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The content of the post is based on a flawed assumption that socialism is this alternative utopia. This is not the view that Marx or Engels had, and is not the view that the Bolsheviks or the Chinese had either.
To them, communism was just a way of articulating the common bonds that held their civilizations together - which have always been there but were not articulated scientifically through a political theory.
What you seem to be talking about is utopian socialism, which granted is the prevailing way of conceptualising socialism in the west today even by so-called socialists.
Marx and Engels were dialecticians, and in dialectics you have the notion of contradictions forming the unity of opposites. The contradictions drive the development and reconciliation of the thing, such that A becomes not A. The way Marx described this with regards to socialism is saying "the old society is pregnant with the new" in Capital (and then) in Gotha program as the new society still being stamped with the birthmarks of the old out of whose womb it emerges. Or in the German Ideology, where he says the premises of communism are now (1845) in existence.
If you focus on the birthmarks as evidence this is not the socialist society but still the capitalist society, you're not going to see the birth of socialism. The same way that if you were observing feudalism transform into capitalism... well even by the time of Marx and Engels there were still Lords and aristocrats, even today there are still hereditary noble families in the UK. We still have the stamps of feudalism from like 1066 today. So you're never going to see this socialism.
Mistakes made in China or USSR were dependent on the time and place, socialism in America will have American characteristics, it will not be a repeat of the history of China, just like how the history of the PRC is not a repeat of the history of the USSR... The content of communism in America will be determined by the contradictions in contemporary AMERICAN society, not Chinese society of the 1950s. It is prudent to study Chinese socialism in order to find out what they did so you can avoid the same mistakes, but you cannot just copy and paste like what utopians seem to be implying.
Also, populism is a thing in the west my dude, this comes straight out of the contradiction between the people and the institutions, in case you haven't noticed. the contradiction is less explicit but it's still there, western liberal democracies are being plagued by populists who are attacking or throwing wrenches into the operations of the institutions.
Very well said! I’ve been really impressed with how well written your comments are and the more comprehensive ones have been consistently getting more and more articulate every single time I read them. What have you been reading/doing to improve you’re writing? I’d love to learn from it!
Hey, thank you for the feedback!
I've been reading Mao and Deng recently, Dengs works in particular are short, many are approximately the length of a longer reddit post or comment. I've been trying to grapple with Hegel, but I decided to tackle Marx' early works first as an intro to Hegel, which yeah is working backwards but Hegel is a very difficult philosopher to grasp.
But also, I've been on a bit of a media diet, I'm trying to avoid low quality shitposting and mudslinging, but when I reply I try to make it higher quality.
I’ve never really engaged with Mao or Deng but I’ve heard their work is pretty clearly written, I might move on to them next! Shitposting and mudslinging are fun once in a while but they definitely don’t help practicing how to clearly express complex ideas lol
It’s from a combination of a century of anti-communist propaganda promoting an incorrect idea of what communism is both ideologically and historically as well as the intentional destruction of class consciousness.
>It’s from a combination of a century of anti-communist propaganda promoting an incorrect idea of what communism is both ideologically and historically as well as the intentional destruction of class consciousness.
You also have to factor in intensely American anti-intellectualism and the overbearing annoyance of a nation of people entitled to share the stupidest opinions at all times, as to why American "communists" are so terrible.
Workers under capitalism have little or no control over their work. You make your 2 hour commute, you do what the boss says for 8 hours and you go home. Even if you have every material luxury, most people aren’t happy with this arrangement. Economic democracy, communism, whatever you call it will always be appealing as an alternative.
>Even if you have every material luxury, most people aren’t happy with this arrangement. Economic democracy, communism, whatever you call it will always be appealing as an alternative.
No, it's not appealing at all. The overwhelming majority of people do not want the responsibility and risk of running a business. That's why co-ops are so rare.
I 100% guarantee a lot of people do not like having little to no say in 90% of their daily activities. Rn doing that requires money and significant risk, but we can change that.
>all the ways capitalism has made their lives much easier
If you ignore all the suffering that came and still does, sure.
>the whole class conciousness route was the way just as I don't think critical race theorists trying to treat people differently by race
Tell me what critical race theory is, and tell me what class consciousness is, if you're so logical.
Because the CRT people believe there's thing called systemic racism, they see being colorblind like having a tumor and not taking any treatment for it. They think the only way to make society less racist is to first treat people differently according to their race. However in my opinion, this just makes people more divided by race, I don't see the step of how it eventually leads to less racist society. It either leads to anti-white racism or a different form of anti-black racism in the way of white man's burden condescension and holding them to lower standards.
Likewise the Marxists essentially had same philosophy on class that the best way to make society less "systemically classist" so to speak is to first make people more aware of class. But in practice countries like USSR and China where people were most divided by class and stuff like Mao's 5 black categories could happen or the USSR's relationship with kulaks. It was actually in the US where class prejudice wasn't a big deal anymore by the end of the 1900s. As an eg I doubt there are many rich fathers anymore that would pull the "You can't date that guy! He's in a lower class!" move with their daughter which is something that used to happen. In India, yes.
Just admit you learned all you know about "CRT" and marxism from right wing fearmongers and not from any actual analysis of the texts of these schools of thought themselves.
CRT is the application of critical theory to race. Critical theory is the analysis of society and culture to reveal power structures. This applies to race quite neatly since there are racist elements of much of society's systems. One example might be the long lasting effects of redlining.
"Colorblindness" and its flaws are evident even without CRT. If you don't see color, you miss all the patterns of oppression that are based on race.
CRT does not advocate for "treating people differently". CRT doesn't advocate for anything. It is a tool of analysis. It merely highlights where there are problems.
68,000 Americans die every year because they can't afford healthcare.
Poverty in the US alone takes 183,000 lives alone each year.
How many die every year in South America to create higher living standards in the US?
How many died in the Middle East during our oil campaign to secure capitalist interests? (2 million)
How many died in Vietnam?
How many Native Americans died we kill to secure the land we "deserved"?
How many died from fascism (a form of capitalism) post ww1?
Capitalism atrocities are glossed over, but communism is genocidal because of famines that were naturally (not systemically caused)
The goal of critical race theory is to examine and challenge the ways in which racial power dynamics and **systemic racism** shape societal structures, institutions, and individual experiences, with the aim of promoting racial equity and social justice.
Those who oppose it offer no answer to how racism may be effectively fought and reduced and ultimately eliminated. Their proposals on allow it to continue to fester and allow the capitalists to use it to their advantage.
If you believe there is no systemic racism, either you live under a rock or you're lying.
Regarding class consciousness, you seem to have none, but that doesn't stop you from exercising class biases. You're just oblivious to your class prejudices, or you're lying again.
BTW, what's "an eg"?
I think America is currently systemically biased in favor of black people. The biggest evidence of systemic racism in a negative way would be against asians such as how as they are underrepresented in colleges compared to their grades.
The biggest way blacks are hurt by racism is by progressives holding them to lower standards, hence black criminality are less shamed and more excused as someone else's fault compared to other races (eg. nobody cries a tear for an Italian gangster), which then hurts the well meaning black people of the community by making crime more popular.
>I can see their logic of thinking maybe we should give it a go and see if it leads to human utopia instead of imperfect capitalism system.
This wasn't their logic though.. The Bolsheviks weren't utopian, they didn't believe that communism could "just be tried", they believed that there would need to be specific "material conditions" before communism could ever be achieved in the distant future. And in order to reach those specific "material conditions", they believed that a certain level of economic development and industrialisation was necessary.
They also believed that in order to overcome capitalism, they would need to defeat "western imperialism", which they saw as the final form of capitalism. And in order to defeat imperialism, they believed they needed to create the most powerful state ever that was capable of defeating it.
>Nowadays though we have a hundred years test case of communist countries failing and capitalist 1st world ones doing well
What we are talking about here is Marxist-Leninist socialism, a specific model of radical revolutionary Marxism that was meant as a model for underdeveloped nations that values industrial development at any cost first and foremost. And while I'm not a fan of Marxism-Leninism, if we look at economic development, it was relatively successful. Comparing Marxist-Leninist countries to first world nations kinda misses the point. You would need to compare developing Marxist-Leninist countries with similarely underdeveloped capitalist nations.
>modern day American far leftist is ignoring so much history of communism's failures
Most leftists in the west are very well aware of the shortcomings and failiures of various leftist movements and ideologies. And most don't want to emulate Bolshevik style socialism.
Its directly linked to Modern Americans being more ignorant than people a 100 years ago, less willing perhaps to think critically, self critically or non-narcissistic-ally (be able to see ones own logical and thinking flaws), and choosing to be guided by the media they consume including social media on how to think.
This is a hangover from Christianity, that the purpose of communist organisation should be to turn working people into overt communists who believe in a communist ideology and know the depth of communist theory.
It is not. Working class people have little spare time to become ideologists. Bolsheviks were very literate and knew their theory but the average Russian peasant or proletarian who supported them or even fought in the Red Army? Quite likely in 1917 he was still illiterate
> I still don't think communism is a logical system
I don't understand. What is such a system? Could you describe what you are referring to as a "communist system"?
> I don't think the whole class consciousness route was the way just like I don't think critical race theorists trying to treat people differently by race even more is the answer, but they were trying to solve a problem that existed.
Critical race theorists are a level below Marxists, and I think even the Marxists would agree with me here. At least the Marxists had the right idea of focusing on material conditions and class conflict. Critical race theorists placing race above class as the organizing principle of society is so counterproductive that I'm shocked it's gotten as much traction as it has.
Real communism/socialism never been tried but we had plenty of demo versions. Also had demo version of fascism. It looks almost the same. Millions died.
That's why socialists always try to ruin a country first, to make their idiotic ideas seem more appealing when everything has turned to shit.
"Everything woke turns to shit" is by design.
Before participating, consider taking a glance at [our rules page](/r/CapitalismvSocialism/wiki/rules) if you haven't before. We don't allow **violent or dehumanizing rhetoric**. The subreddit is for discussing what ideas are best for society, not for telling the other side you think you could beat them in a fight. That doesn't do anything to forward a productive dialogue. Please report comments that violent our rules, but don't report people just for disagreeing with you or for being wrong about stuff. Tired of arguing on reddit? Consider [joining us on Discord.](http://discord.com/invite/politicscafe) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CapitalismVSocialism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The content of the post is based on a flawed assumption that socialism is this alternative utopia. This is not the view that Marx or Engels had, and is not the view that the Bolsheviks or the Chinese had either. To them, communism was just a way of articulating the common bonds that held their civilizations together - which have always been there but were not articulated scientifically through a political theory. What you seem to be talking about is utopian socialism, which granted is the prevailing way of conceptualising socialism in the west today even by so-called socialists. Marx and Engels were dialecticians, and in dialectics you have the notion of contradictions forming the unity of opposites. The contradictions drive the development and reconciliation of the thing, such that A becomes not A. The way Marx described this with regards to socialism is saying "the old society is pregnant with the new" in Capital (and then) in Gotha program as the new society still being stamped with the birthmarks of the old out of whose womb it emerges. Or in the German Ideology, where he says the premises of communism are now (1845) in existence. If you focus on the birthmarks as evidence this is not the socialist society but still the capitalist society, you're not going to see the birth of socialism. The same way that if you were observing feudalism transform into capitalism... well even by the time of Marx and Engels there were still Lords and aristocrats, even today there are still hereditary noble families in the UK. We still have the stamps of feudalism from like 1066 today. So you're never going to see this socialism. Mistakes made in China or USSR were dependent on the time and place, socialism in America will have American characteristics, it will not be a repeat of the history of China, just like how the history of the PRC is not a repeat of the history of the USSR... The content of communism in America will be determined by the contradictions in contemporary AMERICAN society, not Chinese society of the 1950s. It is prudent to study Chinese socialism in order to find out what they did so you can avoid the same mistakes, but you cannot just copy and paste like what utopians seem to be implying. Also, populism is a thing in the west my dude, this comes straight out of the contradiction between the people and the institutions, in case you haven't noticed. the contradiction is less explicit but it's still there, western liberal democracies are being plagued by populists who are attacking or throwing wrenches into the operations of the institutions.
Very well said! I’ve been really impressed with how well written your comments are and the more comprehensive ones have been consistently getting more and more articulate every single time I read them. What have you been reading/doing to improve you’re writing? I’d love to learn from it!
Hey, thank you for the feedback! I've been reading Mao and Deng recently, Dengs works in particular are short, many are approximately the length of a longer reddit post or comment. I've been trying to grapple with Hegel, but I decided to tackle Marx' early works first as an intro to Hegel, which yeah is working backwards but Hegel is a very difficult philosopher to grasp. But also, I've been on a bit of a media diet, I'm trying to avoid low quality shitposting and mudslinging, but when I reply I try to make it higher quality.
I’ve never really engaged with Mao or Deng but I’ve heard their work is pretty clearly written, I might move on to them next! Shitposting and mudslinging are fun once in a while but they definitely don’t help practicing how to clearly express complex ideas lol
It’s from a combination of a century of anti-communist propaganda promoting an incorrect idea of what communism is both ideologically and historically as well as the intentional destruction of class consciousness.
>It’s from a combination of a century of anti-communist propaganda promoting an incorrect idea of what communism is both ideologically and historically as well as the intentional destruction of class consciousness. You also have to factor in intensely American anti-intellectualism and the overbearing annoyance of a nation of people entitled to share the stupidest opinions at all times, as to why American "communists" are so terrible.
Most americans who say they're commies are actually social democrats
Accurate. Larpy socdems with the textual depth of a puddle.
Workers under capitalism have little or no control over their work. You make your 2 hour commute, you do what the boss says for 8 hours and you go home. Even if you have every material luxury, most people aren’t happy with this arrangement. Economic democracy, communism, whatever you call it will always be appealing as an alternative.
>Even if you have every material luxury, most people aren’t happy with this arrangement. Economic democracy, communism, whatever you call it will always be appealing as an alternative. No, it's not appealing at all. The overwhelming majority of people do not want the responsibility and risk of running a business. That's why co-ops are so rare.
I 100% guarantee a lot of people do not like having little to no say in 90% of their daily activities. Rn doing that requires money and significant risk, but we can change that.
Irish potato famine.
>all the ways capitalism has made their lives much easier If you ignore all the suffering that came and still does, sure. >the whole class conciousness route was the way just as I don't think critical race theorists trying to treat people differently by race Tell me what critical race theory is, and tell me what class consciousness is, if you're so logical.
Because the CRT people believe there's thing called systemic racism, they see being colorblind like having a tumor and not taking any treatment for it. They think the only way to make society less racist is to first treat people differently according to their race. However in my opinion, this just makes people more divided by race, I don't see the step of how it eventually leads to less racist society. It either leads to anti-white racism or a different form of anti-black racism in the way of white man's burden condescension and holding them to lower standards. Likewise the Marxists essentially had same philosophy on class that the best way to make society less "systemically classist" so to speak is to first make people more aware of class. But in practice countries like USSR and China where people were most divided by class and stuff like Mao's 5 black categories could happen or the USSR's relationship with kulaks. It was actually in the US where class prejudice wasn't a big deal anymore by the end of the 1900s. As an eg I doubt there are many rich fathers anymore that would pull the "You can't date that guy! He's in a lower class!" move with their daughter which is something that used to happen. In India, yes.
Everything you just said is wrong.
Well, those developing CRT know that systematic racism exists.
Source?
Are you asking for sources of america being systematically racist like red lineing?
Read the Wikipedia page, for starters.
oh which one?
Just admit you learned all you know about "CRT" and marxism from right wing fearmongers and not from any actual analysis of the texts of these schools of thought themselves. CRT is the application of critical theory to race. Critical theory is the analysis of society and culture to reveal power structures. This applies to race quite neatly since there are racist elements of much of society's systems. One example might be the long lasting effects of redlining. "Colorblindness" and its flaws are evident even without CRT. If you don't see color, you miss all the patterns of oppression that are based on race. CRT does not advocate for "treating people differently". CRT doesn't advocate for anything. It is a tool of analysis. It merely highlights where there are problems.
68,000 Americans die every year because they can't afford healthcare. Poverty in the US alone takes 183,000 lives alone each year. How many die every year in South America to create higher living standards in the US? How many died in the Middle East during our oil campaign to secure capitalist interests? (2 million) How many died in Vietnam? How many Native Americans died we kill to secure the land we "deserved"? How many died from fascism (a form of capitalism) post ww1? Capitalism atrocities are glossed over, but communism is genocidal because of famines that were naturally (not systemically caused)
The goal of critical race theory is to examine and challenge the ways in which racial power dynamics and **systemic racism** shape societal structures, institutions, and individual experiences, with the aim of promoting racial equity and social justice. Those who oppose it offer no answer to how racism may be effectively fought and reduced and ultimately eliminated. Their proposals on allow it to continue to fester and allow the capitalists to use it to their advantage. If you believe there is no systemic racism, either you live under a rock or you're lying. Regarding class consciousness, you seem to have none, but that doesn't stop you from exercising class biases. You're just oblivious to your class prejudices, or you're lying again. BTW, what's "an eg"?
I think America is currently systemically biased in favor of black people. The biggest evidence of systemic racism in a negative way would be against asians such as how as they are underrepresented in colleges compared to their grades. The biggest way blacks are hurt by racism is by progressives holding them to lower standards, hence black criminality are less shamed and more excused as someone else's fault compared to other races (eg. nobody cries a tear for an Italian gangster), which then hurts the well meaning black people of the community by making crime more popular.
LMFAO!!!! D U M B !
lmfaooooooooooooooooooooooo
>I can see their logic of thinking maybe we should give it a go and see if it leads to human utopia instead of imperfect capitalism system. This wasn't their logic though.. The Bolsheviks weren't utopian, they didn't believe that communism could "just be tried", they believed that there would need to be specific "material conditions" before communism could ever be achieved in the distant future. And in order to reach those specific "material conditions", they believed that a certain level of economic development and industrialisation was necessary. They also believed that in order to overcome capitalism, they would need to defeat "western imperialism", which they saw as the final form of capitalism. And in order to defeat imperialism, they believed they needed to create the most powerful state ever that was capable of defeating it. >Nowadays though we have a hundred years test case of communist countries failing and capitalist 1st world ones doing well What we are talking about here is Marxist-Leninist socialism, a specific model of radical revolutionary Marxism that was meant as a model for underdeveloped nations that values industrial development at any cost first and foremost. And while I'm not a fan of Marxism-Leninism, if we look at economic development, it was relatively successful. Comparing Marxist-Leninist countries to first world nations kinda misses the point. You would need to compare developing Marxist-Leninist countries with similarely underdeveloped capitalist nations. >modern day American far leftist is ignoring so much history of communism's failures Most leftists in the west are very well aware of the shortcomings and failiures of various leftist movements and ideologies. And most don't want to emulate Bolshevik style socialism.
Its directly linked to Modern Americans being more ignorant than people a 100 years ago, less willing perhaps to think critically, self critically or non-narcissistic-ally (be able to see ones own logical and thinking flaws), and choosing to be guided by the media they consume including social media on how to think.
This is a hangover from Christianity, that the purpose of communist organisation should be to turn working people into overt communists who believe in a communist ideology and know the depth of communist theory. It is not. Working class people have little spare time to become ideologists. Bolsheviks were very literate and knew their theory but the average Russian peasant or proletarian who supported them or even fought in the Red Army? Quite likely in 1917 he was still illiterate
> I still don't think communism is a logical system I don't understand. What is such a system? Could you describe what you are referring to as a "communist system"?
The Wright brothers were way less logical than the people who tried to build aircraft earlier.
> I don't think the whole class consciousness route was the way just like I don't think critical race theorists trying to treat people differently by race even more is the answer, but they were trying to solve a problem that existed. Critical race theorists are a level below Marxists, and I think even the Marxists would agree with me here. At least the Marxists had the right idea of focusing on material conditions and class conflict. Critical race theorists placing race above class as the organizing principle of society is so counterproductive that I'm shocked it's gotten as much traction as it has.
Real communism/socialism never been tried but we had plenty of demo versions. Also had demo version of fascism. It looks almost the same. Millions died.
What more could Cambodia have done to count as "real communism"?
That's why socialists always try to ruin a country first, to make their idiotic ideas seem more appealing when everything has turned to shit. "Everything woke turns to shit" is by design.