Capitalism is the root of evil

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Spectre @lemmy.ml

1mo ago

Political Memes @lemmy.world

Spectre @lemmy.ml

1mo ago

Capitalism is the root of evil

438 comments

- It’s not really about defending the bad stuff. It’s about trying to get some more nuance on perhaps the most propagandized topic of the 20th century.
  There are all sorts of interesting discussions to have about the various failings of these countries amongst other leftists who have the relevant context as a starting point for a reasonable discussion.
  But when talking to libs/conservatives, they’re coming into the conversation with an already extremely warped, un-nuanced perspective. “These are all evil dictatorships that were also super incompetent and that shows why communism is bad.”
  Some of the stuff they base this on is either exaggerated or just straight up wrong. Some of it is completely valid criticism, but without the context to understand the issue or provide a useful critique.
  How do you have any meaningful conversation about these countries without acknowledging things like:
  All of these countries were previously agrarian, un-democratic societies.
  Most of them were formerly exploited colonies who had to fight fairly brutal wars for their independence.
  Even after leaving, the imperialists kept messing with them through economic and diplomatic isolation and espionage including supporting right wing coups.
  We don’t have the counterfactual where we see what these countries would have turned out like without these challenges, but it’s an incomplete analysis to not at least consider the ways which they impacted both their economic success and their political developments. Maybe you could argue there were better ways to respond to all of this, but hindsight is 20-20.
  No actual leftists want to have to argue “authoritarianism was good actually.” But it’s hard for the conversation not to appear that way when we’re arguing with people who’ve been conditioned to think they’re somehow as bad or worse than Nazis and ending the thought there.
  
  Great comment! You hit the nail on the head, proper conversation requires a factual starting point, and just conceding to conservatives and other anticommunists off the bat just so they are less hostile to you just hands them free rhetorical wins on that very basis.
  
  I did not call you a conservative, if that's what you're implying. My point aligns with theirs, in that demonization of AES is usually a result of accepting bourgeois narratives uncritically. To be truly critical in an honest manner (which Marxists are, all the time, among ourselves), we need to dispell the thick layers of Red Scare fearmongering first.
  Dispelling myths and finding the hard truth is where we can look at what went right and what went wrong, not just agreeing that Socialism is when everyone starves or other such nonsense. Why support an ideology that truly is as bad in practice as anticommunists say it is, after all?
  
  You'll find me critical of AES all the time, but I won't cede ground for what I know to be false just for optics. I take a rigorous approach to rhetoric, I cede no ground that isn't rooted in fact, and I do my best to encourage accurate critique. When you see me defending AES and seemingly not critiquing them as much, it's usually in the context of someone repeating the same bog-standard state department anticommunist mythos that have existed for decades, and thus should be treated as such.
  Go ahead and ask me for critiques of AES, and I can do so, but I won't lie about them either.
  
  If the person is nervous about legitimate abuses in AES, then I do my best to make sure those abuses are accurately highlighted. Here's an example of me doing just that. I'm not going to pivot the conversation to a different area just to highlight unrelated flaws, though, that's off-topic and rhetorically bad. Surely you can see that, right?
  Like, yes, Stalin outlawing gay marriage was bad, indisputably. Bolsheviks that were pro-gay marriage like Kollontai should have been listened to. I don't need to insert that or other critiques into every comment, though.
  
  I think what they think is that citizens have bad judgement, so it ends in Maoist policies that sound good but ignore negative externalities. The tragedy of the commons is inevitable is their view.
  
  The problem typically arises from the necessity for confrontation of anticommunist myths about AES. Anyone growing up in the West is bombarded with Anticommunism, and simply being aware that that process exists doesn't actually make you immune to it. Confronting the myths surrounding Communism is an important first step. "Red-washing" is a much, much smaller problem than you likely realize.
  
  What would the person you're looking for, so to speak, do that I'm not?
  
  be an an anti-communist.
  
  Seems like it, sadly.
  
  This is going to sound incredibly facetious, but I've had multiple dozens of people directly thank me for reaching them. I can't reach everyone, of course, but I know for a fact that I do reach many people, so your assertion that because I can't seem to reach you that I must not be able to reach anyone is just not true.
  I could absolutely be better at reaching people, of course I could, but I also know that different strategies work for different people, and some people simply don't want to be reached to begin with.
  
  In an ideal world, the Red Scare would not have existed, and we could discuss the genuine merits and struggles faced internally and externally in AES without that clouding discussion. Its why I prefer talking with comrades about the shortcomings in AES, as I know they aren't doing it to undermine the achievements but to legitimately identify problems to solve.
  I think, despite all of the struggles, that I do an okay job with engaging people open to listening.
  
  I don't see how that's the case, but okay!
  
  communism isn't bad, it just doesn't scale up. after awhile someone wants everyone else's stuff. When enough people gather together then anonymity becomes a thing. then those people start taking everyone else's stuff and we end up with Russia.
  
  Communism is a fully publicly owned and planned global economy, I'm not sure what you're trying to critique but it isn't Communism.
  
  'It doesnt scale up'
  China has the largest high speed rail network on the planet?
- I'm not dancing around anything, if you want to discuss, then please, do so.
  The DPRK is far from a paradise, but at the same time, much of its issues are externally driven.
  Xi is not president for life. Term limits are removed, but he can also be removed. He's overwhelmingly popular among the party and people.
  For your last point, I recommend you read Marketing Socialism. I defend what is misrepresented or demonized unjustly, because these are problems every Socialist project recieves, to varying degrees.
  
  Authoritarianism and imperialism, concentration of power are the root cause, money is just a symbol of power, under stalinist russia this nefarious corrupting power had another symbol, shape but this society was just as helpless toward this tendency of power, you can see the end point of passive demobilisation and assassination of the few how dare oppose it today in Russia.
  I think there needs to be constant pressure of deterritoroalisation, of putting decision and responsibility in the hands of the people, always at the smallest scale that it can be realistically pushed down.
  And that's not the individual if that's not an individual matter. The level at which decisionnal responsibility is dependant on the context of tgat decision rather than agglomerated bodies of decision when power naturallies tries to concentrate.
  It should always be easy for lower echelons of power and locality to repatriate a delegated aspect of their life.
  (Then I stuffed this line of thinking into chatgpt to take it further)
  https://chatgpt.com/share/6803f4ba-eebc-8005-919f-3b896dce2e0f
  
  I don't think you've actually backed up your thesis, just asserted it. There's no evidence to the notion that "power corrupts," there's evidence that systems like Capitalism reward corruption.
  
  Interesting, you wish to make the widely repeated, ancient wisdom that power corrupt into a revolutionary statement against the null hypothesis ?
  Very well, would you state your null hypothesis ?
  Perhaps something more charitable than the following
  "Power is not a problem actually, it's a matter of having the right group of elites with good and pure hearts and everything will be honky dory forever"
  @Cowbee
  Please choose your null hypothesis or provide your own
  Improved suggestions
  🔹 1. Structuralist Null Hypothesis
  “Power, in itself, is not inherently corrupting. It is the structure and incentives of a given system (such as capitalism) that determine whether power is exercised corruptly.”
  This frames corruption as a product of external conditions, not the mere possession of power.
  🔹 2. Neutral Power Hypothesis
  “Power is a neutral tool—it amplifies pre-existing tendencies in individuals or institutions, whether for good or ill.”
  This positions power as neither good nor bad, just a multiplier.
  🔹 3. Contextual Corruption Hypothesis
  “Corruption occurs not because power corrupts, but because oversight, accountability, and community control are absent.”
  Here, the claim is that power can exist without corruption if institutions around it are healthy.
  🔹 4. Power-as-Delegation Hypothesis
  “Power is not inherently corrupting when it is transparently delegated, revocable, and tied to responsibilities rather than privileges.”
  This implies a democratic or anarchist framework where corruption is a result of opacity and lack of accountability.
  🔹 5. Evolutionary Incentives Hypothesis
  “Corruption is not caused by power, but by systems that reward short-term gain over long-term cooperation.”
  This introduces a behavioral economics or game theory angle, where corruption is a rational response to poorly designed rules.
  
  Concepts being old do not make them real. Few worship the gods of ancient Greece these days. Trying to appeal to the notion of "power," or some other concept of people occupying administrative, managerial, supervisory, etc roles automatically turning "corrupt," ie bad, evil, etc on the notion of common sense gets us no closer to the truth.
  What matters, and what I find to be far more observable, is societal organization around the basis of class. Your schoolteacher has power, but likely isn't some evil person. Likewise, managers in factories play vital roles, as do government administrators.
  Where the idea of power corrupting comes from, in my view, is a misanalysis of class society and its organizational superstructure. We can move beyond class while retaining administration, organization at a central level, etc. It isn't about finding "pure" humans, but about altering the base so the superstructure can be altered in turn.
  
  Yes,
  But it happens continuously, it is being revealed continuously.
  Wherever your find unchecked concentrations of power, at every scale, from schoolyard bully to the presidency.
  We cannot afford institution once again to abdicate our lives to another greedy black hole of power to digest us for another half-century
  ENOUGH already
  
  Is your problem with power corrupting, or unchecked power? What counts as a significant check?
  
  What’s interesting here is that we’ve got at least three different axes being discussed:
  Power and Corruption – Whether corruption is an emergent property of power itself (a kind of inevitability), or whether it's a structural consequence of specific systems like capitalism. Commenter C raises a fair challenge here: maybe it's not that power always corrupts, but that certain systems disproportionately incentivize and reward corruption. Commenter B replies with a sort of philosophical challenge: “Well, if not that power corrupts, then what’s your null hypothesis?” That's a good tension.
  Systemic Design vs. Human Nature – If authoritarianism and imperialism are recurring outcomes across radically different ideological systems (capitalist, communist, etc.), that suggests there’s something deeper than just the ideology itself at play. Maybe it's the concentration of decision-making power over large scales, which B is arguing against by advocating for radical subsidiarity—push decisions down to the smallest functional unit, always. But that still requires a theory of how larger-scale coordination happens, especially with externalities in play.
  Historical Context and Propaganda – A’s original comment brings in the crucial reminder that many critiques of leftist regimes are made through lenses already deeply distorted by decades of Cold War propaganda and ideological framing. That doesn’t make all critiques invalid, but it does mean any honest analysis needs to start with historical humility. These regimes didn’t arise in a vacuum—they were born into extreme conditions, from colonial trauma to war to internal underdevelopment.
  But maybe the most compelling common thread here is that no system seems immune to the gravity of concentrated power. Whether it's wealth in capitalism, political power in Stalinist regimes, or technocratic control in liberal democracies, the same dynamics often emerge.
  So maybe the real question is: What kinds of social, political, and economic designs actively resist centralization? And is there a way to build those that also remain resilient and cohesive, rather than fragile and fragmented?
  Because yes—pulling out the dollar-rooted swastika-flower is powerful imagery. But the hard part is asking: What do we plant in its place?
  https://chatgpt.com/share/6806d381-678c-8005-854f-77741e1ec651
  
  I think the concept of positive/negative externalities could serve as a north star in deciding the all important question of the appropriate scalevat which a discussion is taken.
  While I think we shoild try to empower and give autonomy to the local they always are within a larger community of externalities. The local should also no to inform and defer to a higher scale when their decision is "larger then them".
  The local is not thought as isolated or unaccountable, but it is given preference as a scale. We want the local to choose how to live in harmony with the whole and their neighbours.
  All this is well but it would be really easy to fall back into the grooves of individualist isolationnist and collectivist absolutist.
  I don't think the ideal exist at the middle of these extremes but rather toward tge lower scale without bottoming out
  
  See, the problem is that you're generally wrong, factually, which is why you have such knee-jerk reactions to people saying that maybe AES states aren't hellholes, actually. As an example, it's mostly western sanctions that limit freedom of movement from DPRK residents, and the myths about collective family punishment are largely unsubstantiated. Repeating Red Scare myths uncritically is a huge problem.
  People can challenge Xi, what they cannot do is use large private media apparatus to push anti-government propaganda.
  Regarding your last point, you're generally wrong. Socialism is increasing in popularity globally, including Marxism-Leninism. Funny enough, Nia Frome, the author of "Marketing Socialism," has another quick article called "Tankies" that would be perfect for you to read, IMO.
  
  Nia Frome, the author of "Marketing Socialism," has another quick article called "Tankies" that would be perfect for you to read, IMO.
  I appreciated this read, thanks.
  
  No problem!
  
  The vast majority of post-Soviet citizens believe they are worse off now than under Socialism, which makes sense because the reintroduction of Capitalism resulted in skyrocketing rates of poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, homelessness, and an estimated 7 million excess deaths around the world.
  AES states are not perfect, I don't paint all critique as Capitalist conspiracy, only what I know is in fact a myth based on the sources I have provided. You uncritically accept the bourgeois narrative despite mountains of evidence to a more nuanced position than "every Communist leader ate spoonfuls of babies for breakfast" or other nonsense.
  I'm hoping I reach you too.
  
  I know that based on the hard data I've seen, the people I have spoken to, the history and critique I have read, that a good amount of what you have said is disconnected from reality, and closer to what the US State Department claims is the truth. I understand that you may have anecdotal experiences shaping your opinions, but I also know that it isn't simple nostalgia like the Wikipedia entry suggests, but coincides with the massive increase in poverty and the difficulty of life in a Capitalist world after the dissolution of Socialism.
  
  Thanks! 🫡
  
  The problem arises when people distort quantity or quality of struggles in AES states that would logically exist in any Socialist state. Ie, all Socialist states will have prisons, and all Capitalist countries are going to do their best to portray them in as negative a light as possible, no matter what they look like in reality.
  
  What, specifically, is not a necessary component of Communism? The version of AES that exists in your mind, full of anticommunist prejudice and red scare mythos clouding your judgement, or the version that exists in real life, with far more nuanced issues applicable to all of Socialism, past, present, and future alike?
  Further, the Kim family does not have all of the power in the DPRK. A critical examination of the structure and history of the DPRK proves that isn't true. That's like saying the Bush and Kennedy familys have all of the power in the US.

438 comments