[META] Never change, lemmy.ml
[META] Never change, lemmy.ml
For context: The thread was about why people hate Hexbear and Lemmygrad instances
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I've always found it odd why we don't treat communism in the same vein as Nazism.
They're both horrific ideologies that have led to the deaths of millions, but one is considered trendy.
They are radically different but authoritarians have corrupted both to be the same brute force regime. Communism shouldn't have any specific single leader. It should be a conference of lots of little communities that participate together to make a state work. Sadly authoritarian ideals corrupt politics and make people want to rule that should never be leaders in the first place. Those leaders install their own friends who run the government into the ground - and it's the government model that is to blame?
communism has somehow become synonymous with marxism-leninism, it's very sad
"Marxism" 😀
"-Leninism" 😬
The .ml suffix isn't helping
.ml = Mali.
I know it was the haunt of scammers when it was a free domain, but the government of Mali have reassigned management now so hopefully it will be less problematic as time goes on.
afaih, one of the reasons that lemmy.ml chose their domain suffix actually was for this reason, though I am unsure how much weight it had on their decision.
Edit: As @livus@kbin.social mentioned, this is mostly apocryphal.
@moosetwin I know that's the rumour but I suspect they were picking out of a very small pool of free domains and the free part had a lot more to do with it.
Saying the Mali suffix "means" Marxist Leninism is a bit like saying your .com stands for Capitalism Only Mate. I mean sure it does but only in your own mind, not irl.
Understood, thank you for your response.
well, .com was already taken so 🤷.
You are spot on on just about everything. The only thing I take issue with is saying that both werr corrupted by authoritarians. Fascism doesn't exist without authoritarians. It's just a shame that in America, especially as well as plenty of other places in the west, we are miseducated if we are educated at all on the subject.
I think there is a model of fascism that, when a dictator is removed from the scenario, looks like a corporate autocracy. Late stage capitalism, like a corporate Cyberpunk dystopia, is what happens when power isn't seized by a megalomaniac. Unfortunately corporations are documented to gather the psychotically inclined within its upper echelons so any and all rulings are definitely going to be corrupted. At least communism allows voting for leaders and not private decisions without review like private enterprise.
That still ends up with local dictators and oligarchs. Yes, you're not likely to end up with one global dictator etc. but ultimately would not be all that different in the long run. It's exactly what they want a return to. Feudalism.
I think fascism, actual theoretical fascism (like untainted communism), removed from the realities of human psychology, would be a conglomeration of corporate states. The decision making is behind closed doors and leadership is decided by those on the inside of the corp, so still keeping the multilayered rights structure of fascism, but distinct in that those running the business would be able to also run the state without corporate influence.
Again, theoretical fascism is never going to happen because a business leader will steer the country to align their corporate interests instead of any public interest, but the idea is there. Fascism, uncorrupted by selfishness and greed, is a corporate state run by people who only answer to internal justice structures that are separate from public policy. But fascism is almost purpose built to give those who are least capable of thinking of others the ability to run those others' lives so harmful people will always run things.
Communism at least has a chance at public discourse, like democracy but more open to compromise. It's that compromise that is diametrically opposed to the unilateral decision making (without any public input) of fascism and authoritarians.
If the model realized at scale repeatedly results in the same or similar effects, maybe there is something wrong with the model.
(Be those inherent mechanical flaws, flaws of ignoring parts of human nature, flaws of a model designed to work in a vacuum, or flaws of intricate and fragile necessary rules)
and it's the government model that is to blame?
Yes, because it leaves itself so prone to authoritarian takeover. As I’ve said before, this is a feature of communism, not a bug. A single, one-party “transitional” government is intended. You might as well just put up a sign that says “Dictator Wanted.” This is why there isn’t a single instance of communism on a nation-state scale that hasn’t quickly devolved into an authoritarian state. It’s not hard to understand this. Your government model has to account for the reality that people are going to disagree on things and faction out. Your model has to be able to manage that process. Communism insists everyone adhere to the same ideology, and those that don’t just get “re-educated.” It’s a horrible ideology, a horrible government model; naïve utopian fantasy at best, cynical authoritarian scheme at worst.
There's no difference between them. That's the thing. Two words for the same pile of shit.
Communism scales horribly and practically begs for intolerant authoritarians to take over because the structure promotes compromise and compromising with intolerance ends up with intolerance. It works well when a small group voluntarily creates a small commune and everyone is on the same page. Everyone being able to see the overall community is pretty important for them to see how they fit in.
Capitalism also scales terribly, but when approached as a competition that requires regulation at least it can scale better because everyone can be watchful of bad actors. It still scales poorly because large companies can gain undo influence over government, but at least that influence tends to be about business and profit and not ethnic cleansing of the 'wrong people' that tends to be inherent to large scale communism. Yeah, that can also happen for profit with capitalism too, but again the acknowledgement of necessary regulations can mitigate that for the most part.
Everything tends to fall apart at a large enough scale though.
at least it can scale better because everyone can be watchful of bad actors.
I think you're talking about democracy there, not capitalism?
If we look at a country with capitalism and not democracy (e.g UAE) I don't think it has any protective effect on transparency.
It's not "considered trendy", your understanding of communism – an economic system – is just conflated with authoritarianism – a political system. You can advocate for one without advocating for the other.
That said, capitalism also leads to the deaths of millions, but somehow that's just an unquestionable fact of life.
I honestly don't see how the idea of everyone getting an equal share is an extremist idea in the same vein as a racist ideology. I'm also unsure why you're being downvoted for pointing out the obvious there.
I honestly don't see how the idea of everyone getting an equal share is an extremist idea
I agree.
Should I be labelled an extremist for being completely fine with, let's say, a completely democratic business structure, where workers have equal say? A public transport system owned by the people, to serve the people? An education system owned by teachers, allowing teachers to do their best, instead of being overworked and having to pay for classroom supplies at their own cost? Nowhere does it say we'd remove the options for people to use a car, or force them into a packed subway or whatever, and nobody claims it would be a magical perfect system that solves all issues. But somehow the mere idea is extremist 🤯
This idea being conflated/confused with an authoritarian leadership style also causes a lot of problems IMO
Oh gee if only there was a single example of communists that actually acted on some of these purported principles instead of turning authoritarian the first chance they get
No, social democracies don’t count. They are what tankies SHOULD strive for, instead of sucking off… checks notes famous beacons of liberty Russia and China.
Perhaps it's us greedy humans that's the issue and the economic model only limits how completely we can fuck things up. Badly when it's capitalism and really badly with communism.
capitalism also leads to the deaths of millions
Citation needed.
There's a couple
Here's a couple more.
20-50k due to homeless per year in just one capitalist country: https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Section-1-Toolkit.pdf
And then there's the 250,000 expected per year and increasing due to climate change from capitalism wanting to not do anything to hurt profits of big oil : https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health
That's me lazily grabbing things. I could do this all day but it's depressing as fuck and it won't stop you tongue fucking a corpo's asshole so it seems pointless. Hope that helped!
Every single person who's died of hunger
Permanently Deleted
Wait until you read about communist famines.
Those were not on purpose. But were definitely made worse through the actions of dogmatic uneducated authoritarians much like capitalism. However, the fact that it happened to leninists involuntarily doesn't justify capitalist doing it purposefully.
..also known as the Great Ukrainian Famine, was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians.
It wasn't man-made lol. There were famines going on in the United States too. Dust bowl anyone? And I said they exacerbated it. You simply proved my own point for me and failed to state your case.
Let me give you some advice on debating or trying to discuss things. You should refrain from it.
It was man-made lol.
How's my argument now?
Holy shit you tankies are on so much copium it’s hilarious.
The dust bowl and the holodomor did not, in fact, coincide. They occured in seperate years, for separate reasons, and shockingly you seem to have excluded the drastically lower death rates of the dust bowl and the american great depression as a whole? It was terrible and caused great unnecessary suffering, but there’s no parallel to the intentional deaths of millions.
Like come on, the Bengal famine is RIGHT THERE for you to make some sort attempt at a valid argument, but you just have to go “AMERIKA BAD >:(“ every two milliseconds.
Both the Bengal Famine and the Holodomor have at least one major fact in common. You’d have to be a complete idiot to be either the British or Soviet government and not realize your response will lead to the deaths of millions. I don’t think Churchill or the brits were idiots, and as undeniably terrible as Stalin was I don’t think the inevitable death of millions of ukranians was something he could overlook either.
You mouth breathers always act so goddamn smug about the utter nonsense spewing out of your ass.
Lol no wrong like confidently wrong. I'm further from a tankie than you are. In fact, it's not possible to get much farther from tankie than someone like myself. I'm simply pointing out your ignorant bullshit. To which you can't defend. I'd be incensed. But there's no point. And I'm used to kiddies like yourself. Learning a new term like tanky and then just going crazy using it against everyone you don't like.
I literally pointed out that they made their part of the GLOBAL famine worse. Promoting and listening to Trofim Lysenko's crackpot theories. I'm not defending them. Just calling your bs strawman out. And again I reiterate letting people starve because it's more profitable, is far more damning than ignorant leninists being stupid.
See what you just wrote there. Every single person. That is so utterly ridiculous thing to say.
Every single person.
I think they were adding that anyone who has starved under these regimes should be counted in the needless deaths alongside the genocides
Would you also require a citation that the sun is very hot? The sky blue?
People who have died trying to ration insulin, due to how in the US it’s made by for-profit corporations, diabetes care requires many other ridiculously expensive supplies, and the system is set up to require expensive doctor office visits and insurance to maintain a prescription, though type 1 diabetes is life-long. Plenty of other medical examples also.
That's because the US healthcare system is garbage.
Look across Western Europe and they don't have those issues, despite having a lot of private involvement in their healthcare.
No kidding. But it’s specifically capitalist garbage and it’s the for- profit companies involved in it top to bottom who strongly resist reforms. They invest millions and millions in lobbying and with propagandizing the populace anytime Congress starts seriously looking at changing anything. And I mean hell, we even have TV commercials for prescription drugs.
I’m sure it would be possible to make a capitalist, private, for profit healthcare system that isn’t abusive. For a while, maybe, since the nature of capitalism is to grow to extract as much from consumers as possible. In any event, that’s not what we have in the United States, and it does cause people to die.
Because one of them promoted racial superiority in its main book, while the other equally hated everyone? Do your research!
I completely understand where you are coming from, but you got to realize that that concept of communism has been warped by western propaganda and selective education.
People hungry for power will use what ever ideology appeals to the people to gain power. Look at Donald Trump. He was historically a Democrat from New York uninterested in politics. He ran as a Democrat the first time but made no headlines. He switched parties and started talking pro-christian rhetoric. He is very obvious no Christian.
You see it with "Protect the children" anti-abortion groups. Who have no interest in actually protecting children. Groups that target trans people with the same stance have no interest in actually protecting children. Groups who are say they want to stamp out pedophilia use it to target privacy laws.
And you have groups like Nazis and Lenist who used socialism and communism as a means to an end. Those groups used those movements to consolidate power and wealth to the 1%, and used violence against others as a way to ensure their continued control, they were neither communist or socialist in practice, only in their speech.
Communism is always dictated by a few and causes harm to many. In order for communism to work you need to stop the flow of information as education makes people want to pursue there own goals at the expense of everyone else.
You talk of corrupting power but I've never heard of google wanting to kill.
Communism is literally not dictated by the few. Communism is anarchist in that there are literal no leaders. What you are thinking of is leninism, where a group of few used the ideas of socialism and communism to hoard power and money, spread misinformation, and destroy education. Because educated people don't like authoritarian leadership.
Like how in the USA, education has been villianized by the right in their propaganda. They cut funding to public education. They remove what books can be found in libraries. They can keep people ignorant of ideas they find threatening to their power structures. Such as socialist and communism ideals. Any book that talks of breaking down the hierarchy is considered a threat.
Well they're considered just as fringe group by pretty much everyone else except for the people subscribing to it. Ofcourse they'll soon rush to tell you how their idea of communism is different and will actually lead to utopia but just imagine a neo-nazi trying that same argument.
It would do you a lot of good to actually read about communism and political theory in general instead of acting as a conduit of brain rot.
Personally I'd rather listen to the history of my country, than to the random people on the internet, that have nothing to do with communism, saying "it's totally going to work this time bruh"