Ah yes, my grandparents, the landlords. Wait hol’ up, they were working people, not landlords. GDR fucked them regardless.
“bUt tHAT wASn’T rEaL ComMunIsM” If neither the USSR nor China could achieve true Communism, then maybe it isn’t so much a realistic goal as a utopian ideal, a convenient justification for all kinds of crimes against humanity that occur in its pursuit.
It wasnt the GDR, it was the totality of global Capital conspiring to defeat the biggest threat to their power structure. What did the GDR do specifically that ‘fucked’ your grandparents?
It’s weird, we tried having a small group of people control the flow of capital and it was unpopular each time. Let’s try it again but call it something different or say it was something else when we tried it before.
The thing is, both USSR/China and USA don’t fit the ideals of Communism. While in USA suffers from the gap between rich and poor, USSR/China suffered from the difference between the people and the government. Just because you get rid of economical suppression doesn’t mean you can’t have political suppression. Sure these countries had economical problems but a lot of their problems could have been avoided if the government would have actually worked for the people and not for themselves.
it WAS real communism and ur grandparents probably deserved it. absolute worst case senario no system is perfect and good people still get fucked over sometimes for no good reason, difference is under capitalism it is constant under socialism it is rare.
As I understand it, “real communism” is supposed to be some kind of stateless society. As the GDR was, well, a state, it clearly did not achieve that. Nor would it ever have been likely to, as actually doing what was ideologically promised would have required those with power within that system to relinquish that power, which is incredibly rare as it conflicts with human nature.
Communism is not anarchic. Stateless with respect to Communism refers to instruments of government by which one class suppresses another. Communism was always meant to have a world republic.
i wonder what planet u came from; clearly u arent human cuz any human would understand the context here. actually u are human (probably) and u are just making a meaningless semantics argument in bad faith.
when left leaning libs defend their ideals from right leaning libs by saying “it wasnt real communism” like in this case. they mean that the thing being talked about did not adhere to communist ideals.
when u say that “it wasnt real communism” u mean that there is a distinction between communism and socialism or lower stage communism as marx called it.
the gdr was a socialist country led by communist with the goal of establishing communism when they original lib said it wasnt real communism what he mean was that “the gdr was not a socialist country and it wasnt led by communist”, then when i said it was real communism i meant to re state the fact that the gdr was a socialist country led by communist. so it is self evident that ur argument is irrelevant no one was actually talking about where the gdr was a stateless, money less, classless society, we were talking about whether the leadership of the gdr truly adhered to communist principles.
as to why ur argument looks to be in bad faith u would have to live under a fucking rock not understand this context or far more likely u are arguing in bad faith.
I think you have an unrealistic estimation of how much most people understand the topic of communism, if you think not labelling different types of communism as the same ideology is living under a rock. More than half the country doesn’t even realize that socialism and communism aren’t complete synonyms, and a good fraction think paradoxically that center right liberalism is somehow communist.
Real Communism, along Marxist lines, has a government. Marxism isn’t anarchic, the “stateless” part is specifically referring to instruments of the government by which one class oppresses another. Marxism has always been about achieving a global Communist republic.
Take it from a self-identified pinko commie and someone born in one of those regimes, it was not real communism. It was authoritarianism with a strong (but at times selectively applied) social safety net. To say that their grandparents deserved it when you know nothing about them is fucking absurd. You’re not helping your point or cause. You’re just being a child.
first anyone who would call themselves a pinko isnt a communist, ur probably a rad lib. second do u truly think that some lib the grandchild of gusanos can even be convinced by a random person on the internet to be a communist im not helping my cause sure, this is just for fun but if i had wrote some essay pointing out why the gdr was a real socialist country led by real communist which really adhered to communist ideals and said that its unfortunate what happened to his gusanos but that bad shit still happens everywhere i wouldnt be helping anything either.
I mean, it wasn’t, at least not according to the actual people who ran those governments. The USSR and the CCP were/are revolutionary governments, real communism happens when/if the revolutionary governments succeeds and transitions the means of control back to the proletariat.
and ur grandparents probably deserved it.
Really working hard to build those bridges of mutual respect and cooperation I see. This is one of the key reasons the USSR imploded in the first place.
The expansion of Soviet influence happened under the influence of Russian chauvinism, a major contradiction with the more successful maoist ideology today. Instead of allowing communism to be shaped by individual ethnicities or nations they did their best to russify or simply purge the base of power in the country, bolshevists or not.
Stalin and Beria did a whole bunch of purging of leftist to secure their control over the party. If you actually think everyone the Soviets killed deserved it, please go read about the Makhnovist, the Mensheviks, the Georgian bolshevist, hell go read what the Soviets did to the original leftist leader in North Korea.
difference is under capitalism it is constant under socialism it is rare.
Unfortunately that’s just not true. Revolutions are highly hierarchical due to their inherent need to react to militant reactionaries. As they begin to solidify their revolution and take over the responsibilities of the state, this hierarchy gets transferred from the the state.
Authoritarian governments are highly efficient, but are extremely hard to get away from once established. Often times the militant leader of the revolution is not the guy you want to be in complete control of the state after establishing a revolutionary government.
Mao was decent enough to accept this after the failure of the cultural revolution, Stalin on the other hand…
saying that lower stage communism as marx called it or socialism as we call it today wasnt real communism is meaningless, and at best petty. the argument was never a semantics one about the specifics of what communism is and where the lines between socialism and communism are, what was said when they said it wasnt real communism was that it wasnt led by communist and that it did not adhere to communist ideals and goals which it did. u would have to be some kind of alien lizard to not understand the context here which is why i know u are arguing in bad faith.
also some idiot lib going around saying that the gdr wasnt real communism because their ancestors had a bad experience with that system (or more likely they were landlords or capitalist and go what they deserved) isnt gonna change their mind cuz some random person on the internet told them otherwise nor do i care to make that argument.
saying that lower stage communism as marx called it or socialism as we call it today wasnt real communism is meaningless, and at best petty.
The problem is that the Soviet Union couldn’t even be correctly defined in Marxist terms to be socialist. Socialism according to Marx was a lower form of communism, one described as a transition from democratic capitalism to communism. The Soviets did not transition from a democratic state to communism, there were no valid democratic election from 38’-89’.
what was said when they said it wasnt real communism was that it wasnt led by communist and that it did not adhere to communist ideals and goals which it did.
I mean I still think there’s room for debate depending on who you’re talking about. I tend to think that the most simple definitional test whether or not you are adhering to communist ideology is to examine how the means of production is being managed.
Has the state expanded the means of control over the production to the workers in an equitable manor? Is the equity created by the workers being shared to the entire population of workers? By what means do workers negotiate their control over the means of production?
My arguments against Soviet communism is that workers had no meaningful control over the means of production. Groups of workers had no real access to influence the government such as voting as Marx described. The equity created by the workers was not shared equitably throughout the Union, with non ethnic Russians generally acting as a resource to be extracted from.
u would have to be some kind of alien lizard to not understand the context here which is why i know u are arguing in bad faith.
I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that when Marx was dreaming of a communist nation, he was not thinking it was going to start in Russia. It was an absolute shock when the 1rst country to commit to communism was autocratic Russia instead of Democratic Germany. Meaning a lot of Marxist writing isn’t really applicable to the Soviet State, Marx didn’t think about revolution occuring in a authoritarian state.
also some idiot lib going around saying that the gdr wasnt real communism because their ancestors had a bad experience with that system (or more likely they were landlords or capitalist and go what they deserved)
Or, they were one of the tens of thousands of leftist that were purged by Beria or Stalin. Pretending that the Soviets only killed landlords is not only academically dishonest, it’s harmful to future leftist endeavors. Self criticism is essential to eliminating internal contradictions from arising within the state.
It’ll be different this time guys, no really, just one more time guys, we’ll get it right, it wasn’t even a good try, let us go again, this time for real, no way it’ll be anything other than a utopia guys, the people will have the power, guys.
Lol it sounds like someone trying to defend capitalism. “No, it’s totally fine, we just didn’t implement it right. There are certain laws and regulations that can fix it, we swear!”
Yet for some reason any flaw with a communist country is endemic to communism itself, instead of the implementation, contexts of their outside conditions, or foreign influence, or general state of economic development.
Communism isn’t a series of sacrifices for an eventual greater good, Socialism is definitely better than what preceeded Socialism in Russia and China. The idea of True Communism can only be achieved globally, sure, and in the far future, sure, but Communism is about building towards that through gradual improvements.
You’re implying that any progress forward is useless if it doesn’t immediately achieve a far future society, it’s devoid of logic.
No, I just have very different ideas what progress is.
Progress in my eyes is made when a society becomes more democratic, and when we solve conflicts without bloodshed.
In that sense, sure, the GDR was a step in the right direction, but nazi germany didn’t exactly set the bar very high.
The idea of socialism is nice, but you hardly have any progress if the system (be it built on free markets or planned economies) doesn’t work to improve ordinary citizens’ lives, but only to keep the powerful in power.
Personaly, I don’t care much about free markets or planned economies. I think the best approach, as so often, is a kind of blend, a social market economy that allows independent companies in a framework that protects workers, consumers and the environment.
Thing is, the specifics of the economic system aren’t important. What matters is that the people are the ones who decide them.
There is nothing wrong with pursuing a utopian society, but ultimatly you have no control over what happens in the far future (neither should you, future societies need to be ruled by future people).
The only thing you can control is the present and the near future, so what really matters aren’t the ends you strive for, but the means you employ while doing so.
The iPhone workers designed, workers made, workers marketed, workers transported, workers sold and “landlords” got paid for. It really is a perfect illustration of the issue.
u see im very smart if u live under a society u can not criticize it, what RIGHT does a salve have to criticize slavery when they do the masters bidding and eat the food the master provides and wears the clothes the master provides.
When you pay for a luxury brand phone it’s not you master telling you too, it’s you choosing. Don’t come at me with the onipotent lord that control all of us. The system IS broken, captalist is NOT the best for the people but people stiil choose.
Lmao, Capitalism practically requires a phone to get through modern society, buying a decent phone doesnt mean one casts a vote for Capitalism to continue to exist, you absolute ham sandwich.
I was told by a gamer that I’m a shill for capitalist corporations cause I like bathesda games.
I laughed my ass off, every stage of gaming from development to hardware is a capitalist machine. Don’t play games if you don’t want to support corporations
I don’t disagree at all! But if you want to scream “milk cpmpanies are bad” don’t go buing their product. I hate people that want to support a cause on the internet but do NOTHING to change it. Usually those are the first ones in line to buy the latest trendy Iphone. Don’t be a caplatist if you don’t want captalism.
BTW I’m not american. I’m looking from the outside and I only see irony. My country have labour laws and consumer protection and if someone messes with it we make a huge fuzz
I think this is a more significant point than most people want to admit, it’s not just iPhones, people choose status over fairness pretty much every time - they’d rather pay more to feel better than others.
The car market, computers, clothes, food - literally everything. It’s true in all the porest and richest circles even when like iphones and a lot of fashion the more expensive product is objectively worse.
It’s not capitalism inventing this it’s always been a thing and capitalism simply leverages it. I move in probably the least capitalist circles as an open source obsessive and dev, people choosing to share their work free so others can benefit but the mentality is there too, its in the eco obsessive communities too - I don’t think it’s totally universal amywhere but it’s prominent everywhere.
I’ve come to belive that the Marxist ideals don’t cover enough of what people really need, they’re idealistic and somewhat how we’d want to think of ourselves but it’s similar to dieting, deciding in a serious mood to eat only kale and beans feels like who we want to be but when we try and live that way we realize that we’re not that person.
We need to focus on achievable steps in the right direction which allow us to feel good about the change we’re making while also letting us fill our needs, even those lazy and embarrassing ones that the idealized version of of lacks.
We need to learn to understand and enjoy other forms of status but also we need to learn to reward those status symbols in others just as we reward economic status symbols even if we pretend to ourselves we dislike them. People in expensive clothes get treated better because it symbolizes the power they have to make an economic difference - even the fact iphones are feature restricted money milking machines only plays into this, it signals that you’ve got enough money not to worry about them adding $500 to the price for no reason or stinging you for a dozen subscriptions and this makes it seem like you’re the most likely person to be able to help them if they’re in trouble or give them things they xouldnt otherwise have.
Yes this is bad greedy nasty thinking and no one wants to admit it’s part of them but this is how the math in our brain works. We can’t help it, and when we ignore it or pretend it doesn’t exist or that we can wish it away that doesn’t change reality.
I don’t know what the solution is, I’d like to hope we can at least shift it from being solely economic to respecting skills too, I dont know but we need to make it socially rewarding to be a benefit to society rather and make good choices.
Thank you. Kids here trying to justify having Iphones when they could very well have the cheepest phone workable. They screem comunism but want to be better than others. I don’t thino there is a solution because humans are imperfect. No perfect solution will ever exist if a human is responsible for managing it.
The “black book of communism” includes german soldiers who died during WW2, it includes people who might have had 4 kids but only had 2, it includes victims of the US in vietnam.
Communism is a bit different than what those “communist” countries had. If anything it was socialism, but that still doesn’t fit completely. These “communist” countries are just one-party states in which the government controls the economy. The idea of putting the working class in power is useless if you create a government that can make decisions against the opinions of the working class. Socialist one-party state ≠ Communist democracy
Do you have a real-world example of a successful communist state? Because you may not like it, but those “communist” countries are humanities best attempts at enacting communism and they resulted in millions of people dying.
@Gigan
There are none! There's a reason pure communism is called a utopia. Because it is! While it may work for a small community of like-minded individuals, is just not scalable. The more people there are the more difference of opinion there is. @RmDebArc_5
Pure Communism, ie the formation of society after the contradictions within Socialism have been resolved, is not called a Utopia except by anti-communists.
There's a reason that all past attempts at the establishment of communist states have failed. Lenin, Mao, et al, had grand ideas steeped in Marxist teachings. All of them ended up in an authoritarian state. Cuba, North Korea, China, USSR. All failed because of the human factor.
Contradiction refers to the remaining vestiges from Capitalism, ie a State, Class, and Money. I suggest reading up on Historical Materialism and Dialectics.
Secondly, failing because of “the human factor” is a purely idealistic outlook and not a materialist analysis, you’re arguing off of vibes.
Yes, you are quite literally an idealist by citing “the Human Factor” as a necessary reason for issues faced by AES countries.
Idealism proposes the idea of unchanging Human characteristics, Materialism proposes the idea that environments shape ideas. The former is undoubdtedly unscientific, while the latter is scientific.
Fighting for a goal is not what I am referring to as Idealism.
Communism only works on paper because it assumes that the people in power are going to just happily share everything equally. Humans don’t work that way, we’re selfish, greedy, and will hurt others to get ahead. There is no difference between a capitalist and communist leader. They both live better, eat better, make more money. There’s no equality there
Humans do work that way. In the wake of disaster, and tragedy, and scarcity, we see people sharing resources and helping each other.
It’s the sociopaths who seek power that don’t work that way. The biggest success of capitalism is that the sociopaths have normalized their behavior and cast kindness as a flaw or disorder.
It’s not propaganda to acknowledge shitty people exist and will try to take advantage of any situation, it’s just basic reality when you’re out from behind a keyboard.
That’s an astonishingly immaterial, idealistic analysis.
Communism assumes people work in their best interests, and because ideas come from material environments and not from some idea of “spirit,” Humans are more cooperative in cooperative systems and competitive in competitive systems.
A Communist leader is one that is democratically accountable and production is owned by the state, therefore all “profits” are reinvested into the economy for the benefit of all, rather than an elite few. Corruption is possible, yes, but so too is legislating protections against Corruption. In Capitalism, this corruption is required to function.
No. But that doesn’t mean something like a socialist democracy couldn’t be achieved. Socialism isn’t bound to have a certain type of government and if we get rid of capitalism I would still like to have a say in what happens next
Millions less than the previous government forms, like Feudalism. Famines disappeared quickly and industrialization allowed for life expectancy to double in the USSR and Maoist China, despite issues like Civil War, World Wars, and so forth.
Did a lot go wrong? Absolutely. Were they massive improvements? Also yes.
ew a revisionist, it was REAL socialism led by REAL communists and it was based as fuck and the one that are still around are real and they are based. also theres no such thing a one party socialist state that is a myth at most u could say past and present socialist countries has a dominant political party but by no means was there only one, and other parties were and are allowed in those countries.
Yeah. You don’t get to revise away anything uncomfortable. USSR and China were socialist experiments that succeeded in raising quality of life and transforming rural countries into industrial, scientific states. If people wanna talk about what went wrong, great. Pretending they “don’t count” just puppets capitalist apologia and doesn’t help
From a theoretical point, they don’t count as communist. They entirely dropped the all-important aspect of giving power to the working class.
Both the USSR and China, in their self-described “communist” periods, were ruled with absolute power and directed by a head of state. The USSR collapsed, and modern China is about as communist as North Korea is democratic.
i was a little worried there comrade but im glad to see u have a good unstanding of just how great the PRC is, after all what could be more the democratic than the glorious DPRK.
Communism is a society without social classes, money, or a state.
Feel free to name one so-called communist country that implemented that.
The eastern block was as communist as North Korea is democratic.
They did however socialize ownership of factories etc, so they did have an authoritarian form of socialism.
Name a real-world implementation of communism that either isn’t Marxist–Lenninist, or one that is and has moved beyond the “dictatorship of the proletariat” stage. I’ll be waiting.
That’s different, because of reasons. When someone dies within a communist system that is communism’s fault. When someone dies in a capitalist system, that’s their own fault for not tugging on those bootstraps.
@Gigan@Grayox
No one died under communism because communism has never been achieved in the modern world. People died under state capitalist and state socialist authoritarian governments that people mislabel as communist because they don't know what communism is.
AES countries were and are legitimate attempts at building Communism. People have died in these countries, but at the same time many saw drastic increases in quality of life and industrialization. Dismissing AES is usually a sign of not understanding Marxism.
@Cowbee
I understand Marxism and reject AES countries because they not only abandoned many of the core principles of communism but weren't even successful at achieving communism.
@Cowbee
Countries like the Soviet Union deviated from some core principles of communism, including classlessness by introducing a new bureaucratic class, statelessness (the withering away of the state as envisioned by Marx never happened), and a moneyless economy by retaining wage labor and currency.
@Cowbee
Achieving a global, worker-owned republic without class, money, or a state while capitalist states exist presents significant challenges. It would require widespread international cooperation, grassroots movements, and a shift in global consciousness toward socialist ideals. International solidarity, mass education and organization, and an immediate introduction of a communist economic model would make it much easier.
Yes, so I am not sure why you are criticizing AES countries for leading the effort but not achieving them yet. This is anti-dialectical reasoning, which goes directly against the philosophical aspects of Marxism.
There was not a new “beaurocratic class.” Government ownership of the Means of Production is Socialist, as profits are controlled collectively, rather than by Capitalists. Beaurocrats and state planners were not a “new class” but an extension of the workers.
The whithering away of the state is IMPOSSIBLE until global Socialism has been achieved. The USSR could not possibly have gotten rid of the military while hostile Capitalist countries existed. Additionally, Statelessness in the Marxian sense doesn’t mean no government, but a lack of instruments by which one class oppresses another.
Wage Labor did not persist for the sake of Capitalist profit, but to be used via the government, which paid for generous safety nets. To eliminate money in a Socialist state takes a long time, and cannot simply be done overnight.
I really think you need to revisit Marx. I suggest Critique of the Gotha Programme.
There was a Bureaucratic class in the Soviet Union that was above everyone else. Bureaucrats held significant power and privileges distinct from the working class, which led to a stratified society rather than the classless society envisioned by socialism.
@Cowbee
2. The concept of the "withering away of the state" in Marxism refers to the gradual dissolution of state institutions as class distinctions disappear and society transitions to communism. It does not necessarily require global socialism to be achieved first, and the expansion of state power and repression under regimes like the Soviet Union contradicted this principle.
@Cowbee
3. While it may be true that the Soviet government provided safety nets and controlled wages, the persistence of wage labor and currency contradicted the goal of achieving a moneyless and classless society under socialism. The gradual elimination of money and wage labor was indeed a complex process, but the Soviet Union did not achieve this goal.
@Cowbee
4. In the Marxist sense, statelessness does entail the absence of a government as a tool of class oppression. However, it does not mean the absence of any form of governance. The Soviet state, with its centralized authority and control, did not align with the vision of statelessness as envisaged by Marx.
The persistance of money and wages did not stand against the progress of Socialism. Again, Capitalist profit was eliminated, the state directed the products of labor, not Capitalists. Marx was not an Anarchist, he did not believe money could be done away with immediately. The USSR attempted to do away with Money, but were not yet developed enough to handle it.
It necessitates global Socialism to be achieved, as Capitalism stands against Socialism. The military cannot be done away with as long as there is Capitalism. Moving into Comminism without completing the negation of the negation, in dialectical-speak, is a mechanical transition that leaves the Socialist state open to invasion and plundering.
Bureaucrats existing, with additional powers entrusted via the rest of the workers, is not in conflict with the goals of Socialism. The government is not distinct from workers in Socialist society.
@Cowbee
While it's true that in a socialist society, bureaucrats could theoretically be accountable to the rest of the workers, the reality in many socialist states, including the Soviet Union, was that bureaucrats held significant power and privileges distinct from the rest of the working class which resulted in a hierarchical society rather than the classless society envisioned by socialism. Additionally,...
@Cowbee
...the concentration of power in the hands of bureaucrats often led to abuses and corruption, undermining the democratic ideals of socialism. Thus, while bureaucrats may theoretically be part of the working class, the way power was exercised in many socialist states did not align with the egalitarian goals of socialism.
Classes are social relations to the Means of Production. The goal of Communism is not equality! Instead, the goal is proving from everyone’s abilities to everyone’s needs.
@Cowbee
The goal of communism is equality and anti-hierarchy, quite literally the creation of a classless, stateless society where the means of production are collectively owned and controlled by the workers, and resources are distributed according to need. True equality and freedom for all individuals is the goal, where everyone can contribute according to their abilities and receive according to their needs.
Again, I am going to recommend Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Marx specifically states that humans are not equal, else they would not be different, and thus have unequal needs and abilities. It is because of this that the goal is “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” This quote specifically comes from Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Hierarchy is unjust if it is in contradiction, if it is through a worker state it ceases to be unjust, and merely becomes what must be done. Engels elaborates on this im On Authority.
Marx was not an Anarchist, he was accepting of administration and a gradual buildup towards Communism.
@Cowbee
Please stop recommending Critique of the Gotha Programme. I've read it and I don't agree with it. I disagree with Marx's emphasis on the state, centralized planning, and his advocacy of the use of labor vouchers, preferring a decentralized approach to decision-making and resource allocation, where communities and workplaces have autonomy and agency in managing their affairs and creating a culture of mutual aid, solidarity, and voluntary cooperation instead of relying on labor vouchers.
You could’ve said that from the start, that you aren’t a Marxist.
I don’t believe you can say that Marxism is a betrayal of Communism any more than you can say Anarchism is a betrayal of Marxism. If your entire point is that Marxist societies were not authentically Anarchist, then I am not sure why we are having this conversation. It’s both obvious and silly.
@Cowbee
Marxism, at least in its historical implementations, does deviate from certain communist principles, but it's not an entire betrayal of communist principles as a whole. There's no doubt that the unique aspects of Marxism (its reliance on the state, central planning, and vanguardism) led to authoritarianism and the concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals, which made achieving communism under those conditions impossible.
Fundamentally, I believe we disagree on Communism itself. The USSR was honestly pursuing Marxist Communism, and was not a betrayal of such values. However, you believe Communism to be more pure, more anarchic, and thus see the USSR as a betrayal of those values.
I believe we should judge the USSR along Marxist lines, rather than Anarcho-Communist lines, as the USSR never claimed to be Anarcho-Communist (though they revered Kropotkin and named the largest train station, Kropotkinskaya, after him).
@Cowbee
I see it as more practical to judge any communist movement, whether Marxist or Libertarian, by how effective those movements are at achieving communism. Libertarian Communism so far has not been successful, but it also hasn't been given a proper chance so it's impossible to label the methodology a failure. Marxist Communism, on the other hand, has had dozens of opportunities to achieve communism in multiple countries during the last century but always resulted in the creation of...
@Cowbee
...authoritarian states that were anything but communist and all but a handful of them still exist, the rest collapsing due to various reasons.
Marxism is, as I am sure you know, an ever-evolving theory. If we look at these states dialectically, we can see unresolved contradictions that did indeed lead to collapse in the case of the USSR, but we can also point to rapid progress and enlarged social safety nets.
I believe by “Libertarian Communism” you are referring to a far more limited government, yet you also appear to desire an elimination of money on an almost immediate timeframe. You also quote Marx, in the Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society as well as from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, yet reject Marx’s descriptions of what those accomplish and look like.
Honestly, I believe you are making the same philosophical error as the metaphysicians, looking at a concept from one side devoid of the other, at a static, fixed point, rather than dialectically as it changes and resolves its contradictions. The USSR was making advancements, until it killed itself. We should learn from this, rather than reject it wholesale.
@Cowbee
Libertarian Communism doesn't advocate for a limited government, but for the complete absence of the government, rejecting the idea of a centralized authority altogether, seeking to create a society based on voluntary cooperation and collective ownership of resources. In my criticisms, I'm not just referring to the USSR, but to all of the attempts at authoritarian communism and how most of them collapsed, and how the only remaining 5 still have not achieved communism.
@Radical_EgoCom@Cowbee
I am sorry to disagree. Authoritarianism has been very successful during history. It is a very stable system because it is based on the widespread use of repression and force. And that's why we need to be vigilant.
@Radical_EgoCom@Cowbee
Sorry, you are right. I missed that part of your thread.
And of course, how can you have the means of production if you don't have the ownership of your own government?
So what’s the difference between Libertarian Communism and Anarcho-Communism?
Either way, you’re being extremely vague. Communism is impossible in one country, it must be global, and as such it must be protected. What length of time is enough to suggest a Socialist state has “failed?” What metrics determine AES countries have “failed?” How quickly must they achieve global communism to be a success? These are rhetorical questions, you don’t have to answer them all, but they do point out more of your idealism, rather than materialism.
Secondly, and the question I do want an answer to, what method do you believe can succeed in a measurably more successful way? Simply stating Libertarian Communism isn’t truly sufficient, as you have already said, Libertarian Communism has never once lasted more than a couple years, in Catalonia, or in Primitive times.
@Cowbee
Libertarian Communism and Anarcho-Communism are just different titles for the same ideology.
I disagree that communism has to be globally achieved and can't be achieved in one country. If a country can create a strong enough decentralized military and has access to the necessary resources for their survival then communism can be achieved in one country.
As I've previously stated, Libertarian Communism hasn't been given a chance to be properly implemented, mostly due to the...
I believe at that point you are making a semantical argument on what is considered centralized vs decentralized, and what is and isn’t a state. A fully unified army of similar power would defeat a decentralized army, which necessitates some level of democratic centralism, by which point you have a state. Additionally, how do you see abolishing money while being invaded by Capitalist neighbors, as has happened to all AES countries?
I don’t believe Anarchism is more likely to succeed than Marxism in establishing Communism.
@Cowbee
A military being decentralized doesn't mean that it won't be fully unified. A decentralized military doesn't imply disorganization; rather, it allows for localized decision-making while still creating a cohesive unity through collective goals and voluntary cooperation.
The abolition of money would still be possible even with threats of invasion or outright invasions by capitalist governments. In fact, removing the incentive for profit-seeking and resource exploitation inherent in...
@Cowbee
...monetary systems would strengthen defense against aggression by creating genuine solidarity and more of a focus on mutual aid and collective security.
I believe this is just vibes-based analysis that dismisses what has materially been seen when attempted in real life. I won’t say that Anarcho-Communism isn’t more beautiful of an idea, but I also don’t believe it to be practical at the scale required to defend a revolution from outside aggressors.
@Cowbee
Libertarian Communism can be practical at a scale required to defend a revolution from foreign defenders due to its emphasis on decentralized, community-based defense strategies that empower individuals to protect their communities collectively, which in turn creates a strong sense of solidarity and resilience against external threats.
This was tried and lasted merely 2 years in Catalonia before more organized millitaries handily beat the Anarchists. The strength of worker-movements lies in unity, not individualism. A strong sense of solidarity is nice, but ideals cannot beat proper organization.
@Cowbee
I know that the strength of workers' movements resides in unity, not individualism. Libertarian Communism, or at least Platformism, is an ideology of ideological unity first and any individualism is within the context of the greater working-class movement. It's also important to note that the Catalonian anarchists were defeated for various reasons, including external military pressure, internal divisions, and the challenges of implementing radical social change amidst broader...
@Cowbee
...political turmoil and counterrevolutionary forces. It's not correct to conclude that the Catalonian anarchist were defeated simply because their military was decentralized and that hierarchical organization is superior to non-hierarchical organization simply from this very narrow view of the conflict.
Of course they faced numerous other issues, my point is that it seems that by holding to their ideals over what is practicible, they opened themselves up to failure.
On theory vs practice, it is important to test theory against practice and adapt theory to fit practice. What remains beautiful in theory must be measured by its practicality.
@Cowbee
But they didn't hold their ideals over their practicableness, and in fact that may have been the reason why they were ultimately defeated. During the Spanish Civil War, the(CNT) and (FAI) were part of the broader Republican side, which included various leftist and anti-fascist groups. While the anarchists were initially wary of collaborating with the Republican government, they did participate in the anti-fascist coalition and the Republican government in Catalonia, known as the...
@Cowbee
...Generalitat. However, the relationship between the anarchists and the Republican government was complex and often strained. The anarchists sought to maintain their autonomy and implement their vision of a decentralized, self-managed society, which sometimes clashed with the goals and methods of the Republican authorities. There were instances of collaboration, such as the participation of anarchists in the government and the militia forces, but there were also conflicts and...
@Cowbee
...disagreements over issues such as the militarization of the militias and the centralization of power. It is completely possible that had the organization of the military been unified in a decentralized way they would not have been defeated.
@Cowbee
I haven't based a single thing on idealism or "vibes". I examined the historical events and inferred a logical conclusion based on the facts, and the facts are that ideological unity was indeed lacking and necessary among the Spanish Revolutionaries, but nothing suggests that their unity had to be based on hierarchy and centralized planning, nor does anything suggest that the CNT-FIA's methods of the organization were inferior simply because they lost because other traditionally...
@Cowbee
I never said ideas create reality, however, I do believe that ideas can shape reality through the actions of those who hold those ideas, and I completely agree with the concept of unity through organization, again, never stating the contrary.
You were idealistically stating that more decentralization would have helped the Anarchists despite material evidence to the contrary. Hierarchy is not a bad thint, unjust hierarchy is.
@Cowbee
Hierarchy is a bad thing as it perpetuates inequality and oppression by allowing certain people to have more power than others. Not only would a system where power is decentralized be better in terms of eliminating inequality and oppression, but such a system would be more in line with communism's goal of creating a classless society.
Hierarchy does not perpetuate inequality, accumulation does. Hierarchy without accumulation and democratically accountable does not perpetuate inequality.
A decentralized system is not necessarily better at addressing systems of inequality or oppression.
Decentralized or Centralized makes no difference on creating a classless society.
@Cowbee
Hierarchy is the accumulation of power in the hands of a select minority of people. Even if there are safeguards to prevent too much power going to the top there will still always be an accumulation of power at the top of the hierarchy, thereby creating an inequality of power amongst the population. The only way to not have inequality of any kind is to get rid of hierarchy.
Hierarchy is not an accumulation of power, but authority vested in individuals. Democratically accountable, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with it.
Additionally, inequality is not an enemy of Communism. Communism is about providing for everyone and giving everyone a dignified life, not about making everyone equal. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” inherently accepts inequality of circumstances and outcomes as acceptable as long as everyone’s needs are met, which is impossible in the contradiction of Capitalism.
@Cowbee
I'm not able to take anything you say seriously. First, you claim that individuals having authority over others isn't an accumulation of power even though a person with authority would have to have power over others to have authority over them, and then you claim that communism is compatible with inequality, which is the most absurd thing I've ever heard a communist claim. You sound like a revisionist.
Accumulation means increasing, it does not mean static power vested democratically. Capitalists accumulate via an endless cycle of M-C-M’, which in turn swallows everything else. Elected representatives can be recalled, and even if they never are, they do not infinitely profit off the labor of others.
Please explain how “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” implies the goal is equality, and not satisfying the needs of everyone. Equality is idealist, satisfying needs is materialist. Marx explains precisely what he means:
“But one man is superior to another physically, or mentally, and supplies more labor in the same time, or can labor for a longer time; and labor, to serve as a measure, must be defined by its duration or intensity, otherwise it ceases to be a standard of measurement. This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Right, by its very nature, can consist only in the application of an equal standard; but unequal individuals (and they would not be different individuals if they were not unequal) are measurable only by an equal standard insofar as they are brought under an equal point of view, are taken from one definite side only – for instance, in the present case, are regarded only as workers and nothing more is seen in them, everything else being ignored. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal.
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 labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around 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!”
If anything, you are the revisionist, promoting half of Critique of the Gotha Programme and rejecting the half that isn’t Anarchism-friendly.
Success or failure depends on the goal. Perhaps outside observers can see something as a failure or success, but that doesn’t matter since you set the goals. As for which Lemmy community to post this to, I dunno.
This is oddly worded and has some strange conceptions.
If you open a coffee shop and can’t handle the stress and can’t manage to afford to operate it… then you have failed. If you open a coffee shop and run it well for a few years and decide to sell your functioning business or largely step down from active management with new leadership… then you successfully ran a coffeeshop and did not fail at it.
If you marry someone and divorce them, and its anything but a mutually agreed, low to no drama, no fault divorce, then yes the relationship and marriage failed.
Now the book/author example is worded much more sensibly. If you write books for a few years, and can support yourself from this or hell even if you really enjoyed it, and then you move onto something else, I don’t think anyone would consider you a failed author. You did the thing, got some works published, excellent, you are a successful author!
A friendship that doesn’t last… in most cases, is kind of objectively less of a friendship than one that lasts for a long time. It can still have been a real friendship, but it obviously was not important enough for one or both people to continue it if they … did not continue it.
People going through hobbies as phases is linguistically literally correct, as many people do this. I do agree though that phrasing this derogatorily as if there is somehow anything wrong with changing hobbies overtime is somehow bad or indicates anything negative, unless youre doing that extremely overenthusiastically and/or fiscally or physically dangerously.
Fandoms do ebb and flow. They rise and fall in popularity and enthusiasm. I again do not really see how this is somehow indicative of a culture that prizes only permanent things.
Perhaps by now its obvious I am autistic but… it doesnt make any sense to praise or criticize a fandom by its popularity alone. Praise or criticize it by the kind of community it fosters, the in jokes, the style, the lasting marka its made on other things, the quality or appeal of its content.
I mean I agree with the ending of this, that temporary things can still have been good, but… yeah a good bit of this person’s examples seem to me to be not well thought out.
I disagree with your sentiment, and think the examples work. If your aim was to run a coffee shop forever and you quit, then yes you have failed. If, on the other hand, your aim is to enjoy and have the experience of running a coffee shop, then doing so for two years and stopping is a success. Similarly with a relationship. You can have succeeded in having a mutually fulfilling relationship that you both have happy memories from, even if you then grow apart. It succeeded in its aims of spending time enjoying being a relationship.
The original image specifically mentions quitting running the coffeeshop because they can’t handle the stress and cannot afford supplies. That is failing at operating a business.
And as I said about relationships, yes, you can have a good relationship that ended on good terms, but a marriage that does not end mutually and amicably (most that end, end badly) is objectively a failure. Perhaps this is old fashioned of me, but I am reasonably certain that in nearly all cases a wedding marries two people for the rest of their lives at least in aspiration, so divorce represents a failure of that mutual aspiration. It is significantly less of a failure if two married people separate on amicable terms, but it still literally is a failure of the concept of marriage.
A friendship that does not persist is objectively not as good or successful or important as one that does, barring exceptional situations where two people wished they could remain in contact but have no actual means to do so.
I feel as if I am repeating myself, though I do not mean to be an ass. To me this is simply what these words mean.
So I guess, respectfully, I disagree with your disagreement haha.
Yeah you can run a coffee shop and stop doing so without failing, but the way the person described quitting running the shop was failure.
Likewise yes you can absolutely enjoy a temporary relationship, nearly all relationships are temporary (not until death), but a marriage that ends is literally a failed marriage, and a friendship that ends or fizzles out just is less of a friendship than one that persists for a very long time.
I think what it comes down to is some people have a fundamentally different way of thinking about it. Myself included. Setting my intention on something far in the future doesn’t necessarily mean I actually intend on achieving it. In fact, I’m almost 100% sure that I won’t. Given enough time, I’ll be a completely different person. Holding myself to what the younger version of me decided is foolish.
If I end up not being able to financially support a business I started, but I successfully provided for myself with it for years and learned a lot, it’s still valuable. If I spend 20 years in a relationship that ends, but it leads to greater self-understanding and helps me build better relationships in the future, it was worth it. It’s conceivable that a person could live an entire life doing things that you would classify as failures. But also feel completely satisfied and happy with it. So that suggests it might be a flawed perspective, no?
People change, their learn new things and their wants and objectives change.
I would be wary of considering a failure that somebody who started with the aim of running a coffee shop forever, at some point changed their minds and quit.
It depends on how they quit - if it was good while it lasted and it was their own choice to quit because their hearth wasn’t in it anymore or even for hard-nosed business reasons, it doesn’t sound like a failure to me. For me a failure would be quiting against one’s wishes. In fact I would see the staying running a business you’re fed up with against your wishes a failure.
As for relationships, some of the biggest failures I’ve seen involved people staying in something that had become hellish “for the sake of children”, due to money constraints or just for keeping up with appearences, whilst I would consider a successful relationship when people live well together for some years and when they do drift apart do the adult mature thing and separate by mutual agreement, often still being friends afterwards.
I think it’s more about what we mean by “failure”. That probably sounds silly so I’ll lean into the coffee shop example. Imagine if a coffee shop was successful, but then something beyond the control of the owner happened to make it no longer profitable. In this world, the business may have failed, but it may not be accurate to say the business owner has failed. Or maybe the business becoming less profitable is directly because of the owner, who may be taking less time being active in managing things, perhaps because of other things in their life taking their attention. Again, there’s a sense in which they’re a failure here, but in practice, it may just be that their life circumstances and priorities have changed. It might be failure with respect to the coffee shop, but I don’t think that’s failure with respect to their life. Even if the reason the coffee shop shut was because they didn’t anticipate how stressful it would be and they regret ever attempting this endeavour, I think that considering this a failure risks not acknowledging the growth and learning involved.
I liked the marriage example because I used to be engaged to someone who I spent the first chunk of my adult life with. We broke up because we had grown into people who were no longer compatible, and it was a moderately messy breakup because we didn’t want to acknowledge that fact. I think that in this, and many other relationships I’ve seen, people’s aversion to “failure” causes them to stick it out for far too long in bad relationships, which ironically leads to messier breakups and a situation which is much more clearly a failure.
I think the big problem that OP attempts to highlight is an overly binary view of success. Like with the coffee shop thing, I posed personal and commercial as two different axes of success, and I think there could be more. It encourages us to attempt to gauge the “objective” value of things that are incompatible with that kind of quantification — the bit of your comment about longer lasting friendships is something I actively disagree with you on. Some of my most cherished friendships are ones that belong to the past and it wasn’t because of lack of importance why they stopped because active: most of the time, it was just that we had become different people, in different circumstances, such that our lives were no longer compatible. There is still great love and care that exists between us, but as active friends, things have changed. In a way, these friendships feel like they were actively successful, because of how instrumental they were in helping me grow to the person I am now. I don’t think failure is a useful lens to view outgrowing something
Edit: I worry I have come across as overly argumentative, so I want to clarify pre-emptively that whilst there are aspects of your comment that I disagree with, I appreciate the time you spent writing it because the ways in which I disagreed was thought provoking. The primary reason I wrote my response was more an exercise in articulating myself than an attempt to sway you — this subject area is subjective and nuanced enough that agreeing to disagree is more than fine.
I feel like you’re completely missing the point of the post?
The post is a critique of how we as a culture generally these things as failures when we don’t have to. You insisting these examples are failures is not constructive, nor does it disprove OPs point, as the entire post is about how they are seen as failures.
The problem is that people change, places change, environment changes constantly. It was successful but then failed. Was the whole thing a failure or a success? It just was. And then it stopped to be.
The complicated words like success or failure are merely constructs of culture. Is a sun successful when it finally dies?
Anything that is a construct of culture and society can be ignored in the grand scheme of things.
Very interesting sentiments, very agreeable, but if this were one of my patients I would be quick to redirect the conversation away from “society is wrong” into “You’re realizing that you believe this is your path”. Generalizations like that do us no good. If it’s about YOU, then make it about YOU. If someone is dismissing YOU based on this stuff, talk about how that person’s words affect YOU.
I bet $100 that this person recently had a conversation with someone where this kind of language was used. Or, maybe more likely, they saw some random irrelevant bullshit on the internet from a stranger and extrapolated messages about an entire culture from it. The culture is YOU TOO, buddy!
A fair point. However, reading the OP back, it seems to me that they aren’t dismissing “forever” as success. They are only stating that its not the only acceptable definition of it.
The way i see it, some things that require never-ending commitment to be deemed a success and others don’t, but that’s not how society sees it in general.
I think messages like the one in the post are a good thing to read and think about how they apply to your own life.
No, you are correct about the number of posts. But it looks like the community is only about 2 weeks old. And if they focus on quality over quantity that post count isn’t a bad thing.
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