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The main issue with these online communism vs capitalism debates is that people seem to always take the most extremist position of each ideology.
Marx was in favor of being paid for your hard work, and Adam Smith hated monopolies and the accumulation of wealth.
We can both agree that we hate oligarchs and dictators and find a common ground in between.
We can both agree that we hate oligarchs and dictators and find a common ground in between.
I really like this take. I pray it's the attitude we adopt for the midterms.
I wish it were that easy, but how do you find a common ground with a group that sucks Putin's dick and genuinely believes that censorship is a good thing? Can't even agree with them on the most universally agreeable concept that both are awful.
Censorship / free speech is hard to get right, especially in the online world.
I'm for an individual standing on a pulpit and expressing their views, so long as they can be held to account. If they put the lives of others at risk, spread dangerous lies or harrass others unjustly, and there is legal recourse through an independent legal system(s) .. no problem, because there are checks and balances. Many countries have a healthy foundation to support free speech.
OTOH, I am for restricting mis/dis-information campaigns by governments (also my own), corporations, special interest groups, and billionaires. We know it's possible to effectively manipulate people and it's really just another form of psychological warfare. The challenge is how to police such things (and when/what/how to educate/censor/fine/ban), with so much money and influence working against it ... all without infringing on citizen's rights.
Shit, we can't even get like 30% to agree with literal objective reality.
All the capitalism haters around here kill me. Ahem.
What you are experiencing is not capitalism, it is oligarchy.
Always get downvoted, never got a single answer: Tell me about your economic system where the money doesn't flow to the top.
Is oligarchy not the logical result of capitalism with inadequate restraint?
inadequate restraint
Got it in one! Same with any economic system though. The powerful will always take from the weak, will always find ways to make their own rules. Capitalistic competition works, but only in tandem with a government that reigns it in. Which democracy is supposed to have done. Impossible when our educational systems are crippled from toddler on up.
Younger people around here can't know the America I knew. We scrutinized and denied mergers. We were taught as small children that monopolies were poison. We were taught of the robber barons and of the Gilded Age, taught about the labor struggles and deadly fights to get what we got. FFS, we had a choice in banks.
The very father of capitalism warned against monopolistic behavior. Bet you won't hear Adam Smith quoted in school. Someone might read The Wealth of Nations, get anti-oligarchy notions.
I remember an 8th-grade teacher schooling us on how corrupt Mexico was because 20% of the people held 80% of the wealth. We were fucking appalled at the injustice. Imagine that. I'd kill or die for that "imbalance" in America today.
And BTW, my primary education was in Tulsa, OK. Not exactly a bastion of liberalism.
For one bright moment we had Lina Khan, Biden's FTC chair, fighting hard. My fucking hero. First thing I thought when I awoke to a second Trump win, "There she goes. Our last, best hope."
Same with any economic system though. The powerful will always take from the weak, will always find ways to make their own rules. Capitalistic competition works, but only in tandem with a government that reigns it in. Which democracy is supposed to have done.
Yeah, so maybe use an economic system that does not allow a bunch of people to accumulate the wealth of thousands?
Its pretty clear that "democracy" wont be working when to protect it you have to put in a stupid amount of man hours by volunteers and organizers.
Which then, can and will be, wiped out in one dinner party with one of the good ol' boys.
This is working as intended.
Impossible when our educational systems are crippled from toddler on up.
Again, the issues are so much deeper, and more long standing than "toddler on up."
The defunding of education is intentional.
This is not a flaw in the system, this is not a recent phenomenon, this was planned for decades.
Younger people around here can't know the America I knew. We scrutinized and denied mergers. We were taught as small children that monopolies were poison. We were taught of the robber barons and of the Gilded Age, taught about the labor struggles and deadly fights to get what we got. FFS, we had a choice in banks.
Your oligarchs were older, more traumatised by mass leftist movements, their power was less concentrated.
Then they started out what they could get away with, and have not stopped since. They will keep taking, until there is nothing left to take, and then they will not stop.
Your schooling was propaganda. There was never any intention for the talks about freedom and democracy to amount to anything.
For one bright moment we had Lina Khan, Biden's FTC chair, fighting hard. My fucking hero. First thing I thought when I awoke to a second Trump win, "There she goes. Our last, best hope."
These are people who are at best trying to keep up appearances. But don't think at all that they want anything to be better for you.
At best they are trying to keep up appearances of that system you were taught about at school.
That system does not exist, and they hate you.
Same with any economic system though
Agreed. For years I've been saying that without well maintained controls, the end result of capitalism and socialism will look pretty much the same.
This whole exchange has been such a delight to read and agree with.
Like you, I don't think the issue is this system or that, it's the enforcement of the rules that make the whole thing work. And for decades, those rules and institutions have been sold away bit by bit for tax cuts and lobbyists.
Capitalism is inherently unsustainable. It's chasing infinite growth that cannot continue on finite resources.
Everything from AI bubbles to private equity to healthcare issues isn't coming from some version of capitalism that leftists only have in their heads. It's the system we have right in front of us.
Somewhere between 8 and 634 assassination attempts on Castro.
Iran once and Nicaragua twice, as well. And some of the Haitians the US deposed were probably socialist.
And how is capitalism working? We never want to talk about the needless wars, deaths, dictators, and literal slavery sanctioned by capitalism. Capitalism has been the dominant system for some time now: it has had every opportunity to reform itself into a fair and equitable system. Instead it exploits the global south, prioritizes profits over people, and puts a paywall on necessities that we now mass produce-- forcing the working class to generate more profits for the wealthy. It is a barbaric, corrupt, hypocritical system that forces us to sell ourselves, by the year or by the hour.
Marx never intended for communist revolutions to start with agrarian nations such as Russia and China. Marxism was built on the assumption of a nation that had spent centuries developing its capitalism, such as France or England.
The nations that attempted socialist revolutions were the ones that were liberating themselves from colonisation and imperialism that was performed for profit under capitalist and mercantilist systems.
Also, no large-scale modern society has ever been communist. Many have proclaimed themselves to be so, and nations like the USSR claimed themselves to stride towards it, but communism is fundamentally an ideology with an absence of the state.
He modified his views later when speaking to Russian revolutionaries such as Vera Zasulich. He entertained the possibility of an agregarian society skipping over capitalism if, and only if, it was accompanied by a socialist revolution of capitalist societies.
As much as tankies are imperialist shitheads, this entire post is just starting shit for no good reason. Fascists are killing people. Liberals abandoned pretenses of valuing popular politics over donors and democracy abroad for genocide enabling imperial interest. The only "socialist" states are major contributors to global capitalism and sliding deeper into fascist culture war bullshit like everywhere else on earth.
Ideology never fucking mattered. The Cold War era "horrors of communism" were caused by the boring old tactics of genocide and violence to strengthen the imperial core. The democracy that America brought the world was only for a small minority, while everyone else got dictators we trained and paid for. There is no "moral state" and the least bad one is based on circumstance, not the philosophy they tell you matters.
When hierarchy minded people gaze upon this nihilism, they decide they might as well join in on the collective rape of humanity. They decide to be the "strong men" who only see negative sum solutions where they have more power than the rest. They give up on peace and embrace brutality as the winning move; never wondering if maybe they're breaking themselves as they break other people to keep some king atop his throne. And that's assuming they're on the winning side in the war of the empires; that the fighting never comes home.
Maybe making the rich richer will work this time
Communism is young. At this point in capitalism's history, it was all colonization, genocide, and slavery. Apples to apples, I'd rather live in the Soviet Union under Stalin than a South Asian under the Dutch East India company.
Soviet Union was a colonial state. North Asia (also known as Siberia) were its colonies and continue to be colonized by modern day Russia
Not to mention that many capitalists nations had the benefit of established industry whereas the Russians and Chinese had to transition from an agrarian society into socialism.
There is a whole party of communists right across from my room rn, and I have been wondering the whole time I've been here what kind of communists they really are. They are taking donations for Ukraine, so 🤷♂️
Show me the country that attempted communism and I'll point out why it wasn't communism.
My uncle Angus is a true Scotsman
No country attempted comunism. Communism is a type of socirty, not a regime stance. Various countries attempted socialism, with varying degrees of success. The same thing can be said for capitalism. How many capitalist countries do you see succeeded? Because if I'm not mistaken, no capitalist country that "succeded" did it without exploiting other countries. Although, to be fair, it is more easy for the later to suceed, since it is not designed to make a life worth living, just to make money for very few hands.
It feels like "communist" can mean a lot of things (or many of those things (or nothing at all?)) depending on who says it. Additional clarification is required! If an old colonizer is referring to people as "pagans" that doesn't really convey much about the pagans in question.
