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Capitalism only works on a small scale. The second society gets bigger, you require a state with militaristic presence to keep corporations in line. To this very day, the Thatcher/Reagan ideal of “market liberalisation and privatisation” has ALWAYS resulted in the centralised accumulation of capital that became a massive societal divider.
No matter which country you pick, large ones like the USA or Russia, all of them have developed into a divided oligarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. […]
I know you like to cope with “Oh no, the evil minority of bad apples in the owner class again. >:(” but in the end capitalism is a failed ideology that will never work on a large scale without completely surpressing the market and brutally regulating any sign of market dominance of a few corporations.
Edit: typo. And to the cunt who removed Realitaetsverlust’s comment: you can suck a cock and die, I wanted to have a normal discussion with them.
Im sure the uyghurs and tibetans see it differently
EDIT: \s
Not sure what you’re trying to say. Uyghurs are systematically eradicated and tibet is controlled by china since their invasion in the 1950s. Not exactly speaking in favor of communism.
So, if you’d like to expand on your point, I might be able to discuss this further.
Lol I meant to reply to the main thread, but you could pretend im being sarcastic and it kinda works
Makes sense, I just was kinda confused and wasn’t sure.
eradicated LOL, their population is growing, despite the many some US backed terrorist killed.
And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll waiteradicated LOL, their population is growing
According to who? The chinese government? Lmao. Ye I would DEFINITELY trust the ones that are performing the killings on reporting accurate numbers.
And Tibet doesn’t have slaves anymore who literally had chains around their necks suffering under the religious buddhist monks terror.
Imperialism good when country does bad things?
Yawn, can you bring up Tiananmen square again to not be original? I’ll wait
I could, but if you want some originality, I can also bring up one of the other atrocities directly ordered by communist regimes, like the Prague Spring, Hungarian Revolution or the mass executions by the Khmer in Cambodia.
oh, the khmer rouge, that one that the u.s. supported along with britain, china (not so dirty back then, right) and who were toppled by the socialist regime of vietnam?
I already answered that to someone else so I’ll just copy and paste it:
The US never directly supported pol pot. Before 1975, they supported Lon Nol, who was fighting against the communist Khmer Rouge.
The part that IS true is that the US did support China and Thailand at the time, which in turn used that aid to support resistance groups in cambodia because vietnam invaded cambodia in 1979 - something the US had no problem with since vietnam was backed by the soviets. Also, it is true that the US and other western countries supported keeping the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia’s official UN representative, however, that was mostly done to undermine Vietnam’s rule over cambodia.
So, yes, by extension, the US supported pol pot, but it’s not the big “gotcha” you think it is - it was the cold war, an extremely complex geopolitical time.
Also, it is true that the US and other western countries supported keeping the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia’s official UN representative, however, that was mostly done to undermine Vietnam’s rule over cambodia.
Funny how liberals think attrocities are ok when done in the name of anticommunism lmao
I don’t need to prove something that didn’t happen which isn’t possible, you show me proof of your fantasy eradication that isn’t from the sick nutbag Adrian Zenz. Must be easy if it’s such a genocide.
Imperialism good when country does bad things?
Hypocrisy good in the name of bringing democracy.
LOL
The horrible feodal system with serfs/slaves the Tibetans has was sooo much better.
Some CIA poking didn’t work to bring that back.
And there was a small minority radicalised terrorists by Turkey and OC again the CIA to cause trouble, which they did.
blew up a plane with civilians, multiple other attacks on busses, trainstations, etc…
The majority never liked them and are glad it’s over.
But nice try.Im sure they love making iphones until they jump off a roof
That only happens in the apple part of foxconn campus, you dishonest cunt. Quit blaming communism for shit capitalists does.
What, did a suicide happen years ago in a country you don’t like? Quick, use that as a weak excuse to throw mud.
I’m sure suicide doesn’t happen in companies from the fascist US, where they have to pee in bottles.
Sometimes a known fascist boss demands to keep his Tesla factory open in full covid peak and his slaves get sick and die.
Plenty of them die homeless or from drugs anyway.
No paid sick days, universal healthcare, unemployment, etc. Really a pathetic 3rd world country.
Not to mention no other regime puts more of its citizens in jail.This is the embarrassing US banana republic.
Want to try again?Ita wild to me that you can see the USs mas incarceration and tell its bad, but when the chinese govt imprisions and entire population based on their religion you act like its a good thing
"imprisions and entire population based on their religion "
That is a called a lie, or wild, baseless accusation at best.
It can be proved the US is the most authoritarian regime because facts and data about their prison slaves.
You just say stuff out of your unhealthy fixation with communism, which you even need to mention in your bio.
If that’s all you’re going to do then go away, not worth it.
Independently of who I side with, I am blocking this community because of the stifling of Realitaetsverlust’s comments.
edit: was baffled by the stifling and just researched and learned about Lemmy.ml
it all makes sense now. It is a Socialist Communist instance that censors those not aligned with them. Political leanings don’t bother me, but the censorship does so I will be avoiding anything Lemmy.ml in the future. They of course have a right to run their instance how they wish. peace out
This is generally wrong, though. Communist countries have dramatically democratized society, it works better at large scale if we are speaking of Marxian Communism because that’s the Marxist reason for Communism to begin with. Competition centralizes, so in the future it must be publicly owned and planned. This is the basis of Scientific Socialism, primitive Communism is not the same as the post-Socialist Communism, which must be large-scale as production increases in complexity.
Pol Pot wasn’t even a Communist.
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The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc are more democratic than theie previous systems.
Communism still works, just because the Soviet Union isn’t here doesn’t mean everything is a failure.
Competition forces centralization and monopolies over time due to increasinly complex production practices that raise the barrier to entry. It’s unavoidable.
Pol Pot denounced Marxism and focused on an odd agrarian system, and was backed by the CIA.
You made a lot of claims here. Do you have any sources to provide support?
Competition does the exact opposite of centralization. That’s why I can buy most goods from completely different vendors that differ in price and quality.
Competitions have winners, and in this case it means the competition goes out of business and dies, leaving you with a near monopoly or outright monopoly.
That power then gets used to
- lobby (bribe) the government to raise barriers to entry to prevent new competitors
- buy out new competitors
- intentionally price everything lower than competitors, at a loss, to kill competitors in a war of attrition that they can’t possibly outlast
And that’s even assuming there’s any competition at all, which often isn’t the case with certain things like healthcare, internet, electricity, etc.
Seeing some of the zingers in the comments here, now seems like a great time to plug my “Read Theory, Darn it!” introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Read up, comrades!
For those that don’t like to read, you don’t have to read theory. In fact, most theory is old. There are newer and better takes on these ideas. Find a good YouTube channel that goes over the ideas. I like Vaush.
If you like to read theory, go for it. But I think there are faster and easier ways to get the concepts.
You DO have to read theory. Just because it is old doesn’t mean it’s wrong or outdated.
Also I’m not opposed to watching YouTube videos, but it shouldn’t be your only source for it, and recommending Vaush is a huge problem, don’t do that.
If anyone wants some actual good recommendations:
In english: Second Thought, Hakim, Yugopnik, Luna Oi, revolutionary_thot, azurescapegoat. There’s also Hasan, but he does commentary and not theory teaching or analisys or anything like that.
In portuguese: Ian Neves/História Pública, Laura Sabino, Jones Manoel, Tempero Drag/Rita von Hunty, João Carvalho.
There’s of course others, I’m just going by the ones I remember right now.
How can you have a problem with Vaush when he is so ideologically similar to Hasan? Unless you have have disagreements with Hasan.
Comrade Cowbee already listed the issues with Vaush that I’ll not repeat here.
That being said, I can’t really say much about Vaush’s ideological stance since I don’t watch him. What I can say is that I doubt he’s anywhere close to Hasan ideologically if going by how his fans act. Most of the times what I have seen is a pretty clear anticommunist stance from them that I cannot comprehend, specially when they love to laud Vaush as such a great leftist youtuber.
Unless you have have disagreements with Hasan
I do have some issues with Hasan actually, which I’ll use this comment to inform anyone that reads it after my recommendation. I don’t watch a lot of Hasan, I usually see bits and pieces of him here and there when youtube recommends him to me, and I mostly disagree with some of his instances on China, from the little I seen he’s mostly pro China, but I have seen some iffy stuff on his knowledge about the Uyghurs. I also don’t think his format of reaction/commentary to be that great either, specially since he likes to leave mid video a lot while it is still playing for his audience. I think his content could benefit a lot more if he actually paused on key points of the videos he reacts to to explain, debunk and or give context to the stuff said while also giving his opinion and stance on that as a Marxist. If you want an example of what that would be like, the brasilian youtuber João Carvalho I mentioned before does this, a lot, like to the point of even being a bit tiring sometimes, lol, but makes the content usually pretty transformative instead of just content theft.
That being said, Hasan is a very important figure in radicalizing and propagandizing for the left in the english speaking internet since he’s at the top of the left pipeline on youtube at least. I recommend this video by Yugopnik to learn more about this.
Thank you for your reply.
I like Vaush
Lmaoooo, ye I always follow the political opinions of some dude who watches child porn … oh wait, not child porn, it’s “shortstack goblins”
As far as I know, all the criticisms of Vaush watching child porn has been misinformation.
Then you clearly don’t know much. Maybe you should actually learn about the people you recommend
I watch Vaush a lot and I haven’t seen what you are talking about.
Support for chasers and sex-pests like Vaush is pretty awful, not to mentions his awful politics and constant butchering of Marxist theory for an audience that usually can’t tell the difference.
Theory is important. Much of my list is newer, some is older when it holds up, some is newer when it meaningfully adds to the discussion. However, as someone who had your approach, reading theory directly genuinely is much faster than rolling the dice.
I have audiobooks linked as well that people can listen to if they prefer, and importantly they won’t be distorted by a sex-pest who complains about Marxists constantly while misrepresenting them.
I am pretty familiar with Vaush’s arguments on Marxist theory. What are your points of contention?
The vast majority of them, to be honest. He has no grasp of Dialectical and Historical Materialism, has no knowledge of AES, and horrendously distorts Lenin.
He’s a liberal that cosplays an Anarchist and pretends to have beyond a Wikipedia understanding of Marxism.
That’s, of course, ignoring that he’s a chaser, pedophile, sex offender.
He has no grasp of Dialectical and Historical Materialism
Can you list a specific example? I think he has a good understanding of this.
One of the worst issues is when he depicts AES as “not real Socialism” because they contain contradictions, when Dialectical Materialism shows that all systems contain contradictions and must resolve them, that doesn’t mean they aren’t that system. Ie, Capitalist states contain public ownership, which is a contradiction but does not define the system.
One of the recent and larger-scale issues was when he tried to explain Lenin advocated voting Socialism into existence.
I don’t make it a point to hate-watch sex offenders that do the work of the US state department.
Yeah, I am not surprised that you have disagreements behind Lenin and AES. The two are pretty related and hard to pull apart. I was just surprised that you would disagree with any of his Marxist takes. I think you both agree what the problems are from a Marxist perspective.
As for the sex offenders/sex pest stuff. I don’t think he is those things, but I understand I am just one person. From the stuff I have seen it is mostly people that disagree with him that label him as such as a way to get around the fact they don’t really have a leg to stand on; Fascists and the like. Not saying that is you of course.
Thanks for taking the time to talk this though by the way. I figure you get hit with a lot of stuff.
Where can I find audiobooks you talked about? My app probably doesn’t show your userpage right.
I have audiobook links after (almost) each listed work.
Vaush’s whole thing is controversy bait. He purposely crosses lines to get people mad at him while maintaining some form of “plausible deniability” to where his fans can always find a way to defend and excuse his actions by talking about “you don’t understand the context” or whatever, it’s a very common and tiresome tactic. Like, if you’re trying to promote a shitty video game that can’t stand on it’s own merits, just do something to antagonize either the left or the right (doesn’t matter which) and then go to the other group and be like, “Look, the guys you hate hate us, you should check us out.” Controversy generates clicks. A big reason for Trump’s success is that he cracked the code on how to apply this formula to a political campaign. If you know how to recognize it, it’s very obvious that Vaush does this.
This sort of opportunism is very detrimental to actually understanding the world or promoting ideas or building a movement. It’s essentially brain-poisoning and a cognitohazard. You’re much better off reading actual books than just following whoever’s best at attracting attention on the internet. If you are going to shun books for videos, you should at least go with someone more educational, like Shaun.
I do get that vibe from Vaush occasionally. Unfortunately the attention economy is a real thing and I would be impressed with anyone with the same reach as Vaush wouldn’t be doing similar things. I am not sure I would be as far left as I am without his content.
Doesn’t Hasan have a larger audience without doing that sort of thing?
No idea, I have only watch him one or two times. Seemed good to me.
A big difference between Hasan and Vaush is that Hasan generally wastes very little of his time with sectarian nonsense or left-punching, while Vaush makes that one of his core focuses. Hasan networks with the Deprogram crew, Chapo, and other more Marxist aligned groups without screaming about “tankies,” while Vaush leans heavily into that.
Hasan is also generally much better with foreign policy, even though I don’t always agree.
The biggest thing is that Hasan serves as a great gateway to Leftist radicalization, while Vaush ends up preventing further Leftist movement, kinda like a more Libertarian Socialist-coded Destiny.
My fiancé and I will still watch Hasan even when we may disagree with him on some issues because he is generally entertaining and generally more correct than not, but would never watch Vaush.
Choosing not to read theory is choosing to always be ignorant.
Why? Information is information. Why does it matter if it comes from books or videos?
Firstly, “Results from the study confirmed the substantial equivalence of all conditions in immediate comprehension. Conversely, results confirmed the disadvantage of subtitled videos for deep learning outcomes.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360131520302323
Secondly, there are no videos ever made that explain the depth and volume that many books do. They simply don’t exist
Thirdly, you can easily refer back to other areas of books that are more difficult in videos.
Fourthly, you can read sentence over again when you don’t understand but you have to stop to rewind which makes it more difficult to place in context.
Fifthly, videos just don’t exist for this. There are no videos that exist that explain things in the structured format that actual theory provides.
You cannot become educated on this matter with videos and it will just leave you over-confident and ignorant
Lmfao
Big yikes
09/11 Chile vibes
whoops, brazil. we had a budding workers movement that was absolutely crushed by the traitorous brazilian military, in the name of the US of course.
that hasnt stopped syndicalism to take root here and improve our lives a bit, but the communist organizations responsible were all crushed and we see our rights being taken away ever since because no one is left to defend them. we are scrambling rn to see if we can stop fascism.
can communism survive in a single country was always a big question.
I think the original idea was to try a world revolution but that didn’t work out.
Us is the main holdout. Russia is basically socialist, EU is basically socialist. China is communist.
Us is the only serious holdout
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Oppressing the former oppressors is necessary, and famine was ended, not caused, by Socialism.
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The 1930s famine was the last major famine out of wartime in the Soviet Union, same with the Great Chinese Famine, in countries where famine was common and regular before. Life expectancy doubled under Socialism in both the USSR and PRC as a consequence in the first few decades.
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Communist policies played a part because Communists were in power while they happened, and the Communists ended the famine. I never made anything up.
Lemmy has Marxists, the lead devs are Marxist-Leninists and some of the biggest instances are Marxist-based.
Famines had been commonplace occurrences in feudal China and Russia, which the communist states brought an end to. And those final famines occurred under post-war conditions, and under disastrous crop seasons that affected neighboring states as well.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines_in_China
- https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5
.
I really didn’t expect lemmy to be already filled with russian trolls and tankies.
We’re not trolls, and many of us are socialists. Actual socialists, not “capitalism with a social safety net” like Bernie Sanders or the Nordic countries. I understand if it’s a bit of a shock to leave the echo chamber that is imperial core corporate social media and hear different perspectives for once. Lemmy is “already filled with” socialists because it was created by socialists. You are in our anti-capitalist space.
Lemmy is a free software, GNU (A)GPL makes no distinction between ideologies. Your “anti-capitalist space” is only in your head or at maximum on a few server instances.
Also Lemmy creator last time I looked was no socialist but die-hard tankie, listing Stalin and Castro as his recommended reading.
Marxism-Leninism is the guiding ideology of every existing Socialist state. The leaders of some of these states have unique viewpoints that should be studied critically.
Moreover, anti-Capitalism dominates Lemmy, even if Marxism-Leninism isn’t the only manifestation of that.
Okay, horseshoe theorist. I also would recommend Stalin and Castro[1][2][3], as would others in this conversation.
Yeah, capitalist Britain, France, and America were terrible in their use of famines and genocides. The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people’s land and food.
Almost as if every economic system is capable of causing famines and genocides.
It’s almost as if the material conditions of a determinate place do not change overnight.
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Yeah, as someone with Lakota, Irish, Bengali, Kurdish, and Iraqi friends and opiate and meth addicted family, I am not sure whether to laugh or cry at children of your kind. I am sure the 1990s and the introduction of capitalism was a great and prosperous time.
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American Capitalism? I invoked multiple genocides and political repressions that weren’t American. I am sure that 1840s Hungarians and Irish, 1930s Bengalis, and 1990s and 2000s Iraqis are glad to know that capitalism isn’t repressive or intentionally creating starvation because the people creating the repression and starvation said that they aren’t. Even though China gave up on most communist ambitions post-Dheng and Cuba has been strangled by American blockades, both have not been nearly as active in war mongering as “Western Nations”, nor as repressive, despite active propaganda about them. And Western repression is much more tied to their economic modes than other nations. You have to kill anti-war protesters (e.g. Kent State) because if not full colonialism, we need neo-colonialism, so pro-Vietnamese protests can’t be tolerated. And we need to support Israel, so “anti-Semitic” a.k.a. anti-Zionist protesters can’t be tolerated and have no rights, because of their ties to the military and arms industry. Such as Mahmoud Khalil, who needs to be disappeared and sent to an undisclosed location to try to push fascist anti-protest, anti-speech laws.
Even though China gave up on most communist ambitions post-Dheng
No they haven’t.
China did not abandon Communism, they pivoted from their Left-deviationism that was based in idealism, not materialism. The Gang of Four tried to achieve Communism through Fiat, despite the Productive Forces being far below the level for that to be feasible. They rejected markets out of a miral fetishization of Poverty in an entirely publicly owned economy, rather than for Materialist reasons, so they course corrected to Marxian economics.
What is the “civilised world”?
What communist country did you personally live under, lemmy user in 2025?
I’ll also point out that tons of people all over the world are ignorant of how their own countries operate.
This is a good example of one of things people hate about lemmy.
Communism fan boying, implicit denial of genocides committed by communist powers, out in the open on the front page.
Yeah.
The CIA is why the Soviets fell. Not corruption or incompetence.
When people ask me what communist country was successful I usually say all of them until cia decided to go there and spread freedom 🇺🇸🦅
China
China is still Socialist.
What does it mean though? China’s gini coefficient is higher than Europe’s, and they have a growing number of billionaires.
Socialism is a Mode of Production determined by having public property as primary. In China, large firms and key industries are firmly under public ownership and control, and they actually have a falling number of billionaires in the last couple years.
https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
In short, China has billionaires but they are devoid of political power 👍 🇨🇳
Indonesia, Chile, West Germany, Congo, Iran, Bengal, Guatemala, Nicaragua…
I wonder if anyone ever said “Democracy would never work, just look at what happened to Athens”.
Socialism and communism are relatively new ideas. While I don’t believe communism is an effective form of government, it’s still kind of silly to write it off so quickly.
lemmy.ml moment
Even without interference communism can never work, it’s not how human nature works, it relys on everyone being on the same page which will never happen
Anthropology doesn’t support the idea that humans are incapable of being communal.
do you realize that you are contradicting your statement? You talk of “human nature” as a law of nature, something that cannot be changed and has to conform every single time, but then you mention that people are just different lmao.
People who talk of “human nature” are white supremacists. The idea is that groups and people with different cultures are not human is what underpins this whole concept
What part of communism relys on everyone being on the same page?
It’s right there on Karl Marcos’ “All About Capital”, basic economics commie
im sorry Carl Marcos is too advanced.
they keep saying 'In one word; ’ and then writing a whole paragraph. and why do they keep making economics all political?
The “in one word” bit I believe is a remnant of older speaking styles, but it’s always funny. I also really love the abrupt pivots to dunking on Kautsky Lenin makes all the time, lmao
2·2 hours agoIts because he’s German
Ah, gotcha! Makes sense, still funny in English.
It was a joke.
How does it rely on “everyone being on the same page?” What gave you that impression?
capitalism, of course, where utility is only allowed to exist as the unexploited byproduct of a scam, cannot fail. it can only be failed.
I don’t disagree with you, but the person you’re responding to didn’t mention capitalism?
you’re right, they could be a monarchist instead. that’s much more sensible.
it’s not how human nature works
where is human nature defined?
this is a thought-terminating cliche, not an my argument to be taken seriously
Haha no communism can force you to go against your evil “human nature” so you have to aid the collective people, who mostly have a good human nature
Kind of some level of any system isn’t it? In short if a system has a means to power that can tweak the rules. Inevitably will result in one group ceasing the rules, turning them to raise how much they can tweak them, and ensuring they continue to be tweaked in their favor.
Communism relies on a possibly impossible starting point. Theoretically if the starting point were reached, it seems the most sustainable. Whether it’s possible to reach that starting point is the great mystery.
What “possibly impossible starting point” does Communism rely on? This reads like someone that hasn’t actually attempted to engage with what Communists believe, to be honest.
Yeah I think you hit the nail on the head here. It’s interesting to think about how even though communism could theoretically be the best system, it could mean nothing if we don’t know how to meet the conditions to achieve it in the first place.
It’s in our genetics to engage in a perpetual exponential quarterly growth and make our decisions based on the benefit it brings to our investors. Any caveman could tell you that smh…
E: my god it’s a hyperbolically absurd take in memes and even with the caveman comment I still need to /s apparently…
If you ran humanity in thousands of simulations how often would we end up in the same capitalistic situation?
Very frequently, but it is exactly just as likely it would have moved on to Socialism and eventually Communism, or retained feudalism, it all depends on when in development.
Is it always a linear path?
Fantastic question! The answer is no, not necessarily. The PRC is Socialist, and never had a true “Capitalist” phase. It currently has a Socialist Market Economy, but never really had a stage dominated entirely by Capitalism.
There are also reversions. Russia reverted to Capitalism, and Germany almost became Communist, but was stopped by the Nazi Party coming to power.
However, all of that being said, history does generally progress alongside technological development, and the Mode of Production follows suit.
Well, let’s hope the great filter isn’t something we encounter before we see some cool shit.
So many it would be hard to count, at least 4 or 5. But numbers don’t really go much higher than that. Any caveman could tell you that.
this rather shows the untestability of the hypothesis. this is no test at all.
It’s an unanswerable question. Just something to think about. My intention was to ponder how much external forces dictate our society rather than the internal expressive ones.
the majority would be relatively the same with minor variances on cultural customs and traditions, society conforms to law whether if you realize it or not, this is a chief principle of materialist philosophy, understanding that the things conform to definite laws and that we must and can discover them. Historical materialism is the materialist conception of history with the conclusion that the development of production is the chief driving force in the development of society, quantitative improvements in production lead to qualitative changes in how society is organized.
With this in mind, Communism is a stage of development where developments in production led to a society of abundance that ended the exploitation of man by man. Communist states, like China, are not in that stage but are organized to pursue that goal, this is why China has a massive focus point on the development of productive industries.
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Far less often than we end up with communalist hunter gatherers and early agrarian communes and evidently for a much shorter time. Does that mean feudalism can never work? Capitalism is never at any point of productive development possible?
Edit: deleted a section that assumed you were the same guy who said communism was against human nature. Apologies.
Your words make no sense to me. If you want to convey ideas use the common tongue. It feels like you have some neat ideas though.
Edit: Can anyone please decipher what this guy said?
people share goods and culture naturally. the prevailing historical models are cooperative. anticooperative, competitive societies are rare.
Thanks man. So this guy is an expert on economies but not on psychologies. Is that fair?
If you wanna talk psychology, the ultracompetitive demands of modern capitalism have to be drilled into each of us from birth, and most of us resist it all the same. Mark Fisher elaborates on this in Capitalist Realism, this learned behavior is in large part responsible for the mental health crisis in the world.
No, but greed and envy is. That’s why humans have written so much in the last thousand years about greed and envy.
No, cavemen were very egalitarian. This is because back then, you couldn’t hoard much of anything - food spoils quickly, sex requires your partner to like you, and personal possessions were things like tools or the odd bit of clothing. It was when wealth could be preserved, such as livestock, stored grain, jewelry, and eventually coinage, that wealth became an hereditary thing.
This is why a future economic system has to be designed to prevent the excessive hoarding of wealth. Not too little, nor too much. Humans weren’t evolved to be free of consequence, especially from each other.
Nah communism is shit, same with trickle down economics… you can have a bit of capitalism and a bit of socialism in a healthy mix of free trade economy with regulations.
Like we do in Europe, because if you do not regulate the free market it’ll stop being free in a generation. Like it’s happened in the US.
Yeah, or like they do in China.
Unfortunately for many parts of the world, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to go full socialist or not, if you get in the way of multinational exploitation and neocolonialism, you’re gonna get couped. There’s no shortage of left-leaning non-socialists who have also been targeted by the CIA. Like Guatemala, where they just wanted to do basic land reform so farmers could work their own land, but Chiquita didn’t like that so it became the origin of the term “Banana Republic.”
What do they do in China, exactly? It looks like single-party fascist corporatism. If it’s communism, why do they have a rising number of billionaires and worse conditions for workers than many european countries?
China has a Socialist Market Economy. Large firms and key sectors like steel and banking are nearly entirely under public control, while there are a large number of self-employed people. They actually have a falling number of billionaires in the last couple years.
As for worker conditions, Europe is Imperialist and many European countries act like landlords, and China is still a developing country, though rapidly developing.
What do they do in China, exactly? It looks like single-party fascist corporatism.
The funny thing about discussions about China’s economy is that you can use pretty much any term to describe it as long as it’s bad. If “socialist” or “communist” is understood to be a bad thing to those in the conversation, you can use those terms without objection, but you can also say stuff like “Feudalism” or “Fascist Corporatism” or “Colonialism” or “Capitalist” or “State Capitalist” or whatever tf else, it’s all just vibes-based and the only requirement is that the vibes be bad.
China has a mixed economy with a combination of state ownership and private investment, with the state maintaining a controlling share in certain key industries, and preventing (at least so far) economic elites from infiltrating the government for the purpose of widespread regulatory capture and deregulation. Billionaires exist but sometimes face real consequences for illegal activity, and the balance between public and private ownership tips more heavily towards public when compared to other countries such as those in Europe.
The partial liberalization of the economy is meant to encourage economic development post-industrialization, and prevent the challenges the USSR faced with economic stagnation post-industrialization. Central planning works great if you’re just trying to meet people’s basic needs like food or shelter, but the demand for consumer goods is more fluid. This policy is also adapted to the global situation, China has benefitted greatly from industry moving there and by becoming a major trade partner of the US and other countries (while also holding the bulk of manufacturing output), that makes it difficult for outside forces to go to war or level sanctions/tariffs on them.
It is not a “communist” country in the sense of having achieved communism (in this sense, a “communist country” is an inherent contradiction). It could be called a communist/socialist country in the sense that it is governed by (self-identified) communists. Socialism, or I should specify Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, aren’t a set of specific policies but rather a materialist and class-based mode of analysis to be applied and adapted differently depending on material conditions.
Some hardcore Maoists would argue that China’s current system is a deviation from the correct socialist ideas, as espoused by Mao. However, there’s also this odd branch of Westerners that don’t like China’s liberalized system because “it has billionaires,” but also don’t like what they had before under Mao when they didn’t have billionaires, but also claim to dislike full-on capitalism - so as far as I can tell, they just dislike China regardless of what they do or don’t do. I’ve yet to find any such person who’s actually willing and capable to engage in a discussion of “what should they do/have done economically” as opposed to just bashing them. And in fact, when asked what kind of economic system they support, they’ll often describe a mixed system similar to what China has, but then be like, “but not like that.”
I’ve yet to find any such person who’s actually willing and capable to engage in a discussion of “what should they do/have done economically” as opposed to just bashing them.
I didn’t say they weren’t doing fine or that they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.
I just said that they’re not communists. This is not a bad thing! But lying about it is of course somewhat distasteful, especially for those people who think themselves as being communists.
I didn’t say they weren’t doing fine or that they shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing.
So your position is that their system is “Fascist Corporatism,” but also… that’s fine, actually?
I just said that they’re not communists. This is not a bad thing! But lying about it is of course somewhat distasteful, especially for those people who think themselves as being communists.
Whether they’re “lying” is a matter of interpretation and ideological differences. Like, if I’m a hardcore, traditionalist Roman Catholic, maybe from my perspective, all Protestants are “lying” about being Christian because “true Christianity” means my interpretation of it. Likewise, if you’re a hardcore Maoist, then maybe you’d argue that China is governed by revisionists who are “lying” about being communists.
If we want to look at it from a relatively objective point of view, the largest number of self-identified communists in the world are Marxist-Leninists, who don’t view China as “lying about being communist” but rather agree with or at least critically support their approach. So, idk, if you want to join some fringe Christian sect that claims every other sect as being heretical and themselves as the sole defender of the faith, or if you want to join some fringe communist group that denounces every other communist group as revisionist and themselves as the only “real” communists, then idk, you do you ig. But not everyone who believes different things from you is “lying.”
So your position is that their system is “Fascist Corporatism,” but also… that’s fine, actually?
Great point. That was a mistake from my part. So what China is doing is indeed not fine at all, even though it kind of works for them.
I’m sure that your branding of the Chinese economy is based on a very high degree of intellectual rigor and definitely not just pulling words out of your ass based on vibes.
This isn’t true, though. You can’t have a “little bit of Socialism” and a “little bit of Capitalism,” Socialism and Capitalism are descriptors of overall economies. Regulation in a Capitalist system is still Capitalism, Europe in particular is Imperialist (and increasingly moving to fascism as they fade from relevance in the global stage).
Socialism, on the other hand, absolutely works, and is why the PRC is overtaking everyone else at the moment.
Yeah, but how is the quality of life for the average person in the PRC? Honest question, because I don’t know. I’m American they would have us believe that the average Chinese citizen is living one step of from a factory slave.
I’m American they would have us believe that the average Chinese citizen is living one step of from a factory slave.
Download RedNote and see for yourself. You’ll never get a full picture from social media alone, but you can see a lot.
Varies dramatically depending on where you live, because China is an extremely rapidly developing country that was as poor as Haiti is today 100 years ago. Quality of life overall is good, and rising rapidly.
I know this doesn’t say actual statistics and stats, but watching videos that actually show China can help de-mystify it.
China is an extremely rapidly developing country that was as poor as Haiti is today 100 years ago.
I’d say 75, at the end of the Civil War. The firsthand descriptions of rural China from Fanshen come from around that period and are basically late-feudal, but ravaged by a few decades of major wars.
Fair enough, good point comrade.
Not really sure about taking China as an example for something “working”…
Why not? It’s rapidly overtaking everyone else, and has made massive strides for workers. What would you call it?
A place where human rights are not respected
Can you elaborate? They have a better respect for human rights than the vast majority of states.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Europe is sliding into fascism too, just not as quickly. Regulating capitalism treats the symptoms and not the disease, and so it can only ever bring temporary relief. The problems we are experiencing now are not the product of a broken system, they are the inevitable result of capitalist economics, no matter how restrained.
Fascism vs communism is a prime example of a false dichotomy.
Communism is just socialism-flavored fascism.
This is 100% ahistorical, Communism has historically served the working class and opposed fascism while fascism has historically served Capitalists and oppressed workers and Communists. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
@AeonFelis @vga @memes both are a version of totalitarianism
“Totalitarianism” as a term was largely popularized in order to depict Communism and Nazism as “twin evils,” when the reality is that Socialist countries have had dramatic democratization of the economy.
No, it isn’t. The Soviet system dramatically expanded worker control over Tsarism and Capitalism.
This is nothing more than a feeling that you have, and has no basis in fact. All the worst atrocities committed in the name of communism throughout history cannot possibly compare in scale or cruelty to the actions of even a single fascist state.
In addition to the difference in scale there is a difference in motive. Communists have noble goals, but atrocities result from threat-induced paranoia and selfish opportunists co-opting revolutionary fervor. The atrocities of fascism are pure evil in both motive and action. Fascists seek to eliminate those that they deem inferior, and they carry this out with unimaginable cruelty and glee.
This is a sane take. This is the only form of economy that actually works well.
No, Imperialism doesn’t actually work well and is failing, meanwhile Socialism is still working and on the rise, such as in the PRC.
Is-ought fallacy? Understand me correctly, I like the EU system, but to pretend that it’s the end of history and that we’ve reached perfection in this space is wrong.
We are seeing the capitalist West’s descent into fascism. The direct proof of the 1930’s maxim, “fascism is capitalism in decay” between the AFD, Orban, Erdogan, Starmer being basically indistinguishable from a Tory, Macron pulling a Hindenburg by using the presidential power to appoint a prime minister that will unify the center-right liberals with the far-right to prevent the left from having any power in government, and Meloni being an acceptable, reasonable western leader because she follows through with whatever US foreign policy is on offer. We are seeing a direct breakdown because of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall (law of diminishing returns, applied to profit, if you are a child that believes in neoclassical economics). So profit has to be sought out by purely national protectionism and reshoring since there is not a growing pie, but you just have to claim a greater slice of the pie. Capitalism on any sufficient timescale is Fascism, the destruction of WW2 and the Marshall Plan reset this “diminishing return on profitability” so that we are reaching the same state of the 1920s. But since there isn’t a strong socialist movement we have to modify Gramsci’s assessment. “The old world is dying, a new one is completely stillborn, now and forever is the time of monsters”
Like we do in Europe
This is the only form of economy that actually works with great success.
sarcastic french laugh
Unless the population pyramid is destroyed, but that won’t happen right?
typical european “we are a garden” centrist, i wonder how europe accumulated its capital on the first place!
Sir, this is lemmy. Moderate politics are highly upvoted and deeply resented here.
Supporting a system where workers are held down in favor of corporate greed is not and never will be “moderate”
I can see that, wild that there are people here thinking Communism is ok
Needs v wants
Needs: healthcare, utilities, public transport, even a minimal but quality food source. Even to the point of utilitarian but working phones/devices. State ownership where profits are minimal but go back into the state. The services aren’t necessarily free, but are run without massive shareholder payouts.
Wants: upgrades and luxuries. iPhones, treat foods, nice cars, silk bedding and those ridiculous marshmallow shoes everyone loves. Regulated but free market.
Now all your basic needs are covered by the community together. You could probably live a simple life with very little income. If you want luxury or fancy, feel free to work too get it.
I have been trying to put together a document that attempt this concept of ensuring the survival of people, while making money into something used for lifestyle upgrades. Also, heavy emphasis on wealth limits and preferring people over corporations. IMO, corporations are great for personal interests, but are beyond terrible when it comes to the wellbeing of people. Thus, we should make having a job optional, but rewarding.
UNIVERSAL RANKED INCOME
Yo, how do you have lumberjack in the same tier as astronauts ? One goes to space, and other is a guy in flannel swinging ax in the woods lol
High injury and fatality rates. An astronaut risks their life everytime they ride an occaisional rocket, but a lumberjack has to deal with falling trees on a daily basis.
Ok, I see where you are going with that. I don’t personally agree, but I see where you are coning from
Trying to design a Utopia by fiat has historically failed, just look at the Owenites. The great advancement with Marx was studying societal development and mastering it, so that we can work it into our favor, not by designing systems in a lab that may have no bearing in reality.
Europe has the whole “pretend we’re better than everyone else” into “kill all nonwhites” bullshit going, better kill em before they hitler again
you can have a bit of capitalism and a bit of socialism in a healthy mix of free trade economy with regulations
I used to believe this, and I also used to argue against socialists on the same exact grounds.
At some point I noticed that all those nice little bits of socialism that rounded off the edges of capitalism kept getting rolled back. Then I read more about how those safety nets were put up in the first place – I found out they were all bought with the blood of people much farther left than me, and I saw how violently capitalists opposed them. I found that a lot of the reason those safety nets were so nice for so long in the Global North was that our countries were slaughtering people by the millions (again, a lot of leftists) elsewhere in the world to prop capitalism up.
At that point I stopped just nodding along to all the campfire stories about socialist countries. Maybe, like my standard U.S. education had missed a lot of pretty important things about how capitalism works, it had similarly missed some important things about how socialism works.
Oh boy, another batch of centrists coming in from the Reddit shitstorm… This one oblivious to the fact that far right parties are gaining traction all over Europe.
if you do not regulate the free market
Wtf are you talking about. There is no such thing as a free market.
There’s never been any real communism. If a country has money then it is inherently a capitalist society .
What no theory does to an mf.
I don’t think money makes a society inherently capitalist, money predates capitalism by a loooong time, but I agree that if it has money it isn’t communist. It can be on its way to communist, a transitonary state, and depending on your definition it can be socialist, but communist is explicitly a moneyless, classless, stateless society. So, yeah, if it’s got it money, it’s not communist, but saying it’s capitalist is to create a false dichotomy of there only being fully realized communism or capitalism, with nothing outside of or in-between the two.
Eta: replied to the wrong person in the thread. Whoops. Meant to reply to the original commenter on this thread.
I hope this comes across as a genuine question, despite the thread itself getting a little jacked up. Like many of us, I’d like to find better systems of governance / better solutions to the problem of needed / beneficial coordination.
How does a communist society as you’ve described defend itself against opportunistic, hierarchical forces that would subsume and control it? What is the (de-coordinated? If you’ll accept my term?) answer to such a problem, pragmatically?
The “State” for Marxists is largely the elements of government that upold class society, like Private Property Rights. Social workers and government would still exist, moreover hierarchy is only a problem for Anarchists, Marxists understand it as a necessary tool.
That’s a dramatic oversimplification, but I can elaborate on whatever you wish, or provide a Marxist-Leninist intro reading list I made.
Oh Lord, ask someone smarter than me! Lol. I was clarifying terms more than anything else. Communism is an end stage, an eventual goal. That’s the big sticking point between anarchists (hi!) and communists. Communists believe in capturing the state so that it can be transformed and eventually wither away to become a communist society, anarchists believe in dismantling the state and creating communism directly. There are other differences, including how we define terms such “the state,” but that’s the jist.
I guess firstly, I should probably out myself that I’m not a Marxist leninists, but more along the lines of a syndicalist or platformist. Council communist is a semi appropriate term. I also don’t believe the same system that would work in rural Tennessee would be viable for urban New York. I believe in democratic, worker control. Consensus democracy and direct democratic control. The trouble is, I, and many others, don’t believe that communism is possible in just a single area. It would be subsumed, attacked, overthrown. It, by necessity, must be either a world wide movement to achieve True Communism™, or it would need to be isolated, insular, and completely or near completely self sufficient. The latter option is, frankly, kind of shit, and in my opinion, when combined with more authoritarian means and the “capture the state” side of things, leads to dictators and shitty conditions.
Not to be mean, but this is actually wrong. Anarchists and Marxists don’t simply disagree on means, but also on ends. Anarchists want full decentralization, as they see hierarchy as the chief problem, whereas Marxists want full centralization, as we see Class as the primary issue. Communes don’t get rid of class, as they create different groups that share ownership of their MoP but not other communes, ie everyone becomes petite bourgeoisie.
I can elaborate more and offer readings if you’d like, I’m a former Anarchist (syndicalist, specifically) and am firmly a Marxist-Leninist, so there’s common ground there. Really, I am not trying to be rude, it’s more that I think your characterization of Marxism as wanting the same thing as Anarchists in the end is a pretty common but entirely untrue notion that unfortunately makes things difficult.
Doesn’t come across as rude! Always happy to be educated.
Okay, so, it was my understanding that the ultimate end goal, say, 200 years after the revolution, the society would be practically the same between anarchists or communist. That just the means and transitonary state would be different. Once the state has withered away, once we have achieved classless, stateless, moneyless, it would be virtually or actually, and definitely practically, the same.
I’d love to know to more if that’s not the case, and how they would differ. To be honest, I knew more 5 years ago, but I’ve forgotten a lot of theory and checked out pretty substantially for a while.
Perfect, thanks for asking!
Speaking in over-generalized strokes, most Anarchists want some form of horizontal network of Communes. The Marxist critique is that this doesn’t get rid of class, it makes everyone a petite-bourgeois owner of their commune’s MoP, and further this isn’t a natural progression from Capitalism like (Marxian) Socialism is.
Marx’s core critique of past Socialism, such as the Owenites, is trying to design an ideal society in a lab, and create it, rather than continue to build up society and erase contradictions gradually. Capitalism centralizes, because production becomes incredibly expansive and complicated, ergo he believed it would eventually be necessary for the government to take over just to run it, and that this government must be of the workers to properly handle it as Capitalists outlive their usefulness.
I recommend checking out my introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list, at least the first few sections, for more on this.
The comment your replying to (or meant to) has to be being purposely dense. There is obviously a difference between being a communist, having a communist party take power, and “achieving” communism. No one with a brain would think the OOP was talking about the last use of the word in that sentence.
It’s a common “dumb guy that thinks they’re being smart” take because they haven’t actually ever read a book in their life. They just read the definition of communism once.
I read this as communism has never failed
trvth nvke
Well there’s never been any real communsim on earth yet so that’s technically correct.
What if a country has money but you also need monthly issued talons to get most goods?
Isn’t that just called a paycheck?
No, it’s called a ration stamp
So access to food and drink which you can’t get otherwise you’ll starve. Sure sounds like a paycheck to me.
Yeah, it’s absolutely the same. I hope you’ll experience it one day.
Money and trade are not Capitalism. Capitalism is a specific Mode of Production that rapidly expanded with the Industrial Revolution, surrounding the M-C-M’ circuit of production.
Socialist societies have existed and continue to, such as the PRC, Cuba, and former USSR.
Says there’s communist countries, lists off all capitalist countries instead.
All of those countries have used money, had a class system, have used wage slave labour and are nation states. All of that combined makes a nation capitalist in my view. Just because a country says it’s “communist” doesn’t mean anything when all those countries are playing the capitalist rule set. It’s like saying you’re going to play candy land but you have the rules of monopoly. It just doesn’t work to call those countries communist or socialist when they are still playing the capitalist rule set.
It’s pretty clear that you haven’t read Marx, and think Communism means “immediately implement a far-future, highly developed society devoid of any remaining class antagonisms” through fiat, by pushing a button, but this would make Marx howl with laughter.
A Socialist system is one where public ownership of property is primary in society, and in all of those societies this is true. Having money, wages, even classes is indeed contradictory to late-stage Communism, but they never claimed to be. Socialism is the long, drawn-out process of erasing those contradictions, which cannot be waved away but must be erased through building up the productive forces and erasing their foundations, and the method of doing as such is to hold all large industry in the control of the public, and increase this control over areas that develop into large industry.
I recommend checking out my Marxist-Leninist reading list, at least the first couple of sections, before trying to take an authoritative stance on Marxism.
I have read Marx, thank you very much and you even said I was right about what communism means so maybe you should take a look at your own reading list.
No, your belief that Socialism must be devoid of any contradictions is anti-Marxist and goes against Dialectical and Historical Materialism. By that definition, “Real Capitalism” hasn’t existed anywhere either, as all Capitalist systems have had single proprietorships, public ownership, and more that contradict the Capitalist system.
Explain this quote from Marx himself, in Critique of the Gotha Programme:
But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby.
In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and with it also the antithesis between mental and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but itself life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly – only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
Wait, I thought Socialism couldn’t have contradictions, according to you? Why is Marx saying even Communism would have contradictions? Why is Marx talking about society as it develops, and not as magically appearing with the touch of a button?
I’m being sarcastic, of course. If you want to learn more about Marxism I can help you along, but without accepting that Socialism is a lengthy process of working out contradictions, and that therefore it is categorized by Public Ownership being primary, you’ll end up walking yourself into endless traps.
the world understander has commented
Upvoting this just because it made me laugh.
Communist can run a society that is not yet achieved communism. Not sure if you’re being purposely dense or not.
Also, currency does not define a society as capitalist. We’ve have currency long before capitalism ever existed.
also, primitive societies tended to be pretty communist. you need to build to delusions like capitalism.
To be clear, primitive Communism and Marxian Communism are just about polar opposites, one is the smallest unit of society and the other the largest and most vast, one full decentralization the other full centralization.
the core “from those who have to those who need” is still in common, and it is a form of classless stateless society, even if it doesn’t really scale and we can’t get back there from here.
plus, there are alternatives to marx. he wasn’t infallible.
That isn’t the “core,” of Communism. It’s more of a side-effect and possibility only truly achievable in Upper-Stage Communism.
There are alternatives to Marx, but I’m not convinced of any of them.
okay. I’m not really convinced by most of what marx had to say. a lot of it seems like it was really far sighted, but doesn’t quite ring true in 2025. some of it seems pretty solid. dude could seriously write though, when he wasn’t actively trying to be bland for the respectability, and was proof that people in the 19th century didn’t have to be pieces of shit.
im looking for a classless stateless society where the point is human flourishing and resources are distributed with an eye to fairness and the long term well being of all people. I think there are better/worse and more/less stable ways to get there, but if it’s stupid and it works, it wasn’t stupid.
assuming that’s roughly your goal and we’re both alive to see it, I’ll bet you a cup of (probably extinct by then) coffee my way gets there first?
Well, I would say Marx has generally been proven spot-on. He didn’t predict the way Imperialism would function, or what impact that would have on revolution, but we have Lenin for that. What, exactly, did you think was wrong with what Marx wrote? I find it puzzling that you say he seems focused more on the far-flung, when it was the opposite, he focused on analyzing Capitalism and arming the Working Class with the knowledge of how to overcome it by knowing its laws.
Either way, I bet Marxists end up correct, the PRC is the world’s most developed Socialist state and it’s also becoming the world’s power as the US and EU crumble.
Look up the gift economy, that was a society with no problems before currency took over.
