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hare_ware ,

Didn’t the USSR just do state capitalism, and not actual communism or socialism? And weren’t they also totalitarian & also not a democracy? Are people actually asking for what was happening in astern Europe or something else?

tim1996 ,

I wish we could look at what the ussr did right and how it worked around its restrictions without rose tinted glasses. Some central planning of efficient railways and large industrial machinery might not be a bad idea. Lezz a fair doesn’t always produce great results. Walkable neighborhoods and commie blocks aren’t such a bad idea but fascist dictators are.

SubArcticTundra ,
@SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml avatar

Ha yes, completely. This is me and my polish friend running into people on campus rallying for socialism.

NattyNatty2x4 ,

I mean acting like Poland was communist or socialist under Stalin and the USSR is like saying north Korea is a democratic people’s republic under the Kims. Regardless of the merits of or against socialism, this argument is pretty silly.

Kastelt ,

I honestly just want a system that

  1. Gets all of us out of this climate mess
  2. Gets rid of poverty
  3. Doesn’t create a global and national elite of rich people

For a long time I’ve seen communism, as in: planned economy, and no ruling class (the latter the USSR failed to achieve, it seems) as the solution. But nowadays I don’t know. I don’t know if marxism in it’s original form is enough to explain society, and I don’t think anarchist communism, collectivism, mutualism whatever can work on a large scale. Social democracy doesn’t seem like it’s enough, either.

icepuncher69 ,

I seriously believe we must build an A.I. to replace human leadership since we proved time and time again that we are corruptible, and that when that happens you start getting your poor and elite classes and rampaging exploitation of resources and its refusal to imorove to better technologies and processes (ie oil companies). We need something avobe humans to administer resources and solve politics since we just made both into ridiculous games that are alreaddy fixed so that everybody , exept those that a where winning already, loosses. I believe that the survival of the human race hinges on this.

DeanFogg ,

Western politics already has a vehicle in which to accomplish your 3 bullet points called regulation. The problem is children in charge and the voters apathy to hold their feet to the fire.

People should get mad, not at each other but at their “masters” that aren’t supposed to exist. The powers that be want us to argue amongst ourselves

purahna ,
@purahna@lemmygrad.ml avatar

news.gallup.com/…/former-soviet-countries-harm-br…

https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/d5rxvsa5lu-6gprb5-wnqa.png

???

SeaJ ,

The question was not asked in the Baltic states or Uzbekistan. The question was also not asked in Soviet puppet states like Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, etc.

Most of those are also authoritarian. Tossing out one dictator for another is not going to leave people very satisfied.

nautilus ,

McCarthy propaganda go brrrr

Duamerthrax ,

Also a terrible person. The world’s big enough for there to be many terrible people in it. You need to create a very robust bureaucracy to keep corruption out and maintaining one is a very unglamorous job. Revolutionaries rarely have that skill set.

Hexadecimalkink ,

Almost like we need a large state apparatus…

BurnedDonutHole ,

Fuck Communism and fuck unchecked capitalism. People deserve basic human rights. Free heallthcare, education, insurance and liveable basic income is a must. It doesn’t make your society full of freeloaders instead it gives all the people a chance to become what they want in the society. I hope that people can see this basic difference and we can work towards for a better future as humanity instead of whatever country title.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The very concept of a free loader best represents the ruling class of capitalists interests. The ruling class does not contribute in any way to society, and instead steal billions of dollars of labor value from the working class and use it in ways that benefit only themselves. Allowing people to survive even without providing a capital benefit to the ruling class wouldn’t enable free loading, it would mean society actually does what its supposed to and looks out for the wellbeing of all people.

You shouldn’t have to work to exist. You shouldn’t have to be useful to anyone else to be a part of a community. Food and shelter are human rights. Water is a human right. Healthcare and education are human rights.

Toppling capitalism and wage slavery is the only way to a just world. Socialism doesn’t inherently belong to the soviet union. And the soviet union did not categorically fail at every single thing they did. Don’t mistake my words for endorsement of stalinism or of any of the many horrible things they did. But there were other aspects of their society and governance that were actually pretty great. Its not all black and all white. Life isn’t that simple in reality. A flat condemnation of communism is rooted in propaganda more than it is in reality.

And I’m an anarchist, before you accuse me of being a tankie. I do not advocate state communism. But to say “fuck communism” and be done with it just shows your bias towards socialism.

two_wheel2 ,

you shouldn’t have to work to exist, you shouldn’t have to be useful to anyone else to be part of a community

While I largely agree with your points (or at least some of the core of them) I think you’d have to flesh this out. For anything alive to exist, work needs to be done. And for anyone to be in a community people must mutually agree on membership. The “freeloader” problem isn’t a problem of ability where individuals “not useful” (and that gives me chills as much as it probably does you) to society can’t work, though it’s often framed that way to varying extents from both sides. I feel that it’s a problem where a large enough segment of the population would not be productive at what they could be doing simply because they don’t have to.

Our brains are literally wired to seek out more for less energy.

Again, I agree with most of your points, but these two could probably use a bit more explanation (at least to me)

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

We live in a time of unprecedented efficiency and automation. We over produce how much we require massively. Optimized, no not every human has to work. Work should be voluntary and without exploitation. Food water and shelter should be shared resources that no one is deprived of. We have the abundance to do this, we only don’t because of the capitalist economic political and social systems which promote wage slavery (the concept that you don’t deserve to live if you’re not capable of producing labor value for capitalists).

Everyone should be encouraged to work and contribute. But no one should face death for being unable to do so. All work should be voluntary and people should be encouraged to work for their benefit, their family’s benefit, and their community’s benefit. Universal basic income should exist (in our society today) so that if you’re being exploited you don’t face either further exploitation or literally death. Supporting yourself and your family and society should be done because you believe in those things and you see the direct benefits of your contributions. The problem is capitalism has indoctrinated people to believe that work is not a mechanism of direct survival. It is a mechanism for attaining capital value, which is traded for direct survival.

It goes beyond that even, they indoctrinate us to believe that:

  1. Capitalism is natural and can be found in nature.
  2. Human beings are inherently uncooperative and hate each other. Plenty of human beings are uncooperative, but capitalism literally makes people uncooperative by continually reinforcing the hopelessness of helping others. How can you cooperate when your own survival solely depends on you being willing to give your labor value to capitalists in exchange for indirect survival?
  3. The homeless, the mentally ill, the addicted, all those who are unable or unwilling to give up their labor value to capitalists - they’re all the picture of sin and vice and they are to be derided and hated for their inability to provide labor value to capitalists. That they are worthless, and should be treated like wild animals.
  4. On that note, they also indoctrinate us to believe that homelessness is natural. That its a personal failing.

When examined separately you can see that they pre-construct people’s opinions to cooperation among the labor force. “Don’t be a failure by not giving us your labor value.” “Don’t help those who we deem failures.” “Being a failure, by our definition, is a personal choice and not a product of exploitation.” “Our system is natural, the natural world has capitalist-type hierarchies. So it is unchallengable.”

Bear in mind that politically I am an anarchist. In my eyes no society has ever done nearly enough to create real equality. And I fundamentally disagree with all social hierarchies.

geissi ,

Fuck Communism and fuck unchecked capitalism

Interesting how capitalism needs the qualifier ‘unchecked’ while apparently communism has only one possible form.

Gork ,

But is it Communism’s Final Form? I think Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism is the best form.

onionbaggage ,

Well we’re not praising fascism and corruption.

HRDS_654 ,

The main issue is that they communism is economic policy, NOT social policy. While they do go hand in hand people often conflate the two. Many dictatorships use communism as a way to control the people but that doesn’t mean that communism leads directly to dictatorships.

HeurtisticAlgorithm9 ,

If they’re using “communism” to control the people, then they’re not really using communism

Sharkwellington ,

Is true Communism even possible if it’s being attempted by flawed humans? Seems like it doesn’t matter the economic system so much as the fact that people will ruin anything given enough time.

tara ,
@tara@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s about incentives. Worker oppression in Monarchy requires a bad King, in Feudalism bad lords, in Capitalism bad shareholders, and in Socialism self-hating workers. If you shared your workplace, would you push to remove your rights? Or to screw over your customers? And then argue for that against everyone else you share power with? The incentives are plainly better in a worker owned economy.

Holzkohlen ,

I guess the main issue is with the government having absolute control over the economy. I would not want the most prominent politicians in my country having control of the economy. No matter how much I dislike capitalism.
Just put the people who work for a company in charge of the company. Have them elect who calls the shots. Also have them directly benefit from the company doing well. I guess that is like end-stage unions or smth. All power to the workers. Should be doable within capitalism, maybe, probably.

ParsnipWitch ,

“All power to the workers” is a communist principle, though. It’s the main political slogan of the communist manifest by Marx and Engels.

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

The US political spectrum is leaning so far to the right. A US left is a France center or moderate right. So what Americans consider communism is merely what French consider moderate leftist.

  • I’m French living in the US
voidMainVoid ,

Yeah, it’s basically “If you keep calling all of the stuff I like ‘communism’, then I guess that makes me a communist.”

LazaroFilm ,
@LazaroFilm@lemmy.world avatar

Or if you’re not a Nazi you’re a communist, then I’m a communist I guess.

thevoyagekayaking ,

Oh man, Lemmygrad will not like this one bit.

Fazoo ,
@Fazoo@lemmy.ml avatar

That echo chamber doesn’t like anything but themselves. Thin skinned, ban happy folks. Lol

abbiistabbii ,
@abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

More like: People on the internet being critical of the current system, Americans on the internet saying “COMMUNISM BAD” as if USSR style state capitalism is the only other possible option.

Double_A ,
@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

How else would it work? You need some power structure that actively forbids a free market and private ownership. And that power will sooner or later be abused.

You can’t just imagine some utopia where nobody has to work, and everything is free, and call that communism.

abbiistabbii ,
@abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The core tenant of every form of Communism, regardless of if said party or organisation follows it, is as follows: that the means of production should belong to the workers who work them. If the means of production are not in the hands of the workers, then they are not communist. If they are in the hands of a CEO or a corporation, you have private capitalism or market capitalis like the US. If you put them in the hands of a state, they are in the state, you get state capitalism ala China or the USSR.

The power structure of the state protects an upper class, be it billionaires or “the party”. If you abolish the state, but not capitalism, capitalism will rebuild the state (which is why Anarcho capitalism fails every time) and vice versa (which is what happens with Marxist Leninism).

For a Communist or communalist society to work it needs to be Anarchist or classically Libertarian (aka like Bakunin or Kropotkin proposed, not “money first”). It needs to have a horizontal and democratic decision making process that is decentralised, federated, and involves all the members of the community or communities effected. If there is to be a state, it should be to facilitate the colaboration of communities in a bottom up manner. These are the features of almost every single effective or successful Anarchist or Socialist movements from Rojava or the Zapatistas, as well as non-political movements like the Open Source Movement, railway preservatiion movement, and even the early RNLI.

The power structure thant would forbid a free market would be the collective weight of everyone else rather than a state that, sooner or later, becomes the jackboot of capital.

Tvkan ,

western teenagers praising capitalism

the children sewing their clothes, harvesting their food, mining their metals, …

CAPSLOCKFTW ,

There were no actual efforts to establish communism in eastern europe. Only autocratic regimes backed by soviet russia.

sizeoftheuniverse OP ,

And here comes the guy who thinks he can do it better, this time without mass killings.

kilinrax ,

Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.

Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).

DoucheAsaurus ,
@DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social avatar

With capitalism we just outsource the death to 3rd world countries.

Lenins2ndCat ,
@Lenins2ndCat@lemmy.world avatar

Implying capitalism does not regularly do mass killings.

fxdave ,

I’ve read Marx’s communist manifesto, I didn’t read anything about mass killing

InternationalBastard ,

It's like saying democracy sucks because look at states like Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo and German Democratic Republic.

When people proclaim to be something doesn't make it true.

dub ,

I’m no too learned in the subject but what would “true” communism even look like on the large scale like a country? Would it even be feasible?

Atheran ,

True communism in a country is impossible.

You can have socialism, or anarchy, which we’ve seen before, but communism cannot function in one country alone, unless said country is completely and absolutely self reliant.

A major part of communism is internationalism, which is why socialist countries had the Comintern. (Communist International). Besides a political/social system, communism has a strong basis as an economic system. You can’t apply communist economic system principles to the capitalist market.

To my knowledge, no existing country is self reliant to the point that they can completely cut off trade with the rest of the world. USSR didn’t do it, China didn’t do it and they were the two biggest countries at the time.

That, of course is all a very surface level ELI5, and if you want to ask something more specific or in depth, feel free to.

CAPSLOCKFTW ,

What do you think is anarchy? Without searching engine please.

Atheran ,

Without search engine and without going into detail that is out of the scope, anarchy is a different path to a classless system. Said classless system is different enough from communism to warrant discussion but close enough for that discussion to be devolving into anarchy vs socialism most of the time to differentiate the path to that system.

Said path in anarchy is comprised of setting up collectives that start small, neighborhood small, and gradually evolve. Each collective shares almost everything between its members and there’s no leadership or ranking across its members.

Anything deeper than that leads to a long discussion that is out of the scope of this thread and definitely out of the scope of the ELI5 the post I originally replied to needed or had the philosophical basis to understand possibly. I’m not saying one is better than the other, but they are quite different approaches to a similar goal, a classless society that money does not rule all.

yA3xAKQMbq ,

Unless you’re an ultra-orthodox marxist, there is no such thing as trüe communism™.

There always have been many different ideas what „communism“ is, e.g. there have been various „nationalist communist“ ideologies (complicated by the fact that the Russian SFSR called everything „nationalist“ that wasn’t 100% aligned with its ideas of the Soviet Union, e.g. Hungary).

There are also no clear boundaries between communism, socialism, and anarchism, e.g. Kropotkin with his theories of anarchist communism.

That being said, I don’t think communism is a system (either social or economic), it’s strictly an idealogy, meaning it’s a way to achieve something, i.e. the classless and stateless society. If you follow that thought to its logical end, you cannot even „achieve“ communism at all, since at this point e.g. the proletariat ceases to exist, and as a result you cannot have a „dictatorship of the proletariat“.

It’s… complicated.

Atheran ,

In feel like you make it complicated to arrive at your conclusion here. Communism, as described by Marx and Engels and to some degree Lenin, is something very specific that covers most aspects of the society. Political, social and economic. Marx himself wrote books upon books on the economy of a socialist, communist system.

It is not an abstract “I don’t like capitalism so let’s try something different” approach. And yes, many have tried to adapt it, as you mentioned which is why those different approaches carry a different name ‘anarchist communism’ in your example. Because they are different enough from flat out communism.

yA3xAKQMbq ,

No, I have a very easy explanation what communism is, it’s just that nobody else agrees is the issue.

different approaches carry a different name

Yeah, well… So let’s see, we have: Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Titoism, Gulyáskommunizmus (both, as mentioned before, considered „nationalist communism“ by other communists), Rätekommunismus, Realsozialismus, Maoism …

So, which one of those is the true communism?

Joking aside, most of the 20th century was spent with people killing other people because they had slightly different opinions on what true communism means, so it’s really not me who made things complicated.

Atheran ,

And you keep using different names to describe them. As you should. Communism is not one thing and never was. But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.

It’s how it was defined in the communist manifesto in 1848. You could say it’s Marxism, but I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well, like Engels and others who based on Marx’s mostly economic study added the philosophical and political angles.

Every theme or name change after the manifesto (that is not found in later revisions by the communist international) is attempts at adapting it with different angles and for different purposes and circumstances, aka NOT base or pure communism. Don’t bundle everything in one basket and try to make sense, same way that bundling Putin’s Russian form of Capitalism with US’s imperialism and French Revolution’s early capitalism together doesn’t make sense either.

He asked for pure communism, I answered for that. If he asked about Trotsky, I’d focus more on the permanent revolution and the Fourth International. If he asked of Stalin, I’d talk about his socialism in one country theory

yA3xAKQMbq ,

Yeah well, so you’re an orthodox Marxist and I disagree with you ¯*(ツ)*/¯

But when people refer to base or true communism, the answer is just one.

Aha, is that so?

I dislike that naming since others played a big role on forming it as well

Yeah, you could say that!

So! Let’s talk about Restif de la Bretonne who was using „communist“ and „communism“ 60-70 years before Marx writes the „Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei“. Babeuf (who called himself a „communalist“) already tried to incite a communist revolution in the 1790s. De La Hodde calls the Parisian general strike in 1840 „inspired by communist ideas“. In 1841 the „Communistes Matérialistes“ publish „L’Humanitaire“, which Nettlau calls „the first libertarian communist publication“.

And how come that a certain bloke named Karl Marx in his 1842 essay „Der Kommunismus und die Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung" finds that communism had already become an international movement. Hey, I know that name! 🤔

Tell me, how exactly is Marxism (or whatever you want to call it) the one and only trüe communism™ when there’s decades of different variances of communism and movements of people calling themselves communists before the „Manifest“?

Just face it: your beloved Marxism is just one variant of communism, which for a variety of reasons has become the best known. But it’s certainly not „base communism“.

Funkwonker ,
@Funkwonker@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve got no horse in this race, I just want to point out the irony of asserting that there is only one “true” communism in reply to a comment about how leftists have spent the last century arguing over what “true” communism even is.

BuboScandiacus ,
@BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz avatar

Bojler eladó

ProdigalFrog ,

Realistically, it would look something like how the Anarchists organized society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, or how Rojava is organizing today with communal federations. Anarchism sidesteps the inevitable authoritarian regime that various Marxist theories have by not installing a ‘temporary’ vanguard state that quickly becomes autocratic and dictatorial, they just jump straight to decentralizing power immediately by giving it to the people.

ciko22i3 ,
@ciko22i3@sopuli.xyz avatar

Communism fails every time it is tried because it goes against human nature of constantly comparing yourself to others and trying to improve yourself. You will never do harder work if you can get the same reward for easier work, and you will look for other, less moral ways of getting the bigger reward.

Communism sounds great but it will never work until we have unlimited resources and completely automated labour.

CAPSLOCKFTW ,

Nah, that’s just wrong. You can compare yourself in other ways than how much fake money you earn. Fun thing is: truly communistic society would mean easier work for most people.

And communism does work in small scale enviroments. Families, cooperatives, tribes. Sometimes neighborhoods.

This whole “Sounds great but won’t work” rhethoric is just what the ones that would loose their power in communsim want you to think. If you dig into it you will see, that there were and are a lot of efforts to discredit the idea.

vegai ,

Yes yes. And America is not real market economy capitalism either, that’s the only reason why it sucks so much.

Nalivai ,

America is very close to being real market economy, that’s why it sucks so much.

vegai ,

By what standard? According to www.heritage.org/index/ranking for instance, there are 24 countries in the world with freer economy than USA.

Also indicentally many of those countries are on this list: …com.au/…/revealed-the-20-happiest-countries-in-t… – it seems like free economy often correlates with happy society.

Tvkan ,

According to www.heritage.org/index/ranking for instance, there are 24 countries in the world with freer economy than USA.

The right wing, climate change denying, Heritage Foundation is not a reliable source. That’s nowhere near an unbiased analysis, but an opinion piece. No one can seriously believe the US to be less “free market” than like half of western Europe.

That’s like asking the North Korean government to create an index of democracy.

ArcaneSlime ,

And that’s why we have barriers to entry stifling competition lobbied for by the big players in said industry? Insulin is only the price it is because the government enforces the patent that says pfizer is allowed to have a monopoly on it, if other people were able to produce and sell affordable generics pfizer would have to drop their price or go out of business, but if you try the government comes, kidnaps you, and if you resist kidnapping, kills you.

Try to sell a product that the government decides you owe them money for: Weed? Jail. Moonshine? Jail. Weed in a legal state but didn’t break off the 50% protection money to the government? Jail. Unlicensed insulin? Jail. Drawing of a mouse too close to a famous one? Jail.

The US has what is called crony capitalism, not free market capitalism. Free market capitalism economy is what the Agorists like SEKIII want (but they refuse to call capitalism arguing that “real capitalism” is crony capitalism and “free market economies” are not “capitalist” at all and is actually leftist in nature.)

bloodfart ,

Crony capitalism is just capitalism. The agorist free market capitalism is just starting the whole thing over under the mistaken belief that it’ll end up different.

Fazoo ,
@Fazoo@lemmy.ml avatar

Oh here we go with “That wasn’t real communism!” as if any other communist state on this planet is any different.

CAPSLOCKFTW ,

I mean they violated some if tge main principles outlined by Marx, like the other states, who almost all followed the lenin-stalin-model, so yeah. Prove me wrong.

Hexadecimalkink ,

Give me an example of a capitalist society. Waiting.

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

They are though. China, Vietnam and Cuba are all pretty drastically different and they are all communist countries.

NattyNatty2x4 ,

China is state capitalist, not communist

LadyAutumn ,
@LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

The functioning of their government is absolutely unequivocally communist. They have allowed some form of capital interests, which I would not consider communist in definition, but the government retains control over nearly all those interests and the plan they’ve put forward from the beginning is to renationalize industries as they reach a point of competitive development with the western world.

lieuwex ,

In what sense was it not an actual effort? Just because it quickly slid into non-marxism doesn’t say anything about the initial idea of the revolutionaries. Bakunin predicted exactly what would happen with Marxism, and it did every time.

If you are against an authoritarian state, the only viable way to communism is to skip the dictatorship part directly and just have anarchism.

matricaria ,

That’s a joke, right?

Right?

Polydextrous ,

There were no actual efforts to establish communism

Period. Relying on the “temporary” government to relinquish their power is…foolish. If you’re building a system for the greater good, hierarchy will always undermine that goal. Unequal amounts of power does not a just system make.

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