capitalism is just free stuff for the rich at the expense of everyone else.
actually i do want free stuff by the way
It should be noted, as is partially a point of this post, that those “free” things are not actually free, and are simply paid for through taxes such that they are cheaper for all.
Socialists famously always pushed for free universal healthcare and education, and achieved this to the highest degree in communist countries like the USSR or Cuba. I agree, free stuff is great when it comes to freaking human rights!
Billionaires rigged the government so that they get the entire country and everyone and everything in it for free with zero ethical guidelines
It’s older than billionaires unfortunately.
It was people who won (or led others to win) physical fights that determines how we distribute resources.
We live in an economic system that is based on ‘might = right’ and here we are.
Ok if this is true I’d like to see those nerdy pathetic tech bros get a beat down so we can take all of their stuff then
Turns out technology is better at winning fights than muscle. We’re living in Revenge of the Nerds.
I don’t think the text is that helpful really. Equitable is a highly contentious term. A ‘right-wing’ libertarian/anarchist would likely argue that the fruits of ones labours should be first devoted to oneself, and that you should have control over how it gets shared at a personal level: it’s only ‘fair’ that your labour should benefit _you_after all. Socialism generally doesn’t view that as equitable, and instead prefers that the collective/group gets to determine how the fruits of people’s labour are distributed (eg. typically higher taxes, to fund social programs).
Each approach, taken to an extreme and fuelled by authoritarianism, can lead to really negative outcomes for everyone.
I think this is one area where our messaging really breaks down.
the collective/group gets to determine how the fruits of people’s labour are distributed
For a lot of people, this is an absolutely terrifying proposition. Imagine you are part of the half of american adults that struggle with reading. Maybe you’re neurodivergent and didn’t get support. Maybe you dropped out to work and don’t even have a GED. You’re ashamed of your struggles, and never fit in well with a group because everybody thinks you’re dumb. Your only friends are down at the bar, and they’re also barely literate at best.
Fox News writes at a 4th grade level and tells you that the left hates you for being smarter than them, they just say your dumb because they’re jelly of how cool you are. You’re not living a luxe life working in an office somewhere, you’re out in the real world doing real work, and that means you know how things work, not them.
Maybe you initially did want to give it a fair shake, Momma always said to look at both sides, but leftist theory is written at a college level, and doesn’t make any sense to you. You go online to try and figure it out, but the rhetoric online is a mix of people saying that it’s your own fault for being poorly educated, that they can’t comprehend your struggles so you must be lying about it, that the government would work better if dumb people didn’t get a say, that we shouldn’t need to dumb things down for morons like you.
Then there’s this little group of people over here going “just trust us bro, the group will decide who gets helped, it’ll be fair, I promise!”
Would you take that bet?
This is a well crafted narrative, but i just don’t buy it.
What did the trump admin run on last election? What are conservatives running on all over the world?
They all run on “brown man bad”.
Sure there are some sprinkles of other elements in there, afterall, they have to sell their corporate overlords ideas as somehow being good for the common man, but ultimately it boils down to projecting a hierarchy where the people you talk about, are not at the bottom, and while they may be further than the top, if they can feel infinitely better than others through racism and bigotry, they’re happy enough to have it.
Why do you think, to go back to American examples, that issues like which bathrooms trans people are allowed in are even “issues”? The trans people can be put into a pool of people who are , to them, worth infinitely less than they are.
Instead of solving problems in their own lives, they want to make sure that at least some folks are for sure lower than them.
To them its all relativistic, but in the worst way possible. They’re fine if their lives get worse, if the lives of marginalized people get exponentially worse by comparison.
They don’t see campaigns that raise all boats as being attractive.
The ones they resonate the best with don’t have any indication of doing anything equitable, and instead talk vaguely about things that they haven’t been conditioned to think disproportionately help the marginalized.
I mean, it’s a well crafted narrative because I’m just describing some kids I went to school with lol.
Yes, Trump ran on racism, but you’re missing the fact that the right-wing media has, since before the Civil War, wanted to convince people that brown people bad. The right has been attacking education since before I was born.
Meanwhile I’m still struggling to find good leftist material written for the average reading level. How can we fight fascism if the common person can’t even understand us?
You’re missing an important distinction. The only thing that socialists really insist on is that the means of production are collectively owned. Everyone is still free to put in a day’s labor and come away with the fruits of it.
Collectivism is possible without imposition of taxes by rulers. Gift economies exist. I have witnessed neighbors sharing produce or helping each other without need for compensation.
Communities can decide through consensus how to allocate resources. Achieving “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” is the ideal. Boo! That’s Anarchism. Happy Halloween!
Possible, sure. But you need something to motivate people to organize into complex relationships in order to produce advanced goods and services. Socialism in an extreme form is essentially communism – most socialist countries fall far short of that mark, in that they tend to provide a system of social capitalism. Workers are taxed heavily for social support programs, but there are still wide discrepancies between what people earn for their labour based on occupation. And their personal wealth, can be spent at their discretion.
Anarchism, to my recollection at least, was only tried as a form of government in Spain, around the time of the world wars. In essence, the structure of that govt was largely kinda like a labour-union run government. So like the road/maintenance workers had a rep in govt, because they’d generally follow his lead – and actions tended to need to be done via consensus as you couldn’t ‘coerce’ labourers to work for higher compensation etc. In order to have a say in how things went, you essentially had to be one of the working people – while that approach arguably gets rid of the land-owner class, it also gets rid of things like senior votes, unemployed votes and disabled person votes. That govt was also very short lived, as they couldn’t agree to get anything done to defend their country, as Germany strolled in to capture their steel mfg etc. I think Anarchism works in a small scale community, but it’s not something that works at scale – same thing with the more extreme forms of socialism.
So the best way of implementing anarchism would by having a federate country that has as only concern to defend the country and maybe infrastructure maintenance?
Well that sound not very much anarchist but better than nothing i assume
Are you sure of your opinions?
Wow, was I surprised at this being the first/top comment I saw in the thread.
Well said.
Too bad the libs will continue to attack socialism in lockstep with their fash allies.
Never gonna hear this explanation from a democrat. Maybe Bernie paying lip service.
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The thing about socialism is that it’s about the social aspect of life. (it’s right there in the name). You see an old lady and you take some time from your day to help her cross the road. You have 2 apples but only need one so you give one to a person without one. We’re all people and it’s not about OUR stuff or OUR time. Fucking share a little and be equals.
Actually, the thing is we don’t even have to be equals, that never works, we just have to make sure everyone has what they need.
Exactly this. The small amount of socialism we have in Canada, where I am, allows otherwise destitute people to have a place to live, food on the table, and the ability to see a doctor and recieve medical care.
Also, the fire department will show up if their house catches fire, and the police will show up if someone robs them…
All social services.
Social welfare is not socialism.
Socialism is when the workers own the means of production so no one else profits off of your labour.
i know people who im not sure what they are, that would love free stuff and not have to work for it. mind you, these are the same people who put “become a millionare” in their dairies that play the lottery every day.
Socialists and Capitalists both think you shouldn’t be able to freeload off the back of other people’s work. They only disagree on who exactly it is that’s doing the freeloading.
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The whole point of capitalism is that the capitalist doesn’t have to do any real work. They have employees who work, and they just sit around and look smart, doing nothing.
(Also, it tends to come up a lot in these types of discussions, but commerce is different from capitalism.)
Considering that the capitalists got us to literally pay for the glorified goon squads that represses us while protecting their precious private property for them out of our taxes, I’d say that it’s them that’s getting all the “free stuff.”
glorified goon squads that represses us while protecting their precious private property for them
Yeah, this never ever happened in human history before capitalism.
Ok, liberal… find me an example of a state-funded murder-institution dedicated to the protection of private property before the advent of capitalism.
Should be easy for an enlightened shitlib like you, eh?
Feudalism?
Try harder, lib.
What’s the issue with their answer?
You liberals seem to be having a hard time understanding what basic words mean… so here. I’ll post the challenge again.
Find me an example of a state-funded murder-institution dedicated to the protection of private property before the advent of capitalism.
You’re not really describing what the issue what with their answer though
That it was something other than a groveling concession, apparently, lol.
End welfare; kill the rich.
And ICE
Okay, the rich and their enforcers ¹.
¹including ice. Yes.
The thing is with capitalism u have a shot to be one of those ten….
I think everyone who downvoted you didn’t get the joke 😂
The thing is, we don’t want ANYONE to be a billionaire. It’s unjust.
It would take a person earning a million dollar salary a thousand years to earn that much.
Lmfao no you dont. Not unless you are already friends/family with one of them.
Couldn’t you get the same effect with socialism and a lottery?
Yep one the main points is to stop the theft of labor value by the bourgeois.
Problem there is a lot of communism fails because leaders become corrupt and the wealth still gets funneled to the few. Which isn’t a problem with communism specifically. Communism would be sound if human beings were actually honorable. However, they’re mostly not. In fact, generally speaking, humans are pretty shit, and a utopia of any sort simply isn’t going to happen because of that. Human nature is too messy to allow it.
That’s why I believe we will be stuck with capitalism until unless society will run by autonomous machine which is capable of balancing humanity’s needs. Human is always the weakest link in any system, economic and political systems are not exceptional in this regard.
The problem here is that socialism is not communism. Under socialism compensation is based on individual contribution to work. This doesn’t imply an equal share.
Oh, yep, that one is my bad. The general point still stands, though.
The point you were making that communism = bad stands.
But the post was about socialism (and misrepresenting what it is).
Absolutely not. If my point was communism = bad, then I would not have said it requires an honor from humanity they simply don’t have. Ergo, communism is a rather honorable system, afaic. The problem is people will fuck up ideologies. Ideologies/idealities are not realties. In some cases you might get some stability for a few generations, but given enough time it will fuck up. And this goes for capitalism too, and pretty much every other form of government. It has nothing to do with communism specifically and is not because of communism.
Communism is fragile. It does work at the very small scale (a kibbutz) but the rotation of power requires that everyone in the chain needs to relinquish it at some time.
Central planning isn’t great either, but maybe that can be offloaded to a dispassionate computer.
“Yellow cat or black cat, as long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.” Adjustments need to be made according to the circumstances, just how it is. Though a lot of times, unfortunately, what needs to be done isn’t what happens.
At this current time, I’d still be really hesitant to trust things to a computer. Both because humans can still mess with it and also that computers can be faulty themselves. Then again, we already have a lot managed by computers, so who knows, maybe it would work.
a lot of communism fails because leaders become corrupt and the wealth still gets funneled to the few
This is literally empirically false. Wealth inequality in, say, the USSR, plummeted to the lowest levels the region has ever seen. The top 1% in the USSR only had 4% of the total income, in modern capitalist Russia this number has risen at least to 20%. The top earners in the USSR were also not “le evil bureaucrat politicians”, but university professors, artists, and other members of the intelligentsia. Income inequality actually evolved downwards during the existence of the country. Your analysis is not based on real data, it’s based off vibes you’ve gotten from CIA propaganda.
a utopia of any sort simply isn’t going to happen
I agree, but us communists are not utopians. Utopian socialism died in the mid 1800s, and Marx and Engels famously talked about Scientific Socialism as opposed to Utopian Socialism. The debate has been settled for almost 200 years: Marxists are not utopians.
The top 1% in the USSR only had 4% of the total income, in modern capitalist Russia this number has risen at least to 20%.
You’re commiting a type of McNamara fallacy here by accounting for financial income and ignoring the ability of people in charge of a command economy to, well… command.
If you are in charge of people, you don’t need to pay for their services. You can command them to get things done. Imagine paying a company to asphalt 10 kilometres of road to your dacha. It would cost millions, but could be organised by most second-tier bureaucrats. Even now, Vladimir Putin doesn’t need money. He can ask for anything he wants and if some people die for that, it’s okay.
The top earners in the USSR were also not “le evil bureaucrat politicians”, but university professors, artists, and other members of the intelligentsia.
And yet, the intelligentsia often starved, because they had little to offer to the shadow economy. Even the people with thousands of roubles in their drawers had very little that money could buy, you could walk to a store with a full wallet and leave with nothing. And if it had anything, you would wait in a queue for several hours. People would queue up without knowing what they are waiting for.
It was far more important to have friends that can command some stuff your way. A cashier at a store or a cook at a cafeteria could get you the best food. A sailor could get you import magazines and electronics. A machine worker could get you tools and make you spare parts.
To a western person, this might seem obscene, but it’s how those economies have operated for decades and something people have to actively unlearn.
Ok, what you described with so many words is “corruption”. Corruption exists in any system, not specially in communism. Now you have the burden of providing numeric evidence that corruption was more widespread than it was in comparably developed countries at the time, and that it was big enough to generate differences in access to purchase power comparable to the ones we see nowadays.
It’s not just corruption when most people engage in it to some extent. You would literally see factory workers bring stuff from their work without hiding it en masse and nobody would get fired. And then you would trade or share stuff you stole with your friends who stole from their jobs. Try stealing stuff from your own job openly every day, see how well that goes.
Now you have the burden of providing numeric evidence
Yes, because there is an easy way to measure how much everything costs in a system where monetary value means next to nothing. How much would a sirloin steak cost if somebody offered it to you on the street? What if your friend gave it to you? What if no steaks were available at a grocery store? Would you trust any estimate of a price when money is mostly meaningless?
Asking about purchasing power is also meaningless, you either knew someone who could get you stuff or you didn’t. In a weird way, Soviet shadow economy ran like a prison: if you know a guy, you can get stuff, if you don’t, you make do what is given to you or lie, cheat and steal to get what you need.
Also, official statistics would lie and as the lies travelled upwards, they would stray further and further from the truth. So no reliable statistics are available or possible. But you take what numbers you can find, ignore any you can’t get, and claim that Soviet Union was somehow a paradise, thus commiting McNamara fallacy:
But when the McNamara discipline is applied too literally, the first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. The second step is to disregard that which can’t easily be measured or given a quantitative value. The third step is to presume that what can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. The fourth step is to say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. This is suicide.
Damn, that’s a lotta words to say “I have no evidence to support my claim of inequality in the USSR”. Your entire analysis is vibes-based so it can be entirely disregarded.
It’s not just corruption when most people engage in it
So what is it, was it only the party leaders commanding everyone at their will creating huge inequality, or is it everyone engaging in it? Because the original claim was the former. If everyone engaged in it, it’s not a mechanism for inequality.
Yes, because there is an easy way to measure how much everything costs in a system where monetary value means next to nothing
Literally yes. You can measure so-called baskets and translate the goods and services to international prices. The fact that you can’t source up this data simply means you’re making it up, not that it’s not possible. If everyone had access to free healthcare, education to the highest level, housing costing 3% of the monthly income, there was no unemployment, and as you say a huge chunk of consumption was heavily subsidized, all of that points to inequality being low.
In capitalism, if you’re richer than your neighbor and you pay for a car they can’t afford, that’s legal and creates inequality. In Soviet communism, if you are owed a favor by an official and you get placed earlier on the list of car recipients, that’s illegal and it creates inequality. The entire point that you’re making, apparently, is that while in capitalism the mechanisms that lead to inequality of consumption are legal, in the USSR they were illegal. That’s not pointing in the direction you want it to point, and you’re only looking ridiculous because you’re clearly not speaking from data but from vibes.
Also, official statistics would lie and as the lies travelled upwards, they would stray further and further from the truth.
Unlike in capitalism, where companies deciding how to do their own accounting without external supervision are surely not lying to anyone (wink wink) that’s why we constantly have banking and financial crises because banks and companies constantly lie about everything and anything which leads to huge bubbles and bursts. Don’t be ridiculous. Just admit you’re going off vibes and let it go.
Don’t be ridiculous. Just admit you’re going off vibes and let it go.
I was born right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I have experiences of my parents. I have experiences of my parents’ friends. I have experiences of my teachers.
If everyone engaged in it, it’s not a mechanism for inequality.
Yes it is, because some things are in higher demand than others. Cashiers and cooks were like gods that got the first picks and everyone else had to pick what’s left.
You can measure so-called baskets and translate the goods and services to international prices.
The “baskets” were mostly empty, the pantries were often full. Things such as mayonnaise and canned peas were highly sought after deficit goods that were hard to acquire.
If everyone had access to free healthcare,
Bribing the doctor was expected if you needed anything more than a checkup.
education to the highest level,
was only available to the best students, once again encouraging bribery.
housing costing 3% of the monthly income,
that you could hardly acquire, some people waited up to 30 years to be allowed to buy a flat and many lived in dorms with other people. I grew up sharing 67 square meter flat with 12 other people.
there was no unemployment,
because it was illegal, but firing someone was very difficult as well, encouraging laziness, theft and alcoholism in the workforce.
Also, the competition for prestigious positions was fierce and often skewed by the favour system as well. My mother-in-law’s math teacher gave her a bad grade because the in-laws’ cousin got a position the teacher wanted for herself, sabotaging my mother-in-law’s chances at a higher education as a result. My mother-in-law later became a cashier at a local store and never sold the teacher any under the counter goods. They are both still alive and still hate each other to this day.
and as you say a huge chunk of consumption was heavily subsidized, all of that points to inequality being low.
So was most of the production, because most factories would have collapsed without it. If it wasn’t for the oil fields in Siberia, Soviet Union would have collapsed much earlier.
Also, especially before Andropov, many factories produced things illegally just so they could buy things such as tools and machinery illegally. A nearby ship factory produced car trailers (a highly sought after deficit product) that they would sell for US dollars locally to buy other deficit goods needed for shipbuilding such as welding masks and gloves.
The entire point that you’re making, apparently, is that while in capitalism the mechanisms that lead to inequality of consumption are legal, in the USSR they were illegal. That’s not pointing in the direction you want it to point, and you’re only looking ridiculous because you’re clearly not speaking from data but from vibes.
They were technically illegal but seldom punished. In fact, making deals and trading favours was a way of life.
Unlike in capitalism, where companies deciding how to do their own accounting without external supervision are surely not lying to anyone
At least you have the state statistics department and independent organisation checking their claims. As per Wikipedia:
Studies of second, shadow, grey and other economies are difficult because unlike official economies there are no direct statistics, therefore indirect methods are required.[2] Treml and Alexeev studied the relationships between per capita legal money income and such income-dependent variables as per capita savings and purchases of various goods and services. The study indicated that the disparity between legal income and legal spending gradually grew during 1965–1989 and by the end of the period the correlation between the two almost disappeared, indicating the rapid growth of the second economy.[2] The proliferation of the second economy was impossible without widespread corruption.[4]
Ok ok, so all public sector = bribery, all private sector = meritocracy, got it buddy! Free healthcare is bad because sometimes you’ll need to pay your doctor to get something done (I thought money was worthless?), unlike in private healthcare where you always need to pay your doctor and so poor people can’t get healthcare, so good!
some people waited up to 30 years to be allowed to buy a flat
In capitalism most people can’t even afford to buy a flat, again you’re proving you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Home ownership rate is 98% in Kazakhstan, 96% in China and Laos, 92% in Russia and Serbia, 90% in Cuba, and in glorious capitalist countries it’s 69% EU average, 66% in the USA, 57% in South Korea, or 42% in Switzerland. You’re just a propagandized anticommunist with absolutely 0 empirical data to back up what you’re talking about, angry at communism because your life in capitalism was shit.
I was born right after the collapse of the Soviet Union
I grew up sharing 67 square meter flat with 12 other people
It sounds to me like you should blame capitalism. Out of those 12 other people, how many were unemployed adults who would have had a job in capitalism?
Your comment is full of anecdotes, but again you have 0 statistical data about what you’re saying. Literally all of that takes place in capitalism even worse, and I’m giving you data for it. Keep crying about communism while your Eastern European country becomes a fascist hellhole with destroyed infrastructure, fucked up healthcare, and massive migration towards the EU because people can’t find fucking jobs.
Okay, cool, so the USSR was, by your words, less prone to creating a wealth disparity. And lets just not talk about the several million that died under Stalin. Now, the USSR may not have funneled wealth, but in the end, it still collapsed on itself. It did not last, and this was largely due to internal affairs.
As per the second part, sure, I’ll concede to you the pedantic semantics of the word utopia. My point still stands. Don’t get me wrong, if someome were to ask, “Would you rather live in a functioning capitalist society, or a functioning socialist society,” I would choose and tell others they should join the socialist one. My point is that, at some point, that government is still going to go to shit, just because people are people. Though, please do not take this as any sort of statement like, “don’t even try,” because a better life is a better life. If it’s feasable, go for it. It’s just that the core problem (human nature) isn’t going to be solved by a political ideology, rather, human nature will eventually fuck that ideology up.
And lets just not talk about the several million that died under Stalin
Let’s also talk about the tens of millions that were saved under Stalin from Nazi extermination, and about the tens of millions that were saved from hunger, poverty and treatable disease under Stalin, who took over a Soviet Union with a life expectancy of 27 years and died with a Soviet Union with a life expectancy of 60+ years. If you run the numbers, by any reasonable metric, the Soviet Union saved easily 30-40 million people in those years.
just because people are people
That sounds like a sophism, not like any real argument. What’s your point? Socialism fell not because it’s not sustainable, it fell because it appeared in a backward feudal country 100 years behind the capitalist west at its inception, and couldn’t keep up with the progress and technology that the industrialized west + colonies were able to put out. This is changing now, as the biggest communist country is China and it has already overtaken the west in terms of economic output, and it’s a matter of time before communism finally spreads to the rest of the world.
Cool, people were saved, even if you put it to a ratio of dead to saved, it’s still a shitty ratio. And again, it still fell.
I don’t give an ass’s arse that you think it sounds like sophistry. Human beings will fuck an ideology up, full stop. And while China is definitely doing well, modern China isn’t communist.
Cool, people were saved, even if you put it to a ratio of dead to saved, it’s still a shitty ratio.
Is it? Europe at the time was full of colonial powers carrying out genocide in India, Southern Asia and in many places of Africa, the USA was a colonial power emerged out of the genocide of native Americans keeping the entirety of Latin America underdeveloped… The USSR never had a colony and it was a self-sufficient system that didn’t rely on colonialism or neocolonialism, both of which kept and keep billions impoverished and overworked in the global south. Take those things into the ratio, compare countries, and you’ll find that there hasn’t been a country as moral and fair as the USSR.
I don’t give an ass’s arse that you think it sounds like sophistry. Human beings will fuck an ideology up, full stop.
“This may sound like I’m making shit up, but I’m very sure of it, full stop.”
modern China isn’t communist
Chinese people often call it “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”. You don’t wanna call it like that, that’s fine, it’s just terminology. The point is that it’s a fundamentally different economic and political system, and I think it’s measurably better than the west in many metrics. If you agree, then you probably agree that we should pursue a similar system, whether you decide to call it communist or not?
The USSR never had a colony
Picks up a map.
Siberia? The Baltics? Caucasus? Central Asia? Warsaw pact countries?
Those were all Soviet colonies. A lot of them still are Russian colonies. Russia is the last colonial empire that refuses to die.
“USSR BAD!!!” picks map from Tsarist Empire
Those were all Soviet colonies
Workers in those regions had the same rights as workers anywhere, had self a representation in the government and local administration, and received massive boosts in quality of life through state investment in infrastructure, which ensured similar amounts of hospital beds per capita all over the country. You literally don’t know what “colony” means, there’s a reason why Central Asian countries for example overwhelmingly voted in favour of maintaining the USSR in the 1990 referendum.
Now that those regions have gone back to capitalism, a form of colonialism has returned, leading to disastrous conflicts like the Chechen War and the defunding of local infrastructure in favour of Moscow. Go open a book.
The USSR was not self-sufficient for starters, and again, it failed. Because of its own problems. And I’m not making anything up, you’re the one putting massive amounts of spin on things.
Chinese people often call it “Socialism with Chinese characteristics.” You don’t wanna call it like that, that’s fine, it’s just terminology. The point is that it’s a fundamentally different economic and political system, and I think it’s measurably better than the west in many metrics. If you agree, then you probably agree that we should pursue a similar system, whether you decide to call it communist or not?
Yes, I would agree, and I don’t see why you seem to think otherwise. I already stated that given a choice between a functional capitalist society and a functioning socialist society I would choose and encourage others to pick the socialist one. You have very little going for you in this debate, and as a result you seem to be increasingly capitulating towards making me into something I’m not in order to cope.
Right now, China is in a good spot, and it also has the benefit of an absolutely massive population. If they can get 1.4 billion people organized, stabilized, and working together they will be an absolute force to be reckoned with, of which only India could compete (though they suck at getting their shit together, currently.) However, since Deng Xiaoping, China has increasingly embraced tactics from other political ideologies to suit the present needs and find what works. If anything, I would say the way China allows its government to evolve while keeping retraints on it is its strength. Also their soft power strategy, but that’s not a topic for now.
The USSR was not self-sufficient for starters
The USSR was from the start banned from international trade for the sin of being communist, only after WW2 did world markets open to it. Even then, it didn’t rely on any country for its energetic, food, material, or industrial needs. You can read about this on Robert C. Allen’s “Farm to Factory” or Alec Nove’s “An economic history of the USSR”. I’m not making things up, this is widely known.
No comment on the China thing. But if that’s the model that works, you should seek to establish a Communist Party rule in your country.
Communism would be sound if human beings were actually honorable
Just say you don’t have the foggiest clue what political ideology is all about - there’s no reason to dress it up like this.
Hey, all the evils are done by humans, right? So why are you so fast to say human nature doesn’t matter at all? Literally every failure of ANY political system is a human failing. A human failing to lead properly, a human failing to hold leaders accountable, a human failing to etc…
People like you want to act like the 1% are some other species and the rest of us are just “normal people being taken advantage of”. That’s complete bullshit. Our inability to organize and stand up for each other is just as much a part of human nature as it is to be greedy and accumulate resources.
So why are you so fast to say human nature doesn’t matter at all?
Ok, liberal… lead by example.
How much responsibility do you, personally, carry for all the rape, torture and murder that has been perpetrated in the name of “western civilisation” since the 16th-century?
And what are you, personally, going to do to make up for all of that?
a human failing to hold leaders accountable,
Right, right… do tell, lib - how have you “held” your (so-called) “leaders” accountable today?
So because I disagree with you, you decide to be a dick. Thanks for proving my point about human nature. It’s way more animalistic than we’re willing to admit, but your actions speak for themselves.
Thanks for proving my point about human nature.
I’m sure my text cut really deep, everlasting scars into your psyche - be sure to go see a therapist and tell them that some internet discourse did more emotional damage to you than existence during late-stage capitalism did.
When told you’re a dick, you become a bigger dick. Huh… Human nature really at work today.
You think I give a fuck? I’m taking a shit laughing at you right now.
Go on, keep crying about how unfair the world is while you act like a twat and wonder why no one wants to help you out 😂
While you’re with the therapist, remember to tell them your theories about (what you call) “human nature.” That way, they won’t have to waste too much time figuring out what is wrong with you.
Sure, dude. I hereby declare that I’m a rather normal and generic person, have no political degree, and am generally uneducated on the finer nuances and only know the broad strokes of various ideologies. Regardless, no one needs higher education to recognize the reality that humans are not creating any form of utopia. That simply isn’t going to happen. A brief glance at history is more than enough to show the rise and fall of nations and that nothing lasts, and humans have never been able to make it last even under good environmental conditions because they, themselves, are an utter mess.
to recognize the reality that humans are not creating any form of utopia.
So you don’t know anything… except you know everything.
A brief glance at history
Maybe next time try to go for two glances - then you might stop yourself next time from exposing yourself as somebody who doesn’t know anything while also (somehow) entitling yourself to expertise on the thing you don’t know anything about.
I never called myself an expertise on anything, but it looks like you’re trying to. You don’t need higher education to see the obvious.
So this is just…
I never called myself an expertise
…you hiding behind false modesty?
Just a few short minutes ago you were entitling yourself to expertise on the beliefs of communists… where did all that knowledge all of a sudden go, eh?
We’re done, you clearly have nothing to go on.
Is that your “expertise” talking again?
If there’s leaders with enough power to manipulate things to their own end, it never even got as far as communism.
Its also not about “honor”, it’s about empathy. About caring enough about your fellow beings to enjoin efforts to raise everyone up, not just yourself or those you deem worthy.
Whether it is empathy or honor doesn’t really matter. If you wanna say empathy, then we can roll with that. The point is that humanity doesn’t possess enough of it.
Humanity may have enough of it but it is not distributed evenly.
Lmao, this genuinely made me chuckle. I guess let me know when we have enough brain sappers to extract and distribute empathy.
They have plenty of it, they’ve just been trained out of using it. Part of that is making the assumption that other people are lesser or not worthy of it because they lack “humanity” by people who want to look down on them for no reason.
I have to strongly disagree here. While it is definitely possible to teach greater/lesser ideologies, and it absolutely does happen, at their core, humans are social creatures prone to forming groups and passing biased judgements on out groups. In groups and out groups form, and competition starts, followed by the mud slinging. It’s not a training, it’s part of human nature. The teaching just accelerates things and pushes people into groups faster and with more vehemency.
It’s not a training issue. Their brains just don’t work right - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
It’s for these reasons that I believe only a “dictatorship utopia” is reasonably possible. A True Utopia is only possible if you completely rewrite human nature so people want to act that way. It will take GENERATIONS of concentrated education and training to get us to that level. I think the most likely route for us to get there is through a truly benevolent dictator. It’s not necessarily ideal for numerous reasons, but I think it’s the best shot. Marxism already had a similar concept know as Vanguardism.
ROI
?
“Socialism” things like healthcare and education being available to every citizen without a fee at the time of use is an investment in the country. And it’s been shown these all have excellent return on investment. Often times creating more tax revenue than is spent.
In which country has this worked out?
Famously, in the Soviet Union. Unemployment was abolished and by the 1970s 1 in 10 positions were open for hiring, the average time in unemployment was two weeks. There was no legal mechanism other than disability benefits, motherhood benefits or retirement pensions that allowed for people to earn an income, the only way was work. In modern capitalist Russia, the top 1% gets 20% of total income, in Soviet Union it was 4%, so it was extremely less unequal. If everyone worked (except for people with serious disabilities, retired people, and possibly some housewives), and the income was well-distributed, then it’s kinda exactly what the post was saying.
In which country that the USA hasn’t fucked around with has this worked out? Anyone who tries either gets invaded or the opposing minority gets a lot of funding from the CIA to ruin it. Countries nationalising the means of production makes it difficult for the festering capitalism to take advantage of them, so they must be stamped out a quickly as possible
Now ask that same question for capitalism.
The other poster listed Canada as somewhere that is doing well. Sounds like we got a winner for that question!
Where has it been tried?
Idk, I live in Canada and we have a lot of social services. Things are going pretty decently.
I think you might be conflating socialism (the concept) with communism (the authoritarian system of government).
I would agree Canada is doing well, but Canada is not a socialist country. It’s a capitalist country with good social services.
Really underlines things when the first country pointed out is capitalist.
You avoided all questions about where socialism has been truly attempted, you avoided engaging in the distinction the other user brought up that you’re conflating socialism with authoritarian communism, and you’re using A SINGLE EXAMPLE — the ONLY reply to your question — to smugly go “heh, see? Canada is pretty good and it’s CAPITALIST. Checkmate.”
