I see we are reaching for “full retard” today. If you love communism go and live in a communist country.
That’s the plan! Though I want to aid in turning my own country Communist, as that would benefit the most people globally, or at least take down the US Empire.
Ableism aint cool either.
Read my comment on this post. Think Capitalism mixed with Socialism would be good alternative for everyone
I responded to it, but I want to respond to this as well. There’s really no such thing as “mixing” Capitalism with Socialism. Private and Public property can be mixed, but what determines Capitalism or Socialism is if the former is the principle aspect of the economy, or the latter. By principle, I mean which controls the state, large firms, and key industries.
That’s what most European countries (social democracies) are doing. Safety net so you don’t randomly become homeless (you keep getting a part of your salary for a while, and even without any money there are enough places to sleep for all homeless people, at least in Austria), free healthcare, …
Keep pulling until you get hierarchy out.
Yeah great, because what we need now is soviet propaganda. This needs to die
It’s either socialism or barbarism. That’s why we are back here again.
And unfortunately, USSR falls smack damn on the barbarism side of that divide
you’re just mad they stopped the holocaust
…how could that possibly be your takeaway from what I said? I literally never even compared them to the Nazis, just said they weren’t socialist enough
reading between the lines
According to American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania Kristen Ghodsee, efforts to institutionalize the “double genocide thesis”, or the moral equivalence between the Nazi Holocaust (race murder) and the victims of communism (class murder), in particular the push at the beginning of the 2007–2008 financial crisis for commemoration of the latter in Europe, can be seen as the response by economic and political elites to fears of a leftist resurgence in the face of devastated economies and extreme social inequalities in both the Eastern and Western worlds as the result of the excesses of neoliberal capitalism. She says that any discussion of the achievements by Communist states, including literacy, education, women’s rights, and social security is usually silenced, and any discourse on the subject of communism is focused almost exclusively on Joseph Stalin’s crimes and the “double genocide thesis”, an intellectual paradigm summed up as such: “1) any move towards redistribution and away from a completely free market is seen as communist; 2) anything communist inevitably leads to class murder; and 3) class murder is the moral equivalent of the Holocaust.” By linking all leftist and socialist ideals to the excesses of Stalinism, Ghodsee posits that the elites hope to discredit and marginalize all political ideologies that could “threaten the primacy of private property and free markets”.
I should have clarified that I’m not against socialism, just the hierarchy of states. We should instead pursue more egalitarian socialist expressions like social ecology or kinds of anarchy.
making the perfect the enemy of the good
this is you rn
socialism >> communism is a evolving process, but every time it starts growing and developing, capital asserts itself to dominate and destroy it
the only Actually Existing Socialisms today have nuclear deterrents to avoid this fate, they also have to develop counter-intelligence defenses because just nuclear weapons are not enough to protect from all the myriad threats that capital engages in towards anti-socialist >> anti-communist goals
if you can not understand this material reality of history, and use it to analyze the struggle for liberation in this world, you are lost
Indisputably the opposite, the Soviet Union was the first big Socialist state.
Soviet propaganda is a good thing, and it’s on the mark here. Socialism is necessary and Capitalism is clearly on the downhill.
Soviet propaganda is a good thing
Was the USSR good?
Yes.
yeah gulags were really great and the world needs more of them
The Soviet prison system varied quite a bit, some with open visitation and no outer walls. They varied quite dramatically in conditions, but many were fairly progressive for the time. I recommend reading Russian Justice.
yeah gulags were great, really progressive.
Read the book.
I think so, relatively.
Weren’t they better than the Tsarist rule?Like, public healthcare, education and other policies leading to high literacy rates, longer lifespans, low infant and mother mortality etc.
And if we compare them to the other major powers at the time, aren’t they better than those since they made progress without colonies?
You’re spot on. Those who uphold the USSR as an overall force for good don’t think it was a magical utopia, but look at the hard metrics and see that, unlike Western powers, ultimately played a liberatory role globally and a progressive role domestically. Looking at geopolitical conflicts, they were almost always on the “correct” side, the one siding against colonialism, Nazism, and more.
Siding against colonialism: I guess its not colonialism when you’re colonialising your neighbouring countries and using your military to keep them in line / end liberation movements by force?
Siding against national socialism: At first they collaborated to take Poland together, and they made a deal to not attack each other. Only after Hitler broke that deal and attacked, forcing them to fight them, the USSR turned against Nazi-Germany.
… and more?
The USSR never colonized anyone. Further, it supported movements in Cuba, Angola, Algeria, China, Vietnam, Korea, Palestine, and more.
As for Poland, rather than let the genocidal Nazis take all of Poland, the Soviets stopped them from taking all of it. We see the difference in treatment when the Nazis exterminated Polish people and the Soviets did not.
The USSR never sided with the Nazis. They hated each other. The liberal democracies of Europe made similar agreements with Hitler before the USSR, and shot down Stalin’s suggestions of an anti-fascist alliance. Furthermore, US industrialists were directly inspired by Fascist Germany and Italy to carry out the failed Business Plot against FDR. The USA also paid reparations to German industrialists for their destroyed property after the war was over (Yes, even German industrialists who used Holocaust slave labor, like Krupp).
1933 - UK, France, Italy - The four powers pact
1934 - Poland - Hitler-Pilsudski Pact
1935 - UK - Anglo-German Naval agreement
1936 - Japan - Anti-Comintern pact
1938 - September - UK - German-British Non Aggression Pact (Munich Agreement )
1938 - December - France - German-French Non Aggression Pact
1939 - March - Romania - German Romanian Economical Treaty
1939 - March - Lithuania - Non aggression ultimatum
1939 - May - Italy - Pact of Steel (Friendship and Alliance)
1939 - May - Denmark - Non aggression pact
1939 - June - Estonia - non aggression pact
1939 - July - Latvia - non aggression pact
1939 - August - USSR - Molotov-Ribbentrop Non Aggression pact - the only ones libs care about
Stalin with regards to this said:
“Indeed, it would be ridiculous and stupid to close our eyes to the capitalist encirclement and think that our external enemies, the fascists, for example, will not, if the opportunity arises, make an attempt at an attack upon the USSR. Only blind braggarts or masked enemies who desire to lull the vigilance of our people can think like that.”
Even the US state department confirmed Stalin’s rationale for a pact with Hitler
“The Soviets signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany after the British and French rejected Soviet offers to establish a military alliance against Germany”
CIA declassifies its dealings with ex nazis
Stalin ‘planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact’
How the Allied multinationals supplied Nazi Germany throughout World War II
0·12 days agoStalin ‘planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact’
As if they were ever going to.
The Cold War & Its Origins, Vol. I, Denna F. Flemming, 1961, Chapter V:
Final Procrastination. This explicit warning did not increase the tempo in London. It was not until July 31 that Chamberlain finally announced the naming of a military mission to Moscow, to arrange the concrete terms of the proposed alliance. Molotov had named his top military men to negotiate, but instead of Lord Gort and General Gamelin the British-French delegation was headed by an obscure British Admiral, Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, and by a French General of comparable obscurity. Nor did this mission fly to Moscow as fast as planes could take it, to concert measures with desperate speed against the pitiable crucifixion of Poland which was boiling up on the horizon. While the sands were running out for Poland by the minute, the Allied mission took a slow Baltic boat, on August 5, and did not reach Moscow until August 11. Then it transpired, once again, that these men had no power to conclude an agreement.
I’m going to take a wild guess that posters and downvoters in this thread don’t live in actual communist countries. Endorsing hammer and sickle is just as bad as endorsing swastikas…
The portrayal of the Communists and Nazis as “twin evils” exaggerates the sins of the Communists in quantity and quality, while minimizing the sins of the Nazis in quantity and quality, in order to show them as relatively equal problems. In other words, its Nazi apologia, and historical revisionism. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
The Nazis executed the Communists, Socialists, gay people, trans people, disabled people, Jewish people, Slavic people, and many, many more. It wasn’t simple opposition, it was a racially supremacist ideology.
The Communists executed Tsarists, fascists, and terrorists to the state. They did not create a systematic industrialized murder machine like the Nazis did in order to keep up with how many people they needed to kill.
I’d say 1 person owning most of the money made at the company is the problem
To solve it everyone just needs to form or join a private unionized cooperative that doesn’t go on stock market for sustainable growth and so everyone at the company is making a lot of money too
Then collectively you all grow the pot that is available for all of you. Better to all be making 1,000,000 each and then grow it together to become 10,000,000-100,000,000+ for each of you
That is the root issue. Not enough of that
This doesn’t solve the systemic pressures within Capitalism, nor does it describe how to get from A to B. Your idea still depends on your one firm outcompeting other firms, which is difficult in saturated markets.
I recommend you look into Marxist theory, I have some recommendations I can make.
yeah instead of having all the money controlled by a few billionares, lets have an extremely powerful govt have that kinda power. great idea /s
It is better for the economy to be controlled by the public than by private interests, yes. You can study the democratizations of the economy made in AES states, and how the lives of the working class made the largest improvments.
True but at least it’s a good step to take. More stuff will be useful as well
I’d say it would be a good step to take if I thought it was legitimately possible in the current system. If it succeded, it would be good, but such a strategy has never worked before and there’s no evidence that it will.
Not quite. Dont get me wrong capitalism sucks and we should get rid of it, but for example colonialism is older than capitalism and part of its cause. So is colonialsim the root cause of evil? not quite again before colonialism there where still a lot of repressive and very hierarchical societies so again to frame capitalism as the root of all evil is ignoring a whole bunch of other repressive systems that are older but are certainly strengthend by it.
So if you want to simplisticly frame something as the root cause of evil then it would be “opressive hierarchies are the root cause of evil”. but maybe im biased here since im an anarchist
Last I checked the USSR didn’t do so well financially, and Russia is basically a criminal empire.
The USSR did fairly well until liberalizing part of its economy, as well as struggling to recover from the immense cost it paid to win the Eastern Front and beat the Nazis while under the oppression of the Cold War.
The Marxist-Leninist tradition is still carried forward by many states, including the PRC, which is on its way to surpass the US as world superpower.
The PRC is barely communist nowadays, and the USSR did not do well, the liberalising was a last-ditch attempt to save it.
The PRC is more classically Marxist than under the Gang of Four, when they abandoned materialist analysis and attempted to implement Communism through fiat. Large firms and key industries of the PRC are firmly in the public sector, while small firms, cooperatives, and sole proprietorships make up most of the private sector.
Marx didn’t think you could abolish private property by making it illegal, but by developing out of it. Socialism and Communism, for Marx, were about analyzing and harnessing the natural laws of economics moving towards centralization, so as to democratize it and produce in the interests of all. This wasn’t about decentralization, but centralization.
Markets themselves are not Capitalism, just like public ownership itself is not Socialist. The US is not Socialist just because it has a post-office, just like the PRC is not Capitalist just because it has some degree of private ownership. Rather, Marx believed you can’t just make private property illegal, but must develop out of it, as markets create large firms, and large firms work best with central planning:
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i. e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn’t to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital;[43] the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism.
As for the USSR, its economy worked quite well for most of its existence. I recommend reading Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? by Stephen Gowens, who goes over what went right and what went wrong in the Soviet Economy, including why it was dissolved. Further, GDP growth was positive throughout the near entirety of its existence, collapsing when it liberalized:
I recommend doing more research on Marixsm and the economies of the PRC and former USSR.
Tldr
PRC is Marxist, and the USSR’s economy was flawed, but ultimately worked rather well given its conditions. Read the comment for the justifications for both claims.
Your boos mean nothing. I’ve seen what makes you cheer.
I didn’t downvote you, for what it’s worth. I save that for more unreasonable people.
No you haven’t, you’re too lazy to read enough to.
“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.
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
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.
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!
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.
Yeah, there’s nothing worse than a bunch of billionaire shitheads, using the media they control to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money. Oh wait, that’s what’s going on Russia, too.
There are no “good guys” here. Just billionaire assholes exploiting everybody.
The Russian Federation ceased being Socialist in the early 90s, the Hammer and Sickle is a symbol of Marxism. Not sure what your point is.
The point is that it’s a class war. It always has been. It’s not about “socialism vs capitalism” or “liberals vs conservatives” or The Romulans vs The Federation. It’s about billionaires vs everybody else. It’s about the cluefull vs the clueless.
The point is that it’s a class war. It always has been. It’s not about “socialism vs capitalism”…
I really think you should maybe watch some youtube essays on Marxism and what it means, I think you might like the things you learn from it.
Class War is a fundamental part of the Socialist canon, though, while Capitalism affirms that it is unnecessary.
Further, a bit nitpicky, but I don’t like framing it as “cluefull vs clueless.” People’s ideas are a product of their material conditions, we shouldn’t downtalk those who don’t know more.
The people who told you what socialism or capitalism is, LIED to you. “The good of the people” is a noble-sounding goal. But the reality is that the people who deliberately seek power are . . . for the most part . . . vain, greedy, brutal assholes.
I don’t think Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc were lying to me when discussing what they wanted to implement and how Socialism and Capitalism function. I don’t think reading speeches and writings of Deng Xiapoing, Xi Jinping, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Joseph Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, or other leaders of AES states were lying about their intended goals or economic policies either.
I genuinely don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Are you rejecting analysis of Political Economy, in favor of vibes-based social movements? Genuinely.
Karl Marx said a lot of things about socialism and collectivism a hundred years ago, but he’s not in charge anymore. The rich oligarchs who replaced him are saying this. You keep saying “but they SAID they were SOCIALISTS” and all I see is Sponge Bob’s eyes, filling up with tears because he just can’t believe that some rich assholes are lying to him.
We have people in this country who claim to be “christians” who literally elected the anti-christ. Trump embodies ALL the seven deadly sins, but those folks are just fine with it. So let’s quit pretending that belief systems can’t be exploited.
Karl Marx was never “in charge.” He developed a framework for analyzing Political Economy in a manner useful for the Proletariat to identify the manner in which we are exploited, and how we may go about defeating the Bourgeoisie. There are no rich oligarchs replacing Marx.
Belief systems certainly can be exploited, but that isn’t the point you are making here. Your point is that we should disregard analysis of Political Economy in favor of vibes-based action. If you don’t do the effort of studying Political Economy, any conclusions you come to will be based on shaky foundations, rather than throwing theory aside, we need to weild it to guide correct practice.
Funny enough, Mao described your error over half a century ago, in On Practice:
The second point is that knowledge needs to be deepened, that the perceptual stage of knowledge needs to be developed to the rational stage – this is the dialectics of the theory of knowledge.[5] To think that knowledge can stop at the lower, perceptual stage and that perceptual knowledge alone is reliable while rational knowledge is not, would be to repeat the historical error of “empiricism”. This theory errs in failing to understand that, although the data of perception reflect certain realities in the objective world (I am not speaking here of idealist empiricism which confines experience to so-called introspection), they are merely one-sided and superficial, reflecting things incompletely and not reflecting their essence. Fully to reflect a thing in its totality, to reflect its essence, to reflect its inherent laws, it is necessary through the exercise of thought to reconstruct the rich data of sense perception, discarding the dross and selecting the essential, eliminating the false and retaining the true, proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside, in order to form a system of concepts and theories – it is necessary to make a leap from perceptual to rational knowledge. Such reconstructed knowledge is not more empty or more unreliable; on the contrary, whatever has been scientifically reconstructed in the process of cognition, on the basis of practice, reflects objective reality, as Lenin said, more deeply, more truly, more fully. As against this, vulgar “practical men” respect experience but despise theory, and therefore cannot have a comprehensive view of an entire objective process, lack clear direction and long-range perspective, and are complacent over occasional successes and glimpses of the truth. If such persons direct a revolution, they will lead it up a blind alley.
Yeah it’s the super rich vs everyone else.
Sure but fuck Russia too lmao
what does this have to do with this post
What does this have to do with Russia
Greed, not capitalism is the root of evil. Fight me.
Capitalism rewards greed, thus perpetuating it and entrenching it. So capitalism is the root of our greed epidemic
Every type rewards greed because humans and their predecessors have been trained to be greedy for all of time. Be it corruption or by design…it will always be.
Not our recent predecessors, they had communal social structures.
They did war with each other which included plundering, rape, and slavery. All humans are dicks
Just like Ukraine is warring with Russia, making Ukraine a dick, right?
Russia is this dick in this war. Ukraine has not been a saint in its history. No country has. No native American tribe has been a saint either. If you think one has… name it.
This is even more reductive than your original argument. If you really feel this way, why haven’t you committed suicide yet? Its the only way, in your version of reality, that you personally aren’t a genocidal nazi.
which one(s) haven’t been and why weren’t they?
You have it backwards. Greed is the root of our capitalism epidemic. And you think communist leaders are immune to greed? Just look at NK. The people share what little scraps there are while government officials live very easy lives
Greed is not an intrinsic human characteristic, as I already explained, and further life under brutal sanctions and embargo is difficult for everyone. Resources certainly aren’t distributed equally in the DPRK, but they manage to scrape by with what they can, and which is why lifting the embargo and sanctions is the best thing we can do for the Northern Korean people.
the best thing we can do for the Northern Korean people
I think the best thing for the people of North Korea is to not force them to live under a brutal dictator.
The people of the DPRK support the system they have, whether it truly has a dictator or not. To overthrow their system by force, ie what the US did in Iraq, would be greatly opposed by the people of the DPRK and yet again the US would end up slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Korean civilians, just like they did in the 50s.
Lifting the sanctions and embargo would dramatically improve their conditions, all the embargo has done is starve people to death during particularly harsh periods, like the Arduous March in the 90s. It isn’t showing any chances of hurting the legitimacy of the DPRK’s government, it’s purely to torture the Korean People into opening up their economy so the US can loot and pilliage it like it did to Iraq.
I thought the US killed millions, not 100,000s?
Estimates on the exact distribution of millitary vs Civilian deaths are not known, though millions died in total. That’s just from direct involvement in the war, and not the results of sanctions and embargo or other inflicted terror. I use “hundreds of thousands” because it’s
- Undeniably correct, even with bourgeois sources alone, and
- Still gets across the sheer brutality of the US’s genocide on Korea
It’s quite possible that civilian casualties do reach the millions, especially if you include the South Koreans killed by the US and the ROK government in areas like Jeju Island.
I can’t look at NK because the world capitalist economy isolated them, so I’m not going to argue about their material conditions. I don’t think anyone is immune to greed, but I think having a system that rewards greed is going to turn it from an aberration to an epidemic.
To your first point, let’s pretend you’re right and look at it in the abstract. What is to be done? Do you want to kill greed? How would you do that?
I can’t look at NK because the world capitalist economy isolated them
It’s a hereditary dictatorship that isolates itself to control all information its public can access.
Simping for alternative authoritarian regimes is NOT an effective way of fighting the tyranny of Capital.
Not trying to simp. Just saying you and I don’t know what’s really going on over there because of how our dear leaders control all the information that comes out.
Whose dear leaders? When reporters visit North Korea, who is controlling their movements and managing what they are allowed to see?
To your first point, let’s pretend you’re right and look at it in the abstract. What is to be done? Do you want to kill greed? How would you do that?
You’re getting somewhere! First, don’t point your finger at capitalism as the problem. Second, acknowledge & understand greed and how it is inherent in all human nature. Third, build systems that minimize the damage done by individual or corporate greed. Check against consolidation, monopolization, and short term Wall St like thinking of endless growth. Four, make sure socialist programs exist to support everyone, and capitalism is not the only way to live, it’s optional. When you think like that, the European nations seem to be doing things quite alright, but they are still vulnerable to greed. And so they must be vigilant against greed, not capitalism.
First, don’t point your finger at capitalism as the problem.
You already lost me
Second, acknowledge & understand greed and how it is inherent in all human nature.
I would rather acknowledge and encourage humans inherent nature to cooperate and grow together.
Third, build systems that minimize the damage done by individual or corporate greed.
Like building an economy that doesn’t inherently reward greed? I wonder what that would look like.
Check against consolidation, monopolization, and short term Wall St like thinking of endless growth.
These things exist because of capitalism
Four, make sure socialist programs exist to support everyone
That’s social welfare. Being socialist means the workers own the means of production
capitalism is not the only way to live, it’s optional
It’s so easy to live in the USA and just not do capitalism /s
the European nations seem to be doing things quite alright
Do you understand that their wealth was pillaged from the global south?
Can you give me a description of what makes socialism bad solely based on how it works (not referencing any country who may have attempted it)?
First, don’t point your finger at capitalism as the problem.
You already lost me
I know, many here have have an automatic trigger on ‘capitalism’, but I appreciate you trying. I will try to respond sincerely.
Second, acknowledge & understand greed and how it is inherent in all human nature.
I would rather acknowledge and encourage humans inherent nature to cooperate and grow together.
Me too! Cooperation is the good against the evil of greed. But greed still exists, you can’t wish it away, you have to strategize against.
Third, build systems that minimize the damage done by individual or corporate greed.
Like building an economy that doesn’t inherently reward greed? I wonder what that would look like.
Greed is rewarded in every economy.
Check against consolidation, monopolization, and short term Wall St like thinking of endless growth.
These things exist because of capitalism
No, they exist because of greed & corruption and failure of systems to contain those things.
Four, make sure socialist programs exist to support everyone
That’s social welfare. Being socialist means the workers own the means of production
No, socialist systems like free housing, healthcare, education can exist alongside capitalism. Worker owned systems like cooperatives still operate in a market.
capitalism is not the only way to live, it’s optional
It’s so easy to live in the USA and just not do capitalism /s
It’s impossible in the USA, I’m with you.
the European nations seem to be doing things quite alright
Do you understand that their wealth was pillaged from the global south?
Yes, the British East India company uprooted my own ancestors and erased all culture. I’m against imperialism as much as you, but this has nothing to do with it.
Can you give me a description of what makes socialism bad solely based on how it works (not referencing any country who may have attempted it)?
- Lack of standardization means you can’t be sure of what you’re getting. Is the milk from this farmer as good as the other farmer?
- Same price for same good means lack of incentive to improve / innovate. Why grass feed your cows when milk will only sell for a set fixed price?
- Markets will still exist, you can’t wish them away. It’s human nature. I want to make cake and feed you, but I still need to buy the ingredients, invest the capital, take the risk. Capitalism just rewards that risk.
- Greed still exists, maybe I can add a little water to the milk, huh, who will ever find out?
- Corruption still exists and without checks & balances, a centrally controlled system is very likely to being corrupted at the core.
The first half of your comment is attributing a static and supernatural quality to the concept of “greed” in a manner that obfuscates the underlying material structures, and why greed is expressed in different ways and degrees depending on the system. This is wrong.
Secondly, Social Programs are not Socialism. Socialism is an economy where Public Ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, while Capitalism is where Private Ownership is the principle. Whichever has firm control of the state, large firms, and key industries is the principle aspect. A cooperative in the US is not a single fragment of Socialism, just like a market in the PRC is not simply Capitalism.
Now, for your five points:
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This is not a problem with Socialism in any capacity. I truly don’t understand what you mean by saying standardization is an issue with Socialism.
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Price fixing is not Socialism itself, but a tool. Socialist systems can and do employ price fixing on some goods, but this is a tool that works well in some situtations and not so well in others, and as such Socialist systems can apply them where needed.
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Markets are not Capitalism. Markets work well at lower stages in development, but gradually monopolize and centralize over time, making it more effective to publicly own and plan. You agree with Marx when you say you can’t wish them away, but you imply they will always be useful based on a biological need to trade, which does not exist.
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Regulations and oversight exists within Socialism, directly breaking the law can be punished and audited. This point is silly.
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Checks and balances can be better implemented in Socialist systems where private individuals do not weild massive armies of influence. This is another silly point.
I recommend you read up on Marxism, I keep an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out. If you haven’t investigated a subject, why speak as though you have?
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Cowbee is mostly correct so I’m not going to address everything but there are 2 pieces I want to respond to.
Greed is rewarded in every economy.
That doesn’t seem to be true. Like an economy that doesn’t funnel money into individuals. Or even moneyless economies like Library or Gift. (Though moneyless economies imply we’re achieving actual communism, going beyond socialism)
No, socialist systems like free housing, healthcare, education can exist alongside capitalism. Worker owned systems like cooperatives still operate in a market.
Are you talking about free housing (etc) programs being managed as a cooperative, alongside a commodities market of cooperatives? If yes, that’s not capitalism, that’s socialism. If no, then you must be talking about a welfare state like what’s in Scandinavia, which isn’t socialist.
Kind of relevant to both points, there are a few different schools of socialism so you could see if any make more sense to you.
communist leaders
Found the problem
I don’t follow, Communism in the Marxian sense has administration and thus leadership. Are you suggesting a different structure?
It doesn’t reward greed, it rewards putting your resources into profitable endeavors. This is something you need to do in 100% communism as well, if you wish success.
No it doesn’t, the workers who put their labour into profitable companies aren’t rewarded for it
the reward is wages and if the workers unionize they can increase them
Wages are necessarily lower than the value created by them.
Human aspects like greed are not intrinsic to humanity, but created by the material conditions and mechanisms surrounding them, and are thus malleable and expressed in lower or greater degrees in different systems. Capitalism in particular expresses greed as its entire foundation is the relentless accumulation of profit and exansion of markets and commodification for the purposes of private wealth.
capitalism is the system whereby greed is raised above all other human impulses though. in most other systems, sure, people can be greedy, but they aren’t rewarded for it, and people who aren’t naturally greedy don’t get pushed and trained to be greedy as the highest aspiration.
lol, so stupid
Technically correct because greed is the cause of capitalism. But don’t be fooled into thinking there’s a long term, greed restrained capitalism that is going to work out for us; wealth is power. With sufficient wealth, a man can raise an army.
As soon as you allow him to accumulate it, you raise the possibility that he will buy your politicians and corrupt your citizens through amplifying his messages to make society ever greedier in his image.
When you resist this corruption, you get fascism.
Greed is not the cause of capitalism. Capitalism exists to create value for society. My grandfather, an immigrant, opened a bakery 50 years ago to serve his community and raise his family. I, an immigrant, opened a grocery store 10 years ago to serve my community and raise my family. Capitalism can be honest & hard work. In both cases, community over profits was a core principle.
Greed comes with accumulation and has to be restrained.
Capitalism doesn’t really exist soley in the micro, you must factor in the macro. A small gorcery store exists in the context of Capitalism, it isn’t Capitalist itself. The purpose of Capitalism systemically is Capital accumulation and the increase in profits through the general process of converting money into commodities, and into a higher quantity of money, thus seeding even more money for more commodoties and even more money after that in an endless loop.
The purpose of Capitalism systemically is Capital accumulation and the increase in profits through the general process of converting money into commodities in an endless loop.
I disagree. The purpose of capitalism systemically is to simply allow for value creation for the entire ecosystem (customers, employees, vendors) and give anyone the individual freedom to do so.
Current Western flavor of capitalism has allowed short-sighted greed to take over because Wall St demands so.
On an ideological level, you and I are the same - community over commerce. I support capitalism only under such principles.
I think the way forward is to have socialism provide all necessities for people - meal kits, utilities, shelter, transport, free gasoline, healthcare, and so forth that are designed to be boring but effective. Capitalism can be used to obtain luxuries - a wider variety of food, fancier cars, bigger houses, brazilian buttlifts, singing bass decorations, and so forth. Money is solely used for such things.
By doing it this way, people can choose to protest or strike without suffering too much from doing so. Work becomes optional, since survival is ensured. Combined with imposing floors and ceilings on wealth, we can promote democracy and socialism, without sacrificing the vitality of a healthy capitalism.
That’s not really an accurate overview of what constitutes Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism is not “markets” and Socialism isn’t government services, either. They are each determined by which aspect of the economy is principle, ie in control of the state, large firms, and key industries. Private Ownership as principle is Capitalism, Public Ownership as principle is Socialism. Both systems have a private and a public sector, but the trajectory of the system is very different.
It sounds like you’re talking about the Nordic countries, ie deteriorating Imperialist states that are seeing crumbling worker protections and rely on super-exploitation of the Global South to subsidize cost of living and safety nets.
That sounds lovely to me!
Capitalism did not arise out of ideological reasons, but as a material process with the shift from small manufacturing to large industry. It arised historically, not because it is natural (it’s only a few hundred years old) nor because someone thought it was a good idea. The mechanical process is as I described. Ideological justifications for it, ie liberalism, arose after the fact.
Value is created even in non-Capitalist systems, and further, western Capitalism is Capitalism of a more developed stage. You cannot perpetuate small market mechanics, small firms will either grow or die. Once markets coalesce, there really is nowhere to go but revolution and Socialism, or barbarism and collapse.
The problem of ‘growing big’ has to be solved via cooperatives operating in the same markets, not by disbanding the entire system.
That’s not a solution, though. Cooperatives within Capitalism are subject to the same rules as other firms, only without firm control of the state. These cooperatives will either grow or die, and you end up at the same necessary point, revolution and Socialism, or barbarism. Centralization is a fact of markets that sustain over a long period of time, ergo we should master those laws to make it as democratic and equitable a system as possible. In other words, Socialism.
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i want memes, not politics
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
(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.
Comunism is trash.
Nope!
