So the act of commerce is ethical but the source of the commerce might not be? I feel like I’m being really obtuse here and I apologize but goods and services could be stolen or forced and rarely is legislation enough. But I can totally see two unknowing people engaging in trade at their free will for items they don’t know are stolen.
I feel so pessimistic about the world at times that I find materialism and ethics just don’t mix.
Commerce deals with the distribution of value, production with the creation of it. So let’s say there is a widget factory. If one person “owns” it and thousands work to make widgets, their production is stolen through ownership, which causes deeper issues beyond the obvious as well.
Commerce doesn’t cause problems as it’s just resolving a situation of swapping the widgets you made for carrots. Barring some market-twisting forces like the stock market for example, a simple free market where you’re happy with the amount of carrots you get for the amount of widgets you get is fine.
The evil of capitalism is not that you can trade. The evil of capitalism is that you go to work, and receive a fraction of the product of your work while someone else who does not work at all receives a lot of it.
Technically the current capitalist western system would be socialist, if employment without ownership would be outlawed, and coops were the enforced norm.
I think you’re making a discussion into a spit fight for the sake of feeling better about yourself. I ask because I want to understand and for no other reason.
I think the ethical part may have to do with the following from Wikipedia on commerce:
The diversity in the distribution of natural resources, differences of human needs and wants, and division of labour along with comparative advantage are the principal factors that give rise to commercial exchanges.
I do not see how the commercial part is necessary for the distribution of goods though and recognize it as the main culprit in making such a system unethical. I.e., supplying needs is good and necessary, however a commercial platform is not.
People peddling anarchism need to explain why hierarchies keep arising in human societies over and over again. Anarchism is where humanity started and how small tribal societies live. However, we have yet to see any large society function that way for obvious reasons www.marxists.org/archive/marx/…/authority.htm
Under anarchism, whoever holds the most guns and food, and is the most ruthless, holds the power. Try to create a vacuum by destroying government, and someone else will claim it.
That is what anarcho capitalism is. But in this case some people, who hold the most gun and food, have more power than the others. So there is hierachy again. True Anarchism wants to prevent that. A lot of good explanations here :) www.anarchistfaq.org/afaq/
I’m no Anarchist, but that’s not what Anarchism is. Anarchism is a fully developed horizontal system, rather than vertical. The idea that Anarchism is simply “no rules” is an unfounded stereotype, there’s lots of Anarchist theory.
While I personally think it’s very difficult to achieve, it wouldn’t be for the reasons you’ve listed. Simply destroying government isn’t an Anarchist ideal, building up parallel structures like networks of Mutual Aid to replace the state and make it redundant is Anarchist praxis.
Anarchists believe that if horizontal power structures are in place, it becomes difficult to go against that current. Ie, if everyone has power, in order to gain more power than another, one must require people willing to give up their power to submit to them in order to push against others. This theoretical group would also have to be strong enough to go against the rest of the public.
It’s similar to why Communists believe once Communism is globally achieved, there wouldn’t be mechanisms for Capitalism to come back, just like Monarchism is almost nonexistant today.
Yet, that’s not how real world actually works is it. Humanity grew out of small scale societies that operate the way you described, and then inevitably every large society ends up creating hierarchies. And societies that have hierarchies appear to consistently outcompete those that do not. It’s not like this is a hypothetical discussion, we have thousands of years of human history to look at and see what forms of organization work in practice. Communists believe that there need to be explicit mechanisms that allow the working class to hold power and prevent regressions into capitalism.
I’m not an Anarchist, I’m just explaining misconceptions about Anarchism. You ironically lack Materialism in your analysis, with several instances of you claiming hierarchy simply appears, without analyzing the mechanisms of why.
Additionally, society has never been organized historically the way modern Anarchists desire it to be, primitive Communism is not what Anarchists, except for the fringe Anarcho-Primitivists, argue for. Again, they want strong horizontal organization, filled with decentralization. It isn’t an arbitrary rejection of organization period.
All in all, I do think you can do better. Rather than simply saying things “appear to organize in certain manners,” question the material conditions that changed organizational structures, and analyze why you think specific examples of horizontal organization posited by Anarchists would regress into hierarchy.
I’m well familiar with the argument Anarchists make, I’m just pointing out that it appears to be divorced from reality. I’m also not claiming that hierarchy simply appears. I even provided a link in a different comment explaining why hierarchies become necessary for any complex organization www.marxists.org/archive/marx/…/authority.htm
My argument is basically that hierarchies appear because they are effective, and if the current system was somehow overthrown, and this flat society was created, then we’d see hierarchies start forming because like minded people would recognize their value. Once that process starts people who choose to organize in this fashion would have competitive advantage over those who do not. This is just a process of natural selection at work.
If you’re taking a materialist approach, you would recognize that hierarchy was more effective than primitive communism, not Anarchism. You’d have to argue against modern propositions of flat organization, not just anarcho-primitivism. I’m sure many Anarchists would agree with you that hierarchical forms of structure are generally more effective than Anarcho-Primitivism, but would disagree that hierarchy is necessary or even better than modern Anarchist theory.
I’m well aware of Marx’s rejections of Anarchism, I just think that since Marx is a human and could not predict modern Anarchist theory, modern Marxists should argue against modern Anarchism, rather than historical.
I am arguing against modern propositions of flat organization because they run into the same problems. The onus to demonstrate viable alternatives to hierarchies is on the people who disagree with hierarchies being necessary. So far, we don’t have any functional examples of the kinds of approach anarchists promote, nor is there any reason to believe it would work.
Furthermore, given that the current system is organized in a hierarchical fashion, dismantling this system would require an equivalent level of organization. Hence why all the actual successful revolutions we’ve seen have been centrally organized. Marxists have actually put their theories into practice and have achieved tangible results. Anarchists have so far failed to achieve much of anything other than acting as a roach motel for the left.
You have to prove why they would run into the same problems, you’re still making vague accusations of Anarcho-Primitivism being the same as Modern Anarchist structure. The lack of existing structure disproving the possible existence of said structure is the same argument Anti-Communists and Anti-Socialists make with regularity, and is similarly an incomplete argument.
I, again, am not an Anarchist, but your method of argumentation is fundamentally flawed and won’t convince any Anarchist to join a Marxist movement. It lacks Materialism in its analysis and is of the same quality as generic Anti-Leftist argumentation. Instead, you should argue against concepts like ParEcon, Mutual Aid, and other Anarchist theory, without arguing against Primitive Communism.
No, it’s very much the people who are advocating for this theory who have to prove that it works and not the other way around. Communists have put their ideas into action, we know that this approach works, and we know that it results in many tangible improvements over the current capitalist system.
The argument I’m making is against the ways of organization that Anarchists promote, and these are fundamental to the ideology regardless of what specific branch we’re talking about. I simply gave primitivist version as an example that actually existed. The others are even more hypothetical. Meanwhile, not sure why you’d bring up talking about Materialism in an argument about organization.
You can’t prove something that hasn’t existed. You’re arguing against theory by saying it hasn’t been put into practice, disallowing it from being put into practice to be tested. This is the same anti-leftist, anti-development argument. The theory itself needs to be discounted.
You’re not making any sort of analysis, just sticking your head in the sand and pretending that primitive anarchism is the same as modern anarchism, and moreover are taking a mystical approach, rather than a practical approach. That’s why I’m saying you ignore Materialism, rather than arguing on the basis that humans are driven by material conditions, you instead argue that since one unrelated tangential structure turned into another, that Anarchism itself is bunk.
Putting theory into practice is literally what Materialism is. Thanks for confirming that you’re the one lacking Materialist position in this argument.
You’re not making any sort of analysis, just sticking your head in the sand and pretending that primitive anarchism is the same as modern anarchism, and moreover are taking a mystical approach, rather than a practical approach.
That’s literally the opposite of the facts. I’m advocating for an approach based on a theory that has been successfully put into practice and has demonstrated results. You are the one who is sticking your head in the sand and talking about some hypotheticals that have never been tested or put into practice. You need to learn what Materialism is if you’re going to keep using this word.
Materialism is doing away with the idea that history is shaped by ideas and will, rather than material conditions. It isn’t going against proposed theory by targeting unrelated theory.
You’re arguing that you cannot make predictions or try new things, despite validity of the theoretical basis, on the grounds that it hasn’t yet been done.
No, Materialism does not in fact do away with ideas, what it says is that there is a dialectical relationship between ideas and material reality, between theory and practice. I’m arguing that any theory that hasn’t been put into practice does not have much value. Materialism means coming up with an idea, trying it out, seeing the results, integrating that into the theory, and trying again. Continuous dialectical process of improving the theory and testing it is what Materialism actually is.
You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t actually understand the subject you’re attempting to debate here. Maybe spend some time educating yourself instead of telling other people they’re not getting it.
Materialism is quite literally the position that history is shaped by physical, material conditions, and reality, rather than the will or thoughts of individuals.
Claiming that I don’t understand what Materialism is when you’ve been arguing against Primitive Communism as though it’s Modern Anarchism is absurd.
You just described neofeudalism and “anarcho”-capitalism. Those don’t have anything to do with anarchism, just americans muddying the waters by trying to confuse semantics.
Nothing would prevent people with anarcho-capitalist mindset from doing these things under anarchism. That’s the whole problem with the idea. Anarchists make this fundamental assumption that vast majority of people think just like them, and if the state was somehow destroyed then it’s all magically just ponies and rainbows.
It declares itself to be classless, moneyless, and stateless. Just like terrorists call themselves rebels, and dictatorships call themselves democracies.
Ultimately, I’m looking for a lot more than a declaration or wish, a napkin blueprint that reads “This machine grants wishes!”. I’m looking for a proven track record of success.
That’s not the question. The question is “How does one BUILD something that hasn’t been built before?”
No matter how detailed the designs, any project manager can tell you that a plan ends up changing as it hits certain realities, and a system of governance, even for a small country, is going to be many times more complicated than anything most people have ever worked on. We’ve already seen several examples of the results, and they failed spectacularly. You don’t get to look at them and say “They don’t count” or “They’re not TRUE scotsmen.”
I’m not doing a no true Scotsman, or saying things don’t count. I’m saying that you cannot claim something to be a failure wholesale without analyzing what broke.
If you have a plane, and it fails because the screws became loose on the wing, you know what went wrong and have an idea of how to fix it, even if the results were catastrophic. You cannot then say that planes cannot exist.
I’m not claiming planes cannot exist. I’m saying that (assuming this is pre-wright-brothers) there’s no proof yet (metaphorical) planes can exist, so it’s foolish to criticize our current methods of travel via cars and horses. By deepening the critiques of capitalism (a system I know to have flaws), you’re making the claim “It’s SO stupid to drive from Ohio to New York, when you could FLY” in a world that hasn’t yet established flying is even possible.
It could be that the solution is “Tighten the wing screws a bit more”, or it could be that the screws will always come apart from the tension, and it’s simply a doomed invention. Ultimately, we’d still need a better proof of concept to devote ANY mental energy to it.
Not quite analogous. We know many problems with Capitalism, and we know many aspects of leftist organization absolutely work. We know what parts historically did not, and we also know that these issues are far from necessary for building a leftist structure.
You’re arguing that there’s no point in improving the plane and fixing what is broken when we still have cars and horses.
For your point that it could be that the screws can never be tightened, or a solution without screws cannot be found, is not an argument against tightening the screws or coming up with an alternative method, despite pretending that’s a valid reason alone. In fact, in Engineering, it can be known what forces will be applied to screws in flight and as such it can be predicted what is required.
Essentially, you can use previous knowns to solve for unknowns, rather than assuming everything is simply a blind guess.
we know many aspects of leftist organization absolutely work. We know what parts historically did not, and we also know that these issues are far from necessary for building a leftist structure.
Facts not in evidence. Don’t invent assertions as truth.
You’re arguing that there’s no point in improving the plane and fixing what is broken when we still have cars and horses.
I’m going to expect an apology for deliberately putting words in my mouth. You know very well I didn’t say this.
The Wright brothers did not pull commuters into their untested inventions. If you can test and refine without harming or harassing people, do so; otherwise, keep it to yourself.
There are mountains of papers written on the success of Socialist and Socialist-adjacent structures. Worker Co-operatives are more stable and provide greater happiness to the Workers within, for example. Democracy within the workplace also has great levels of success when tried, and we’ve found that liberal democracy surrounding 2 party systems is far less democratic than multiparty, ranked choice systems.
You deliberately argued that you must wait for something to exist before you are willing to adopt it, rather than change any given situation.
Now we reach the pinnacle of your argument: “I’m personally okay in the given system, so I don’t care if other people wish to change it.” It’s fine if everyone agrees with you, but what happens if you get out voted? Are you still going to argue for maintaining the status quo as disparity rises and climate change dooms us all?
This is the neuance. Could there be a fair form of capitalism? It depends upon the systems and the people that run them. Centralisation of ownership is the next step beyond the centralisation of power, because after a while they become intrinsically the same. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute wealth corrupts absolutely.
But also, the stock markets which can be beneficial are also forms of glorified gambling where the house always wins, the commodification of the housing market, the silly notion of shell and shelf companies (easiest, most effective way of side stepping regulations and laundering money), debt slavery, the price gouging of life saving medicine, the race to the bottom where costs, quality of product and salaries need to be cut, where the line between product and service becomes thinner for every day to the point where you retain less and less ownership by each year, which you can’t really blame anyone for, because all of these systems are designed to be a constant, churning, soul killing rat race, turning the pace of life to a literally unlivable speeds, which also reveals that even the ones up in the hierarchy become degenerate with greed, mostly because they live so far up that their human brains can’t fathom the effect they have down the chain, because it goes against their interests.
Instead of then going on another witch hunt, we need to look at these systems and the effects they have on the human psyche.
No there cannot be a fair form of capitalism because it is centered on exchange. You have to center your life on turning your time into a profit to afford the whole rest of society’s product also sold at a profit, at its most basic level it is unsustainable.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Like the idea of shell and shelf companies is a capitalist concept, that and mother companies, daughter companies, etc.
I particularly dislike shell and shelf companies, because they are almost always used to sidestep law and regulations, as well as being used for money laundering. It’s a system whereby you can easily move around money, back and forth, up and down, to the point where the money has been obsfucated in so many accounts that it requires a large team of exonomists AND all the accounts to figure out wrongdoing.
Because of this you could make a ton of profit off human trafficking, put that money into a south African shelf company, launder it for like a max 30% and boom: legal tender.
Capitalism causes tons of economic crime that can never be solved.
Capitalism is fundamentally hierarchy established in property rights. Doing away with hierarchy does away with Capitalism. Unless, of course, you’re arguing for Anarcho-Communism or something.
Not only capitalism entirely based on the hierarchy of ownership, but it also reinforces already existing social hierarchies as those in power receive more profits and capital, and thus more power and influence in a broader society. You cannot say hierarchy is bad and be pro capitalism. Leftist ideologies are ways to try to democratize the economy, which flattens hierarchy. Anarchism is inherently anti capitalist.
I am not that simple , some issues are due to my horrible mental health which is horrible for reasons which are not entirely caused by capitalism , I think
I wonder if this meme still applies to those who have fled communist countries?
Its kind of ironic that Lemmy was created to take away centralized power, but the same people want to create a communistic society which will…centralize the power?
I wouldn’t doubt if a percentage were. But is Cuba keeping itself isolated to where people have to defect despite no active war or combat? The US has probably closer to a million doctors from outside the US. The US relies on immigration to survive with slowing population growth and an aging population.
It’s very misleading to say that “Cuba is keeping itself isolated”. Each year the UN votes to end the embargo/isolation imposed on Cuba by the US, with the vast majority of countries voting in favour of ending the blockade each time.
In the latest vote, in November, only Israel and USA voted against ending the blockade. Ukraine abstained. 187 member states voted in favour of ending the blockade
The US sees anything that could shake their narrative of the world as a threat, even when that ‘threat’ is unfounded, and they massively abuse their economic and military power around the globe to keep others in line.
Some real death of the author type shit. I said only number 4 and I agree with your positions. I’m sure you know that questions aren’t statements.
I am disagreeing with them about Cuban doctors. I think the Cuban embargo is an atrocity and a disgrace and that the US (as an American) has many doctors from different nations so why does the small number of Cuban doctors matter.
Again, the only implication you listened that’s true is number 4 and that’s because it’s not an implication, I actually said that.
If you get past the first paragraph, suddenly there’s really no praising and they talk about how bad health care is in Cuba and how many try to defect as they are forced into horrible conditions.
From that article:
“He said, “We were placed in slums with a high level of violence, under constant monitoring by the Bolivarian brigades [political police], who are supposed to offer protection but also report any suspicious activities and assure that we carry out our `revolutionary’ duty, indoctrinating our patients to vote for Chávez. If we refuse to do so we are sent back to Cuba.””
It also says that they’re suffering from medical supply shortage due to US trade embargoes; and this is from a US government (capitalist) health board sonof course it’s unflattering. Now google “cuban doctors Nobel Peace prize”.
The Nords found it because they keep their capitalism restrained as it should be to serve the interests of the people in their societies instead of the reverse as it has become here.
The problem, of course, is the market crony hyper-capitalists that spawned mostly out of the US are using their power/capital to do what they did here everywhere else in it’s insatiable quest for growth/metastasis. The UK has already fallen to the faustian bargain of “YOU can live large, just sell out your fellow citizens.” Germany is getting on board, France’s people are fighting but losing. Unrestrained capitalism high on its own greed is absolutely cancerous and deadly.
Capitalism CAN when tightly, tightly straight jacketed, be used to incentivize labor as communism cannot, but it must be tempered by the heaviest of taxation for the commons. Being a doctor or a lawyer should yield better rewards than a janitor, but within fucking reason/sanity.
Should a Doctor be able to afford a bigger house and a nicer car than an average worker for their effort? Sure. Should they be able to afford 3 houses to the janitor’s studio apartment in a bad neighborhood? No, both provide essential services to society after all.
There needs to be a drain for out of control capital acquisition or that capital will eventually be used to propagate greed and capture the regulatory bodies meant to keep the sociopath that is capitalism sedated and restrained. No individual should possess enough capital to have more power over socetal structures than their single vote allows.
In exchange for not allowing greed to run absolutely rampant as it does here, they go to college based on merit, get healthcare when they need it, don’t end up homeless in hard times, don’t sweat job security, on and on…
At least until the global markets find enough greed driven traitors in those societies to “turn the bull loose” there too. Because once they get a foothold, that’s the ball game until collapse. Once that happens, they start using their for profit media machines to propagandize division within the citizenry, ensuring no meaningful counter movement, they use their power over government to indoctrinate children through education to call greed “rational self-interest,” deify profiteers as “job creators,” to feel hatred rather than empathy towards those that are struggling(herp derp those evil powerless homeless people are lowering my property values! If they can’t/won’t work, why won’t they just die?), etc. That’s why the US will need to collapse under the weight of its own corruption before things can even begin to improve. We’re too far captured.
Amazingly well put. Capitalism is necessary. Unrestrained capitalism is deadly. The unfortunate reality of capitalism is that even as it is in the process of burning everything to the ground, it looks for all the world like glorious success. And it is glorious success, if you don’t compare it to what could be in a system where it was properly restrained.
In their pure forms, I see capitalism and communism as extremes specifically with regards to human nature.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow, but capitalism gluts and force feeds our worst impulses exclusively, selfishness, unhealthy competition, jealousy, schadenfreude, sociopathy, self-delusion, narcissism, dehumanization, on and on, which is why I see it as the greater evil of the 2 in a vacuum.
A successful communist society would be very difficult to grow, but maybe that would be a good thing on a planet of finite resources that can take finite finite pollution. That’s why the answer lies somewhere in democratic socialism, imho.
That’s all academic though. The rigged market hyper-capitalists own this fucking place and have an iron grip on it. Plus communism would have kept the population low, as it should have been. It wouldn’t be able to accommodate the needs of our ridiculously massive human population as it is. That ship has sailed unless we want billions to starve to right it and live within sustainable means in this finite habitat.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow
Nothing about communism forces human impulses to be ignored, unless you mean the impulses we already suppress as sentient beings, such as fucking everything that moves or eating until we literally die.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
Equality of economic outcome regardless of effort goes against that, which is probably necessary on a planet of finite resources and the scale of our waste, but it does go against that large aspect of our nature.
For the record, I’m probably closer to you ideologically than you think. I think unfettered capitalism does more damage to humanity and the planet than communism ever could, but if you think communism lacks any drawbacks and is perfect, you are mistaken.
There is no such thing as perfection, especially any construct made by mankind. That’s coming from someone who is all for going Old School French on Wall Street and socializing entire economic sectors for the good of the citizenry.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
All of which can be achieved in a communist system, only instead of “look at my huge paycheck”, it’d be “look at all these skills I’ve acquired thanks to free public education and more free time”. People would stop mindlessly showing off innane manufactured waste and start actually acquire useful knowledge.
Man you’re naive…you really think people are going to go around busting their asses to study, only to be rewarded with I have skills that allow me to do even harder mental tasks for the same physical rewards as someone who gets the same free time and paycheck and house and car as I do…
You mean my inability to be naive… you’re the type of tankie who would want to be in a position of power while not breaking sweat while the rest toiled away doing the hard manual labor…
You wanting to be able to study while everyone else slaves away and you both get the same benefits is tankie bullshit. Very very few people will work hard labor for no benefit, especially if those who are just sitting around learning make the same as them.
Lol I run a equine and livestock rescue, and pay for peoples animals vet bills…out of my own pocket…the fuck are you to tell me my moral code is broken… I’m not the one advocating for communism…which always ends in dictatorship and death from those who want to keep it in place…naa you’re absolutely naive.
I run a equine and livestock rescue, and pay for peoples animals vet bills…out of my own pocket…
Which doesn’t preclude you being a bad person. Hitler was very much in favor of minimizing pollution and afforestation, for instance. I.E. Non Sequitur, doing a good thing doesn’t by itself make you a good person.
the fuck are you to tell me my moral code is broken…
A human being capable of rational though, exactly like you - only I stopped to think about this issue in particular, and you haven’t, choosing to reply emotionally instead.
which always ends in dictatorship and death from those who want to keep it in place
False, observably. In fact, you’re arguing from the position of proving a positive statement from a negative propostion, which is a fallacy.
Sorry, but you’re highly wrong about your misconceptions of Communism. Communism in no way starves human impulses to succeed or grow any more than Capitalist success does. Communism eliminates the profit motive, yes, but that is historically a highly flawed motive in general.
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism are not fairy-tale Utopias where everyone magically gets a pony, people still work to produce goods and services. However, this production is democratized, in opposition to anti-democratic privatized systems.
Capitalism is in no way necessary. It’s a poison, a cancer, a virus which at all given times threatens to destroy the fabric of society, all for the next quarter’s profit.
Capitalism isn’t necessary; a new economic system that takes some aspects of capitalism is necessary. If you have to strip capitalism of all of its core features to make it work, you’re no longer dealing with capitalism but rather a different economic model.
I agree. People who say, “nuhuh, capitalism works!” are 99% of the time thinking of the basic concept of markets or money. Which … Very specifically, are NOT capitalism.
They are used (and abused) by capitalists, but they are not inventions of capitalists.
So what’s the difference between capitalism and markets? I would have thought the freer the market the more capitalistic it was, not so much that there’s a separation of the two.
Kind of. The market can have Capitalist entities and Socialist entities, but the market itself isn’t Capitalist.
Not necessarily. Co-operatives are more difficult to start in a predominantly Capitalist system, and Capitalist entities usually can exploit their workers more in order to gain temporary competitive advantage. I don’t believe this is sufficient reasoning to value Capitalism over Socialist entities.
I’m not a Market Socialist, for clarification, as I do think there are issues. However, Capitalism isn’t markets.
The whole Nordic system is built on brutal exploitation of the global majority. They simply outsource the worst horrors of capitalism where their people don’t have to look at them. Here’s the reality of enlightened capitalism theguardian.com/…/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face…
Because there isn’t a global regulatory body to handle workplace relations. Norway, Sweden and Denmark cannot exactly tell developing countries how they should treat their workers; no more than the US could tell Swedish unions to shut up and submit to Tesla’s low pay demands.
We could have a global regulatory body… oh wait… most people around the world don’t want that because “'muh sovereignty.”
The actual reason is that the west colonized these countries in the most brutal fashion, murdered millions of people who opposed western imperialism, then put in despotic regimes in place that serve western interests. You’re evidently utterly ignorant of how the world actually works. Here’s a book you should read that explains the reality of things …archive.org/…/Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_I…
Oh wow, India and South Korea are still to this day under somehow subservient of Western imperialism, despite their own government implementing neoliberal policies after the Cold War! Somehow BJP, the ruling right wing party of India that deregulated the country, is a CIA stooge despite rebuffing sanctions on Russia. Gee, I wonder why? Thank you for your most enlightening, educated take! I am now so woke and class conscious like yourself!
Dude, this isn’t the 20th century. Your communist utopia did not work and will never work, old fart. Countries have their own agency. Have you met people in Asia and Africa and asked them if they will want communism? Just like you never asked any former gulag members, yes? Take your meds called… reality…old wanker.
You do realize that the US has control of South Korea’s military during time of war, correct? It’s an explicit part of their structure. South Korea quite literally does not have complete agency, despite what you’re saying.
And you do realise that South Koreans wanted that set up to begin with, because they get more out of this security structure more than the US does? Why do you think that is? Who is South Korea’s neighbour to the north, do you think? The peaceful West Korea? Both parties delayed handover of wartime control of ROK army numerous times, for reasons that should be obvious to those who are student of geopolitics. isdp.eu/…/not-a-sovereignty-issue-understanding-t…
That’s actually ahistorical. There were numerous pro-democracy protests, and subsequent massacres by the ROK. Gwang-ju is perhaps the most famous example of the ROK slaughtering countless civilians protesting for democracy, but it happened during wartime as well. Korea’s modern history, North and South, is intensely complicated and messy, and to pretend it’s a simple matter of the US protecting the defenseless South Koreans from the big bad North Koreans is just as wrong as saying that North Korea is 100% good and just.
There’s also the No Gun Ri Massacre, by which American soldiers murdered hundreds of South Korean men, women, and children.
South Korea in particular has a history of military dictatorship, coups, and massacres of pro-democracy civilians, and even in recent years is still having trouble with fascism.
You obviously did not read the article or at least skim read the earlier paragraphs.
And unsurprisingly you revert to historical fallacy to post-Cold War decisions that has zero bearing to more recent events, namely North Korea keeps firing missiles every so often.
Which part was the historical fallacy? The part where I gave explicit examples of both the ROK and US massacring civilians, or the part where I mentioned that South Korea has major issues with rising fascist movements, such as under current president Yoon? The same president who has targeted women and disabled people to rile up the increasingly conservative male voterbase, similar to how Trump rose to power in the US?
North Korea isn’t a good state, not in any meaningful capacity, but neither is South Korea. Additionally, the ROK was modeled by the Americans, the Korean intelligence agency is literally the KCIA. The ROK is essentially a US puppet state, they are allowed to govern themselves until what they do goes against the US.
The decision to delay the handover of wartime control of South Korean army to the SK government is made by both parties, as recent as 2015, in which both governments are no longer ruled by the same people as by those in 1950s and 1960s. Because decision-makers in 1950s are now dead and there are new leaders. You don’t need a PhD to figure that out.
Do you think parties are the will of the people? Especially considering the aforementioned anti-democratic massacres, such as Gwang-Ju in 1980, not 1950 or 1960?
You don’t need a PhD to figure out that you clearly have a pro-American bias and don’t actually care about historical accuracy.
You’ve been routinely wrong, and keep moving goal posts. Have you been ignoring President Yoon’s flirtation with fascism, and the specific targeting of minority populations, women, and disabled people? Do you believe South Korea’s history has no bearing on modern day politics?
South Korea is fundamentally controlled by the Chaebol and the US, despite protests against it.
Is pointing out the numerous issues with South Korea and the sovereignty of its citizens akin to being pro-North Korea? I don’t think so.
You are the one who first talked about ROK having no wartime control of their army, despite the Korean government themselves, having been ruled by various different parties of different flavours of ideologies, delaying the handover. Now, you are accusing me of moving the goal post when you’re the one who set the agenda in the first place and I am merely responding. You moved the goal post with something that has zero to do with the initial agenda.
Even so, you moved the goal post, I will let you get to the finish line. You did not answer whether or not has there been any massacre in the past twenty years since South Korea’s democratisation in spite of US wartime control of ROK army and leadership changes between different South Korean political parties?
You truly don’t care to acknowledge that parties are not the people, do you? That only furthers my point, that South Korea cannot go against the US.
I never said there was constant massacring, I said South Korea has had numerous issues with massacring their population in modern history. This is factually correct, you even pretended it was limited to the 50s and 60s, and you still ignore President Yoon’s fascist practices.
Have the Korean government massacred anyone since their democratisation?
You obviously don’t live in East Asia to realise why the South Korean government delay the handover. I will give you an important hint as much as national security: it saves them money. They get more bang for the buck. Same with the EU hosting American military bases. The EU isn’t being accused for “free-riding” for a reason.
South Korea get more than they bargained for which, not only deters North Korea and China, but also save them money. Why change the status quo overnight if it serves them very well so far?
Going back to the original matter at hand; yes, South Korea still exercise agency outside of the US influence in this matter. SK uses US more than the other way around.
You obviously know I mean after 1980 that SK democratised. But sure, keep rationalising and accusing me of logical fallacies that you yourself is committing. Hard to look on the mirror I know.
The world isn’t as conspiratorial as you might think it is, with power players in a smoky backroom concocting plans and deals to manipulate people. I used to think like you. Fact of the matter is that the world is anarchic.
It’s not hard to see that the US has explicit power over South Korea, regardless of what the citizens want. You’re bending over backwards to justify US Imperialism.
Sure, keep thinking that. It is though non-white, non-Caucasians are perptual victims of Western imperialism, and could not think for themselves, and have to be looked after by white liberals and leftists from preying eyes of Western imperialist states. This does not sound at all like the condescending white man’s burden with a different flavour.
I will add more cognitive dissonance on you. Did it occur to you and with other Western liberals and left to ask South Koreans what they think? It is easy to be slacktivist keyboard warrior, comfortably sitting behind a computer, and act high and mighty while living in a country not being threatened by a neighbour, pretending to speak in behalf of people they do not have intimate knowledge of.
This attitude is also exactly what Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peele have criticised about Western white liberals who feels offended on behalf of persons of colour without asking what they truly think, and view them as perpetual victims who could not look after themselves. Sounds a lot like the old right-wing racist white man’s burden mentality, doesn’t it? But this is ironically coming from the left and liberals. There’s nothing wrong with gracefully acknowledging it, but not repeating it is what matters more.
Yes, I have. The majority of my knowledge of South Korean politics comes from South Korean immigrants, and confirmation via independent research on my own. You aren’t introducing any cognitive dissonance, you’re just giving me the opportunity to yet again prove you wrong.
What have I made up, exactly? That I touch grass and am close with many South Korean immigrants? If that’s what you take issue with, I can walk away from this convo knowing that I was 100% correct the entire time, and you just cope and mald, calling me a liar, despite me being 100% correct about everything I’ve said leading up to this recent comment.
South Korea could acquire wartime control of their military almost immediately, like the Philippines elected to kick out the Americans from their major base in the country in 1991, but ROK haven’t so deal with it. There is more to politics than virtue signalling. Like I said, the world is anarchic than anyone realise.
You’re dodging now. South Korea isn’t there same dictatorship now as it once was and had multiple, multiparty governments, all of which elected democratically since 1980s.
The US has had peactime control of the Korean military until unilaterally given the peacetime control to ROK in 1994. In 2000’s, they have had discussions then for ROK to also have wartime control of the army, but then delayed due to North Korean posturing. This has been delayed yet again in 2015. If you read the article I linked or know the actual history, you would know that. So now, why is there still delay and why do you think US pressure has to do with it? How is the US doing this, even though in 2015 the Obama administration has gotten frustrated with the delay?
The ROK was built by the US, and modeled as they saw fit. You’re making the same argument that the US constitution doesn’t impact modern American life, because George Washington is dead. That’s a fallacy, it hasn’t been restructured in any meaningful capacity.
Yes, the ROK has peacetime control. They don’t have wartime control, despite posturing. The US still keeps the ROK on a leash, and is waiting for the time when they don’t even need to directly control the ROK as they will be subservient regardless.
The ROK army is modeled after US military, and so is the Philippine army whose government has full control. But those have nothing to do with the question you still have not answered. How is being modeled after the US army applying pressure to South Korea to not acquire wartime control right now?
That’s like saying US is French stooge because the French trained Americans with their system during the American Revolution, and despite fighting the French shortly after in the Quasi War.
You still have not answered on what possibly the precise mechanism by which US manipulate ROK. For the sake of the argument that a system being modeled after another country’s is sign of being pressured, how does this explain ROK’s stalling to have wartime control of their army, while the US has expressed frustration with the delay?
While Communism is a centralisation of power, it is also decentralisating the decision of what the power does.
Ideally, Communism is like a democratic monopoly. However, in reality, communism has been abused to create a non-democratic monopoly. This is unfortunately very much like what capitalstic non-democratic monopolies do too - albeit more slowly.
Lemmy, like other fediverse projects, is not challenging the democratic or non-democratic part of it. It’s challenging the monopoly part.
If we spread out the functional part of systems, nobody will be able to create a monopoly of power, neither through communism, capitalism nor democracy. This is because the power is not centralised at all.
It’s not anarchy or chaos though, because each party is capable of embracing or rejecting any other parties, based on their own choice of government. People who run fediverse servers can choose by votes or not which other parties to include or not. Some servers are democratic, others are not. Some might be communist, others might be fascists, but they’re not a meaningful power without users, so it’ll inevitably be up to the users to decide.
Well yes and no. There are communist systems that centralize power (mostly to establish a system without it) but there are a lot of different ways to do it other than that. Anarcho Communism for example is the complete opposit which does not want to go the authoritarian way even short term. Because well that did not quite work out. Authoritarian states still are authoritarian states. And i myself dont like/want those ^^
Not in my opinion. I dont think forcing yourself upon others and establishing totalitarian states is a success. If you mean working as becoming the main party then sure but i think working is establishing its principles. And there are anarchistic projects that worked quite well im that sense. They never lastet but they did often change a lot. For example the spanish civil war, the paris kommune. Those are the biggest ones. But anarchistic principles were always important. Many “primitive” cultures were egalitarian ones, which they did a lot to keep it that way.
Communism is, at first, Socialism. You’re confusing Communism with Monarchism, or Oligarchy, when in reality Communism and Socialism are primarily about democratization and decentralization.
Compare 2 factories.
Factory 1 is Capitalist. It is owned by a businessman, and he employs workers to use said factory to produce commodities for sale on the market. The largest forms of voice the Workers have is Unionization, or, failing that, working somewhere else, if available.
Factory 2 is Socialist. The Workers are the Owners, and as such elect a manager to represent them in worker councils.
Looking at the 2 structures, Socialism is more democratic, and more decentralized, in theory. We must take this theory and see why or why not historical examples have measured up to this, from a practical, Materialist perspective. Tools aren’t mystical, they don’t corrupt the minds of those who share ownership of them.
It’s easy to see why Lemmy, a platform based on decentralization and a rejection of the Profit Motive, has far more leftists.
The Soviet Union was anti-trade union, and pro-Soviet, ie worker councils. The Soviet Union had numerous problems, especially with beaurocracy, but fundamentally it was a Worker state, owned and run by the Soviets, and thus can be considered Socialist (regardless of my personal issues with it).
There are several attempts at replicating some form of Worker Democracy in Capitalist countries, but ultimately short of ownership none of this functionally makes a massive difference. Definitely a step in the right direction, but without worker ownership it is more to appease workers and uphold Capitalism, than actually giving workers control.
Don’t misunderstand this comment to say that codetermination is bad, it’s good, just not as good as it could be.
I think the germans working under codetermination have it a bit better than any soviet ever did under their workers’ unions. the missing ingredient being a democratic representative government in place of an authoritarian single party system.
The Germans working under codetermination also have it far better than Germans under the Kaiser. Comparing a 21st century first world developed nation with a 20th century developing country sure is a win, I guess?
Secondly, although the beurocracy was incredibly corrupt, the Soviet Democracy by which local Soviets reported to higher Soviets that reported to higher Soviets was fundamentally democratic, even if flawed.
I don’t really think you’ve said much of anything. The Soviet form of Democracy was indeed flawed, but it was still Democratic, and I think it’s obvious to anyone that living in a modern developed country would be better than living in a developing country from last century.
I’m comparing political systems, not nations. If we’re talking about the WW1 era, then I’d say the soviets still had it worse as they went through a war, invasion, then a civil war, and famine and consequent brutal dictatorship. But the germans made it out quite well off, given they basically started the war with their unequal treaties and rapid militarization. Despite this, the treaty of Versailles was relatively lenient compared to what happened Austria-hungry.
It was not democratic. It was a single party system in which the party selected a candidate, (after some research I learned this part is false), and the populace was forced to vote for said candidate under threat of imprisonment.
If the people wanted to oust a candidate they didn’t like, they’d have to coordinate with everyone in secret to cooperatively abstain from voting for the candidate so he would lose his job and the party would select a new candidate.
Political systems don’t determine quality of life nearly as much as development.
Your second point isn’t correct, anyone could be voted on. They couldn’t vote on the next level, only their representative could. I’m not sure where you get this new idea from.
If you’re talking about the Politburo, yes, and that’s part of my problem with it. But, at the local level, you voted on whoever you wanted, then your rep votes on who they want, and so forth. There were lots of shady deals that solidified power higher up, yes, but the process was Democratic in nature, even if highly flawed.
I think political systems affect development, although geography plays a big role in that as well. How a country uses its available resources is predominantly determined by its economic and political system.
They gave you a ballet with only a party member candidate on it which you’d simply drop in the ballet box in front of everyone, and if you wanted to vote for an independent, you had to go behind a curtain and write it in.
“However, in practice, before 1989, voters could vote against candidates preselected by the Communist Party only by spoiling their ballots, whereas votes for the party candidates could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot.”
Economic systems absolutely affect development, but again, you’re comparing a country that was a backwater nation completely undeveloped come the start of the 20th century with a country that has always been at or near the top of the list of industrialized nations. The starting points aren’t even in the slightest.
Secondly, the banning of alternative political parties was indeed antidemocratic, but the party didn’t select who you could vote for. Factions were banned by Lenin, supposed to be temporary, but this continued until 1989.
Historical accounts actually disagree with you saying candidates were preselected. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy Pat Sloan in particular mentions that anyone could be elected, at the local level. Perhaps what you’re referring to is that those above the local Soviets were made up of those elected at local Soviets, and thus people couldn’t directly run for higher Soviets? Either way, definitely flawed, but not the same as what you’re saying.
Democracy is a sliding scale, I would say the Soviet Democratic model was still democratic, but less than many other countries. The US is technically more democratic, but many absolute positions cannot be voted on, such as the Supreme Court. There isn’t a currently existing country with fantastic democracy, unfortunately.
The crux of my issue with the soviet system is that the highest echelons of the government had no oversight and were in no way beholden to the people at the lowest echelons. You’re right that democracy is a sliding scale, and I think a good form of government will allow dissenting opinions to take hold if they reflect the will of the people. I think it is very telling that you can have a communist party in the Kaiser’s germany, but not have a liberal/democratic party in Lenin’s Russia.
Yes, I agree with that crux, never disagreed with it. I still think it was functionally democratic, it’s not like the top controlled every aspect of society. Often times the elections with the most impact on your personal lives are the local elections, and that’s where Workers did in fact have control.
Again, though, I’ve never argued for repeating the USSR. I just think that we can learn from what worked and what didn’t to create a better system of leftist organization, and the fact that so much went right and so much went wrong is exceptionally useful data. We know what not to replicate democratically, and we know that guaranteeing Healthcare and education, and investing heavily in building residential plots and urbanization at the public level, does tremendous work in reducing poverty and homelessness.
At the end of the day, I’m NOT an ML, nor am I a USSR Stan. I’m a leftist, and more importantly I’m anti-tendency, and think each country will have a different path to worker liberation. As such, we should learn as much as possible from previous Socialist attempts and structures to create a better future.
Neither of those are what leftists say. Capitalism doesn’t work because of the structure itself, you have problems like the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall, and the inherent exploitation within. You cannot have Capitalism without exploitation, and you can’t have Capitalism with democratization of production, even if you had a perfectly selfless Capitalist, it still wouldn’t be democratic and would still have the same structural issues.
Similarly, Communism isn’t “people working for the common good,” it’s people working to improve their own material conditions. Just because production is democratized doesn’t mean it depends on people working for absolutely no reason.
There are non-strawman arguments you could make, but this ain’t it.
Communism isn’t “people working for the common good,” it’s people working to improve their own material conditions.
Same goes for capitalism. Why is it called communism then, if your definition doesn’t even contain any reference to anything communal? At the very least, it would have to be “people working together to improve their own material conditions”, but that’s perfectly acceptable in capitalism as well.
Come on now, if you want to have a debate about this, at least try to make argument that doesn’t fall apart at the slightest breeze.
Does your understanding of communism stop at semantics? If you’re going to be strongly opposed to something you should at least know what it is. Otherwise your arguments are limited to being the slightest breeze.
It would be difficult to make a semantically coherent argument for someone who doesn’t know the definitions of the words you’re saying.
You should read that other comment again. The democratization of production as opposed to private ownership is the communal part of communism you were looking for. It’s the profit goes to the workers instead of Jeff Bezos and his investors as in capitalism. If you demand that the root of the word mean something else then of course the argument makes no sense.
Those two concepts are incompatible. I’m assuming we’re both American so you’ve probably heard that capitalism means free market exchange of goods and services but that’s actually just commerce and is a feature of every economic system. The defining trait of capitalism is actually that one guy can own the means of production and is entitled to the capital produced. Whereas in socialism and communism there is no private ownership of production.
… what do you think Communism is? It’s a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society achieved via abolition of Private Property. That doesn’t mean everyone suddenly becomes hippies working in communes or tribes.
Capitalism certainly can have cooperation, it just happens to encourage competition, monopoly, and exploitation of Workers for the sake of profit.
If capitalism encourages or favors competition, how come there is such a thing as companies? Those generally require some level of cooperation. If everyone works against each other, they would simply fall apart.
Also, why do we often see companies getting bigger and bigger, sometimes even by means of two competitors merging together? If capitalism encourages competition, shouldn’t they both be better off staying separate?
Because the Workers aren’t competing, they don’t give a shit. The Capitalists are competing for an even larger share of the pie. Instead of everyone cooperating, you fragment everyone into companies, which are like little factions.
Some factions doing well enough to create new kings like Bezos or Musk is also not a feature, given that there’s no democratic control.
Really not sure what you’re getting at. Why are you even on a platform rejecting Capitslism, rather than Reddit, if you’re so sure that leftism is a bad thing?
Really not sure what you’re getting at. Why are you even on a platform rejecting Capitalism, rather than Reddit, if you’re so sure that leftism is a bad thing?
Does Lemmy as a whole reject capitalism, or is it just individual servers like this one? Because I really don’t get nearly as much hate on any other ones, it’s always here.
Also, I find it very interesting that if Lemmy or the Fediverse in general are leaning rather left, why did they choose to implement a federated model? This makes every server owner king of their own personal fiefdom, able to allow whatever content and apply whatever rules they please. Therefore, it is impossible by design to enforce that everyone had to reject capitalism.
Yes, there is some measure of democratic control in the defederation mechanism, which allows the community as a whole to somewhat isolate and contain those who don’t want to adhere to the common rules, but it doesn’t get rid of them entirely. And it certainly enables some amount of competition among instances getting a share of the total userbase.
A for-profit company could even take the codebase and spin off their own reddit clone absolutely for free. This has actually happened at least twice with Mastodon — both Gab and Truth Social are using it internally (of course both are defederated islands, but rather large ones compared to the average server size).
If this is real communism, then perhaps it’s accurate to say that previous attempts such as the UdSSR were all failures, and communism by dictatorship doesn’t work at all. But perhaps then that also implies that some level of internal competition is healthy and normal, and it is by no means required that EVERYONE has to be on the same page in order for it to work.
Lemmy is a decentralized, FOSS platform built by a Communist explicitly as an answer to Reddit. The people on Lemmy trend leftward, obviously, but that’s because the very foundation is a rejection of Capitalism. If you want Capitalist Lemmy, there’s Reddit.
FOSS itself is leftist, and a rejection of Capitalism. The ability for the users to simply fork off if they don’t like the way something is heading is precisely an advantage of leftist organization, which is impossible with Capitalist Reddit.
Truth Social and Gab are built on Mastadon, yes. FOSS itself is a rejection of Capitalism, Capitalists going in and taking advantage of existing leftist infrastructure doesn’t mean the infrastructure itself is Capitalist.
Your last paragraph is a complete non-sequitor. Much of the USSR was indeed a failure, there was a ludicrous amount of corruption at the Politburo level, and the further up you went the less democratic it was, as only local Soviets were purely democratically accountable to the Workers. With each rung you went up, it was less accountable to the Workers. However, absolutely none of what you say about competition, the USSR, or otherwise follows logically.
Communism itself doesn’t depend on everyone following in lock-step, Capitalism does.
FOSS itself is leftist, and a rejection of Capitalism. The ability for the users to simply fork off if they don’t like the way something is heading is precisely an advantage of leftist organization, which is impossible with Capitalist Reddit.
Again, I find such statements very interesting, especially given that you so firmly rejected competition as inherently capitalist and undesirable. Because being able to just take something and fork it actually encourages competition. If I don’t like where a project is headed, and I can take their code and make my own version, and if I do a better job at it than the original maintainers, I could even outclass them. Isn’t that exactly the type of stuff you hate about capitalism?
Truth Social and Gab are built on Mastodon, yes. FOSS itself is a rejection of Capitalism, Capitalists going in and taking advantage of existing leftist infrastructure doesn’t mean the infrastructure itself is Capitalist.
No, but it isn’t inherently anti-Capitalist either, and that was my point. Also, they’re both playing by the rules and making their source code available as required by the GPL, although AFAIK it DID take some legal threats before they complied. Commercial exploitation of FOSS is something that’s explicitly allowed by most licenses, and Lemmy’s is no different. They could have chosen one that forbids such things, but they did not.
Your last paragraph is a complete non-sequitor. Much of the USSR was indeed a failure, there was a ludicrous amount of corruption at the Politburo level, and the further up you went the less democratic it was, as only local Soviets were purely democratically accountable to the Workers. With each rung you went up, it was less accountable to the Workers. However, absolutely none of what you say about competition, the USSR, or otherwise follows logically.
Your style of argumentation and tenuous grasp on logic never fails to baffle me. So you agree that Soviet Russia was an abject failure and had nothing to do with “real” communism, and you also seem to agree that the Fediverse is a much better representation of it, but then you simply reject all my other conclusions without feeling the need to even explain that at all. Sorry, but I find this entirely unconvincing.
Communism itself doesn’t depend on everyone following in lock-step, Capitalism does.
But if everyone ISN’T in lockstep then there might be… dare I say it… competition? And I thought that was a capitalist concept entirely.
I don’t hate competition for the sake of competition. The goal of FOSS is cooperation until something becomes less than desirable, as the goal is a good product. With Capitalism, the goal is profit, and as such destabilization and competition are required. With FOSS, a new fork is only done for a better product, not for profit-seeking.
Commercial exploitation of an anti-Capitalist option does not mean the option is not anti-Capitalist. FOSS is a rejection of IP a la Capitalism, and a rejection of the profit motive.
I understand that trying to argue with sound logic is difficult for you, after all, nothing you’ve said has logically followed. Enough of being cheeky, though. The USSR was a specific model of Marxist-Leninist Socialism, they never reached Communism as Communism is a Stateless, Classless, moneyless society. They did many things right, like giving workers far more control, and providing free Healthcare and education. They also had many huge problems, like massive corruption at the Politburo level, and atrocities committed by government officials like the Katyn Massacre and Stalin’s Purges. As such, I believe the USSR provides a wealth of information on what aspects did work, and what aspects were terrible. I do not want to recreate the USSR, nor use it as a template. I want to learn from it and create something far better.
You’re confusing market competition for Capitalism. Capitalism requires competition and rejects cooperation, Socialism has both when it needs to. Capitalism cannot function without competition.
I understand that leftist theory can be hard to understand if you aren’t at all familiar. I suggest reading leftist theory before trying to talk about it on social media as though you’re saying something profound. It only comes off as profoundly ignorant.
Well, it’s not like I haven’t tried, but the problem is that if you ask two leftists what they believe, you tend to get three different opinions, and they’re all based on theory.
Also, few of them can hold an argument, as soon as you present a criticism, they feel personally attacked and tend to become hostile.
Eh, there’s plenty of socialism in practice. But English speaking discourse is dominated by fans of dictators that actively hunted socialists in twentieth century.
“Capitalism does not work because people are selfish, and selfish people are incentivized to harm their fellow man by capitalist structures. Under socialism, selfish people will work toward the common good because working toward the common good is the easiest way to earn recognition and status”
“People are selfish, and it is in 99 percent of peoples self interest to overthrow capitalism in order to improve their material conditions”
You can cooperate with others toward selfish ends. That’s literally how pack animals like humans work.
Right now it is in everyone’s self interest except for the bourgeoisie to stop capitalism and create a more equitable system. If you just want to be on top, that is being selfish and not understanding how odds work, not being selfish.
It’s funny because most communists seem to want to be the ones on top by trying to impose communism on everybody else.
Why not start at the bottom and learn how to cooperate with people there? Make some friends at work and see if they can help you get a better job. Put that philosophy into practice in the here and now instead of dreaming of some grand utopia where everyone willingly cooperates with everyone else everywhere and all the time.
It’s funny because most communists seem to want to be the ones on top by trying to impose communism on everybody else.
According to who, capitalist media? Have you ever actually exposed yourself to what communists think and believe, or are you afraid of a spectre?
Why not start at the bottom and learn how to cooperate with people there?
The communists, infamous for avoiding rank and file and mass line strategies, as well as other strategies that relied heavily on creating popular support
Make some friends at work and see if they can help you get a better job.
I’m already super cushy in my job, I dont want involuntary homelessness to exist, and I also don’t want homeless people to be killed. I want kids to be able to go to bed and not be hungry. That isnt possible under capitalism.
Put that philosophy into practice in the here and now instead of dreaming of some grand utopia where everyone willingly cooperates with everyone else everywhere and all the time.
We don’t think it will be utopia. We don’t think everyone will willingly cooperate all the time. If you think this is what communists believe, you haven’t read a lot of communist thought. It feels like you are just throwing cliches at the wall and trying to box with a strawman, and it is kind of weird to watch.
Do you understand the notion that people will generally cooperate when it is in their mutual selfish interest to cooperate? Does that make sense to you? Or do you reject even that notion?
Have you ever actually exposed yourself to what communists think and believe, or are you afraid of a spectre?
I’m being exposed to it on Lemmy nearly every single day.
I’m already super cushy in my job, I dont want involuntary homelessness to exist, and I also don’t want homeless people to be killed. I want kids to be able to go to bed and not be hungry. That isnt possible under capitalism.
Volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate to a homeless shelter, etc.
Do you understand the notion that people will generally cooperate when it is in their mutual selfish interest to cooperate? Does that make sense to you? Or do you reject even that notion?
Yes, that totally makes sense. But in my experience, this works best when people freely choose to cooperate because they realize it’s in their own self-interest, instead of having cooperation imposed on them by force.
I’m being exposed to it on Lemmy nearly every single day.
Okay, then explain the difference between scientific and utopian socialism, what what differentiates labor from labor power in the context of surplus labor value extraction?
The low bar there is my fault though, I should have asked if you were educated on what communists believed.
Volunteer at a soup kitchen, donate to a homeless shelter, etc.
Put a bandaid on a gunshot wound while you’re at it.
Yes, that totally makes sense. But in my experience, this works best when people freely choose to cooperate because they realize it’s in their own self-interest, instead of having cooperation imposed on them by force.
That has literally happened, can you name any successful socialist revolution that didn’t involve education and the creation of mass popular support?
Russian communism: ~5M dead in the Holodemor
Chinese communism: ~15-55M dead in the Great Famine
Cambodian communism: >1M dead in the Killing Fields
inb4 not real communism
Okay, then explain the difference between scientific and utopian socialism, what what differentiates labor from labor power in the context of surplus labor value extraction?
Muh “you can’t criticize socialism because you don’t understand THEORY”. You probably don’t understand capitalism either outside of socialist critiques of it. Then how can you be so certain of what capitalists believe?
Put a bandaid on a gunshot wound while you’re at it.
“I can’t help EVERYONE so I’m just not gonna help ANYONE”.
*goes off and tries to convince people to follow an ideology that only works if everyone believes in it.
can you name any successful socialist revolution that didn’t involve education and the creation of mass popular support?
Can you name one socialist revolution that hasn’t involved massive amounts of murder and violence?
Chinese communism: ~15-55M dead in the Great Famine
Even with these inflated numbers, they are no match for the numbers of people intentionally killed by capitalism and feudalism, let alone starvation under capitalism and feudalism.
Plugging the book “late Victorian holocausts”
Cambodian communism: >1M dead in the Killing Fields
inb4 not real communism
If you believe the Cambodians were communists, you have to believe that the nazis were. Except in Pol Pots case, he only claimed to be socialist for a few years of their decades long operations. I am choosing you believe you’re not that gullible so I must assume you are ignorant of their history.
Muh “you can’t criticize socialism because you don’t understand THEORY”. You probably don’t understand capitalism either outside of socialist critiques of it. Then how can you be so certain of what capitalists believe?
Literally took years of capitalist economics in high school and college, it is one of the reasons I’m a communist.
“I can’t help EVERYONE so I’m just not gonna help ANYONE”.
More like “the issue is systemic and requires systemic solutions, not charity”
*goes off and tries to convince people to follow an ideology that only works if everyone believes in it.
Chinese feudal landlords didn’t believe in socialism, that didn’t stop the communists from doing land reform.
Can you name one socialist revolution that hasn’t involved massive amounts of murder and violence?
By definition revolutions involve violence. Are you condemning the capitalist revolutions that threw off the monarchies? The status quo involved comparatively massive amounts of violence then, and it does now.
But also, an example of socialists gaining power through the ballot box was in Chile. The US ended up funding, training, and equipping right wing death squads to kill (and worse) Chilean communists, teachers, trade unionists, indigenous people, and random people. Chile became an extraordinary violent right wing capitalist dictatorship.
If you believe the Cambodians were communists, you have to believe that the nazis were.
I mean, Hitler very clearly wrote in Mein Kampf that he DID take inspiration from socialism, except that, like all other communist dictators before or after him, he thought that HE had found the missing ingredient to make it work.
Literally took years of capitalist economics in high school and college, it is one of the reasons I’m a communist.
Hah, imagine getting a “capitalist” education from people who don’t have to worry about their own job security because they have tenure. Isn’t that just like getting a communist education from a Wall Street CEO?
Chinese feudal landlords didn’t believe in socialism, that didn’t stop the communists from doing land reform.
Yes. The secret ingredient was (and always is) called violence.
By definition revolutions involve violence.
Okay, at least you’re honest enough to admit that.
Are you condemning the capitalist revolutions that threw off the monarchies? The status quo involved comparatively massive amounts of violence then, and it does now.
Yes, I condemn all violence, capitalist or otherwise. But I honestly don’t experience capitalism as particularly violent. My biggest successes all came through non-violent means, by educating myself and improving my technical and people skills. Amazingly, it turns out that if you’re willing to learn what others will pay you for, more often than not, they’ll actually just hand you money without you having to make any threats about taking over their whole company.
I mean, Hitler very clearly wrote in Mein Kampf that he DID take inspiration from socialism, except that, like all other communist dictators before or after him, he thought that HE had found the missing ingredient to make it work.
He also very explicitly said that the nazis weren’t socialist, and all of the parties policies were hard capitalist.
Hah, imagine getting a “capitalist” education from people who don’t have to worry about their own job security because they have tenure. Isn’t that just like getting a communist education from a Wall Street CEO?
We live in a capitalist society. Any attempt to claim this isn’t capitalism and we have a shift toward actual capitalism is an attempt to sell you fascism.
Also pretty sure most of them were adjuncts.
Yes. The secret ingredient was (and always is) called violence.
Yes. When they removed the secret ingredient, the landlords could not maintain their property relations with the peasants. That is correct.
Yes, I condemn all violence, capitalist or otherwise. But I honestly don’t experience capitalism as particularly violent.
Well then either you’re really sheltered or you haven’t been paying attention.
My biggest successes all came through non-violent means, by educating myself and improving my technical and people skills. Amazingly, it turns out that if you’re willing to learn what others will pay you for, more often than not, they’ll actually just hand you money without you having to make any threats about taking over their whole company.
Oh, well if it worked for you, I guess those slave laborers can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And all those genocide victims should have just spent more time educating themselves.
I don’t think most people are selfish to the point of it being harmful. I think the problem is that a small number of people are, and those are the people who are in charge of things, where their selfishness can do way more harm.
As others have mentioned, though, a lot of behavior is heavily influenced by the incentive structures people live within. This can apply in very obvious ways: for example, when trying to get from point A to point B, people will use the mode of transportation that makes the most sense for that trip, which is heavily dependent on the infrastructure that exists between those two places, and that’s why the Dutch will bike five miles, the Spanish will catch a train across the whole country, and people in Houston will drive across the street. It can also apply in more subtle ways, though, and that’s where capitalism comes in. To pick one example, companies that are owned by their workers are more stable and better places to work than traditional privately owned or shareholder-owned companies, but it goes far deeper and gets far more complex than that, too.
People are responsive to economic incentives. If the incentives favor doing good things, then good things happen. Otherwise, you get what we have now.
I think that’s both fairly accurate, and seems to be more or less the norm across all cultures for most of history. Regular people are mostly benign, those in power tend to get worse the more power they have.
This poses an interesting question: what if this is in fact the most self-stable and therefore sustainable solution in the long term? And is it actually fair to assume that those in power benefit asymmetrically, or do they pay for it in ways that people without such means or ambition cannot even fathom?
If you live a normal, unremarkable life and generally get along with others, you probably won’t have much excess material wealth, but you will also have relatively few enemies. The more you try to compete for the position of the top dog, however, the more you have to watch your back. Is it really preferable to sleep in a palace surrounded by armed guards because you are worried about assassins, just so you can own 50 nice cars you’ll barely ever get to drive?
In other words, people who envy the rich and powerful always only ever look at the benefits, never at the price they pay for their privilege.
This poses an interesting question: what if this is in fact the most self-stable and therefore sustainable solution in the long term?
Then humanity is fucked.
Is it really preferable to sleep in a palace surrounded by armed guards because you are worried about assassins, just so you can own 50 nice cars you’ll barely ever get to drive?
Oh, boo hoo, won’t someone think of the poor rich people, having to pay extra to keep their disgusting riches safe from the people they fucked over to get them. I’m sorry, I’ve been trying not to contribute to the toxicity I see in these threads, but come the fuck on.
Besides, I don’t think people envy the rich and powerful the way you’re describing, I think people envy the idea of being able to maintain a good standard of living without having to work themselves to the bone to do it, and they begrudge rich people’s wealth and power on the grounds that they use it to influence politics and deny a decent standard of living to the working class. I don’t want a mansion and fifty nice cars, I want an apartment in the city in walking distance to transit and stuff to do, and then to also save more money at the end of the month than I did at the start. Most people are similar: their specifics might be different, but the broad strokes are the same, especially the last bit.
I don’t think people envy the rich and powerful the way you’re describing, I think people envy the idea of being able to maintain a good standard of living without having to work themselves to the bone to do it.
But do the extremely rich really get to rest and enjoy their spoils the way you think? Just look at someone like Bill Gates or Elon Musk, they just keep working even though they already have far more than they can spend. Gates is especially funny because he’s working full time on figuring out how to spend his fortune. Almost like having all that money just became another problem that now requires solving.
Yes I’m sure it helps not having to worry about the rent or the grocery bills, but everything else is likely just another unnecessary luxury that’ll quickly lose its appeal once you’ve had it.
I don’t want a mansion and fifty nice cars, I want an apartment in the city in walking distance to transit and stuff to do, and then to also save more money at the end of the month than I did at the start.
Okay, see what you just did there? You went from “being able to maintain a good standard of living without having to work themselves to the bone to do it” to having an apartment in the city in walking distance to transit, and I’m willing to bet you’re not thinking of living next to skid row either. And then you want to be able to save money on top of that, too.
Basically, you blew up your expectation of maintaining an acceptable standard of living without too much stress, which is likely more achievable than you think if you’re flexible, to something that’s far out of your reach, all by inflating the meaning of “good”.
Do you NEED that apartment before you can be satisfied with your standard of living? Or is it something that would be nice to have, but not essential?
But do the extremely rich really get to rest and enjoy their spoils the way you think? Just look at someone like Bill Gates or Elon Musk, they just keep working even though they already have far more than they can spend. Gates is especially funny because he’s working full time on figuring out how to spend his fortune. Almost like having all that money just became another problem that now requires solving.
Bro, I LITERALLY just said I don’t give a shit about rich people problems. You can fuck all the way off trying to get me to sympathize with them. “Oh but it’s hard to spend all that money!” Then don’t fuck over the working class to accumulate so much money you have to work to spend it all! Or do the ethical thing and let the working class eat you. I might keep arguing with you but this is the last this particular stupidity is going to be dignified with a response.
Okay, see what you just did there? You went from “being able to maintain a good standard of living without having to work themselves to the bone to do it” to having an apartment in the city in walking distance to transit, and I’m willing to bet you’re not thinking of living next to skid row either. And then you want to be able to save money on top of that, too.
Ah, I should have clarified. American cities are built wrong and need a redo. Please refer to this educational content. I do sometimes forget that not everyone is on board with the reality that cars and car-centric infrastructure is destroying our mental health, our finances, our cities, and our world, so that’s on me. The point is, what I described is a reality in several of the dozens of places that aren’t the USA, and the fact that it’s not a reality here is the direct result of the actions of people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and just to throw another one in there, Charles Edwin Wilson. Look him up if you don’t know him, but he ranks just under Henry Kissinger in terms of worst people in American history. Just to reiterate, if your goal is to get me to feel sympathy for the owner class, give up now.
Add comment