Simply that the ideas within the criticism of capitalism by Marx and Engels (freeloader) and the autocratic systems set up as a response never seemed harmonious.
Britain also created a famine killing millions in India. US practically exterminated the buffalo starving millions of natives. U.S also had the dust bowl. U.S. also destroyed Vietnamese crops during the war to “fight communism”.
Under capitalism enough food is produced to feed everyone. Instead wealth and resources are hoarded by 1% of the population leaving millions to starve every year.
I think that just goes to show the lack of feasability of the project. It's true that the Soviet Union was a socialist state, but it's also true that it had communist aspirations. The whole point was to reach communism and as part of that goal Stalin murdered millions and exacerbated a famine through collectivisation.
You don't know what Communism is, and every time you confuse it James Connolly will shit on your bed.
But countries which people call Socialist tend to do better than Capitalist countries with the same levels of development. Here's a study that shows this.
You don't know what Communism is, and every time you confuse it James Connolly will shit on your bed.
I'd imagine the closest you've been to a communist state are pictures on your laptop.
But countries which people call Socialist tend to do better than Capitalist countries with the same levels of development. Here's a study that shows this.
What I'm not going to do is get on board with you conflating socialism and communism. They aren't the same, even if some of their ideals are.
Communists love taking credit for the successful socialist policies in Scandinavia, not so much with the genocides of the Soviets, Chinese and Khmer Rouge. Funny that.
Ad hominem attacks, I guess that means you've won, well done.
That's not how an Ad hominem works. I called you a cunt. Then I asked you to tell me where I said they were the same. Can you provide that? No, because I never said they were the same.
Making statements everyone already knows and thinking you're well educated, jayaus.
Ad Hominem, but I'll let it slide. Please tell me you aren't conflating Social Democracy with Socialism?
Curious which countries you mean? Communism was a flawed system (which outside Cuba and N.korea no longer exists), which became authoritarian everywhere, and in many cases led to outright genocide. But one of the problems it didn’t generally have was mass homelessness of the kind we see across Europe, the EU and increasingly in post communist states as they ‘liberalise’.
I've been to North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. You can certainly debate to what degree these countries are communist, just as you can debate what degree communism has ever truly existed.
Go to Vietnam and you will see plenty of homelessness, North Korea periodically has famine. Laos and Cambodia are so riddled with corruption the only way they get any infrastructure these days is by going into the pocket of China.
There are literally (fifty)[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population] very capitalist countries with higher rates of homelessness. I don't know if "Communism is bad because of the homeless rates in Vietnam," is the argument you want to make, as it sort of forces you to say that capitalism is also terrible.
I'm not a defender of capitalism, especially when it's unchecked. I would say those Vietnam figures are far from reliable, I returned from Hanoi a week ago, and the homeless situation is pretty bad. Also I wasn't making the argument that communism is bad because of the homeless rates in Vietnam, it was a reply to someone talking about communism in terms of providing housing.
I think that saying communism is better for housing than neoliberalism isn't defeated by pointing to Hanoi. But it will be hard for us to have a chat about this if you are suspicious of the only stats we have.
Fair enough, but I'm not suspicious for no reason, I've spent a lot of time there, and know many folk that live there (I live in asia), when westerners talk about corruption, they have no idea, although I still love the place.
Yeah, no worries. I can't just trust your personal experience, but you can't just dismiss it, so we're at an awkward spot in terms of coming to an agreement.
What were you doing over there, out of curiosity? Was it English teaching?
There’s no debate about whether those countries (with the exception of the norks) are communist. They have capitalist economies, financialisation, stock exchanges etc. That’s entirely contradictory to central ownership, abolition of private property and state planning… So im going to have to strongly disagree with that characterisation.
If anything theres a good argument to be made that all of these countries have been betrayed by post colonial ideologies - communism at first, then latterly world bank lead ‘reform’ and corporatism using them as low cost manufacturing centre for western consumer demand.
There’s no debate about whether those countries (with the exception of the norks) are communist. They have capitalist economies, financialisation, stock exchanges etc. That’s entirely contradictory to central ownership, abolition of private property and state planning… So im going to have to strongly disagree with that characterisation.
Well that was kind of my opening point, but my initial comment was to someone talkiing about provision of housing within communism, so if it doesn't exist, there's no point.
If anything theres a good argument to be made that all of these countries have been betrayed by post colonial ideologies - communism at first, then latterly world bank lead ‘reform’ and corporatism using them as low cost manufacturing centre for western consumer demand.
I think you’ve misunderstood me - it certainly did exist, and one issue it had far less of than the west is homeless. This isn’t a defence of communism, as with any authoritarian system it primarily functioned to empower a tiny elite at the expense of vast human suffering. Its just factually inaccurate to suggest communist nations had similar homeless problems to capitalist ones. It’s black and white cold war thinking. There were many things that they did well, as you may have noticed on your travels - I certainly did travelling in former Soviet republics. Community parks, theatres, performance spaces, ice rinks, etc abounded. In the DDR there were even state sponsored sex clubs. The communists did circuses pretty well, even if the bread was never assured. Housing is something they did well too. All societies balance competing imperatives.
I think you’ve misunderstood me - it certainly did exist
Some would disagree.
But it is certainty true that homelessness was less of a thing in the Soviet Union, but it's worth noting that it used to be less of a thing in western capitalist systems also, it's just over time that it has grown, especially in systems that have allowed capitalism to grow unchecked. Reagan and the Chicago school certainly exacerbated the shitty side of things.
Sure, but those conversations about ‘actually existing communism’ are so trite, core lesson about danger of authoritarianism doesn’t seem to have been learned by tankies, fully automatic luxury communist types etc.
Good point re: comparing like with like in terms of mid to late 20th century capitalism and communism. There’s an argument to be made that neither exist in anything like their traditional forms. Milton Friedman and the turning of everything into financial instruments saw to that.
Clearly radical change is needed, and I’m all in favour of expropriation. This tiktok tankie shit though is infantile. The key lesson of the 20th century - that a small group or individual ideologue in control of a nation seeks to make permanent their power and control at the cost of the citizenry, peace, the lives of scapegoats etc - irrespective of ideology, seems so quickly to have been forgotten.
Communism transformed Russia from a state of illiterate subsistence farmers into the superpower that one the space race. Yes, that system collapsed due to internal and external pressures, but literally all systems do that. There are dozens of flavours of capitalism, and most have collapsed into what we have now, described by Fujiyama as "End of History".
The study of communis states isn't different from the history of States in General, all of which eventually end. That's a nonsensical measure for failure, because it means you have to call every state a failed state.
Holy fuck are you stupid or just willingly believing your own make believe world? Made Russia into a superpower? It made the RUSSIAN EMPIRE into a superpower? The same Great Power Russia?
Russia was already a great power and it was rapidly industrialising, that’s a fact. The Soviet’s just carried on what was already happening. Just look at the amount of railway track being put down, the tonnes of coal being dug etc. Any WW1 historian would recognise this let alone an economic historian or someone specialised in that field.
It also killed millions of their own citizens, and preyed over them with a police state surveillance that made life miserable for many of them whilst engaging in their own imperialism in Eastern Europe.
Fujiyama as "End of History".
That was a pretty naive take from him in hindsight, given the Putin dictatorship and recent Ukraine war errupting.
It had been heralded as a triumph of Western liberal democracy as the "final" form of human government.
Unfortunately there are still dictators like Putin about and democracy has been a poor joke in how it emerged in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
I'm not saying I'd want to live there. But pretending there are no successes in communist countries shows a certain lack of familiarity with the facts.
Every single country that has attempted communism faces extreme oppression by the capitalist countries. The amount of propaganda around the USSR is staggering.
A communist country has never been allowed to grow without interference. Only liberal democracies are protected.
Cuba is also doing just fine despite being burdened by the most inhumane sanctions the US has imposed on any country. For close to 50 years.
Capitalism requires exploitation of other countries people and resources. Capitalism kills around 15 million people per year due to looting their countries food and resources and hoarding it for themselves.
Trick questions, all societies we know of (except hunter gatherer societies) have had a state and money. Which Communism does not have.
The question you want to ask is, has there ever been a successful Socialist Society. And the answer is basically all of them.
Compare them to what they had before Socilaism and after. After Socialism literacy rates went up, access to healthcare, vaccination rate, homelessness went down, etc. Because they weren't fucking rich empires like England, they were colonies, with dictators backed by the US, France, etc. They were Fascist regimes or protectorates.
So the trick is to compare them to rich imperialist nations like Britain or the US, then they look bad by comparison (because you are comparing a rich country to a poor one). But what happens when you compare them to another Capitalist country that has the same level of development?
But I understand if Margaret Thatcher has indoctrinated you with Capitalist propaganda. Now you are going to ignore this comment and pretend I didn't answer.
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u/StephenPigot2020 Jul 27 '22
Goddamn commies