Yeah, there’s nothing worse than a bunch of billionaire shitheads, using the media they control to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money. Oh wait, that’s what’s going on Russia, too.
There are no “good guys” here. Just billionaire assholes exploiting everybody.
The Russian Federation ceased being Socialist in the early 90s, the Hammer and Sickle is a symbol of Marxism. Not sure what your point is.
The point is that it’s a class war. It always has been. It’s not about “socialism vs capitalism” or “liberals vs conservatives” or The Romulans vs The Federation. It’s about billionaires vs everybody else. It’s about the cluefull vs the clueless.
Class War is a fundamental part of the Socialist canon, though, while Capitalism affirms that it is unnecessary.
Further, a bit nitpicky, but I don’t like framing it as “cluefull vs clueless.” People’s ideas are a product of their material conditions, we shouldn’t downtalk those who don’t know more.
The people who told you what socialism or capitalism is, LIED to you. “The good of the people” is a noble-sounding goal. But the reality is that the people who deliberately seek power are . . . for the most part . . . vain, greedy, brutal assholes.
Yeah it’s the super rich vs everyone else.
I don’t think Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc were lying to me when discussing what they wanted to implement and how Socialism and Capitalism function. I don’t think reading speeches and writings of Deng Xiapoing, Xi Jinping, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Joseph Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, or other leaders of AES states were lying about their intended goals or economic policies either.
I genuinely don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Are you rejecting analysis of Political Economy, in favor of vibes-based social movements? Genuinely.
Karl Marx said a lot of things about socialism and collectivism a hundred years ago, but he’s not in charge anymore. The rich oligarchs who replaced him are saying this. You keep saying “but they SAID they were SOCIALISTS” and all I see is Sponge Bob’s eyes, filling up with tears because he just can’t believe that some rich assholes are lying to him.
We have people in this country who claim to be “christians” who literally elected the anti-christ. Trump embodies ALL the seven deadly sins, but those folks are just fine with it. So let’s quit pretending that belief systems can’t be exploited.
Karl Marx was never “in charge.” He developed a framework for analyzing Political Economy in a manner useful for the Proletariat to identify the manner in which we are exploited, and how we may go about defeating the Bourgeoisie. There are no rich oligarchs replacing Marx.
Belief systems certainly can be exploited, but that isn’t the point you are making here. Your point is that we should disregard analysis of Political Economy in favor of vibes-based action. If you don’t do the effort of studying Political Economy, any conclusions you come to will be based on shaky foundations, rather than throwing theory aside, we need to weild it to guide correct practice.
Funny enough, Mao described your error over half a century ago, in On Practice:
The second point is that knowledge needs to be deepened, that the perceptual stage of knowledge needs to be developed to the rational stage – this is the dialectics of the theory of knowledge.[5] To think that knowledge can stop at the lower, perceptual stage and that perceptual knowledge alone is reliable while rational knowledge is not, would be to repeat the historical error of “empiricism”. This theory errs in failing to understand that, although the data of perception reflect certain realities in the objective world (I am not speaking here of idealist empiricism which confines experience to so-called introspection), they are merely one-sided and superficial, reflecting things incompletely and not reflecting their essence. Fully to reflect a thing in its totality, to reflect its essence, to reflect its inherent laws, it is necessary through the exercise of thought to reconstruct the rich data of sense perception, discarding the dross and selecting the essential, eliminating the false and retaining the true, proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside, in order to form a system of concepts and theories – it is necessary to make a leap from perceptual to rational knowledge. Such reconstructed knowledge is not more empty or more unreliable; on the contrary, whatever has been scientifically reconstructed in the process of cognition, on the basis of practice, reflects objective reality, as Lenin said, more deeply, more truly, more fully. As against this, vulgar “practical men” respect experience but despise theory, and therefore cannot have a comprehensive view of an entire objective process, lack clear direction and long-range perspective, and are complacent over occasional successes and glimpses of the truth. If such persons direct a revolution, they will lead it up a blind alley.
The hammer and sickle in the picture stands for the working class and the dollar and swastika for the owning class
The point is that it’s a class war. It always has been. It’s not about “socialism vs capitalism”…
I really think you should maybe watch some youtube essays on Marxism and what it means, I think you might like the things you learn from it.
All communists should d*e
Why?
Last I checked the USSR didn’t do so well financially, and Russia is basically a criminal empire.
The USSR did fairly well until liberalizing part of its economy, as well as struggling to recover from the immense cost it paid to win the Eastern Front and beat the Nazis while under the oppression of the Cold War.
The Marxist-Leninist tradition is still carried forward by many states, including the PRC, which is on its way to surpass the US as world superpower.
The PRC is barely communist nowadays, and the USSR did not do well, the liberalising was a last-ditch attempt to save it.
The PRC is more classically Marxist than under the Gang of Four, when they abandoned materialist analysis and attempted to implement Communism through fiat. Large firms and key industries of the PRC are firmly in the public sector, while small firms, cooperatives, and sole proprietorships make up most of the private sector.
Marx didn’t think you could abolish private property by making it illegal, but by developing out of it. Socialism and Communism, for Marx, were about analyzing and harnessing the natural laws of economics moving towards centralization, so as to democratize it and produce in the interests of all. This wasn’t about decentralization, but centralization.
Markets themselves are not Capitalism, just like public ownership itself is not Socialist. The US is not Socialist just because it has a post-office, just like the PRC is not Capitalist just because it has some degree of private ownership. Rather, Marx believed you can’t just make private property illegal, but must develop out of it, as markets create large firms, and large firms work best with central planning:
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i. e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn’t to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital;[43] the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism.
As for the USSR, its economy worked quite well for most of its existence. I recommend reading Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? by Stephen Gowens, who goes over what went right and what went wrong in the Soviet Economy, including why it was dissolved. Further, GDP growth was positive throughout the near entirety of its existence, collapsing when it liberalized:
I recommend doing more research on Marixsm and the economies of the PRC and former USSR.
Tldr
PRC is Marxist, and the USSR’s economy was flawed, but ultimately worked rather well given its conditions. Read the comment for the justifications for both claims.
Your boos mean nothing. I’ve seen what makes you cheer.
No you haven’t, you’re too lazy to read enough to.
I didn’t downvote you, for what it’s worth. I save that for more unreasonable people.
Communism is a shitty alternative.
In what way?
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.
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.
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.
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:
-
Liberal reforms that gave the Bourgeoisie power over key industries
-
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
-
A huge portion of resources were spent on maintaining millitary parity with the US in order to dissuade US invasion
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
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.
As opposed to the source you provided, which was nothing
Ever seen Communism working as intended? There’ll always be power hungry assholes ruining these things for everyone.
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.
Russia is a shit hole and has failed in every type of government they’ve ever had.
The soviets found themselves in a feudal shithole, and elevated it to a global super power.
China was also doing no better before “communism”.
Not sure who claims that China is communist, but it’s definitely not the chines. They have a market socialist system (or more accurately SWCC), which still has class society and its own contradictions.
Educate yourself on basic facts before you speak on a topic and stfu until you do so shitlib
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.
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.
deleted by creator
Keep pulling until you get hierarchy out.
Comunism is trash.
Greed is the evil.
Sure but fuck Russia too lmao
uhh, anarchism clears lol
i want memes, not politics
I’d say 1 person owning most of the money made at the company is the problem
To solve it everyone just needs to form or join a private unionized cooperative that doesn’t go on stock market for sustainable growth and so everyone at the company is making a lot of money too
Then collectively you all grow the pot that is available for all of you. Better to all be making 1,000,000 each and then grow it together to become 10,000,000-100,000,000+ for each of you
That is the root issue. Not enough of that
This doesn’t solve the systemic pressures within Capitalism, nor does it describe how to get from A to B. Your idea still depends on your one firm outcompeting other firms, which is difficult in saturated markets.
I recommend you look into Marxist theory, I have some recommendations I can make.
True but at least it’s a good step to take. More stuff will be useful as well
I’d say it would be a good step to take if I thought it was legitimately possible in the current system. If it succeded, it would be good, but such a strategy has never worked before and there’s no evidence that it will.
yeah instead of having all the money controlled by a few billionares, lets have an extremely powerful govt have that kinda power. great idea /s
It is better for the economy to be controlled by the public than by private interests, yes. You can study the democratizations of the economy made in AES states, and how the lives of the working class made the largest improvments.
I see we are reaching for “full retard” today. If you love communism go and live in a communist country.
That’s the plan! Though I want to aid in turning my own country Communist, as that would benefit the most people globally, or at least take down the US Empire.
Ableism aint cool either.
Read my comment on this post. Think Capitalism mixed with Socialism would be good alternative for everyone
That’s what most European countries (social democracies) are doing. Safety net so you don’t randomly become homeless (you keep getting a part of your salary for a while, and even without any money there are enough places to sleep for all homeless people, at least in Austria), free healthcare, …
There’s no socialism in social democrats, only capitalists doing concessions so the people don’t demand socialism
I’m going to university for 27€ per semester while getting free healthcare and subsidised housing and lunch. If I were to become homeless I could go to a shelter for sleeping and food. Additionally you get a certain percentage of your salary (starting at ~80%, becomes less as the months pass, but it’s plenty of time to find a new job) after getting fired. Schools are free and there are basically no private schools because there’s simply no need, public education is good. After childbirth you also get money until you can work again, for up to 3 years. There are regulations against monopolies and cartels. Etc etc.
imo this is the ideal system
"My men enslave people in africa to get rubber and murder them if they dont gather enough rubber and then we ship it here and then we have lots of rubber in belgium and the suffering happens somewhere else where I’ll never be
imo this is the ideal system"
- king of belgium, probably
What about not enslaving people?
And of course people in weaker economies get paid less, they also need less since everything is cheaper.
The whole problem is that your system is built on the backs of super-exploiting the Global South. You’ve exported the bulk of the hard labor that allows you to live comfortable lives, and maintain it through the domination of private financial Capital.
I responded to it, but I want to respond to this as well. There’s really no such thing as “mixing” Capitalism with Socialism. Private and Public property can be mixed, but what determines Capitalism or Socialism is if the former is the principle aspect of the economy, or the latter. By principle, I mean which controls the state, large firms, and key industries.
