• samus12345@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Large-scale, actual communism with no authoritarianism? Not that I’m aware of. It’s hard to implement true communism effectively on a large scale because most people have to care enough about others to willingly contribute for it to work.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      What do you count as “Authoritatianism?”

      Why do you think Communism requires people to care about others to function, and why would they not work otherwise?

      I think you have some serious misunderstandings about what Communism entails.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        Authoritarianism is the opposite of libertarianism, roughly speaking. It’s a sliding scale, but those would be the two opposites in play.

        For example, a more authoritarian approach to road safety would be: “Manufacturers are not allowed to make cars that go over 50 mph”

        A more libertarian approach to road safety would be: “We’re publishing the average fatality rate of this road. You can choose to engage with it as you deem appropriate”

        Our actual approach with licenses and speed limits and some regulations on car safety and soft but escalating consequences for breaking the road rules is somewhere in between.

    • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Which is why it’s a utopian movement. They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions, and when that fails (and it always does) they slaughter anyone and everyone that won’t play along.

      No person is perfect, so when you demand perfection, you’re going to have to get rid of anyone but those who are perfect at playing perfect.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlM
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      2 months ago

      Authoritarianism is a meaningless term that people with lack of capacity for rational thought regurgitate. Every single government holds authority by virtue of having the monopoly on legal violence. The only question is whose interest the authority is exercised in.

      • friendlymessage@feddit.org
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        2 months ago

        That’s just bullshit. Authoritarianism has a clear-cut definition that goes beyond “the government has authority on legal violence” and you know it.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          This isn’t reddit, please be respectful when disagreeing. You’re not going to win any converts by alienating people.

          • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            Why didn’t you apply that critique to this:

            thoritarianism is a meaningless term that people with lack of capacity for rational thought regurgitate

            Did you simply not notice the alienating language there, because you agreed with the sentiment?

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.

      Turns out when people are free to make economic arrangements as they please, capitalism happens.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.

        Trading is not capitalism.
        Markets are not capitalism.
        Money is not capitalism.
        Those things have existed for millenia before capitalism came to exist, around 600 years ago, eventually, over the span of several hundred years, replacing previous socio-politico-economic systems, feudalism in particular.

        The first sentence from Wikipedia: Capitalism

        Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.

        The first sentence from Wikipedia: Socialism

        Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.

        Notice that both definitionally concern who owns the means of production.

        Communism:

        Communism is a mode of production characterized by common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes. The term is also used to refer to the movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of this mode of production.

        Communism is a movement toward socialism, with the ultimate goal of the erasing social class hierarchies.

          • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            Edit to add: I think I see what you meant now. Yes, you could also say “socialism is a movement toward communism,” in the sense that socialism is a step in the path to communism.


            I don’t think so. Communism can’t be reached in one fell swoop. The reason why communist states didn’t and don’t have communism in their names is because—by their own admission—they aren’t yet communist, they’re socialist.

            First comes a transformation from a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to a dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class has control of the state and the means of production. In other words, socialism. The end-goal of communism is to be rid of classes altogether, but it’s not possible jump straight to it. You can’t go to bed one day under capitalism and magically wake up the next under communism.

            Marxists define the state as a system by which the ruling class maintains its dominance other classes. So when we talk about the end-goal of a “classless, stateless society,” we mean that classlessness definitionally also means statelessness.