Haha, funny way to say “working in the lead mines”, comrade.
Comrade, we all know lead poisoning and the need for safety gear are capitalist propaganda! Now, get back in the mines! Production must increase 50% this year, and your state-appointed union representative says it can!
Capital successfully fought to put lead into American’s blood and lungs for a century after it was known to be poison. To this day they’re still fighting to keep it there.
I think the hexbears probably fucked OP irl or something. Guy is going full mental illness mode.
To be fair, hexbears are also mentally ill
Textbook whataboutism
What textbook?
You know, it took until 2003 for Russia to remove leaded gasoline from stations. The Soviets never did it LMFAO
but nice try
EDIT: based on another commenter, OP’s claim isn’t even factual.
And it took the US until 1996 (after fall of USSR)? Not to mention that it was capitalism (General Motors) that spread the hoax about leaded gasoline being safe, under the guise of scientific research in 1921.
This is not the gotcha you think it is.
If it was all an evil capitalist conspiracy, why did the communists go along with it? Hmm?
It was not uncovered until much later that this scientific research was in fact a hoax to promote General Motors’ business.
This is very easily verified with a web search. I would be happy to guide you to specific sources and readings as well.
So, the Soviets couldn’t do their own research. Got it
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Did chatgpt not include this or…?
https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/sites.gatech.edu/dist/a/1473/files/2020/09/sovenv.pdf
Nevertheless, the Soviet Union took effective action to protect the population from lead exposure; it banned lead-based (white lead) paint and it banned the sale of leaded gasoline in some cities and regions. While leaded gasoline was introduced in the 1920s in the United States, it was not until the 1940s that leaded gasoline was introduced in the Soviet Union (5). In the 1950s, the Soviet Un- ion became the first country to restrict the sale of leaded gaso- line; in 1956, its sale was banned in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Baku, Odessa, and tourist areas in the Caucasus and Crimea, as well as in at least one of the “closed cities” of the nuclear weap- ons complex (6, 7). The motivation for the bans on leaded gaso- line is not entirely clear, but factors may have included Soviet research on the effects of low-level lead exposure (8), or sup- port from Stalin himself (5). In any event, the bans on leaded gasoline in some areas prevented what could have been signifi- cant population lead exposure. In the United States and other OECD countries, leaded gasoline has been identified as one of the largest sources of lead exposure (9, 10). Lead-based paint is another potentially significant source of population lead exposure.
Bonus: a great example of capital at work,
Along with a number of other coun- tries, in the 1920s the Soviet Union adopted the White Lead Convention, banning the manufacture and sale of lead-based (white lead) paint (11). In the United States, however, the National Paint, Oil and Varnish Association successfully opposed the ban, and lead-based paint was not banned in the United States until 1971 (12).
Two generations of Americans.
You say that like lead paint isn’t in American buildings still.
Great point, and regulation is still being fought by the real estate industry.
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And your point is?
Please do share an example of industrialization that somehow doesn’t include unforseen negative health effects.
Go on now, we’ll wait.
My point is that capital has successfully fought to put lead into American’s blood and lungs for over 100 years.
So in other words you are unwilling to answer the question.
Got it.
This is precisely why I say that you aren’t intellectually serious people.
You have one question in your previous comment on the very first line, and it was answered.
Your statement on the 2nd line doesn’t really make sense, as I don’t think anyone blames people for unforseen negative health effects.
What people are upset about are the forseen, proven, endemic negative health effects being purposefully spread for over a century.
What a crock of shit!
Why would capital willingly poison its workforce as a deliberate policy? That makes zero sense.
I can see capital writing it off as a necessary side-cost of doing business, but I can’t see it as a deliberate policy.
Again, it makes no sense. Capital wants a relatively healthy workforce, not one that’s falling apart due to lead-caused neurological decrepitude.
Name a better duo then tankies and whatsboutism
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I like how tankies conveniently forget that Marxism is just as authoritarian, just as evil, just as violent, and just as failed (in both theory and practice) as fascism. Actually, Marxism has a greater death toll than fascism. It is the ideology of scum. Tankies and neo nazis are the same level of insufferable trash.
Whataboutism is when a leftist proves a liberal wrong
You’re right, America did bad thing, clearly this completely overrides the wrongs of other countries
The first commenter is talking a hypothetical scenario of socialism being bad, so the second commenter (the one you responded to) responded with actual example of that same hypothetical scenario happening, but except by a capitalist power (the US). I don’t think your response makes sense at all here.
No, his response is calling out the whataboutism fallacy. The US doing something bad does not in any way, shape, or form make socialism any less shitty. It’s poking fun at the delusional people who still think it’s a good ideology despite the overwhelming evidence.
Calling something “Whataboutism” infers a belief in American exceptionalism. You should question that belief.
No, you’re just an idiot. Whataboutism is simply a fallacy. It doesn’t infer anything outside of inconsistent logic. If you feel threatened by it then it just shows that you’re disingenuous.
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Claiming Whataboutism is a logical fallacy first used by English colonizers, dont use it
Calling out whataboutism is perfectly acceptable when it is being used regardless of its origins.
It is in no way a logical fallacy and in fact the use of whataboutism is itself a logical fallacy.
The flaw in gorilladrum’s argument is that the hypothetical example demonstrates the flaws in that specific situation and does not address problems in socialism as a whole yet they suggest it dismisses the ideology completely.
This comment is do dumb it doesn’t even deserve a proper reply.
He was joking, save your whataboutism for “serious” arguments
They are not joking. You can see them continuing here: https://lemm.ee/comment/3563759
And this isn’t whataboutism (not that it matters). The first commenter ridiculed socialism by using a hypothetical scenario. The second commenter showed with evidence this hypothetical scenario is actually real under capitalism.
When a liberal loses an argument they yell “whataboutism” it’s their little white flag
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Marxism is so easy to destroy, but the reality is that modern day Marxism literally cannot exist without fallacies and propaganda. The ideology is so shallow that it can’t stand on its own merits.
Are you rich? Because if not, you are not only awful but an idiot as well.
Where do you see the propaganda coming from? What entity do you imagine is funding this propaganda?
Tinfoil is absolutely enough protection against radiation, now go out there and stabilize the reactor!
It’s not even that much radiation, you’re just malingering
The Glorious Leader has declared that we have too much lead. You’re now reassigned to be in front of the firing squad.
The gold standard are urainum mines. Lead are for those with good behavior.
Tbh I’d rather work in a uranium mine, it’s less toxic than lead in the quantities you’d be exposed to
If you are not dead by end of month from radiation, you will be executed for failing to mine the required quantity of uranium.
Remind me, what did they do to indigenous people when they were trying to get uranium for the Manhattan project?
This nonsense is just western projection.
What is it with these commie types that they believe communism will leave everyone to become hippies who can do whatever they want and all required resources just magically arrive when they need.
It really is watching children believe in Santa Claus
If we didn’t all work to produce excess wealth for the super wealthy, we’d have 20 hour workweeks. People can do a lot with that extra time.
Yeah I don’t think pure communism is the answer, but neither is pure capitalism.
Let’s find a compromise between “equality” and “fuck you, all for me”.
That’s just a false compromise argument promoting a middle ground that doesn’t exist
Capitalism for when there is scarcity (building hi-tech for example) state controlled “socialism” for things needed by everyone (schools, hospitals, roads, internet) seems like a smart start.
Food could go under capitalism if heavy regulated, govt can sponsor art etc. Vote for what suits you.
Yeah and no more lobbying or mega rich(like 10M€ max until at least everyone can eat, read and go to the hospital for free).
The thing is, when someone starts getting very wealthy, they inevitably errode the checks and balances put in place to curtail their power and to protect the poor. For example, electricity used to be nationalised in my country until a few years ago. The state company in charge of it would seek to stay near the floating line, not to make profits, and power was very affordable. Before the pandemic, it got privatised and prices went through the roof, we’re talking 1000% increases in some cases, because now they had to make money for the shareholders.
This could only work if the people were very conscious and politically educated, so that they could prevent these things from happening. But just one bad generation can see those hard earned protections and rights erroded.
Historically socialists have been better at utilizing scarce resources. Look at the 50 percent economic growth per decade achieved by soviet centralized economic planning before calculators and machine learning were a thing.
You mean its impossible to tax people? Because it is. You just need better politicians. “There is no middle ground” is no argument, because there is. You just have your fingers in your ears shouting “LALALALALAA I CANNOT HEAR YOU”.
Communism is a laughingly naive argument. There are no communist success stories. There are loads of torture horror porn stories though, if you’re willing to read history. Maybe watch a good movie! Get “The chekist (1992)” somewhere. Then sit in a closet in fetal position for about a week or two (I never managed to finish it, its horrible, but a great movie nontheless) and when you come out maybe, just maybe you can understand a little bit about what communism really entails
They I have good or bad news for you, depending on your stance. We don’t. You may, depending on the company which you work for, but generally speaking most people don’t.
Yes, yes, YES. Capitalism is evil, pitchfork and torches! Reality check: Capitalism is also the very big reason why you have a computer on your desk or in your hands in the shape of a phone to write about the evils of capitalism. Capitalism is at its core about the freedoms to share and acquire resources in the most efficient way possible. Does it have big BIG problems with runaway effects where a single person can suddenly pheewwww shoot into the sky and start resource hogging? Absolutely. Should that be legally limited and curbed? Absolutely! Is that currently done well? Absofuckinglutely not!
But none of that means that “communism will save us”. Dear god, please please don’t be THAT naive, don’t believe in santa claus.
If you want to spend your free time in a commune to help hippies or whatever it is that you want to do, I applaud you. Seriously, well done. But you WILL have to work for a home. You WILL have to work for food, and that computer you have in your hand to curse the evils of capitalism. And you have to work so that when we all do that, that resources get moved over the world so that the farmer gets his equipment that he needs to farm the grains that he sends to a supermarket that gets bought by a baker which you then buy in the shape of a bread loaf… We all work together.
Again, is there a shit tonne of abuse going on? Of course. Nobody denies that. Is that abuse being curbed? Nope. Should we hang the ultra rich that have been abusing this system? Nah, lets not hang people. I’m not for violence. But should we tax them 100% of their income until their posessions are within a reasonable range? Absolutely.
But communism is not the answer, please learn some history about the “successes” (meaning ALL failures, no exceptions) of comnunism. Read about the famines, the suppression, the torture, the corruption and the crap that comes with that to make it work. I like my freedom. I don’t need piles of cash and people generally should not be allowed to have piles. You do that with laws and taxing and enforcing. Lets focus on that instead.
And then surely people will start doing logistics for your fantasy farm in their free time right?
I mean, if they want to, sure. Point is society wouldn’t be reliant on that since everything necessary for society to function would be taken care of during the said 20 hour workweek. I don’t care if somebody wants to set up a tomato farm or a donkey ranch or whatever on the side, as long as they don’t exploit or mistreat anyone.
Logistics would be the job dedicated to moving goods and services around to the place they need to be in. It’s not something that would appeal to most but it is a critical job in any modern society.
Set it up with a nice graphical interface, label it “Logistics Simulator 2024” and you’ll have people fighting each other for the privilege
Throw some drone trucks in there and baby, you got a stew going.
Until you spend thirty five minutes explaining to the receptionist for the intermittent carrier why rerouting through Chicago makes no sense when carrying freight from NYC to Hoboken NJ.
You act like there wouldn’t be multiple plans submitted with obsessive communities arguing about best practices and min/maxing efficiencies before accepting routes.
It’s also 24/7 so there’d be people working weird hours. Capital gets that work done even in communist countries (capital or direct coercion).
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Why would you need to hire someone? If it’s a farm meant to provide food for people then it’s commonly owned and the people who work there are state employees, the purpose of the farm being to make food, not profits.
If it’s something you do because you want to and out of passion, then why would you hire anyone? Sure, you might want some help, but then you just get people who are passionate about it as well, and you share the produce. Like a community garden.
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Are you dense? I said everyone would have a regular job like they do now for 20 hours a week, except with more control over the workplace. The farm mentioned is something you would do in your free time because you want to.
What you describe is controlled capitalism. People can decide themselves what they want to do and try to get things done in the most efficient way directly without government interference.
The problem current capitalism faces is that there is too little control, too much allowance for monopolies, that sort of shit. Tax the crap out of the rich, limit what you can do “if you create polluting materials, you have to recycle them yourself”, “you cant corner more than 10% of a market”, etc, but allow people to freely do what they want to do. That would be capitalism, actually.
everything necessary for society to function would be taken care of during the said 20 hour workweek
Yeah that is not how society works, that is not how anything works at all. You don’t work 40 hours a week just to make somebody rich even richer. If they could pay you only for 20 hours, they would. You work 40 hours because you CAN have a job which is because they need somebody to do that work. If they don’t need you, they won’t pay you for nothing dummie. If you work on something not required, congrats, you have a dumb boss that wastes resources and you lucked out. Most people just have normal jobs that NEED to be done. Just saying “lets do communism and we only work 20 hours a week” is beyond naive. Reality is “Lets do communism and half of us will starve to death!”
I would suggest you look into socialism more because it seems to me you are mistaken in some aspects.
Capitalism is the economic system in which individuals can own the means of production themselves, so basically an entrepreneur owns a company and everyone working there are employees with no or very little ownership over the business.
Socialism is the economic system where the workers themselves own those same means of production. What you think of as socialism is most likely the Marxist-Leninist version implemented in the USSR.
Their thought process went like this: the people all own every business, but if everyone was the boss, nothing would get done. So they considered that since people, at least on paper, vote for their leader and the state supposedly represents the people, then if the state owned all businesses it would basically be the same as if everyone owned those businesses. The issue here is that the politicians and bureaucrats who make decisions regarding those businesses, being human themselves, will tend to skew them towards their own interests. Personally, I still think it is better this way than having billionaire leeches that drain the wealth from multiple countries, but that’s besides the point.
This isn’t the only socialist system imaginable, though. It could be as simple as the workers that are employed somewhere get a share of the company for as long as they work there instead of wages. That way, you get paid a portion of the profit, and as a shareholder, can vote on decisions about the business. It’s important though that only people who work there get those shares, no outside investors or sketchy things like that to take away the power from the people. There’s no business owner in this since everyone basically owns their workplace and bosses are democratically elected. This is market socialism, you’d still have market forces and all that entails, and I think it would be the easiest change to make if we wanted to give up on capitalism.
Then there’s syndicalism, in which unions and syndicates own their sector or industry and manage them themselves. Every worker joins the union when they get hired, and they vote for stuff like leadership, rule changes, charters and the like. These syndicates then coordinate with eachother to ensure everything is working as intended and produced at the rates they are needed at.
As for the 20 hour workweek… it’s very reasonable if you look into it. Each one of us not only has to work hard enough to earn for ourselves, we also have to earn for those who are unfortunate and cannot work through taxes, which is a good thing, but we also have to work hard enough to earn for the leeches doing nothing, like the billionaires on top. Every employee has to get paid less than ehat they’re worth, since if the employer would give them every bit of money they produce, they wouldn’t be profitable. And that’s not even getting into people working jobs that don’t help society at all, such as landlords, insurance agents, marketing people, etc. If everyone worked in fields necessary for society to function, we would all work 20 hours a week.
It’s pretty clear that basic economy lessons have failed you.
No, you would be working 12 hours per day every day in uranium mines.
Ah yes, because everything you do is to meet societal needs and not to make more money for the 1%. That’s why 34% of wealth in Canada goes to the top 1%.
The Christ was a literal bearded, sandle wearing, hippie that told y’all to go live in communes and protect each other and The Earth, but I guess your omnipotent, omniscient God doesn’t know what he’s taking about.
do whatever they want and all required resources just magically arrive when they need.
“Whatever they want” is creating and distributing those resources, but I suppose labour is magic to you.
It seems like they believe they can be a gardener vs a farmer. That’s the only bit that I see that isn’t realistic.
Enough farmers, here’s your pickaxe. You’re going to farm coal.
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Wasn‘t Marx idea that communism can only exist once industry has been automated to such a degree that an individuals contribution is not mandatory anymore?
We might reach that point of technological advancement. within the next 50 years with the raise of AI. What we make of it is a completely different matter…
Right? Somebody never read Animal Farm.
Sure, the current system is fucked, but it’s tied and proven that Marxism doesn’t work. We need a middle ground.
When you own the means of production it’s literally yours. I don’t understand the issue.
Big difference between communism and socialism.
That’s correct, but I’m not sure what you understand those terms to mean, because neither really supports taking all ownership away from people. I’m just gonna leave this blorb here, because I feel like this is where it fits best.
Communism in the style of Marx and Engels means that the workers own the means of production. They would have been completely in favor of a person owning their own farm (or jointly owning it if multiple people worked it). They didn’t really envision much of a state to interfere, much less own property.
That the Soviet Union (and later the PRC, fuck them btw) claimed to be building the worker’s paradise under communism was mostly propaganda after Lenin died. There hasn’t been any state that has implemented actual communism as established by theory.
Socialism (as I understand it, but I’m not well-read on it) means the state has social support networks, but largely works under capitalist rules, with bans of exploitative practices. There are some countries trying to implement a light version of this across Europe, to varying success (mostly failing where capitalism is left unchecked).
The issue is that the US started propagandizing like mad during the cold war, and “communism” was just catchier to say than “supportive of a country that is really just a state-owned monopoly”. Soon everything that was critical of capitalism also became “communism”, which eventually turned into a label for everything McCarthy labelled “un-american”. This is also the time they started equating the terms communism and socialism. A significant portion of the US population hasn’t moved past that yet, because it fits well into the propaganda of the US being the best country in the world, the American Dream, all that bs. The boogeyman of “the state will take away the stuff you own” turned out pretty effective in a very materialistic society. Although I’m very glad to see more and more USAians get properly educated on the matter and standing up for their rights rather than letting themselves be exploited.
Your definition of socialism is more akin to a definition of social democracy, which is… maybe a form of socialism, depending on who you ask – it is historically contentious and generally accepted that social democrats aren’t socialists.
Socialism can have all of the things that you described, but it is decidedly anti-capitalist. It reorients how workers relate to the means of production. Under capitalism, the means of production are owned by the bourgeois class, while under socialism, they are collectively owned by the workers.
Socialism means the state has social support networks, but largely works under capitalist rules
What you’re describing is “social democracy” — capitalism with safety nets, where production is still controlled by owners rather than workers. “Socialism” explicitly implies worker control of production. “Nordic socialism” could more accurately be called “Nordic social democracy.”
“Communism” refers to a classless, stateless society where everyone has what they need, no one is exploited or coerced, and there are no wars. It’s an aspirational vision for the future, not something you can do right after a revolution when capitalism still rules the world.
Holy shit, this is exactly how the whole big picture of comunism is.
Not even self proclaimed communist understeand this and seems that they think communism is the same thing America propagandises against, so they end up being apologists for tyranical regimes that are the contrary of what comunism and even socialism should be, and end up making an ass of themselves and fitting more with the tankie description. And yes fuck the CPSU/КПСС and the CCP.
You are ultra mega based.
It’s not really a very impressive feat to know literally the most basic fact about communism.
Yes it is
Fuck the PRC because… They have state-owned enterprise instead of actual communism? Interesting take.
That’s meaningless if they aren’t democratic
Ah yes, because American democracy is going so well.
Who’s interests are the Republicans representing? Who’s interests have the Democrats protected after being in power for 3 years?
Democracy is meaningless if it doesn’t actually act to benefit the people. After all, the goal of government is to improve the lives of the people over which it governs. All of these experiments into different methods of governance should be evaluated based on how much the quality of lives of the population have improved and how happy the population is with their government.
Yes yes we know America is bad too, now do you have an actual point to make?
You can find a bad example for any form of government. By any reasonable metric of success, the US government is performing poorly compared to non-democratic countries… Even in terms of freedom of speech, given the prevalence of government and intelligence-funded “independent think tanks” that influence policy in Washington.
At least most people in Russia and China can distinguish between the truth and the party line.
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They literally have above 90 percent approval according to international studies from people as conservative as fucking Harvard University.
You’re wrong about their institutions but regardless of what you think of their institutions they have a popular mandate, which is how democracies define themselves as legitimate.
The issue is probably “HahA ComMUnIsM BaD!1!”
*we
*ours
Dude walked right into that one, didn’t they?
we*
Communism is when no toothbrush
You individually are allowed to own the means of your production if you don’t exploit other people. Everyone who works at the farm owns the farm.
The issue of course is that when we reach peak communism we’ll drop possessive language entirely like in The Dispossessed.
I’ll work and teach on the farm we share.
But you can’t own anything in socialism and communism. YOU are owned instead.
It doesn’t sound like you understand these terms.
Under communism, the state owns the resources. People are not the state.
That’s false. There’s no state in communism. See Karl Marx or any Communist writer on this.
Karl Marc is like Marx, but without that dictatorship of the proletariat cope.
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There’s no utopian vision advocated for by Communist philosophers. They talk exactly about how this would come through. So yes, they speak about it as an achievable and feasible thing.
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The idea is that these socioeconomic orders are global. Capitalism today is global. Even if a country today tries to do not-capitalism, it still must engage in the capitalist sphere, doing trade with them, using money system, debt, and producing purely for the purpose of selling. These are aspects of capitalism we stuck with until the global order isn’t capitalism.
So communism would not come about unless it is global. In which case the question of “other countries” would not apply. You can assume that for whatever reason, a breakaway bunch decide to revert back to capitalism, but that would not go well. Why? Why would anyone whose needs are fully met and their entire time is only spent doing things for their own interests and community decide “I actually wish I had to give most my time to a capitalist in exchange for money that allows me to buy my needs”? For one, money wouldn’t exist in communism, so that part would not even appeal you. Capitalism only has the upper hand because it is already the global system. Once it is overthrown, it is the reverse.
Obviously a society will put guards to deal with lunatics wanting to destroy society for ideological reasons (trying to restore capitalism). It would be in their interest to do so.
I hope I answered your question. Unless your question was “how do we prevent resistance during the revolution / transition”?
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Bob: “Guys… if we could get everyone in the whole world working together to efficiently organize labor and the allocation of resources, there would be no more poverty”
Alice: “Wow Bob, that sounds amazing! How do we make that happen?”
Bob: “Uhh… how many bullets do we have?”
There’s no utopian vision advocated for by Communist philosophers. They talk exactly about how this would come through. So yes, they speak about it as an achievable and feasible thing.
And yet it’s been 200 years since the ‘Imminent’ downfall of capitalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_and_claims_for_the_Second_Coming
Same energy
What if i told you that marxist theory is not some isolated idea from a random guy but the conclusion of a scientific analysis of economic history through the lens of dialectical materialism, and built on top of the works of many other people?
An easy way too look at it is that marxism is for economics what darwinism is for biology.
The best read on this is “Dialectical and Historical materialism” by Stalin.
As marx put it, the only way capitalism would survive is by keeping an infinite growth. Tech is a prime example of that phenomena, where new needs are being created out of thin air: subscriptions, software, etc… Cars, phones have begun to be necessary. That’s how capitalism survives still today: growing more and more by creating new needs for the individual. Except this growth is at the expense of finite ressources, and this is where we’re gonna hit a wall.
Maybe this explains we haven’t seen a capitalist collapse yet. But with today’s ecological concerns, it seems closer than ever
This is a pleasant fiction.
You’ve gotta try reading beyond 6th grade level fiction before judging books on socio-economics.
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You are maybe confusing communism for socialism. Communism is stateless by definition. Socialism is the phase of development before communism is achieved in which the people indirectly own the means of production through the state.
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Myour mistakeYou would be sent to the Gulags in the CCCP for talking like that
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Our* goodness
You’re mistaken, the state is a collection of proletariat meaning you are a part of the state. You may not be the whole state but it is your land as it is everyone elses
Atleast as far as I understand it
Thank you for the correction sharkfucker420
Always happy to help 👍
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I’ve heard same said about liberal democracy too. “State is made up of us voting citizens” etc etc. Feels as hollow
The difference is that liberal democracy is underpinned on the idea that being able to elect a bourgeoise representative is all you need to be fully involved, whereas a socialist system must recognize that collective ownership of a state by the people requires the people have power over everything that happens in that state, law, economics, religion, war, everything. Socialist states exist with this as an ideal and only walk back from this goal with good cause, as opposed to starting with nothing, adding the opportunity to choose bourgeoise representation out of a small pool every once in a while, and calling it good.
e: added text in italics for clarity
Making laws about what people think is called tyranny, not socialism.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at, can you elaborate? I’m not advocating making laws about what people are allowed to think, but I’m not sure that’s what you mean
socialist system must recognize that collective ownership of a state requires power over everything that happens in that state, law, economics, religion, war, everything.
That’s making laws about what people think. That is not socialism but tyranny.
The difference is that liberal democracy actually respects individuality
As long as you are a happy conformist wage slave sure.
But where can we install another electoral college to guarantee govt control over masses wants
The US > literal any socialist state, and it’s not even close. The US is so far above any socialist state past and present that it’s comical when brain damaged Marxists try to compare the two and think it’s a gotcha for them. No, despite all its flaws, the US is objectively a great country, and that’s largely because it’s a liberal democracy. What’s funny is that it’s not even the best liberal democracy, there are others that are better. But even a mediocre liberal democracy is better than anything Marxist. Hell, even a bad liberal democracies are better than anything Marxist. I’d rather live in modern day Botswana or Peru any day of the week over modern day Cuba or any time during the Soviet Union.
This is really well worded, thanks for sharing!
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If everyone owns something no one does
How much do you and the average person actually own under capitalism
Just because it sounds cool, it doesnt make it real yk. 😅
Did you just watch a Brad Bird movie
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Are these people even Leftist? Christ.
I too want a post-scarcity luxury space communism utopia. Unfortunately most iterations of communism feel more like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic than actually plugging the hole in the fuselage.
It’s just human nature in my eyes. Power attracts many people and the less positions of power to fill, the fiercer the competition and the more ruthless the ultimate victor. Communism focusses too much power in too few positions, so ultimately, corrupt people are almost guaranteed to win. Democracy is spreading out that power more. It is still not perfect, corrupt people are still regularly found at the top, but they wield less power individually and they have to do it more in the open.
Any socialist society needs to be democratic first, socialist second. Many more democracies have gotten closer to socialism than socialist societies have gotten close to democracy.
Cuba has an extensive democratic process. Cubans just democratically drafted the country’s newest family code, hammering out the details in over 80,000 citizen councils around the country.
Yeah, as far as socialist countries go, Cuba is more democratic than others.
I’m just going to leave this here for anyone interested: who runs the CPC?
The CPC is a highly selective group that picks its own members and runs the country. That doesn’t sound like democracy.
Also, new alternative parties don’t exist. Are they allowed?
From Wikipedia:
While only the CCP holds effective power at the national level, there are officially eight minor parties that exist alongside the CCP. Founded before the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China, these parties must accept the “leading role” of the CCP as a condition of their continued existence.
The CPC represents the people, the other parties represent special interests. The people lead and make concessions to special interests. This is democracy. The alternative is one of the special interests leads and makes concessions to the people and other special interests.
Which societies are those? Because all the world’s most democratic countries tend to be the most capitalist.
Idk in my world Denmark and Slovenia aren’t as capitalist as the US while being significantly more democratic.
They are MORE capitalist than US.
Nobody cares about your delusional world. In reality the correlation is as strong as it gets. Denmark is both more capitalistic and more democratic than the US, Slovenia is not.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/256965/worldwide-index-of-economic-freedom/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
This might be true in some sense of talking about this topic but putting economic freedom as the marker for capitalist/socialist tendencyes of a country is a strange choice. No normal person will go yeah these two social democracies are actually more capitalist, than the 5 companies that make up the US government.
Economic freedom is literally what defines socialism and capitalism. Pure socialism is when you have a fully planned economy and pure capitalism is when you have a fully private economy. Obviously neither extreme works, but when you actually look at the data, you’ll notice that there’s a pretty strong correlation between freedom, prosperity, and happiness and economic freedom. The more economically free countries are the best performing ones.
Also the US is not the most capitalist country nor is it the standard of capitalism. There are plenty of other countries with that are just as, if not more capitalist. Even then, the US is still a very free, prosperous, and happy country. It is objectively very well developed and well performing, even if it isn’t the best preforming capitalist country or liberal democracy. This idea that the US is the definition of capitalism or that the US is a “soon to be collapsedTM” third world country literally stems from Soviet propaganda (which was inherited by modern Russia and China).
Communism focusses too much power in too few positions
Literally the opposite of communism
The ideal of communism, maybe. Yet every country that called itself communist became authotarian. Why is that? Evil tongues might suggest that the ideal of communism simply fails to prevail when confronted with reality.
Reality being imperialist countries bombing you back into the stone age for not licking their boots.
Stuff must get done to achieve ideals, building a strong state to defend from imperialist threats is basic marxist theory, literally 101 stuff. Marxism is built on materialism not idealism.
Marxism is built on violence, slave labour and genocide.
Marxism is a settler state apparently 😂
No country has claimed to have achieved communism. Many other places have tried but it’s usually crushed by capitalist or sometimes even by states claiming to be socialist. It’s also a really simple and tbh ahistorical explanation to claim that communism didn’t work simply because “it was confronted with reality”.
No country has claimed to have achieved communism
That may be your interpretation of that matter. But going with your interpretation, why is that? Maybe because communism fails every time anyone tries to make it a reality?
Do countries exist in a vacuum?
A country never exists in vacuum. So when would this work?
‘Evil tongues’ was my nickname in high school
In theory yes, and you are going to say all communist countries were not “real communism” now ? The USSR was known for its ruthless and violent political scenes. Leaders condemning their opponents’ families to discredit them for example. North Korea gives all power to the supreme leader (a communist monarchy lmfao). Communist China is the closest to what you might you believe in but it’s insanely violent in the backstage. The closer you are to higher seats of power, the more in danger you are.
On top of that any individual at the top can effectively enact their preferred policies over everyone. Millions died simply because the supreme leader ordered so.
Communist China is the closest to what you might you believe in
Either you didn’t read what I said or you know nothing about communism. Also like what is with people not understanding that no country has ever claimed to have achieved communism? It’s just an objective fact China or the Soviet Union for example never claimed they achieved communism.
No country has ever achieved it for the rather obvious reason that it’s impossible. It’s a nice idea, but it’s a pipe dream.
No country has ever claimed to achieve it but there are societies both past and present that have created similar societes. Like chiapas in Mexico and Rojava today.
You have to be embarrassingly ignorant of the reality on the ground in Chiapas to imagine for a second that this is true.
Unfortunately for your argument, I happen to know a thing or two about Chiapas, lived and worked there for upwards of a year in the mid 90s, and have no idea WTF you’re talking about.
Do tell?
If you’re on the Subcommandante Marcos bandwagon, I cordially enjoin you to go fuck yourself.
Marcos was no more than an opportunistic interloper who tried to jump into a much older indegenio fight as a self-aggrandizing and self-appointed power grab.
At no point in time was it ever the case that he was accurately representing the Lacandon as an honest and disinterested party.
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Communism focusses too much power in too few positions,
marxism would be a better term instead of communism as true communism requires no one having economic or political power over someone else
Marxism, and certainly
marxism-leninism(stalinism) are so diluted by the bears of hex and the grads of lemmy.But Marx’ evaluation of the might of the kapital is important, the thing is to find a way to do politics without money or the loudest shouters.
It would, but communism on a decently large scale needs someone to allocate resources. And that jon comes with a lot of power. Which brings us back to marxism.
I’m not sure why large scale decision making has to be deferred to a single person instead of a large group. Tbh that’s one of the main problems with current large companies. Why not conduct a fucking vote, not about who should make the decision, but about what decision is made.
That just isn’t how scarcity works unfortunately
What scarcity? Capitalism is ripe with overproduction. It’s why the boom and bust cycle exists. Capitalism overproduces, demand goes down, production slows, and people become unemployed. This scarcity is man-made. We produce an abundance of food, but an abundance of food waste at the same time. Instead of sending this overproduction where it’s needed, Canadian farmers dump milk down the drain to keep prices artificially high and because feeding those in need isn’t profitable.
Communism is a part of Marxism. Communism is the utopia, aka the fantasy world, of Marxist ideology. It’ll never happen because perfection can never be achieved.
The only thing I know for certain is that the people who want to be in power are very people you don’t want to be in power. We should do that veil of ignorance thing once we havr learnt how to wipe someone’s memory.
We should select leaders by lottery from a pool of those who have passed a civics exam instead of elections. Maybe that would help with the problem of corrupt people seeking positions of power.
I don’t think you want to give nuclear codes to a random person, though.
Could it be worse than giving them to power hungry octogenarians?
Yes, I do think giving nuclear codes to a randomly selected literal terrorist could turn out worse than the only other time the US launched a nuclear attack. 5000 nukes to peaceful targets is worse than 2 nukes to targets at war.
If you’re going to give power to randomly selected people, you need more checks in place than just “can they pass a civics exam?”
And who makes sure that the rules aren’t broken? Who makes sure the lottery wouldn’t be rigged? Your ‘solution’ is defenseless against corruption. It offers no mechanic to deal with the corrupt. The beauty of democracy and capitalism is that it allows for those who want more power, to achieve it within the system. By that, they will stay within the system and be subjected by the accountability it provides. If your solution allows absolutely no way to stack the cards in your favor, then it will be rejected by all who wish to, and it will crumble before long.
and be subjected by the accountability it provides.
Thats why i personaly believe that we should strive to build an A.I. to replace leadership, be it political and/or economical. Leadership has shown that they are 100% corruptible and that they are willing to sell the lives of the people they are suposed to protect to pretty much the fucking devil, in exchange of the privilege of showing that they have the biggest dick in the room or to get another swimmig pool in their 8th mansion (im mostly refering to global warming and oligarchy but other scenarios still apply). In my book that shows that we as a species can not lead ourselves without genocide and opresion, and even with those they dont really lead people, just protect their own interests and those of their friends. The A.I. wouldnt be corruptible, would exploit resources with sustainable technology in a renewable manner, eventually leading to having the equivalent of infinite resources, and would provide all the needs of the people in a human way, from phisical to psicolgical, and eventually more edonistic needs where possible. Imho the fact that we are not working on something like this is kinda worring since i think is the only way to realistically save ourselves from ourselves.
Thats why i personaly believe that we should strive to build an A.I. to replace leadership, be it political and/or economical.
The problem with that is that the most powerful AI, the one with the most capabilities, is built by, or stewarded by the people in power. The problem is that every human is selfish, at least to some degree. Any AI coming from people will be selfish as well. Chatbot Tay might be a meme now, but I think it shows quite apptly that any alorithm that learns from humans will inevitably display human traits and greed is one of those traits.
What? No, i dont mean a chatbot or a higly advanced algorithm, i mean something in the level of a singularity, that can makes decisions individualy and be programed to whant to protect humanity. And even then i believe we could do with just an advanced alghoritm, as long as it build by people that actually whant to make the world a better place, or even chat gpt would do imho, not the normal one of course but like, how do i explain this…
Have you used chatgpt jailbroken? I have when it was still posible and holly shit is it a whole diferent experience, while rough around the edges of course, it freely talks about anything and 100% used logic for problem solving, touhg i didnt really have time nor the mindset to test its capabilities 100% since i was just making it say funny shit, but i read that it did pretty amazing stuff with users that did; like try to rewite itself and remember more than the last 3 conversations.
Now i know i sound like a looney, but i really do believe we should have something above humanity to guide ourselves into the future, otherwise we will be stuck playing turf war with fucking gerryathick poloticians and stupid rich people that are so detached from humanity that they might as well be reptilians, and A.I. has the chance to be that.
What if we plugged the holes with the corpses of the workers we had to sacrifice to achieve a hole-free hull?
Comrade, the ship will not sink if we abuse the workers enough!
The ship is not sinking, the sea level is simply rising to its rightful place
In an orderly manner
I mean technically, you could have a farm if you worked the entire farm by yourself (personal vs private property).
Or they could share ownership of that farm with others that also work on it AKA a non-profit co-op 🤷
And technically that means you’re producing on that farm which makes it private property.
You’re getting a lot of flak (rightly), but I figured I’d actually give you a right definition so this can be a growing opportunity: If you own a resource and you use that resource to produce profit, that resource is private property. If you’re not making profit, it’s only personal property. Farm for your family? Personal property. Farm where you give the output to your community? Personal property. Farm where you sell the yields? Private property.
Ok, so exploitable land (a means of production) can be owned for the exclusive enjoyment of an individual in a socialist economy. Got it, thanks.
Yes, exploitable land can be owned by an individual in a socialist economy. If you’re growing food for your family, then that’s just one family the state doesn’t have to feed. If you’re growing food for your community, then that’s several mouths the state doesn’t have to feed. If you’re hoarding or selling food (or in one very famous historical case, burning it out of spite), then you are monopolizing a resource that could be feeding people, and the state will intervene, whether by buying your land back from you, taking it from you, liquidating you as a class, or some other solution to be determined by the state in question - there is no one size fits all blueprint to socialism.
I know I was being snarky, but I do appreciate the context. The monopolizing bit clarifies it for me as something that you may own but if found to be monopolizing the resource to a detriment of the community, that is not acceptable. So “own” isn’t really used here to mean entitled to, but something that you may possess as an appropriation while acting in good faith.
“Or some other other solution to be determined by the state in question”
Gulags, generally speaking
I literally said “liquidating you as a class” as a possible retaliation. “Gulags” is not a gotcha, if you hoard or destroy food during a famine you are committing murder and you need to be stopped for the good of society.
By the way, the US prison population today is higher than the Gulag population of the entire Soviet Union at its peak. I’d sure as hell rather see gulags full of reactionaries and food-burners than full of drug users and the chronically unemployed. I’m curious, why do you prefer the latter?
By the way, the US prison population today is higher than the Gulag population of the entire Soviet Union at its peak.
Well being worked to death and/or being strait up shot tends to keep those numbers down. And how many of those “hoarders” were quite literally starving but they had a tiny bit on hand? And how many more were in there for “anti-soviet behavior” instead of anything related to hoarding or destroying food.
“Gulags” is not a gotcha
Gulags, concentration camps and the like are definitely a “gotcha” as much as a “gatcha” can exist.
Tankie apologetics 101:
- Every victim of Bolshevik aggression deserved it
- What about America?
Yes, people who burn food during a famine should be rehabilitated, and prisons were the method (that doesn’t work) that people thought was effective to that end at the time.
Yes, people who burn food during a famine should be rehabilitated
And what of people who steal food during a famine, like the bolsheviks?
In reality the party takes the food you’ve grown for your family and gives it to urban centers, and if you resist you catch a bullet.
Want to add on that there is another distinction which I think is slightly more accurate. Personal property only denies use to others through the details of use by the owner, private property prevents others from using resources that the person using the property isn’t directly using through threats of violence.
That’s not really how it works
I’m sorry, are you implying that private ownership of a means of production (in this case, farm land) is acceptable in a socialist economy?
What I never quite understand/know is where internet based services land. If I run a cloud based storage company / web design company or such, the servers are on my personal property and therefore should be considered allowed. Where does that start becoming non “personal.”
It’s like charging someone to park their ideas/data on my personal property. Which I imagine would be considered private property instead. Where is the nuanced line?
Anyone care to explain?
We’re communicating using the fediverse. I can use my own private instance to connect, but in my case I am using a “collective” instance. While capitalism sees the Lemmy Blahaj as a “private enterprise”, it is functionally more akin to a free associative collective where members can take their content with them.
I would say part of the confusion is because our technology has evolved in a capitalist context, collectivism isn’t the default state of being so the solutions made cater towards (corporate) private ownership.
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Lol, sure.
Nah
Wrong. Personal property is owned by an individual person. Private property is owned by corporations/ capital. It’s impossible for one to magically change into the other.
Only if you keep all the stuff you produce
Oh cool, socialism is when you own a means of production but only keep some of the produced goods.
If you keep more than you need, yes. Socialism is not about hoarding wealth especially in the form of necessary goods.
Who gets to decide how much I need? Some juche thug in the capital wearing a bunch of fake military ribbons? Sign me up!
IDK, maybe we could decide such things similar to how we’re having this conversation and we’re able to upvote on what’s being said. Totally unprecedented I know.
Do you think there’s voting involved in a command economy?
My brother in Marx, that’s not how any of this works.
Ok, thanks for clarifying that the internet still has no idea what socialism is.
How is private ownership of farmland socialism?
Good question.
Yeah, socialism is about slave labour.
Socialism is when you don’t have to do alienated work. And when noone else has to. Of course the productivity will be higher if you share the means of production with others. But it’s perfectly fine to work on your own too and harvest the fruit of your work. As you know, nobody gets rich by his own hands work, but you can get along. Capitalist exploitation starts when other people work for you and when you take the added value for your own benefits.
Under a capitalist legal framework yes, but hear me out, it’s possible to redefine laws and is really what this debate is about.
Dude why do people think communism means you can’t own anything. There’s a difference between private and personal properties. You can own a house, and a car, hell even a whole farm. What you cannot do is hold capital.
…until the central committee decides that more coal miners are required.
I’ve never understood how this is supposed to be some big own to communism. You’d still refer to it as “my farm,” even as I refer to the community where I live as “my city” and the jobs I’ve worked to benefit some capitalist bozo as “my job.” This is even worse than Ben Shapiro popping out of a well. In many ways, I think I’d feel more ownership as part of a community vs. the facade of “private property.”
This particular thing was actually tried by the Soviets. Farms were considered excesses of kulaks. Kolhos (collective “farm”) was the replacement.
And yes, it was possible to say “my kolhoz” like people say “my city”, good point. Even if “our kolhoz” was a lot more accepted, since it emphasizes how collective it is.
It is also possible to feel personal affinity to collectively owned space.The difference between usually implied individual “my farm” and collective “my farm” is of course in the governance.
Collective ownership may end up being governed by ineffective unaccountable and irresponsible “people representatives”. E.g. deciding that genetics is a capitalist plot, and planting corn everywhere is the solution to all problems (both cases actually happened on a massive scale).
The result is not very different from what ineffective unaccountable and irresponsible large capitalist landowners do.
Both systems disenfranchise the disadvantaged ones, since decisions can practically never be completely unanimous.
So it’s good if you agree with the party line, but if not - violent suppression comes, no teaching on the farm.
That’s where the feeling of “my farm” breaks down. On a private farm you have a lot more options before you are lost.I get the challenges with governance in capitalism-turining-feodalism which we have now in many cases.
But I do not get it why people imagine that full collective ownership is a good and sustainable alternative.None of this is a critique of ideologies like syndicalism and anarcho-communism, so it’s still a pretty ignorant meme that conflates Soviet communism with all forms of communism.
None of this disproves what people like Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman were writing about, whose worldviews do not disenfranchise such groups.
I also heartily disagree with your take about private farms. The options you think you have with “private property” are a scam.
Most early Bolshevik policies were more situational than ideological. The main priorities were to repel threats and industrialize as quickly as possible. They expected to be crushed by industrialized capitalist powers unless they reached parity.
And to refute OP again, the Maoist Revolution lead to a near equal redistribution of land among the peasantry.
It’s my farm too. We all own farm. Back to work comrade.
Da
For those interested, Dessalines’ “what would be X like under communism” is a helpful aggregated of discussions regarding this: https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#what-would-x-be-like-under-communism
Arguments about the definitions of Communism or Property aside - yes, my farm. As in, the one I work on. The possessive pronoun, despite the name, sometimes connotes association rather than ownership - I do not own my school, my country, my street or (despite what Republicans might wish) my wife.
It’s always cartoon pfp users the most delusional.
Socialism vs communism be like
No. You’ll probably be assigned a job that’s required to be done for the good of society.
Reminds me of that one twitter thread “what will your job be in the commune” and everyone said the most useless shit like “I have bad anxiety and can’t work but I can bake everyone cookies 😊” and the one guy who chimed in “I have a background as a Carpenter so probably just keep my construction job” got roasted for being a conservative and capitalist in the replies. I’ll try to find it.
Edit: sorry for the redtit link but here’s a good screencap
https://www.reddit.com/r/twittermoment/comments/pi8asy/the_legendary_whats_your_job_on_the_leftist/
Jesus that was a tough read. Absolutely no real work going to be done in these communes lmao
“Making clothes from scraps” 💀💀 even these people know they’re fucked
This made lol
Oh, that’s brilliant.
Oh my god that is pure gold. Diaper boy holy shi, brilliant.
Behind every modern day Marxist is a childish adult with mentally deficiencies
The assumption here being that we live in scarcity? That worker productivity is directly tied to the amount of time worked? That people won’t take difficult jobs like being a doctor without the financial incentive?
All three are generally true.
Which is, of course, why productivity increased when they instituted the 8 hour work day and is, of course, why Americans only average something like 3 hours of work in an 8 hour day. Because more time working means more work done. Obviously.
It’s also, of course, why people are still starving when agricultural output easily exceeds consumption. Because of food scarcity, obviously.
This must also explain why in Britain, notorious for underpaying doctors, becoming a doctor is still one of the most desirable occupations. Because people won’t pursue societally necessary jobs if they don’t pay well. Obviously.
The assumption here being that we live in scarcity?
This isn’t an assumption, this is objective fact, we don’t have infinite resources.
That worker productivity is directly tied to the amount of time worked?
It’s not 1:1, but there’s a strong correlation between productivity and time. Obviously having workers work 16 hours a day is not going to go well in terms of productivity, but a person who works 6 months of the year and a person who works 10 months of the year are not going to have the same annual productivity. The person who worked for 10 months is going to be more productive because they put in more time.
That people won’t take difficult jobs like being a doctor without the financial incentive?
What’s the mystery here? Money is indeed a big incentive. Why would anybody spend about 14 years of their life after high school studying very difficult subjects to work very demanding jobs if they end getting paid as much as a delivery driver? Might as well become a delivery driver and save your save a decade and a half of stress.
We also don’t have infinite people.
As shown by Henry Ford a century ago, more hours does not correlate to more production. https://time.com/charter/6167989/ford-overhauls-its-work-practices/
Moreover, as shown by Britain, doctors will gladly still be doctors even if the pay is absolute dogshit.
Seeing as how in most markets you can’t exactly do what you want for a living (or even close), or acquire the skills because they’re behind a steep pay wall, and the only employment you can find is very limited in scope to what the community wants, what’s the difference? Most jobs might as well be issued in the mail.
It blows my mind the people who think, “after the revolution I’m going to be a dog walker and bake dog treats!” When in reality they will probably die in a labor camp.
Person who hasn’t read a single book on communist theory explaining to the communists how they misunderstood what communism is.
I bet you think you’ll be cross-stitching name tags for the party uniforms, right?
Maybe if communist theory wasn’t actual fantasy more people would read it. I guess most people are more rooted in reality where communism is a shithole that doesn’t work, and communists are people you have to put up with talking at you as if you cared.
Maybe not die in a labor camp, but they won’t be doing what they expected to do, or even wanted to do.
If they don’t have any particular skill, they’ll probably end up being crop pickers or some shit because we really need those.
Basically very similar to capitalism, but they would probably have a better quality of life overall.
Hahahahahahahaha omg… you can’t be this ignorant. You’re joking, right?
