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This is really one sided. I'm not saying there isn't truth in it, but there are also other factors. Communist revolutions can be bloody and can lead to authoritarian states. They can be inefficient and stifle innovation. It often was just a power grab not an attempt to make a country better for everyone.
I wouldn't want to live in the mid 20. century idea of communism. But otherwise I support that the means of production belongs to the worker and anyone affected by the production.
1/2 [Communist revolutions can be bloody and can lead to authoritarian states.]
– Yes, revolutions can be bloody, whether they're communist or otherwise. That's not really unique of communist revolutions.
"Authoritarian state" is a meaningless redundancy; there's no such thing as a non-authoritarian state. If your criticism is that the revolutions didn't immediately result in a communist society, then that's also a poor criticism since they were never meant to...
...immediately transition to communism because that would be impossible, or at least strategically impractical. The plan of Marxist-Leninist revolutions was always to create a transitional state that would eventually transition into a stateless classless society once the state was no longer needed.
@Radical_EgoCom @NoiseColor @yogthos immediate transition is not only possible in theory but actually has some precedent (although so far it's only happened in the wrong place and time to last at scale for more than a few years). On the other hand expecting a transitional state to actually continue the transition is even less rational than expecting Jesus to show up and start helping.
The actual reason anarchist experiments always fail is because they lack organization and structure necessary to keep them going. Maybe if spent some time to learn what a state is, then you wouldn't feel the need to make inane statements like this.
The actual reason most anarchist places fail is because they lack military power. Places that are actually recognized like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania still run today.
These things go hand in hand. Military power requires organization, ability to create industry, build factories, have a trained workforce, and so on. Creating these things requires having some form of central planning and authority. This is an excellent read on the subject incidentally https://dashthered.medium.com/where-do-tanks-come-from-8723ff77d83b
👆 How to say you're historically illiterate without saying you're historically illiterate.
@yogthos no, your superstitions are not "history", they're just superstitions.
Repeating nonsense over and over isn't going to make it true buddy. Feel free to provide examples of anarchism working in practice though.
@yogthos oh look, the anti-communist is back proclaiming knowledge of another subject he clearly hasn't bothered to research.
When you definitely understand what communism is. 😂
@jeremy_list @NoiseColor @yogthos
[immediate transition is not only possible in theory but actually has some precedent]
– How is it possible in theory, and what precedent does it have?
[expecting a transitional state to actually continue the transition is even less rational than expecting Jesus to show up and start helping]
Why?
@Radical_EgoCom @NoiseColor @yogthos Rosa Luxemburg explained all this better than I could and she wasn't even an anarchist (but really take your pick of almost any non-ML communist theorist).
But in summary: implementing communism inherently deprives counterrevolution of the capital it needs to function, so any delay in implementing communism is at best a strategic error and at worst an indication that the org has already become counterrevolutionary.implementing communism inherently deprives counterrevolution of the capital
How do you want to achieve this? Globally at once? Or bit by bit? Can you please Rosas work?
On the other other hand, choosing to stay in a capitalist system and expecting to be treated like a human being is less rational than expecting God even cared enough to want to help in the first place.
@Sarcasmo220 choosing a "transitional state" is literally choosing to stay in the capitalist system, so yes thank you for making my point for me.
Capitalism is a system where people who own capital exploit the working class to create more wealth for themselves. A system where the means of production are publicly owned and are used for the benefit of the workers is demonstrably not that. The fact that you don't even understand such basic things shows how woefully clueless you are.
@yogthos China is a place where people who own capital exploit the working class to create more wealth for themselves. The fact you're pretending otherwise makes you an anti-communist, an anti-materialist, or more likely both.
Yup, that makes sense. That's why China is pretty much the only place in the world where large amount of people are being lifted out of poverty, while the wealth of the rich is diminishing. You are very intelligent. You wouldn't recognize materialism if it hit you in the face kid.
@yogthos China is a place where some people are being lifted out of poverty BY CAPITALISM BECAUSE CAPITALISM IS THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM IN PLACE THERE. Also while it is a lot of people it's not as many as the official number because the poverty line itself is affected by factors other than people's living conditions.
Interesting theory. Let's see how it stands up in face of actual facts of the situation...
Household savings hit major highs across China https://www.chinadailyhk.com/hk/article/315229
If we take just one country, China, out of the global poverty equation, then even under the $1.90 poverty standard we find that the extreme poverty headcount is the exact same as it was in 1981. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/5-myths-about-global-poverty
The $1.90/day (2011 PPP) line is not an adequate or in any way satisfactory level of consumption; it is explicitly an extreme measure. Some analysts suggest that around $7.40/day is the minimum necessary to achieve good nutrition and normal life expectancy, while others propose we use the US poverty line, which is $15. https://www.cgdev.org/blog/12-things-we-can-agree-about-global-poverty
90% of families in the country own their home, giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes/
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world's total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&locations=CN&start=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw8SvK0E5dI
I agree that revolutions can always be bloody, but when people say authoritarian, they mean a state where dissent is surpressed by violent means. At least in modern times, most western states (and, in fact, most states) don't suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.
1/3 [most western states (and, in fact, most states) don't suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did.]
I have to partially disagree. While it is likely true that the USSR was more outward with its suppression methods than most western states today, countries, like America for example, do suppress dissent on a regular scale (Campus protest, George Floyd protest are just two notable examples, but there are plenty of more).
2/3 Also, speaking of America again, one of America's suppression methods is suppression through delusion, tricking people into thinking that they're actually free with constant propaganda in media and schools when the reality is that America is just as much (and maybe even more, since it's hard to compare the exact numbers to the Soviet Union) police presence and civilian surveillance as the Soviet Union did (but probably more surveillance given the advancements..
3/3 ...in technology) and all while having the largest prison population in the entire world, possibly being larger than the amount of prisoners in labor camps under Stalin (again, it's hard to compare since records from that era from the Soviet Union are lacking).
There's currently less than 1.4 million prisoners in the US, while official Soviet records show 0.79 million in executions alone under Stalin. Average that by year, and you still have 0.02 million per year.
According to official Soviet estimates, more than 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, which averages to 0.58 million per year.
Edit: That's a little bit more than two times the current US prison influx amount, and I didn't account for per capita-ing (modern US has more population in total than USSR ever did).
actual sources seem to disagree with you
Robertson drew attention to one of the great scandals of American life. "Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today," writes the New Yorker's Adam Gopnik. "Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America--more than 6 million--than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/the-caging-of-america
I only counted those incarcerated. You're counting community service, probation, parole, etc. And my sources are The Guardian and this academic journal.
Having poorly made police officers is way worse than have state policies of persecuting ideas and even forms of art. Unlike what would happen in the USSR, Snowden's leaks were not blocked and promoters of the leak weren't hunted down (except for Snowden himself, which would happen in most countries), and you are free to discuss here without being banned.
Oops, yeah, I forgot about that. But you actually see livestreamed debate about whether suppressing these protests was good (oftentimes it's highly criticized), and you don't just get prosecuted if you just express opinions online. Also, the campus protests were suppressed because the owners of the private property being protested on didn't like it. They get substantial funding from the state, but there's still a difference from the state itself doing it. Like socialists and flat-earthers don't get straight-up stamped out by police, whereas Stalin actively prosecuted people who didn't support pseudobiology.
I'm not at all trying to suggest that Stalinist Russia was more free than modern-day America, just that many people think of America as a free country when it's actually closer to Stalinist Russia than they'd care to recognize.
My point is that the United States is indeed much less authoritarian. Saying that there's no such thing as a state that's more authoritarian or less authoritarian is denying reality.
US incarceration rate is higher than what USSR had during Stalin's purges. It's hard to think of a better measure of how authoritarian a state is than the percentage of the population it keeps behind bars.
[Saying that there's no such thing as a state that's more authoritarian or less authoritarian is denying reality.]
To clarify, that's not what I said. I said that there is no such thing as a non-authoritarian state because states are authoritarian by nature, not that there aren't varying degrees of the level of authoritarianism among different states. America is in many ways less authoritarian than the USSR, but it's still authoritarian nonetheless.
Hmm, I understand what you meant to say now. However, by all common discourse and even the term's very original definition, the United States isn't "authoritarian" enough to be considered authoritarian.
most western states (and, in fact, most states) don’t suppress discourse as much as the USSR often did
This is hard to say outright just because of variation between and even within western states (I've seen very petty arrests over discourse in my state), but overall I agree, yes.
I also think it's important to understand why it was the case. Western countries all have a similar media landscape so I propose the propaganda model described in the book Manufacturing Consent applies generally to them. The result of those filters being, the loudest voices are those of state (relevant former-CIA interview!) and commercial interests (in the US, mass media it's almost all subsidiaries of Comcast, TimeWarner, Disney, News Corp, NA and Sony at this point), which may clash, but rarely ever enough to threaten the state or the status quo - the state treats the biggest companies well. Major news broadcasters aren't promoting major change even when they criticize a government or leader, they usually just say 'vote for the other liberal politician!'. The discourse is generally so tame, within the bounds of simple policy and culture changes, rather than threatening the state, so it doesn't really need to be suppressed by the state. But when it does (see Jan 6, or laws about threatening the president at all), we start seeing the limits of where discourse is allowed.
In my understanding, USSR didn't have as much luxury there. The people with the most money, rather than those with the least, have an interest in fighting the state and allowing them to have the freedom to use their money freely to gain power. So discourse which threatens the state will probably be a bit more scary to the leadership. I don't think it's a good thing (for example, it reminds me of news I saw of China's state suppression of Maoist protesters, which comes off to me as fragile and repressive) but I understand why they don't give as much liberty as the well-established propaganda model of the USA.
There's also something to be said about the suppression of discourse that our economic system implies, rather than the state suppressing it. See this clip of filmmaker George Lucas talking about freedoms in film art wrt USSR and USA. Obviously I'm not suggesting the inability to publish art is the same as being arrested by a state, obviously not! Rather, I want to highlight that one can't just point to state policy to compare the freedom of discourse.___
Peoples are lying, not history
Authoritarian is a meaningless word that anti-communists love to use without thinking. Every state holds authority by virtue of having a monopoly on violence, period. The only question is whose interests the authority of the state is exercised in. There is also zero evidence that communist states are inefficient of stifle innovation. In fact, vast majority of meaningful innovation under capitalism happens in the public sector. Finally, every communist state has vastly improved living conditions for the majority of the people. I recommend actually learning a bit of history instead of regurgitating nonsense you've been indoctrinated into.
They ignored the point that capitalism uses violent oppression to suppress innovation. Kind of a main point of the video. The evidence that other ideological regimes cannot innovate is always implicitly that capitalists won by military might therefore the interlocutor is compelled to concede a flawed premise from the outset.
It's like smashing the sportsball net then saying you won the game. Especially if one were to come from a scientific perspective that is not a proper comparison of technological innovation when you ensure nobody else can even try.
Show us a world were different regimes compete scientific and technologically without resorting to violence against the others. We couldn't have it because capitalists sabotage your science experiment, take your equipment, then declare themselves the winner.
Even with the US pouring every gram of the value generated by its citizens labor into violence and global oppression of socialism
Even with the USSR spending all its money on its own citizens quality of life instead of enriching the bourgeois
The Americans still lost 19/20 space race milestones and called themselves the winner
If Reagan won 20 years earlier and torched American industry, science, and labor a little sooner we might have been posting this from the Jupiter orbital colony.
very much agree
@yogthos my dude you literally support an organisation that briefly toned down the capitalism in the place it governed before restoring it at gunpoint: you're in absolutely no position to be going around calling others anti-communist.
What organization would that be Jeremy?
@yogthos The Communist Party of China.
Thanks for confirming that you're a troll who has no clue what communism is. Bye.
@yogthos T.I.L. Communism is when you run a few experiments about how society without private property might work but then force all the participants back into capitalism at literal gunpoint.
When you don't know the difference between communism and socialism. What no theory does to a mf
@carl_marks_1312 that's literally the point I'm making to your friend but it's not sinking in.
That's because all you're doing is regurgitating nonsense, and everybody in this thread can see it.
At least do some basic reading of theory instead of bringing nothing new to the table. China is run by communists and the economic system is market socialist (or more accurately SWCC). And yes socialism isn't without contradictions. You haven't event answered my questions how you imagine communism to come about, coward.
Do you have a source on the "literal gunpoint" part? just wanna get some context for what you're talking about.
@Fidel_Cashflow they actually ran several experiments some more successful than others. Turns out people don't usually like having to share kitchens but love collective farming arrangements, even ones plagued with accusations of sabotage. I will have to hunt down the dates again but the re-privatisation of farming was not popular when it happened and there were several skirmishes between farmers and police over it.
Yoghaus is a fucking idiot. Spread the word.
When people respond, there are a few different forms the response comes in. By far the worst is one that tries to completely deny the original post by finding weird circumstances in which individual statements of the op aren't true and do so in a rude way and/or childishly patronising way.
That's you. Though, great that you like capitalisms public sector 😂.
Libs caring .ore about the tone then the content of what is being said. A classic duo
That's a miserable response and compete wrong. Bye
It's funny how holding nonsensical opinions always goes hand in hand with having poor reading comprehension. For example, nowhere did I say that I like capitalism's public sector. What I actually said that public sector is where meaningful innovation happens even under capitalism, which directly contradicts the claim you made. I guess posting nonsense online is a lot easier than educating yourself on the subject you're opining on. 😂
You took something you liked, from something you don't and said this is the part that makes your other thing great.
And then called me to educate myself.... again....
So, what you're saying is that you don't understand that public and private sector are two different things. Gotcha!
That's a most strange assumption you made. Why would I know such a basic thing? Gotcha? This is very strange. How old are you?
I didn't make any assumption your words speak for themselves. And old enough to recognize a troll when I see one. You ain't fooling anybody here bud.
I'm a troll? You are the one that thinks that by calling me childish names will me upset somehow. Like, I can get upset, but this, this is like some basic school level. Gotcha?
Its fine if you are a kid. I don't care. You can lie or tell the truth.
You are a tankie?
People using the term tankie call me a tankie.
So you believe in authoritarian state in the sense of stalin and putin?
I believe in authoritarian state in a sense of burger empire where incarceration rate per capita is higher than it was in USSR under Stalin.
I didn't ask that.
That's right you asked a loaded question thinking you were being clever.
I asked a sincere question, one you are not willing answer it seems.
Don't engage with the tankie.
Says the pro communist antiwestern propaganda machine.
Those are positive traits that would belong to any decent person, tbh
Being communist and antiwestern goes hand in hand child.
At least you admit you're an idiot then.
I'd be really insulted if I had a shred of respect for you.
Ah. I didn't know.