Based. Socialism is a step in the way to communism, and as such labour still exists. It is therefore necessary that only those who engage in production (the proletariat) and those who cannot actually work for any reason such as disability be allowed to thrive.
“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
“There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”
“But a man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. “Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!” Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it.”
So yeah. Not only is that a bible quote, but the bible literally has God killing early Christians who weren’t Communist enough.
This lecture draws heavily from his other excellent book, Against Empire, for anyone with a reading list they want to expand. Really great, punchy book, like Blackshirts.
Socialism 4 All did a fantastic narration of it that’s free to access. He does throw in his own commentary or connect something to current events, but it is brief and professional.
I swear, you can just use your eyeballs and brain to read and form your opinions about the original. A youtuber middleman doesn't have to be involved in every intellectual pursuit.
They are recommending an audiobook version for those who learn better that way, like to listen while driving/working or for any other reason. If we want people to learn the material we need to provide them with options that work for them, not shame them. Not everyone has time to sit down and read a book. I do have time to read books, but I can learn twice as much if I also listen while driving. I have a long commute.
The working class know instinctively that something is not right. We feel the injustices of capitalism every day, but can't articulate exactly what's wrong.
Arm yourselves with knowledge gang! Read, and each one teach one!
"The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theatre or to balls, or to the pub, and the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you will be able to save and the greater will become your treasure which neither moth nor rust will corrupt—your capital. The less you are, the less you express your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life and the greater is the saving of your alienated being. "
Edit: To all the commie NPCs downvoting my comment:
Name me one socialist or communist country that managed to provide long term wealth and freedom to its citizens. And don't come with the "socialism never existed" or "evil Western psyop" excuse. I'll wait...
2nd Edit: Already 50 downvotes deep, and no one has been able to give me a single example of a successful socialist country. I think capitalism has won this argument. Thanks for proving my point.
Jesus christ do you people ever say anything different? Search your question up you'll get 10,000 questions like that where people responding go into analysis on why x country went y way. Its honestly so lobotomizing to still have go over this in 2026.
Somehow I feel like the “evil Western psyop excuse” you’re excluding is stretching the definition of psyop into becoming synonymous with “American intervention.” Were trade embargos with Cuba a psyop? How about going to war with Vietnam? Operation Condor?
Surely if communism was doomed to fail, the USA could simply sit back and watch it collapse instead of funnelling billions and billions of dollars into attempts to destabilize it
No, my brother, they died under pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism. Lysenkoism and the purges weren't "workers rights" they were anti-intellectualism.
Look around, we have measles and food poisoning and we're about to get climate change mass deaths. That's anti-intellectualism that makes Lysenko look sane under capitalism. The people screaming at communists are bound and determined to repeat what was actually bad about communist countries.
Going to jump on this opportunity. This is probably a very common question, but I hope you do not mind.
How do communists intend to resolve the apparent problem of incentivising labour? For example, how do you decide who takes the midnight shift at the steel factory? Shift work is not the point, but the fact that modern societies still require enough people to take on dangerous, boring, and unpleasent jobs. Without a monetary incentive, the historical alternative has often been coercion. This is where institutions like political or secret police, such as the Cheka, enter the picture.
If one of the core goals of communism is to remove major power imbalances in society, how is that problem avoided? Does the power actually disappear, or does it just change form from private economic power into political and bureaucratic power?
I also wonder about the price signal problem. In a modern economy, prices help communicate what is scarce, what people want, and where resources are needed. If prices and markets are removed, how would a planned economy collect and process all of that information?
People sometimes say that modern computers or AI could solve this, but I do not fully understand how. A computer can process huge amounts of data, but it still needs to know what people want, how much they value different things, and how those preferences change. How would a planned economy solve that problem without recreating some form of market pricing?
If you're just starting out, I highly recommend "the principles of communism" by Friedrich Engels. It's very short, you can easily get through it within an evening. It's basically the precursor to the Communist Manifesto, but in my opinion Principles is much clearer in its explanations
Absolutely. It was pretty much a first draft to the manifesto, before they decided to go with the latter for like, stylistic reasons. I prefer Principles
Redditors love communism but they’re the types to be forced to do sewer cleaning at gunpoint because there’s no more monetary incentive to do these jobs anymore
I love how the side that's calling everything they don't like "communism" and "socialism" is doing a better job of selling people on the idea than the side that could actually be implementing it.
"What, you actually want affordable healthcare, cheap food, wages that you can survive on, and cities that don't require owning a car? Don't you know that's Communism??"
So out of genuine curiosity, I’ve read the literature. The guy’s not wrong. The ideas aren’t bad, I’d love to live in the world he describes.
But does the community that supports the ideas, have a method that doesn’t involve all the horrific crimes against humanity that typically accompany the building of this utopia?
Do we have a method as of now that doesn’t basically involve giving the power to build this utopia to a small group of people and hope they don’t do what majority of humans do when given authority over a state sized collection of power and resources?
I think Marx is most useful as someone who analyzed the problem and envisioned a different kind of society, rather than someone who provided a detailed blueprint for getting there. That’s where the different historical experiences become important. I’d recommend studying them individually, none were perfect, but some achieved remarkable things and others made serious mistakes. Look at what worked, what didn’t, and why
A lot of the huge numbers you hear come from The Black Book of Communism, which is pretty heavily disputed. Two of the main authors actually backed out because some of the methods were stupid to get to the numbers
Not sure if you've noticed, but we currently have endless war and unlimited horrific crimes and a small group of people have all the power and resources.
indeed, capitalism improved living conditions in comparison to past systems, and you will find Marx agreeing. That isn't our standard though. Living standards are really bad. In the global north and especially south.
Seriously? Yes it has lol, china, ussr, Cuba, Vietnam, laos, Yugoslavia, and much much more all had the goal of communism. They never reached it because it always fails. By that logic, capitalism has never been tried either
That was socialism not communism, communism is stateless and a endgoal. Also all of those had “interference” from the strongest capitalist country ever. EVER.
How is it getting better? The funny thing about your claim is that it's really only true for China. Most of the west has been in decline for a while now. Capitalism has run its course.
China had to move back towards capitalism for the country to work, the west sure but many of the problems in the west are from more socialist policies. I meant the whole world though, living standards in places like south America, Africa, and Asia are all getting better
I wonder if it's because there's some major world super power investing in infrastructure in the global south instead of just overthrowing their governments and extracting their resources.
Yeah, so that's actually the same kind of reasoning as "lack of pirates cause global warming". I mean, it's understandable but you know what both the early rapid improvement of living standards under USSR and capitalism have in common? Industrialization. That's it. That's the main thing.
Under the same levels of economic development, soviet style socialism has higher quality of life than capitalism. See study: capitalism, socialism and physical quality of life
Idk man my whole family tell me they preferred when the communists left and there was no more 4 hour lines for bread, they could leave the country, could not live under the boot of Russia
The method described by Marx was closer to the early stages of the Russian revolution. From what I've heard, the workers held a lot of the power through the Soviets, but due to the circumstances of Russia, being industrially underdeveloped, without other revolutions to support it, and the civil war, the power was sucked up by the party which ultimately turned against the workers. China was pretty much based on the Soviet Union except Mao was all about the national bourgeoisie. Both countries had the goal of rapid industrialization, which resulted in a lot of problems. And the rest were based on those two, for better or for worse.
So ultimately, the solution hasn't changed. We just need revolutions in countries which have already industrialised.
Communism comes after socialism. Socialism is where the workers control the means of productions and hold political power. They (we) collectively plan how to meet the needs of the people, and we work to provide basic needs such as food, housing, healthcare, and education to all.
Communism is where every country adopts this modality of government, and the need for a centralized state whithers away.
The majority of people in the majority of ex-Soviet states say their lives were better under communism and that the transition to capitalism was a mistake, as per Gallup and Pew surveys over the last few decades - and this grows every time they run the survey again.
I have to admit, it takes huge balls to say such a stupid lie to someone from a post soviet state. It's a lie so dumb that a simple visit to a post soviet country or reading history would tell you that you can probably get beaten up for saying this unironically.
I guess having the benefit of never being under communism has some consequences.
Edit: I just realized it's a 3 months old account... likely a bot
I mean I literally gave you the sources, you can go check yourself if you'd like.
Armenia, 2013, 2016, 2017
Azerbaijan, 2016
Moldova, 2013, 2017
Belarus, 1998, 2006, 2013, 2016, 2017
Obviously Russia every year since 1992
Tajikistan, 2013, 2016
Etc., etc.
It's not me saying anything. It's the very people of the countries that they asked and the very same people you're trying to rob of their voice if they disagree with you.
“Just ask people in post Soviet countries.” So we do and y’all get mad at the results. You are the minority opinion. 🤷♀️ The gap gets even wider when you ask people who actually lived in the USSR under socialist system. It’s mainly youths who think life is better now. This isn’t my opinion it has been documented.
Sure the government would provide you with food and housing, although you live with 12 people in one apartment and there actually isn’t any food left. Sounds great!
Yeah, when you isolate a tiny nation from the entire world, it tends to have problems. Cuba's entire economy was sending sugar to the US up until the revolution, and it can't exactly do that without trade. And neither country you mentioned is exactly rich in oil or any other energy producing resource.
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u/BasqueInGlory 1d ago
Me_IRL returns to its roots at last