(Hierarchical) Power in general is the root cause, not Capitalism in particular
What gives us these 80 year cycles in the west where everything turns to shit?
Seems to me that about once a generation people allow the states they live in (and corporations they work for) to concentrate power to a point where it cannot be overlooked anymore? Kinda feel like you already have an answer you want tho (apologies if that’s not the case).
Human nature. We need living people to tell us what happened the last time something happened society-wide, else we forget and repeat the same mistakes. It’s the whole hard times make strong men thing. It’s on about an 80 year cycle. The good news is that we’re right at the point in the cycle where real changes are easy to make.
Read the book The Fourth Turning for many examples of the pattern repeating.
It’s the whole hard times make strong men thing.
Which is literal fascist propaganda
So’s the 👌hand sign, I suppose I’m going to get dogpiled for that too?
Look outside, (big ask for this website), we’re literally in hard times made by weak men.
I swear, this site is worse than 4chan about groupthink. Someone uses a slightly weak example or a cancelled idiom and all your minds just shut off and you start parroting your self selected propaganda.
“X is good, Y is bad.” It rarely is that simple.
Cool agitprop posters like what OP posted rarely give you a particularly nuanced perspective due to their limited space. The intended effect is to spark conversation, not to beam Marxism into the heads of anyone who sees it.
It reminds me of how people hated on “defund the police” messaging. I got into an argument with someone that focused on the phrase alone and was completely uninterested in a genuine discussion about what it means. Like what do they expect? An entire novel written on a poster or a tweet to appease them? The point is to kick the conversation off, not spoon-feed you.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head! Effective agitprop sparks conversations and forces engagement, not just people immediately dismissing it or accepting it before going on with their days.
rip marxists, the one type they make a meme with fewer than 100 words and people still complain :0
For real… 🫠
If I write an essay, people don’t genuinely read it, if I write short responses I either over-simplify or manage to raise more questions than I answer… at least, it feels that way sometimes, lol
I read them. I have learned a lot on Lemmy.
Thanks, I appreciate it! I know there are people who do, some of them send me DMs or reply directly to me so it all justifies the efforts I do, I just wish the human brain worked better with direct argumentation than it does when viewing a debate from the outside. Ie, I wish those I carefully spend time writing for took it to heart more than onlookers tend to, but the net result is still positive so I keep with it.
Thanks again!
Your comments are consistently high quality and there’s plenty of people reading without engaging who will be influenced in small but meaningful ways. You’re planting good seeds.
Thank you, I appreciate it! I do it more for others than the people I directly interact with, who have largely made up their mind already. That’s generally my strategy, people looking to argue online aren’t going to change their minds, they see it as a “win/lose” situation. Instead, I focus on refutation of absurd claims and well-sourced information more for onlookers to engage with. I really like Nia Frome’s articles on Red Sails called Marketing Socialism and On Dialectics, Or How to Defeat Enemies. They really help shape how I engage with others online, decisive and sharp refutation is very useful for onlookers to see.
For more fun articles on why people believe what they do, I’m a big fan of Roderic Day’s “Brainwashing” and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” Those help dramatically with seeing that, really, there’s little convincing others directly in online debate, but there is hope for others whose material conditions have opened them up to new ideas to see and engage with more information they are curious about.
Yeah communism isn’t any better so the both can fuck off
Sad to say, but humans are the root of evil. Atrocities have been done in the name of all sorts of things, but it’s always humans carrying it out.
All communists should d*e
Why?
Greed is the evil.
And communism doesn’t work because we’re selfish
If we accepted the arguments that humans are selfish, then it’s an argument for communism and not against it. We should be creating social systems that encourage socially positive behavior and inhibit socially destructive behavior. Capitalism is like taking a drunk to a happy hour at the bar. The fact that people keep repeating this trope shows complete and utter lack of critical thinking on their part.
I think it can work because of the same
I know that selfishness will make atleast some try to do any evil for a profit.
Capitalism is highly risky then.Better to highly regulate it or try to develop out of it, right?
Why?
Why are we selfish? Some sort of a mistake of evolution perhaps.
Science shows that humans as a species have been able to develop and thrive due to cooperative pro social instincts. This has been proven in studies of children. Our greed driven society beats this inherent impulse out of people to ‘prepare them’.
Sure, cooperation is clearly an evolutionary trait also, and seems like a much more useful one than greed. It seems that socities need a bit of both to thrive, or do you have examples of known societies that worked primarily on co-operation, even for the leaders?
I disagree with that being an intrinsic quality shared genetically by all of humanity, burned into our DNA. Rather, our ideas are shaped by material conditions, and thus different aspects are expressed more and less in different systems, ergo selfishness is not an iron-clad law.
Further, my point is more about asking why Communism can’t work because people are selfish. To me, that’s a telltale sign of not engaging with Marxist theory or how AES states are run.
if we have learnt one thing from the past it is that hammer and sickle countries are in dire need of agriculture products.
Meanwhile in the real world:
Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:
Professor of Economic History, Robert C. Allen, concludes in his study without the 1917 revolution is directly responsible for rapid growth
Study demonstrating the steady increase in quality of life during the Soviet period (including under Stalin). Includes the fact that Soviet life expectancy grew faster than any other nation recorded at the time:
A large study using world bank data analyzing the quality of life in Capitalist vs Socialist countries and finds overwhelmingly at similar levels of development with socialism bringing better quality of life:
This study compared capitalist and socialist countries in measures of the physical quality of life (PQL), taking into account the level of economic development.
This study shows that unprecedented mortality crisis struck Eastern Europe during the 1990s, causing around 7 million excess deaths. The first quantitative analysis of the association between deindustrialization and mortality in Eastern Europe.
Romania, the inustrialization of an agrarian economy under socialist planning
Communism is a shitty alternative.
In what way?
Ever seen Communism working as intended? There’ll always be power hungry assholes ruining these things for everyone.
I’d say all AES states have broadly managed to achieve their goals. There have been troubles and struggles faced internally and externally, none have been dreamlike utopian wonderlands, but seemingly only non-Marxists are the ones that require that of Marxist movements.
I had to google that first. Had no idea what the sahel states had to do with socialism or communism.
Those AES states are mostly highly corrupt though. I wouldn’t refer to north Korea as a livable place, plus the leaders are bathing in money while the populace dies from hunger. In Vietnam, if you know someone in politics, you can get whatever you want. I know this (nearly) first-hand. Laos, lol. And why the hell is China on that list? They’re way too deep in the capitalist game to be on that list, no? People also don’t mean shit to the ones in charge. Their people are executed by the thousands every year and they like to keep minorities in concentration camps. I’m sorry, those states are failed states in my opinion.
And as long as there is corruption, communism is not going to work. It’s a nice theory, but it just takes one black sheep to fuck it up for everyone. I wish it weren’t that way. It’d be nice to live in a world where people work for a purpose and everyone gets the same and no one has to suffer. Not going to happen.
Capitalism is plain evil though, I’ll give you that.
AES as in “Actually Existing Socialism.” The Sahel States are a quasi-Socialist national liberatory alliance. Burkina Faso was briefly Socialist under Sankara, but that time has passed.
The struggles faced in the DPRK are more due to sanctions and embargo than anything else, kinda like Cuba. Unlike Cuba, the US slaughtered 20% of their population and destroyed 80% of their buildings, yet they were economically ahead of South Korea until the 80s. The leadership is not “bathing in money” either.
Vietnam is rising rapidly. It isn’t a Utopia, but is dramatically improving. Same with Laos.
The PRC is more classically Marxist than they were under the late Mao period and Gang of Four, I elaborated on that, here. Further, you’re repeating state department propaganda about them, very silly.
Further, China is democratic. It doesn’t have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%?
Please explain how “one black sheep” would ruin Socialism/Communism. Given that you clearly aren’t familiar with Marxist theory nor how AES states function, this is a telltale sign that your critiques are of strawmen.
TBF Russia is a shit hole and has failed in every type of government they’ve ever had. Honestly it’s probably worse in Russia now than under communism. China was also doing no better before “communism”. Basically countries tend to make the jump when they have nothing left to lose.
Russia is a shit hole and has failed in every type of government they’ve ever had.
The soviets found themselves in a feudal shithole, and elevated it to a global super power.
China was also doing no better before “communism”.
Not sure who claims that China is communist, but it’s definitely not the chines. They have a market socialist system (or more accurately SWCC), which still has class society and its own contradictions.
Educate yourself on basic facts before you speak on a topic and stfu until you do so shitlib
gives way too much power to the govt and replaces monitary incentive systems with ones based on fear and coruption
That’s not how AES states function, in any capacity. Further, people get paid in Socialist states, so I really don’t know what strawman you’re fighting here.
Ask any post soviet country how they liked it during the USSR
if you gave a shit what they wanted you wouldn’t have overthrown them in a violent coup
The vast majority believe they are worse off now than under Socialism, which makes sense because the reintroduction of Capitalism resulted in skyrocketing rates of poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, homelessness, and an estimated 7 million excess deaths around the world.
I guess you can say Ukraine is now worse off than in the USSR, Back then they weren’t at war. The current situation isn’t exactly the fault of capitalism (or Ukranie for that matter)
This data was pre-Russo-Ukrainian war.
Over 15 year old data at this point. And in countries that don’t have a free press.
It’s still well-documented and consistent. Socialism worked better than Capitalism. Plus, no press is ever “free,” either private interests dominate it or public interests do.
Oh my fing god, I thought lemmy is only full of extreme liberals, but it’s also full of wannabe comunists. Dude, have you ever asked yourself why USSR fell if everything was better than in the west? Why people risked their lives jumping over the Berlin wall? Why there was a whole black market of importing goods from the west into ussr? Why people didn’t enjoy being sent to Siberia by the millions to die of hunger and of forced labor?
Or was Cuba a success?
Lemmy is developed by Communists, the Communists were here first.
Secondly, the dissolution of the USSR was driven instead by numerous complex factors:
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Liberal reforms that gave the Bourgeoisie power over key industries
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A firm dedication to planning by hand even as the economy grew more complex and computers too slow to be adapted to the planning mechanisms
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A huge portion of resources were spent on maintaining millitary parity with the US in order to dissuade US invasion
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80% of the combat done in World War II was on the Eastern Front, and 20 million Soviets lost their lives, with no real economic support from the West in rebuilding despite taking the largest cost of war
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An enclosed, heavily sanctioned economy relied on internal resource gathering, closed off from the world market
Countries like the PRC have taken to heart what happened in the USSR. As an example, the PRC shifted to a more classically Marxist economy, focusing on public ownership of only the large firms and key industries, and relying on markets to develop out of private ownership. This keeps them in touch with the global economy without giving the bourgeoisie control of key industries, and thus the bourgeoisie has no power over the economy or the state.
People left the DDR after getting good educations for free, and higher wages in West Germany. They got the best of both worlds.
Millions were not sent to Siberia.
Cuba is a resilliant success story given its brutal embargo and sanctions, yes. It has astounding metrics in areas like life expectancy despite being intentionally impoverished by the US Empire.
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Private interests do align, but rarely. Meaning you have more chance at opposing narratives forming. Public is monovoiced. Without an opposing voice its data becomes suspect.
Private is controlled by large corporations, and often gets state funding. All press has bias. Really, you don’t have anything against the data other than you feel like it could be wrong.
A Medium.com post isn’t a source, dude
Medium.com isn’t the source, it references the sources. Here’s Wikipedia referencing many of the same sources.
As opposed to the source you provided, which was nothing
uhh, anarchism clears lol
Socialism allows for both public and private ownership, individual freedoms, and democratic decision-making, while still aiming for social equality. Communism, in contrast, tends to involve total state control and often limits personal freedoms.
All this things sound great, we just need humanity to not be shitty to each other.
Tell me you’ve never read anything about communism that wasn’t written by anti-communists without telling me you’ve never read anything about communism that wasn’t written by anti-communists.
tell me you’re 16 without telling me you’re 16
Well I will agree that your average 16 year-old is more well read then the person I replied to.
That doesn’t even make sense…
😘 be well
be better
You should go back to Reddit, you’d be happier there
The state owning the means of production means the people running the state have a shit ton of power. Just takes a handful of bad people to turn that into oppression as we’ve seen in the USSR and China.
If you disagree feel free to explain your reasoning.
Jesus what a mess of a sentence. You really tried to hamfist that one in there.
Both Capitalism and Socialism have room for public and private ownership, the difference is which sector controls the state, large firms, and key industries. The Nordic Countries are dominated by Private Capital, ie it is Capitalist, while the PRC is dominated by Public Ownership, ie it is Socialist.
Communism limits the personal freedoms of the bourgeoisie. All Communism is, is a mkre developed and global form of Socialism, where the small firms that once were private have all grown into the public sector or collapsed.
Ah yes, get rid of extremism with different extremism. I think we’ve been there already. Spoiler: Didnt work.
As if intensity is what makes ideologies bad. 🙄
First, a societal organization outside the Western norm has no bearing on if it will be successful or not. The “middle” has no superior intrinsic characteristics.
Second, we know Socialism works, the PRC is now becoming the de facto world power as the US falls, all while providing dramatic improvements for its people and increasing levels of satisfaction.
What, specifically, doesn’t work?
I’m sorry, but what kind of bullshit data is this? Asking Chinese people if whether the like China or not? When everyone fears being executed, no one will say anything bad. Lmao, tankie bullshit.
Chinese people are not in constant fear of execution, lmao, that goes directly against polling results from western pollsters:
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
That first chart isn’t even trying to hide that is fake. It’s depicting a perfect mirroring.
Conveniently, clicking through to the actual data returns a 404.
Pretty odd, considering it’s the official Pew Research website, but the findings are not out of consistency with similar polls on approval for the government and the continuous improvements in purchasing power for the working class.
Well, first, as far as i know China is known to miss report its economical report. But even if that would not be the case.
Human rights dont work there. https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/china
Human Rights are overall good in China, and improving steadily.
HRW has ties to the US government, is a revolving door, and refuses to critique US foreign policy.
Funny that you link the BBC, given their historical willingness to lie on the subject and continue to report the ludicrous 10,000 dead at Tian’anmen figure that was the sole claim of a British diplomat that fled the square before the PLA arrived, and later was confirmed to have been a fabrication. Hundreds died that day, maybe low thousands, not 10,000, yet the BBC both knows that and reports otherwise. BBC also got caught doctoring images to make China seem “depressing” that they swapped back after getting called out.
Either way, Zenz is a known liar, works for the “Victims of Communism” propaganda outlet, and was commisioned by the BBC to fight China, which he believes is the “Anti-Christ.” Moreover, he misrepresents numbers, such as 8% new IUD rates as 80% new IUD rates, to give an idea of forced steralization that doesn’t exist. As for XPF? Check out https://this-person-does-not-exist.com/en, then the glasses picture, https://www.xinjiangpolicefiles.org/wp-content/uploads/dt_imgs/20180515184435950_653121197306.jpg, pretty damning. BBC recieved these photos straight from Zenz, a known liar. We know there are camps, either way, but Zenz is a serial liar and you trust him, why?
Are you paid by China? Nice propaganda, m8. I dare you to go live in China as a non-rich Person for more than a year. Let’s see how much you like the country then.
Not paid by China, I’m just a Marxist-Leninist. I would love to visit or live in China for a year or more, but would want to be back with my family.
Maybe you should try it. That might get you off your weird trip.
Pretty sure I’ll only become more Communist, haha. From the Chinese ex-pats I’ve spoken with, it’s very pleasant to live in, and far easier for those without money than in the US.
“capitalism is evil”
so what’s not evil?
“a totalitarian socialist shithole, where you got no freedom or human rights”
A river floods every year. If someone builds a house next to it and the river takes it, is the river evil, or is the person suffering the consequences of their own ignorance? The consequences of capitalism are predictable and inevitable. The behaviour of a dollar is almost as predictable as that of an electron. Why do people pretend like we don’t know what is going to happen?
The caricature in your head of Socialism in practice does not exist. I recommend you read Anticommunism & Wonderland, which despite its title does show a nuanced view of the Soviet Union.
no thanks, I like my free speech
what a cowardly thing to say. you could have just walked away, but your fragile ego wasn’t done humiliating you.
I like when nazis don’t have free speech
You don’t really have free speech in Capitalism, all of the important media is entirely controlled by private interests to begin with. Further, with what freedoms we do have, why deliberately plug your ears? Do you just want the freedom to ignore inconvenient truths?
What the fuck is up with you people its like you only want to cry about the scary thing you’re so afraid of but won’t read anything about how it may not be so scary
You’re like a child who won’t eat their peas because they are green.
You don’t have free speech either way. And in capitalism you may not even know that you don’t have free speech
The proper response to being offered something to read, indeed.
Luigi’s hand doesn’t look anything like that. Someone fix this meme
You’re not going to overthrow fascism, white supremacy or capitalism with random acts of adventurism. If you’re not more organized than your enemy they will crush you.
I leave that to the plumber’s union.
Capitalism is a system and just that, it has no moral, therefore cannot be evil. The red hand without the ussr symbol would make this image more unified.
That’s like saying
“Nazism is a system and just that, it has no moral, therefore cannot be evil.”
or
“The Transatlantic slave trade is a system and just that, it has no moral, therefore cannot be evil.”
What are you talking about? Systems are created by people; they don’t just pop into existence.
You said it yourself the systems are created by people, the people can be evil. They are the root of the evil aka anyone upholding capitalism because they profit even tho they know exactly how bad it is for the world and people, just like the people creating fascism the fascist are the root of evil.
Ah, you must be one of the people who say “guns don’t kill people”
Guns have no moral yes
It is the symptom, not the cause. Greed is the cause and it has been around a LOT longer than Capitalism.
Power not Greed. People don’t hoard wealth just to look at a pile of coins, they do it to control other people
