I mean give the man (or not) credit, some of the most powerful and influential countries in the world is where democracy suffers terribly either at the hand of despotism or at the hand of capitalism (likely both).
these countries tend to dominate over other countries as they dominate over their own citizens. this should never be a goal. countries should be democratic between themselves as their citizens should be.
Yea but still it remains that democracy as it exists now is a major failure in some of the most influential countries, making democracy a failure for more than what %80 of the world (USA, Russia, India, China, and many more middle sized countries too)?
I dont think the meme is anti democratic per se, it is just anti democratic against a democracy of this type where usually people with a mentally ill levels of drive for power are at the top. It is making more fun of the fox than the sheep.
Well, it might be so. But I am just suspicious about tankies showing flaws of democracy since they use it to “show” the supposed supremacy of “communist”, authoritarian states as China.
You are conflating communism with authoritarianism as is commonly done on purpose or by accident to invalidate it. Anarchists are also often Communists and they oppose democracy for its oppressive properties as compared to consensus building and free association, that’s a critique of democracy from an even more libertarian perspective.
Socialists and Communists also believe in the democratization of the economy, so that a capitalist owner class doesn’t get to dictate how our labor and resources are allocated.
If you truly believe in freedom, you might be interested in anarcho-communism or socialism. Liberal democracy isn’t as free as you think.
Wait did you not know about the anarcho-communists doing labor camps?
My point is that authoritarian is a useless word. Anarchists accuse left wingers of being authoritarian and then do the exact same thing with a different name. Just accept that some parts of revolution are gonna suck and gonna have excesses.
Not theory, refutation of the bullshit that anarchism necessitates forced labor. I don’t care what that poster thinks, I care that readers aren’t misled.
Their point wasn’t that Anarchism necessitates forced labor, but that historically Anarcho-Communists have employed Labor Camps, such as in Revolutionary Catalonia.
They are making the point that Anarchists are more than willing to be authoritarian when it benefits them and is immediately practical, despite cloaking themselves in an “anti-authority” robe, historically.
Those states, according to theory, are meant to be a transition TO communism, but of course many things can go wrong in that process, and we’re kinda right back at the situation portrayed in the meme.
Despite my spat with the ML leftists in this thread, I see why the idea of a communist Vanguard state is appealing. I also see how a state which transforms into socialism or communism must be “authoritarian” in that it has to take away factories and land from those that keep it as capital, so that it can be shared. These states also had to contend with constant sabotage and aggression from the Liberal Democracies of the West who feared worker revolution coming to their own land.
Anarchists are a more idealistic bunch and generally strive to build parallel power structures and organizations of people and so try to construct a new order upwards. In practice it’s hard to imagine that method being able to replace nation states, especially with similar external sabotage on top of the existing internal challenges of running an equal society. Dictatorships and blind supporters of authoritarian leaders are hard to best in terms of efficiency.
Both approaches seek to accomplish communism, anarchists want to have their dessert right away, Marxist-Leninists believe the wolf will take care of them just as soon as he’s done eating his enemies.
There has never been a communist state, not as a cop-out, but because there is no state in communism by definition. These states claim that they’re transitional towards communism.
I also see how a state which transforms into socialism or communism must be “authoritarian” in that it has to take away factories and land from those that keep it as capital, so that it can be shared.
I think this will never work, or with a very small probability. Power simply corrupts and attracts a nasty kind of people. Personally, I believe that upwards, organic, evolutionary changes are more probable to bring us closer to the ideas of communism, as industrial evolution moved most of the world from feudalism into capitalism in a natural way.
I think that’s a fair take and perhaps indicates you’d lean anarchist-left. Direct action, mutual aid, and forming parallel power structures are the exact political and social activities that are core to that philosophy. Not exclusively so, but anarchists emphasize that kind of thing over activities like voting or, I guess, awaiting revolution.
I have mixed feelings myself, that kind of natural transformation won’t just be left alone to evolve, it’ll be actively resisted by powerful political and global forces, the United States and its allies would not allow it, for example. So in that sense a powerful political organization manifesting as a new revolutionary state does seem more likely to work to me, similar to how feudalism and monarchy resisted liberalism and had to be resisted through war.
Funny enough a big reason there’s animosity between leftists, especially between anarchists and Marxist-Leninists, is because anarchist experiments were sabotaged and anarchists were fought by “Communists” during the Spanish civil war even as they together fought against Fascists. You’d think a “communist vanguard state” with the goal of establishing communism would be supportive of autonomous anarchist collectives, but those leftists weren’t under the thumb of the Soviet Union. I think this pretty clearly demonstrated that the USSR wasn’t interested in anything but Empire.
I think that’s a fair take and perhaps indicates you’d lean anarchist-left.
I perceive myself as a social democrat, maybe with elements of anarchism, such as decentralization and down-to-up elements of organization.
I have mixed feelings myself, that kind of natural transformation won’t just be left alone to evolve, it’ll be actively resisted by powerful political and global forces, the United States and its allies would not allow it, for example.
This problem is actually a hard one – otherwise no one wouldn’t need to argue about it, and there is no simple choice. If someone thinks that there is an obvious simple solution, then he/her may be just very ignorant. Maybe I will sound controversial here, but in contrast to Marxist-Leninist, I do not blame United States for damping revolution. Revolution will not come simply because we are not in 19th century capitalism anymore. Capitalists adapted, provided more humane conditions to workers to not be swept by workers’ revolution, and Antonio Gramsci saw it something like 100 years ago, but Marxist-Leninists still live in 19th century and do not see that low-income class would rather choose far-right options like Trump or AfD. The United States indeed massively interfered with damping of “socialists” republics in South America, but I think we do not need another “red” imperialism country like USSR or Russia’s vassal. Humanity needs real communism, not “red” authoritarianism.
I think this pretty clearly demonstrated that the USSR wasn’t interested in anything but Empire.
I think so, and with time this was becoming more and more obvious. Western leftists were surprisingly long (like 1956) under the charm of USSR, maybe with an exception of people like Emma Goldman.
Authoritarian is just a buzzword armchair generals throw around. All states rely on authority, including anarchist attempts like in Catalonia and Ukraine.
That’s not how I read it… it’s not really democracy if the guy being voted for is lying to the voters without repercussion (thus obstructing the voters’ right to make an informed decision) so they can get into office and do things they know the voters wouldn’t have voted for. That’s anti-democratic in itself. This meme isn’t saying democracy bad, it’s saying that what we have now isn’t a democracy.
Yes, it also helped to liberate woman and gave them more opportunities, decreased illiteracy and MASSIVE russian retardancy, but overall it sucked at many levels and from the very start:
The red terror was much smaller than the white terror, and the torture is nothing that capitalist countries don’t do on the regular. I for one would like to decrease the amount of torture in the world.
Yeah, I’ve heard about the white terror. This does not justify people who supposedly wanted a better world. I am quite sure that now amount of torture in western countries is negligible when compared with China and North Korea, and mostly by intrinsic flaws of e.g. police than political causes. And yes, I’ve heard about exceptions as Guantanamo or Pinoshit. Actually Pinoshit and Franco should not be counted as nominal western mindset, since they are authoritarian fascist piece of shits. I despise all authoritarian despots equally, no matter fascist Franco or “communist” Stalin.
I am quite sure that now amount of torture in western countries is negligible when compared with China and North Korea
This sounds like western chauvinism. Hoe can you be sure? The US has soo many blacksites, hell even local PDs have them.
Guantanamo or Pinoshit. Actually Pinoshit and Franco should not be counted as nominal western mindset, since they are authoritarian fascist piece of shits.
Pinochet was straight up supported by the west until it was too politically inconvenient, but by that time he’d already done his job of eradicating the left. Franco wouldn’t have won if it wasn’t for Britain, France, etc, enforcing “no arms and troops shipments” for the USSR but not for Italy and Germany. And they also weren’t willing to accept Spanish republican gold.
I despise all authoritarian despots equally, no matter fascist Franco or “communist” Stalin.
Hmm. One of these people was a dictator. The other was democratically elected and lead the industrialization of a society that allowed it to defeat the industrial superpower that was Germany and end the holocaust.
And how can you be sure? Given nontransparent smokescreen of all red imperialist countries like USSR, China and North Korea?
You call them imperialist without having an understanding of imperialism.
For example, explain China increasing in manufacturing output as a percent of their economy as they enter and push into the middle income bracket?
Also, how the hell is the DPRK imperialist? The only place they’ve invaded was a US military dictatorship in the same country that they’re in, while the US dictatorship was slaughtering 10s of thousands of protestors.
Oh yes, USSR, the famous standard of democracy /s
Yes. If you can’t explain how the soviet councils were layered and how elections were carried out then don’t pretend like you can argue about this in an informed way.
China uses a similar system and has a 95 percent approval rate, according to Harvard Surveys.
*replace it with the gulag system
This is holocaust trivialization. The gulags were not meant to kill people, and the mortality rate in them reflects this.
For example, explain China increasing in manufacturing output as a percent of their economy as they enter and push into the middle income bracket?
Exploiting cheap workers in inhumane conditions, resembling 19th century capitalism. Exactly what communism was supposed to end. China is getting robotized somewhat, since its society ages dramatically, but they want to keep polluting the world with cheap throwaways.
Also, how the hell is the DPRK imperialist?
DPRK constantly threaten South Korea and Japan. Apart the famous missile launches, it performs abductions, drug smuggling, marine poaching, and spying. And we have cyber attacks as well. The country is too shitty to invade another country full scale, but it does what it can do to be a bully, officially uses imperialist rhetorics and throw threats.
If you can’t explain how the soviet councils were layered and how elections were carried out then don’t pretend like you can argue about this in an informed way.
The elections were carried out in such a way, that an average worker had no chance to vote for a social demoratic party, anarchist party, or liberal democratic party. They even killed their communist opposition, Mensheviks. There is no democracy with a single party system, don’t be ridiculous.
China uses a similar system
And is a similar authoritarian regime.
This is holocaust trivialization. The gulags were not meant to kill people, and the mortality rate in them reflects this.
Setting aside manufactured famine in Ukraine and genocides like Katyn, very cautious estimates says that around 30 millions of people were victims of gulag, with lethal 2,7 million victims. This is probably massive underestimation, since many of gulag documents were destroyed in 2014. But hey, the mortality rate was smaller than in Nazi death camps, great job USSR! /s
Exploiting cheap workers in inhumane conditions, resembling 19th century capitalism. Exactly what communism was supposed to end. China is getting robotized somewhat, since its society ages dramatically, but they want to keep polluting the world with cheap throwaways.
Taking everything you said as true, that isn’t imperialist though. Imperialism is a specific thing, have you read any academic writings on imperialism?
DPRK constantly threaten South Korea and Japan. Apart the famous missile launches, it performs abductions, drug smuggling, marine poaching, and spying. And we have cyber attacks as well. The country is too shitty to invade another country full scale, but it does what it can do to be a bully, officially uses imperialist rhetorics and throw threats.
Taking everything you say is true, that also isn’t imperialism
The elections were carried out in such a way, that an average worker had no chance to vote for a social demoratic party, anarchist party, or liberal democratic party. They even killed their communist opposition, Mensheviks. There is no democracy with a single party system, don’t be ridiculous.
Okay, see my original point about not being informed.
Setting aside manufactured famine in Ukraine and genocides like Katyn, very cautious estimates says that around 30 millions of people were victims of gulag, with lethal 2,7 million victims. This is probably massive underestimation, since many of gulag documents were destroyed in 2014. But hey, the mortality rate was smaller than in Nazi death camps, great job USSR! /s
Your estimate should be 1.7 million, Nazis aren’t people remember?
What in the world are you on about? This is about how politicians will pay lip service to the public but will act in their own interestd, usually based on their donors.
I get that you’re on Lemmy.world, where everyone outside of your anticommunist bubble everyone is a secret scary tankie, but this is even worse of a take than nornal.
Not so. The tankiest instances are lemmygrad and hexbear, while I think sh.itjust.works is neocon or lib at best, not to mention nazi “exploding heads” so we have a whole spectrum. I think Lemmy.ml had tolerable tankiness, but since lemmygrad and hexbear were rightly defederated from most instances, the tankies and wumaos are poisoning Lemmy.ml and much of fediverse with genocide denialism, authoritarian propaganda, etc.
Both Hexbear and Lemmygrad are largely self-sufficient, some people likely have alts but the idea that they are “poisoning” Lemmy.ml is silly. Marxists have always been here.
Yes, Marxists have been on Lemmy.ml and this is a good thing. But there is difference between Marxists and supporters of authoritarian regimes like China, Russia or North Korea, who are denialists of genocides like Bucha, Katyn, Tiananmen, etc. and who are cheap wumao/govnoyed propagandists.
Suggesting people read Marx gets you called a Tankie. I have even seen Anarchists get called Tankie. The term is meaningless at this point, and people attach a bunch of scary baggage to it as a way to pretend everything left of Liberalism is tankie.
The term is wide and sometimes misinterpreted, but actually not meaningless, since tankies are mainly associated with marxism-leninism (maybe sometimes maoism) and whitewashing of regimes as China, USSR, or North Korea. Same as the term “woke”, which is even wider and horribly overused. Thus, I wouldn’t call a western postmarxist leftist a tankie, and a lib or neocon probably would call this person a woke one :)
152 is the sum of the + and -1 votes 82 % were + So 18% were - So 18% of + were canceled from the - So what we see is the remaining 64% positive, which means that 100 % are 237 votes (42 downvotes, 195 upvotes)
Interesting. My app allows me to have them separate, so I see all the up separate from all the down, and always have. I refused early on to use anything that combines them because I want the full picture of engagement.
If you use an app, check through the settings and see if it’s supported (all the iOS apps I tested have it). Idk about web, might be something to look into tho since the data is all there, so it’s just be a matter of handling.
That’s actually pretty easy once capitalist USA is abolished and thus no longer violently interfering with the internal affairs of socialist countries.
I am not so knowledgeable so forgive my ignorance, but why do most communist States have this knack for massive intelligence gathering on its own citizens? Are the concepts of personal privacy with freedom and working towards collective good so mutually exclusive?
Again this is not sarcastic, I genuinely wish to know.
PS I also hate capitalism from the core of my guts.
Are the concepts of freedom and working towards collective good so mutually exclusive?
Not necessarily, and I also disagree with the commenter above that without the USA suddenly the world would be singing kumbaya.
The problem was dictators seizing power in turbulent times. In Russia, Stalin abolished the soviets (A.K.A worker’s councils, kinda like mega unions) in the Soviet union. I think that says a lot.
In Romania (I’m a bit better equipped to talk about this one), things were a bit different.
The original communist government (1945) was essentially a Russian puppet state that drained the wealth of Romania via war reparations. Stalinist purges happened often during this period.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, Romania got a degree of independence and things were actually looking up. Society in general (infant mortality, gender equality, literacy, standard of living, etc) were all improving rapidly without Russia draining us and making decisions for us, and we didn’t have a surveilance state of the scale that would come later. This was a period marked by political battles between the liberal communists and the Stalinist communists for control, with Stalinists commiting some pretty horrible atrocities (if you want nightmare fuel for some reason, look up the Pitesti experiment).
Then, 1965, Ceacescu took power. During his early years, he actually looked like a liberal (EDIT: Just to be clear: I mean a liberal communist. This means more individual freedom for citizens in a communist economy). He allowed some emigration, some free speech, and even spoke out about the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. This, at the start, did not look like a typical authoritarian communist state. Unfortunately, Inspired by the “amazing” society of North Korea in 1971, he started to make changes in the structure of society to be more like it, which included an expanded Securitate. 2 years later, harsh austerity policies to repay foreign loans led to a massive drop in living conditions, which led to riots, which led to crackdowns. Things rapidly spiralled, and the Securitate were given more and more power to keep control.
This then became the police state that everybody thinks of when they think of communism. A combination of too much power in 1 person’s hands, an authoritarian imperialist overlord (Russia), and rising backlash against dropping living conditions.
“we didn’t have a surveilance state of the scale that would come later”
For all of you that preach communism please make an imagination exercise just for a minute and imagine what kind of Authoritarianism you ask for when you will have a neverseen kind of Technological Communism, using current available surveillance technology (in place) like your smartphone for example (which I know a lot of people don’t know what is its real use…)
In Russia, Stalin abolished the soviets (A.K.A worker’s councils, kinda like mega unions) in the Soviet union.
Are you referring to the constitution of 1936, which established 4 layers of representative councils (local, regional, national, union) as Stalin dissolving the Soviets?
why do you think that is worse
why do you blame it on Stalin? Seems like a thing that was written and implemented pretty democratically.
No, I’m not talking about the 1936 constitution. I meant specifically the disempowerment of local and union soviets.
I’m no expert on Russian history, so I may be misinformed about this, but as far as I understand it he put in place a series of reforms that stripped power from the local level and empowered the central committee.
This is partially true. Issues arose from trying to marry central planning with localized production, so there were a series of reforms that shifted the balance of control. This didn’t end worker representation, it was a major shift that changed its form as the USSR industrialized and grew beyond where it once was.
Was it perfect and entirely democratic? No. Was it far more democratic than Capitalism? Absolutely, without question.
Shifted power in the sense of the local branches were federated within the same structure now, but honestly that seems more accountable and democratic?
Because once the dictatorship of the proletariat is installed it needs to defend itself from counter revolutionaries who want to reinstate class inequality. Actually similarly to how the US and other capitalist states are heavily surveilling and infiltrating communist and other anti capitalist groups in- and outside of their own countries.
It’s less that Communist States have massive intelligence networks on their own populace because they are Communist, and more that states kinda just do that. American privacy violations are horrifying.
The “difference” largely comes from bourgeois media overplaying the bad elements and underplaying the good elements of Communist projects, while downplaying the bad elements and overplaying the good elements of Capitalist projects.
Combine this with the widespread fact that the US intentionally infiltrates and destabilizes states that even flirt with Socialism in the Global South, with hundreds of assassination attempts on figures like Castro, and it starts to seem more reasonable.
Media nah leave it, advertising I’d absolutely be down for. Advertising and Marketing are essentially the science of tricking our brains, and when that lever is exposed to capital you get enshittification and misery.
Basically when you do a socialist revolution your national bourgeoisie and international bourgeoisie are willing to crush it through any means necessary. You unfortunately have to use the machinery of the state to protect from bourgeois subversion, or you get shit like Indonesia, Chile, overthrow of the USSR through executive coup, etc.
Thank you all for the valuable insight. I can’t reply to everybody individually so I am replying as a collective. From what I can surmise, basically, the state becomes the sort of mega Corp that capitalism inevitably breeds and data mining becomes legal as you are the law and data mining is necessary to hold power and prevent further revolutions.
It makes me wonder, how do new economic models come to be? Does it always have to be Einsteinian, that one man is a genius, or can economics do collective progress like modern science. Obviously economics has more artificial hurdles to overcome, but we should have something better by now when we know that both systems suck. I don’t know, I am just a random guy on the internet
BTW, correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the root cause of these problems is one human having enough power to decide life and death of another human. Like maybe due to our origin by subjugation of other species, but people holding power over other people is creating a huge crap fest. Plus there is the worst inequality of all… Inequality of BIRTH.
Honestly,i dont know, most dystopias come about because of some persons dream of utopia.
That’s an interesting take, wanna tell me more? (I’m sick right now and my brain cells don’t function well enough to think for myself but that’s unironically an interesting take)
well I meant that most business tools have a free/affordable tier or competitor, there’s little structure holding back a profit-sharing model in terms of infrastructure
Shit, we have examples or socialized markets that run whole economies. We don’t need to go far… Shit enforcing the current rules equally would change the world…
Because communism requires everyone to be willing to work for the betterment of society, not money. But unless everyone (or at least almost everyone) does that, it doesn’t work.
This is so 2015…now it would be “Once elected, I will murder every single one of you” and they would reply with joy in unisson: “Hurrah, free lamb chops for everyone, you’re our saviour!!!”
“once put into power, i will only be consuming the sheep deemed by democratic voting, to be the least productive, happy, and likeable members of the flock.”
The biggest misunderstanding of the Dunning Kruger effect is the idea that it only applies to certain people. It applies to everyone, we all overestimate our expertise at times. It’s a cognitive bias that we all have to knowingly watch out for, not something that indicates stupidity.
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