this to be an anarchist meme, it would point out that the USSR wasn’t communist. If the workers, not the State, don’t own the means of production, it isn’t communism.
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Maybe if Trotsky took over like Lenin intended instead of letting Stalin run things into the ground.
Me and the boys looking for a single communist country that wasn’t a totalitarian hellhole:
Me, looking for a single communist country.
I hate being that person but communism has essentially been exclusively used as a campaign promise by corrupt/evil groups attempting to seize power from the population.
Broadly speaking, people don’t understand communism and assume it just means “you own nothing and share everything. And starve.”
Just like people argue that crony capitalism isn’t capitalism, totalitarian communism isn’t communism. Corruption is the real problem.
The problem isn’t really “corruption”, but systens which allow and even encourage corrupt actions.
That’s why these countries turned into totalitarian hell holes, the system was set up for a small group of people to rule over everyone else.
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It is
Which is diametrically opposed to what communism is supposed to be. They just stole the name.
Communism is self-contradictory, which makes it easy to think anything is diametrically opposed to it. I’ll explain:
Starting with socialism, it’s a system in which the means of production are held in common. To handle the means of production in common, systems have to be set in place to decide who controls what, and who answers to who, and what rules and regulations they need to follow. This system is the state. You might not have called it a state, and it may not have even been a state, but the process I just described is a form of state governance. Socialism is a call for state control of the means of production.
Communism is a stateless, moneyless, and classless society, with the means of production held in common. Meaning, it’s a stateless state with the means of production handled by the state.
This is why it seems diametrically opposed to you: Communism claims to call for both anarchy and socialism, but THOSE two things are diametrically opposed. Stalin wasn’t a communist because he was totalitarian, and anarchist England wasn’t communist because it was the opposite of totalitarian. Despite naming two extremes, I don’t see anywhere in between that communism would fit. Nothing is communist, because nothing can be communist by virtue of what it is
This system is a state.
That’s where your argument breaks down. A socialist system does not requite state ownership to exist. It can simply mean the workers of a company are the shareholders of a company.
Literally that’s all that has change to get us from a capitalist system to a socialist system. Instead of a capitalist investor class controlling the companies, making the decisions and reaping the profit, its the actual workers who make decisions and reap profit.
One of the ways capitalists try to scare people away from socialism is by making seem like it would change every aspect of society and make everything different (which works because people are scared of change) but it would actually be a pretty small change.
It can simply mean the workers of a company are the shareholders of a company.
But this doesn’t just happen right? Consider the game of soccer, there are rules in place that say we have nets, and the nets sit opposite side of the fields, and we have a ball, and we kick the ball, and we don’t use our hands, etc… those are the rules of soccer. Get rid of the rules, we get rid of soccer. The same is true for any system that requires cooperation. Rules are required or it doesn’t exist. So yes, people have to follow rules for socialism to exist, and rules have to be enforced or they aren’t rules. People have to enforce the rules, or the rules don’t exist. You may not call it a state, but the more we go through the process of describing how to achieve socialism, the more we’re simply describing statehood with socialist rules.
One of the ways capitalists try to scare people away from socialism is by making seem like it would change every aspect of society and make everything different (which works because people are scared of change) but it would actually be a pretty small change.
Well, this certainly isn’t what I’m doing. I think we’re already more socialist than capitalist where I live, and it’s already damn near impossible for an individual to start a small business. Private businesses are disappearing and being replaced by cut-and-paste corporate stores given tax breaks by our shady government for political support
That whole first paragraph makes 0 sense to me?
Yes it does happen. Wtf does “soccer” have to do with anything. The only “rule” in socialism is that the workers own the means of production, and as I said before that doesn’t not requite a state. You could make the same argument that a capitalist company is actually a kingdom and it would be just as valid as what you’re saying.
And then the second paragraph, I really don’t think you live anywhere that is actually that socialist and the grievances you’re describing are regulation, not anything to do with socialism.
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Communism would not have a state as a monopoly on violence. It would have a government as controlled by the people.
State: “a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government.” You’re making a painfully semantic argument. We’re talking about identical things, you’re just claiming I’m wrong and choosing different phrasing.
Stalin was a Communist because he sought to achieve Communism.
I agree, my point was that, in theory, it’s easy to argue otherwise and confuse the point. Communism includes anarchy, while Stalin, as a genuine socialist, increased the scope of the state. Increasing the state is anti-communist because Communism involves no state, but it’s pro socialist, which is a communist thing, so it’s also pro communist. I wasn’t trying to argue that Stalin wasn’t a communist, I was demonstrating the inconsistency in the theory itself. I have no interest in the semantic debate about what label fits him best
The USSR wasn’t Communist because it was a State Capitalist economy
“Capitalist” doesn’t mean “participates in the market”. It means the private ownership of the means of production. It means a person or private unit (family) owns and controls business. That’s what it means, by its definition and from all historical context around it. “State capitalist” is an oxymoron, what people mean when they say it is a market economy run by the state, but that’s distinctly not a capitalist thing. If the state is controlling the market, then it’s not privately controlled, and therefor isn’t capitalist.
You have exactly no understanding of Marxism, or what MLs advocate for. I’m not even an ML, nor do I even like Stalin, but actually reading theory can help you to not make these horribly ignorant takes.
Please engage more politely. I have genuinely read heaps on this topic and it’s getting really boring to only get replies telling me I haven’t read shit I’ve read. What a lazy way to argue
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Yeah, communism is a nice ideal, but it’s diametrically opposed to human nature. It can only work in small communities where everyone knows everyone else.
Human nature is an essentialist myth.
There is no single behaviour or set of behaviour that applies to all humans everywhere at once.
There is only the way we are specialised and how the systems we live in shape us think and act.
There is no single behaviour or set of behaviour that applies to all humans everywhere at once.
We smile when we’re happy, we frown when we’re sad. We come out the womb crying before anyone teaches us what that is. We naturally learn how to drink milk, with little prodding to do so. Crawling happens naturally, walking happens naturally. Talking too, although it is learned through observation so I can see your point there, but also, it’s natural to learn through observation
We all show pain when we stub our toes. We all look for water when we’re thirsty. There’s also behaviors that are natural that don’t show up in everyone. I don’t see why they have to be that consistent across the board, right? Some people will naturally show more anger, while others - for no discernible reason - just don’t.
And I’m not denying learned behaviors don’t happen either. We can clearly see how both can happen if we just observe human interactions and their cause and effect honestly.
The idea that human nature is a myth was perpetuated by Marx out of a desire to reform human behavior through the state. He used the assumption that humans aren’t natural agents to justify exerting full control over how people behave. This isn’t my opinion by the way, I’m telling you what Marx said. He also did little work to justify the assumption, with no scientific or philosophical basis beyond his assertion that it’s true
Strongly disagree. There are common trends and themes all throughout human history. This does not mean that every individual human behaves a certain way, it means that large enough groups of humans do.
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Communism is a stateless, moneyless, and classless society, with the means of production held in common. Meaning, it’s a stateless state with the means of production handled by the state.
You know, states are not the only way of organising people or production or anything.
We didn’t have states until very recently.
We’ve had states longer than we’ve had history. The father of history, Herodotus, gave us the history of the states of Greece and Persia. “State” doesn’t mean “a US state”
A modern state is not at all the same form of government as in the fucking ancient Greece, are you aware of that.
Corruption is the real problem and all systems must develop a tolerance of it to some degree.
It seems to me, when looking at the history of communism, that it has a particularly low tolerance for corruption and that things go to shit quick.
It’s not that true communism hasn’t existed, it’s that it simply cannot exist.
It’s like a shitty cake recipe that looks good on TikTok, you can tell me how great the cake looks all day, but I saw you add a cup of salt to the batter
Here I go fixing communism again…
First up, just because it hasn’t worked, there’s no reason it can’t work - or is there? I’m all ears. You missed that bit.
Beyond that, the most common issue is the fact that communism is typically achieved abruptly, with little to no pre-work. If you don’t address the centralisation of wealth (and by extension, political influence), of course power is going to collapse back into authoritarian hellishness.
Transition via social democracy, taxing away the inequality, getting the populace on board with world-class social services, providing more services over time, as you transition from worker representation on boards and equity stakes to full worker ownership and workplace democracy over time.
Taking the benefits of the people fuelling the economy - workers, and handing it to wealthy shareholders that contribute nothing as they consolidate into monopolies, creating market failure in an economy fundamentally built on markets makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There’s a better way - it just takes a bit of work.
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The idea is to minimise the power imbalance to prevent individuals from being able to act on their own interests to the detriment of others, while changing incentive structures to minimise the benefit of doing so.
The government can intervene (and has done so historically) to crack up monopolies. By failing to do so in an economic system where economic power is tantamount to political power, we’re signing the execution order for democracy. Look at the political influence that the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Gates already hold. It spits on the face of democracy - a concept that I happen to value. This is a problem with a simple set of solutions.
The path we’re on only leads to worse lives for all of us - lower wages (they’ll only avoid slavery as long as the government stops them - look at Western companies operations in developing countries), less competition, higher prices, less social mobility, the elimination of the concept of meritocracy, escalating tragedy of the commons… We can and should do better.
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The greatest predictor of corruption, as with most crime, is inequality. Removing massive inequality eliminates the means to fund corruption, while a fairer allocation of resources disincentives it (though I’d also support strong penalties for engaging in it).
Western companies operate overseas because they’re financially incentivised to do so - this is largely due to cheap labour with minimal protections (slaves more frequently than there should be), but also due to factors like proximity to raw materials. The fact that they would move to America in a heartbeat isn’t exactly a selling point - it’s just more evidence of the harm done by capitalism, and an argument for worker enfranchisement. The long, well documented history of the CIA overthrowing governments to install regimes more favourable to US commercial interests doesn’t exactly help this point either.
The free market doesn’t self regulate - it naturally collapses into monopolies, and all the associated suffering, graft, and market failure. The corruption is an example of the failure of these companies to self regulate as they work to bypass existing regulation. Regulators regulate companies chase profit - no matter what… We should empower the regulators to stop the worst tendencies of companies operating under the profit motive. Again, look to western countries operating in the developing world for all the evidence you need of this - nestle is a great, though far from unique case study - abhorrent labour practices, environmental vandalism, political fuckery, and predatory marketing in particular.
This brings me to ask - why would you cheer for our political democracy to be choked out by a lack of economic democracy? Why would you not want democracy in your workplace rather than having the fruits of your labour leeched away by unaccountable, unproductive, uninformed owners?
You are correct, but that is because no one has ever applied communism IRL as it should be. It has always come along with a dictatorship type of leadership sadly.
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Capitalists are going to oppose communism and socialism no matter what anyways because it threatens their wealth. They are doing well under the capitalist system but the ones who have real power and wealth wouldn’t have it under other systems, so they will use whatever words to prevent it, and if that fails, whatever force they can muster.
Whether or not communism can work is a seperate debate, but IMO it’s important to realize that those who benefit the most from the current system will go to great lengths to protect it, resulting in many bad faith arguments that don’t make sense. Trickle down theory was another one of these.
The only way to create a functioning communist state is to enforce it. It is inherently totalitarian in it’s very Inception.
It is also assumes that all involved work for the greater good which is so woefully naive and makes any honest attempt at communism vulnerable to the most malevolent.
Blatantly untrue. The state controls the monetary policy and can restrict capitalism through lack of available currency. No force is needed. Barter opens up communal valuations of labor to set a price for a person’s time based on what they can personally contribute. Want to hire someone to rewire your house? Better have equivalent skills or time to compensate the electrician.
Capitalism has conditioned people to think that violence is the only alternative to it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money
Would you mind explaining how any state could prevent this? Whenever money became worthless, people resorted to using something else as a currency. Want someone to rewire your house? That’s 5 liters of gasoline / 20 cigarettes / whatever.
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It sounds like an interesting idea, but it has a few drawbacks I think. A quick example: If you wanted to move to another city, you may not want to keep every piece of furniture and instead “sell” it. You could just gift them to your neighbors or the next person moving in but you paid for it with vouchers and you don’t want to waste the hours worked after all. How would you get rid of the furniture while still keeping its value? With a currency it’s trivial - just sell it. But you can’t really do this with vouchers, since they can’t be transfered by design. You could perhaps trade it, but what if no one has anything you need?
And that’s ignoring the glaring privacy issues of a centralised, personalised labor voucher system. Sure, it prevents fraud but it also allows the government a lot of insight into your life.
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I don’t know, just because you don’t struggle doesn’t mean you don’t want to keep the value of something you worked for. And the value of the furniture (or any product) would be determined by the voucher cost. Something costing a lot of vouchers will be seen as valuable because it takes a lot of time and effort to acquire it.
And I would say there’s quite a lot of privacy you’re able to achieve, it’s just not the default. I live in a country where cash is still the default, often times you’re unable to pay with card at all. Plus, there are a few ways to pay anonymously online using certain crypto currencies - although this has a ton of drawbacks and is mostly used for illegal purposes.
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That’s money too.
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If you go by the definition of money : “The primary functions which distinguish money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment.” (Wikipedia, but it’s a workable definition).
It’s a medium of exchange, because people can use them to buy things. It’s a unit of account, because it will be used as a metric for economic calculation (ie accounting). It’s a store of value too, because people don’t have to spend it at a particular time. And the “standard of deferred payment” part is also fulfilled, as it quantify the work-time debt society (or simply a company) owe to a worker.
I honestly fail to see what difference you are trying to make.
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Barter opens up communal valuations of labor to set a price for a person’s time based on what they can personally contribute.
Soo… money?
Barter is the model we are given for a non-currency centric society… It is also not how money less societies work. In a general sense the most common purely non-market socialist societies of the past and present (Communism alocates resources and property on a more rigid basis of “need” as artificially determined by an authority ideally (ideal being the operative word) democratic in nature, socialism just holds specific properties or services as common trust and can be split into multiple ideologies based on what should be considered public trust) had more like a running tab where people aren’t really keeping track of how much they are benefiting.
Like if I come over and ask you for some of the wheat you’re growing you’ll probably say yes because we’re neighbours and I helped you build your house and will give you a share of my apple harvests later on. If all of our group keep supporting each other this way and helping each other out we can get everything we need. People do still notice and socially reject shirkers in these systems but it is more like you recognize their stingy behaviour over a longer period. There are still theives who take things they are not welcome to and there does exist a sense of personal property. Trade straight across for roughly equivalent goods still has a place in these societies but in a limited way for people they don’t see very often or people they have cause not to trust to hold up their end.
Barter still frames things in money centric (though technically not capitalist) veiw of labour. That it sounds inconvenient is largely the point. It’s vaguely propagandist to give you nothing to imagine but a society obsessed with personal ownership of all property that is individualistic in nature.
Not to say that the end goal gor socialists is to revert to these systems. Market socialism basically combines capitalist systems into a blended system as most socialists agree that there are advantages to capitalism worth keeping around, just that unchecked it’s a monster that partitions off what should be held in public trust to parties who erode the public good for personal gain that never fully returns to the system.
No. In the example, an electrician is skilled and can provide their skills and experience to your project - but they have a project of their own that they need help with. Unfortunately he wants help converting an old car into an EV, which you don’t have experience in so you become unskilled labor for his task. An hour of skilled labor would be worth several unskilled labor hours, in this example, but that value conversion wouldnbe determined by the local community.
No money, just being helpful until the project is done.
Common currency has existed since civilization began for an excellent reason: what you just wrote. The goal of communism is to make sure people aren’t unduly exploited for their labor by a ruling class.
There are aspects of human society where some ideologies make more sense than others. Adherence to communism or capitalism exclusively is antithetical to a healthy society.
Sincerely, A mostly socialist
And how would this hypothetical communist but not authoritarian state enforce its will? Polite suggestions? Strongly worded letters? Do you honestly think the wealthy and their allies will just throw up their hands and let them have it?
The same way capitalism does: not participating in the system would cause the loss of home and no prospect of food, water, electricity, or any other service that would require payment as prescribed by the system. No overt force needed - the realization that the rest of their life would be a struggle of their own making will be enough, just like it is today.
If there’s no force, there would be nothing stopping “alternative” currencies from emerging (crypto).
Government not always controlled the monetary policy, and it does it only through force. Without it things would quickly revert to its “natural” state, and we would have some sort of Agorist system
You’re determined for forceto be used when there is just no need for it. If people and services use alternative currency then that’s fine, it will be just like Bitcoin and crypto today where a handful of people put their money into it but ultimate adoption will be few and far between. Right now is like a golden age for crypto and where can you spend it? Very specific places - none of which don’t provide shelter or power for living.
Try using only crypto to live and see how that goes for you. Again, no force is needed. Social pressure will solve the outliers when they see how much extra work their own lifestyle is compared to everyone else. If those outliers wish to struggle, go for it. They will be rewarded with the same lifestyle as everyone else, just work way harder for it.
This ignores thousands of years of history pre statehood. Non communist systems have only exist for a tiny fraction of human history, whereas most of our history was spent in systems much closer to communism than anything else.
They just need societal systems in place that would allow for our much larger communities to work properly.
And your comment about working for the greater good is kind of stupid in this regard as well. Communism is not a lawless society where people can do whatever they want without consequence.
Do you think private property is not enforced in a capitalist state?
For a moment, assume a complete stateless world. Anarchy in the genuine sense - literally no state, just people and the product of what they do. Let’s say someone invents a thing and they want to sell it. There’s no state to regulate what he does, so selling it isn’t out of the question by default. Let’s say he buys wood to construct storage facilities, and a store front. That was wood he bought, and he owns the product of it. Again, there’s no state, just things to buy/sell and stuff to do. no state to claim the land he built it on, it’s just his shop, his wood, his materials, his ideas. Those are privately owned by him, because he collected or bought it himself. Is this the result of enforcement, or is this just a guy who wanted to sell something?
Now consider again an anarchist state, at what point does the collective come into play? It’s not his wood, it’s everyone’s wood! According to who, who decided that? This guy didn’t, so it’s his. Okay well let’s say people have agreed that the means of production are collectively owned. Well, what if this guy doesn’t agree? Actually, fuck it, it’s my hypothetical, he doesn’t agree. I sure wouldn’t. I built it, so it’s mine. Okay well now we have a group of people that agree they collective own the things I made. How are they gonna make it theirs? Are they gonna take it by force, thereby enforcing the rule?
Private ownership is not enforced, it’s achieved. Collective ownership is enforced.
Who is he buying wood from? How did they come to own that wood? What is he using to pay for that wood? That “just things to buy/sell and stuff to do” is hand-waving a lot that goes into running the systems that we have in place. It’s a common fallacy to assume capitalist functions are a feature of nature that have and will always exist just because it’s the system you’re living under.
It’s not hand waving, it’s a hypothetical lmao. You can’t just call it a fallacy and leave without engaging with any of the reasoning, that’s just cheating and lazy
You have no reasoning to begin with. I asked basic questions about your little scenario and you couldn’t answer them. Again, where is this guy buying the wood from? How did the person who he bought the wood from come to own that wood in the first place? How were they granted the rights to that wood? Did they just stake a claim by calling firsties? First come first chop? What do they accept as payment for that wood? Some form of currency? What gives that currency legitimacy? You’re hand-waving crucial details in your little capitalist fantasy but scrutinize collective ownership. You’re either completely clueless or you’re intentionally skipping over those details because then you’d have to admit the enforcement involved in getting your little capitalist fantasy to actually work out.
Dude there’s no way you actually expect me to explain all of this just to illustrate that private ownership doesn’t require enforcement. That point has been made, and it’s been made clearly. Just because you’re confused about specific details doesn’t mean I did a poor job of explaining it. But, out of pure stubbornness, I’ll indulge:
where is this guy buying the wood from?
Either he cut it down or someone else did and sold it to him
How were they granted the rights to that wood?
Rights are a matter of state. There is no state. Nobody did.
Did they just stake a claim by calling firsties? First come first chop?
Sure, I guess.
What do they accept as payment for that wood? Some form of currency? What gives that currency legitimacy?
Again, there is no state. Currency is a representation of value legitimized by the state. Without a state, there’s no currency. They would use money, and by money, I actually mean the Marxist definition of it. Money is a commodity, something that holds genuine value.
You’re hand-waving crucial details in your little capitalist fantasy but scrutinize collective ownership.
And this is why your questions are annoying to me. Are you under the impression that this was not a hypothetical? Do you think this was an analogy, or a genuine prescription for how a society should run? You’re taking scrutiny hyper specific details because you want to argue with what I’m saying, yet what I’m trying to tell you have not even made a passing through your train of though.
My point is this, and only this: It is natural for people to take ownership of things. Any claim that something I gathered, bought, built, or was given as a gift is actually just in my possession would necessarily have to be enforced, otherwise it’s just mine.
Okay so this guy went to some random forest and cut trees. Then someone emerges and says “hey, that’s my forest, you’re cutting my trees”, to which the initial guy responds with “I don’t see your name on 'em”. Now what? Who resolves this dispute? The only point you’ve made is that you haven’t thought your favored ideology through. It doesn’t count as enforcement if it’s your favored system because only the bad systems require enforcement in your eyes? A hypothetical doesn’t work when it falls apart at the most basic level.
You would have cops in your communist state. I wouldn’t have a state.
Can you describe how to achieve common ownership without a state?
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Then think for yourself
I haven’t seen a single not authoritarian hellhole that communismd
I haven’t seen a single non degenerate productive member of society that anime pfp’d
For everyone going, show me an example for non authoritarian socialism Autonomous region of north eastern Syria .
If you think capitalism is democratic in any way, or just generally the natural order of things you’ve not been paying attention.
ITT liberals who think they understand communism because they’ve seen a lot of memes about it.
The only way to enforce communism is at gunpoint!
Call me when Tankies have a viable political party in the US, or when one gets elected President. Until then, they’re my anti-capitalist allies. I’m an anarchist. This fight is in the future, if it ever occurs at all.
You should lookup the history of Makhnovshchina to understand how alliances with authoritarians end
Thanks. Interesting reading. But it only got to that point after the revolution. The left in America can’t even organize. Let’s have that revolution first, then remember the history we’ve learned.
The left in America does organize.
The justice democrats are practically defunct. The DSA can’t get elected. Politically, there is no left.
Everything is political, not just representation. I’ll take our organizing wins and not conflate them with election into office, where we have only a handful of reps across the entire nation.
Tankies I’ve met don’t start derailing things in the future. They start now. And they’re in our political groups.
What are they derailing?
Only every discussion and attempt at effective mobilization.
That hasn’t been my experience. They’ve only been friendly. If you treat them as enemies, of course they’ll be hostile.
communism encourages totalitarianism.
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Communism is a bit more nebulous, so I’ll explain it with socialism if that’s okay. I’m also going to do so from the ground up, because it’s pretty clear if you go step by step, so apologies in advance if it comes off as condescending for that reason.
Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production. The means of production refers to whatever creates goods and provides services.
If you think about what falls under the umbrella of goods and services, it’s pretty much everything. Food, water, shelter, health care, all of it should be held in common. You can see totalitarianism emerging already, but I’ll expand a bit further.
What does held in common mean? Well in theory it means that a collective takes ownership and control over something. If a state turns socialist in the purest sense, then that state and the people in it are the collective. The “common” would mean the ruling socialist party, of which everybody is a member.
So how do people get things done? Well, if someone owns a restaurant, they probably hire managers to keep order and give tasks to the workers. If a collective owns a restaurant, someone still has to decide who manages (you find out immediately that you need them if you try without). Since the state is the collective, then the state decides who the managers are. The workers may not like the managers, but instead of having a single owner to deal with, you now have the entire state to deal with.
You might think a union would be the answer to this problem, but unions are both a collective and a service, so if it’s truly socialism it would be of the state as well. The state would have little incentive to act against itself. In socialist countries, it’s common for unions to become agents of the state very quickly, this enacting state level control over how people protest their work conditions
Rinse and repeat with every good and service you can think of, and you have total state control over basically everything.
Couldn’t the workers decide who manages the restaurant? And get rid of them if they don’t like them? I don’t get what you mean by “the state decides who the managers are”.
The ownership of the restaurant is held in common, so if it comes down to a vote everybody in the state would have just as much a right to it as everyone else, so it wouldn’t inherently fall to the workers. If it did, it would be at the behest of the state; that’s true in both cases actually. It just isn’t a natural outcome for the workers to vote for their own manager: if it existed, it would only exist as long as the state allows it or chooses things to work that way.
Also, should workers be choosing their own supervisors? I would argue, regardless of whatever ism you subscribe to, without considering the political climate whatever work is sitting in, I would never see it as a good idea to let workers decide who supervises them. Managers are there to help workers who don’t know what to do, are unwilling to do what they need without supervision, or are just generally unorganized. If someone is in need of a manager, chances are they would also not know the qualities needed for management. In the best case, it’s because there’s some expertise they didn’t know was required for the job that they didn’t know about, in the worst case, I can imagine teenage me voting for the person I liked who didn’t give a fuck
In any case, it wouldn’t take long for some restaurant somewhere to choose a manager that appeases their laziness, stupidity, or whatever out of a desire to escape discipline and/or hard work. People are selfish, it’ll happen. As soon as it does, those in control of the state will decide it’s best to have a process in which they decide who manages their workers on your behalf. You can’t have a full direct democratic vote for every decision, it’s just not feasible, so the alternative is the party that you represent and represents you back and makes decisions on your behalf.
It’s also very easy for those in control of the state to see potential gains in changing the process to give themselves more power, that can and will just happen spontaneously out of a desire to strengthen the party
So your point is people are too selfish and egoistical to have a real saying on how work is organized? Then why are people responsible enough to vote for the right politicians every four or so years? Where is the line? Following your argumentations it seems best if someone in charge makes all the decisions without the majority having any saying. That cannot be what you want.
No, my point is that people are a mixed bag, with varying expertise. The business owner is obviously the most likely person to be able to make an informed decision about his or her business. This is not an anti democratic observation - it’s a pragmatic one. Matters of the state tend to be far more public than private business dealings, so as adults of voting age it’s our responsibility to inform ourselves as best we can, and no, it isn’t perfect, but it’s what we got and it seems to be working okay so far.
Following your argumentations it seems best if someone in charge makes all the decisions without the majority having any saying. That cannot be what you want.
If you work for a business owned by the state, what saying power do you have? If your manager is elected by your peers, or people in general, who do you talk to when issues come up? If you work for a private business owner, you’re far more likely to have a direct line of contact to someone who we can assume cares about their own business, and therefor is more likely to care about issues in the workplace. What I’m advocating is in FAVOR of having a say
As far as having a final say is concerned, this is so obviously true and non-controversial. In fact, this is the basis of all legal rights: The assumption of innocence until proven guilty by a court of law. A judge should be the one in charge making the final decision without the majority having a say. That’s the difference between our legal system and the times of the witch trials. You can’t have democracy everywhere, you can’t leave everything to a vote. Someone has to make the call sometimes, and it’s not an inherent moral wrong to do so.
Your desire to have a ruling party and then “all the others” is telling. Managers should absolutely be elected by the workers. Not all workers are lazy - in fact 20% of the employees create 80% of the issues. The other majority of folks want to work and want to be a part of a team. It’s how democracy works too - one of the people is voted on by all the others to be in charge for a short time. This arrangement doesn’t seem to have resulted in any democracy being less productive than a more authoritative state. In fact, looking at the least economically productive states, all of them are dictatorships where the people DON’T vote for a leader. They are assigned one and the people have to hope they aren’t lazy, corrupt, or self serving. The people don’t get a voice - just like your ideal work environment.
It’s wild that the parallel of democracy was brought up too and you also then say democracy ain’t feasible. It’s like admitting to being a fascist without saying the words - the belief that people can’t be trusted is there and all that needs to be done to capitalize on that belief is an antagonist culture or people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_centralism
the practice you are claiming as essential to communism is just the result of authoritarians and self-proclaimed vanguardists placing party above people in a self-perpetuating class-based heirarchy antithetical to communism (see: Marxist/leninism under Stalin)
Your desire to have a ruling party and then “all the others” is telling.
At no point did I say I desired this. If Socialism succeeds, then the ruling party will be socialist. This is a description, not a prescription. What do you mean by “all the others”? I never said that, and I’d like to know what you think I was getting at.
Managers should absolutely be elected by the workers.
Maybe? Like I said, I’m not sure this is true. I also said it doesn’t matter if you’re a capitalist or a socialist or somewhere in between, this part of the argument is very limited in scope, and I’m pretty open to talking about it if you engage in good faith.
Not all workers are lazy - in fact 20% of the employees create 80% of the issues.
I didn’t say all employees are lazy, in fact this only supports my point if 20% of employees are lazy because there’s a multitude of other reasons, and this 20% would not contribute positively to electing the right person. I’ll elaborate on an example I gave that you ignored: A lot of managers have a lot of paperwork. Managers are often negotiating contracts. Much of these operations are handled without an employee’s knowledge. What the employee sees is how the manager treats them. This is important, yes, which is why it’s great when the employee has an avenue to take issue with their employer about how managers treat them. But, they have no scope of what the rest of the job is outside of their immediate personal interactions, so you can’t expect them to elect the right manager if their scope is so limited on what the job actually is.
The people don’t get a voice - just like your ideal work environment.
I’m not advocating for state level dictatorship. I’m against a leader or leading party having ruling authority over my work environment, which is why I’m both against socialism and dictatorship.
It’s wild that the parallel of democracy was brought up too and you also then say democracy ain’t feasible.
I literally didn’t bring up democracy, you did.
It’s like admitting to being a fascist without saying the words
Fascism is the fusion of corporation and state to achieve totalitarian control of a nation. Everything I said would suggest that I would prefer a reduction of the state, and, even though I didn’t mention anything about corporations, you could infer that I don’t like them either given that I don’t like collective control. I am pro private, which is not the same thing as pro corporatism and it certainly isn’t the same thing as pro fascist
the belief that people can’t be trusted is there and all that needs to be done to capitalize on that belief is an antagonist culture or people
This is actually a common feature of socialism. Marx wanted to unit the people against the bourgeoisie. Mao also had the bourgeoisie, but also the imperialists and nationalists.
I could say the same to you as well. It seems like you believe a private business owner can’t be trusted to make informed decisions about who he should be managing aspects of his business. Why? Where does this inherent distrust come from? Mine isn’t distrust, I happen to believe the business owner is most capable of making those choices in an informed way - generally speaking. It makes no sense to levy that onto the workers in favor of the business owner, I think the onus is on you to show me why. By suggesting a private business owner shouldn’t be making that choice, you’re the only one assuming that people are anything but a mixed bag
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I don’t even know what part of my comment you think you’re refuting
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Do you think countries that currently run services like trains or healthcare or utilities in the ownership of collective trend towards totalitarianism?
Because while I don’t have any imperial data, it seems to me that corruption and totalitarianism is much more common in capitalist ventures where a small group of people with questionable ethics ha e full control over it and almost always abuse the position for their own benefit.
Because while I don’t have any imperial data, it seems to me that corruption and totalitarianism is much more common in capitalist ventures where a small group of people with questionable ethics ha e full control over it and almost always abuse the position for their own benefit.
I hadn’t read this point when I replied before. This doesn’t sound right to me, could you give me some examples of capitalist ventures that you’re talking about?
I think everything is corruptible, so I think it’s best for the people to be ready to start their own private businesses to open up the market. Don’t like Pet Smart ethics? Well I live in a corporate society in which private business owners tried opening up more ethical pet stores, but pet stores aren’t wildly profitable. It’s a business of passion. They went out of business because only massive corporations can afford business and property taxes.
Pretty much any major company has had a corruption scandal at some point. But to give you some examples. Goldmine sachs, Wells forgot, fifa, Siemens, amazon, Microsoft etc. Etc.
Each of those are publicly traded corporations. Meaning they’re not privately owned. I know it’s confusing, because people call them capitalist all the time, but they’re wrong. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production, and those businesses are not privately owned. Capitalism cannot take responsibility for their corruption any more than socialism. Corporatism is the problem there
Lmao wtf, that’s some Olympic level mental gymnastics you’re doing here.
I’ve heard A LOT of BS defenses for capitalism over the years but “publicly traded companies are not capitalist” really taked the cake.
At risk of taking the bait: those companies are still privately owned by their shareholders, just that ownership is traded freely among the capitalist class.
Like just think for a second. Most property is traded publicly on the market, but does that mean you don’t privately own your own home? Of course not, it’s still your private property regardless if everyone had the same chance to buy it.
Yes they do, though just answering the question at face value would give you an incorrect impression of the merit of publicly held utilities. Having the government run health care gives the government control over health care. As a Canadian, I have been both grateful for the care I’ve been given and frustrated by the control they have over how I take care of myself.
But as a member if the collective you have power to change that. Whereas in a orivste system you have no say over it and the people running it have more incentive to screw you over.
Canada may not have a perfect healthcsre system but its miles better than the US system.
