Maybe if people with your ideology only make things that harm you it’s an opportunity to reflect.
Communists? On my equally shared, federated social media!? No way!
from each according to their memes folder, to each according to their degree of unemployedness
But I have no memes folder, Good Sir. Am I poor, rich in other things, or just a boomer?
If communism is a failed system, why does the US keep going after communist places? Surely they’re not a threat right? 🤔
What does “the HS” mean here?
Should have been “US” but my phone had other plans.
…must be that dang communism again 🤣
Because there are no communist places. There are places where the ruling class plays pay lip service to the idea, but in reality they aren’t communist. And the US tends to just ignore real implementations of socialism round the world.
There are socialist countries. The idea that communist parties can get by with simple lip service ignores how socialist countries actually function.
Socialism and communism are 2 different things. Just because some country hangs the word socialist in their name doesn’t mean that they are. North Korea comes to mind. And lip service it is. After the revolution and they have executed all the bougie people, the strongest leader consolidates their power and bans all opposition parties. And even anyone who might pose a serious threat is in danger of death or imprisonment. See: Lenin and Mao for the 2 biggest examples.
Soviet Russia fell into a straight up dictatorship and well, Communist China doesn’t even bother to hide that it isn’t anymore. And neither government allows for much in the way of opposition then and now.
The socialist countries I can think of, like the Nordic countries, allow for open political elections and other parties to exist and participate in government. And they gracefully share and relinquish power if they lose an election. And interestingly enough, they don’t feel the need to brag about their socialism either. They just are.
The DPRK is a socialist country, not because they claim to be, but because public ownership is the principal aspect of its economy, and the working classes control the state. The WPK did not ban all other political parties, in fact the Chongdoist Chongu Party and the Korean Social Democratic Party both have a small number of seats in the Supreme People’s Assembly.
The USSR was not a dictatorship, either. Soviet elections had some of the highest rates of turnouts in the world, around 85%, and had recall elections at all levels. What the Soviet Union had was the dictatorship of the proletariat, in other words non-proletarian classes were stripped of political power. Same with the PRC, which enjoys a populace that believes themselves to be extremely democratic:
Communism is a fully collectivized mode of production and distribution, in classless society. No socialist country has made it to communism yet, because communism itself requires incredibly highly developed productive forces and global socialism before it can be established. Communism is not “extreme” socialism, nor is it “antidemocratic” socialism.
When you call imperialist social democracies like the Nordic countries “socialist,” you are confusing welfare capitalism for socialism. In the Nordics, the working classes get a large share of the spoils of western imperialism, while capitalists continue to dominate the economy and the state. Nordic welfare depends not on an internally socialist economy, but instead on financial domination and extraction of the global south.
Further, you are confusing liberal democracy for democracy in general. The western model of democracy is just one of many, and it’s the one best suited to maintaining capitalist control. This is why socialist countries have established more cohesive, comprehensive, and participatory government systems at all levels than capitalist countries have.
The Nordic countries don’t brag about socialism because they aren’t socialist in any capacity, and simply forced the inherent problems with capitalism onto the global south, rather than dealing with them domestically.
Allende, Lumumba, Sankara and Castro would disagree with you.
Allende was president for about 3 years and committed suicide in office. Either it was a Russian style suicide of convenience or he was unfit anyway. So one cannot say if he would have gracefully given up his power or not. But, historically the odds are not so good.
Lumumba was assassinated 3 years into his presidency. So enough people disagreed with him evidently.
And Castro refused to relinquish office until he died of old age. Much like a king wouldn’t you say?
Damn communists! They ruined communism!
As much as the Scotch ruined Scotland. Fair.
I mean yeah, they absolutely did.
Communism is fantastic in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work, and it won’t ever work, because our species just doesn’t work like that.
People are, by and large, greedy, power hungry and prone to corruption, and this is why we can’t have nice things and are destroying the planet.
Yes you are so smart and above it all. Magic human nature is to blame for everything, people are not products of their material reality at all. We should all just be misanthropic dorks and never try to do anything to better anything while spouting off rightwing idealist nonsense that is observably false.
No, I’m just as human as the rest of you. I just don’t believe people are capable of communism. Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
People are not capable of being better, if we were we would have done so by now. Humans have been around for 100,000 years or so, in various forms, so why in all our the known history, have we not been better yet? And why is it at all logical to assume we suddenly could be, despite this?
100,000 years or so, in various forms
Homosapiens have been around for 300,000 years. Homos (lol) have been around for millions of years. Homo erectus was around for just shy of two million years alone.
And for the vast majority of that time we weren’t engaged on a free market economy.
Thanks for the correction, I really should have looked that up before writing it down.
That ‘free market economy’ wasn’t born of a vacuum with no prior human influence. We made it.
You’re just reiterating your observably false nonsense. Humans have improved from actual barbarians to slavers to civilised groups. Also “if everyone would just…” is not at all a communist position.
Also unsure if you realise this or not but you have the same misanthropic ideology of a mass shooter.
And no offence but ‘civillised groups’? Lmao, you’re going to have to define this too because fuck me does it reek of collonialism.
How are you defining babary? Just so I know exactly how to disprove your statement, please.
Wow uneven development is not something Marxists have ever studied /s
I’m sorry but you don’t even have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about I don’t think we can hold a productive conversation. I hope you can educate yourself and move beyond your edgy teenager mass shooter ideology phase.
I’m probably twice your age. Over 50 people in my family, that I know of, were killed in the gulags and I grew up hearing about just how great communism was from my Polish family, who lived under communism till 1989.
I too though had a Marxist phase as a teenager and I so strongly believed people were capable of being better if only they would read Marx and follow his ideas.
And then I grew the fuck up and stopped believing in magical opposite world realities suddenly coming into fruition.
Power corrupts and those with power over us will always be corrupted. There is no such thing as a benevolent dictator.
Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
“Communism is bad because <describes capitalism>” Challenge still ongoing, perfect record.
Brother, you don’t need a specific economic organization to enable authoritarianism. You just need people with determination. You’re literally living through a capitalist dictatorship, doing genocide and robbing value from it’s people right now, almost no matter where in the world you live.
If I lived with your level of cynicism and bleak ass outlook every day I would kill myself, but you’ve shown us all today that people are capable of going beyond expectations
That’s the funniest dismissal I’ve ever seen online. Cold!
Wow, what a ray of sunshine you are!
And who knew that lemmy communists were such an intelligent, thoughtful and all together pleasant bunch?
If you don’t like it here, kindly fuck off instead of shitting up the place
Lol I’m not even a communist
Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
When you confuse capitalism for communism.
Every single time
Humans have been around for 100,000 years or so, in various forms, so why in all our the known history, have we not been better yet?
Uhm, for like 95% of that time people have usually been better? There is little opportunity to become a dictator in a small group of hunter and gatherers and anthropological and archiological evidence points to many of these groups having been strongly egalitarian.
We’re plagued by those that’d rather let the invicible hand help carry the trickle up to the top rungs of the economic ladder.
300,000* years, and a lot of that history is lost, but there’s probably a lot more you just don’t know about. There’s a book called the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity by anthropologist David graeber and archeologist David wengrow that challenges the traditional view of human history. They provide evidence that early societies were much more complex than we’ve been led to believe.
Why do you seem to think a system beginning in the 16th century and developed in the 18th century would be better than something we could come up with today?
That book changed so much in my thinking, and made me realize how programmed I’ve been by post-enlightenment western philosophy. I’d internalized so much of the “progress equals inequality and hierarchies” way of thinking. That book showed me that indeed: “another world is possible”. We are not greedy, selfish and violent by nature, we are just the products of the environment we live in and the education we receive. We can be, and have been throughout human history, far better people than we currently are.
Communism always ends with corrupt, power hungry dictators.
What if head government positions in general are attractive to corrupt, power hungry dictators?
The Weimar Republic wasn’t communist, and it got a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
The United States isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
Israel isn’t communist, and it’s dealing with a corrupt, power hungry dictator.
I wonder if maybe there are other factors in play that you aren’t considering.
always
Always? Are you sure? Let’s say there’s a corrupt, power hungry person looking for a government spot. How would communism make it easier for the person to get into power, than in a capitalist system?
I think this might be telling on yourself a little bit, because I’m not really greedy or power hungry or prone to corruption, and most of the people I associate with aren’t either
Yes, of course, because when I said ‘most people’ I clearly meant everyone.
And if you, and most of the people you know, are in positions of power and not shitty people, then you’re either a pleasant person with nice friends, or lying. Either way, good for you.
What are your opinions on piracy? Do you pirate software/media?
What about adblocking?
So now you are moving goal post by adding in power, once your argument disappear ?
Having to tell cynics that human nature is influenced by people’s conditions of life really gets tiresome, but I guess we’ll be doing it until we croak. The idea that human nature is fixed in the way you’re suggesting is antithetical to freedom of choice, and in a way, also linear time/historical progression.
I see you’re in the solarpunk server. Did you join to tell everyone that saving the ecosystem is hopeless, and we should accept our imminent extinction?
Good bit, very convincing character
Ah, the human nature argument.
More like western elites’ nature.
Because only western people are shitty? Or only the western ‘elites’? Does being ‘elite’ from a non western country automatically absolve somebody from this?
I think I’m also going to need to get you to define ‘western’ and ‘elite’ here too.
Individualism and egotism are what make y’all bad people in general. I dare you to live a year in a country with communitarian values to deprogram.
People are, by and large, greedy,
No, they aren’t
Yes, people can be self interested, so we must reward that self interest and punish any selflessnes. That must be the only way to build a fair and just society.
Tell me you know nothing of human history without telling me you know nothing of human history.
Hear me out, here: We could tell the greedy fucks to fuck off, and we could make sure everyone nice is taken care of. By force, if necessary. (I mean, after we win elections lawfully with the will and mandate of the people and we enact legislation through proper procedure)
Hear me out, here: We could tell the greedy fucks to fuck off, and we could make sure everyone nice is taken care of. By force, if necessary. (I mean, after we win elections lawfully with the will and mandate of the people and we enact legislation through proper procedure)
Oh the irony.
It’s insane how you still believe communism produces leaders who are infallible and uncorruptable, ignoring all the historical mountains of evidence that your side is just as prone to corrupt authoritarian dictatorships as the fascists are.
You lot really are just itching to run your own
concentration campsgulags again, aren’t you?
Why waste time saying nothing? Please start using your brin
Are you done? Great. Carry on.
Via current capitalist systems, the only state sanctioned ways for me to Give Back to the community are based in religion or some branch of the military service.
Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. I could be wrong.
This is really it.
There’s the fascist-owned platforms…most notably truthsocial, but definitely also X and Meta and all their platforms as well. I’d also say spez has absolutely bent the knee…several times. Fuck /u/spez.
And then there’s the communist-operated platforms. Lemmy, and basically the entire fediverse.
I wouldn’t say all instances are communist operated, certainly .ml, but many of them are just liberal, socialist, technohippies. (A term that I just coined now, and would gleefully apply to myself)
Only reddit still gets any of my traffic, and that’s largely out of muscle-memory.
People really don’t care about communists - it’s the authoritarian boot licker we have a problem with.
The Americans?
Some people seem to care quite a bit.
: Person posts something about communism.
: Buncha people in the comments inevitably say the same stale, dumb things about communism.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
B-B-B-But Chai-nyha
China? Russia? US? Where’s that 3 Spiderman pointing meme?
My girlfriend is different from all the other communists. She doesn’t count.
yeah but HASAN PIKER!!!
screams in terror
Lemmy has destiny stans now? 🤣
Some of these comments are far too long.
it’s the american way. lol
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
Ninth-century Chinese Buddhist monk Linji Yixuan.
That’s the only Buddhist thing burgers know. Was it on the idiotbox or something?
The what? I read it in a book.
I somehow don’t believe you’re as old as you claim lmfao.
How old have I apparently claimed to be?
Well, they are written by communists what can you expect.
On pair with the literacy expected from the average marxist.
On pair with the literacy expected from the average marxist.
Don’t know if you’re joking, and I usually wouldn’t do this, but it’s on (a) par with (not pair) and AFAIK Marxist is usually capitalised.
I don’t know if it’s technically a mistake, but I would also have used expected of (not from).
English isn’t my first language, so caveat lector.
gotcha, that’s kinda dialectical even. And useful. I won’t ever get the western abhorrence at getting instructed by someone or at showing minor imperfections.
You can read this as insulting everyone
Bakhunin was a marxist too, one of the best.
I think he is more known for his certain words on Jews
A lot of ya’ll have a lot to say about the surprised Pikachu meme.
"I mean yeah, they absolutely did.
Communism is fantastic in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work, and it won’t ever work, because our species just doesn’t work like that.
People are, by and large, greedy, power hungry and prone to corruption, and this is why we can’t have nice things and are destroying the planet."
OryxAndCake, please enlighten me. From your perspective the need for communism must become immediate. If humans are myopic and selfish the enshrining of an economic system that rewards the most base characteristics of humanity–capitalism–must be opposed now. Safeguards–systemic regulations–must be created to guard against the worst characteristics of mankind. These characteristics are immutable. The need is undeniably apparent. These systems should be democratic, with all citizens being participants exactly to diminish the baser flaws of our nature. That is exactly what communism aspires to do!
Capitalism is contradictory in theory and barbaric in reality. Your dimwitted snark doesn’t make sense. From such a position the capitalist that adulterates their product should be shielded from any consequences. There should be no regulatory decrees or no body polities at all, because those are naive things. The capitalist that adulterates a commodity and employs men in slave-like conditions should be applauded and congratulated for embracing his better nature! Such an individual should be virulently rewarded!
No courts or magistrates! Of course this makes sense: humanity is trash! Because of this eternal truth let’s dismantle every polity that attempts to bring justice and enforce laws. Burn it all down, because why would anyone ever do anything altruistically?
Don’t you know: people are awful. This is an unchanging constant. The fact nations even have any benign or positive institutes is contradictory and is not real, because people are awful: they wouldn’t even attempt such a feat in the first place! They wouldn’t exist, yet they did and they do. Your premise is maddening because it’s not a premise at all. It’s pure infantile snark. Its only purpose is to highlight the need for regulation and the participation of those being governed.
It’s a banal quip about totalitarianism, not communism. It’s misplaced.
you uh, replied to the post but I think you meant to reply to that silly sausage who is insisting communism is childish.
I guess TLTR summary could be added here
Hey now not all of us are communists, some of us are deranged Rednecks who throw out the term Jeffersonian socialist to annoy and confuse people.
deleted by creator
The people who believe they should write alternative, compatible software to impose their own secret blocklists on the “tankies”, unbeknownst to their users, are the actual worst of the worst.
The worst of the worst is actually evil commies who deliberately post shit that they know is going to get a tripple rainbow argument going >:D
They’re arguing about quantum gravity or something down there. It’s fucking amazing.
I already have ideas for the next one.
It’s a little refreshing to see a communist Mr. Gotcha for once.
?
That is the Spider Man pointing meme.
People really do come into comments sections instead of going to their doctor about their high blood pressure.
Low blood pressure* we’re self medicating.
I wish lemmy had a silence replies feature.
Removed by mod
The fact that this Econ 101 slop video has a paid promotion plus ads I forgot to block says plenty. I question its motives, which seems like rehashing cold war propaganda, as well as your smug above it framing. What do you think this video says? Why, in a material sense, do you think socialism is interesting people in imperialist countries today? I think when you talk about a middle ground, you mean between protecting the privileges we both receive from our born-in positions on the world system, and surviving the failure of capitalism to reproduce itself (it shits the bed every decade or so since 1973; we’re both probably from generations that didn’t get what we were promised)
