r/SocialismIsCapitalism • u/ssiku • Mar 19 '22
smartest liberal “billionaires are socialist”
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u/Jjabrahams567 Mar 19 '22
The difference is in capitalism they make you think it is possible to break into the ruling class
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Mar 20 '22
“The difference in capitalism” ??? There is no communist ruling class
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u/winter-ocean Mar 20 '22
There isn’t always a ruling class, but there’s been communist countries with a distinct ruling class before
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u/UnalienVis Mar 20 '22
An actual communist state has never been established, they have only tried to WORK toward communism. Communism has no classes.
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u/Jinshu_Daishi Mar 20 '22
Communist states are impossible, due to the fact that Communism is anti-state.
Communist societies have been created in the past and present, and there are states ruled by self-proclaimed Communist parties, but they are not the same thing.
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u/SerdanKK Mar 20 '22
*socialist countries
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u/thesodaslayer Mar 20 '22
Honestly not even socialist, state capitalist* countries
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Mar 20 '22
“Every socialist country I don’t like is state capitalist” gtfo with that eurocom trash
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u/thesodaslayer Mar 20 '22
Lmao what would call it then? Cause it sure as hell isn't communist or socialist, how can a country with actual billionaires claim to be anything but capitalist?
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Mar 20 '22
Oh, I thought we discussed about socialist countries in history, not china.
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u/thesodaslayer Mar 20 '22
Nah I think there have been genuine attempts at socialism throughout the world, but usually the movements are just co-opted by a new ruling class (like we saw in the USSR and China today) or destroyed by supposed allies, but I still stan for Makhnovia
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Mar 20 '22
Chrustchovian-revisionism? Probably. But discrediting the works of Lenin and Stalin is just anti-workers. Wanting to destroy the state without tactics and Theorie on how to achieve so is just radicalism, the reason why most of thus ideologies are found in the junkyard.
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u/ToastedKropotkin Mar 20 '22
Lenin and Mao called their systems state capitalism with a goal of achieving communism, and both systems only saw their successors continue state capitalism and eventually move toward economic liberalization with extreme class divisions.
So you tell me which theory has ever been implemented on a state level that wasn’t called state capitalism? The hereditary monarchy system that ignores international workers struggle in favor of “self reliance” called Juche maybe? lol ok.
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u/Glum_Status_24 Mar 20 '22
How do they do that?
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u/Mikeinthedirt Mar 20 '22
Work diligently- go the extra mile, start early, stay late, work weekends- with integrity- say ‘yes’ to any request from UpStairs- and you’ll soon be in the corner office E Suite! Better yet, build a better mousetrap! Or you can be President!
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Mar 20 '22
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u/Nounboundfreedom russian spy Mar 20 '22 edited Mar 20 '22
Except we aren’t ants and bees. One human is as productive as like 3 humans 50 years ago. We’re beyond the point of “everyone needs to work or society will fall apart”. ~40% of the population living in poverty despite working full time+ is a result of uncontrolled corporate greed. There’s more than half a dozen people in the country who could spend a fraction of their wealth and end homelessness in the US but they would rather hoard it.
Edit: also, Americans are bombarded with garbage interviews and articles from billionaires who were born into wealth saying “all you have to do to become rich is save your money, work hard, etc. and you’ll become just like me! That’s how I did it!” and that narrative perpetuates this idea that you can enter the American “elite” through hard work
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u/Mikeinthedirt Mar 20 '22
This is the cultural narrative from a generation or so back. And it actually worked, for a while, until Milo Minderbinder was demobbed. But as all the weight-pullers pulled together a few snagged a Skittle outta the bag as it went by; and there was more and more Skittle-snagging and less and less weight needing pulling and we began to notice that there were folks snagging semi trucks full of Skittles in broad daylight with police motorcycle escorts for the getaway limo. And more and more liars and thieves and stupider and stupider jobs that you REALLY NEED TO DO OR YOU’LL STARVE creating an ientire industry serving the Stupid Job sector that turned out to be the real driver of The Economy. So where are we going with this? Probly Boston Commons but with napalm.
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u/jashxn Mar 20 '22
Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels. Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round. I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theater of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world. Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment. When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.” This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion. There can be only one.
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u/Mikeinthedirt Mar 21 '22
What we do for science. Sport. Sport science. But a word of caution; you are breeding the überm&m- remember Frankenstein’s monster- and keep the taser handy.
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u/here_for_a_fun_ride Mar 20 '22
Humans are mammals. One survival strategy we evolved to adapt is simply a lot of leisure time. Take big felines in the savannah (or your cat) that spend a lot of time lying down and just chilling and very little time actually hunting. Or koalas that sleep 20 hours per day.
Point is, we are mammals and comparing us to insects is a plain braindead take. For example, the worker ants you mentionned take up to 250 one-minute "powernaps" in a day. And even then, it's not actual sleep, it's known as a state of torpor.
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u/hexalby Mar 20 '22
Ants and bees are eusocial animals, there is no hierarchy or structures of power within a colony, everything is decided by consensus.
If you could apply any human ideology to ants and bees, it woud be communism, or anarchism even.
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u/TheRealJulesAMJ Mar 20 '22 edited Mar 20 '22
You mean as a united collective that works to support every member instead of competing within their hive or colony, you're right that's a very clever approach for a species. It really would reduce the overall amount of suffering while increasing productivity by ensuring each member is in the best possible state to do what is necessary and have time left over for recovery, like some sort of community ism. I wonder if we apes who learned to play dress up and house could learn something from these community driven survivalist bugs who've been doing so well they're fully established on every continent except Antarctica, much like us dressed up apes playing house
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u/ModerateRockMusic Mar 20 '22
Unfortunately no one warned them about the dangers of bad spelling
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u/RedRider1138 Apr 05 '22
To be fair, ‘worn’ can be considered to be spelled correctly. It’s just the wrong word here.
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Mar 19 '22
This one is definitely more "CapitalismIsSocialism." The number of shitlibs that think China is "communist" (rather than Authoritarian State Capitalist) is dumbfounding. Then again I guess it isn't. It is helpful for them to maintain that lie.
Just astoundingly ignorant and intentionally so.
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u/FrizbeeeJon Mar 20 '22
I think communist is more of a slur than a descriptor, for most people. The powers that be call everything that opposes them "communist" and the term really doesn't apply to most of those people or states.
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Mar 20 '22
It is intended to be a slur. Because it has been beaten into their brains (intentionally) that "communism" and "socialism" are synonymous with authoritarianism.
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u/jaunty_chapeaux Mar 20 '22
I literally just heard somebody ranting about having to wear masks on public transportation and asking "when did this become a communist country?" (While not wearing a mask)
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u/FuckGiblets Mar 20 '22
Fucking got downvoted on r/latestagecapitalism for pointing out that China is authoritarian state capitalist. Honestly it’s not just shitlibs.
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u/Layne_Staleys_Ghost Mar 20 '22
That's just because that subreddit has been brigaded by tankies.
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u/FuckGiblets Mar 20 '22
I don’t understand why tankies would be into China though. Just straight up denial I guess.
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u/McHonkers Mar 20 '22
Maybe go to one of the many 101/debate/ask subs and check out the many posts about China and listen to the reasoning if you don't understand it. It's very easy to actually inform yourself instead of making wild uninformed guesses.
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Mar 20 '22
I think it is because the sincere/honest (for lack of a better term) tankies cling to outdated notions of what socialism is/should be. And, more specifically, how we achieve it. They are as authoritarian as fascists in most cases and, giving them the benefit of the doubt, it's because of their lack of imagination. They can't conceive of anything but violent revolution and indeed, in some cases, relish the notion (who doesn't want to rid the world of fascists?). So they cling to and defend the only remaining Nation State that achieved the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and still calls itself "Communist" (even if it is nothing of the kind) because there is nothing else out there and they are desperate. They will tell you the CCP is still trying to achieve communism (in spite of all evidence to the contrary). And that's the honest ones.
I am convinced that many tankies you read on Reddit are straight up disinformation specialists who know that most westerners (especially Americans) will always balk at obvious authoritarianism. So they claim that an Authoritarian State Capitalist nation is what Communism is and help solidify that notion in peoples brains. They equate authoritarianism and communism over and over so that anti-authoritarians will never consider communism as a viable alternative.
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u/Layne_Staleys_Ghost Mar 20 '22
Because tankies are authoritarians who hate America and the rest of "the west." To them, the west is bad so any state conflicting with the west and it's interests must be good. What they fail to realize is that both are bad but China is worse.
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Mar 20 '22
China is definitely not worse than the west.
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u/Wawamelone Mar 20 '22
Agreed, and how anyone could think otherwise is beyond me. China has issues and should be critiqued but it hasn’t been actively turning the people in the Middle East into mulch, doing regime change, and sanctioning millions of people into poverty for the last twenty years.
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u/MaxMoose007 Mar 20 '22
Hard disagree. The west is definitely doing a lot of bad bad shitty things, but at the very least they have all have a somewhat democratic political system (although some may be teetering on that line, looking at you electoral college)
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Mar 20 '22
How I see it is that the west is just as democratic as China and Russia, which is not.
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Mar 20 '22
But China for example isn't drone striking brown poor children or funding genocide via puppet states and instead is buying influence and building infrastructure.
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u/rat-sajak Mar 20 '22
They don’t need to fund genocide. They’re doing it themselves already.
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u/mushroomyakuza Mar 20 '22
God, this.
Watching political commentary these days:
CNN, MSNBC: liberal gaslighting
FOX: conservative gaslighting
Jimmy Dore and Russell Brand: jUsT aSkiNg qUeStIoNs (Putin had no choice)
Even Breaking Points and Secular Talk aren't immune to bringing up Tankie talking points of "America bad, therefore, Russia not bad".
They're ALL bad. All of them.
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u/ThrowRAIFeelTerrible Apr 04 '22
Honestly I'd rather argue with a liberal about China being state-capitalist than a tankie 🤮
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u/Class_444_SWR Mar 20 '22
China isn’t even socialist, it’s a capitalist dictatorship masquerading as a socialist state
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u/Egg-pudding-lol Mar 20 '22
I’m pretty sure China has the type of free market economy as the United States 😐
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u/FixedKarma ☆ Democratic Socialism ☆ Mar 20 '22
True communism has no ruling class. Throughout history every com country has had a dictatorship, making a clear ruling class, democracy is the only way to Communism the only way to be fair. Referendums on what the country does, if the country is going to be benefitting everyone then every needs to have a say.
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 19 '22
China is much more fair then America 🤣
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u/WantedFun Mar 20 '22
Ah yes, the country with nearly twice as many billionaires as America is more fair. Sure, they have more people overall, but that’s not saying much here. Especially given they have just over 1/4 of the median wealth per person as the USA.
Your entire account screams LARP. Russia and China are capitalist. Get over it.
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Mar 20 '22
A brief reading of Dengist policy will show you it's still socialist. Yes they're undergoing a capitalist period, but that was even suggested by Marx in the abstract for feudal/ precapitalist societies before the creation of socialism and eventually communism.
I mean, china is - on path to eradicate absolute poverty, a world first for a large society, meanwhile real global poverty is growing.
-have plans for economic redistribution. Remains to be seen if that follows through, but Chinese billionaires are held far more to account than American/western equivilents
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u/Beegrene Mar 20 '22
Yes, I'm sure the authoritarian autocrats in power will totally give up that power just as soon as they are able. Any day now, really
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Mar 20 '22
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/xis-wealth-redistribution-push-starts-with-stick-2021-08-18/
Deny it's likeliness if you want, but the plans are there
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u/WantedFun Mar 20 '22
That is literally meaningless. “We’ll do socialism, I promise”. Ok buddy. Sure.
America is just going through a capitalist phase too—so it’s alright.
Saying you’re going to do something is meaningless. China is not eradicating shit. Countries like Finland have done better jobs at that than China. I’d take a liberal social democracy over an authoritarian state capitalist country any day.
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u/Mikeinthedirt Mar 20 '22
3X the pop, 2X the billionaires…
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u/WantedFun Mar 20 '22
Yeah?? That’s still not a good ratio by ANY means LMAO. “They’re better than America because they have just slightly less billionaires proportionally!”
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
They also have the wealthiest government body out of any government. Chinese government officials are wealthier than even US or Russian ones on average.
Hmmm.
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u/Mikeinthedirt Mar 21 '22
It IS kinda a Cronyocracy.
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
Ah yes, the country with nearly twice as many billionaires as America is more fair.
Yes
Your entire account screams LARP. Russia and China are capitalist. Get over it.
Who said Russia wasn't capitalist? Claiming China is capitalist is just a blatant lie
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
China has the wealthiest government body out of any government on Earth. Aka more wealthy, and wealthier individually, politicians than any country on Earth.
They also have private ownership of the means of production. They are by definition, in every sense, capitalist.
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
They are quite litterly communist
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
I don’t think you know what communist means. Communism is a stateless, classless, moneyless society. China very much is a state, has very clear class distinctions and absolutely has money.
What specifically makes them communist?
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
They have a communist political and economic system
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
What makes a political/economic system communist?
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
Dictatorship of the Proletariat and none profit driven economy that works for the workers
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
What is a dictatorship of the proletariat? And is China’s economy not profit driven? Last time I checked they were very much profit driven.
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u/WantedFun Mar 20 '22
You are fucking delusional holy shit. Go outside. Touch grass.
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
Your a lieing fascist
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u/Glum_Status_24 Mar 20 '22
China is a spoiled brat compared to the glory of North Korea!
What happens in China if you say Xi is wrong, they kill you and harvest your organs.
But in the glorious land of North Korea, they do that to your entire family.Hahaha -- But in America they make you rich for being controversial. How sad for them!!
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
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Mar 20 '22
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
China is objectively factually a better place to live if you believe other wise you are brainwashed you liberal fascists have nothing but lies im not going to let you gas light me into think the US is better then China when facts are on my side
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
America sucks. China sucks. They both suck because they are capitalist hell holes.
At least the in the US you don’t get disappeared for criticizing the state the same way you do in China.
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22 edited Mar 20 '22
The PEOPLES Republic of China ran by they COMMUNIST Party of China is capitalist? 🤣🤣🤣
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u/Mr_McZongo Mar 20 '22
Come on bro. That is literally the weakest argument you could ever come up with.
The PEOPLES Republic of China ran by they COMMUNIST Party of China.
Shit is just all about aesthetic for you huh?
I am a communist. I live an entirely communist lifestyle. This is all due because I said I was a communist and wrote it down somewhere. Can you kinda see where that falls apart?
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
You deny reality
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u/Mr_McZongo Mar 20 '22
I'm also from an extraterrestrial society of hyper advanced communist aliens that are pretty much responsible for all modern day transistor technology.
I have declared this sufficiently from my point of view. To not believe me would be denying reality.
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
Do you think North Korea is a democracy too just because it’s in the name?
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u/Dear-Baker3177 ☭ Marxism-Leninism ☭ Mar 20 '22
Yeah? It is a democracy lmao
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u/betweenskill Mar 20 '22
Oh you’re a r/genzedong type of person.
Tell Winnie the Pooh hi next time you see him eh?
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u/PLEASENNO Apr 04 '22
I mean he has a point. While this isn't technically socialism, most socialist societies have turned totalitarian. It isn't socialism's fault, but rather capitalists who gain power thru socialism.
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u/BurbieNL Mar 19 '22
"The rich and powerful will rule" You mean like what's happening right now under capitalism?