• vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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    51 minutes ago

    you know, i tell you what. i’m fed up with all this gringo self-righteousness when you talk about “oh communism was bad, oh people where killed, oh people had no food, oh people had no liberty, oh people could not buy ataris, oh our countries are so democratic”. your countries were democratic during the cold war in the first place because you had people to sort things out for you here in the global south. for each person complaining about how the food rations in eastern europe were not tasty enough, there were 10 dying of hunger or malnourishment here in the global south. for every person complaining they had to wait 5 years in a queue to buy a trabant or an oka, there were 10 who got no school in a range of 50 km. for every person complaining that their 8 hour shifts in state owned factories were overwhelming, there were 10 who were indentured workers. for every person complaining about how the stasi, kgb or the stb had bugged their apartment, there were 10 suffering the most horrific tortures inside black sites of the military of u.s. allies here in the “third world”. for every person complaining about dull standard apartment blocks in mikrorayons, there were 10 who lived in mud shacks and slums, and those are just who were lucky enough to have a roof over their heads. finally, for everyone complaining about chinese sweatshops, which are indeed a problem, there are 10 americans who work and yet cannot afford proper housing.

    you wanna complain about how communism was bad? go ahead. you wanna complain how your parents lived under communism and could not drink coke? do so if you wish. but there are still millions of people down here who would give an arm and a leg to have a polish ration, an apartment in a russian gray building, or a yugoslav job. and while the chinese maoist red guard was bad, surely it won’t be an inch closer to the harassement people endured on a daily basis by our police forces.

    again: you wanna complain? be my guest. but for me that’s an encyclopedic example of white privilege.

  • CalipherJones@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I wonder if anyone ever said “Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens”.

    Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don’t believe communism is an effective form of government, it’s still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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    whoops, brazil. we had a budding workers movement that was absolutely crushed by the traitorous brazilian military, in the name of the US of course.

    that hasnt stopped syndicalism to take root here and improve our lives a bit, but the communist organizations responsible were all crushed and we see our rights being taken away ever since because no one is left to defend them. we are scrambling rn to see if we can stop fascism.

    • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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      5 minutes ago

      Guys like yeltsin and gorby being able to rise through the party ranks screams incompetency to me. Even khruschev taking over screams incompetency.

      But then again, only socialists goverments are under constant attempts to getting toppled by external agents, capitalist states have had plenty of incompetent people in charge yet theyre not under constant siege.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      It was complicated. Kruschev, and later Gorbachev’s reforms really weakened the Socialist system because they didn’t properly retain strong control of the larger firms and heavy industry (a lesson the CPC took to heart), however the CIA and really the US absolutely worked tirelessly to weaken it. The Soviets also had to spend a much larger portion of their production on the millitary in order to keep parity with the US, meaning that development rates began to slow.

      • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        What is complicated about it?

        The reforms you refer to allowed for political dissent. If the Soviet Union was some worker’s paradise, then allowing people complain wouldn’t change anything.

        The simple reality is that the Soviet Union was a dictatorship that only survived as long as it did because it was a dictatorship. Once people had the option of opposing Communist rule, they did. And that is what killed the Soviet Union. Not some conspiracy by the United States or the kulaks.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          3 hours ago

          The reforms didn’t just allow for “political dissent,” they worked against the Socialist system, that was based on central planning. Rather than running in a more efficient manner, it ran against itself.

          Further, nobody says the Soviet Union was a “worker’s paradise.” It had tremendous strides for workers, but it wasn’t perfect by any means.

          The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.

          Read Blackshirts and Reds.

          • Stalin:

            Do you really believe that we could have retained power and have had the backing of the vast masses for 14 years by methods of intimidation and terrorization? No, that is impossible. The tsarist government excelled all others in knowing how to intimidate. It had long and vast experience in that sphere. The European bourgeoisie, particularly the French, gave tsarism every assistance in this matter and taught it to terrorize the people. Yet, in spite of that experience and in spite of the help of the European bourgeoisie, the policy of intimidation led to the downfall of Tsarism.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              2 hours ago

              Exactly, and this didn’t last for 14 years, but nearly the entire 20th century, and is succeeded by other AES countries like the PRC.

          • Antiproton@programming.dev
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            The Soviet Union was, if not a traditional dictatorship, absolutely a totalitarian autocracy. Stalin was a brutal dictator and his successors were chosen by the communist party. Elections in the USSR were for show.

            Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people. The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.

            • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml
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              2 hours ago

              The USSR’s implementation of communism was so bad, it’s become cliche.

              So bad that after the fall of the Soviet Union, its former republics all had an immediate, sustained downturn in their quality of life, and a corresponding uptick in mortality.

            • vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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              “Life was miserable almost from the start of the Bolshevik revolution for most people”, said the romanovs.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              Allow me to repeat myself:

              The Soviet Union wasn’t a dictatorship. Read Soviet Democracy. It lasted as long as it did because it had tremendous GDP growth while lowering wealth disparity, free and high quality education and healthcare, doubled health expectancies, full employment, and over tripled literacy rates to 99.9%.

              Read Blackshirts and Reds.

          • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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            3 hours ago

            That’s what dissent is.

            Nothing you said disputes it being a dictatorship. The people could not choose their leaders, there were no limits on the power of their leaders, er go it was a dictatorship. None of your “pros” matter. And that’s before we get into the lack of freedom of speech and press and total absence of transparency, meaning that I have no reason to trust those supposed accomplishments.

              • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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                We weren’t debating the quality of the Soviet Union. We were debating whether or not it was a dictatorship.

                • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                  1 hour ago

                  Declassified CIA report:

                  Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.

                  A lot of the cold war propaganda about the USSR turned out to be bullshit, now that US & Soviet archives have been released, as contemporary Western academic historians will tell you, like Domenico Losurdo and Grover Furr.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              No, that isn’t what dissent is, it was a fundamental liberalization of the economy that favored private property over public.

              Secondly, they absolutely chose their leaders.

              Finally, you say life expectancy, literacy rates, and worker rights “don’t matter?” That strong, sustained economic growth doesn’t matter? You must be trolling.

              As for distrusting the sources, you can look into them yourselves, they are well-respected.

              • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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                So, you’re denying that glasnost allowed for political dissent?

                Second, no they didn’t.

                Finally, it does not matter because we were debating whether or not the Soviet Union was a dictatorship, which the literacy rate has nothing to do with.

                Well-respected by Tankies, not by actual historians.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  2 hours ago

                  Glasnost allowed for liberalism to expand as an ideology, sure, alongside other reforms that weakened the economy and erased its foundations. You can’t cherry-pick the reforms to make it seem like the system worked poorly and only was dissolved because the “people had a choice.” In fact, most post-Soviet citizens regret the fall of Socialism and prefer it over Capitalism.

                  Read Soviet Democracy.

                  We were debating a great many things, one of which being the economy and the well-being of the people, because that helps explain why it was democratic.

                  Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan is quite literally used as a reference on the Wikipedia article for Soviet Democracy. You are incapable of being honest or looking at facts that disprove you because you care more about appearing morally righteous than being correct.

  • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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    Any one party political system can either fail or be maintained through violent oppression. People need to have a say in who represents them and what their values are.

    A more sustainable solution than soviet style communism is to have proportional representation and work on instilling socialist virtues such as kindness, social responsibility, and fairness in the population. over time, the people in government will start to reflect those values.

  • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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    2 hours ago

    This is a good example of one of things people hate about lemmy.

    Communism fan boying, implicit denial of genocides committed by communist powers, out in the open on the front page.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      You’re going to find Communists on a website made by Communists. Don’t know what you mean by “genocide denial,” but in another comment you were unironically recommending the Black Book of Communism’s chief writer as a legitimate source, you’re doing the “Communism killed 100 million” meme.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          Uyghurs aren’t being systematically murdered at scale. There are reeducation camps, but to call it “genocide” isn’t accurate. You should read the UN report.

          As for the idea of an “intentional famine,” this is disputed at best. In reality, there was a famine in the 1930s that didn’t have any racial motivations. Nobody denies the famine’s existence.

          So no, I’m not doing genocide denial, and I’m correct, you want to appear morally righteous regardless of the real facts.

    • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      This is a good example of one of things people hate about lemmy.

      Okay. You know where the exit is.

      Communism fan boying, implicit denial of genocides committed by communist powers, out in the open on the front page.

      What communist “genocides”? This one? Or this one[1][2]? Or this one?

    • Independently of who I side with, I am blocking this community because of the stifling of Realitaetsverlust’s comments. Mods here are worse at free speech and open discussion than all the Reddits, Xs, Facebooks, etc.

      I look at the mod history to find what Realitaetsverlust had saId and it isn’t like nasty ad hominem stuff; it is thoughtful conversation about complex topics. Removed because disagree? Nah. Bad mods are bad.

      Moving on. Peace

    • ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line. To this very day, the Thatcher/Reagan ideal of “market liberalisation and privatisation” has ALWAYS resulted in the centralised accumulation of capital that became a massive societal divider.

      No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]

      I know you like to cope with “Oh no, the evil minority of bad apples in the owner class again. >:(” but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.

      Edit: typo. And to the cunt who removed Realitaetsverlust’s comment: you can suck a cock and die, I wanted to have a normal discussion with them.

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        It’s very frustrating to me to see people say things like “socialism/communism always ends in a dictatorship” while ignoring that capitalism tends towards oligarchies and monopolies. I’m glad to see someone else pointing out that “capitalism only works on a small scale.”

      • Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip
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        Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line.

        Wrong. Half of europe relied so much on american protection that they had barely any military spending. Germany at the forefront, we only have ammunition for like 2 days of combat. So ye, that’s nonsense.

        No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]

        The US has been democratic for a major part of their existence. There were up and downs, sure, but it was largely a democratic system. So have many other big capitalistic countries by the way.

        Russia, while being capitalist, is an authoritarian system - I’m pretty sure that would’ve also happened if they were communist. But the oil money they got from the west probably tasted too good.

        but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.

        Uuuuh, did you use AI to write this? Because it makes no sense. Personally, I wouldn’t mind some regulations. Not sure what your point is here.

        • ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world
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          I mirrored your comment, because I think it works backwards. From the way it sounds to me, you started with your conclusion/opinion and searched for proof of why it is right. Real socialism and the Soviet unions were deeply, deeply flawed systems from the start, but only because some implementations failed, due to essentially the same problems as capitalism, does not mean the idea as a whole is rubbish. If you read the communist manifesto and “the capital” from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, you will read a brilliant critique of our modern contemporary system. There are some very fine ideas in there, and I think it’s dangerous to discard another perspective because some implementations have failed. The USA are the living proof of how two radically different systems can suffer from the same problems and collapse because of them. Why is it such a culture war against some genuinely very fine points that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have made over a hundred years ago, which are relevant to this day?

          Edit: typo. I apologise for forgetting about Friedrich Engels.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      This is generally wrong, though. Communist countries have dramatically democratized society, it works better at large scale if we are speaking of Marxian Communism because that’s the Marxist reason for Communism to begin with. Competition centralizes, so in the future it must be publicly owned and planned. This is the basis of Scientific Socialism, primitive Communism is not the same as the post-Socialist Communism, which must be large-scale as production increases in complexity.

      Pol Pot wasn’t even a Communist.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net
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          Competition does the exact opposite of centralization. That’s why I can buy most goods from completely different vendors that differ in price and quality.

          Competitions have winners, and in this case it means the competition goes out of business and dies, leaving you with a near monopoly or outright monopoly.

          That power then gets used to

          • lobby (bribe) the government to raise barriers to entry to prevent new competitors
          • buy out new competitors
          • intentionally price everything lower than competitors, at a loss, to kill competitors in a war of attrition that they can’t possibly outlast

          And that’s even assuming there’s any competition at all, which often isn’t the case with certain things like healthcare, internet, electricity, etc.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc are more democratic than theie previous systems.

          Communism still works, just because the Soviet Union isn’t here doesn’t mean everything is a failure.

          Competition forces centralization and monopolies over time due to increasinly complex production practices that raise the barrier to entry. It’s unavoidable.

          Pol Pot denounced Marxism and focused on an odd agrarian system, and was backed by the CIA.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              Read Soviet Democracy, as well as read up on the government structures of the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, etc. They are democratic.

              The PRC is more successful today than the USSR was, and is Socialist. Calling countries in the Global South “shitholes” is wildly chauvanist, along with your unsourced claims about them.

              You didn’t really go against competition causing centralization. Even further than companies, there are joinings of companies under single megacorps that share supply chains and interwork.

              Pol Pot did not “follow Communist ideals,” though. Moreover, if someone makes a clear deviation from Communism and denounces Marxism, why on Earth include it as a detractor other than clear bad-faith?

              Sure, the Cold War was complicated, but the US was never fighting for Communism and neither was Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge never actually read Marx, and mostly declared any Communist sympathies out of aesthetics and geopolitical support than genuine support for Communism, and the US supported them.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              3 hours ago

              Soviet Democracy

              Here’s a well-sourced post on China’s democracy, but really, read their constitution and government structure if you want more.

              Cuba was under a fascist slaver before Socialism, and now has a democracy.

              The PRC is Socialist, and has one of the largest and most rapidly growing economies in the world, I don’t think you need a source for this.

              As for competition and centralization, where do you think the megacorps came from? We are more centralized now than ever before.

              Pol Pot and the CIA, alternatively Blowback lists their sources and they went over it in Season 5.

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        4 hours ago

        LOL
        The horrible feodal system with serfs/slaves the Tibetans has was sooo much better.
        Some CIA poking didn’t work to bring that back.
        And there was a small minority radicalised terrorists by Turkey and OC again the CIA to cause trouble, which they did.
        blew up a plane with civilians, multiple other attacks on busses, trainstations, etc…
        The majority never liked them and are glad it’s over.
        But nice try.

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            What, did a suicide happen years ago in a country you don’t like? Quick, use that as a weak excuse to throw mud.
            I’m sure suicide doesn’t happen in companies from the fascist US, where they have to pee in bottles.
            Sometimes a known fascist boss demands to keep his Tesla factory open in full covid peak and his slaves get sick and die.
            Plenty of them die homeless or from drugs anyway.
            No paid sick days, universal healthcare, unemployment, etc. Really a pathetic 3rd world country.
            Not to mention no other regime puts more of its citizens in jail.

            This is the embarrassing US banana republic.
            Want to try again?

      • Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip
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        5 hours ago

        Not sure what you’re trying to say. Uyghurs are systematically eradicated and tibet is controlled by china since their invasion in the 1950s. Not exactly speaking in favor of communism.

        So, if you’d like to expand on your point, I might be able to discuss this further.

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          4 hours ago

          eradicated LOL, their population is growing, despite the many some US backed terrorist killed.
          And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
          Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll wait

          • Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip
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            eradicated LOL, their population is growing

            According to who? The chinese government? Lmao. Ye I would DEFINITELY trust the ones that are performing the killings on reporting accurate numbers.

            And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.

            Imperialism good when country does bad things?

            Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll wait

            I could, but if you want some originality, I can also bring up one of the other atrocities directly ordered by communist regimes, like the Prague Spring, Hungarian Revolution or the mass executions by the Khmer in Cambodia.

            • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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              I don’t need to prove something that didn’t happen which isn’t possible, you show me proof of your fantasy eradication that isn’t from the sick nutbag Adrian Zenz. Must be easy if it’s such a genocide.

              Imperialism good when country does bad things?

              Hypocrisy good in the name of bringing democracy.

            • vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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              2 hours ago

              oh, the khmer rouge, that one that the u.s. supported along with britain, china (not so dirty back then, right) and who were toppled by the socialist regime of vietnam?

              • Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip
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                2 hours ago

                I already answered that to someone else so I’ll just copy and paste it:

                The US never directly supported pol pot. Before 1975, they supported Lon Nol, who was fighting against the communist Khmer Rouge.

                The part that IS true is that the US did support China and Thailand at the time, which in turn used that aid to support resistance groups in cambodia because vietnam invaded cambodia in 1979 - something the US had no problem with since vietnam was backed by the soviets. Also, it is true that the US and other western countries supported keeping the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia’s official UN representative, however, that was mostly done to undermine Vietnam’s rule over cambodia.

                So, yes, by extension, the US supported pol pot, but it’s not the big “gotcha” you think it is - it was the cold war, an extremely complex geopolitical time.

        • thann@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Lol I meant to reply to the main thread, but you could pretend im being sarcastic and it kinda works

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      6 hours ago

      For those that don’t like to read, you don’t have to read theory. In fact, most theory is old. There are newer and better takes on these ideas. Find a good YouTube channel that goes over the ideas. I like Vaush.

      If you like to read theory, go for it. But I think there are faster and easier ways to get the concepts.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        Support for chasers and sex-pests like Vaush is pretty awful, not to mentions his awful politics and constant butchering of Marxist theory for an audience that usually can’t tell the difference.

        Theory is important. Much of my list is newer, some is older when it holds up, some is newer when it meaningfully adds to the discussion. However, as someone who had your approach, reading theory directly genuinely is much faster than rolling the dice.

        I have audiobooks linked as well that people can listen to if they prefer, and importantly they won’t be distorted by a sex-pest who complains about Marxists constantly while misrepresenting them.

      • Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip
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        6 hours ago

        I like Vaush

        Lmaoooo, ye I always follow the political opinions of some dude who watches child porn … oh wait, not child porn, it’s “shortstack goblins”

  • Michael@lemmy.ml
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    What if the answer to all of our worldwide problems is finding a balance between decentralized and centralized structures, balancing technology and the environment, finding a balance between currency and a moneyless society, and achieving balance between authority and liberty (with the goal of individual and societal sovereignty), and so forth?

    In this thread, I see Anarcho-Communists (or final stage Communists/ideological purists) taking bat at Marxist-Leninists (who espouse mostly outdated theory, but not always) and Liberals who fail to understand really any ideology that differs from their own because of how thick the propaganda is (and who espouse ideals like Democratic Socialism while failing to realize that their social support is still enabled by modern slavery - such as the exploitation of third world countries).

    I think a direct democracy, with authoritative and libertarian elements (such as enforcing liberty/a universal bill of rights for individuals) would be ideal.

    It could have an economic system with built-in social supports (each according to their need) that emulates cash and all the best parts of blockchain (that isn’t hoardable or worth hoarding, that also doesn’t enable slavery/other forms of parasitism, and is generally private at the transactional stage - yet is auditable at a larger-scale), with centralized control of natural resources that still respects decentralized development and balance with the environment. And also does not have debt or parasitism of any form, instead encouraging diplomacy - such as contracts/agreements taking the place of debt to better the planet and encourage societal responsibility and stewardship (e.g. contracts that result in the stabilization of the society incurring the would-be debt).

    Instead of total anarchy or various forms of authoritative control/dictatorship, we could simply combine direct democracy and hierarchy by electing leaders based solely on merit in the areas that are most needed, with strong controls so we get the best out of leadership and hierarchy and the resultant clarity and direction, without letting leaders and other experts become drunk on power. While also preventing the corruption of the individuals in power and the various forms of stagnation that result from entrenched power not conceding to new developments or advances.

    I know I’m an idealist, but I’d like everybody to turn the chapter and realize that we are in 2025, not the 1900s. Technology and science have advanced every area of our society. We are so beyond scarcity that we are producing well beyond our needs with conditions and methods that are not even close to ideal (with ideal and emergent solutions and methods ready to take the place of those unsustainable methods).

    We also have a global communication network - we can understand foreign languages without any human intervention in some cases, we can bridge cultural gaps, we can seek understanding and truth with our fingertips, and also we can push past the propaganda we are served on a platter, etc.

    We can achieve something better than anything that has ever been conceived of previously, and it starts by crumpling up all of the things that no longer serve us. Concepts like racism, nationalism, really all of the isms that promote superiority over others. Bridging gaps, joining hands, while also countering disinformation (not misunderstanding) and bad faith.

    We truly are not facing the same limitations that we did in the 1900s, although we may be facing new challenges like the rise of AI and the misuse of it by those currently in power.

    There really is no more room in society for mucking about and fighting others while everything is in such disrepair, with so much needless suffering happening.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      I just think it’s funny when you call ML’s outdated despite not really disagreeing with them, and then calling Anarchists “final stage Communists” when Anarchists want decentralization and “final stage Communism” is fully centralized. It more reads that you haven’t actually engaged with theory, especially considering the PRC is Marxist-Leninist and is outpacing everyone else at the moment.

      • Michael@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        You can think it’s funny all you like. Perhaps I wasn’t clear, but you misunderstood my grammar. I was detailing two distinct types of people, with different views. The latter (after the or) are more on the side of purity testing other Communists because they see what would unfold after many, many years of Communism as de-facto Communism and proof that others are not true Communists (hence the slash ideological purists part).

        I currently choose to engage with emergent (and divergent) thought, not snapshots and echoes of the past - but I’m not trying to devalue it - I’m just very interested in modern Marxist-Leninist discourse and thought. I have previously engaged with the theory and understand the history that surrounded it and level of technology that we had in the 1900s.

  • RandomPrivacyGuy@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    Yeah, I remember how my grandfather and everyone he knew fought tooth and nail just to stop America from dismantling communism in eastern Europe!

    Oh, wait, he didn’t. Everyone celebrated when it fell.

  • Montreal_Metro@lemmy.ca
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    19 hours ago

    It doesn’t matter what ideology. If the people running it are rotten, any system can be corrupted.

        • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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          15 hours ago

          Sure bro lemme teach my aunt to make her insulin, her own needles, her own glucose test strips and all that cheers

            • MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml
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              2 hours ago

              That’s good work for a lot of reasons, but there’s a world of difference between “open source and theoretically DIY” and it being anywhere near realistic for everyone to actually do it themselves.

              It’s good that I have access to advanced technology without having to have learned how to build it from the ground up. That’s the whole point of civilization – doing more together than we could do apart.

          • Yeather@lemmy.ca
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            14 hours ago

            Maybe we should all specialize, and pay each other with our own goods, or better yet, a sort of representation of goods we all agree is valuable, so you can get one persons goods with anothers.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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              13 hours ago

              Kinda seems unfair that somebody’s aunt should have to purchase insulin she needs to survive, like she shouldn’t have to work harder to have the same lifestyle as someone without a disability. Maybe we should just give her the insulin she needs to survive, and compensate the people who make it out of some sort of common pool of resources everyone is required to contribute to, in order to distribute the costs more fairly.

              • WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today
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                9 hours ago

                When I was younger, I tried to design an universal constructor.

                Unfortunatelly, I was using Roblox studio to do this.

                How’s that for insanity?

                I also carved a log with a knife, hacking off pieces in an attempt to make a 3D printer

                • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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                  7 hours ago

                  It’s not insane! 3D printing is making huge strides. You were just a little ahead of your time.

                  If we can run Doom on 16 billion crabs, then you can carve a 3D printer.

        • stardust@lemmy.ca
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          14 hours ago

          Like how people were gifted ability to have more knowledge at their hands than previous generations and rapid communication, and then came to the conclusion that the earth is flat, vaccines are poision, and facism is holy?

          Humans are dumb fucks. They will inevitably fuck up even the most perfect utopia they arrive in short of some mass hive mind brain washing Equilibrium style. i don’t hold that high an opinion of human society.

          Leave the world to the animals. Humans are a failed experiment and a virus to the world.

          • Kras Mazov@lemmygrad.ml
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            5 hours ago

            This is some eco-fascist ass rethoric. You’re not taking into account how all the issues you listed are only possible to exist in a capitalist society, where misinformation and anti-intelectualism is accepted and allowed to grow instead of directly addressed.

            • Dengalicious@lemmygrad.ml
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              5 hours ago

              Environmental issues did in fact exist before capitalism. Human arrival coincided with mass extinction in the Americas and in Australia. That’s certainly not to say these issues are unavoidable or that socialism isn’t the solution (because it 100% is) but we should see environmental issues as transcending others so I disagree that I would place this in an eco-fascist lens. Rejection of science certainly occurred in feudal societies as well

              • Kras Mazov@lemmygrad.ml
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                4 hours ago

                You’re right, I should have been more specific in saying that current anti-intelectualism is deeply linked to capitalism and not that it is something that happens only in capitalism, my bad.

                Also, I wasn’t referring to that as the eco-fascist rethoric, but rather to the commenters last phrase about how humans are a “failed experiment and a virus to the world”.

      • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
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        19 hours ago

        Can you explain how you disagree? Is it about incentives to be corrupt (or against) depending on the system?

        • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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          18 hours ago

          If you believe in great man theory™ and think that all political developments happen because one person can magically steer entire countries and the world, in geo-political terms, or idealists in thinking that if you have the correct ideas, you can magically steer the entire rest of the world to whatever you think, by having the correct thoughts. Then your theories of political developments are non-materialist, like this comment is objecting to. The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.

          • finder@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            People in this context appears to be plural, thus I don’t see how Montreal_Metro’s take is Great Man Theory.

            The system sets the conditions of who is going to be empowered or rewarded for their actions and positions.

            Ultimately, any system is operated by mere mortals who will arbitrarily reward and punish people based on their own bias, morals and desires. Systems only work so long as the people manning them follow the rules. Systems only last if the people running it punish rule breakers.

            According to all of history, corruption, apathy, and pure human greed and ingenuity will gradually eat away any system, economic and political, until it collapses. Only for the failing system to be replaced by a “better” system, which begins the cycle again.

            • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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              12 hours ago

              The fact that it is attributed to a very few actors and not a literal, singular actor does not negate great man theory.

              The issue is that this is arbitrarily flattening of the actual material conditions. You can point out that nearly all political systems, on a long enough timeline lead to some form of collapse (Joseph Tainter is a good reference on this). But all of these things are dependent, not independent, of the systems and conditions they find themselves in. The timescales and forms can vary drastically depending on the material conditions actors find themselves in.

              • finder@lemmy.world
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                12 hours ago

                What came first? The chicken or the egg?

                Did the system that created the conditions people find themselves in come first. Or did the people running the system create the conditions that they find themselves in?

                • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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                  11 hours ago

                  It is not that there isn’t some flow both ways, but that the material conditions is much more dominant than people coming up with ideas and mechanations moving things in ways contradicting the conditions. The system setting the conditions is in fact dominant. The way corruption and self-dealing manifests is different between where you can just create a private corporation and lobby for a government contract to justify being given a 500 million dollars of tax payer money, versus trying to massage Gosplan to syphon off several million Rubles of excess spending, versus tricking a sovereign wealth fund to hand over several billion dollars for some supposed innovative building company to create innovations for Neom.

        • altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          18 hours ago

          I am not that person, but I guess you wouldn’t like the ambassadors of fascism to be efficient and competent.

        • untorquer@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          They didn’t seem to express an argument or value judgment in their comment regardless of their actual opinion.

          Don’t feed the troll.

  • SherlockHawk@lemm.ee
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    6 hours ago

    All communist states were/are dictatorships (Soviet Union, China, North Korea).

    What the society really needs are strong democracies with a free, well regalemented market and strong social welfare (mixed economy). This is already happening in northern europe with great succes.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      6 hours ago

      This isn’t true, actually. AES states are democratic, you should read Soviet Democracy by Pat Sloan.

      Northern European countries aren’t role models, either. They depend on Imperialism to fund their safety nets, and are dictatorships of the Bourgeoisie, hence why their safety nets are declining.

      • Alloi@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        so by the definition of true communism, they arent adhering to the marxist definition of communism, its merely a show of democracy controlled by an oligarchy with a single party system in the case of russia.

        i dont think any monetary economic system can work long term in balance with human needs and the need of the planet to sustain us. its just not possible when there is an imaginary incentive in the form of value in 1’s and 0’s or paper, that alters our actions based on accumulation of wealth for the individual and their “tribe”, and whatever form that may take. family, friends, companies, shareholders, class, nation etc etc.

        unfortunately its hard to draw a line between automated post monetary, post scarcity, post political, post religion, and a science/ fact/resource based economy/utopia, similar to the venus project, and a technofascist authoritarian state, which is seemingly where we are heading now with how AI is being used by the powers that be.

        human error and our limited willingness to understand the needs of the many in the future, vs the needs of the few now will always be a buffer that keeps us behind in terms of societaly advancement in the form of full economic freedom and change, for the betterment of man, and the planet, in harmony.

        the only way to advance past that is either to manipulate the genome of humans, or to merge with machines and AI so that our decisions are based on scientific merit and logic towards a value of united progress, over individual success. essentially we would have to sacrifice what makes us human, so humanity could survive in an alternate form. or become some sort of digital hive mind. or some other weird and horrifying scifi trope that i hope i never live long enough to see.

        im not advocating for this, im just saying this is where the world is likely moving if we dont blow ourselves up first or wipe the slate in some way.

        feel free to disagree, i love having these kinds of discussions.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          They are adhering to Marxism, I am curious why you say they aren’t, and if you are getting that from Marx, or second-hand interpretations of Marx. I don’t want to get into the rest of your comment until we get past the part where you think there’s such thing as a “true communism” that, say, the PRC is not genuinely working towards.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      5 hours ago

      Those aren’t/weren’t communist so per the post their leaders worked for the CIA