That's just the ones who don't use Arch.
Nah, most of Europe did exactly the same thing as America last time around. Hell the EU went out of its way to make sure bankers didn't lose money (how do you think Greek Debt which was entirely in private hands ended up in the hands of the EU, which then turned around and forced Austerity of Greece "to avoid losses of money of EU taxpayers") - the Corruption was just as bad on this side of the pond as it was on the other.
Iceland stands out because they were almost unique in the West in making the bankers pay for their shenanigans.
Yeah, Science does have scientific articles behind what I referred to in a simplified way as "human nature" - the entire domains of Psychology and Sociology deal with that and beyond that, even Behavioral Economics concerns itself with how Humans act though in a more restricted set of conditions.
Then there is History, which concerns itself with how Humans have acted in the past.
In fact "How humans act" seems to be a rather important subject for Humans which gets reflected in how quite a lot of Science being done about it.
Those being such massive domains, you can find those articles you are clearly so interested in yourself, in places like arXiv.
I suggest you start by looking into Sociopathy, Psychopathy, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Megalomania from the domain of Psychology - people with such personality disorders are the kind that tend to seek power and have not much in the way of limits about getting it and keeping it.
Have fun!
Two points:
- Methinks you're fighting a battle against somebody else other than me and the point I was making.
- "Human nature" is just a short way of referring to the complex subject of certain behaviors present in some individuals and how they interact with human group dynamics, similarly to how "Theory of Evolution" is a short way of referring to the complex subject of how genetic traits that provide small advantages with reproductive success consequences can through time and the law of large number spread to alter an entire population or even create new species. In fact both those things are correlated.
Call it whatever you want: you can't logically deny that some behavioral traits present in some humans cause them to seek or even create positions were they have power over others, structures which they then defend, preserve and extend whilst they extract personal upsides from their positions in it, and that group systems were there is already a single power pole with little or no effective independent oversight are way easier to take over by such people than systems with multiple power poles which keep each other in check.
(In summary people who lust after power will do whatever it takes to keep it going once they get it)
And yeah, this applies just as much to the dictatorships calling themselves "Communist" as it does to "Capitalist" systems - we've been seeing in the last 3 or 4 decades in Neoliberal so called "Democracies" Money subverting the supposedly independent Pillars of Democracy (though in some countries, not really: for example in many countries those at the top of the Political Pillar choose who heads the Judicial Pillar hence the latter is not independent of the former) to make itself THE power above all others, all this driven by individuals with those very behavioral traits I mentioned above, just starting from further behind (having to first undermine multi-polar power systems) than similar people trying to take over autocratic systems were power is already concentrated in a single pole that answers to nobody else.
(The path to unchallenged supreme power is a lot shorter in autocratic regimes)
Are you denying that amongst humans there are people with the behavioral trait of seeking power at any cost? Are you denying once such people get said power they will do whatever it takes to keep it going, including preserving the societal and political structures that maintain said situation even whilst telling everybody else "this is only temporary"? Are you denying that it's easier to capture power in that way in systems where its already concentrated in a single place which is not kept in check by independent entities which can overthrow it?
And I'm not even going it other human behavioral traits involved in things like groupthink and "yes men" and how such elements in human groups can pervert ever the most honest holders of power.
Battling against the expression "human nature" doesn't change the fact that these traits exists in many humans and the dynamics of their interaction with human social structures as shown again and again in millennia of History.
Surely the "capital investment" mixed in with the supplies should be accounted via depreciation rather than directly as an expense.
Re-read my post.
I was not making any human nature claims about Communism, I was making them about what happens when a dictatorial system is created, no matter how good the original intentions stated as the reason to create it.
The viability or not of actual Communism (as in, a classless system were everybody is equal) is a whole different subject. My point is entirely around the good old "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" effect and how that tends to turns supposedly transitional dictatorial stages into something permanent.
my point is that Stalin didn’t represent communism, as is widely claimed
Well, we're totally in agreement then.
nobody claims that criticism of nazis is a criticism of the german people.
... nowadays.
Back then, the Nazis themselves did (more specifically that criticism of Nazism was criticism of the Germanic People or even of the Aryan Race), similarly to how the Zionists do it now for the people they claim to represent.
Those regimes are the ones doing such associations and then their supporters abroad as well as various useful idiots pick it up and parrot it.
The point I was trying to make was that Stalin and his followers claimed to represent Communism when they in fact did not (not even close). I know that's not quite the same as claiming to represent a race, ethnic group or religion as the ethno-Fascists do, but I think claiming to represent an ideology it's a similar technique and similar you see mindless supporters and useful idiots pick it up and parrot it.
Per Marxism-Leninism the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat is a necessary step on the way to Communism, not the actual Communism.
So whilst Communism cannot exist in a dictatorship, to get there one must go through a dictatorship and invariably nations that do so get stuck at the dictatorship stage and never reach Communism whilst calling themselves "Communist" as part of the propaganda that tries and maintain public support and misportray criticism of the regime as being "criticism of Communism" and "criticism of the Proletariat" (kinda like the Zionists, an even more evil regime, misportray criticism of their regime as criticism of those they claim to represent - the Jewish People) to keep the dictatorial structures going supposedly until Communism is reached, but as it's never reached, in practice for as long as possible.
In all this propaganda swamp around it, most people not knowing about those theories from anywhere but some political propaganda or other, think Communism is what China has or the Soviet Union had even though that very ideology says those countries are not and never were at the Communism stage and at best are on the path to Communism.
That's the same "logic" as claiming that all critics of the Nazis are really trying to speak ill of people of Germanic Ancestry or that all critics of Zionism are anti-semites.
Just because those evil regimes tied themselves to those groups or ideologies doesn't mean that critics of the regime are actually trying to speak ill of the groups or ideologies those evil regimes linked themselves to.
In fact the strategy of misportraying criticism of the regime as being criticism of the group that regime claims to represent, is a common propaganda trick of the most evil of regimes.
Well, the problem is that to get to the utopia called Communism were everybody is equal, a Society has to first go through the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat after the Workers Seize The Means Of Production and, curiously (or maybe not so curiously if one understands at least a bit of Human Nature, especially that of the kind of people who seek power) none of the nations which went into the Dictatorship Of The Proletariat (i.e. all the ones which call or called themselves "Communist") ever actually reached Communism and they all got stuck in Dictatorial regimes (and I believe in not a single one of those is the Proletariat actually in charge: for example in China Labour Unions are illegal),
So whilst it is indeed not possible for Communism to exist in an authoritarian context, according to Marxism-Leninism to get to Communism one must first go through an authoritarian context and eventually from there reach Communism, hence why all those nations that tried to reach Communism never got past the authoritarian stage that precedes Communist.
On a serious note, having used Linux on and off since the 90s (aah, Slackware, how I miss installing you from floppies ... not), Linux has, IMHO, actually been desktop ready for ages (though definitelly not in the days of Slackware when configuring X was seriously interesting for a geek and pretty much an impossible barrier for everybody else).
The problem have always been applications not having Linux builds, only Windows builds, not the actual desktop Linux distros being an inferior desktop experience than Windows (well, not once Gnome and KDE emerged and made things like configuring your machine possible via GUIs - the age of the RTFF and editing text files in the command line before that wasn't exactly friendly for non-techies).
In other words, from maybe the late 00s onwards the problem were mainly the "networks effects" (in a business sense of "apps are made for Windows because that's were users are, users go for Windows because that's were the apps are) rather than the "desktop" experience.
The almost unassailable advantage of Windows thanks to pretty much just network effects, was something most of us Linux fans were aware since way back.
What happened in the meanwhile to make Linux more appealing "in the Desktop" was mainly on the app availabilty side - OpenOffice (later LibreOffice and derivatives) providing an Office-style suit in Linux, the movement from locally hosted apps to web-hosted apps meaning that a lot of PC usage was really just browser usage, Wine improving by leaps and bounds and making more and more Windows applications run in Linux (most notably and also thanks to DXVK, Games) and so on.
Personally I think Linux has been a superior experience on the server side since the late 90s and, aside for the lack of Linux versions of most commonly used non-OS applications, a superior experience in the desktop since the 00s.