It had everything to do with human greed.
As long as there is the suggestion or possibility, no matter how remote that anyone of us can become enormously wealthy, we won’t want to change the system.
“but you’re gonna take my private property !”
I think “private property” isn’t well defined in socialist discourse and this idea of no private property gets a lot of backlash from some. A distinction between personal and private property needs to be made where one is used to generate capital in exchange for wages and the other is your dildo. The dildo is your personal property and no one is going to take it. A piece of land can be someones private property when they employ you and pay you a wage to work it - you get payed a pittance and they, without work, take the cream.
Its well defined IMO, but anti-communist propaganda intentionally spreads the wrong definition of it to make communists look scary.
This is a reasonable explanation, similar to the ones I write on the spot when attempting to explain things. Made more difficult by the fact many signs barring entry to owned land say “private property” (or some variation on it, at least in France and the US)
I think it’s generally well-understood amongst Socialists, the issue comes from those first learning about Socialism and thinking it is applied as dogmatism to the strictest degree, and isn’t a drawn out process of iterative improvement following revolution. For such people, they need to know if “going along with” Socialism means they can’t have a gaming PC or something, but the reality of Socialism is that it isn’t nearly as rigid or strict as it is stereotyped as.
A distinction between personal and private property needs to be made where one is used to generate capital in exchange for wages and the other is your dildo
That’s always the definition. It is well defined, the problem is that there are national propaganda machines outright lying to the people.
That’s the People’s Toothbrush!
the fear for good, is the fear for change or admitting they where wrong. it is pride, as well as lazyness, combined with stupidity and weakness. because weakness is not how strong one seems(or lack there of) but weakness, is how little a person would be their real self, as well as how much they assume that in order to be strong they need to supress others so they are in a worse state than them. supressing people is a sign of the weak, because they are blinded and can only destroy.
Socialism is the people. If you are afraid of socialism, you’re afraid of yourself.
- Fred Hampton
Rest in Power.
The same folks I know who wouldn’t even consider a conversation about socialism are not going to be swayed when I quote any black man to them, much less a panther.
Totally fair. The trick is to meet them where they’re at, and then work from there. The folks you’re thinking about will take a lot of effort, but if union organizers can do it then so can you
Socialism has been tried many times in all forms but pure unregulated capitalism hasn’t yet.
It has, actually. Got overrun by a bunch of bears
Pure unregulated Capitalism can’t exist though, there’s no such thing as a “pure” system to begin with.
The impure regulations corrupt the free hand of the market.
Is the market some form of holy spirit? Regulation comes from the market, not despite it.
Regulation opposes the market.
Regulation restricts competition, and is a natural result of companies using accumulated Capital to institutionalize their own positions and maintain a given edge. Capitalism erases its own existence.
I think we’re both saying the same thing.
Maybe, but you phrase it like we can have unregulated Capitalism for any period longer than an afternoon, and I’m explaining why we can’t.
Oh yeah? List the forms.
In this case wouldn’t it make more sense to list the forms it hasn’t been tried in?
No
socialism has had huge positive impacts where it’s been tried and massive negative consequences when it’s been replaced with capitalism.
what’s your evidence that “pure unregulated capitalism” is worth trying? glassing the entire surface of the earth with nuclear weapons hasn’t been tried yet either but that doesn’t make it a good idea.
Every single form of socialism has been tried?
Even Christian anarchism? Even Posadism? Even Queer anarchism?
Also, your answer is anarcho-capitalism?
I wish I had the confidence to just say whatever shit I pulled out of thin air like that
It’s a well known opinion in McCartney-Lennonism.
I’m not really knowledgeable enough to contribute to the discussion going on here.
I just wanted to say I’ve seen you engaging in good faith discussion all over Lemmy, and I really, really, appreciate that. Whenever socialism, communism, Marxism and the like come up, people are quick to jump to ad hominem and flinging shit-covered sarcasm at each other, and you consistently engage thoughtfully in the discussion, even when your interlocutors don’t. Thank you.
Thank you! I really appreciate it, I do try to be level headed when engaging with people. I know I used to have a lot of the same misconceptions so I try to correct them when I can. Thanks!
Please share your wisdom, I always get snarky as hell and I don’t like that about myself
I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed.
If I’m being honest? Reading Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist (also in the reading list on my profile). A good part of it stresses the importance of maintaining a level head and trying to maintain good relations with “wrong” but well-meaning comrades.
My dad: “Yeah, maybe a good solution to the problem of not being able to pay rent would be government-provided housing”
Also my dad: “Socialism is horrible! If it wasn’t, then why would EVERYONE be trying to leave Communist countries like Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe???”
I wonder what the modern world would look like had the USSR not been dissolved, and repaired its relationship with the PRC.
To me the biggest hypocracy in general when it came to forms of communism.
It’s a failed ideology, it will always collapse in on itself as soon as it grows.
Followed with
We need to destroy it at all costs to keep it from taking hold anywhere in the world.
You don’t need to stop something that’s self defeating. It’s like the tower of babel story in the bible. Mankind was building up a great tower because they thought uniting they would be a powerful as gods, so god knocked over their tower, scrambled their languages to divide and conquer the world… Isn’t that kind of an admission that, God believed without his interference man can be as strong as he is?
Yep, really US foreign policy purely supports that which it can profit from, and it can’t do that if the population starts using its own resources for its own benefit rather than allowing them to be stolen by the US.
God ? Really ? Self-defeating, oh yes via spending billiins of dollars funding coups & sanctioning & bombing them in the name of Freeeeeeedom
Probably like Europe
At the end of the day, there is a reason the USSR dissolved. Generally related to bread lines, gulags, all that fun stuff
If the USSR had dissolved due to issues like the ones you’re talking about (Gulags being basically entirely dismantled after WW2 so 45 years before the dissolution, and breadlines being nonexistent until the 1980s liberalisation during Perestroika), it would have been dissolved with the popular consensus. There was a referendum in 1990 that asked the citizens of the Soviet Union if they wanted to maintain their country under communism and 70% of voters (admittedly a few republics didn’t participate) voted yes, so the USSR was extremely popular and people didn’t want it dissolved. The reasons for the illegal and antidemocratic dissolution of the USSR are much more complex than that.
Because if there is one thing Russia is known for, it’s free and fair elections 🤡
I’m getting a little tired of hot takes from those who don’t know shit about fuck.
If an election shows a socialist country’s government is unpopular, it’s a clear sign of oppression. If an election instead shows a socialist country’s government is popular, well that’s clearly rigged, another clear sign of oppression.
Did… Did you just equate the former socialist state that was the Soviet Union to the contemporary proto-fascist and capitalist Russian Federation that literally emerged out of the dismantling and auctioning of the former??
I disagree with the reasons you gave, feeding those in need didn’t hurt the USSR and the GULAG system was abolished several decades prior to the dissolution of the USSR. It’s ultimately a complicated issue, but one that I believe ultimately had to do with rejecting much of the world economy, which resulted in a form of Siege Socialism.
Can we put the combined efforts of every capitalist market and oligarchy who’s power has reigned uninterrupted since centuries before communism was formally theorized?
Or nah it was probably the… checks notes
prisonsgulags, right glad those are gone.Or the bread distribution? Yea didn’t work for Rome either.
I didnt know i was living in a communist country
Its also strange that there are anti-communist stickers in a communist country
Its also strange that there are anti-communist stickers in a communist country
No it isn’t. Revolution isn’t the rapture. Fascists and liberals don’t just cease to exist.
But there wasnt a socialist revolution since the sticker was placed
Okay…?
why would EVERYONE be trying to leave Communist countries like Russia and the rest of Eastern Europe???
China is empty. Russia is empty. Cuba is empty. Vietnam is empty. South Africa is empty. They’ve all been hollowed out by the scourge of Communism. That’s why nobody lives there anymore.
Meanwhile, the US is the most populous country on Earth. We have the densest cities. We have the largest apartment towers. We have the most-used transit systems. Our nation is full to bursting thanks to all of the people who want to live here. And the more traditionally conservative, the more flagrantly capitalist, the more Christian and Based and Traditional, the larger the US State. That’s right, folks. West Virginia, South Dakota, Utah, and Idaho are the four most densely populated corners of the planet.
I love how people act like their knowledge alone somehow makes them better than their peers, just utilizing knowledge to appear aloof, or above it all, when in reality, if capitalism shot itself in the chest and socialism took over tomorrow, we would still have the same rich 1% families stealing from the working class and none of us would actually be in any better a position because no damned political system to date has figured out how to keep the rich from sacrificing the poor for their own selfish ends. End of story. Time to change.
That’s not historically accurate, though. Socialist states have made dramatic improvements to the lives of the working class and generally dramatically reduced wealth disparity, such as in the USSR. This seems to be more political apathy than genuine analysis.
Not only is this ahistorical, it’s self-contradictory. If the same rich 1% still owns the means of production and is still expropriating the working class’ surplus value, then capitalism never died and socialism never took over.
But the talking head on Fox told me what to think about socialism, using no facts or common sense.
What am I supposed to do? NOT believe them?
Humans are brainwashed into thinking it’s “Human nature” to be greedy and self-centered, so when someone comes offering help those stuck in this condition can’t help but think “What’s the catch?”
And the clearer it is that the person has good intent, the more dangerous the catch must be.
People aren’t really “brainwashed” in the traditional sense, they seek license to confirm their biases that they think they benefit from. A good article on the subject is Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.”
Most people just want to be left alone and socialism is the farthest thing from being left alone. They say there is no private property in socialism but really you become the property.
Wanting to be “left alone” is more a consequence of the alienation caused by the Capitalist system, humans are very social animals. No idea what you mean by “becoming the property,” that doesn’t make any sense.
We’re social with small groups of people not governments or people we have never met. I’m a person by the way, a social one, so I am speaking from experience.
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This definition of “social” from Oxford is probably most accurate, to how I am using the word:
- needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities. “we are social beings as well as individuals”
I interact with the government but I would hardly call it social. They send me paper asking for taxes, I send them taxes. I vote but that’s just filling out a form. It’s transactional, the government provides services. In rare cases I do have conversations with people who work for the government but I wouldn’t say Im social with the goverment through them. That would be like saying you’re social with Ronald McDonald by eating a cheeseburger.
I really would prefer the government leave me alone as much as possible and I think most people feel this way. I don’t think people want any organizations bothering them. How many times do you see a sign on someones door reading “solicite please” or see people hanging out down at the DMV talking about rules and regulations, or whatever. Never. People hate going to the DMV, they do it as little as possible.
We’re social with friends (usually people we went to school with), family, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances, and some people we deal with on a regular basis. Small groups, like Dunbar’s number small.
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Regardless of our will, increasingly complex production forces further connection. Decentralization only attempts to turn back this clock, it isn’t a solution. You are speaking from your experience as presumably a worker within Capitalism, which necessarily ends up atomizing individuals and destroys the social fabric of society in pursuit of profit. That’s why over time, more people have become fascinated by the idea of moving to Alaska or some remote area and becoming a self-sustainable farmer, but if Socialism is accomplished these desires erode.
what is your definition of socialism and what makes you say “you become the property”?
That’s a clear projection
Well, can you explain your perspective then?
Considering capitalists are the ones ACTUALLY hellbent on turning you into a product & suceeded in it (E.g: Selling your personal information)
Eh, Capitalism will do what it can to turn a profit, which includes things that are good for society. People are fucking dumb and they do not read ToS or EULA, they just sign up for “free” shit and get advertised to while companies track them, spy on them, etc.
Even when you tell people about their data, they don’t care. I literally have a shirt which reads “they sell your data” by the way, I take it more seriously, and I feel like a fucking nut. I mean, I feel like the only sane person but you know, if every room smells like dog shit check your shoes.
What reading ToS gonna do? For many people, if they want to find a job they have no option but to network via LinkedIn. You get blocked from many many services just because you use private browsing or a VPN. These services are so well integrated with modern society that you are basically at a huge disadvantage if you don’t use them.
That’s right, they aren’t going to overcome their irrational fears. They’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future until it becomes normal and they realize the sky didn’t fall. I actually had hope that we were on the verge of a strong progressive wave, but then millions of people decided not to show up because Harris wasn’t perfect enough for them. So basically fuck y’all, and good luck with the whole People’s Front of Judea vs the Judean People’s Front deal. The thing about MAGA is they fucking show up, and they’re gonna keep showing the fuck up. Idiots need to figure out that you don’t make change happen by turning away when your ideal options don’t appear on a menu so you can click on one and go back to scrolling. /end rant
I think what you’re missing is that for most Socialists, electoralism has already been proven as a losing game to begin with, and is far below the minimum requirements to enact change. Real power comes from organizing, which is why Leftists always push for it (and when it happens, they get results).
I think what people are missing is Trump/Vance being the worst possible outcome. But yes, real power does come from organizing - not from sitting in front of a screen “raising awareness”.
The worst possible outcome is really perpetuating this horrible system to begn with.
I agree, which is exactly what refusing to participate does. Lazy rationalizations help the oligarchs as much as money and brainwashing.
Participating in the electoral system also perpetuates it, the Capitalists don’t care who wins because they already approve of both major parties.
Okay if changing the system through the system is impossible then what’s your plan?
Revolution, which requires worker organization and the building of dual power, as has been done successfully in many countries.
“No, no, they tries to tricks us, precious [capitalism]! They wants to take you from us, stop you from helping us, precious, gollum!”
BBILBO BBAGGINS
Gandalf really pulled the double consonant in Bilbo’s name, dude was ANGRY
