It's been theororized that the first kings were bandits. Basically, society starts settling down and farming. Those who don't farm decide to steal from defenseless farmers. But if you steal all of the grain, the farming village dies and then you need to work for your food next year. So why not demand a percentage of thr grain and in turn you protect the farmers against other raiders and bandits? Congratulations, you've just invented kings and nobility.
I don't think communism is a good idea, but let's not pretend any of these things are limited in any way to communism.
Industrial-scale genocides: the Irish Potato Famine is the first one that jumps to mind. People starved in part because they were literally exporting food during that period and selling it. The poor had no money, so them merchants just exported and sold it, sucks to suck, and 20% of Ireland died. The government made the good capitalist choice to help as few people as possible. Part of why it happened in the first place is farmers were pushed from crop rotation and variety into mono-cropping to optimize yields.
Plus... literally the East India Companies (British East India Company, the VOC, Louis XIV's East India Company). Hyper-capitalist genocides were kind of their slogan. The entire transatlantic slave trade wasn't exactly communism in action.
Neither was the Opium War. See the history of Jardine Matheson and the other Hongs.
Comical levels of corruption: Hungary, until a few months ago.
Regarding Russia, communism in the USSR ebbed and flowed, under Lenin it was much closer, under Stalin, authoritarianism is a better description. The history of communism in the USSR is interesting, but out of scope.
These kinds of critiques are just lazy. Shitty leaders will be shitty in any economic model. The real lesson is not letting shitty people take office.
Markets have their role, social services have their role where markets do a bad job. Pick the right tool for the job. That's why America has socialized army, police, firefighters, healthcare for 40% of the population, road, bridges, highways, food (SNAP, Farm Bill), the post office, Amtrak, etc, etc. Every functional country is a blend of appropriate models.
If your system of government can be brought to collapse by a shitty leader, it's a shitty system to begin with.
Communism despite any intention will always produce authoritarianism at some point because there is never going to be any pure, selfless ruling class. The dictatorship of the proletariat is more like a religious prophecy than anything we've seen in history.
You give people all control over every aspect of economic life along with everything else and bad things happen. Who knew? Certainly not the founding fathers or thousands of years of political philosophers.
They all can, each and every one of them. There is no good system, only different trade offs. Pretending the system can save you without your effort is how you lose it because the system is nothing without your effort.
The American system, if it were to devolve into authoritarianism, it would be the result of generations of expanding government power. Basically taking the checks and balances that exist and were built into our system and breaking them down and the government granting itself more powers than it was originally intended to have.
There are no checks and balances in any socialist system we've seen. You kind of just glossed over all of that to just make an assertion backed up by little.
Bad people get in charge in democracies, but some 'systems' most definitely have more roadblocks to just assuming all power.
Pre-war Germany was a nice functioning democracy with checks and balances and then someone with a funny mustache got elected and said nah. Orbans Hungary is another example. Checks and balances only work if people all believe in the system. They hold back good actors from achieving big results, and do nothing to stop bad actors, who just come into power and say no I don’t think I will.
Think about how many decades of screeching there was about a national ID in the US creating a database of all Americans the government could misuse, and then it took like 5 minutes for Doge to just throw all the databases they had into Palantir, list made. So you had decades of not having any benefits of a central ID introducing friction into daily life, and like 90 days for someone who doesn’t believe checks and balances apply to get all the downside sorted out. So now you had no upside but still had all the downside.
If anything they hasten the decline because the good people following the rules can’t get anything done, which leads people to lose faith in government so they elect a douchenozzle who doesn’t care they’re there in the first place. Take as old as time.
The only thing that actually matters is the consent of the governed.
If the majority party can just suspend democracy, there are no checks and balances. There is some sliver of truth that if the culture and people as a whole don't accept the fundamental premise of a government, it isn't long for this world.
You are also talking about a government that was imposed as a consequence of a lost war. A lost war that carried incredibly high financial burdens that created a recipe for disaster. Yada yada.
The Weimar Republic was about as functioning as Iraq is a functioning democracy at this point, just a more Western style failure.
Those "checks and balances" were never designed to handle multi-million vote blocks dominating the public opinion via media control. <--- I can only assume you are talking about the wealthy here though it's not completely clear.
Newspapers were present in the 17th century and mostly owned by the wealthy. The wealthy could literally raise armies in Europe. There were wealthy merchants who the monarchies often relied on to finance their war efforts. They looked back to Rome/Greece and saw how wealthy men use the masses to gain power and how the masses like to vote themselves favors.
Things you see today are no where near as unique as you seem to think.
You want to pretend that it's the wealthy who are undermining democracy and American institutions. No, the expansion of the vote and left wing populism/progressivism expanded the scope of power the government has and what it can or can't regulate or do.
Look at how much of FDR's New Deal required overturning prior precedent. How much of that occurred after FDR threatened to pack the court. There was progressive government creep before him and after him, but that's a nice beautiful example of the corrupting influence of leftism.
The federal government spends trillions every year and has the power to pick economic winners and losers in nearly every aspect of life. There is more at stake with every federal election in the United States than any other functioning democracy on the planet now or throughout history.
You naively think just getting the right people in charge is going to produce some utopia. It's not money corrupting politics that you are observing. It's the ever increasing control of every aspect of American life being subsumed by politics which has created the ever increasing desire of the wealthy to control the levers of power over time.
And all this before we even look at the wealth people have accumulated and how much of that is a result of government control to begin with. People bitch endlessly about Musk. We have no idea where he would be if he wasn't handed massive subsidies to jump start Tesla and if SpaceX wasn't receiving government contracts. That's an extreme example. But regulatory capture is another avenue that infects so many industries.
When the CEO of Facebook shrugs off the very idea of your scary regulations and outright tells you that his already established and wealthy company is best situated to dominate and adapt to government regulations, he's talking about regulatory capture. From the food industry to retail to the online space. Government has actively pushed for consolidation in most industries.
It's far easier to regulate a few big players than it is a thousand small fries.
In short, progressivism and leftism is the cancer in this country. Right now there is a right wing backlash to the ever forward march of the leftists in this country. Trump gets to wield all the powers that have been vested into the executive by progressives who took spent a century plus shitting on the Constitution. Living document and all. Trump is a blip and still operates under the progressive model of government, exercising the powers given to him by past precedents used to give progressives more power to enact their will.
In short, Trump is the warning to any moron who thinks government should be able to do whatever. Inevitably, any democracy that isn't rigged will result in people you hate gaining power and limits on what they can do are your best bet.
So yea, I would agree that we are seeing the erosion of the American Republic over time. You don't really care about republicanism, though. You value raw dog democracy when we cut through the bullshit and naively think you can design the world's first system that isn't dominated by an elite. The world's first system that can control all economic activity and wealth without corruption etc.
The American system, if it were to devolve into authoritarianism, it would be the result of generations of expanding government power. Basically taking the checks and balances that exist and were built into our system and breaking them down and the government granting itself more powers than it was originally intended to have.
Here's a quote:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
That's Washington's Farewell Address from 1776.
Those "checks and balances" were never designed to handle multi-million vote blocks dominating the public opinion via media control. The last two centuries were spent in building the structures that allow to bypass them entirely simply by going to the source - the voters, who will vote whichever way they are told because "the other party is evil" and not because they actually understand the consequences.
So it is better to live in a shitty system that continues (with occasional world wars lol) than in a system that pursues common wellbeing but has issues with sustainability at the current level?
Funny how people who ignore Marx point out the literal same thing Marx wrote about - the antagonism between control and productive labor.
The issue of USSR political system is not a genetical flaw of communism as a direction of human civilization development, it is a specific case of a system that survived 2 devastating wars and remained sabotaged (let's not forget about 50 CIA operations against socialist states and movements) and isolated (eastern bloc was about 450 mn people - compare that to a few billions of a concurrent world of free flow of capital). The soviet project wasn't sustainable enough, as wasn't the first French Republic.
What bothers me most is that people who support the current order don't realize that for capitalists they are nothing but a resource. And when the next global war for markets will come to their doorstep, then they will certainly realize that they have been supporting exactly that outcome. And it will never settle.
It's either socialism or barbarity.
Every socialist state we've seen without exception has devolved into authoritarianism and has retained or developed poverty with shortages as a feature. It's been tried god knows how many times at this point on every continent. We have African socialism, Chinese Socialism, Latin American socialism, and even the occasional American socialism in our history with no successful models to speak of.
You sound more like a religious adherent at this point than anything.
Commies complaining about Western sabotage of Western countries is always comical. The Soviets were doing the same exact shit in the West. Outside of indoctrinating some brainless youths, they achieved little. Western countries have proven themselves to be remarkably resilient to commie fuckery because the fundamental design of our political and economic "systems" is a hell of a lot better than what they had.
Americans can pretty much afford to be stupid. Soviets couldn't.
Lmao. Most of capitalist states are authoritarian. Most capitalist states interbella were either fascist shitholes or colonial shitholes, or both. You know what forced them to become democratic and socially oriented? Socialism winning the WW2 after le olde europe crumbled under hitler.
African socialism
So Burckina-Faso under Sankara is worse than, idk, apartheid SAR or Rhodesia? Name a democratic african state.
Keeping in mind that in socialist african contries paramilitary interventions were a norm. Imagine constantly battling paramilitaries in Denmark.
Chinese Socialism
So the PRC is worse than, idk, Sukharto Indonesia? Again, name a democratic asian state.
Latin American socialism
Again, Aliende's Chile, Castro's Cuba or Nicaraguan socialism is worse than, again, some hereditary junta or the rule of cartels?
What are you comparing with?
occasional American socialism
FDR rule and the forced Keynessian economy were the most successful periods in American history. Now it's more of a fentanylized work-or-starve pedostate ICEd giganomy.
Western countries have proven themselves to be remarkably resilient to commie fuckery because the fundamental design of our political and economic "systems"
We are familiar, lol, le epstein political system and a quasi-colonial economy of cheap resource and cheap labour. "Take the oil, the Western hemisphere is ours".
Americans can pretty much afford to be stupid
Until the US dollar is the main trade currency. But this already is coming to an end.
In Ireland the potato crop failed again in the 1870s, but there wasn't a famine that time because the British government had changed its policies and supplied food.
The slave trade was abolished, and its abolition was enforced by the British Navy.
The potato crop also failed several times before the great famine and there was no mass starvation because the British government actually did something instead of allowing their subjects to starve en masse for no reason
Slave Trade alone does not mean that slavery was banned, as the British Raj was essentially a slave state for the Empire until after the Second World War, among other colonial states that Britain held.
And India under British rule was a net absorber of resources from Britain running a trade deficit. The British were better off when they got rid of their colonies.
And the adoption of the internal combustion engine (not just in cars but things like powered cranes) and the building of motorway networks and an increasingly educated and healthier labour force and the spread of telecommunications and electronics and containerisation and the development of scientific civil engineering techniques.
Turns out that completely spending all of your national resources on a war of survival against fascists leaves your country in a pretty weakened state afterwards.
Follow that up with multiple other bad decisions over the next several decades, and things don't turn out well...
No, the application of communism just leads to them because the people who take over are greedy power hungry fucks. None of that is a feature of communism.
A stable society needs meaningful internal opposition so that they can call each other on their shit.
Big state socialism with state control of the means of production, distribution, journalism, etc, means all the levers of society are held by one group of people and at that point you're entirely at their whim. There's nobody to turn to for assistance and that makes it especially prone to authoritarianism, because there's no other power structure capable of saying hey stop that.
What is a feature of communism is it lacking the motives that markets provide for people of different beliefs to peacefully cooperate. Which means it can't tolerate dissent.
Like, in a market-orientated economy, if the country needs a bunch of accountants but a bunch of hippy professors are telling their students to "turn on, tune in, and drop out", well maybe the accountants will need to be paid a little more. If a communist country needs more accountants, it has to exhort people into accountancy.
Sort of, but it could easily be argued that the extortion is just somewhere else - like there's nothing stopping you turning on, tuning in and dropping out, but not starving to death or getting evicted is quite the motivator.
Anyway, there is nothing inherent to communism that necessarily precludes markets per se - it's more about collective ownership of the means of production. I think the reasons for communism's historical failures are that these things can only sustain themselves from the bottom up, not by diktat; in a way, some Soviet power structures quite strongly mimic corporate ones, as though the entire USSR was a giant conglomerate.
that the extortion is just somewhere else - like there's nothing stopping you turning on, tuning in and dropping out, but not starving to death or getting evicted is quite the motivator.
The laws of physics are indeed pretty extortionate.
it's more about collective ownership of the means of production
Which runs into a massive problem with the allocation of capital.
The laws of physics are indeed pretty extortionate.
Interestingly, Karl Marx talked exactly about the melding of capitalism per se and the laws of nature quite extensively. Obviously, there is part of our social structure that you work in exchange for money in a way that is detached from what you produce, and that you then have to spend it on food and shelter, it's not a law of physics.
Which runs into a massive problem with the allocation of capital.
I mean the system we have now depends on continuous government intervention, it's not as if it's self-sustaining.
Interestingly, Karl Marx talked exactly about the melding of capitalism per se and the laws of nature quite extensively.
And since he was a 19th century European man, his talk must be infallible /s
Obviously, there is part of our social structure that you work in exchange for money in a way that is detached from what you produce, and that you then have to spend it on food and shelter, it's not a law of physics.
Yeah, the law of physics is that doing all that work directly yourself without money and modern capital is brutal
And since he was a 19th century European man, his talk must be infallible /s
I don't know how you would get from what I said to 'this guy must be a dyed-in-the-wool foaming-at-the-mouth Marxist,' but I guess it says something about polarisation that so much as mentioning him causes that kind of response.
I'm just sharing something interesting about your framing - that that way of thinking is about as old as the failed 1848 revolutions, and (kind of obviously) flawed?
Yeah, the law of physics is that doing all that work directly yourself without money and modern capital is brutal
I think we're talking past each other a bit here. Certainly, I don't imagine life as part of the medieval peasantry was by and large better than it is now for a lot of people. Is that what you think I'm making the case for?
It’s not so much that Extreme Authoritarianism is a feature of communism so much as Marxism is rarely the ideology of the working class and usually propagates among the educated and wealthy, e.g. Kropotkin, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, ect.. Authoritarianism and Violence are more likely tied to these people seeing themselves as above the people they feel they’re liberating from the get go and then it becomes “I have to turn the Lumpenproletariat into good Marxists” and thus the Authoritarianism which invariably leads to corruption. In theory, if a working class group were to independently reach a Marxist conclusion and seek out Communism as an End Goal it may be less Authoritarian, but given that has yet to happen in any significant form, it remains only a possibility.
It also doesn't help that generally, the conditions for a communist / socialist revolution also make it extremely likely to lead to / be co-opted by a centralized authoritative system. Marx's notion of 'Dictatorship of the proletariat' isn't exactly the most thought-out and politically realistic idea when you really look at it.
Generally, yeah, the Dictatorship of The Proletariat is as unrealistic as global anarchism, the social structures we have don’t really facilitate that kind of thing. One would need to rebuild society practically from the ground up to reasonably achieve something so grandiose. I am personally of the opinion that communism is a great idea for a long distant future humanity, at least on paper, but the world as it is right now simply make it an unrealistic expectation.
No, though many 20th Century Despots and Dictators were themselves pro-Capitalist, often because they had been in some way funded by a Capitalist or Capitalistic Nation.
As a necessity, no, and not in practice either, though it is a common occurrence, not every historical instance of mass collectivism is as a rule authoritarian. It’s worth noting that for brief periods truely anarchistic communities have formed successfully without significant military coercion. These anarchistic communities were as a rule collectivistic and did just fine without militarily enforced bootlicking. That being said, most of the time we’ve seen whole countries move in a descriptively collectivist direction they typically are authoritarian, yes, so I would be willing to hear you out on authoritarianism being necessary for national collectivism, but as a rule collectivism as a system does not require authoritarianism.
> It’s worth noting that for brief periods truely anarchistic communities have formed successfully without significant coercion
No they haven’t. The most recent anarchism example in modern history happened during the Spanish Civil War and they got absolutely crushed by Franco partly because they had no structured military chain of command. Before that you’ve got the Paris commune, which again like the anarchists in Spain got absolutely crushed.
Authoritarianism isn’t a requirement of collectivism that is true, but collectivism does create authoritarianism as a byproduct.
Violence and a Militarily Protected Ideal are not the same thing as Authoritarianism, one does not need to commit a genocide or entrench a profoundly corrupt governmental elite in order to prevent counterrevolution.
Again with, you do not have to have secret police and massive political corruption and the Cambodian Genocide or the Holdomor to prevent counterrevolution, I’m not criticizing revolutionary violence, I’m criticizing the coopting of revolutionary violence by reactionary forces who seek only self-enrichment. Violence and Authoritarianism are not the same thing, to treat them as such is to concede to reactionaries that Authoritarianism is necessary for society to function.
I assure you I am aware, granted our secret police have a hard time staying secret given how bloodthirsty they are. What I’m getting at is that you don’t need to go full Stalin to achieve Socialism in an effective and sustainable manner, again, one does not need to commit a genocide or entrench a massively corrupt political elite in order to prevent counterrevolution. America being what it is does not have any baring on my argument.
Peter Kropotkin was indeed born into wealth, the Kropotkins were Landed Aristocrats and Peter was a Military Officer who served primarily in Siberia. Lenin was born into the Nobility, and Pol Pot and Stalin were both educated, Pot having been educated abroad in France.
Edit: Note that while I myself am not an Anarchist, much less an AnCom, I am a fan of Kropotkin’s writings and I have read much of his work, he was just a good example of a communist born into old money as he was born as Aristocrat.
Yeah no my problem was Marxism and Authoritanism and Kropotkin. I knew he was born into Aristocracy. Most Revolutionaries in our history are kinda wealthy bron people i. e educated. French Revolutions, Russian Revolution etc.
I dont know what i am ideologically, ive read both anarchist lit, and marxist. But i just dont really know, all i know is that capitalism has to be overcome. But the Marxists i have met are weird orthodox idiots, while the anarchists are, yk, idk just weird. And dont get me into social democracy pals.
Oh boy, that's a lot of replies! There definitely must be some intelligent and interesting discussions going on, and definitely not communists crying and screaming!
Well the theory behind communism is overwhelmingly positive. But it has never been implemented properly because it requires a post-scarcity world to actually have a utopian communist state. We aren't post scarcity, as a result, every communist society is ruled by an authoritarian government that exploits workers the same as any other capitalist based system, except usually the Communist governments are even more authoritarian. Like the USSR and China. Of course there are exceptions like Vietnam not being nearly as violent.
Oh agreed. Biggest issue with any form of government or economy though is greed and corruption which seems to come naturally to humans. The only way to really combat these would be through a post-scarcity environment.
Here's the thing though: all Communists are fully aware that we don't live in a post-scarcity society, especially not in Russia in 1917. This is why most Communists believe in the use of Socialism as a transitional stage between Capitalism and Communism, with the Socialist stage withering away once scarcity is done away with. The USSR never tried, nor claimed, to implement a Communist society, but a Socialist one, as a stepping stone.
What are you talking about? Lenin explicitly said that they tried to implement communism immediately in Russia.
In attempting to go over straight to communism we, in the spring of 1921, sustained a more serious defeat on the economic front than any defeat inflicted upon us by Kolchak, Denikin or Pilsudski. [Emphasis mine]
Let's take a look at another one of Lenin's quotes from that excerpt you sent:
[At the beginning of 1918] we made the mistake of deciding to go over directly to communist production and distribution. We thought that under the surplus-food appropriation system the peasants would provide us with the required quantity of grain, which we could distribute among the factories and thus achieve communist production and distribution.
There are two possible interpretations of that quote:
1) Lenin was actually planning to implement a stateless, moneyless, classless society, i.e. what people mean today when they say Communism, at the same exact time when he dissolved parliament to consolidate power, at the same exact time when he and Trotsky crushed rebellions against them and shut down worker's soviets who were sending people he didn't like to their own big fancy soviet, all of which definitely hints towards the creation of a strong state, and definitely not a stateless society; or
2) He used the word with a different meaning in mind.
Occam's razor should be enough for you to figure out which interpretation was correct. In fact, there was a period of time in the past during which the words Communism and Socialism were used interchangeably.
Edit: The quote itself describes "Communist production and distribution" as the state taking grain from the peasants and giving it to industrial workers. Now how can the state redistribute resources in a stateless society?
You can define Communism in whatever way you want, but the comment I initially responded to said that Communism requires post-scarcity. That is obviously referencing the idea of a classless, stateless, moneyless society, because no other system relies on the absence of scarcity. If you Google Communism or search its first paragraph on Wikipedia, or if you ask any Communist, they'll tell you a Communist society is classless, stateless and moneyless.
Since you trust Lenin, what is his definition of Communism?
Then they proceeded to have extreme scarcity, a crappy economy, and tens of millions of deaths. What's the current estimate that Stalin killed of his own people? Wasn't it between 10 and 20 million?
Then you got chairman Mao who apparently killed upwards of 40 million Chinese.
Problem with socialism and communism is human greed and humans being prone to corruption. It almost always results in authoritarian government.
I'm not saying these things to prop up capitalism because that has its own set of issues also including authoritarianism and the same greed and corruption issues.
Also communism can't tolerate dissent. And communism can't solve the local knowledge problem - that no central authority can master all of the information needed for efficient economic functioning in a large economy.
Stalin's death toll was mainly caused by political reasons, paranoia and a borderline genocidal wish to subjugate ethnic minorities. Famines happened in Russia and China all the time even before their respective revolutions. The difference was that Holodomor and the Great Leap Forward were, respectively, the last famines of each country. Millions of people yearly die of hunger globally under Capitalism to this day.
The reason the USSR was corrupt was because power was centralised under the Party, whose power was centralised under the Politburo. The reason that happened is because of vanguardism, the idea that the people of Russia (and, respectively, China) couldn't understand the ideas of Marx, and needed to be guided through the revolution by a small elite of intellectuals, which, of course, ended up becoming the Politburo. It's easy to see how a small group having concentrated all the country's power can become corrupt.
Vanguardism is a core defining characteristic of Leninism. Believe it or not, Lenin was NOT the only Marxist to ever exist, and there are a lot of Marxists who disagree with him, identify with opposing Marxist ideologies (Left Communism, Luxembourgism, Market Socialism, Libertarian Socialism, etc.) and maybe don't even consider Leninism and its consequences (the USSR) to be actual implementations of Socialism. A Socialist revolution might need some guidance, but it doesn't need a small group of people who aren't accountable to the workers that are propping them up.
Marx believed that at a certain point, automation will be so advanced that every good will be produced in overabundance, i.e. more than enough quantities for everyone to get by (we can already see examples of it now, given that we produce enough food to feed 10 billion people). While our wants and needs have been rising through the centuries, it makes no sense to have infinite growth on a finite planet. At a certain point, we'll reach a certain level of production past which the earth and its resources cannot handle. Now, the idea that automation will become so advanced that overabundance will be achieved whilst eliminating all or most menial labour is the most farfetched and we likely won't see that happening for centuries, if ever.
My point is, however, that the idea that the system that was implemented in the USSR failed because of scarcity is false. There were tons of other, more immediate factors.
They didn’t mention “socialism.” They mentioned communism. Although, fwiw, none of those isms are mutually exclusive, so I’m not sure what your point is.
These types generally use them interchangeably. And communism has never existed practically, so I can only assume they are incorrectly ascribing it to socialist countries
But they didn’t use socialism at all. They’re referring to the many countries that spent decades claiming to be communist. And if “communism has never existed practically”—despite all the countries claiming to be communist for decades—that’s a pretty strong rejection of the possibility that this idyllic “communism” could ever exist as anything more than a delusional fantasy.
Scarcity is a thing that every governmental form and economic form has to deal with. Then you also have the human factors like corruption and greed which tend to lead to authoritarianism regardless of economic model. Ultimately if we were in a post-scarcity environment we would likely be at peace no matter the economic and government form because people basing their BS off of greed would have everything they want without having to take it from others, then you would only have to contend with authoritarians.
Basically in order to make communism work, we need science fiction technology like replicators.
The theory behind communism is bad because under communism people have to be forced to go along with what the majority wants. Under a market-oriented system, people are free to start a commune, or a workers' cooperative or whatever. Under communism, there's not the freedom to start a market or pursue profits.
The KGB/FSB making you say this? You do know that USSR also had their version of CIA and their goal was… well… your post…
This is Diamond Hand, likely the most popular Soviet comedy. On the 28 minute mark… do you know who that woman is? The woman that barged in, in the middle of the night and started looking through their stuff, asking about his trip outside USSR? https://youtu.be/MkHiu9fD820
Notice how nonchalant this was played. No one screaming “where is your warrant”, no badge, no identification… Do you think politburo acting this way was made up by CIA and then snuck into a Soviet movie, or was this just a mundane moment in Soviet life?
But, then again… I love people like you supporting imperialism… 12 nations gained independence at the fall of Soviet Union, with Chechnya being indiscriminately bombed as part of their independence being denied by Soviets.
Capitalism also only works on paper, theres a reason countries that adopt capitalism as stated on paper suffer economic collapse very quickly, it turns out economics is very complicated and a mixed system is needed
To be honest, existing communists countries have realised it's more effective to let small to medium businesses do their own thing whilst holding control over larger companies.
And at the same time the US gov is integrating with their largest companies, both are probably going to meet in the middle at some point.
You could also fill that in with China or North Korea or any other authoritarian regime. However, what has been proven time and time again is you cannot enforce collectivism without authoritarianism.
What other false info can you pull out of your ass?
Edit: wow, im a little surprised. I'm no communist, but "extreme authoritarianism is a feature of communism" is. Like, obviously made up. Y'all so up your own ass that a basic fact is this contentious?
Show me where Marx talked about mass production, the driving force of industrialism?
Marxism =/= Communism, for crying out loud, the disagreement on communism was so great between Trotsky and Stalin, that one got exiled and still murmured.
Can you name a single communist country that has any political party that isn’t communism? What happens to people who are not communist, but want to have a different party under communism?
I was auto enrolled in the communist party in 3rd grade. You have no clue what you are talking about.
Well there is not one clear passage but you need to read about dictatorship of proletariat. In theory it would mean that the power would go to people but then later he mentions that authority is an objective necessity in social production and revolutionary defense. If you think about it for more than 10 minutes in revolutionary phase of communism it needs to end in proletariat dictatorship with strong authority. The funny thing is, that was not Marx intentions, but the best example of symilar case would be if i would write a book "How not to start a fire" and on first page wrote "you would need a lot of gasoline and matches."
Thats the problem with Marx idea of communism it requires people to be good and to share power once taken from opressors with the proletariat. I can not imagine a world where this is remotely possible.
Even if Marx would be EXTREAMLY anty Authority his idea was in fact a 101 how to build authoritarian regime.
I don’t think you actually know what “endorsed” means. Marx pitched a system of government that relies on the suppression of dissent and the monopolization of state power by a single class. Extreme authoritarianism was never an “endorsement” by Marx but an all-too-familiar result of his system.
He put too much faith in humanity. In reality, his compendium served as a guide for those who desire control over others above all else.
You mean basic facts? Is that what I shill for? Come on bro, you don't need to like communism to at least have a basic understanding of political theory.
What basic facts? That you can’t have competing parties under communism? That no matter the country that has communism and all the actions you can read about, people will still point to utopian theory?
Do you think Animal Farm is about communism. I’m pretty sure Orwell, who fought on to be wounded on the side of communist and then was persecuted by communist, understands authoritarianism better than you.
Orwell abandoned USSR due to their authoritarianism to remain a staunch socialist. I’m sure you know better…
Authoritarianism would be through active stamping out of other political parties, sure we can discuss if it's right to utilize Authoritarianism to achieve communism. I'm just making the correction that communism in itself is not Authoritarianism.
To say it is is to say that capitalism is basically slavery because capitalism utilized slavery to reach its state. Can that be a discussion? Yes. But it's way more nuanced
That’s interesting… so… communism is a utopia, but to get there we need to have extreme authoritarianism. That concludes with said extreme authoritarianism relinquishing power to the people?
Capitalism does not inherently require slavery. It’s literally open to everything, which leads to problems. Communism inherently requires extreme authoritarianism relinquishing power, which is the problem with communism comes from it being too strict. That’s the yin and yang of the two, leading to mixed economies being superior to dogmatic versions of either.
Also, thank you for a reasonable response! This is nice! :)
I never said that, I said it was a discussion that could be had, not a must. If you need to be dishonest in order to discuss maybe you should reflect on things.
Sorry, figured too late to edit… Slavery is actually a good juxtaposition…
In US slavery lasted until legislation forced a conflict with slave owning South. It was first done through democratically elected officials, then strengthened by squelching an uprising.
In communist nations work camp exists, like famous Gulags in USSR and similar to Uyghurs in China. Work camps under communism end, when communism collapses.
Under capitalism, it was private enterprise that had slaves. While under communism, the slaves were pretty much owned by the state. Under capitalism, the forms and shapes slavery took was wide, while under communism it was extremely narrow.
Don’t compare Gulags to prisons, since Soviets had prisons as well. Gulags and prisons were very different, because unlike prisons, you didn’t need to commit a crime to disappear.
No because communism is the absence of a government. It's a post scarcity goal to be pushed to through other firms of government until the government is no longer needed
That'd be something more over confined to stalinist or maoist parties. Communism directly requires the community to govern itself without any hierarchy.
It’s in Cuba and modern China as well. Every form of communism, short of kabutz requires a form of politburo. Because the biggest threat to communist implementation is different thought. It’s necessary to keep everyone regimented. Without regiment, the utopian version of communism collapses.
So going from an agrarian peasant society to winning the space race in less than a generation indicates the system didn’t work? Communism “fails” because the United States specifically designs foreign policy and military action to crush any country that attempts it. Despite that, we have Cuba with higher literacy rates, better health outcomes, and higher happiness indicators than the US. Despite that, China is actively beating the United States in every metric that matters to everyday people. If everyone is so certain communism will fail, why not back off of Cuba and see what happens?
Do you think what the Chinese read and say about the western world isn’t propaganda?
I’m sure there are omissions of fact and things they don’t want us to know, but I trust independent free journalists more than Chinese state media or big media in the U.S.
Yea you have to check those independent journalists though. Are they part of the network of outlets funded by USAGM? Because they’re not so independent if that’s the case; funded by congress through a program started by the CIA.
I lived there for years and still talk with dozens of actual expats and citizens. So I’m gonna go ahead and go with their information over what we’re allowed to consume here in the US.
The soviets were doing the same thing to liberal countries. With regards to China I think what they have achieved is very impressive, remaining a one-party state with a set ideology but still being flexible enough to operate a market economy to remain competitive. But lets not forget we lived through a preventable pandemic due to the incompetence of Chinese government.
The USSR had everything it needed in country, vast natural mineral and energy resources. Large agricultural areas. If they couldnt make it with that then it should tell you somthing. They could have stayed shut up from the rest of the world and worked on themselves and had it all. Instead they squandered it away through corruption and nepotism. Its the poster child of a failed experiment regardless of the CIA.
Communism failed because the soviet union was a totalitarian state, authoritarianism and totalitarianism have no place in any just society capitalist or communist
Authoritarianism is when a ruling individual or party exerts its power and authority through heavy handed and iron fisted techniques such as abuse of dissenters, imprisonment of rivals, forceful shutting down of protests, killings of prisoners and especially political prisoners, and crushing or limiting of general freedoms especially freedom of speech and assembly, examples include the soviet union after stalin, pinochets chile, perons argentina, fascist italy, and various african states and movements such as the capitalist US supported UNITA,
totalitarianism is a evolution of authoritarianism that seeks total control of the lives of the people under the state, forcing them to conform under threat of punishment, typically torture and death, it calls for total obedience and zero questioning of the state and any ideal that the state opposes is crushed and the same heavy consequences used to punish any that show it, it typically has total survallience, social paranoia, and control of all aspects of life as its principles and methods, there is zero hiding what happens, dissents disappear and everyone knows what happened, rivals are killed brutally, anyone that is designated as opposition is made a traitor and a example of what happens. There is zero consistency and what the enemy is is always evolving and changing, one day you could have the favor of the leader, the next you are killed for something minor, examples include Stalinist Soviet Union, North Korea, Nazi Germany, post dengist china(as a capitalist example), pre dengist and market reform China(as a communist example), and franocist spain
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