- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmygrad.ml
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmygrad.ml
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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@Cowbee@lemmy.ml i feel like you’re dancing around the issue of authoritarian abuse and centralization of power.
you can’t seriously defend the DPRK Il regime as being good for the workers.
do you think it’s good that Xi has made himself president for life? Is that the mark of a functioning democratic system of the people?
my biggest issue with Leftists is their seeming need to defend totalitarians instead of just writing them off and admitting, “ok, yeah, they suck, but communism could still work!”
It’s not really about defending the bad stuff. It’s about trying to get some more nuance on perhaps the most propagandized topic of the 20th century.
There are all sorts of interesting discussions to have about the various failings of these countries amongst other leftists who have the relevant context as a starting point for a reasonable discussion.
But when talking to libs/conservatives, they’re coming into the conversation with an already extremely warped, in nuanced perspective. “These are all evil dictatorships that were also super incompetent and that shows why communism is bad.”
Some of the stuff they base this on is either exaggerated or just straight up wrong. Some of it is completely valid criticism, but without the context to understand the issue or provide a useful critique.
How do you have any meaningful conversation about these countries without acknowledging things like:
- All of these countries were previously agrarian, un-democratic societies.
- Most of them were formerly exploited colonies who had to fight fairly brutal wars for their independence.
- Even after leaving, the imperialists kept messing with them through economic and diplomatic isolation and espionage including supporting right wing coups.
We don’t have the counterfactual where we see what these countries would have turned out like without these challenges, but it’s an incomplete analysis to not at least consider the ways which they impacted both their economic success and their political developments. Maybe you could argue there were better ways to respond to all of this, but hindsight is 20-20.
No actual leftists want to have to argue “authoritarianism was good actually.” But it’s hard for the conversation not to appear that way when we’re arguing with people who’ve been conditioned to think they’re somehow as bad or worse than Nazis and ending the thought there.
I’m not dancing around anything, if you want to discuss, then please, do so.
The DPRK is far from a paradise, but at the same time, much of its issues are externally driven.
Xi is not president for life. Term limits are removed, but he can also be removed. He’s overwhelmingly popular among the party and people.
For your last point, I recommend you read Marketing Socialism. I defend what is misrepresented or demonized unjustly, because these are problems every Socialist project recieves, to varying degrees.
i read your Marketing Socialism post. It just seems beside the point and is looking for a way to justify itself when all you have to do is admit that tyranny and gulags bad. It’s not a big ask. The fact that it is TAKEN to be a big ask, is a massive, if you will, red flag. XD
Authoritarianism and imperialism, concentration of power are the root cause, money is just a symbol of power, under stalinist russia this nefarious corrupting power had another symbol, shape but this society was just as helpless toward this tendency of power, you can see the end point of passive demobilisation and assassination of the few how dare oppose it today in Russia.
I think there needs to be constant pressure of deterritoroalisation, of putting decision and responsibility in the hands of the people, always at the smallest scale that it can be realistically pushed down.
And that’s not the individual if that’s not an individual matter. The level at which decisionnal responsibility is dependant on the context of tgat decision rather than agglomerated bodies of decision when power naturallies tries to concentrate.
It should always be easy for lower echelons of power and locality to repatriate a delegated aspect of their life.
(Then I stuffed this line of thinking into chatgpt to take it further)
https://chatgpt.com/share/6803f4ba-eebc-8005-919f-3b896dce2e0f
“Far from paradise” seems pretty generous for what i perceive as a dystopian nightmare state. they are cut off from outside information. there is retribution on families if ppl try to leave. also, you can’t leave. this is insanity. outside forces don’t make them behave that way.
Xi: whether that popularity is real or not is a question, though, when he can push for the suppression of dissent or critique in the social sphere. one CAN’T challenge him. that doesn’t seem legitimately representative.
i’m looking over your reading list. we can add that to the list. but there’s a reason i block hexbear and lemmygrad but not .ml. tankies fucking suck and i Socialism will never be taken seriously as long as it’s important to ppl to defend fucking Stalin.
See, the problem is that you’re generally wrong, factually, which is why you have such knee-jerk reactions to people saying that maybe AES states aren’t hellholes, actually. As an example, it’s mostly western sanctions that limit freedom of movement from DPRK residents, and the myths about collective family punishment are largely unsubstantiated. Repeating Red Scare myths uncritically is a huge problem.
People can challenge Xi, what they cannot do is use large private media apparatus to push anti-government propaganda.
Regarding your last point, you’re generally wrong. Socialism is increasing in popularity globally, including Marxism-Leninism. Funny enough, Nia Frome, the author of “Marketing Socialism,” has another quick article called “Tankies” that would be perfect for you to read, IMO.
uhh, anarchism clears lol
Sad to say, but humans are the root of evil. Atrocities have been done in the name of all sorts of things, but it’s always humans carrying it out.
I don’t get why every Reddit alternative needs to be filled with these weird political ideas. Communism, Fascism and every other form of extremism only leads to misery.
I’m sure capitalism is flawed, but you can make it work better. Any of the Nordic countries works as a great example. And no they aren’t perfect but nothing ever will be.
For your first question, Lemmy is developed by Communists, and is an answer to the Capitalist failings of Reddit. Simple as that.
For the Capitalism bit, you’re waving away the fact thay the Nordic countries are Imperialist. They shift all of the suffering and worst exploitation to the Global South. At the same time, worker’s rights and safety nets are being eroded, because Capital controls the state, not the people.
Please explain the way in which the Nordic countries are imperialist and exploitative and which country you personally look for moral guidance? And if there is none what makes you think we are capable of building a system that wouldn’t be exploitative by your grandiose unrealistic standards? Workers rights and safety nets are far beyond any other country in the world and in fact they’ve essentially never been better. The only change is that populists like you have given up on building and improving the system which in fact does require everyone to commit to improving society together, not just whining in a basement about some socialist utopia that is never going to happen.
Here are some good resources others have compiled on the Nordic Model in general:
- What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn’t Sweden socialist?
- On the unraveling of the Nordic welfare states: increasing inequality and forced austerity.
- Scandinavia’s covert role in western imperialism
Essentially, Finland (and Imperialist countries in general) operate on a principle of unequal exchange. By leveraging mechanisms like IMF loans with clauses requiring privatization of resources and industry for foreign capture, to relying on overseas production to super-exploit for super-profits, to simply relying on high interest rates on foreign loans, Imperialist countries consume more of the Global South’s value than they provide the Global South.
As for which countries I think are headed in the right direction, I like the PRC quite a bit. It’s certainly not perfect and it has a long way to go, but it’s making rapid improvements and doesn’t rely on Imperialism to provide for its people. And Socialism does exist, already, though nobody is genuinely waiting for a magical Utopian version of it.
Are you joking with China or am I talking with a bot?
China is a massive massive loan shark to emerging economies and is literally one of the largest IMF backers. Although once again you’re sound very conspiracy theorist here blaming the IMF which the entire world is a member essentially. If you look at voting power China alone has more than every Nordic country combined.
China literally exploits not only their own people but everyone who’s weaker than them. You’re seriously commenting in bad faith here.
China doesn’t operate in that way. China is a country focused on selling goods it produces, ergo it cares more to have customers. The BRI and BRICs exist purely to build up more customers, it’s neither charity nor Imperialism. Countries enter it in exchange for large infrastructural build up, in order for China to have new customers that aren’t the West, who as we observe are quite fickle to work with. As this article from The Atlantic puts it, The “Chinese Debt Trap” is a Myth.
The IMF is absolutely to blame for requiring loan recipients to privatize their key industries for foreign plundering, and the US is the worst among the biggest lenders.
No, I’m not being bad faith here. You’re stonewalling and relying on false assumptions, which I have already pointed out.
Communism is no more extreme than capitalism. They just stand in opposition of one another. The red scare is back I guess.
What are you on about with “red scare”? You can simply look at the poor attempts made in the name of communism to see how well that idea succeeds in practice. Simple solutions to complex issues never work. Communism is an extreme ideology based on the oversimplification of complex like every other form of populism.
Communism is not a simple solution, nor does it oversimplify the problem. What do you mean when you say this?
Well don’t you think it’s a bit simple to pin every single problem in the world on property rights and a conspiracy theory level class divide between proletariats and “bourgeoisie”? It’s ann exhausting ordeal to hear all these complaints when humanity has never been at a more advanced point than it is now despite all its flaws.
How on Earth is it a conspiracy theory to say that business owners and employees exist? What exists in your mind palace?
Plus, Marx notes that Capitalism is progressive compared with feudalism, but has come with its own new problems that Socialism resolves.
Are you serious? Do you not understand the concept that you can be an employee today and business owner tomorrow? How do you not understand the irony that suddenly once you start your own business you’re an exploitative devil and as long as you stay as an employee you’re somehow a better person? Don’t you realize what moronic baiting that is? Humanity never learns from populists it seems, whether it’s Trump or Lenin, it’s all the same.
Marx never for a single second suggested that Class is an immutable characteristic.
The bible is also a long book, does that make it believable to you?
You said Communism was based on oversimplification, now you’re saying it’s suspicious for being long? Make up your mind.
You’re saying it’s not simplistic just because it has a lot of words. Please refer to my other post on why it’s Marxism is a ridiculous and frankly childish theory.
No, I’m saying it’s not simplistic because I’ve read a lot of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and from many, many, many more Communist leaders and theorists since them.
I call bullshit on this one
Sure but fuck Russia too lmao
what does this have to do with this post
What does this have to do with Russia
Workers of the world unite!
Edit: not that I’m into that sort of thing… I’ve taken history classes, I’ve read about, I’ve watched documentaries, I understand that communism is not to be desired or
Every -ism is bad when bad people are in charge.
Comunism is trash.
Nope!
To paraphrase Bernard Shaw, Communism might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.
Many places have, like the PRC, Vietnam, DPRK, Laos, Cuba, and former USSR.
Ussr was more a dictatorship. Dprk is more a shity monarchy. Cuba was closer, as long as you did not disagree with the Castro brothers. Not sure about Laos or Vietnam, so maybe?
The Soviet Union was not a dictatorship. They had a form of council-based democracy, read Soviet Democracy for more. It looked like this:
The DPRK is not a monarchy, either. It isn’t even a one-party state, it has 3 that form a coalition government. It’s quite a comprehensive system, and works based on the concept of approval voting.
Even while the Castros were presidents, they were overwhelmingly popular and supported by the people. Further, its democratic model has led to one of the most queer-friendly countries on the planet.
Communism is a shitty alternative.
In what way?
Ever seen Communism working as intended? There’ll always be power hungry assholes ruining these things for everyone.
Edit: oooooh, this is lemmy.ml. That explains a lot, lol.
I’d say all AES states have broadly managed to achieve their goals. There have been troubles and struggles faced internally and externally, none have been dreamlike utopian wonderlands, but seemingly only non-Marxists are the ones that require that of Marxist movements.
I had to google that first. Had no idea what the sahel states had to do with socialism or communism.
Those AES states are mostly highly corrupt though. I wouldn’t refer to north Korea as a livable place, plus the leaders are bathing in money while the populace dies from hunger. In Vietnam, if you know someone in politics, you can get whatever you want. I know this (nearly) first-hand. Laos, lol. And why the hell is China on that list? They’re way too deep in the capitalist game to be on that list, no? People also don’t mean shit to the ones in charge. Their people are executed by the thousands every year and they like to keep minorities in concentration camps. I’m sorry, those states are failed states in my opinion.
And as long as there is corruption, communism is not going to work. It’s a nice theory, but it just takes one black sheep to fuck it up for everyone. I wish it weren’t that way. It’d be nice to live in a world where people work for a purpose and everyone gets the same and no one has to suffer. Not going to happen.
Capitalism is plain evil though, I’ll give you that.
AES as in “Actually Existing Socialism.” The Sahel States are a quasi-Socialist national liberatory alliance. Burkina Faso was briefly Socialist under Sankara, but that time has passed.
The struggles faced in the DPRK are more due to sanctions and embargo than anything else, kinda like Cuba. Unlike Cuba, the US slaughtered 20% of their population and destroyed 80% of their buildings, yet they were economically ahead of South Korea until the 80s. The leadership is not “bathing in money” either.
Vietnam is rising rapidly. It isn’t a Utopia, but is dramatically improving. Same with Laos.
The PRC is more classically Marxist than they were under the late Mao period and Gang of Four, I elaborated on that, here. Further, you’re repeating state department propaganda about them, very silly.
Further, China is democratic. It doesn’t have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%?
Please explain how “one black sheep” would ruin Socialism/Communism. Given that you clearly aren’t familiar with Marxist theory nor how AES states function, this is a telltale sign that your critiques are of strawmen.
TBF Russia is a shit hole and has failed in every type of government they’ve ever had. Honestly it’s probably worse in Russia now than under communism. China was also doing no better before “communism”. Basically countries tend to make the jump when they have nothing left to lose.
gives way too much power to the govt and replaces monitary incentive systems with ones based on fear and coruption
That’s not how AES states function, in any capacity. Further, people get paid in Socialist states, so I really don’t know what strawman you’re fighting here.
Ask any post soviet country how they liked it during the USSR
if you gave a shit what they wanted you wouldn’t have overthrown them in a violent coup
The vast majority believe they are worse off now than under Socialism, which makes sense because the reintroduction of Capitalism resulted in skyrocketing rates of poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, homelessness, and an estimated 7 million excess deaths around the world.
A Medium.com post isn’t a source, dude
Medium.com isn’t the source, it references the sources. Here’s Wikipedia referencing many of the same sources.
I guess you can say Ukraine is now worse off than in the USSR, Back then they weren’t at war. The current situation isn’t exactly the fault of capitalism (or Ukranie for that matter)
This data was pre-Russo-Ukrainian war.
Over 15 year old data at this point. And in countries that don’t have a free press.
It’s still well-documented and consistent. Socialism worked better than Capitalism. Plus, no press is ever “free,” either private interests dominate it or public interests do.
Oh my fing god, I thought lemmy is only full of extreme liberals, but it’s also full of wannabe comunists. Dude, have you ever asked yourself why USSR fell if everything was better than in the west? Why people risked their lives jumping over the Berlin wall? Why there was a whole black market of importing goods from the west into ussr? Why people didn’t enjoy being sent to Siberia by the millions to die of hunger and of forced labor?
Or was Cuba a success?
Lemmy is developed by Communists, the Communists were here first.
Secondly, the dissolution of the USSR was driven instead by numerous complex factors:
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Liberal reforms that gave the Bourgeoisie power over key industries
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A firm dedication to planning by hand even as the economy grew more complex and computers too slow to be adapted to the planning mechanisms
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A huge portion of resources were spent on maintaining millitary parity with the US in order to dissuade US invasion
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80% of the combat done in World War II was on the Eastern Front, and 20 million Soviets lost their lives, with no real economic support from the West in rebuilding despite taking the largest cost of war
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An enclosed, heavily sanctioned economy relied on internal resource gathering, closed off from the world market
Countries like the PRC have taken to heart what happened in the USSR. As an example, the PRC shifted to a more classically Marxist economy, focusing on public ownership of only the large firms and key industries, and relying on markets to develop out of private ownership. This keeps them in touch with the global economy without giving the bourgeoisie control of key industries, and thus the bourgeoisie has no power over the economy or the state.
People left the DDR after getting good educations for free, and higher wages in West Germany. They got the best of both worlds.
Millions were not sent to Siberia.
Cuba is a resilliant success story given its brutal embargo and sanctions, yes. It has astounding metrics in areas like life expectancy despite being intentionally impoverished by the US Empire.
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Private interests do align, but rarely. Meaning you have more chance at opposing narratives forming. Public is monovoiced. Without an opposing voice its data becomes suspect.
Private is controlled by large corporations, and often gets state funding. All press has bias. Really, you don’t have anything against the data other than you feel like it could be wrong.
Socialism allows for both public and private ownership, individual freedoms, and democratic decision-making, while still aiming for social equality. Communism, in contrast, tends to involve total state control and often limits personal freedoms.
Tell me you’ve never read anything about communism that wasn’t written by anti-communists without telling me you’ve never read anything about communism that wasn’t written by anti-communists.
The state owning the means of production means the people running the state have a shit ton of power. Just takes a handful of bad people to turn that into oppression as we’ve seen in the USSR and China.
If you disagree feel free to explain your reasoning.
Jesus what a mess of a sentence. You really tried to hamfist that one in there.
tell me you’re 16 without telling me you’re 16
Well I will agree that your average 16 year-old is more well read then the person I replied to.
That doesn’t even make sense…
😘 be well
be better
Both Capitalism and Socialism have room for public and private ownership, the difference is which sector controls the state, large firms, and key industries. The Nordic Countries are dominated by Private Capital, ie it is Capitalist, while the PRC is dominated by Public Ownership, ie it is Socialist.
Communism limits the personal freedoms of the bourgeoisie. All Communism is, is a more developed and global form of Socialism, where the small firms that once were private have all grown into the public sector or collapsed.
Limits personal freedoms only for the owning class. If you’re not a landlord or ceo you have nothing to fear.
Tell that to the masses Lenin, Stalin, and Mao killed
I summary communes, and Anarcho communism sounds lovely. Once authority is involved, they tend to fail
Yeah I didn’t consider the nazis but they are just lackeys for the landlords and ceos so I mentally put them in there. Ofc nazis have to fear communism too.
How are you going to secure your commune from external enemies without invoking authority?
The Black Book of Communism was debunked long ago, from including Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of Communism” to literally making up numbers to get to 100 million dead to being outright disproven once the Soviet Archives were opened up.
There were excess deaths, but Communist leaders weren’t mindless butchers, either. And with the introduction of Socialism came numerous benefits for the working class, like a doubling of life expectancy, tripling of literacy rates to 99.9%, free and high quality education, healthcare, and childcare, an expansion in women’s rights, a democratization of the economy, and much more.
Anarchism is a beautiful idea, and I used to be one. However, I am more convinced of Marxism, namely because we have more data that shows the success of Marxism, and because hierarchy and centralization are requirements for expansive infrastructure projects like high speed rail and for complex production, such as for smartphones.
I have an introductory Marxist-Leninist Reading List you can check out, if you’d like to learn more.
All this things sound great, we just need humanity to not be shitty to each other.
Luigi’s hand doesn’t look anything like that. Someone fix this meme
You’re not going to overthrow fascism, white supremacy or capitalism with random acts of adventurism. If you’re not more organized than your enemy they will crush you.
I leave that to the plumber’s union.
This would go harder without the hammer and sickle. Communism didnt fail; the ussr did.
The Hammer & Sickle is the symbol of Marxism-Leninism, not just the USSR. There are several Marxist-Leninist states to this day, including the PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and the DPRK.
Is the PRC still communist though?
Yes. They are more classically Marxist now, than they were in the late Mao and Gang of Four period. I elaborated on that, here.
No
Maaaaaaybe the USSR isn’t the best example of a better society we want to be building.
I’m watching the whole ideological-purge thing happen in the US and it kinda sucks.
Both extremes on display those examples, seems like they both end up in the same place in the end. Maybe it would be reasonable to use any system that is a mix of things, instead of focusing on pure capitalism or communism.
There’s really no such thing as a pure system, any mix is still going to have either the public sector as principle or private, ie which controls the state, large firms, and key industries. There’s no way to keep them “balanced,” one will have power over the other, and its best for it to be the public sector.
Either build something better or shutup, I say. Unless you’re a big fan of Tsarist Russia
How does one go about building their own government/economic system?
I’ve played civilization and I’m pretty sure there’s other forms of government besides Communism and Monarchy that have low corruption, albeit lacking the ability to force the citizens into war on the leader’s whim.
Corruption is a matter of individuals rather than the form of government. Any human system is bound to be corruptible since it involves humans.
I think a strong anti corruption culture is the best defense against it.
Isnt civilization the game where “democracy” has 0 corruption? I think its kinda biased and not exactly based on reality
Lol, good bit.
