@cowbee sparked a liberal massacre here. I’ve never seen so many bans.
Haha, they do it to themselves.
what even happened? Did they all get scratched and spew racist and homophobic shit or something?
Someone who claimed China was better off as a semi-feudal semi-colony and had family there, someone bringing up the Black Book of Communism as a source on China Bad, someone who referenced the Wikipedia page title “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” to claim China has a sole dictator, etc.
Oh I see, the typical reactionary liberal.
Yep.
Haha no it’s mods modding to your benefit, mods did it.
removing reactionary racist shit is to the benefit of marginalized people, not to the benefit of white people
Do you think that if the mods did not ban people, that I would not still be more supported than not? Why do you think it’s to my personal benefit?
Not just to his benefit, but to the benefit of workers across the globe.
When reactionaries spit anticommunist propaganda, shutting them down is a service to womankind.
I would need to see their comments before celebrating because nah nah, naaaaaaaaaaaaaah, we’re not just going to celebrate mods mass-banning opinions they don’t like.
Unless it was actually hateful or filthy in some way. “Communism is good actually” does not count as hateful.
Just go look at the modlog
The Global North is irredeemable. The vassals are as smart as the suzerain which is not at all.
true
The worst part is that in USA
Socialism = Communism
🤦♂️
Socialism is a transitional mode of production and distribution towards communism, so in a way they are a part of the same process of communist construction.
I guess to be more precise in what they are likely referring to, Americans have associated communism with the specific characteristics, real or made up, of previous or existing socialist states.
So when someone not educated in Marxist theory tries to make the distinction between “socialism” and “communism,” they’re basically saying “No, we’re not like those scary Russians and Chinese. We want to be like the civilized social democracies in Europe.” In the process they simultaneously:
- Misunderstand what socialism and communism are.
- Play into the right wing narrative that these countries, and therefore any attempt at communism, would just mean authoritarianism even, not realizing that it is neither a critical part of communism in the abstract nor something Western “democracies” are free of.
Not necessarily maliciously. This is a product of the propaganda we’ve all been exposed to for so long.
That’s fair! Understood.
Even the word “propaganda” itself has been manipulated by us into a meaningless pejorative over the last 100 years, originally a benign “spreading of ideas”.
The thing is: has Communism ever produced a good example in any country or historical period? Most religions are also based on some very good principles, but I can’t think of a country where a theocracy produced a good place for people to live. So, I don’t know… there might be a fundamental disconnect between how good the principles are and how badly they adapt to human nature? Not a critique, please believe me. I really want to be educated on this.
Everywhere communists have taken power has seen dramatic, rapid improvements for the lives of the working classes. Every single time socialism has been solidified, it has worked out for the majority of society.
Capitalism has destroyed our planet, becoming an existential threat to the human species and all other complex life on Earth.
But yeah, cumyouism bad…mmmkay👍🤤
I’m not saying Capitalism=good and I’m even open to accept Communism as the ethically superior alternative. It’s just that, while I see Communism as a good balance to unchecked neoliberalism in a democracy, when either side completely takes over, countries seem to drift toward two opposite (but also so similar) types of dictatorship.
I do see how “pure free market” is becoming a threat, as you write, and I would like to see a bit more socialism added to the democratic mix again.
The dictatorships capitalism and socialism drift towards are not dictatorships in the popular imagination, of a single individual, but instead of classes. Capitalism is the dictatorship of capitalists, who collectively decide the course of society. Socialism is the dictatorship of the workers, who also collectively decide the course of society. In both cases, there is democracy for one class and dictatorship for the rest, the primary difference is that in socialism it is the great majority of people, the ones that actually create value for society, that finally control it.
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The “dictatorship” you fear is the dictatorship of the proletariat. It’s called democracy, something that’s incompatible with capitalism.
You’re seriously saying with a straight face that you’re concerned for the right of .01% of Americans to be idle parasites sucking our blood dry? You can fuck right off, and keep fucking off.
The thing is: has Communism ever produced a good example in any country or historical period?
Depends on what you consider “good.” You can define good so strictly that no country has ever qualified. You can also define it based on the standards of historically wealthy countries with high standards of living built off of slavery and colonialism. If you do either of those, the answer is probably no.
Otherwise, if you look at socialist systems in comparison to 1) what they had before, and 2) what other options were realistically open to them, the answer is yes.
- China had a life expectancy in the 30’s that remained there through the Qing, the warlord period, and the nationalists. As soon as the communists came to power and redistributed the land to the people, life expectancy skyrocketed, doubling within a generation. In spite of those improvements, in 1980 over 90% of the population was still living in extreme poverty, which has now been entirely eradicated.
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Vietnam was ruled by a brutal colonial oppressor and fought against a corrupt far-right puppet regime, the communists won and established autonomy, raised standards of living and developed the country, and put down Pol Pot, stopping the Cambodian genocide.
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Russia under the tsar was drafting hordes of people to be thrown into the pointless meat grinder of WWI, rather than focusing on domestic development and industrialization. Even when there were reforms, the “moderates” were still insistent on staying in the war and reclaiming lost territory. Once Lenin came to power, he took the L to get out of the war and refocused on domestic development and industrialization. Standards of living rose, and the USSR rapidly transformed from a feudal backwater into a global superpower, even with bearing the brunt of the costs of WWII (which they were only able to do because of that development).
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Cuba had a corrupt gangster state that was a puppet of the US. Once the communists took over, they conducted a very successful literacy campaign and trained so many doctors that they’ve not only provided medical care to their own people, but also sent them abroad to help with humanitarian crises. They have, however, suffered a lot because of the US blockade (which has been condemned by the UN 165-7). In the past, they could have relied on the USSR for assistance, but without it many countries have had to stand on their own against US imperialism, without another option to turn to.
Sure. I’ll try to answer the best I can, but I’ll start by saying this is a very complex topic and it’s really worth reading some other materials on it depending on what you’re interested in specifically.
I’ll start with the most important point which is: Socialism isn’t just one static thing. It is essentially a belief in radical democracy. That the majority of people, the people actually doing the work in society, ought to be the ones who get to control their economic and political lives. This is hindered by the means of production, the tools and materials needed to make stuff, being owned by a handful of people who don’t work and have incentives which are in direct opposition to those of the workers. How exactly create this transition and then manage society in the future is in our hands, but it’s not a set path. It’s on us to analyze our situation and make decisions accordingly. We can make the wrong decisions, but at least we got to make them. There is no inevitable outcome of a socialist project because we’re the ones responsible for making it happen.
By contrast, capitalism is a system that is mostly controlled by market forces. Even in the idealized version of capitalism, nobody is in the driver’s seat. The world we see today was not the deliberate result of any intentional action by a person or group, but by essentially an evolutionary process by which competition filters out less profitable businesses and elevates more profitable ones. Of course, capitalist economists would say that this is a good thing and a reason for it’s “success.” They’d say, among other things, that humans cannot make decisions that are as good as the results of this “natural” process and therefore, we should let that process go in order to produce the best results for society. What a Marxist economist points out is that these forces actually result in some inherent contradictions which lead to social problems which this system cannot naturally overcome. I’d also have you ask the question: WHO has capitalism helped? Progress isn’t even. What helps some people may not help, or may even hurt others. What metric for progress can we realistically use to account for the fortunes of a capitalist, the deaths and injuries of people in sweatshops, homeless people, people in other countries exploited by imperialism, etc.?
Basically, I can tell you why capitalism will inevitably end up acting in a certain way because we know how it works. It’s almost like a math question. Socialism isn’t bound by any specific thing other than our own creativity, ingenuity, and will. Past and present socialist societies don’t represent a fixed end goal, they are history we can learn from, good and bad.
As far as those specific societies go, there’s so much reading to do on this to fully understand the topic and it’s not like I’m even an expert, but I’d push back on the idea that “socialism” has failed to create good outcomes for people. Each of these countries has their own particular history and material conditions and we should analyze them with those in mind.
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Russia was an agrarian feudal society that was way behind the west in industrial development. It also took a lot of the brunt of damage from WWII. Despite this and having to fend off antagonism by the US, they managed to develop society into a modern industrialized economy.
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China was an agrarian feudal society in it’s death throes beset by exploitation by European colonialists carving out economic spheres of influence. It fought off Imperial Japan in WWII with massive loss of life. Immediately following this, they were abandoned by their supposed allies in the west who then helped rebuild their former enemy. Despite this, they have evolved into a modern economy that rivals and in some ways surpasses the US economy. You might say that this is due to their market reforms, but the key part of those market reforms is that the state retained control over key sectors of the economy and were able to deliberately make use of foreign capital towards their own developmental ends. It’s yet to be seen if in the long term this is going to work out or if the rise of a capitalist class in China will lead to their eventual political dominance.
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Vietnam was a colony which had to fight off it’s owners, then the US along with the dictator they propped up. This was a pretty viscous war that killed many and ruined what infrastructure they had. On top of that, the use of Agent Orange has had long lasting effects. There are STILL children being born today with birth defects due to Agent Orange. After the war they were the subject of US sanctions for some time. And yet, again they became a rapidly developing economy that while not quite at the level of China or the US, has made some massive strides towards becoming a modern nation.
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Korea also dealt with the horrors of Imperial Japan during WWII followed up by a dictator and then a war by the US which absolutely leveled their infrastructure. While the US assisted the south in rebuilding, they isolated the North. They definitely haven’t had the success of countries like China, but the fact that they’ve had any progress under such harsh conditions should be considered a miracle.
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Cuba used to be a playground for foreign capitalists who owned plantations, casinos, etc. Their revolution was immediately followed by the US isolating them and repeatedly trying to sabotage them. Again, it’s hard to make much progress when you have no access to trade with the rest of the world and have to be constantly on guard against a superpower at your doorstep, but even then, they’ve managed quite a bit. Cuba has had so much success with their healthcare system that they’ve been able to send doctors around the world on humanitarian missions as one example.
Were all of these societies perfect? No of course not. People are people and they will struggle and sometimes stumble, but were/are they complete failures owing to the inherent properties of socialism? No. But again, this is all a very cursory overview of the topic. I would highly encourage you to learn more for yourself on whatever part of this interests you most.
EDIT: Also, taking this back to capitalism, it has been responsible for tons of deaths and human suffering over the course of it’s history, but people don’t really consider that suffering in the same way as they do any suffering that happened during the history of various socialist societies. This isn’t whataboutism, it’s highlighting a flaw in the way we think about these issues. A famine caused by natural conditions in a country that has had famines for all of it’s history? The failures of communism. Capitalism failing to feed large amounts of people while it produces more than enough food to do so? Apparently that’s not a problem.
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The thing is: has Communism ever produced a good example in any country or historical period?
Yes
Essentially, communism is socialism within a classless society. Star Trek is communist.
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We know what works and what doesn’t work. We have decades of real data from all over the world.
Some aspects of communism work, others do not.
Some aspects of capitalism work, others do not.
Some aspects of fascism work, others do not.
Some aspects of socialism work, other do not.
… and so on
By “work” I mean increasing the standard of living and lifespan of citizens when compared to tribal living. The bar is pretty low, really. I think we should apply what works the best, regardless of the source, but nobody listens to me.
The USA definitely abused the term “communism” into the ground for almost a century; since the creation of the CIA communism has been our enemy number one, and we’ve spread a lot of misinformation purposefully and with full knowledge.
But, we do know some things for a fact, and should work off of that. For example, standard of living was much higher in Western than Eastern Germany. But… that doesn’t mean that Eastern Germany didn’t have any benefit to its people. Just less benefit. Why? That’s the rub.
Pardon my rambling incoherent thoughts on a comic.
Some aspects of fascism work, others do not.
Hmm.
lmfao
Then you check their modlog and then you start to understand why they are being such a pissbaby over moderation.
Comment from @Cowbee on the east/west germany differences below
Comparing west and east Germany, eastern Germans enjoyed more secure lives with better safety nets, and were strapped for luxuries because the Soviet Union sought reparations for World War II. The western side was not de-Nazified like the eastern side was, and was flooded with cash and NATO armaments from the US Empire to serve as a foothold against the socialist bloc.
ETA mods are mean, good Lord now I have to go through eight steps to find the good stuff that they deleted. Lame
ETA 2- Mods have translated “be civil” rule into “I do what I want” why bother to post rules just do what you want
Quit your crying over racist shit being removed
Why should it matter which political philosophy a policy comes from? If a policy optimizes the HDI, GDP PPP, and environmental impact then we should implement it. If it fails to provide better outcomes then why continue to implement it?
You have to understand how to view the world and how it works to figure these things out effectively and in a timely manner.
There’s 8+ billion people and these governments are decades to millenia old. We definitely have the ability to test and see if we wanted. Most of the time though we let society run on pure unadulterated emotions without any care for outcomes.
That’s myopic. China, for example, takes a scientific approach to development through a Marxist-Leninist framework.
The question will always be if policies from a different political philosophy or one not yet invented or otherwise canonized are more optimal. We shouldn’t be enslaved by a particular way of thinking aka it is / isn’t in this political philosophy therefore it will / will not work / be better
That is the basis of marxism in a nutshell. It is a scientific framework to observe society and derive conclusions. it is not a set in stone fixed ideology. All real existing socialist projects were and are quite different in practice. And there is a ton of disagreements among leftists about the details. The fundamental common idea is just to create a society that works in the interest of the 99% instead of being controlled by a small capitalist class. How to go about this in detail must change over time since society and the world around us changes all the time. But policies must always be derived from empirical data and the scientific process.
Right now most policies in capitalist countries are created through a very chaotic and mostly unguided process involving competing capitalist interests and the occasional opposing social movements.
Can you link to any primary materials ideally from Marx outlining the use of the scientific method for political means? There’s all sorts of a minority controlling a majority that aren’t capitalistic, monarchy being the classic alongside dictatorships and oligarchies with varying economic structures.
Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is enormously helpful for this.
Nobody is saying all answers have been discovered, you’re confusing political philosophy as a world outlook with a particular formula and set of definite conditions. These aren’t the same thing at all, Marxism-Leninism argues against set formula.
You know how some physics experiments are difficult because of shit like particles having indeterminacy, behaving differently when observed and interference from other particles making them interact in unpredictable ways? Well, people are even worse.
That said, geopolitics is a giant live experiment, you need only pay attention and analyse. If you come up with a good enough model of undertanding, you can predict what is the likely the best course of action before taking them.
It’s a live experiment. We’re always going to be doing something and we will at least have data for that. Like Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs has shown to be far more effective than the US war on drugs in decreasing drug use.
Exactly. But knowing what worked for Portugal is just one clue. It’s also important to have an understanding of why it worked, identifying other factors that could have contributed, ways the policy can be improved, how effective it would be if implemented in vastly different countries ways to adapt policies to those countries, and even expand the concept beyond drugs.
Imagine a country is going through terrible times and decides to implement some radical austerity measures, sell public companies, defund public services, do all the stuff the IMF loves. Or maybe the opposite, the country nationalizes everything and expels all foreign companies. Let’s say a decade or two later the country starts really prospering. It would be unwise to assume this is just universal without proper understanding the mechanics of what happened.
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why I can’t see the current iteration of Democracy to be of value for the future. Humans value knee jerk responses too much even if iys to the dentriment of the ir foot flying off.
An educated society is just too improbable when the IQ of the average person is on a range tather than a fixed variable.__
does it have billionaires
- yes - It is capitalist
- no - it may be communist or socialist
No? What determines if a country is capitalist or socialist is if private or social ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, and if capitalists or workers control the state. It isn’t based on an arbitrary level of wealth held by any given individual.
If you have billionaires, whatever policies you have implemented are defunct and flawed
No? China is the most rapidly developing socialist country in the world, the working classes there see the most rapid uplifting in quality of life in history. Do you think China would be in a better position if they had no capitalists at all, even in underdeveloped sectors where markets legitimately do aid in developing the productive forces?
So if the dollar were to undergo enough inflation, policies in other countries would suddenly become capitalist.
I wish you people would actually think about what you say even a little
umm don’t you know other countries don’t use dollars?? they have their own currencies! Stupid american, doesn’t even know other money exists. next you’ll probably say something like sweden isn’t socialism
flawed yes but not defunct. Every system created by humans is flawed. The usual process with pretty much everything in life is to try to improve things iteratively over time. China is well aware that the market reforms in the 80ies and 90ies created inequalities and billionaires. But it also created massive amounts of wealth and made china the second biggest economy in the world. Right now one of their stated goals is to reduce that inequality moving forward. I personally am quite confident that they will succeed given their track record of achieving their 5 year plan goals.
Love to have my definitions be dependant on the current value of the USD.
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Life expectancy doubled in China under Mao. Footbinding was ended, industrialization rapidly expanded, and famine was permanently ended. China was a semi-feudal backwater before the communists took charge and began restoring the sovereignty of China.
For anyone curious, they are, according to themselves, a Taiwanese capitalist:
I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I was well in my 30s. Prior to that, I worked at a very big retail bank and worked from a teller to a regional manager with over 220 stores under me.
You know what. I fucking hated every moment of that job.
I quit after my mom passed and they gave me 2 weeks off and then I was back into the grind.
I took 1 year off and decided to go into tech. The one place I enjoyed doing on my spare time.
I got my first tech job at 36. And since then have owned my own company and worked for big corporate companies.
You sorta have to try things and hate things before you know what you want.
It makes perfect, logical sense for OP whose background is in finance and has owned a business to despise socialism. This is their bias.
Well, then it’s settled!
Communism killed a few members of your family, while capitalism kills half a million people every year (lowest possible estimate).
Clearly capitalism is the best we’ve got.
Oh no did somebody take away your egg monopoly?
Yeah? And I’m the Queen of Spain. Anything is possible when you just make shit up.
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Even Wikipedia, which is biased towards western liberalism, disagrees with you:
Deaths by famine
The exact number of deaths by famine is difficult to determine, and estimates range from 15 million to 55 million people.[4][93][94] Because of the uncertainties which are involved in estimating the number of deaths which were caused by the failure of the Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine and because of the uncertainties which are involved in estimating the numbers of deaths which were caused by other famines, it is difficult to compare the severity of different famines. If an estimate of 30 million deaths is accepted, the failure of the Great Leap Forward caused the deadliest famine in the history of China, and it also caused the deadliest famine in human history.[95][96] This extremely high loss of human lives was partially caused by China’s large population. To put things into absolute and relative numerical perspective: in the Great Irish Famine, approximately 1 million people[97] out of a total population of 8 million people died, or 12.5% of Ireland’s entire population. If approximately 23 million people out of a total population of 650 million people died during the Great Chinese Famine, the percentage would be 3.5%.[4] Hence, the famine during the Great Leap Forward had the highest absolute death toll, though not the highest relative (percentage) one.
40-70 million
15-55 million
This actually corroborates john_save_america’s comment, because the ranges overlap.
The ranges overlap, but no scholar actually believes the 70 million number, and actual evidence backs numbers closer to 15 million. The history of famines in China is heavily politicized in the west to discredit socialism.
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Margolin is one of the crank historians caught making up numbers in the Black Book of Communism, which famously included non-births as deaths, as well as Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of communism.” Liberalism only cares about the freedom of private property and the capitalist class, workers be damned and enslaved.
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Your author is a propagandist with bad data, that’s the point. You referenced a contributor caught lying.
What the fuck does that have to do with my source? I didn’t cite the Black Book of Communism.
Because your source was caught making up claims in it?
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The truth is that life expectancy doubled in China under Mao. Anyone saying life was made worse by the communists is either extremely ignorant, or purely looking at it from the perspective of the former ruling class.
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Margolin is one of the crank historians caught making up numbers in the Black Book of Communism, which famously included non-births as deaths, as well as Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of communism.” The benefits of socialism are immediately obvious when looking at the numbers:
Life expectancy from birth doubled under Mao, and the country was turned from a semi-feudal backwater ex-colony into a rising power.
its funny that all the life expectancies shot up in the 1940s, as thats when penicillin went into mass production and was widely implemented
Not evenly. China was emerging from civil war and semi-feudalism in 1949, it had no way to get mass amounts of insulin nor produce them until later. Addressing economic problems improved access to necessities for the majority of society.
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Then why didn’t life expectancy increase under the ROC?
Yes, any country can reap large benefits from industrialization and modern medicine, regardless of the economic system. But communists were the only major faction in China pushing for those things. Communists always push for those things when they aren’t present, while for capitalists the record is much more spotty.
It was the communists that saw life expectancy dramatically rise as to what came before. You seem to have pivoted from the question of whether or not socialism is good to whether or not the same benefits could have been made without socialism, or in other words you have conceded that socialism was a positive.
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Accusing communists of not reading books is very funny. We’re like the only ones that read books.
The last time I pressed a lib on recommending theory, they just said, “a text book” lmao.
Does Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners count, or is it too commie?
Definitely too commie for them. But the question isn’t whether lib theory exists, but whether they actually read it.
The vast majority of liberals get their ideas passively, from cultural hegemony. They don’t read books on politics because they think they already have all the answers, that it’s all simple and obvious. Just support “freedom” and oppose “authoritarianism,” and there’s no need to actually deconstruct and examine those concepts, because it’s “obvious” what they mean.
It’s like, hell, I’ve even read shit by Giovanni Gentile, who laid out the ideological foundations of fascism, in the hope of finding a coherent formation of that ideology for the sake of knowing the enemy. But I did so knowing that actual fascists would never read that nerd shit. What they actually engage with are conspiracy theories, rage bait, incoherent rants, shit like that. It’s the same way, we can seek out liberal theory to try to grasp some insight of the latent assumptions liberals are operating under, but it’s only so useful when they themselves don’t read it, when they aren’t even consciously aware of those assumptions.
If you try to ask them something that exposes a hole in their ideology, they’ll just ignore it, refuse to answer, or change the subject. They never step back and actually think about what they believe. It’s not something they’re interested in. Instead, they’re immersed in the soup of current events, just reacting to the current thing, and their opinions are formed around a combination of ideas absorbed from cultural hegemony, and what the news tells them to think about them.
Oh fully agreed! Common sense is just ruling class ideology, and this applies to capitalism and socialism alike.
I’ve read quite a few books on communist history, and China is a particular area of interest for me given that they are the biggest currently-standing socialist country with the longest history of socialism. Do you have any recommendations? For what it’s worth, equating communists to the Nazis is a form of Holocaust trivialization, and is a core component of Double Genocide Theory. I’m not sure I put much stake in the views of someone that lets their hatred of communism trivialize the Holocaust, but I’m always interested in exploring dissenting views, if only to reinforce or sharpen my own existing views.
Sorry, I like to look at empirical evidence instead of random anecdotes shat out online. Empirically:
- The Chinese government has one of the highest approval ratings worldwide
- The Chinese people have immense trust in their democracy
- The CPC has overseen massive improvements in QoL, life expectancy, literacy, and basically all measures of development
- The CPC has overseen the uplifting of hundreds of millions out of poverty
Of course you will never engage with these facts because they conflict with the propaganda that has indoctrinated you from birth. You will never read a book or jump through hoops to do any research on your own, you will instead gladly believe every tale told to you about the horrible orient. You are no better than a nazi who fervently bays for another holocaust.
yeah ok man not like Denmark has a history of reprehensible shit like repressing the inuit on Greenland with sterilization and kidnapping children. A lot of Danish people get really possessive with Greenland whenever the locals want independence and it’s gross.
Not to mention how Denmark is a big supporter of “Israel” and love being a spy network against other European countries for the CIA.
China wasn’t Communist
China has been socialist since 1949.
how come it has billionaires then
Because it has private property in the marketized sectors of the economy. The CPC takes a Marxist view of economics that sees markets as progressive with respect to decentralized, underdeveloped production, and regressive with respect to large scale production. The commanding heights of the economy are overwhelmingly socially owned, while developing sectors are marketized to accelerate the process of socialization, which speeds up the effective rate of collectivization.
its just the “for progress” excuse.
You don’t need billionaires or exploitation of workers for progress
You don’t need them for progress, sure, but marketizing underdeveloped sectors sure benefits workers more than dogmatically treating planned economy as the most effective in all cases at all levels of development. China already tried your approach under the Gang of Four, and this was seen as a misstep.
I mean… Compare the outccomes of west and east germany… History isn’t in communism’s favor, at all…
Comparing west and east Germany, eastern Germans enjoyed more secure lives with better safety nets, and were strapped for luxuries because the Soviet Union sought reparations for World War II. The western side was not de-Nazified like the eastern side was, and was flooded with cash and NATO armaments from the US Empire to serve as a foothold against the socialist bloc.
Lmao what a dumbass statement.
- East Germany was not communist, there has never been a nation even claiming to be communist. East Germany was socialist
- Among the people who lived in the GDR there is general agreement life was better back then
- You have plenty of examples of succesful socialist nations, like China, Cuba, Vietnam and more
- East Germanys downfall came with the Union of the two nations when capitalists made up a bunch of non-existent debt in order to buy state infrastructure for cheap
- Read “Stasi state or socialist paradise” instead of hallucinating more half-remembered propaganda from your childhood indoctrination.
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China and Vietnam are democratic countries that elect delegates from councils to represent their constituents.
America arms over 80% of dictatorship globally, so it would seem we are objectively the least democratic nation in the world.
“Democracy” to us has always been a selective privilege enjoyed on the backs of the oppressed. It’s only a cudgel we weaponize to steal natural resources.
And this didn’t start with Trump.
You’re just making shit up now. Well, you were before as well, but you’re also doing it now.
China and Vietnam are both democracies. Even if they did not have elections, which they do, they would not be dictatorships, since power is not consolidated with one individual. The executive in China is in fact far less powerful than the executive in the US, for example. I don’t know much about the political institutions of the rest of SEA, but I doubt you do either.
I would love to live in China. Would be nice to experience competent governance and institutions that actually exist to serve the people.
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Try reading the pages you’re linking. The dictatorship of the proletariat means democracy for workers, no democracy for capitalists. It means the class of the proletariat makes up the dictator of society, not an individual dictator. Wikipedia literally states this in the first paragraph:
People’s democratic dictatorship is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) term to describe the state system of the People’s Republic of China. The premise of the people’s democratic dictatorship is that it is led by the working class, based on the alliance of workers and peasants, and the system exercises democracy over the people who constitute the vast majority of the national population, while perceived hostile elements are subject to dictatorship.[1] The CCP and state represent and act on behalf of the people, but in the preservation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and possess and may use coercive powers against perceived reactionary forces.[2]
As for Xinjiang, see Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation.
Damn I seem to have triggered all the Chinese fanboys with this
Me when I say something wrong and people try to educate me: lol trigurd tha libruls
They literally define themselves as a dictatorship of the proletariat, idk what to tell y’all
Holy shit lmao, this might be the funniest thing a halfwit like you could write. What a massive tell. I could not imagine ever showing my ass like this, that might be the dumbest thing Ive ever seen. I can’t even think of an analogy that would help you understand how fucking stupid the thing you wrote is. Please do some basic reading on marxism before you open your mouth on the subject next time. By your own logic literally every country is a dictatorship https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dictatorship_of_the_bourgeoisie
Go back to reddit.
What’s the problem? I literally just shared sources? Or am I not allowed to partake in this specific echo chamber?
you have done what every shitlib has done every time; linking to wikipedia articles without any specification.
You didn’t even read the articles, you just googled this shit and called it a day.
Read the articles you shared you immense oaf
No, it’s because you’re stupid and clearly lack most kinds of comprehension. Tell me, do you hold your breath when you type?
That’s what my middle school history teacher said, who was also my gym coach. 🤡
There is very big difference between socialism and communism. Communism is an idea and pretty idea but in this world it don’t work because people are “not always good” and socialism is bad try to make communism.
Socialism is a transition between capitalism and communism where social ownership is the rising aspect of society and the working class runs the state. Communism is a fully collectivized global economy. Neither socialism or communism require everyone to be “good.”
Communism is I think fragile. When it works then not so much but it’s almost impossible to build that big and stable community.
Communism has not existed yet, so I see no reason for you to believe it to be almost impossible to build.
Primitive communism existed for hundreds of thousands of years though.
The term was used to show how, through development, future structures “rhyme” with those in the past. Early communalism, as I prefer to call it, shares in common with communism classless, stateless, and moneyless society, but the key difference is the scale and the level of development of the productive forces. The sheer difference in what we use to produce what we need, and how we distribute it, makes these entirely distinct modes of production and distribution.
China has a communist government and they seem to be doing fine, no?
China has a fascist government that cosplays as communist.
You clearly don’t understand what fascism means, nor are you familiar with how China operates at any level
No? China has a communist government over a socialist system. The working classes run the state, and social ownership is the principal aspect of its economy. Fascism would be a bourgeois-run state with private ownership supplemented by state control.
Oh, so the fascism one is the United States.
Better not tell conservatives. Jk, as if they’d think about this comment.
Yes, the US is fascist.
Only one of those two countries has concentration camps, and it aint china
In what way is China “fascist”?
Let me guess: you listened to a German christian fundamentalist, who has never set a foot on Xinjiang, hallucinate lies about Uygurs in concentration camps?
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oh wow, could’ve fooled me! which one is it then? or have you hallucinated some brand new baseless accusations?
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The majority of those who lived in socialism regret its fall. Cool anecdote, but it disagrees with consistent polling from those who actually lived in it. Looking at countries like China, socialism clearly does work today, hence why it is increasingly relevant.
Your Wikipedia article does not support your point. Give it a read.
I’m not so much against socialism, as it’s commonly understood in the US, as I am communism or unfettered capitalism.
It does support it, check the “polling history” section. With few exceptions like Estonia, those with living memory of socialism support it. Socialism as it exists in the real world is a transitional system towards communism, the USSR was socialist, and did not reach communism as communism is a global system.
Fine. I’ll do it for you. From your source. Checks support your assertion, Xs do not.
✅A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 66% of Armenians thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, the highest of any country surveyed
❌A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 31% of Azerbaijanis thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 44% who thought it was beneficial.
✅Belarus is complicated but currently leans your way
❌In a 2017 survey, 75% of Estonians said the dissolution of the USSR was a good thing, compared to only 15% who said it was a bad thing
❌A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 33% of Georgians thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 37% who thought it was good… Other polls mentioned, same results
🟰2013 Gallup survey showed that 25% of Kazakhs thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 45% who thought it In a 2016 survey, around 60% of Kazakhs above the age of 35 believed life was better under the USSR.
✅2013 Gallup survey showed that 61% of Kyrgyz thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 16% who thought it was beneficial.
❌ In a 2017 Pew survey, 30% of Latvians said the dissolution of the USSR was a bad thing, while 53% said it was a good thing.
❌In 2017, Pew survey showed that 62% of Lithuanians believed the dissolution of the USSR was a good thing, compared to 23% who said it was a bad thing.
✅ A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 42% of thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 26% who thought it was beneficial.
✅ A 2013 Gallup survey showed that 52% of Tajiks thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, compared to 27% who thought it was beneficial.
❌ A 2013 Gallup survey showed that only 8% of Turkmen thought the dissolution of the USSR was harmful, the lowest of any country surveyed, compared to 62% who thought it was beneficial.
❌ A September–October 2022 poll by the Razumkov Center found that nearly 90% of Ukrainians did not want to restore the USSR.
❌ However, in 2016, only 4% of Uzbeks believed life was better under the USSR.
✅ And Russians do in fact want their empire back.
Cool, now break it down by population totals rather than pretending each country has an equal population. Further, it’s important to separate those raised before and after the dissolution of socialism, not just looking at population totals, where later polls have more people born after the dissolution and more people who lived in it dead and no longer able to answer.
The USSR was not a “Russian Empire,” lmao.
How about you do it this time 🤣.
You set the terms, you delivered the source, I just parsed it in exactly the way you originally started it should be. Move your own goalposts and do your own math.
You did not actually follow the terms, though. It’s trivial to extrapolate the data and compare to population sizes. Using the latest data and napkin math, over 51% of people total disapprove of the dissolution of the USSR, and we also know that those who lived in socialism tend to rate it higher based on separate polling targeting age groups, so it’s logical to assume this number is a lowball.
Imo, the capitalist economy isn’t fair for the majority, communism doesn’t work as intended but if you do true socialism it works best. Still have to deal with have and have nots but it should be way less in theory then what we got now
Why doesn’t communism “work as intended?” What is “true socialism?”
For the love of god China is not socialist
Why would it not be? Social ownership is the principal aspect of its economy, and the working class controls the state. In Marxist terms, it’s pretty clearly socialist.
State ownership isn’t socialism (Engels explicitly pointed out that nationalized industry under a capitalist mode of production just turns the state into a collective capitalist). China’s economy still runs on wage labor, commodity production, capital accumulation, and a massive billionaire class extracting surplus value from workers. Plus, you can’t claim the working class controls the state when independent unions are banned, strikes are suppressed, and private CEOs literally sit in the national legislature. It’s state capitalism.
Also, obligatory, I’m calling my sandwich I’m about to eat Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, so it must be a socialist sandwich. Can’t refute that.
State ownership under a capitalist state is not socialism, correct. Private ownership under a socialist state is not capitalism either. You are entirely missing the point of Engels in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Socialism is a transitional mode of production and distribution between capitalism and communism, characterized by social ownership as the principal aspect, ie rising and dominant, aspect of the economy and the working class as in control of the state. Both apply to China right now. The path of socialist construction in China utilizes a Marxist understanding of economics that sees the material basis of markets as decentralized and underdeveloped production, and the material basis of planned economy as highly developed and centralized production.
China maintains social ownership of the commanding heights of the economy which have already reached monopoly scale, and employs controlled marketization to accelerate the development of underdeveloped industry to create the basis for social ownership through development. The CPC stands at the top, a working class party with a strong basis in Marxism-Leninism with Xi Jinping Thought, and uses this dominance of the state to restrict the capitalists from forming a politically unified and coherent class that could undermine this socialist construction and derail it.
Here’s a diagram of that “stages of socialism:”
They are currently developing towards the intermediate stage, with plans to reach it by 2049. That means they are already socialist, just developing towards higher stages of socialism.
As for independent unions, why is the independence of a union from the socialist system a good thing? There is already a massive federation of trade unions, independence from this creates a fulcrum by which the capitalists could leverage against the system. You have a liberal idea of socialism that envisions it as just as disunified and disorganized as capitalism, but socialism is a process of collectivizing. Capitalists are barred from the highest levels of the CPC, and are prevented from ever having a large presence in it.
nationalized industry under a capitalist mode of production just turns the state into a collective capitalist
Besides the fact that Engels saw “state capitalism” as he defined it as a positive, final stage of capitalism (he was wrong on that since the transition to socialism has always occurred in feudal countries, not in the core countries where capitalism is strongest, but that discussion is better suited to lemmygrad or hexbear), as Lenin and later socialist leaders noted, state capitalism has different potential definitions:
“For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly”
- Marx
“The state capitalism, which is one of the principal aspects of the New Economic Policy, is, under Soviet power, a form of capitalism that is deliberately permitted and restricted by the working class. Our state capitalism differs essentially from the state capitalism in countries that have bourgeois governments in that the state with us is represented not by the bourgeoisie, but by the proletariat, who has succeeded in winning the full confidence of the peasantry.“
- Lenin
None of these socialist thinkers meant the term to be used in the ultraleft definition you’re using, as a tool to demonize actually exist socialist states and decry them as “not socialist enough”.
China’s economy still runs on wage labor, commodity production, capital accumulation,
Good, developing the productive forces, building a thriving socialist market economy and putting that capital to use to serve the whole people, is the goal of every current socialist state.
massive billionaire class extracting surplus value
As I linked below, the PRC is a mixed economy, where the publicly owned and planned sector predominates, and there is also a restricted private / capitalist sector. I don’t expect an ultraleft to be familiar with the “bargain” strategy, but having a capitalist sector within an overall planned economy, has resulted in the export of tech and production to China, with it becoming an economic powerhouse and primary trading partner for most of the world, and real wages rising 4x in the past 30 years alone. The limited and short term wage exploitation in the private sector (in reality, its a small expense to buy off private capital and keep them operating within the socialist legal framework), has under a socialist government resulted in those incredible economic gains, whereas the capitalist 3rd world is still writhing in poverty, and completely at the mercy of western finance capital.
Plus, you can’t claim the working class controls the state when independent unions are banned, strikes are suppressed,
False. The PRC even supports more strikes than nearly any other country, which clearly irks the western finance rag I linked. Also, people don’t have much reason to strike because of the people’s congresses in nearly every workplace, and the wages rising so much recently. They of course don’t allow US-sponsored strikes and slowdowns, which do happen occasionally.
private CEOs literally sit in the national legislature
A small number of them do, which of course is a good thing if you want to make sure that they’re working towards the betterment of the country, and to avoid them organizing an opposition. Regardless, they do not control the state, and capital has no enshrined rights, especially to organize.
If you’re going to demonize socialist countries in the future, at least post sources for your claims.
Wrong.
Is China State Capitalist?
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn’t China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn’t it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
- What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
- How is SWCC not revisionist? How is it any different from Gorbachev’s market reforms?, 2
- Domenico Losurdo - is China state capitalist?, 2
- Did Lenin say anything about Market Socialism, or productivism?
- Vijay Prashad - Is China capitalist?
- Why do Chinese billionaires keep ending up in prison? Why are many billionaires and CEOs going missing? China sentences Ex-Chairman of a major bank, guilty of embezzling ~$100M USD, to death in 2019.
- China cracks down on billionaires - Ben Norton interviews Ian Goodrum
- Do capitalists control the communist party? No, pic
- How the State runs business in China.
- 50% of the economy is in the socialist public sector and directly follows the plan (40% if you ignore the agricultural sector). 20 to 30% is inside the state capitalist sector, which is the sector partially or totally owned by domestic capitalists but run by the CPC or by local workers councils. The rest is made up of the small bourgeois ownership like in the NEP.
- China pushing forward Marxist training in colleges, attracts 1M students.
- China tells the US that it has no plans to weaken the role of its State-Owned-Enterprises, one of the US’s main demands in the trade war. “Beijing plans to make the state economy stronger, bigger, and better.”
My wife grew up in a post-communist Eastern Europe. I’ll tell you who hates communism more than Republicans, people who lived under it.
yeah people who were born and lived in a country without communism and going through capitalist plunder sure do think it’s communism’s fault.
I think it’s capitalisms fault, and I said as much. 🤷♂️
Your CIA anti-communist playbook is really easy to see through.
Lmao
Most people misunderstand Communism like how people misunderstand Cognitive Dissonance. They know how to act towards it and around it, without understanding that they’re very mistaken.
Republicans* in a nutshell.
And also other liberals.
Old Guard/corporate liberals, maybe.
Otherwise known as the big, historic players in the DNC.
“Liberal” is a pretty wide net that includes some people that fit your description and some people that do not.
Can you name one pro-communism liberal?
EDIT: I will respond with one of either “that’s not a liberal” or “they’re not in favor of communism”
What flavor of “communism?” I’ve been told various definitions.
For starters, are you the type to say communism and socialism are synonyms? If so, then I’d point to AOC/Bernie/etc. of the DSA.
Neither Bernie nor AOC are pro-communism.
Also communism is not socialism.
So you’re just going to side-step the question?
I guess I’ll continue to soap-box for those who are still reading and not hostile (none, by the looks of the votes) then:
I used to think “communism” was not the same as “socialism” until I was told by a communist (I think on lemmy.ml? Maybe it was Twitch?) that Karl Marx and other communist or socialist academics technically never made an academic distinction between the two.
My perception before that date was that “socialism” is kinda like a direction on a continuum (the opposite direction from “capitalism,” more or less, but more strictly speaking the opposite of “individualism” or “selfishness”), while “communism” was the destination, typically explained as an anarchist/stateless society resembling ancient societies who had literally no form of measuring trade discrepancies (e.g. currency), and would just give what extra goods they produced freely to those they believed needed it and vice versa, i.e. the Marxian mantra of “from those based on their ability, to those based on their need.”
That’s just paraphrasing off the cuff of my former understanding until I was told otherwise by someone who very much seemed to be much more educated on the topic, and you’re free to correct me/them at any point.
… or you could just dodge the discussion again.
Marx made the distinction between “lower-stage” and “higher-stage” communism. Marxists since Marx have clarified this lower stage to be socialism, and that this stage itself has stages. Here’s a diagram by Cheng Enfu:
Communism in the Marxist conception and anarchism are in essense polar opposites, communism is a fully collectivized global system while anarchism is a fully communalized decentralized system. Through a scientifically planned economy with advanced productive forces, everyone’s needs are met in communism.
I don’t know what “flavor” you’re looking for. Apparently you have some kind of set of related but different ideas that in your head form the notion of communism. And apparently this notion leads you to think that Bernie or AOC are in favor of communism. But neither of them is in favor of anything that even remotely resembles any commonly accepted definition of communism.
Communism is socialism without the socially liberal aspects… go ahead and vote for your strongdaddy because he’ll subsidize your house, but watch out when you try to complain that the river was polluted by the state electrical company.
Ask an anticommunist to describe communism…
Socialism is a transitional mode of production and distribution between capitalism and communism, characterized by the working class as dominant and social ownership as rising and dominant. Communism is a fully collectivized society devoid of classes. “Social liberalism” has nothing at all to do with distinguishing the two, in fact communism will be more socially progressive than socialism as social struggles continue into socialism.
The ‘transitional’ argument is basically ‘bigdaddy promises he’ll make a utopia if we grant him totalitarian control’
No? The transitional argument is that communism requires both highly developed productive forces, and collectivization of all of these highly developed productive forces. The socialist transitional period requires intense development of underdeveloped production, as well as building the necessary administration for planned economy, both of which take time.
The idea of “bigdaddy” is nonsense, and isn’t found in either Marxism-Leninism in theory or in practice. There has not been a ceding of control to socialist leadership, but instead an expansion of democratization to the working classes, historically. The idea that MLs want a big strongman to push a button and delete all administration is a farce of both socialist construction and what communism looks like, as communism retains administration.
Utopia is also not promised, Marxists rail against utopianism.
Please be serious here, throughout your comments here you’ve done nothing but demonstrate a lack of care for the subject matter and wax poetic about lottery-voting while ignoring the crux of the argument.
I simply argue that a single party with unilateral control creates a totalitarian dictatorial state. and totalitarian states lead to accelerated suffering.
I also argue this is true for two party systems. and proposes a system based on demographic representation with a safe guard to remove bad actors from political power. under my proposal, the state could choose to take control over the means of production if enough people chose. I welcome new forms of political ideas, not single minded adherence to party dogma.
and ‘waxing poetic’ would require me to be much less specific than I have been.
you are waxing poetic with these strange, shifting and amorphous ideas of “class”, and “transitional periods” while providing no concrete roadmap for how unilateral single party control of a state elevates the workers to control over the means of production.
in reality it simply shifts control over the means of production to cronyism. single-party rule creates a party-class and a working class, and the party-class is in no way beholden to the working class.
Nobody is arguing for a party to have unilateral and unaccountable power. You are deeply confusing how unitary socialist democracy works by alienating the party from the rest of the people, and drawing a hard line between democratic participation in society and the party itself.
Class is not shifting or amorphous. Class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production.
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Capitalists own the means of production individually.
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Workers sell their labor power.
In socialism, workers jointly own the means of production.
You are confusing the type of labor with class itself, which makes it amorphous.
Transition is also not shifting or amorphous. Between capitalism, where there is privatized means of production, and communism, where all production is planned and socially owned, is a period where the means of production need to be advanced enough to accommodate social planning, and administration needs to be advanced enough to facilitate it.
You keep separating the party from the people by erasing their shared relations to ownership of the means of production. The party is of, by, and for the working class, and is accountable to the rest of the working class.
“advanced enough to accommodate social planning, and administration needs to be advanced enough to facilitate it.” -what qualifies as advanced enough? that is amorphous. “You keep separating the party from the people by erasing their shared relations to ownership of the means of production. The party is of, by, and for the working class, and is accountable to the rest of the working class.” -no the party is separating the party from the people by removing any means of peaceful transition of power except through mandatory, open poll, party controlled elections of exclusively party members and through strict control of party membership.
Regarding how advanced production needs to be for social planning, it must not be an impedement for production. Essentially, by the point that decentralized production has transitioned to monopoly, markets have played their role. That’s why in a socialist country like China, the commanding heights are socially owned, while for developing industries these are privately owned to a large degree. At the monopoly level, privatization impedes progress.
As for your bit on political parties, you’re continuing to argue against a caricature you invented in your head. Nobody has stated that elections must be controlled or exclusively of party membership. You have to argue against a strawman, because your point collapses when confronted with reality.
Please be serious.
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you’re right, should have pressed the big “communism now” button instead of dealing with complex processes, such as the development of the productive forces, silly commies
Straw man, ad-hom, red herring.
We got em all here folks, get your fallacies!
We promise there will be absolutely no substance in our comments, just fallacies! Come one come all down to Fallacy Warehouse!!
We count on your ignorance to spread our fallacies without recognition, and get an extra special 25% off if you haven’t read a book this year!!
Come on down!!
I don’t think it’s a fallacy, Lenin did not carry out with a communist state and they got Stalin.
they got Stalin.
whom western liberals will never, ever forgive for beating up their friends in 1945
Please don’t tell me you don’t believe in the Graeat Purge and the consequent mass deportations carried by the NKVD.
“Believe in”? Like, as an article of faith?
Please don’t tell me you believe in the liberation of Auschwitz and the toppling of Nazi Germany, I guess?
Lenin established a socialist state, and Stalin was the second head of state in said socialist state. They did not reach communism, as communism must be global and fully collectivized, but they did reach socialism as a transitional state between capitalism and communism.
This
The transitional argument is that communism requires both highly developed productive forces, and collectivization of all of these highly developed productive forces. The socialist transitional period requires intense development of underdeveloped production, as well as building the necessary administration for planned economy, both of which take time.
The idea of “bigdaddy” is nonsense, and isn’t found in either Marxism-Leninism in theory or in practice. There has not been a ceding of control to socialist leadership, but instead an expansion of democratization to the working classes, historically. The idea that MLs want a big strongman to push a button and delete all administration is a farce of both socialist construction and what communism looks like, as communism retains administration.
They already do that under capitalism dumbass
And no, socialism isn’t just “libbed up commuism”. In both cases the workers own the state. Everything else is a fucking larp
Depends on what you mean by communism, if you mean single party rule with a near totalitarian dictator at the helm then that is bad, but if you mean socialist policies that put workers well being at the forefront of government policy then that is good.
Basically, marx good, lenin badNo part of Leninism, in theory or practice, supports the idea of a single, near-totalitarian dictator. The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” originates in the era of Marx, and refers not to any individual dictator, but the working class itself as the rulers, makers, and dictators of society. The heads of state in socialist countries have all been selected with democratic processes, be they approval votes, votes based on elected delegates, etc. The heads of state have not had absolute power either, but instead often have less power than, say, the US head of state.
The necessity of a single party is because socialism is, in effect, a unitary system meant to represent a single class, the working class. Democratic centralism does not mean the absence of democracy, but the absence of organized factionalism and opposition within the socialist system. The necessity of a single system was already present with Marx, the advance of the vanguard path to socialism by Lenin was made based on Marxist understandings of class and the state.
If you believe Lenin is bad, then thinking Marx was good is hypocritical. Your issues with Lenin are based on a combination of sanitizing the views of Marx and accepting bourgeois misdirection about existing socialism as fact. If you truly believe Lenin was bad, then Marxism itself should also be seen as bad.
Ok, then marx bad too, single party rule is a horrible idea that consolidates power in a new class if elites.
Your’e just trading capitalist robber barrons for party leaders, it’s the same thing, different name.
Rule of law should derive from mandate from he masses, not a small group of party officials or powerful politically aspiring billionaires.
Single party rule is bad, two party rule is bad, the people should be represented by an amalgam of many varying policy views and have the ability to quickly remove politicians who fail to represent the people effectively.
That’s not how class works, or the state. Class is not merely a level of power, but a social relationship, to ownership of the means of production and distribution. In any given class society, this distributes society into two broad classes, with various subcategories. The state is a result of this class struggle, and represents the ruling class of society, based on which class owns the commanding heights of the economy.
In socialism, the commanding heights are socially owned. Administrators do not have unique relations of ownership, but instead occupy socially necessary roles for the continuation of advancing production and distribution. In such a unified system, competing political parties do not at all prevent corruption, they enable it and accelerate it. The idea that decentralized competition in the political sphere is made to support a collectivized system is a bourgeois worldview of politics that sees the mechanisms of capitalism as eternal, rather than specific.
Contrasting with capitalism, the competition in the political sphere is the competition of the ruling class, which does not seek collectivization but instead a bigger individual slice of the pie. Where socialist administrators seek further collectivization and unification, capitalist administrators represent this or that wing of the capitalist class, which all fights in unity to preserve private property, and against each other for a bigger slice of the pie.
Socialist political parties are organizations of the most advanced of the working class politically. The most active, the most trained, the most developed. This does not make them a distinct class, this is a bourgeois view of class. Instead, it makes them occupy the social role of “proletarian intellectual” to borrow from Gramsci, which isn’t a statement on intelligence at scale, but the social role they play in determining and shaping the thought of the entire proletariat as a class.
How do you envision socialism, with multiple political parties, not devolving into factionalism and breaking-up of society in a manner that allows the bourgeoisie to resurge?
giving one group of people a different level of power to influence policy than another creates a class, to pretend like there wasn’t nepotism or quid pro quo in the soviet union is to ignore the reality of human behavior and history.
as we see with systems with one political ideology, including the american capitalist system, a positive feedback loop commonly occurs that accelerates suffering, see the great famine in China, and the american healthcare system today. these systems appear because the ruling class ingrains itself into power and controls cultural ideas through propaganda. for example, the american anti-communist/anti-socialist propaganda that this meme references. communism and socialism are not the boogey-men that the capitalist politicians and billionaires want the american people to think they are. if we had a substantial communist party and socialist party in congress, this propaganda would be seen as ridiculous by most americans, because they would see that good that these political ideas do because they would have examples of it on the daily.
I would propose a lottery: firstly, a mandatory, standardized civics course for all citizens that teaches varying political theories and views and their historical contexts.
all voting age citizens who have passed their civics curriculum would be eligible to hold office in the city/county/district/state they live in. a percentage (for sake of argument let’s say 1% of the constituency) of individuals would be selected, once selected they would present their policy platform. a ranked choice vote is held, the selected individuals are ranked by the voting age citizens and one is elected to office (run-offs would be held like any ranked choice election) the officer would serve a term of (for sake of argument let’s say one year), at the end of which a vote-to-keep is held where their constituency would have one checkbox per office again, a checked box is a vote-to-keep their officer in their seat. if they do not receive a number of votes (lets say for purpose of argument 50%) they are removed and can never hold office again and a new lottery is held to select a new officer from the pool of eligible individuals.
a vote-of-no-confidence would also be available to the people to remove officers at anytime that a petition for such passes (for sake of argument lets say the petition requires 25% of the constituency) (for sake of argument let’s say 50% passes)
to account for competency, officers who have retained their office would be granted another ballet in the hat so-to-speak to increase their odds of attaining higher office and increasing overall competency in the electorate.
benefits: this would create a more accurate representative government as the lottery effectively selects a sample of the electorate to hold office, meaning class divisions and personal backgrounds within the population are equally represented in the halls of government. this puts the people directly in the hands of power, the lottery nearly removes any form of nepotism as people are selected at random, not based on who they know or how much money they have. (nepotism within the halls of government would still happen as officers work together in quid pro quo dealings but officers who fail to improve the lives of their constituency would be easily removed thanks to the vote-of-no-confidence) and as the system of democracy is based on coalitions and compromises, this is expected behavior.
this system nearly removes party politics from everyday people’s lives. no more months long political campaigns with misinformation, no more special interested packing races with money. this would greatly increase the prevalence of new political ideas as more people from more varying backgrounds would have access to power, as increasing the amount of legislation designed to directly improve the lives of the largest demographics in the country.
what if someone doesn’t want to do the job? they can elect to avoid the lottery for any reason, we are selecting from a pool of nearly the entire population of the country, we have plenty of willing participants. this is also why a vote-of-no-confidence can work, plenty of competition for the job.
the vote-to-keep, or dead-man election as I like to call it creates a system where an officer can only maintain power by voter enthusiasm, you as a voter have to feel empowered to go and vote for your representative, a corrupt politician who is doing nothing for his constituents would not last long under a dead-man election system.
the shear size of the electable, the vote-of-no-confidence, and the simplicity of the vote-to-keep creates real political consequences for officers who do a bad job, unlike the single party or two party system, officers in my system will never hold office again if they are removed from power. this would not eliminate corruption, but it would greatly deter it and any corruption that exists would not last long.
why the lottery? to more accurately reflect the demography of the electorate and to select individuals who might otherwise never hold office to put more political ideas and lived experiences in the halls of government particularly those of backgrounds we rarely see in government today. and to create an expectation that governing power is all of our responsibility and it has real consequences for our daily lives.
Right off the bat, you are already ignoring what I said. I never said nepotism and corrpution did not exist in the USSR. I said that power is not class, class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production. Managerial workers are not their own class, just like plumbers are not their own class. You are confusing a type of labor for a relation to ownership, and thus conflate the two into class.
Your next example is again, confusing the nature of the state. Socialism and communism cannot be brought about by a socialist party winning electorally and replacing the state bit by bit into a socialist one via policy. There is no generic “state,” there are capitalist states, socialist states, etc, and one state is broken and a new one takes its place through revolution alone.
As for replacing socialist democracy and scientific, planned organization with random lottery, this is a recipe for disaster. A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs, that can prove themselves through practice to their constituents. This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class.
You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based, democratic selection process with one that results in chaos and an easy-to-manipulate state that the bourgeoisie can overturn incredibly easily. This chaos is the foundation by which the bourgeoisie can bring about their own persistence.
In any case, you are getting into the weeds about a specific form of electoral democracy, while entirely ignoring the nature of class and the state. By your own definitions, you would be creating what you believe to be a ruling class. This is why it’s important to actually understand the theory and history you are trying to critique, because all you have done thus far is wax poetic about lottery-based elections while vulgarizing class and the nature of the state.
your’e the one saying ‘power is not class’ I disagree, I say dividing people by the power they have inherently creates classes, which is why I suggest a lottery to divide that power equally among the demographic makeup of a nation. how are plumbers not a class if they control the means that create and maintain the plumbing industry? its all still a class. I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc. the
government should be made up of people. I reject the idea that certain groups of people among us are more fit to govern, particularly when that system removes demographics of largely under-represented groups and replaces it with more affluent individuals.
revolutions are a last resort, the people deserve a means to change their government without violence.
there is no generic state? only socialist and capitalist? have you heard of mixed economies?
“A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs,”
- who decides who is the best among you? the party leaders already in power according to single party rule. that is why I propose a ranked choice vote of those individuals selected from the lottery based on their policy proposals.
“You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based”
- no, I am explicitly rejecting the idea that the party in power is selecting the most competent. rather they are picking their friends and family or who ever can pay more in money or quid pro quo.
my electoral process removes money and nepotism from the equation by selecting individuals first from the general population, then allowing them to come up with policy proposals then allowing their constituents to elect them in a ranked choice vote. no campaigns means no campaign finance, no special interested counter funding candidates, no political parties platforming their insiders.
persons selected from the lottery will post their policy proposals on the same election website as every other candidate, debates will be organized by the election office and all candidates would be present.
" This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class."
- who decides who is the most politically developed of the working class? the party, thus nepotism, not a mandate of the masses
The reason I am telling you that classes are not simply any way we can categorize people but instead have specific relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution is because I am explicitly agreeing with Marx that the history of class society is the history of successive societies of 2 broad classes in conflict, defined by their relationship to ownership of the means of production and distribution.
Plumbers are not a class. Managers are not a class. Both are workers, and share the same relation to ownership of the means of production. Power is not the enemy, the system that divides us based on ownership is.
The rest of your comment is a ridiculous strawman of a party that is unaccountable and that dominates all. Nowhere in socialist history has this happened in practice or in theory. The working class as a whole decides who should be in the party and government. The party is a subset of the working class, with the same social relations to the means of production and distribution. You are arguing against a caricature.
As for revolution, it’s the only way to change a state historically.
As for “mixed economies,” all economies are “mixed” today. What separates them is their principal aspect, and the class in control of the state.
I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc.
How do elections work in Vietnam?
What you describe of people from every profession being involved in government is essentially how the Vietnam Fatherland Front works. It’s composed of 44 member organizations, primarily unions, a broad cross section of society that anyone can easily be a part of, and they conduct oversight over Vietnam’s elections. The actual administration of the government is done by elected officials, who do not have to be members of the Communist Party, or the Fatherland Front. It’s similar to what you proposed, except more democratic, since the cross section of society that makes up the Fatherland Front only oversees the elections, while policy is decided through the elections themselves. Even if you claim that the Fatherland Front secretly manipulates the outcomes, the system you’re proposing seems to be one where something like the Fatherland Front would rule outright. The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.
Maybe you could think about it like that: capitalists are the class that, in order to exist, is forced to continuously take capital and invest it to make profit or they are outcompeted by other capitalists. It’s not that they are all evil or “corrupted by power”, they are not just incentiveized, but forced to act in destructive ways: steal surplus value from workers, increase exploitation above what people can take, chase profits on an exponentially expanding mass of capital in a finite world destroying the planet, cause a crisis about every seven years, cannibalize their own state and infrastructure that they rely on for short term profit, etc.
They inevitably run into these contradictions due to living on a finite planet and having to put individual interests above all else while the modern economies distribution of work and global value chains absolutely require working together.
What you are worried about is real too in a way, but it’s not a class. In a socialist state, a managerial part of the working class is not forced by competition to continuously pursue personal gain, but some of them still might become corrupt and do so anyway. At that point, they have betrayed the working class and they might even do so in favor of real capitalists domestic or abroad who haven’t yet completely disappeared as a class. It’s a possible problem, but other than the class conflict between workers and capital, it’s not inevitably the dominating principle of society.
Rather than worrying about a hypothetical future betrayal of fellow workers in thriving and prospering China, we should focus on how many western workers have already often betrayed the rest of the global working class and continue to do so by supporting terrible imperialist wars, mostly in turn for cheap goods at Walmart.
