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currentreal-life examples of "communism good"?It's been democratically instituted many times. And every time America marches in and "liberates" them.
It's difficult to provide good examples when they're all actively destroyed.
Cuba. Cuba has the most educated population in North America, more doctors per capita then almost any other nation. The only reason they're struggling is because America's embargo. They want stuff too.
There is a Brazilian right-winger moron that said this golden statement: "there is only three things that works in Cuba: Security, Education and Healthcare".
For him that's a bad thing btw.
Mostly this, although Vietnam is doing quite well, especially considering their circumstances.
Cuba is also really interesting...not thriving, to be sure, but you have to end the US blockade before you blame them for their own hardships. And in spite of everything, they have democracy like we've never seen in the west.
Edit: also what beejboytyson said about Cuba.
The US dropped more napalm, and bombs, and agent orange on vietnam (a comparatively small country) than it did during all of WW2. Lots of its people are still suffering from this atrocity.
Sadly true. And most people aren't aware that they did pretty much the same thing to Laos, who they weren't even at war with. They just carpet bombed the whole country, "just in case."
Fuck the USA. They're literally the evil empire from star wars.
It's so funny that george lucas was like: "the rebels are the vietnamese communists, and the empire is the USA (its soldiers the storm troopers)" and somehow a lot of modern star wars fans are extremely pro-US, and never connect the dots.
IMO the biggest critique of star wars, its that lucas didn't focus at all on the lives of the stormtruppen, and force its audience in the imperial core to look in the mirror, at their values, their chauvinist culture, their pro-war ideology and news media.
Still gotta keep blaming the rebels for all the world's problems.
That's true, the storm troopers and stuff are basically presented as automatons. I guess some audiences like not having to think, but it would have been much more impactful to show them as people with their own beliefs and motivations and stuff.
There's a lot of short stories about that in various books, though they tend to overuse both the tropes of banality of evil and the cackling evil maniacs.
Oh interesting, I've never really delved past the movies.
They did also choose to humanize a storm trooper with Finn in the new films, but I don't remember him going through any "deprogramming" or anything, he just kinda realizes he's a nice guy one day.
It would have been much more interesting to see him struggle with his changing worldview.
From recent books, short stories anthology "From a Certain Point of View" have some quite good ones, can recommend.
Well, I am always looking for book recommendations... I'll put this on my list 🙂
Fuck Kissinger.
May he have pineapples shoved up his arse in hell, right next to old hitler.
Yeah but all forms of government are constantly attacked. You’re like a multicellular organism crying foul because bacteria and other pathogens are trying to invade it.
One of the reasons capitalism wins is it produces enough wealth to win wars. Consistently. The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty also wins wars.
Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism causes wars.
WWI was an inter-imperialist war. WWII was two wars: on the Western front it was an inter-imperialist war and on the Eastern front it was largely a war to crush socialism. Most of the wars since then have been imperialist wars of aggression against imperialized states, many of them by the United States, the global imperialist hegemon that has over 750 overseas military bases.
The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty
Where have you been during the last 40 years of neoliberalism and neocolonialism?
And explain this: United Nations, 2019: Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s FoundingI have bad news for you about the rate of poverty...
Our current attempt at democracy—the methods we’re using to elect our leaders—are fundamentally irrational.
They are rational, and they work as intended, it’s just that they’re not popular democracies, they’re bourgeois democracies, designed by & for the capitalist class and against the working class. They’re not meant to represent us.
Take the US, which has has been ruled by the bourgeoisie since the 1776 bourgeois revolution. The wealthy, white, male land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers intentionally constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority.” It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (who aren’t disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
Ah yes my favorite authoritative source on the mathematics of democracy: a YouTube video.
Fuck off
Veritasium is legit, they cite their sources and explain concepts exceptionally well.
However, I don't think the conclusion of the video is "Democracy is mathematically impossible", but rather "perfect representation in a democracy" is mathematically impossible (but can still be much much better than FPTP).
The video basically goes through all the top voting systems and explains their pros and cons and the history of the mathematicians who invented the systems.
but rather “perfect representation in a democracy” is mathematically impossible (but can still be much much better than FPTP).
It's not even that. The more accurate title would be "Ranked voting types cannot mathematically meet all of the requirements of democracy this one guy made"
The whole video I wanted to yell out "so switch to approval voting".
The dude makes some pretty legit videos. He has a PhD in physics education research. Using YouTube is just a sign of the time we live in. Imagine if your professor quit their job to become a YouTuber because they thought it'd be a more effective medium for education than a whiteboard.
Mathematics is, in a sense, about abstraction and generalization, and the video covers an ideal, or set of axioms, you'd want from a voting system. This perfect system was proven to be impossible and the researcher was granted the Nobel prize in economics. In short, there can be no perfect voting system, and we must accept a compromise (much like an engineer). You can also say mathematics is about proofs, and, no matter how unintuitive something might seem, it leaves no room for doubt. It doesn't hardly matter if the source comes from a YouTube video.
Edit: I don't agree with the context the video was posted, but I was bothered by this response to it.
The title of that video is wildly misleading click bait. We should just switch to approval voting and be done with it.
You could've just typed "No".
All the other things you've typed is nonsense anyways.
How so?
In the "I disagree but can't articulate a cogent reason for it" sense of the word "nonsense", of course. 🙄
Might be worth reading up on history to put some facts behind those feelings. Either you'll find out you're right or you'll update your beliefs to be more correct.
If you ever been to a commune where people share food, resources, bills. They go under the radar.
Fell for this one before, Mr. Manson.
There was a reality TV show about communes and stuff. Granted it's reality TV but aside from the bad ones media doesn't cover them very much. Long story short, it really didn't do a good job of saying communism-good.
I think the best examples might be like Cuba having universal health care or something but ny experience was with a michael moore doc so it's kinda sketch to begin.
Communes have almost nothing to do with communism. When you are living in a capitalist world and beholden to a capitalist economy, you are not suddenly experiencing communism just because you live on a collective farm. A commune is not "doing communism," not because they are doing something wrong or anything, but because it simply doesn't work like that. In a simple definition of communism, the workers own the means of production. The people living on a commune within capitalism still do not own the means of production, they still exist almost entirely at the whims of the broader capitalist economic structure.
Also, it's just ridiculous to expect a tiny microcosm of any system to represent how sound that system is if it were to be scaled up. Especially when that microcosm is inside of another structure that will actively stamp it out of existence if it threatens to grow. Trying to build a commune within a capitalist country is like trying to build a town at the bottom of the ocean. Everything beyond the limits of your project is hostile to its existence simply as a matter of the surrounding natural forces. But just because it's extremely hard to build a town at the bottom of the ocean, and when it was tried it ended in failure, doesn't mean that towns in general are destined to fail. In an appropriate environment they can and do thrive.
Excellent post. To add, Engels does a great refutation of these utopian socialist / commune projects, in Socialism, utopian and scientific.
But it’s a natural state of existence to exist within a broader, hostile context.
Civilization, at all levels, has always been that. Competition is everywhere.
If a system requires nothing else to be competing with it, in order to work, then it’s not viable.
But it’s a natural state of existence to exist within a broader, hostile context.
No it's not. A commune within a communist society would not at all exist within a hostile context but in one that nurtures it. Likewise a billionaire's corporation like Bezos' amazon dot com does not exist in a naturally hostile context under capitalism, it exists in a context that literally would not allow it to fail, propping it up at all costs. The banks that should have gone under and been utterly annihilated in 2008 were instead propped up and rewarded for their complete failure and sheer incompetence to the extent that mass amounts of wealth were siphoned away from working class to keep them afloat.
Civilization, at all levels, has always been that. Competition is everywhere.
Civilization at all levels has always required profound amounts of cooperation to come into being, to continue to exist, and to thrive. Civilization exists only because of cooperation, not because of competition. Competition has always existed too, but has been more of a hindrance than a benefit to civilization and certainly not a requirement like cooperation is. The cult-like worship of competition is something that the capitalists have fostered and spread for the obvious reason that widespread belief in this lie is beneficial to them. I would urge you not to fall for a very obvious and simple-minded ploy.
If a system requires nothing else to be competing with it, in order to work, then it’s not viable.
Gibberish.
I’ve already brought up capitalism realism elsewhere in this post.
It seems that all you’ve ever been exposed to in your life is the propaganda of the capitalist class, and that’s exactly how they want it and why they spend billions in propaganda every year to achieve it. It’s why the US has red scare purges and why congress still votes on nonsense like this.
So what's your broader hostile context? Or are you living an unnatural life?
Is it the landlord or corporate owner putting the boot to your neck because you need a roof over your head and food in your belly?
If so do you think your life would lose meaning if the boot was lifted from your neck?
Do you really think it's unnatural to have all your needs met?
Communes are often cult like and authoritarian.
Open source software is like communism. Held in commons, free to use, contribute to, and benefit from.
And not in any way implemented by the government.
I’m a conservative, and I have zero problem with communism when it’s performed spontaneously by people.
It’s when the government starts doing it that it bothers me.
This is so fractally confused. When “people” do it, that becomes a new government.
Without a government to enforce public ownership of the means of production, there can’t be communism,
just as without a government enforcing private ownership of the means of production, there can’t be capitalism.And not in any way implemented by the government.
Have you ever heard of GPL?
To be fair publisherploitation(AKA copyright) in general is enforced by goverment.
It’s when the government starts doing it that it bothers me.
What is difference between paying membership fee in non-profit and paying taxes? What if difference between voting on members meeting and on referendum? What is difference between board elections and goverment elections? What is difference between paying members to not starve to death while achieving goal of non-profit and funding healthcare for citizens to not die while living?
Large-scale, actual communism with no authoritarianism? Not that I'm aware of. It's hard to implement true communism effectively on a large scale because most people have to care enough about others to willingly contribute for it to work.
What do you count as "Authoritatianism?"
Why do you think Communism requires people to care about others to function, and why would they not work otherwise?
I think you have some serious misunderstandings about what Communism entails.
Authoritarianism is the opposite of libertarianism, roughly speaking. It’s a sliding scale, but those would be the two opposites in play.
For example, a more authoritarian approach to road safety would be: “Manufacturers are not allowed to make cars that go over 50 mph”
A more libertarian approach to road safety would be: “We’re publishing the average fatality rate of this road. You can choose to engage with it as you deem appropriate”
Our actual approach with licenses and speed limits and some regulations on car safety and soft but escalating consequences for breaking the road rules is somewhere in between.
So it's vibes-based and not actually tied to anything material.
Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.
Turns out when people are free to make economic arrangements as they please, capitalism happens.
Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.
Trading is not capitalism.
Markets are not capitalism.
Money is not capitalism.
Those things have existed for millenia before capitalism came to exist, around 600 years ago, eventually, over the span of several hundred years, replacing previous socio-politico-economic systems, feudalism in particular.The first sentence from Wikipedia: Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
The first sentence from Wikipedia: Socialism
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.
Notice that both definitionally concern who owns the means of production.
Communism is a mode of production characterized by common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes. The term is also used to refer to the movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of this mode of production.
Communism is a movement toward socialism, with the ultimate goal of the erasing social class hierarchies.
The last line has communism and socialism switched
Edit to add: I think I see what you meant now. Yes, you could also say “socialism is a movement toward communism,” in the sense that socialism is a step in the path to communism.
I don’t think so. Communism can’t be reached in one fell swoop. The reason why communist states didn’t and don’t have communism in their names is because—by their own admission—they aren’t yet communist, they’re socialist.
First comes a transformation from a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to a dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class has control of the state and the means of production. In other words, socialism. The end-goal of communism is to be rid of classes altogether, but it's not possible jump straight to it. You can’t go to bed one day under capitalism and magically wake up the next under communism.
Marxists define the state as a system by which the ruling class maintains its dominance other classes. So when we talk about the end-goal of a “classless, stateless society,” we mean that classlessness definitionally also means statelessness.
Right, you were using communism as a movement, not the higher stage, in which case it makes more sense.
Which is why it's a utopian movement. They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions, and when that fails (and it always does) they slaughter anyone and everyone that won't play along.
No person is perfect, so when you demand perfection, you're going to have to get rid of anyone but those who are perfect at playing perfect.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Frederick Engels
It must be so liberating to just be able to spew bullshit unconnected to anything in the material world and have zero shame about it
This is exactly how brainwashed liberals are.
"bRaInWaShEd" bleats the moron who gets his opinions from some alt-right glorified blog
Who are you even talking about?
Which blog is this?
😂 We’re so far left that we’re alt-right; that’s just basic horsepoo theory[1].
Seriously, please answer those of us asking what you're talking about. I am asking in good faith, what blog? The people you are talking to are as far from alt-right as it is possible to get and probably advocate for the elimination of alt-right ideology in a much more definitive way than you do (assuming you are a liberal).
They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions
Do they do this with their 5G Manchurian Candidate radio waves?
No, with social pressure and fear. Lots of people with shut the fuck up if they think speaking out will get them shunned or fired. A hell of a lot more people will shut the fuck up if they think speaking out will get them killed.
Oh, you mean like how in the US, famously even, it was literally made illegal to be a communist and you were blacklisted by every institution for having even attended a meeting, while known communist revolutionaries were assassinated at every opportunity, some even openly murdered in their beds by cops? Yes, it is disgusting how capitalism mercilessly crushes those who seek human liberation and how in a sick capitalist society it is taboo to even identify as someone who seeks the well-being of all.
Well that, and also being fired from companies for speaking against equity drives and the like.
Which is why it’s a utopian movement.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism is fundamentally opposed to utopianism, and idealism in general.
- Friedrich Engels: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
- V.I. Lenin: “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder
- Mao Tse-tung: Oppose Book Worship
- Georges Politzer: Fundamental Principles of Philosophy » Utopian Socialism
Regardless of what Marx and Lenin declared about their stance with regard to utopianism, communism is utopian in the sense that it doesn’t exist, and can only exist in a world that is fundamentally different than this one.
You’re saying communism can’t exist while not having even a Wikipedia-level understanding of capitalism or communism, so you’ll excuse me if I disregard your opinion.
Can you find a legitimate example of "communism bad?"
^ this is a bad faith engagement
“[citation needed]” is bad faith now? I guess Wikipedia should pack it in, then.
Inshallah
USSR Angola Cuba China DPRK Ethiopia Mongolia Vietnam GDR. I cant understand how people can look at a country that dramatically improved its peoples standard of living brought democracy and freedom, and not see it as a good thing.
America Bombs North Korea and Vietnam to smithereens
Communism bad?!
Hey that's not accurate. France bombed them too.
Those were freedom bombs, duh.
You could probs add Burkina Faso to that list too.
USSR Angola Cuba China
Ok, I guess you could argue the point that these countries
DPRK
What the absolute fuck are you talking about.
The war sure explains why they have a reason to be antagonist towards South Korea and USA -- in a similar way as WW2 explains why Finland is very wary of Russia still in 2000s.
But it doesn't explain why they insist on keeping their system in the same horrible broken state. Germany and Japan were ravaged by a war and they didn't go permanently crazy at state level.
What the absolute fuck are you talking about.
On this subject more than any other the western brain is completely destroyed by propaganda.
The crazy shit you will and have believed about Korea without any evidence is stunning and can only be explained by racism.
You actually believed when they said the whole country had to get the same haircut?
Some school districts in Japan already do this to kids tbh. There was a kerfuffle a while back and some schools dropped some limitations after lawsuits. Like if your kid has naturally curly or blonde hair you'd need to prove it. (Haven't gone deep on fact checking, take it with a grain of salt)
I'd say it's not unreasonable that if you have a manufactured preconceived (racist) notion about a place that you would believe it.
South Korea and RoC actually did the mandatory haircuts on occasions (though in case of RoC it was justified and was more like one particular haircut was forbidden). It's always projection.
The DPRK is by no means perfect, but it's also not some hermit kingdom where the peasants push trains to make them move.
If you have 20 minutes, I recommend you watch We Went to North Korea to Get a Haircut, it's humanizing and helps dispel a lot of modern myths about the DPRK. Again, it's by no means perfect, but the West has absolutely mythologized its existence to lunacy.
whats wrong with the DPRK? I have family that has been there and they thought it was a fine place certainly doing a lot better than the median capitalist country.
Its a current enemy for not being destroyed (like the US tried to do), so a bunch of western-supremacist-brained people believe literally anything negative said about it, as it confirms their racist biases.
check their post history.
Obesity isn't a problem in North Korea. They've met their BMI goals.
Just like Capitalism you aren’t going to find any examples of the system in the world today
When people actually lived in communes it was cool though
Just like Capitalism you aren’t going to find any examples of the system in the world today
About to have my brain turned into soup by asking this question:
Are you implying that there are no examples of capitalism in the world today?
I'm genuinely curious about this, as well.
Yeah, what country rewards jobs based on hours worked rather than assets owned?
What people refer to as “late-stage capitalism” is no different than the system capitalism was supposed to replace
Just because it is (and always was) a complete lie that capitalism would lead to prosperity for working people, that doesn't mean that capitalists aren't doing capitalism. Capitalism hasn't been corrupted from some ideal system into something else, this is what capitalism is and it's been known as such for over a century and a half.
Since the beginning but not because that’s what capitalism is, it’s because the mercantilist lords wanted a rebrand when peasants started killing them
If a country decided to switch to communism, that elite rebrand would still happen. Animal Farm paints this, China having more inequality than Japan or South Korea also paints this it’s what allows people to say true capitalism has never been tested and the elite can exploit that to increase inequality
Animal Farm is garbage and Orwell was a racist, antisemitic, homophobic, backstabbing snitch: Orwell's list.
Animal Farm was Cold War agitprop, which the CIA airdropped on eastern Europe and made it into an animated film that you may have seen. The CIA funded the film adaptation of 1984 as well.
You’re even aware you don’t have an argument so you went after the author’s character which is irrelevant then started talking about the cia
As per the original point: you’re inability to understand that the rich are greedy doesn’t mean they aren’t
Since the beginning but not because that’s what capitalism is, it’s because the mercantilist lords wanted a rebrand when peasants started killing them
That’s not what happened. It was the burghers themselves who revolted against the feudal lords. The peasants didn’t revolt against the burghers: some were uninvolved and I assume some aided the burghers against the feudal lords who owned the land they tilled. These were bourgeois revolutions.
And capitalism is not a mere “rebranding,” it is a very different socio-politico-economic system from feudalism, though yes, it is still one based on class hierarchy. The ultimate goal of communism is to eliminate hierarchies: a classless society.
China having more inequality than Japan or South Korea also paints this
It is true that China has billionaires. It is also true that China has raised 800 million people out of poverty, “the greatest such effort in history.”
If a country decided to switch to communism, that elite rebrand would still happen.
Do you see CPC members boating around the world on megayachts? The “elite” in China—if you want to call the democratically elected representatives “elite”—are not fabulously wealthy, despite the fact that, if they wanted to, they could literally print as many Yuan as they pleased and pocket it. The billionaires are capitalists, in the constrained amount of capitalism the Chinese state currently allows.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peasant_revolts
Here’s a list of peasant revolts for you to browse through, take note of those through the 16-18th centuries
Do you see CPC members boating around the world on megayachts? The “elite” in China—if you want to call the democratically elected representatives “elite”—are not fabulously wealthy
As shown in proof above; China has bigger inequality than Japan and South Korea.
China also has the second most billionaires in the world
This is just getting silly now.
Here’s a list of peasant revolts for you to browse through, take note of those through the 16-18th centuries
The fact that peasant revolts happened is neither here nor there. The point is that capitalism was borne of bourgeois revolutions against feudal powers and not of peasant revolts against burghers who were a product of mercantilism.
As shown in proof above; China has bigger inequality than Japan and South Korea.
Thanks for repeating yourself I guess?
Colonialism and indigenous eviction masquerading as "socialist".
I would argue that the Colonialism and indigenous eviction evils can be separated from the socialist successes.
If the Colonialism is what supported the system, it was not Socialist.
Colonialism certainly helped establish some settlements, but is colonialism essential for the survival of the kibbutz system? I don't think so.
For example, if a kibbutz was initiated (legally and paid for) in Australia, then colonialism would not be an ingredient.
But you nonetheless used a Colonialist system as an example.
I disagree. The ideology of a kibbutz is not Colonialist.
The example was colonialist. It has only existed in a colonialist form. You were tasked with providing an example of Socialism working, which by extension implies you believe colonialism to be compatible with Socialism. This is nonsense.
It has only existed in a colonialist form.
There are examples of kibbutzs outside of Israel. Colonialism is not (necessarily) part of the ideology.
How it started: The kibbutzim were founded by members of the Bilu movement who emigrated to Palestine.
How it’s going: Gaza toll could exceed 186,000, Lancet study says
Yes, some kibbutz founders were part of Zionist settlement land grabs. And there is no way I'm going to defend current Israeli actions.
But this doesn't really relate to the kibbutz being a good example of communism.
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