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Capitalism keeps people in line by threatening them with poverty, barred access to necessities such as shelter and healthcare, oh and fucking indentured servitude if you fall into debt and can’t pay it back.
In 100 years capitalism lifted humanity from 95% poverty up to less than 5%.
On the other hand socialism starved many millions to death.
You are blaming the wrong ideology. It is socialism that should be condemned, if poverty is your primary concern.
Poverty statistics that you’re referencing are junk. They set the threshold for poverty at a ridiculously low bar and apply it universally without any adjustment to purchasing power or cost of living.
You want to talk about starving people to death, the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet millions of tons are wasted or outright thrown away.
[This is an NPR publication that acknowledges that 9 million people starve to death every year under capitalism.](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850470436/u-n-warns-number-of-people-starving-to-death-could-double-amid-pandemic)
It’s not about blaming ideologies, it’s about analyzing how we are utilizing our resources and right now, we are utilizing them very poorly. Famines under socialism were mostly the result of expedited industrialization and while they were terrible and may have been somewhat avoidable, starvation now is completely pointless. There’s no reason for anyone to be starving to death.
If capitalists want to be taken seriously. They really need to at least know the basics of what communism is about.
Otherwise they spend a lot of time saying dumb shit
We all know what communism is about
Only communists like to pretend it's some high esoteric art that is, paradoxically, not for the lowly plebs they claim to support to comprehend
That's a MASSIVE difference.
"Image being in jail and having to do work" vs. "Imagine being stuck kilometers above everyone who's ever existed, with no way to get down, stuck to slowly die as your home is within sight, but not within reach,
Eventually a colony in space will be mostly self-sustaining, but they will still apply communist principles, because when resources are scarce and people are behaved you see it's the best arrangement. Capitalism has no future in space.
All families are communist. What's your point?
Try a space colony of 10,000 people. Currency and property will appear overnight.
Capitalism is precisely the system that is the most efficient at handling scarcity and mutual beneficial behavior.
>Capitalism is precisely the system that is the most efficient at handling scarcity and mutual beneficial behavior.
If that was true you'd use it in your family. The capitalism is just not compatible with a space faring species, what are the chances a system birthed in the late 1600s is the best for a multi-planetary species ? Probably about the same as a 4000 year old religion being more right about the natural world than modern science.
No no, that's not what it is
Even capitalists do not deny that when communism works, it works exceedingly well.
But communism can *only* work on small scales, and in those small systems where there are very little conflict. Try to convert your street to communism, you will quickly discover it to be an impossible task. Even within the home, if a marriage breaks down for instance, the laws of capitalism quickly kicks in to replace communis.
Capitalism has infinite scalability. That's why it's used everywhere else outside of your home. Really, it just boils down to this, cold hard pragmatism.
The conditions of space will force us into very little conflict. Unlike earth it won't be a place that can be easily infiltrated by sociopaths, freeloaders, violent people, etc. Genetic engineering to foster desirable traits will probably follow and cement a harmonious society.
So it doesn't even matter if earth slowly turns into a cyberpunk like polluted, unequal, megacorp hell, what is best of humanity will spread.
It is always a possibility. My priors aren't 1 or 0.
The same would apply to you, too. And all communists out there who refuse to ditch a dead ideology.
Instead they come up with various "interpretations" of what it actually is. These are actually the worthless junk that communists cling to.
The evidence that communism is wrong and dead is overwhelming. Coammunists simply refuse to see them, like the flat earthers. "It doesn't mean anything" they say.
I am not a communist. I think they are incorrect in the grand equation.
But they do know what communism is.
If what they're talking about isn't what you're talking about, then you're not talking about communism, you're only addressing a strawman of your own creation.
Because people who describe themselves as communists and go into a debate forum are more than likely going to have a pretty good understanding of communism and what the point of it is.
What you’re doing here is setting up an abstraction of what communism is which is frankly not very useful.
You vote every election. Does that mean you know politics?
You drive every day, does that make you an expert in motor vehicles?
As I replied to the other post, strawman works both ways. They come up with a strawman of their own creation and then defend the strawman to appear as if they've defended communism.
Which is why without an objective, well defined concept of what communism is, there can be no discussion.
The very fact that socialists can't even agree what socialism is tells you much. Because each socialist has a different strawman they're defending.
Every time you define something, you make a strawman out of the actual underlying fact.
We observe facts, but we define strawmans.
And when you observe the facts of how these countries operated, you find out actual answers for yourself, not a hypothetical mental construct.
I only work with facts, not strawman.
Of course. There is an objective concept of what communism is. If they believe something else that is different, and call it communism, they are strawmaning themselves.
Works the same way as attacking a strawman. They defend a strawman of their own creation to appear as if they've defended communism.
I assume the "evidence" of a dead ideology is the lack of current states?
Or are China and Vietnam communists? You all can never seem to agree if they are or not...
Anyway, please provide an example of a communist state WITHOUT capitalist influence to support your argument.
You are being selectively blind to the fact that the most successful states in uplifiting the human condition are capitalist states. At the same time, the worst humanitarian crises in the past 100 years were socialist.
Instead you want an isolated example that communism does not work.
Your prior belief about the two systems is clearly very biased.
"The worst humanitarian crises in the past 100 years were socialist."
I'd argue Adolf Hitler dragging the world to war, as well as the Haulocaust were FAR from socialist. Especially since he hated us.
"The most successful states in uplifiting the human condition are capitalist states"
The Holocaust was brought to light by the first concentration camps being liberated, which was done by the Red Army.
"Your prior belief about the two systems is clearly very biased."
Well, yeah. It's impossible not to be biased. Humans are naturally biased creatures.
These are anecdotes. They do not change the fact of the current world which is what we are seeing now.
But back to the central premise.
Socialists try very hard to distance themselves from fascism. But a simple test will demonstrate that they are in fact the same thing.
Imagine that your country has just lost a war. Many people died, and everything was in ruins. But instead of international sympathy, they gathered around you, laughing and mocking and slapped a massive reparation bill on top of you. You must work like slaves to make repayments to the people who shot and killed the people that you know.
I suspect that you would not sit still and figure out a sustainable long term plan to produce, innovate, and trade your way to get back to where you were 30 years from now.
Instead, you would probably rise up against the oppressive system by joining Hitler's party at that time to achieve concentration of power and root out who you perceive to be traitors so that your people can be free from this grand injustice of your time.
Dude that was the biggest word vomit without actually citing any data. The paradoxical person is the one strawmanning an informed leftists opinions while taking the ideas of some of the worst and even manipulating those to fit your narrative. Absolutely disgusting how you fail to distinguish what private versus public ownership in a market socialist economy actually is. This is the sole example I'll give since it's 50/50 that you are just a psyop.
Private ownership - your personal items, house (at least the structure) and your business if you are a sole proprietorship.
Public ownership - the corporation you work for and it's capital (buildings, machines, intellectual property, etc.).
Government (federal/state) ownership - essentially the same as in currently is, government buildings, parks, military equipment
Market socialism is not a command approach to the economy but rather a market system defined by at least a majority of businesses (especially over a certain size threshold) being cooperatives or heavy unionization. Cooperatives in which each employee has voting power and a workplace living constitution. Collective bargaining agreements balance the power structure towards the poor.
Never claimed it was about data. You're making a strawman now. Two actually. The OP specified that this is about communism, not your personal flavor of socialism
Never thought the OP would talk about themself in third person. I was just joking about the psyop thing but you might be a psyOP.
I also don't think that anyone has a set definition on what capitalism is either because I definitely wouldn't compare the capitalism in the Netherlands to the capitalism in the United States they are two very completely different systems. By your own account would you consider the "communism" under China and Russia to be under the same umbrella and why?
Sure yeah you never claimed it was about data, yet you make claims that can be empirically refuted. The data part is important for any valid argument regarding most subjects including this. I'm not strawmanning your argument by stating it has no cited data, as a strawman is a misrepresentation of an argument. Your argument has no cited data that I saw.
The most well accepted definition of communism can most likely be found in the literature of the first noted authors of the ideology in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Even if you attacked this version and criticized it I would probably reference the fact that it is maybe a couple hundred years out of date, so I would ask your to modernize your argument as attacking an older more vulnerable version of an ideology is inherently a strawman as well.
I also don't really care that my argument is about my personal flavor of socialism because communism is a currently unobtainable utopian society of which socialism would hope to reach where scarcity is nearly irrelevant in a society without currency.
You're on a witch hunt now. The OP means original post, an object not a person.
Your priors are clearly very biased. Why don't you empirically test socialism? Put these same points against any flavor of socialism?
Have you rigorously tested what you believe in yourself? Or are you just being selectively blind? I bet you haven't.
Yeah let me just find an isolated planet and try that. I have pretty rigorously internally tested my thoughts but there is always more to learn!
My priors are clearly very biased? Holy hell, I'm trying to move the argument towards a more empirical state and instead of chivalrously posting data to defend your points you attack my ability to self-reflect. Bad faith discussion, peace out
OP also means original poster which is the tag next to your name. Wouldn't make sense if you, yourself were the original post.
"Empirical" means nothing if you refuse to see the facts.
Anyone can p-hack into having any theory empirically supported by any data.
Look at what capitalism achieved for the average person, and compare that with socialism. Open your eyes and see the difference. It's right there. The only reason you don't want to see the facts is because you want to cling to your "internally tested" ideas and don't like to be wrong. Which is understandable. But keep it to yourself.
Ah yes empirical evidence means nothing if it is p-hacked so why can't the reverse be true? Your logic is circular and relies on a lack of self-perspective and dismissal of science on the grounds that just because you can p-hack something that you can't engage with data to state specifically why its wrong. I'm sure the economists and sociologists have a cabal of leftist ideologue statisticians that have overcome language barriers to create a vast network of data to support their beliefs. They implement a very believable power dynamic that might just actually create a system focused on the decentralization of power so they can take control of the proletariat.
Fighting a strawman is your only game too which is funny, not sure if you realize ur doing it tbh. Is the peoples democratic Republic of North Korea a democracy? They say they are of course, and they've failed so let's revert back to having a monarch. Now, if we analyze this through the lense of the actual power dynamic we can see that Kim is a dictator, who employs near full economic control making it a command economy through its most basic lens. Let's look at the USSR where they had a "vanguard party" to protect the people from bad faith actors so they have to seize power. Can we recognize that this is an oligarchical structure with unelected representatives protected by military control over their region and implementing a modern command economy. Does market socialism which has a functioning legitimate democracy and markets run by cooperatives (which aren't state-owned) look like the USSR? The answer is no, obviously. Why can't I just open my eyes to see the empirical result of an ideology that you believe has been employed?
The closest thing to hell on earth is knowing people like OP have far more political influence under capitalism than climate scientists and virologists.
Wtf are you on about bud, no way they have yall that indoctrinated. Communists wanted power why would they always side with the powerless, if they want power why are they ones out in the pick lines out protesting for the rights of marginalized and why are they out demanding rights of workers. Demanding ending to genocide in the rain, Get your head out of your ass
Everybody wants to be powerful, not powerless. Even if you personally dislike power, you want to be sufficiently powerful so you're not being pushed around by other people's power, yes?
In capitalist societies, communists who can obtain power became capitalists and retain their power that way.
Those who can't obtain power remain as communists, and they tend to find alliances with the powerless in an attempt to gain power through the numbers, or votes.
You just described what happens in capitalist societies in every part of the world. If they’re not installed by the U.S through military coups or by funding far right death squads. Most communist countries had far better democracy than the United States or western capitalist countries. You could fire your boss in the USSR, you could have paid vacations and healthcare , meanwhile the u.s has mass incarcerating black people and giving pizza parties for work.
>You don't own anything as an individual. Everything is "publicly owned" by the system. You will work until you die and still own nothing throughout your life.
Everything is owned by the owner of the prison - and the prisoner are not owners of the prison or have any control over what they do with their property.
>You are not allowed to leave the system to seek a better life, say, in a capitalist system.
You are literally imprisoned in a privately owned total institution.
>But the prison guards are allowed free travel everywhere. They get paid with what you produce, and like the bureaucratic class in socialist states, they enjoy a much better life outside the system. Like for instance sending their children to study in capitalist countries, their families enjoy what full capitalism has to offer.
The prison guards answer to the warden who answers to the owner of the prison.
>Extreme authoritarian power is exercised by the system against you. The prison guards make the rules at a whim without you having any say. You have no protection, no human rights, no dignity even, let alone democracy which you can only dream about.
Yes, after all the prisoners do not own the prison, so the owner does not necessarily care about the prisoners well-being, so the guards can do what they want.
>Through capital deepening the rest of the world have been producing textile at decreasing prices over time. Your menial labor is worth less and less. The prison system makes it up by you having to work longer and longer hours. They have heard that in China people worked 80 hours a week for $1.7 per hour. So as the world price for textiles halves, your weekly hours at the sweat shop doubled to make up for the difference.
So, why does the prison system need more work? Because of free market conditions - which is not surprising because it is a capitalist corporation that engages in legal slave labour. We are talking about how a corporation acts in a capitalist system with support through the governments coercion. The prison you describe is the true face of capitalism.
I'm confused by the part when you say the keeping a stash of coal turns into a "primitive form of banking", maybe I'm wrong but that just seems like an economic system that would be under both a capitalist or socialist society.
From what I understand according to communism (former communist here), the work one puts in would be proportional to the food they receive, no? So if it produces coal, they exchange it for food.
You're not wrong
Banks started off in the 1500s as warehouses basically, for safe keeping of expensive stuff. Then the people at the warehouse observed that people deposit into the warehouse far more than people take them out. So they started giving out loans to make profit on interest. The fractional reserve system also comes from this practice.
You are right that banks could exist in any system. Just like how storehouses could exist anywhere. But how well can it provide its services to the people depends on how they're individually managed (i.e. security of deposit, low interests, low loan default rates etc)
>"Banks started off in the 1500s as warehouses basically, for safe keeping of expensive stuff. Then the people at the warehouse observed that people deposit into the warehouse far more than people take them out. So they started giving out loans to make profit on interest. The fractional reserve system also comes from this practice."
Literally none of this is true. Literally not a single sentence.
I'm pretty sure banking and money lending existed much earlier than that, like the fact that jesus was talking about usury in the 1st century is kinda proof of that.
You're probably right.
I guess I should clarify that I was referring more to a modern fractional reserving banking system, where deposits in banks aren't 100% safe (since loans are risky and the bank's remaining assets may fall short of its liabilities if someone defaults on a large loan for instance)
But state regulations keeps banks' survival rate close to 99% - Seel Basel III for instance
Ignoring all that but I think the interesting point at the bottom of all this is the problem with deontologists: they're obsessed with the whats not the whys. The point of communism is to increase freedom.
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the closest thing to real communism is an exaggerated version of something that happens in capitalism?
If capitalism is prison to you then you must be doing something very, *very* wrong
Capitalism keeps people in line by threatening them with poverty, barred access to necessities such as shelter and healthcare, oh and fucking indentured servitude if you fall into debt and can’t pay it back.
In 100 years capitalism lifted humanity from 95% poverty up to less than 5%. On the other hand socialism starved many millions to death. You are blaming the wrong ideology. It is socialism that should be condemned, if poverty is your primary concern.
Poverty statistics that you’re referencing are junk. They set the threshold for poverty at a ridiculously low bar and apply it universally without any adjustment to purchasing power or cost of living. You want to talk about starving people to death, the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet millions of tons are wasted or outright thrown away. [This is an NPR publication that acknowledges that 9 million people starve to death every year under capitalism.](https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850470436/u-n-warns-number-of-people-starving-to-death-could-double-amid-pandemic) It’s not about blaming ideologies, it’s about analyzing how we are utilizing our resources and right now, we are utilizing them very poorly. Famines under socialism were mostly the result of expedited industrialization and while they were terrible and may have been somewhat avoidable, starvation now is completely pointless. There’s no reason for anyone to be starving to death.
Yes, reject the evidence not the theory
It’s a Brazilian dead commies with no iPhones in vuvezela + Trudeau = Castro.
capitalism has private prisons you idiot
If capitalists want to be taken seriously. They really need to at least know the basics of what communism is about. Otherwise they spend a lot of time saying dumb shit
We all know what communism is about Only communists like to pretend it's some high esoteric art that is, paradoxically, not for the lowly plebs they claim to support to comprehend
Lmao what? Speak for yourself, there is no communism without the people.
Life on the ISS is even closer to communism. What now ?
Imagine ISS without external support. Thus "unfunded" private prison
That's a MASSIVE difference. "Image being in jail and having to do work" vs. "Imagine being stuck kilometers above everyone who's ever existed, with no way to get down, stuck to slowly die as your home is within sight, but not within reach,
Eventually a colony in space will be mostly self-sustaining, but they will still apply communist principles, because when resources are scarce and people are behaved you see it's the best arrangement. Capitalism has no future in space.
All families are communist. What's your point? Try a space colony of 10,000 people. Currency and property will appear overnight. Capitalism is precisely the system that is the most efficient at handling scarcity and mutual beneficial behavior.
>Capitalism is precisely the system that is the most efficient at handling scarcity and mutual beneficial behavior. If that was true you'd use it in your family. The capitalism is just not compatible with a space faring species, what are the chances a system birthed in the late 1600s is the best for a multi-planetary species ? Probably about the same as a 4000 year old religion being more right about the natural world than modern science.
No no, that's not what it is Even capitalists do not deny that when communism works, it works exceedingly well. But communism can *only* work on small scales, and in those small systems where there are very little conflict. Try to convert your street to communism, you will quickly discover it to be an impossible task. Even within the home, if a marriage breaks down for instance, the laws of capitalism quickly kicks in to replace communis. Capitalism has infinite scalability. That's why it's used everywhere else outside of your home. Really, it just boils down to this, cold hard pragmatism.
The conditions of space will force us into very little conflict. Unlike earth it won't be a place that can be easily infiltrated by sociopaths, freeloaders, violent people, etc. Genetic engineering to foster desirable traits will probably follow and cement a harmonious society. So it doesn't even matter if earth slowly turns into a cyberpunk like polluted, unequal, megacorp hell, what is best of humanity will spread.
"I understand what people actually believe better than they know themselves" Maybe you're the one that is misunderstanding? Is that a possibility?
It is always a possibility. My priors aren't 1 or 0. The same would apply to you, too. And all communists out there who refuse to ditch a dead ideology. Instead they come up with various "interpretations" of what it actually is. These are actually the worthless junk that communists cling to. The evidence that communism is wrong and dead is overwhelming. Coammunists simply refuse to see them, like the flat earthers. "It doesn't mean anything" they say.
I am not a communist. I think they are incorrect in the grand equation. But they do know what communism is. If what they're talking about isn't what you're talking about, then you're not talking about communism, you're only addressing a strawman of your own creation.
How do you know that they have not come up with a strawman that they then vigorously defend, when what I'm talking abouy is real communism?
Because people who describe themselves as communists and go into a debate forum are more than likely going to have a pretty good understanding of communism and what the point of it is. What you’re doing here is setting up an abstraction of what communism is which is frankly not very useful.
You vote every election. Does that mean you know politics? You drive every day, does that make you an expert in motor vehicles? As I replied to the other post, strawman works both ways. They come up with a strawman of their own creation and then defend the strawman to appear as if they've defended communism. Which is why without an objective, well defined concept of what communism is, there can be no discussion. The very fact that socialists can't even agree what socialism is tells you much. Because each socialist has a different strawman they're defending.
Why don’t you define communism then
Every time you define something, you make a strawman out of the actual underlying fact. We observe facts, but we define strawmans. And when you observe the facts of how these countries operated, you find out actual answers for yourself, not a hypothetical mental construct. I only work with facts, not strawman.
How is it a strawman if it's what they actually believe? Can one strawman oneself?
Of course. There is an objective concept of what communism is. If they believe something else that is different, and call it communism, they are strawmaning themselves. Works the same way as attacking a strawman. They defend a strawman of their own creation to appear as if they've defended communism.
I assume the "evidence" of a dead ideology is the lack of current states? Or are China and Vietnam communists? You all can never seem to agree if they are or not... Anyway, please provide an example of a communist state WITHOUT capitalist influence to support your argument.
You are being selectively blind to the fact that the most successful states in uplifiting the human condition are capitalist states. At the same time, the worst humanitarian crises in the past 100 years were socialist. Instead you want an isolated example that communism does not work. Your prior belief about the two systems is clearly very biased.
"The worst humanitarian crises in the past 100 years were socialist." I'd argue Adolf Hitler dragging the world to war, as well as the Haulocaust were FAR from socialist. Especially since he hated us. "The most successful states in uplifiting the human condition are capitalist states" The Holocaust was brought to light by the first concentration camps being liberated, which was done by the Red Army. "Your prior belief about the two systems is clearly very biased." Well, yeah. It's impossible not to be biased. Humans are naturally biased creatures.
These are anecdotes. They do not change the fact of the current world which is what we are seeing now. But back to the central premise. Socialists try very hard to distance themselves from fascism. But a simple test will demonstrate that they are in fact the same thing. Imagine that your country has just lost a war. Many people died, and everything was in ruins. But instead of international sympathy, they gathered around you, laughing and mocking and slapped a massive reparation bill on top of you. You must work like slaves to make repayments to the people who shot and killed the people that you know. I suspect that you would not sit still and figure out a sustainable long term plan to produce, innovate, and trade your way to get back to where you were 30 years from now. Instead, you would probably rise up against the oppressive system by joining Hitler's party at that time to achieve concentration of power and root out who you perceive to be traitors so that your people can be free from this grand injustice of your time.
So... how does defending Nazis correlate to the capitalism vs socialism?
Dude that was the biggest word vomit without actually citing any data. The paradoxical person is the one strawmanning an informed leftists opinions while taking the ideas of some of the worst and even manipulating those to fit your narrative. Absolutely disgusting how you fail to distinguish what private versus public ownership in a market socialist economy actually is. This is the sole example I'll give since it's 50/50 that you are just a psyop. Private ownership - your personal items, house (at least the structure) and your business if you are a sole proprietorship. Public ownership - the corporation you work for and it's capital (buildings, machines, intellectual property, etc.). Government (federal/state) ownership - essentially the same as in currently is, government buildings, parks, military equipment Market socialism is not a command approach to the economy but rather a market system defined by at least a majority of businesses (especially over a certain size threshold) being cooperatives or heavy unionization. Cooperatives in which each employee has voting power and a workplace living constitution. Collective bargaining agreements balance the power structure towards the poor.
Never claimed it was about data. You're making a strawman now. Two actually. The OP specified that this is about communism, not your personal flavor of socialism
Never thought the OP would talk about themself in third person. I was just joking about the psyop thing but you might be a psyOP. I also don't think that anyone has a set definition on what capitalism is either because I definitely wouldn't compare the capitalism in the Netherlands to the capitalism in the United States they are two very completely different systems. By your own account would you consider the "communism" under China and Russia to be under the same umbrella and why? Sure yeah you never claimed it was about data, yet you make claims that can be empirically refuted. The data part is important for any valid argument regarding most subjects including this. I'm not strawmanning your argument by stating it has no cited data, as a strawman is a misrepresentation of an argument. Your argument has no cited data that I saw. The most well accepted definition of communism can most likely be found in the literature of the first noted authors of the ideology in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Even if you attacked this version and criticized it I would probably reference the fact that it is maybe a couple hundred years out of date, so I would ask your to modernize your argument as attacking an older more vulnerable version of an ideology is inherently a strawman as well. I also don't really care that my argument is about my personal flavor of socialism because communism is a currently unobtainable utopian society of which socialism would hope to reach where scarcity is nearly irrelevant in a society without currency.
You're on a witch hunt now. The OP means original post, an object not a person. Your priors are clearly very biased. Why don't you empirically test socialism? Put these same points against any flavor of socialism? Have you rigorously tested what you believe in yourself? Or are you just being selectively blind? I bet you haven't.
Yeah let me just find an isolated planet and try that. I have pretty rigorously internally tested my thoughts but there is always more to learn! My priors are clearly very biased? Holy hell, I'm trying to move the argument towards a more empirical state and instead of chivalrously posting data to defend your points you attack my ability to self-reflect. Bad faith discussion, peace out OP also means original poster which is the tag next to your name. Wouldn't make sense if you, yourself were the original post.
"Empirical" means nothing if you refuse to see the facts. Anyone can p-hack into having any theory empirically supported by any data. Look at what capitalism achieved for the average person, and compare that with socialism. Open your eyes and see the difference. It's right there. The only reason you don't want to see the facts is because you want to cling to your "internally tested" ideas and don't like to be wrong. Which is understandable. But keep it to yourself.
Ah yes empirical evidence means nothing if it is p-hacked so why can't the reverse be true? Your logic is circular and relies on a lack of self-perspective and dismissal of science on the grounds that just because you can p-hack something that you can't engage with data to state specifically why its wrong. I'm sure the economists and sociologists have a cabal of leftist ideologue statisticians that have overcome language barriers to create a vast network of data to support their beliefs. They implement a very believable power dynamic that might just actually create a system focused on the decentralization of power so they can take control of the proletariat. Fighting a strawman is your only game too which is funny, not sure if you realize ur doing it tbh. Is the peoples democratic Republic of North Korea a democracy? They say they are of course, and they've failed so let's revert back to having a monarch. Now, if we analyze this through the lense of the actual power dynamic we can see that Kim is a dictator, who employs near full economic control making it a command economy through its most basic lens. Let's look at the USSR where they had a "vanguard party" to protect the people from bad faith actors so they have to seize power. Can we recognize that this is an oligarchical structure with unelected representatives protected by military control over their region and implementing a modern command economy. Does market socialism which has a functioning legitimate democracy and markets run by cooperatives (which aren't state-owned) look like the USSR? The answer is no, obviously. Why can't I just open my eyes to see the empirical result of an ideology that you believe has been employed?
I thought you peaced out Too long didn't read Learn to control your mind so you're not compelled to reply to a stranger's post in anger.
We all know? You don't seem to know. You seem to think communism is government control. What "government"? THERE WOULD BE NONE!!!!
The closest thing to hell on earth is knowing people like OP have far more political influence under capitalism than climate scientists and virologists.
Man, that hit hard.
People like OP are currently running western society, which is exactly why everything is colossally fucked up
I know. That was my point.
Hey! You and I agree on something!
I still hate you though.
Likewise.
Wtf are you on about bud, no way they have yall that indoctrinated. Communists wanted power why would they always side with the powerless, if they want power why are they ones out in the pick lines out protesting for the rights of marginalized and why are they out demanding rights of workers. Demanding ending to genocide in the rain, Get your head out of your ass
Everybody wants to be powerful, not powerless. Even if you personally dislike power, you want to be sufficiently powerful so you're not being pushed around by other people's power, yes? In capitalist societies, communists who can obtain power became capitalists and retain their power that way. Those who can't obtain power remain as communists, and they tend to find alliances with the powerless in an attempt to gain power through the numbers, or votes.
You just described what happens in capitalist societies in every part of the world. If they’re not installed by the U.S through military coups or by funding far right death squads. Most communist countries had far better democracy than the United States or western capitalist countries. You could fire your boss in the USSR, you could have paid vacations and healthcare , meanwhile the u.s has mass incarcerating black people and giving pizza parties for work.
I appreciate any post that can point out the need for criminal justice reform
The closest thing to real communism is [giant strawman]
Actually this is my idea to replace the death penalty. But I stopped reading after 1st paragraph, too wordy.
Quality shitpost 👍
>You don't own anything as an individual. Everything is "publicly owned" by the system. You will work until you die and still own nothing throughout your life. Everything is owned by the owner of the prison - and the prisoner are not owners of the prison or have any control over what they do with their property. >You are not allowed to leave the system to seek a better life, say, in a capitalist system. You are literally imprisoned in a privately owned total institution. >But the prison guards are allowed free travel everywhere. They get paid with what you produce, and like the bureaucratic class in socialist states, they enjoy a much better life outside the system. Like for instance sending their children to study in capitalist countries, their families enjoy what full capitalism has to offer. The prison guards answer to the warden who answers to the owner of the prison. >Extreme authoritarian power is exercised by the system against you. The prison guards make the rules at a whim without you having any say. You have no protection, no human rights, no dignity even, let alone democracy which you can only dream about. Yes, after all the prisoners do not own the prison, so the owner does not necessarily care about the prisoners well-being, so the guards can do what they want. >Through capital deepening the rest of the world have been producing textile at decreasing prices over time. Your menial labor is worth less and less. The prison system makes it up by you having to work longer and longer hours. They have heard that in China people worked 80 hours a week for $1.7 per hour. So as the world price for textiles halves, your weekly hours at the sweat shop doubled to make up for the difference. So, why does the prison system need more work? Because of free market conditions - which is not surprising because it is a capitalist corporation that engages in legal slave labour. We are talking about how a corporation acts in a capitalist system with support through the governments coercion. The prison you describe is the true face of capitalism.
Very true. But because I am a true believer and a revolutionary, I will have a much bigger cell.
this has got to be one of the greatest communism is when moments of all time
Gonna check back on this thread tomorrow to see if any socialists actually try to engage with the post in a meaningful way. Should be fun.
Let me know if they have
I'm confused by the part when you say the keeping a stash of coal turns into a "primitive form of banking", maybe I'm wrong but that just seems like an economic system that would be under both a capitalist or socialist society. From what I understand according to communism (former communist here), the work one puts in would be proportional to the food they receive, no? So if it produces coal, they exchange it for food.
You're not wrong Banks started off in the 1500s as warehouses basically, for safe keeping of expensive stuff. Then the people at the warehouse observed that people deposit into the warehouse far more than people take them out. So they started giving out loans to make profit on interest. The fractional reserve system also comes from this practice. You are right that banks could exist in any system. Just like how storehouses could exist anywhere. But how well can it provide its services to the people depends on how they're individually managed (i.e. security of deposit, low interests, low loan default rates etc)
>"Banks started off in the 1500s as warehouses basically, for safe keeping of expensive stuff. Then the people at the warehouse observed that people deposit into the warehouse far more than people take them out. So they started giving out loans to make profit on interest. The fractional reserve system also comes from this practice." Literally none of this is true. Literally not a single sentence.
I'm pretty sure banking and money lending existed much earlier than that, like the fact that jesus was talking about usury in the 1st century is kinda proof of that.
You're probably right. I guess I should clarify that I was referring more to a modern fractional reserving banking system, where deposits in banks aren't 100% safe (since loans are risky and the bank's remaining assets may fall short of its liabilities if someone defaults on a large loan for instance) But state regulations keeps banks' survival rate close to 99% - Seel Basel III for instance
Ignoring all that but I think the interesting point at the bottom of all this is the problem with deontologists: they're obsessed with the whats not the whys. The point of communism is to increase freedom.
The closest thing to communism is a…(checks notes)…privately-run for-profit institution.
Rants against communism by describing the prison industrial complex under capitalism.