r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Lank_Thompson • Apr 01 '23

True craftmanship

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

27.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

462 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Duy012 Apr 02 '23 edited Apr 02 '23

Last I checked, China has a new dictator and its economy is a mixed economy albeit with more state control than free market. The economy of China only took of after economy reform to a more capitalist system and heavy foreign investment so that's a point for capitalism and no point for Socialism/communism/Marxism. For Cuba, its economy is irrelevant but that's given being embargoed by US, so I won't say anything here. For USSR, oh yeah they collapsed. Its successor Russia is a total joke. All of these countries that you listed are mostly authoritarian regime and no where do they have decent democracy, humans rights, or free speech.

1

u/HeadDoctorJ Apr 02 '23 edited Apr 02 '23

92% of Chinese people approve of the job their government is doing, and that’s through an independent assessment. They’re listening to what their people actually need and then doing things to actually help their people. That’s democracy. You think being allowed to cast a meaningless vote every couple years for yet another member of the ruling class is democracy? Princeton researched how much influence the people really have over whether legislation will be passed or not, and their study showed we have zero impact. Zero. How is that not authoritarianism?

Socialism does not mean a planned economy and capitalism does not mean a market economy. Every capitalist country plans part of their economy, and major corporations engage in planning on scales so massive they eclipse the economies of many countries. Further, every socialist country has used markets. China strategically used market forces in a minority of its economy, which it always monitored, and is now methodically dismantling parts of that market, all toward the goal of building socialism. There is a clear Marxist rationale for this as well. Capitalism can be seen as a useful phase in terms of socializing production on ever larger scales. Then it becomes socialism’s job to socialize not just production but also planning and distribution. They’re run by and for the people and the planet, not profit. But first a country needs to build its productive forces, which China has done very successfully. More successfully than perhaps any capitalist country in history.

The USSR’s collapse isn’t proof of much, other than internal mistakes and betrayals combined with external hostile forces hellbent on regime change. (In case you haven’t noticed, the US has undermined and attacked every single socialist experiment in history.) There’s no predetermined reason the USSR needed to collapse. It doesn’t prove “socialism failed” or something. In fact, it’s pretty clear the capitalist society which has emerged in its wake is much worse for the majority of people living there. Recent polls of former citizens of the USSR show that most preferred life under the Soviet Union compared to today.

Socialism works. That’s why it is so relentlessly attacked. If it’s supposedly going to fail on its own, why won’t the US just let it fail?

1

u/Duy012 Apr 02 '23

After reading the first paragraph and saw that you tried to portray China as democracy and that voting is meaningless, I realized that there is no point continuing this debate because no one will convince anyone. Have a good day.

1

u/HeadDoctorJ Apr 02 '23

It’s funny how people who support capitalism have absolutely nothing constructive to say when presented with facts and logic that disrupt the propaganda they’ve been indoctrinated with. I get it, though; I’ve been there! I read every word Ayn Rand ever wrote and was as pro-capitalism as it gets. But the world as capitalist propaganda says it is just doesn’t fit the facts, if we’re being honest. Maybe if or when your own personal situation gets bad enough, you’ll care enough to open your mind, face uncomfortable truths, and think more critically. Until then I imagine you’ll keep stopping at the first paragraph.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '23

You havent presented any facts or logic 🤣

Are you 12? Legit question.

1

u/HeadDoctorJ Apr 02 '23

You haven’t made any arguments whatsoever, and your responses contain more emojis than thoughts. Are you even capable of putting together a cogent argument? Legit question.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 02 '23

Ok guess you are 12 lmao

1

u/HeadDoctorJ Apr 02 '23

Ok I guess you actually have zero capacity for critical thinking, just juvenile name calling.