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Communism is when my uncle was killed for dissent. You want social democracy, not communism
The fact that this has 600+ upvotes is… major fucked up.
EDIT: the image is tagged “@proudSocialist”. Any “proud socialist” would know that socialism and communism are not the same… Wow…
EDIT 2: If this gets more downvotes than upvotes I will gladly leave Lemmy. Have at it. :)
Dictatorship killed your uncle not communism
Every socialist/communist knows socialism is early stage communism.
We do not want social democracy, we want communism
: If this gets more downvotes than upvotes I will gladly leave Lemmy. Have at it. :)
Please do, you’ll be happier on reddit anyway
Bizarre assumption that I’d be going to Reddit, as if Reddit and Lemmy are the entire internet.
It seemed like it would suit you.
All countries led by Communist parties have been Socialist, as Communism is a global system of a fully publicly owned economy. Socialism is when public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, while Capitalism is when private ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. Communism is a post-Socialist, global system of full public ownership, ie all “Communist” countries have considered themselves Socialist and building towards Communism.
Romania has had social-democrats in charge for a long while now. I can assure you it is not “building towards communism”
Socialism may be a transitional phase into communism, yes. But social-democrats are not communists.
Don’t bother mate. All these people commenting are American radicals. Lemmy has received a massive influx of them after Reddit increased its moderation standards. I wish there was a social media platform made just for Europeans so I wouldn’t have to listen to Americans constantly.
As a Romanian myself I could tell them about the horrendous living conditions my relatives had to go through during communism, but it won’t matter. They’ll still chant their nonsense like some drugged priests.
Communism is horrible. It didn’t work, it doesn’t work and it will never work.
Go on you losers. Downvote me all you want.
“My anecdote means more than your statistics and analysis.”
Yea… you might say you dislike Americans, but you’re thinking EXACTLY like the ignorant ones…
63% of Romanias believe they are worse off than under Communism. Unsurprising, given that the dissolution of the Socialist system resulted in extreme increases in poverty, homelessness, prostitution, drug abuse, and 7 million excess deaths.
Unsurprising, given that the dissolution of the Socialist system resulted in extreme increases in poverty, homelessness, prostitution, drug abuse, and 7 million excess deaths.
Exactly, all because communism paralyzed the economy for a half a century and fixing that mess required more than a decade of hardship.
But you keep deluding yourself with your nonsense. Why don’t you go to North Korea or Cuba if you like communism so much? I’ll buy you a plane ticket if you can’t afford it.
Had the Socialist economy not been dissolved, growth would have surpassed what it is today in the post-Soviet countries. I’m not going to pretend that the economy was perfect, or that Kruschev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin’s reforms weren’t harmful for the economy or that the immense destruction and genocide inflicted by the Nazis on the Soviet people’s did no harm to the economy either, but Capitalism didn’t “fix” anything. It allowed foreign Capitalists to freely plunder and loot what was a working system with its own struggles.
Had the USSR implemented reforms to its economy such as those done in the PRC, maintaining Socialism but allowing a more open economy for engagement with the world economy, the best of all worlds may have been achieved. None of the immense pain or misery Capitalism brought, while coupled with the growth Gorbachev sought to achieve through liberalization efforts.
Well… certainly not none of the pain and misery of capitalism, as they’d still be engaged with the capitalist economies of elsewhere and still very subject to exploitation from richer countries. The peoples within the country would’ve almost certainly been on a slightly more even playing field, though. For better or worse… exploitation CAN stamp on most everyone.
Social Democracy is not Socialism, Social Democracy has Private Ownership as the principle aspect of its economy. Further, Social Democrats are not Communists to begin with, even if they did have a Socialist economy, that doesn’t mean they will always try to move towards Communism.
Fucking labels. I have done the research on communism, socialism, capitalism, authoritarianism, Buddhism, taoism, etc.
Not a single real life person I’ve ever interacted with matches up with these labels. My personal experience with tankies (another label I don’t get besides being in specific dumb instances) almost messes with that but nah.
I decided that I’m a member of one place.
Humanity.
Labels are a real tool used to control and manipulate people
Communism is when you get executed for having a different opinion than the great leader.
Communism is an economic concept not political. Technically it is possible to have a democratic communist country
Marx literally calls for a genocide in his manifesto. It might not be political in your view, but communism is inherently a genocide.
Marx literally calls for a genocide in his manifesto.
Others have asked for sources. I know it’s not true. If Marx called for genocide, centrists would love him.
I posted a reply.
“He didn’t like existing systems of oppression. Therefore literally hitler.” is a shit reply.
No, he did not.
Yes, yes he did.
No, he did not. I’ve read it 5-6 times over the years, not once did he call for genocide. You can show what you think is a call for genocide, and I’ll explain why that’s not the case at all.
I posted a comment below. It’s clear as day. Anyone arguing is delusional.
Was the French Revolution a “genocide” against the Monarchy? Further, revolution doesn’t necessitate killing every member of the bourgeoisie. Further still, you are likening relations to Capital to immutable characteristics like ethnicity.
You’re deeply unserious.
0·2 months agoPlease quote that part.
You can read the full manifesto here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf But let’s go through it step by step.
- Marx divides all people into classes and then declares that people in a specific class are better than people in other classes. This is covered in his first part called “Bourgeois and Proletarians”. Direct quote:
the proletariat is its special and essential product
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The second part establishes that there are even better representatives of “good people” called “Communists”. This whole section is dedicated to dehumanising everyone else and showing that Communists are the superior people to everyone else.
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He then openly calls for violence multiple times finishing with:
their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
You can replace “Communists” with “Arians” and “Bourgeoisie” with “Jews” and you’ll get Hitler’s manifest. Same shit.
Even if this is true (it is not, 1 and 2 are just wrong), it does not show him calling for a genocide.
And your last line is incredibly stupid, “but what if he had written jews”, see just like Hitler. “But what if water was fire”, “but what if up was down”.
He didn’t. Bourgeoisie != Jew. If you replaced all instances of “Bourgeoisie” with “Jew” it would not make sense, as Marx is talking about classes, and their relation to the MOP not jews and arians or whatever.
The USSR was the prime example for what happens when communism fails. The USA is the prime example of what happens when capitalism fails. Many of their mistakes are mirror images of each other.
Almost like the real struggle is between powerful greedy cunts and the poor no matter what system is used to fight them… Though one thing is for certain: capitalism further empowers the rich while socialism/communism are supposed to fight against their further acquisitions.
Everyone defending capitalism really sound like serfs trying to protect their king just because, “he fought off the barbarians once!”.
It’s almost like picking one extreme or the other isn’t always the best idea
Pathetic how most commenters are arguing why communism is bad and not why capitalism is bad, when you live literally in late stage capitalism / fascism.
Every horrific thing happening under capitalism / fascism never seems to matter.
It’s a fine point you make, which communist countries (which aren’t a dictatorship in a trenchcoat) out there are doing particularly well?
The currently Socialist countries governed by Communist parties are the PRC, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, and Laos, and all are doing pretty well if we take into consideration harsh economic sanctions and embargoes or other unique characteristics inflicted upon them from the outside. Out of all of them, the PRC is doing particularly well and is the most developed, though Vietnam is rising very quickly, especially thanks to an excellent response to COVID that allowed manufacturing to shift towards it for production.
and all are doing pretty well
China, hmm, so Taiwan, Hong Kong, The Uyghurs control production so they are in charge? Doesn’t look like it. Civil unrest over lack of representation shouldn’t be a thing in a working communism right?
NK is a dictatorship and we all know it, it doesn’t matter what they call themselves. Also, from ANY journalism that has made it outside the boarders, I think it would be grossly unfair to call them even OK.
I might give you a couple of points for Cuba being throttled, but damn things aren’t good there.
I don’t have a lot of expertise in LAOS or Vietnam, things don’t look very rosey
Worldwide human-rights watches also don’t paint things well in Vietnam.
Even if you claim that’s all propaganda, places like Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom, and Europe don’t seem to have any where near the tumult over any of the countries you mentioned.
To be clear, I don’t think communism can’t work. But I also don’t think any of these countries really take communism seriously. Each of these should be overwhelmingly by the people for the people, but there seem to be serious issues about people and work.
The current state of capitalism is fucked too. You have to find places that aren’t being pillaged by the oligarchs no matter where you go, and that’s becoming harder and harder no matter your governmental structure.
Don’t feed the troll. You see ml, you block them.
Oh I did, just wanted some of that salt.
Capitalism is not fascism, communism is fascism.
Fascism is Capitalism in more dire circumstances. It arises when Capital needs to defend the existing order via brutal means, it dons a mask and pretends its something else, despite the underlying mechanisms being the same. Fascism is Capitalism in decay.
Communism is entirely different from Capitalism, including fascism.
Capitalism cannot exist in a fascist regime. And communism is fascism.
Capitalism has always existed in fascist regimes, fascism is Capitalism in decay. Communism is an entirely different structure. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Communism is communism. Fascism is fascism. Fascism is right wing leaning just like capitalism. Fascism is extreme right wing where capitalism is more center right. Capitalism and fascism go hand in hand.
Communism is on the complete other side of the spectrum.
Ah yes, Kirbo, the only creature that wouldn’t die of hunger on a collectivist paradise because he is:
-Inmortal
-Able to basically eat anything, even nothingness
This humor is like food in Soviet Russia. Not everybody gets it
According to the US, Soviets in the USSR had a better, more nutritious diet than that of Americans.
Pure versions of each have their flaws. Mixed-economics yields the highest quality of life according to the top ranking nations on the World Happiness Report. Nordic nations have the blueprint. We just need to adopt it.
Nordic nations have the blueprint.
They may be doing certain things right but do other totally wrong like forced conscription. Keep also in mind that they exploit third world countries like everyone else, their goods are made in china.
I’m not sure what other sensible alternative there is for Finland than conscription. You can’t get around the geographical issues so you have to have some sort of sensible and credible defence. That’s why it has a very wide approval, even when the moral issues of it are recognized. NATO seemed promising as a guarantor of safety, until it lost that credibility (and Finland got in a bit unwillingly, after some recent events). Voluntary military was what Sweden did and it didn’t work well for them.
Actually funnily enough people are surprisingly supportive of expanding the conscription to include women. And that’s on equality grounds, which to many who abhor the idea of forced conscription must seem pretty wild.
I’m not sure what other sensible alternative there is for Finland than conscription.
What’s the alternative to slavery? How do we get our food without a slave forced to farm 14h a day?
Actually funnily enough people are surprisingly supportive of expanding the conscription
So supportive that if they refuse to go they go to jail.
I would happily join the military in a country that actually cared for me. Thats something worth fighting for.
A country that cares for you wouldn’t force you to join the military and put you in jail if you refuse.
They wouldn’t have to force me, thats kinda the point.
Being forced to do it means that you must do it even if you don’t want to. You are forced to do it even if you are happily willing to do it, you have no (legal) decision on it.
There are a few problems here.
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All economies are “mixed,” ergo it isn’t a meaningful distinction. What is more useful is recognizing which aspect of the economy is the principle, ie which has the real dominant power, over large firms and key industries. Socialism is when the public sector is the principle aspect, Capitalism is when private ownership is the principle aspect. That’s why the PRC is Socialist, and the Nordic countries are Capitalist.
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Judging which system is correct purely by looking to which countries have the highest happiness scores is myopic. We could use the same logic to say that Jeff Bezos has the most comfortable life, so we should all copy him. The problem is that we can’t. The Nordics fund their safety nets through Imperialism, ie super-exploiting the Global South, and because Private Ownership has domination over the state, worker protections and safety nets have been gradually sliding.
This is why having a good knowledge of theory and taking everything within a large context, rather than with harsh boundaries, is important to draw correct conclusions.
I’ll never understand people who insist China is ‘State Capitalism’ but Nordic countries are ideal socialism, somehow.
I’ll give you a hint: it’s about race.
The Nordics fund their safety nets through Imperialism, ie super-exploiting the Global South
Finnish imperialism 💪🏼 Not sure what sort of imperialism Finland for example is doing that for example China isn’t. We are super-exploiting them in the same way, as in doing trade and having our companies operate in those countries.
Here are some good resources others have compiled on the Nordic Model in general:
- What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn’t Sweden socialist?
- On the unraveling of the Nordic welfare states: increasing inequality and forced austerity.
- Scandinavia’s covert role in western imperialism
Essentially, Finland (and Imperialist countries in general) operate on a principle of unequal exchange. By leveraging mechanisms like IMF loans with clauses requiring privatization of resources and industry for foreign capture, to relying on overseas production to super-exploit for super-profits, to simply relying on high interest rates on foreign loans, Imperialist countries consume more of the Global South’s value than they provide the Global South.
China doesn’t operate in that way. China is a country focused on selling goods it produces, ergo it cares more to have customers. The BRI and BRICs exist purely to build up more customers, it’s neither charity nor Imperialism. Countries enter it in exchange for large infrastructural build up, in order for China to have new customers that aren’t the West, who as we observe are quite fickle to work with. As this article from The Atlantic puts it, The “Chinese Debt Trap” is a Myth.
China also has companies that operate the exact same way and buy resources from Global South. It has a much bigger impact too, sometimes dominating the local economy. I honestly don’t see any real difference between Finnish and Chinese trade, than some perceived or claimed difference in ideology behind it. And Finland isn’t much of a loan giver to other countries. Finland is a member of IMF but so is China and China actually does do loans to Global South. Not sure I would count membership in IMF and loaning money itself exploitative, but if you consider that as exploitation, then surely it counts for China more than Finland?
China needs rare Earth for its own production, which drives the reason it is involved in Africa to begin with. The difference is that China needs to sell its goods internationally, so it can’t just relentlessly exploit these countries. As a consequence, it frequently forgives loans, and moreover does not require clauses requiring privatization of nationalized resources to do so. China’s economic model requires some degree of multilateralism to continue to exist, it isn’t a consumption driven economy nor one dominated by private financialized Capital.
Finland’s economy is externally driven, it relies on brutal production in the Global South for much of its commodities, and does so with immense financialized Capital. China’s is internally driven and focused far more on manufacturing and selling.
We all need to do trade. The only difference you’ve outlined so far is that China’s economy isn’t at the same service economy point as more advanced economies, otherwise it’s the same. By that merit Finland became a imperialistic country exploiting Global South quite late, which I guess is nice.
Trade is necessary, yes. The difference becomes apparent when you look at the manner and character of exchange. Countries dominated by private, financialized Capital without exception rely on Imperialism to continue, but the PRC’s economy is driven by manufacturing and public ownership. It is unlikely that the PRC will make a hard pivot towards such a privately dominated financialized economy because it was run precisely to avoid such a situation to begin with, as its run by Marxists.
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The fact that this still got 14 downvotes. Wow…
Edit: Also these BrainInABox and Cowbee communist apologists are really begging for a block or even a ban. Absolutely despicable. Might they be bots or trolls of somekind? They seem to have an awful lot of time on their hands.
You are in a fucking communist space. It will be you getting the ban
Just a bit of background, given that you’re on a 12 day old account, Lemmy in general has a lot of Communists of various types, for a number of reasons:
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The lead developers are all Communists
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Lemmy is an anti-capitalist response to Reddit in design, it’s an attempt to cover for the failings of Reddit resulting from its profit-driven nature
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Choosing Lemmy over Reddit requires some degree of ideological conviction, as Reddit is far more popular to begin with.
As for myself, I’m not a troll. I am a Communist, specifically a Marxist-Leninist, I even made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Further, this community in particular, c/LateStageCapitalism, is run by Communists and the express purpose is to critique Capitalism from the Left, I’m not breaking any rules by following the purpose of the Comm.
Hope that helps!
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Nordic nations is still exploitive capitalism.
And socialist countries had exploitative socialism. I think realistically it’s best to try and find a system with least exploitation balanced with best quality of life for the people.
