If only there were some kind of way for it to not devolve into totalitarian dictatorship…
lucky u, there is; its called just doing the fucking thing like normal, cuz non of the historical examples did that so u know.
Communism inevitably will always lead to dictatorship and totalitarianism.
In order to become a communist state, you have to: 1.) Get a bit army or group of people to enforce the upcoming rules. 2.) Force people to get rid of private ownership or threaten them to give it up. This will piss a lot of people off. 3.) Get rid of them if they don’t. This will piss a lot of people off. 4.) Realize that you’ve pissed a lot of people off, and that your the only power in the land, you definitely don’t want to give this up. 5.) Enact a single party system…oh, fuck…
Communism doesn’t work on a large-scale, and it’s not sustainable. By it’s very nature it’s extremely prone to abuse, and fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system. Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.
fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system. Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.
Buddy, checks and balances are one of the many reasons why our democracy doesn’t work. I already covered this elsewhere in this very post.
Communism doesn’t work on a large-scale, and it’s not sustainable.
Have you ever heard of little thing called “economy of scale”? The bigger scale is - the more sustainable it is.
By it’s very nature it’s extremely prone to abuse, and fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system.
“checks and balances” do not prevent abuse. They are not designed to.
Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.
In my opinion two-party system is worse than single-party system and full pluralism. In single-party system there is only one party to blame, while in many-parties system no party can control discourse. While in two-party system both parties can agree to screw over people and finger-point at each-other, only creating illusion of pluralism.
And that besides societal issues two-party system creates like strong polarization.
u can believe the cia on that or u can actually fucking learn how these systems work or worked and what people who lived and live in them think of them, imma put it very plainly the percent of Americans who think amerikkka is a democracy is a LOT lower than Chinese people who think China is a democracy. And that holds true for most capitalist countries and most socialist countries past and present.
“devolve”
Big fan of Tsarist Russia, Feudal China, Colonial Japan, and Batista Cuba I take it.
There is, and most have, despite imperial core propaganda to the contrary. Here’s a 1955 CIA report that was declassified in 2008.
Even in Stalin’s time there was collective leadership. The Western idea of a dictator within the Communist setup is exaggerated. Misunderstandings on that subject are caused by lack of comprehension of the real nature and organization of the Communist power structure. Stalin, although holding wide powers, was merely the captain of a team and it seems obvious that Khrushchev will be the new captain.
“Totalitarian” is itself propaganda: The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt came from wealth and so unsurprisingly was anticommunist. Her work was financially supported and promoted by the CIA. “Totalitarianism” is a bourgeois liberal, anticommunist construct for the purposes of equivalating fascism and communism.
Monthly Review, The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
If fact almost all of the “Western left” (that wasn’t repressed by the red scares) was captured by the imperial core’s propaganda machine: Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism
Rather than placing absolute power of The State in one person’s hands, start with an elected council of members whose number is not divisible by 2. Transition to a Stateless co-op arrangement. Congratulations you just implemented Communism the way it is intended to be implemented, and no dictator could screw it up.
Sounds great. Unfortunately it has never succeeded for more than a few months. The last 100+ years have shown that attempting to transition to socialism in that manner doesn’t work. Each time the bourgeoisie manages quickly regain control of the state. Given that the worldwide capitalist class still holds a great majority of the power, siege socialism is the only method to have had any successes to date.
The Six Nations have been using a form of communism, not Marxism, for somewhere between 15,000 to 25,000 years. Works pretty well for them. Aboriginal Australians have done the same for roughly 60,000 years.
I’d say capitalism is the short lived and failed economic system, considering that it’s about 400 years old and rapidly failing.
…and how do you enforce it? No one is going to want to give up the land that they worked for and purchased themselves, or that they developed. Give up your rights or we imprison or kill you?
And who controls this enforcing agency? The single party government? Because you can’t have multiple parties…how do you prevent the government from taking advantage of their position? Like, I don’t think communism is this magical fix-all that you think it is.
It’s really simple - centralization = seat of power
The worst flavor of people are drawn to that like moths to a flame. It’s not even a good idea, any potential economies of scale are wasted by communication lag in the bureaucracy
Decentralization is key. You can have a commune easy enough, humans self organize just fine in small enough communities. There’s communes all over the world doing just fine
The question is, how do you knit those small communities together in a way that doesn’t give anyone much power, but still come together when needed?
Australia had communism for 60,000 years and never developed a dictatorship.
Would you like to provide a link, or any sort of proof to back up this outlandish claim?
Calling it communism may be a bit of a reach, but collectivist social organizing in a variety of ways was and still is a very common element of indigenous cultures around the world.
This link focuses on family and child rearing, but it’s a good window into how Australian aboriginals express collectivist principles.
That wasn’t totalitarian nor a dictatorship. Soviet Democracy continued to be practiced, and Stalin’s authority wasn’t absolute or all-encompassing.
Where does a state go from a non-totalitarian, non-dictatorship to a Totalitarian Dictatorship?
As a theory, sure. I just have yet to see it expressed in any functional way that didn’t devolve into a shit show. See: Russia, etc.,
I think it’s telling that so many wish for a return to communism but still defend Putin’s atrocities. :|
Russia devolved into capitalism. Funding a military is incredibly expensive and necessary when a communist country wants to exist in a world with the United States. This creates a militant economy that must be centrally governed to coordinate this military might. True democratic socialism is impossible as long as the United States exists as an imperialist force.
True democratic socialism is impossible as long as the United States exists as an imperialist force.
1, That’s silly, there’s tons of democratic socialist countries that are doing just fine - today! Bolivia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand - think the US fucks with their way of governing?
2, the USSR was never a type of democratic socialism. Period. They literally called it ‘soviet democracy’ distinctly, and it meant something WILDLY different that the kinds of democratic socialism we see in the above listed countries.
Your premise is faulty, built upon an imagined soviet union that did not practice the tenants you’re endorsing.
1, That’s silly, there’s tons of democratic socialist countries that are doing just fine - today! Bolivia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand - think the US fucks with their way of governing?
All of these countries are free market economies, though. If you classify a country that has public programs as socialist, then USA is a socialist country.
Also, just as a detail, Switzerland is probably one of the most capitalistic countries in the world. They have nearly a flat tax rate, very small amounts of corporate / capital gains taxation and a health care system that is nearly privatized. And it’s all working pretty damned well for them.
Canada
Ok, how did Canada managed to get on this list? And Switszerland?
They literally called it ‘soviet democracy’
Parlamentary democracy is real thing. Usually it is called parlamentary republic. Nothing special, most of Europe works this way.
I don’t think they are socialist democracy but social democracy. There is a distinction. I don’t think any country is a socialist country in morden history. There where some movement that were trying to be socialist but it either fell into dictatorship (USSR, North Korea, etc)or it was squashed by USA(Chile, and other central/ south american countries). The most successful one was that of Chile, until US backed coup overthrew the democratically elected government in favour of dictatorship.
True democratic socialism is impossible as long as the United States exists as an imperialist force.
Not sure how to explain, but I don’t think so.
My concern with this line of argument is that it bundles consequences from a system of government up with the consequences of trade embargoes and other hostile actions from capitalist economies. That doesn’t make the actions of the dictators in those countries justifiable in any way, but might have precipitated conditions that made them more likely.
How would communist nations have fared if the US had taken a ‘live and let live’ approach to them? The approach during the cold war was that they couldn’t be allowed to succeed. That led to the sort of standards of living where dictatorship tends to thrive. Note this isn’t unique to communist countries. Look at the Republican party in the US, now that Neoliberalism is failing.
It also ignores that Socialism in AES states has generally resulted in mass reductions in poverty, increases in literacy, education, home ownership, and life expectancy.
maybe, before the '56 invasion this could have happened, but I’m dubious. And after Hungary, lol, fuck right off thinking the capitalist world should support your communist brutality.
See: Russia, etc.,
Last time I checked sheikh-esque palaces and yachts are something that is not communism. Same goes for Putin’s oligarchs.
I think it’s telling that so many wish for a return to communism but still defend Putin’s atrocities. :|
For some reason I see them less than few years ago. I wonder why…
Putin’s oligarchs.
And where did Putin come from?
For some reason I see them less than few years ago. I wonder why…
probably because they’re losing their love of this special military operation slightly exceeding it’s 3-days-to-kiev plan. Those dumb sonsabitches brought their dress uniforms for the parades they knew were going to happen.
lol
And where did Putin come from?
Some from behind desk near him in KGB, some are his neighbours.
First can be solved with lustrations. KGB, FSB, NSA, FBI - they greatly harm society.
Both can be reduced by destruction of iron throne. “All power power to soviets” v2. Most of Europe already into parlamentarism, so nothing unusual.
I see China building renewable energy capacity, and crazy fast trains, faster than the rest of the world combined.
I see Cuba, a tiny island nation, still independent after 64 years of brutal US sanctions.
I see Vietnam, a popular retirement destination for American ‘expats’.
I see Russia, being fairly shitty and also 100% capitalist for 25 years.
Hmm, seems like you may have been told a bunch of times that communism is bad but never really looked into it.
So large increases in literacy rates, life expectancy, home ownership, education access, healthcare access, and democratization of society is “devolving into a shitshow?”
Do you think Russians were better off under the thumb of the Tsar? Do you think Cubans were happier as slaves in Batista’s US-backed slave-state? What point are you genuinely trying to make?
Related meme:
Thankfully we have other ways of coming to an understanding about China. Particularly the media, especially international media.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_papers
That often depends on whether one is talking about imperial core media or peripheral media. Yet another case of alwaysthesamemap.
As you add more parties into your conspiracy it gets harder to justify the existence of said conspiracy, no?
Edit: since it’s confusing to you, look up Occam’s razor, I’m sure you’ll learn a thing or two
Luckily most countries don’t believe the lies the US is trying to spread about China.
The US and China are rapidly approaching a new kind of media-driven Cold War, with the unaligned nations being the battlefronts for dueling propaganda efforts. The problem that the western propagandists have is that they’ve generally gotten really bad at it. Gone are the days of Marshall Plans and international trade deals. All the NATO states seem to know how to do is ratchet up their sanctions regime.
To quote Dr Lubinda Haabazoka, Director of the University of Zambia Graduate School of Business and former President of the Economics Association of Zambia
Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture.
I’ve had quite a few people say I’ve been brainwashed by Chinese or soviet propaganda, a thing I do not encounter often, and then slowly explain the most bog standard white Australian nationalist narrative to me. I wish I was better at confrontational social situations
I mean, I’ve checked out a few English language Chinese news programs out of curiosity. Not really anything vitriolic I’ve seen, if anything they all seem a bit more chill and relaxed and maybe even a bit boring. It’s obvious that some of it is propaganda but they don’t really bother to hide it behind this facade of “NO SPIN” and “TOTALLY RELIABLE” or controlled oppositional pushback that American corporate news (aka propaganda) feels the need to project.
It’s very easy to not look like propaganda but still push a message that spins things in a certain light.
Many news agencies practice this, Al Jazeera, RT, the BBC, etc.
It’s not just east and west, it’s common practice.
The extreme vitriol we get here in the states is because SHOCK sells domestically but if you want to sell your message globally you say it politely and calmly and often in a soft spoken way.
The point of foreign facing news is to seem reasonably so you can push another narrative.
Not necessarily saying “foreign” news is bad, in fact I recommend everyone take a peep but always remember with whatever information you’re consuming someone has their bias in it
Any current real-life examples of “communism good”?
It’s been democratically instituted many times. And every time America marches in and “liberates” them.
It’s difficult to provide good examples when they’re all actively destroyed.
Cuba. Cuba has the most educated population in North America, more doctors per capita then almost any other nation. The only reason they’re struggling is because America’s embargo. They want stuff too.
Mostly this, although Vietnam is doing quite well, especially considering their circumstances.
Cuba is also really interesting…not thriving, to be sure, but you have to end the US blockade before you blame them for their own hardships. And in spite of everything, they have democracy like we’ve never seen in the west.
Edit: also what beejboytyson said about Cuba.
The US dropped more napalm, and bombs, and agent orange on vietnam (a comparatively small country) than it did during all of WW2. Lots of its people are still suffering from this atrocity.
Yeah but all forms of government are constantly attacked. You’re like a multicellular organism crying foul because bacteria and other pathogens are trying to invade it.
One of the reasons capitalism wins is it produces enough wealth to win wars. Consistently. The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty also wins wars.
Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism causes wars.
WWI was an inter-imperialist war. WWII was two wars: on the Western front it was an inter-imperialist war and on the Eastern front it was largely a war to crush socialism. Most of the wars since then have been imperialist wars of aggression against imperialized states, many of them by the United States, the global imperialist hegemon that has over 750 overseas military bases.
The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty
Where have you been during the last 40 years of neoliberalism and neocolonialism?
And explain this: United Nations, 2019: Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding
You could’ve just typed “No”.
All the other things you’ve typed is nonsense anyways.
Our current attempt at democracy—the methods we’re using to elect our leaders—are fundamentally irrational.
They are rational, and they work as intended, it’s just that they’re not popular democracies, they’re bourgeois democracies, designed by & for the capitalist class and against the working class. They’re not meant to represent us.
Take the US, which has has been ruled by the bourgeoisie since the 1776 bourgeois revolution. The wealthy, white, male land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers intentionally constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority.” It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (who aren’t disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
Ah yes my favorite authoritative source on the mathematics of democracy: a YouTube video.
Fuck off
Here you go, and before you say China is not really communist. That’s true that China is in a socialist stage of development led by the Communist party. However, it’s very clear that it is developing very differently from capitalist countries.
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
Then there are the massive poverty alleviation programs in China that have no comparison in the US https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
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
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
China also massively invests in infrastructure. They used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/05/china-used-more-concrete-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-used-in-the-entire-20th-century-infographic/
China also built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/high-speed/ten-years-27000km-china-celebrates-a-decade-of-high-speed/
Such massive infrastructure projects directly improve the standard of living for the people of the country.
Social mobility happens to be really high as well https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html
Furthermore, people in China see their country working in their interest and hence view it as being far more democratic than people do living under the dictatorship of capital
- https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva images/Democracy Perception Index 2023.pdf
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
Meanwhile, if you want a historical example then look no further than USSR.
Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world:
- https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/
- https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/
USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%:
- http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm
- http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm
- http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez
USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960’s, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union
- https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html
Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:
- https://www.scribd.com/document/430076844/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5-pdf
- https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compar1.png?w=640
USSR moved from 58.5-hour work weeks to 41.6 hour work weeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960:
USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996:
- https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf
- https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67 and the average (not median) retiree household in the USA could expect $48k/yr which comes out to 65% of the 74k average (not median) household income in 2016:
- https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-you-get-by-on-the-average-americans-retirement-income/
GDP took off after socialism was established and then collapsed with the reintroduction of capitalism:
The Soviet Union had the highest physician/patient ratio in the world. USSR had 42 doctors per 10,000 population compared to 24 in Denmark and Sweden, and 19 in US:
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0735675784900482 (sci-hub for access)
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USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpox
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The Social Consequences of Soviet Immunization Policies https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1997-812-03g-Hoch.pdf
So, how do people who lived under communism feel now that they got a taste of capitalism?
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Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12u
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Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx
The Free market paradise goes East chapters in Blackshirts and Reds details some more results of the transition to capitalism.
From your first source
Figure 1 shows that China had very low inequality levels in the late 1970s, but it is now approaching the US, where income concentration remains the highest among the countries shown
It’s hard for me to look at % increases or “X out of poverty” or “This person makes 1+ what they did before!”. I get fed the same stuff about how great America is doing because of our “numbers”. Without being there it’s hard to grasp if what you’re saying is anything better, worse, or just par for the course of a developing nation with such a high output with manufacturing.
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
Seeing this statement and reading the link, they have absolutely nothing to do with each other and you make it seem like it’s a “quote” from the article (I’m guessing it’s from the 93 page research paper I’m reading through). They would’ve just been better off publishing whatever data they talked about researchers definitely having, the whole thing read like an Elon Musk press conference…
“To sustain poverty reduction gains, China will focus more on achieving endogenous development in areas that have been lifted out of poverty and introduce vigorous measures to support rural revitalization. Our goal is to achieve common prosperity and high-quality development including through the rural revitalization strategy with a focus in five key areas: industry development, human capital, culture, ecological environment and local governance.”
It’s interesting and kinda disconcerting reading through the policies and how no real figures are presented for what the policy should be, such as the “common prosperity” they hope to achieve be 2030 (link page 15)
China has set a new goal of achieving significant progress toward common prosperity by 2035.1 While no particular income target or poverty threshold is attached to this goal, it can help keep the policy focus on the vulnerable population over the coming decade.
It makes me wonder if setting an elusive “goal” of a policy is better to get members on board and then slap them with the real numbers after they have already signed on and can’t openly complain about (bad for corrupt sectors of government though). There’s also just not enough information as stated in the paper to actually understand what is going on,
Finally, this review of China’s poverty reduction experience leaves a number of questions open for further research…
- the interplay between poverty reduction and growth deserves further analysis to understand the extent that poverty reduction measures may, in turn, help less-developed areas grow faster
- a deeper analysis of China’s use of policy experimentation at the local level combined with high-powered performance incentives may contribute to our understanding of models of decentralization and public service delivery
- an evaluation of China’s targeted poverty alleviation experience in recent years would benefit from further analysis of individual policy interventions and their interactions to better understand not just the effectiveness but also the efficiency and sustainability of the program.
- An analysis of the costs and benefits of policy intervention would also be warranted in a broader sense, helping to systematically account (suan da zhang in the Chinese term) for factors such as the impact of infrastructure investments on poverty reduction or the merits of the hukou system and man- aged urbanization policies. In all these areas, active exchanges between researchers within and outside of China, and between academics and policy makers, should be encouraged, and the data needed for high-quality empirical work should be made more widely available. These actions will help ensure that China’s poverty reduction achievements get the attention and understanding that they deserve.
Just now seeing and trying to wrap my head around the Hukou system. I’m not here arguing good/bad communism, I just like the information and think that many forms of government can work out with protections in place (regulations, corruption detection, etc). I just wanted to point out your article mention and link didn’t really fit together with how you presented it. I did enjoy the reading and will continue today, but I take it all with a grain of salt. I don’t really 100% trust any source these days, which in this technological era should really be the default for everyone. Definitely let it sink in and contemplate the realities of others, but you only have your own reality to work within for any type of effective action.
If you ever been to a commune where people share food, resources, bills. They go under the radar.
Fell for this one before, Mr. Manson.
There was a reality TV show about communes and stuff. Granted it’s reality TV but aside from the bad ones media doesn’t cover them very much. Long story short, it really didn’t do a good job of saying communism-good.
I think the best examples might be like Cuba having universal health care or something but ny experience was with a michael moore doc so it’s kinda sketch to begin.
Communes have almost nothing to do with communism. When you are living in a capitalist world and beholden to a capitalist economy, you are not suddenly experiencing communism just because you live on a collective farm. A commune is not “doing communism,” not because they are doing something wrong or anything, but because it simply doesn’t work like that. In a simple definition of communism, the workers own the means of production. The people living on a commune within capitalism still do not own the means of production, they still exist almost entirely at the whims of the broader capitalist economic structure.
Also, it’s just ridiculous to expect a tiny microcosm of any system to represent how sound that system is if it were to be scaled up. Especially when that microcosm is inside of another structure that will actively stamp it out of existence if it threatens to grow. Trying to build a commune within a capitalist country is like trying to build a town at the bottom of the ocean. Everything beyond the limits of your project is hostile to its existence simply as a matter of the surrounding natural forces. But just because it’s extremely hard to build a town at the bottom of the ocean, and when it was tried it ended in failure, doesn’t mean that towns in general are destined to fail. In an appropriate environment they can and do thrive.
Open source software is like communism. Held in commons, free to use, contribute to, and benefit from.
And not in any way implemented by the government.
I’m a conservative, and I have zero problem with communism when it’s performed spontaneously by people.
It’s when the government starts doing it that it bothers me.
This is so fractally confused. When “people” do it, that becomes a new government.
Without a government to enforce public ownership of the means of production, there can’t be communism,
just as without a government enforcing private ownership of the means of production, there can’t be capitalism.
And not in any way implemented by the government.
Have you ever heard of GPL?
To be fair publisherploitation(AKA copyright) in general is enforced by goverment.
It’s when the government starts doing it that it bothers me.
What is difference between paying membership fee in non-profit and paying taxes? What if difference between voting on members meeting and on referendum? What is difference between board elections and goverment elections? What is difference between paying members to not starve to death while achieving goal of non-profit and funding healthcare for citizens to not die while living?
Large-scale, actual communism with no authoritarianism? Not that I’m aware of. It’s hard to implement true communism effectively on a large scale because most people have to care enough about others to willingly contribute for it to work.
Authoritarianism is a meaningless term that people with lack of capacity for rational thought regurgitate. Every single government holds authority by virtue of having the monopoly on legal violence. The only question is whose interest the authority is exercised in.
That’s just bullshit. Authoritarianism has a clear-cut definition that goes beyond “the government has authority on legal violence” and you know it.
What do you count as “Authoritatianism?”
Why do you think Communism requires people to care about others to function, and why would they not work otherwise?
I think you have some serious misunderstandings about what Communism entails.
Authoritarianism is the opposite of libertarianism, roughly speaking. It’s a sliding scale, but those would be the two opposites in play.
For example, a more authoritarian approach to road safety would be: “Manufacturers are not allowed to make cars that go over 50 mph”
A more libertarian approach to road safety would be: “We’re publishing the average fatality rate of this road. You can choose to engage with it as you deem appropriate”
Our actual approach with licenses and speed limits and some regulations on car safety and soft but escalating consequences for breaking the road rules is somewhere in between.
Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.
Turns out when people are free to make economic arrangements as they please, capitalism happens.
Also they have to not want to trade. If someone starts trading, then the communism is over.
Trading is not capitalism.
Markets are not capitalism.
Money is not capitalism.
Those things have existed for millenia before capitalism came to exist, around 600 years ago, eventually, over the span of several hundred years, replacing previous socio-politico-economic systems, feudalism in particular.
The first sentence from Wikipedia: Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.
The first sentence from Wikipedia: Socialism
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.
Notice that both definitionally concern who owns the means of production.
Communism is a mode of production characterized by common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes. The term is also used to refer to the movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of this mode of production.
Communism is a movement toward socialism, with the ultimate goal of the erasing social class hierarchies.
Which is why it’s a utopian movement. They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions, and when that fails (and it always does) they slaughter anyone and everyone that won’t play along.
No person is perfect, so when you demand perfection, you’re going to have to get rid of anyone but those who are perfect at playing perfect.
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Frederick Engels
It must be so liberating to just be able to spew bullshit unconnected to anything in the material world and have zero shame about it
This is exactly how brainwashed liberals are.
They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions
Do they do this with their 5G Manchurian Candidate radio waves?
Which is why it’s a utopian movement.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism is fundamentally opposed to utopianism, and idealism in general.
- Friedrich Engels: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
- V.I. Lenin: “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder
- Mao Tse-tung: Oppose Book Worship
- Georges Politzer: Fundamental Principles of Philosophy » Utopian Socialism
“[citation needed]” is bad faith now? I guess Wikipedia should pack it in, then.
While it accomplishes lot of basics right, like housing, food and education generally, further it goes, it starts carving into personal freedom and makes everything worse.
Can you explain what you mean by this, and why you believe it despite direct evidence to the contrary, such as in Cuba?
The country in which 86% of the population live in poverty? But at least there’s doctors and literacy so that’s great. Classic communism win.
USSR Angola Cuba China DPRK Ethiopia Mongolia Vietnam GDR. I cant understand how people can look at a country that dramatically improved its peoples standard of living brought democracy and freedom, and not see it as a good thing.
USSR Angola Cuba China
Ok, I guess you could argue the point that these countries
DPRK
What the absolute fuck are you talking about.
The DPRK is by no means perfect, but it’s also not some hermit kingdom where the peasants push trains to make them move.
If you have 20 minutes, I recommend you watch We Went to North Korea to Get a Haircut, it’s humanizing and helps dispel a lot of modern myths about the DPRK. Again, it’s by no means perfect, but the West has absolutely mythologized its existence to lunacy.
What the absolute fuck are you talking about.
On this subject more than any other the western brain is completely destroyed by propaganda.
The crazy shit you will and have believed about Korea without any evidence is stunning and can only be explained by racism.
You actually believed when they said the whole country had to get the same haircut?
whats wrong with the DPRK? I have family that has been there and they thought it was a fine place certainly doing a lot better than the median capitalist country.
having a market does not make a country capitalist. And yeah there is corruption as there is in every 3rd world country (and most 1st world countries just in different less noticeable ways), they are certainly doing more about it than most capitalist countries, and all indicators of standard of living are far better than is the vast majority of capitalist countries so i wouldnt call it a shit show, i mean its hard to recover from having just about every fucking building in ur country destroyed and ur forests and farms poisoned and millions murdered and even more displaced only 50 years ago especially when the country that did all that continues to actively try to fuck u over. They are doing well great even.
Just like Capitalism you aren’t going to find any examples of the system in the world today
When people actually lived in communes it was cool though
Just like Capitalism you aren’t going to find any examples of the system in the world today
About to have my brain turned into soup by asking this question:
Are you implying that there are no examples of capitalism in the world today?
Yeah, what country rewards jobs based on hours worked rather than assets owned?
What people refer to as “late-stage capitalism” is no different than the system capitalism was supposed to replace
I would argue that the Colonialism and indigenous eviction evils can be separated from the socialist successes.
How it started: The kibbutzim were founded by members of the Bilu movement who emigrated to Palestine.
How it’s going: Gaza toll could exceed 186,000, Lancet study says
