It's also more of a dictatorship vs functioning democracy distinction than a capitalism vs socialism distinction
The soviet union had most of the things on the list, but that's because it was a dictatorship, it was never run by the proletariat, it still had an elite and that elite was particularly nasty.
From what I gather, Cuba, while not perfect, is in a much better place in terms of human rights, and has to feed its people despite sanctions. And we have several nations still practicing capitalism that aren't dictatorships.
Of course the US conservatives have done a lot to make people conflate socialism with authoritarianism and lukewarm liberals with socialists.
Most of them also slowly follow the US, e.g. Germany. In Germany we had like 3-4 decades after WWII, where i would say capitalism was bearable. Meaning realtively high median income, people could actually afford houses, some kind of wealth distribution (high taxes on high incomes, at least some kind of wealth tax, but on the other hand free, decent education and full subsidy students life, when you go to university and you or your parents can't( afford to support you in this time).
Then neoliberalism hit in the 90s... And we really started to fuck every social thing in Germany to become "Exportweltmeister" in the early 2000s.
Same here in UK. Party stopped mid 00's. Nordic countries seem pretty good at wealth distribution though. How Norway protected its oil wealth should be studied in schools.
We're all following the same pattern, the wealth distribution got completely fucked during covid and it hasn't slowed down ever since. We're just 5-10 years after you, but I'm scared of the direction especially the UK have made and no proper parties seems to be willing to dismantle the elites yet.
Capitalism will always make wealth trickle upwards, unless you either tax wealth harder than yields or taxes death to oblivion. Personally I'm in favour of 100% inheritance tax after the first 400 thousand euroes, as that's the most feasible way to transition into a liberal merit based society rather than a nepotistic society based upon how wealthy your parents are which is dominating everywhere today - Including my beloved Denmark.
Cuba is still pretty crap I'm afraid. Like with the USSR, you're not exactly fairly electing your foreman or your governor. Emma Goldman would call it state-capitalist.
The reason the old Marxist parties called themselves social-democrats, before they sold themselves out so bad that the name changed meaning, was because it was conceived that socialism would involve democracy in every facet of social life rather than just electing a parliament.
The Leninists and reformists have failed to bring about this dream, but it is a fair dream to strive towards. Class society and the state (including alleged democracies) restrain people's control over their own lives and turn us into mere order-takers content with scraps. The struggle for more than mere scraps and the struggle for self-management and autonomy are in truth the same struggle, which is the struggle for that dream.
The point is that people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism, just because there were a bunch of countries claiming to be socialist in history, despite being incredibly undemocratic.
Socialism is the workers controlling society. So by definition (or at least my interpretation), none of those countries were/are socialist anyway.
people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism
Americans perhaps - they tend to use the terms communism/socialism interchangeably and can't seem to explain why they don't like either. Those of us who've grown up with political variety know what socialism is.
I don't think socialism and democracy have anything to do with each other (other than that if you give people democracy they will generally vote for socialism depending on how empathetic the group is).
You can have socialism with zero democracy and you can have socialism with tons of democracy.
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn't pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That's not democracy.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn't pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
What your describing is a benevolent dictatorship. Having a party that's not beholden to the workers isn't socialism, in my view. The workers need to have control over society.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That's not democracy.
Sure, but this isn't a system of government.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
This also isn't socialism. Socialism isn't just reappropriation of accumulated wealth, it's the control of all parts of society by the workers, including the workplace. If you've got 3 people deciding everything for the other 7, that's not socialism, in my view.
You'll find a lot of MLs online (and one I met in person): oh but China listens to and considers what's best for the workers and implements that!
No they don't (in the case of China)
Being considered is not meaningful control and is revocable at any time by just not listening...
My conclusion, socialism without democracy doesn't make sense and isn't a thing.
Extremism is also the problem, because it allows economic systems to be taken to extremes, which become unbalanced and that then unbalances other systems, like the political systems, which when given the right push by a particular aspiring authoritarian can easily end up landing on authoritarianism.
The middle ground is usually the safest place to be. Socialism and capitalism are economic tools, they both have their place, for certain purpose. Extremists would tell you one is strictly, absolutely, and universally better than the other and imply that thus we should only ever use one system for everything (usually without strictly, absolutely, or universally defining what "better" actually means, because it's usually a pretty self-serving form of "better"). That is an extremist position that many capitalists take, and most of western society spent the last oh, hundred years or so believing to various degrees.
Socialized medicine is perfectly sensible, for example, and that's a hill I'm perfectly willing to die on (but because I have access to socialized medicine I probably won't have to die, and I won't be bankrupted either, hooray :P)
Socialism is not perfect, but neither is capitalism, neither is democracy, neither is pretty much anything. Perfection is a myth. There is no perfect tool, not in a workshop and not in a civilization. Some are more powerful than others. Some are more dangerous. Often the most powerful ones are the most dangerous. That doesn't mean they are bad, but it does mean we must respect them and use them with care and attention, and only when appropriate. We don't have perfect tools, and we probably never will but we can have a large and growing collection of tools we can use to manage our lives, our society, and our civilization. The more tools we know how to use safely the better. Only using one tool for everything is a stupid way of doing things, and it can be dangerous in its own way.
Capitalism is authoritarian on at least the company scale (and more so at a society level, when you identify the coercive control that's exerted because you can either toe the line or be homeless - as a oversimplification).
So, you are perhaps correct that the problem is with authoritianism, but it's just that capitalism, as an economic system, is authoritian.
If you can't vote on who manages your workplace, and have to comply else lose your job (and depending on the country, you house, your healthcare, etc) that's authoritarian, just in a slightly different context.
It would be really nice if folks understood that authoritarianism will always ultimately oppress them, regardless of which ideology it serves.
And it would be doubly awesome if we could deconstruct those ideologies, take from each what works for the betterment of humanity, and build a way out of this ass backwards dystopia instead of shrieking "TankiE!" "FaCisT!!" "WoKE!" at each other.
But that might be a little too much to expect from a world full of hairless apes.
I rarely see criticism of actual misdeeds, mostly vague "USSR bad" and shit either made up or taken wildly out of context, both of which serve no purpose but to attack all of socialism's principles.
This is the equivalent of starting every conversation involving Israel with "Do you condemn Hamas??!"; even if Hamas is imperfect, condemning them in the context of resisting Israel is condemning actual existing resistance to genocide.
I rarely see criticism of actual misdeeds, mostly vague “USSR bad” and shit either made up or taken wildly out of context, both of which serve no purpose but to attack all of socialism’s principles.
Do you view criticisms of the USA as criticisms of democracy's principles?
If not, then you're being irrational in how you think about one or both of the countries.
This is the equivalent of starting every conversation involving Israel with “Do you condemn Hamas??!”; even if Hamas is imperfect, condemning them in the context of resisting Israel is condemning actual existing resistance to genocide.
Most reasonable socialists agree that the USSR perverted a socialist movement to benefit a new ruling class and oppress people. As such, the USSR was a significant blow to socialism in more ways than one. I think it's perfectly reasonable to criticize something that was more Bad than Good, even if it had some Good.
Again wrapping around to the USA, I would wager you have no qualms with criticizing the USA even if it does some good.
Add private property seizure to the list. They're using eminent domain to take homes to build for AI infrastructure.
Really, the thing that people fear is authoritarianism. And it can happen in any government so long as power is consolidated. If structures remain broad and flat with many checks and balances it prevents corruption more readily.
And, well, capitalism has a head start. The foundation is making more profit. Capital will reward those who are the most unempathetic and narcissistic as they are the most ready to exploit others. And through that exploitation, they earn profit, and work to deregulate and consolidate to continue generating profit.
Capitalism is working as intended. Authoritarianism is a happy bedfellow.
I've seen some numbers floating around that about 30% of people support authoritarianism. Some people literally cannot live with ambiguity and fear it. So when there is fear, societal, financial, etc, they flock to those who provide them a simple answer, even if incorrect.
In America's case, Trump correctly identified those problems while the opposition didn't address them. And those people can't live with ambiguity, it sets alarm bells off in their head (might be why they can't deal with lgbtq individuals even though it doesn't affect them at all.)
Lost your job? An immigrant took it
Lost your healthcare? An immigrant or a trans individual took it.
Inflation, tax breaks for the wealthy? Corrupt elites in washington
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
Even socialism would still use eminent domain to take property, but itd likely be for something a bit better than that. Probably a highway, train, or building that is more for the public good (e.g airport, power plant, hospital)
Sometimes shit is just in the way and a government needs a way to be able to work around it.
I imagine the compensation would be more fair as well.
Not saying it wouldn't, but that's one of the "fears of communism." I just heard some MAGA hack using it on CNN or FOX I think trying to attack the DSA and fear monger. But it's happening right now, and has happened, under capitalism, for profit.
But yes, a socialist government wouldn't have profit as its core tenant, but people. So, ideally, eminent domain would be a last resort and plans would be made to affect minimal individuals while making sure compensation is more than fair.
In this case with the data center, I'm sure the power lines could be routed around the housing areas. But it would be more costly. Why would a private utility company spend more money when there's profit to be made?
Good ol neoliberal capitalism and its inherent contradictions. Deliver freedom, but there is freedom of capital and freedom of peoples. And neoliberalism has chosen freedom of capital over freedom of people.
"Bad thing happens under system X, therefore system X is uniquely responsible/bad."
No. We have an entire history to refer to where these things also happen under socialism, communism, feudalism, fascism, theocratic states, monarchies, juntas, etc. It's also ballsy to try make the claim, because if there is significant relation between systemic ideologies and these symptoms, rather than a more anthropological one, then socialist or communist states are the historical leader with Stalin, Mao's China, East Germany, NK's juche, etc. But only a moron would neglect the actual causes, generally concentrated and unaccountable power(s). Socialism and capitalism are just optional toppings. It's like saying "the pizza is burned because you chose anchovies and not pineapple".
And that kind of this vs that leads into what's really going on here, one of the internet's favourite passtimes; tribalism. Pick a team, learn enough about the game to follow what's going on, go to war with whatever rivals your new peers tell you too, scream nonsensical things from the armchair. So an identity-protective cognition ends up with a post lacking comparison and history, for a conclusion OP's in-group is committed to. I e. such a post does nothing for outreach to non-socialist thinkers, even though OP thinks they're provoking thoughts. Ironically, only someone inflicted by this wouldn't be able to see it.
The OP is a counter argument to the non sequitur viewpoint. Right wingers love to say socialism is bad because it will bring these things. OP is saying, we have those anyway, so it's not a good argument against socialism.
I've seen several times where somebody posts a picture saying "Look what socialism causes," and the picture is like a tent city in modern America that was created under capitalism.
The fun thing is that none of those things have ever been a symptom of communism/socialism. The authoritarian states, that refer/referred to themselves by those names despite having nothing to do with them in reality, wished to maintain unitary control of the people and implemented those things and bled the people dry in spite of the egalitarian nature of their supposed communism/socialism. But those things absolutely are symptoms of capitalism, where unitary control and draining every dime you can from anyone you can is part of the system.
I'm aware. But none of them have ever actually met the definition of communism. At minimum, all of them still had central unitary state powers. That is, by definition, not communism. The flaw with the theory of economic transition to communism is not necessarily the communism, but the transition. It requires a unitary party to seize the means of production, and then voluntarily distribute those means to the people and dissolve the central government structure. You'll notice that that last step has never happened on a national scale in history.
But none of them have ever actually met the definition of communism.
I really dislike this kind of thinking. People citing that we've never had a communist country tend to think:
Only true Communism counts as communism. (So no failures of any real nation can ever be attributed to it.)
Any country with any degree of market economy counts as capitalist. (So the sins of any nation can be attributed to capitalism.)
They use an extremely tight definition for communism and an extremely loose definition for capitalism. I'm a leftist myself, but I can recognize the intellectual inconsistency.
By the same logic, I could argue that the Catholic Church never covered up sex abuses by priests:
True Catholicism has never existed, as there's never been a time it's been truly universal. (The word "Catholic" means "universal.") Obviously we can only ever talk about the failures of Catholicism once we've actually achieved true Catholicism. Until literally every single living human being is a devout Catholic, any discussion of the merits of Catholicism is purely theoretical and shouldn't serve to guide our decisions.
For certain kinds of communism/socialism, authoritarianism does seem pretty much inevitable. It's not inevitable for more distributed community-oriented forms. But for any socialist/communist government organized at the national level, authoritarianism seems inevitable to me.
In order to seize the means of production, you have to do just that - seize it. You have to send scores of armed men out with guns to physically take control over all the productive assets in a country. And those assets are then available for the state to use, for whatever reasons it wants. Sure, the people in power will promise to use those resources for the greater good, but who is going to stop them if they don't?
If we've seen anything in the last 20 years in the US, it's that power and wealth are interchangeable. Wealth is power. Power is wealth. It's why I oppose the very existence of billionaires - no individual should have that much power. If that weren't true, I wouldn't care so much about them. I really don't care if a billionaire builds an obnoxiously large yacht. I do care if they start throwing their money around and controlling national policy. And whenever a government seizes control of the entire economy, it now owns the entire wealth of a nation. And if you have all the assets, have complete authority to decide who works what job, have complete say on where people get to live? Well that government now has total power over everyone's lives.
Any government that powerful immediately falls to authoritarianism. Why? Because there is one and only one locus of power in that country now. Ambitious people can't start a business or seek power through some other level of government. All resources are controlled by the central state. If you want to have any influence at all over that society, you need to get in power of that central government. The government is all-powerful. The stakes are total. Power is completely centralized. You as a leader either control everything or nothing.
It's rather impossible not to end up with authoritarianism when a form of government requires, as a first step, to gather all power and wealth under the control of a single authority.
Right, the problem isn't necessarily the communism it's the transition point where the means of production are seized to what is meant to be the central government dissolving itself after distributing the seized property and wealth to the people. That last part has never happened and would take a truly perfect idealistic central party to ever do so. It hasn't and will not happen. This is why every "communist" county has resulted in an authoritarian unitary state under a dictator.
Here we go again. This is what happens when people don't understand the difference between an economic system and a system of government.
Capitalism and socialism are economic models. Democracy, authoritarianism, dictatorship, and communism are systems of government. They are not interchangeable, nor are they mutually exclusive.
You can have democratic capitalism, authoritarian capitalism, democratic socialism, and authoritarian socialism. History has provided examples of every combination.
Mass surveillance, censorship, political corruption, police abuse, and restrictions on protest are all functions of how a government exercises power. They are not inherent features of capitalism or socialism.
Posts like this don't demonstrate some profound insight into economics. They demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of basic political science. The fact that this kind of meme gets shared uncritically is a good indication of just how widespread that ignorance has become online.
a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production
It is a system government. Although the concept of communism is extremely complex. Ideally, it would be a classless society based on shared and equal equity.
Socialism is part of it of course, but one can exist without the other.
You're going to have to be more specific. Are you talking about The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels? There isn't just one "manifesto." There are numerous political manifestos written by communist parties and movements throughout history.
And even if you are referring to Marx's The Communist Manifesto, why would you expect it to explicitly define the word "communism"? Marx and Engels largely assumed their audience already understood the term. The pamphlet's purpose was to advocate for and describe the philosophy, goals, and program of the communist movement, not to serve as a dictionary.
There are countless other manifestos as well: manifestos from the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of China, and many others. Beyond those, there are works like the Futurist Manifesto, the Fascist Manifesto, the SCUM Manifesto, and the Cluetrain Manifesto. Many of these discuss communism, socialism, or related political ideas.
So when you keep saying "the manifesto," which one are you actually talking about?
Lenin proposed that a vanguard party implement Marx-described socialism by force.
Lenin proposed that a vanguard party lead the proletariat in reasserting their control of domestic infrastructure. The funny thing is that Lenin's biggest triumph wasn't as a violent revolutionary, but a peace activist. His coup against the Mensheviks was in opposition to their continued prosecution of The Great War. It was, in effect, a soldier's strike action.
So you have it totally ass backwards. First the Tsarists and then the Mensheviks implemented a policy of forced conscription and endless war. Then Lenin championed a radical response of mass desertion and refusal to fight. When the national leadership tried to force newly christened anti-war Communists back to the front lines - by threatening summary execution, corporal punishment, and indefinite detention in Tsarist gulags - they found themselves entirely outnumbers. And, as a result, their civil government collapsed on itself.
Afterwards, Lenin began issuing instructions on how to transform the Russian aristocratically managed economy into independently organized and managed worker's soviets. Then he attempted to organize a bureaucracy that could knit the soviets together into an international economic network without relying on the traditional methods of market mechanics.
That second part - the actual functional implementation of the Marxist economic model - is what makes him a Communist in practice and not just another Tsar or President.
The reason why socialism gets stereotyped as authoritarian is that most hyper-capitalist societies are very resistant to becoming much more socialist in short order, so authoritarian factions emerge to make (violent) revolution, which begets an authoritarian system of government when those factions finish the revolution and are in a perfect position to fill the power vacuum.
You're not wrong exactly, but propaganda rsn't about lies it's about emphasis.
It would be like saying “people think Mexicans immigrants are violent criminals because they often come from poverty” instead of "people think Mexican iMmigrants are violent criminals because if there is one murder committed by a Mexican immigrant in a day of a thouand murders, Fox News will spend all day talking about that immigrant.” Sure, poverty might drive someone to crime, but the perception isn't caused by the crime, it's caused by warping reality to exclude context of all the other crimes--ie, propaganda.
Medicare is socialism. Social Security is socialism. Tri-care is socialism. Yet, when Americans hear “socialism” they think “Soviet totalatarianism”, not those things they rely on. That is the result of propaganda.
Then we agree but you wanted to frame it as us disagreeing in order to fight?
The stereotyping I referred to is the propaganda. But that propaganda would have zero fuel if it wasn't for the authoritarian regimes I referred to. Where the propaganda comes in is implying that it's the only way socialism can or has ever worked/happened at all.
Historically, every self-described socialist state has been authoritarian to one degree or another. China is the closest modern exception, but much of its economic growth came after it embraced market reforms and allowed significant private enterprise, features associated with capitalism.
Also, healthcare has nothing to do with whether a country is socialist or capitalist. Universal or government-funded healthcare isn't inherently socialist. It's simply a public policy that can exist under democracies, monarchies, capitalist economies, mixed economies, and even authoritarian states. Conflating public healthcare with socialism is a basic category error.
We have a blatant politically aligned trillionaire, capitalism has now become a power structure that will devour both, not by means of authority or force, just from the attrition of allowing a trillionaire to exist and by that very existence we will be consumed via interest alone. Everything is now resource control, and capitalism is the only lever of power because we’ve allowed one singular entity to have that level of capital influence and control.
Conceptually I agree, this is how these systems would be competently applied for stable political structures, but we’re not working with stable structures anymore and in practice that’s not how it’s been working. If we had politicians who actually understood political and economic systems and structures and gave the slightest shit about stability and longevity (this isn’t just America, this is a global statement) then these logics would apply, but nigh every politician is currently trying, feverishly, to hammer the square block through the round hole and they will die before they ever stop.
This is a very typical style of response I get whenever I make statements concerning socialism and communism. The conversation immediately veers into a condemnation of capitalism without actually addressing the point that was being made.
The issue is that people constantly conflate different economic and political concepts. Criticizing problems within modern capitalism does not somehow prove that socialism or communism are the solution, nor does it address the historical record of governments that have implemented those systems. Additionally, the United States today is not a pure free-market capitalist system; it is a mixed economy with significant government involvement, and many would argue that increasing corporate influence has created elements of a corporatocracy. Critiquing that reality is a separate discussion from whether socialism or communism has historically produced the outcomes its proponents claim.
The Soviet Union under Stalin resulted in forced collectivization, political purges, labor camps, and millions of deaths. Mao's China implemented policies like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which led to widespread famine, persecution, and the deaths of tens of millions. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge attempted to create an agrarian communist society and carried out a genocide against its own population. North Korea developed into one of the most authoritarian states in modern history under a communist government. Venezuela's economic collapse occurred under a government that described itself as socialist, though the causes and degree of responsibility are debated. Cuba's communist government has maintained political repression and restricted political freedoms for decades.
None of this means capitalism is perfect or immune from corruption, inequality, or abuses of power. Every system requires competent institutions, accountability, and safeguards against the concentration of power. But pointing out flaws in capitalism does not erase the historical outcomes of socialist and communist governments.
The original point remains: healthcare and other public services are not inherently socialist. A government providing a service does not automatically change the underlying economic system. Socialism and capitalism primarily refer to ownership and control of economic resources, not simply whether a government funds or provides certain programs.
A capitalist democracy can have universal healthcare. A socialist state can be authoritarian. These are separate concepts, and confusing them prevents any meaningful discussion about economics or political systems.
Ok, that’s all true on a level of academia, but practiced politics and policy aren’t academia. None of that changes that the main antagonist in our current political situation is authoritarian capitalism and people who don’t understand politics nor political or economic systems. You’re acting like the everyday person and commenter not understanding these things is the problem when the politicians and world leaders in charge not understanding these things is the problem.
I'm not relying on academic jargon in my responses. I'm simply correcting statements that are objectively incorrect.
A very common trend on this platform is that people attribute everything good a government does to socialism and everything bad to capitalism. They use these terms colloquially, often repeating misconceptions they've picked up here or elsewhere, even when those claims are objectively wrong.
That's where I come in. I find myself correcting the same errors over and over again.
Then someone like you comes along and immediately starts throwing around terms like authoritarianism, dictatorship, capitalism, socialism, and communism, as though they settle the issue. But that has nothing to do with the point I'm making. I'm simply saying that universal healthcare is not inherently a feature of a socialist economy. Any government, regardless of its economic system, can establish a public healthcare program. Providing public services is one of the basic functions of government.
It seems like you're trying to have a very particular kind of conversation, one where both participants already agree about how terrible capitalism is or how much they dislike the United States, and the discussion becomes little more than mutual validation disguised as debate.
I'm doing something different. I'm telling you that you're wrong. Even when some of the individual facts you mention are true, you're using them sophistically to push a broader narrative. And when I say "you," I mean that in the royal sense, not necessarily you personally, although some of what you've written does fit that pattern.
I don't know if that's simply your comfort zone or what you're ultimately hope to achieve. The United States is objectively doing many things badly; that's not what we're debating. My goal isn't to defend capitalism. It's to inform people about what socialism actually is, rather than allowing the term to be used as a catch-all label for any government program or policy.
Here let me help you (by using the same bad faith tactics you're using against (y)our preferred economic model, not because I believe the following, but because it's a ridiculous statement but allows you to view the same argument from a different perspective).
Socialism is when the people in the vanguard party make decisions for society.
I think the trick is that evil capitalism sells it to you as something you'd actually want. Or a lot of people want. Meanwhile evil communism kinda forces it onto people more directly.
Store all of your private data on some storage devices sitting anywhere in the world and let people manage it you do not know and can not be sure they're not accessing it?
That's the convenience of the cloud!
Let some weirdos obsess over your social life, connections, and what you ate for breakfast to sell that data and show you stuff that manipulates you to do their bidding?
That's the advantage of staying in touch with friends and family over social networks!
Carry a device with you that tracks your whereabouts and monitors each and every interaction you have with it? That's smartphones for you. But hey, at least you can find your way to the next McDonalds thanks to the navigation and map apps.
And this was "just" the technological aspect of things.
The technological aspect is perhaps the most important aspect though. It is what has allowed the wealthy far more money and power than ever thought imaginable.
From what I understand, the narrative is that these things are inevitable. Natural emergent states of the world. No point fighting it, etc etc. Even the billionaires think as much, that's why they invest in insulating themselves from it.
So it's not that these things are avoidable/preventable, so much as wouldn't you rather the GOOD guys be in charge of the fiefdoms?
In the US we’re not quite USSR/CCP-levels of these things yet (which are the countries anti-socialist people think of when they demonize socialism) (therefore the post is hyperbole/propaganda), but we’ve been making big leaps lately so I think this meme will be true soon. I think the much more coherent, accurate, and therefore effective facet of this is pointing out that it’s authoritarianism that does this, not socialism. We’ve had (very limited) socialism in the US for many years, and many prosperous and well-regarded-in-supposed-anti-socialist-people’s-eyes countries have more socialism than the US has.
I've been reading this since the Reagan Administration. It's also Big Government. It's always Authoritarianism. The remedy is always some flavor of Deregulation or States Rights or (Capitalist) Anarchism or A Return to The Constitutional Principles.
I’ve been reading this since the Reagan Administration. It’s also Big Government. It’s always Authoritarianism. The remedy is always some flavor of Deregulation or States Rights or (Capitalist) Anarchism or A Return to The Constitutional Principles.
I can't tell if you're asserting we're past this point or we'll never get to this point.
Real Literal Reaganism
I can't tell if you're asserting I'm siding with Reagan or the post is siding with Reagan, but both are hilariously off-base.
Yeah. Evil Foreigners Are Always Worse. From the Coolidge Era to the modern day, the Exotic Asian and the Angry German and the Primitive African are always and forever doing something more scary and vile than the good hearted, well-bred, noble, chivalrious, handsome (white) American.
Any argument to the contrary is Whataboutism and can be automatically dismissed.
I can’t tell if you’re asserting I’m siding with Reagan
You're echoing his talking points, practically word for word.
Reagan issued long winded diatribes about the existential threat of authoritarian government and the fundamental virtues of individualism, liberalism, and laisse-faire capitalism.
He was surrounded by economists and pundits saying the same.
Always and forever, we were the City on the Hill. The Beacon of Liberty and Justice for All.
Even when we were bombing Grenada or funding nun rape in Nicaragua and the Philippines. Perhaps, especially then.
I do hope you're trolling, because it's really funny that you make a reference to Whataboutism fallacies and then immediately invoke a kind of Slippery Slope Strawman yourself.
No, saying despotic tyrannies are bad does not mean that one must embrace laisse-faire capitalist individualism, and it's weird that you felt the need to say otherwise.
"We must embrace the boot on our necks lest people do naughty individualist things with their liberties. Send me to the gulag next so that I may not sin."
You always know a guy who is fresh out of Reddit when they sound like an LLM listing off Logical Fallacies.
You're the one who brought them up first, buddy. You're the pot calling the kettle black here.
Exactly! And which countries are run by despotic tyrants? Always and forever the ones we don’t like.
So there's no such thing as a despotic tyrant in your mind? Those words only exist to malign benevolent heads of state?
Pinning down what you're about is exhausting given you love to play insincere. Have some intestinal fortitude and stop retreating behind sarcasm.
That or I can just block you. That'd probably be best for both of us, given your bad faith tactics. I personally love to have conversations with people I disagree with in order to learn, but you're obviously not so inclined, so I don't really gain much if I allow you to continue to interact with me.
So there’s no such thing as a despotic tyrant in your mind?
Of course not. It's a very effective pejorative. Really good at polarizing people into camps. Because, if you still say you like the guy, then you're enabling tyranny. And that justifies hating the defenders of the government just as much as hating the government itself. If you start off saying you agree, then its straight on to "Well then you must be glad we flattened that guy's house and killed as many of his friends and family as possible."
Once you tar someone with the label, you've justified their execution.
Pinning down what you’re about is exhausting given you love to play insincere.
I'm just tired of hearing people regurgitate ultra-nationalist propaganda. The reflexive need to point to Bad Country and dogmatically recite the prayer "At least we're not in Bad Country". Then to justify any horror inflicted abroad, by mouthing the apologia "At least we killed the Bad People. Now we'll be greeted as liberators."
Literally nobody the US can kill that some fascist fucks on here can't massage their brains into justifying.
That or I can just block you.
I know you are here to block me. Block, coward, you are only going to block a man.
Ah great. One extremist complaining about an other extremist.
Authoritarianism is a consequence of extremisme which is a consequence of stupidity.. left or right wing extremism are both bad and evil, but saying the whole American idiocracy disaster is caused by capitalism is dishonest
The promise of socialism, much easier, more robustly, if doing freedom first.
Though of course, push too hard to the sides, and you can tip over a slippery slope, on the right, it's the mechanism of wealth and power consolidation, with the rich able to accumulate wealth (and therefor power) faster, since "it takes money to make money", and on the left it's more a mere ideological slip up, to a totalitarianising fervency.
Big baron terrorises with scare stories of big brother. Big brother terrorises with scare stories of big baron. Both terrorising everybody towards totalitarianism and tyranny. We do better without these bigs that have us all jump at once. Big bank, big bully, big bot, big blight it matters not. Freedom first, where we can have meaningful discussion about our economic balance and how to organise things.
111 Comments
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 58 pts · 5d
I dont think those things are acceptable regardless of the doctrine your country follows.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 39 pts · 4d
It's also more of a dictatorship vs functioning democracy distinction than a capitalism vs socialism distinction
The soviet union had most of the things on the list, but that's because it was a dictatorship, it was never run by the proletariat, it still had an elite and that elite was particularly nasty.
From what I gather, Cuba, while not perfect, is in a much better place in terms of human rights, and has to feed its people despite sanctions. And we have several nations still practicing capitalism that aren't dictatorships.
Of course the US conservatives have done a lot to make people conflate socialism with authoritarianism and lukewarm liberals with socialists.
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 4d
Most of them are 'social democracies' that are a mix of socialism and capitalism. It doesnt always have to be left vs right.
Deckname@piefed.social · 6 pts · 4d
Most of them also slowly follow the US, e.g. Germany. In Germany we had like 3-4 decades after WWII, where i would say capitalism was bearable. Meaning realtively high median income, people could actually afford houses, some kind of wealth distribution (high taxes on high incomes, at least some kind of wealth tax, but on the other hand free, decent education and full subsidy students life, when you go to university and you or your parents can't( afford to support you in this time).
Then neoliberalism hit in the 90s... And we really started to fuck every social thing in Germany to become "Exportweltmeister" in the early 2000s.
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 4d
Same here in UK. Party stopped mid 00's. Nordic countries seem pretty good at wealth distribution though. How Norway protected its oil wealth should be studied in schools.
BlaestEgnen@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 3d
We're all following the same pattern, the wealth distribution got completely fucked during covid and it hasn't slowed down ever since. We're just 5-10 years after you, but I'm scared of the direction especially the UK have made and no proper parties seems to be willing to dismantle the elites yet.
Capitalism will always make wealth trickle upwards, unless you either tax wealth harder than yields or taxes death to oblivion. Personally I'm in favour of 100% inheritance tax after the first 400 thousand euroes, as that's the most feasible way to transition into a liberal merit based society rather than a nepotistic society based upon how wealthy your parents are which is dominating everywhere today - Including my beloved Denmark.
Flower@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4d
What boils down to wealth distribution and letting wealth concentrate, but with fancier words. You need a balance of the two.
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 4d
I'm beginning to think we need a balance of both ideologies in general. Or else this left vs right bullshit is just going to get worse.
rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 7h
Cuba is still pretty crap I'm afraid. Like with the USSR, you're not exactly fairly electing your foreman or your governor. Emma Goldman would call it state-capitalist.
The reason the old Marxist parties called themselves social-democrats, before they sold themselves out so bad that the name changed meaning, was because it was conceived that socialism would involve democracy in every facet of social life rather than just electing a parliament.
The Leninists and reformists have failed to bring about this dream, but it is a fair dream to strive towards. Class society and the state (including alleged democracies) restrain people's control over their own lives and turn us into mere order-takers content with scraps. The struggle for more than mere scraps and the struggle for self-management and autonomy are in truth the same struggle, which is the struggle for that dream.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
The point is that people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism, just because there were a bunch of countries claiming to be socialist in history, despite being incredibly undemocratic.
Socialism is the workers controlling society. So by definition (or at least my interpretation), none of those countries were/are socialist anyway.
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 4d
Americans perhaps - they tend to use the terms communism/socialism interchangeably and can't seem to explain why they don't like either. Those of us who've grown up with political variety know what socialism is.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
I don't think socialism and democracy have anything to do with each other (other than that if you give people democracy they will generally vote for socialism depending on how empathetic the group is).
You can have socialism with zero democracy and you can have socialism with tons of democracy.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
I must ask, how? How can you meaningfully have socialism without democracy?
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn't pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That's not democracy.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
What your describing is a benevolent dictatorship. Having a party that's not beholden to the workers isn't socialism, in my view. The workers need to have control over society.
Sure, but this isn't a system of government.
This also isn't socialism. Socialism isn't just reappropriation of accumulated wealth, it's the control of all parts of society by the workers, including the workplace. If you've got 3 people deciding everything for the other 7, that's not socialism, in my view.
You'll find a lot of MLs online (and one I met in person): oh but China listens to and considers what's best for the workers and implements that!
My conclusion, socialism without democracy doesn't make sense and isn't a thing.
DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
Not if you read the closeted fascist warning signs on democracy.
jobbies@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 4d
Sorry, what? That made no sense.
DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Its closeted fascism portrayed as democracy
yenahmik@lemmy.world · 49 pts · 4d
It's almost like the problem is authoritarianism, not the economic system
cecilkorik@piefed.ca · 7 pts · 4d
Extremism is also the problem, because it allows economic systems to be taken to extremes, which become unbalanced and that then unbalances other systems, like the political systems, which when given the right push by a particular aspiring authoritarian can easily end up landing on authoritarianism.
The middle ground is usually the safest place to be. Socialism and capitalism are economic tools, they both have their place, for certain purpose. Extremists would tell you one is strictly, absolutely, and universally better than the other and imply that thus we should only ever use one system for everything (usually without strictly, absolutely, or universally defining what "better" actually means, because it's usually a pretty self-serving form of "better"). That is an extremist position that many capitalists take, and most of western society spent the last oh, hundred years or so believing to various degrees.
Socialized medicine is perfectly sensible, for example, and that's a hill I'm perfectly willing to die on (but because I have access to socialized medicine I probably won't have to die, and I won't be bankrupted either, hooray :P)
Socialism is not perfect, but neither is capitalism, neither is democracy, neither is pretty much anything. Perfection is a myth. There is no perfect tool, not in a workshop and not in a civilization. Some are more powerful than others. Some are more dangerous. Often the most powerful ones are the most dangerous. That doesn't mean they are bad, but it does mean we must respect them and use them with care and attention, and only when appropriate. We don't have perfect tools, and we probably never will but we can have a large and growing collection of tools we can use to manage our lives, our society, and our civilization. The more tools we know how to use safely the better. Only using one tool for everything is a stupid way of doing things, and it can be dangerous in its own way.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 4d
Our economic system has spawned a new type of player, the Sociopathic Oligarch, who has embraced authoritarianism to protect their fortunes.
MisterFrog@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Capitalism is authoritarian on at least the company scale (and more so at a society level, when you identify the coercive control that's exerted because you can either toe the line or be homeless - as a oversimplification).
So, you are perhaps correct that the problem is with authoritianism, but it's just that capitalism, as an economic system, is authoritian.
If you can't vote on who manages your workplace, and have to comply else lose your job (and depending on the country, you house, your healthcare, etc) that's authoritarian, just in a slightly different context.
arotrios@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 4d
It would be really nice if folks understood that authoritarianism will always ultimately oppress them, regardless of which ideology it serves.
And it would be doubly awesome if we could deconstruct those ideologies, take from each what works for the betterment of humanity, and build a way out of this ass backwards dystopia instead of shrieking "TankiE!" "FaCisT!!" "WoKE!" at each other.
But that might be a little too much to expect from a world full of hairless apes.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 4d
Politics is far too much like team sports for a lot of people.
People on Lemmy act like criticizing the misdeeds of the USSR is an attack on all of socialism's principles.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz · 1 pts · 3d
I rarely see criticism of actual misdeeds, mostly vague "USSR bad" and shit either made up or taken wildly out of context, both of which serve no purpose but to attack all of socialism's principles.
This is the equivalent of starting every conversation involving Israel with "Do you condemn Hamas??!"; even if Hamas is imperfect, condemning them in the context of resisting Israel is condemning actual existing resistance to genocide.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Do you view criticisms of the USA as criticisms of democracy's principles?
If not, then you're being irrational in how you think about one or both of the countries.
Most reasonable socialists agree that the USSR perverted a socialist movement to benefit a new ruling class and oppress people. As such, the USSR was a significant blow to socialism in more ways than one. I think it's perfectly reasonable to criticize something that was more Bad than Good, even if it had some Good.
Again wrapping around to the USA, I would wager you have no qualms with criticizing the USA even if it does some good.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 4d
Add private property seizure to the list. They're using eminent domain to take homes to build for AI infrastructure.
Really, the thing that people fear is authoritarianism. And it can happen in any government so long as power is consolidated. If structures remain broad and flat with many checks and balances it prevents corruption more readily.
And, well, capitalism has a head start. The foundation is making more profit. Capital will reward those who are the most unempathetic and narcissistic as they are the most ready to exploit others. And through that exploitation, they earn profit, and work to deregulate and consolidate to continue generating profit.
Capitalism is working as intended. Authoritarianism is a happy bedfellow.
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 3d
The goal with the red scare then and the anti socialism crusade now is to make people scared, so they crave authoritarianism.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 3d
I've seen some numbers floating around that about 30% of people support authoritarianism. Some people literally cannot live with ambiguity and fear it. So when there is fear, societal, financial, etc, they flock to those who provide them a simple answer, even if incorrect.
In America's case, Trump correctly identified those problems while the opposition didn't address them. And those people can't live with ambiguity, it sets alarm bells off in their head (might be why they can't deal with lgbtq individuals even though it doesn't affect them at all.)
Lost your job? An immigrant took it
Lost your healthcare? An immigrant or a trans individual took it.
Inflation, tax breaks for the wealthy? Corrupt elites in washington
lemmelemmy@feddit.org · 4 pts · 3d
Tbh idk how people believed capitalism could be a good thing to begin with.
In nature, anything that grows indefinite is bound to corrupt. Even our cells. If there’s no controlled growth it turns into cancer.
Idk man. Idk.
0x0@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 3d
Power corrupts.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 3d
I like this take on it:
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
-- Frank Herbert
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Even socialism would still use eminent domain to take property, but itd likely be for something a bit better than that. Probably a highway, train, or building that is more for the public good (e.g airport, power plant, hospital)
Sometimes shit is just in the way and a government needs a way to be able to work around it.
I imagine the compensation would be more fair as well.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 3d
Not saying it wouldn't, but that's one of the "fears of communism." I just heard some MAGA hack using it on CNN or FOX I think trying to attack the DSA and fear monger. But it's happening right now, and has happened, under capitalism, for profit.
But yes, a socialist government wouldn't have profit as its core tenant, but people. So, ideally, eminent domain would be a last resort and plans would be made to affect minimal individuals while making sure compensation is more than fair.
In this case with the data center, I'm sure the power lines could be routed around the housing areas. But it would be more costly. Why would a private utility company spend more money when there's profit to be made?
Good ol neoliberal capitalism and its inherent contradictions. Deliver freedom, but there is freedom of capital and freedom of peoples. And neoliberalism has chosen freedom of capital over freedom of people.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
saltesc@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 4d
This is non sequitur.
"Bad thing happens under system X, therefore system X is uniquely responsible/bad."
No. We have an entire history to refer to where these things also happen under socialism, communism, feudalism, fascism, theocratic states, monarchies, juntas, etc. It's also ballsy to try make the claim, because if there is significant relation between systemic ideologies and these symptoms, rather than a more anthropological one, then socialist or communist states are the historical leader with Stalin, Mao's China, East Germany, NK's juche, etc. But only a moron would neglect the actual causes, generally concentrated and unaccountable power(s). Socialism and capitalism are just optional toppings. It's like saying "the pizza is burned because you chose anchovies and not pineapple".
And that kind of this vs that leads into what's really going on here, one of the internet's favourite passtimes; tribalism. Pick a team, learn enough about the game to follow what's going on, go to war with whatever rivals your new peers tell you too, scream nonsensical things from the armchair. So an identity-protective cognition ends up with a post lacking comparison and history, for a conclusion OP's in-group is committed to. I e. such a post does nothing for outreach to non-socialist thinkers, even though OP thinks they're provoking thoughts. Ironically, only someone inflicted by this wouldn't be able to see it.
valar@lemmy.ca · 18 pts · 4d
The OP is a counter argument to the non sequitur viewpoint. Right wingers love to say socialism is bad because it will bring these things. OP is saying, we have those anyway, so it's not a good argument against socialism.
minorkeys@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 4d
Yeah, because its all projection from capitalist about what they would do with power.
BillyClark@piefed.social · 8 pts · 4d
I've seen several times where somebody posts a picture saying "Look what socialism causes," and the picture is like a tent city in modern America that was created under capitalism.
quarkquasar@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d
Makes sense when you think about it, wouldn't you do the same if you were intending on ruling over a group of people like despots?
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 4d
The fun thing is that none of those things have ever been a symptom of communism/socialism. The authoritarian states, that refer/referred to themselves by those names despite having nothing to do with them in reality, wished to maintain unitary control of the people and implemented those things and bled the people dry in spite of the egalitarian nature of their supposed communism/socialism. But those things absolutely are symptoms of capitalism, where unitary control and draining every dime you can from anyone you can is part of the system.
Faithless@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
If you are honest it’s undeniable that half that list can be linked to every country ever attempting communism.
Problem is Americans don’t understand there is something in between their insane system and North Korea. Its called democratic socialism
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
I'm aware. But none of them have ever actually met the definition of communism. At minimum, all of them still had central unitary state powers. That is, by definition, not communism. The flaw with the theory of economic transition to communism is not necessarily the communism, but the transition. It requires a unitary party to seize the means of production, and then voluntarily distribute those means to the people and dissolve the central government structure. You'll notice that that last step has never happened on a national scale in history.
I'm also not a communist, for what it's worth.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 3d
I really dislike this kind of thinking. People citing that we've never had a communist country tend to think:
Only true Communism counts as communism. (So no failures of any real nation can ever be attributed to it.)
Any country with any degree of market economy counts as capitalist. (So the sins of any nation can be attributed to capitalism.)
They use an extremely tight definition for communism and an extremely loose definition for capitalism. I'm a leftist myself, but I can recognize the intellectual inconsistency.
By the same logic, I could argue that the Catholic Church never covered up sex abuses by priests:
True Catholicism has never existed, as there's never been a time it's been truly universal. (The word "Catholic" means "universal.") Obviously we can only ever talk about the failures of Catholicism once we've actually achieved true Catholicism. Until literally every single living human being is a devout Catholic, any discussion of the merits of Catholicism is purely theoretical and shouldn't serve to guide our decisions.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 3d
For certain kinds of communism/socialism, authoritarianism does seem pretty much inevitable. It's not inevitable for more distributed community-oriented forms. But for any socialist/communist government organized at the national level, authoritarianism seems inevitable to me.
In order to seize the means of production, you have to do just that - seize it. You have to send scores of armed men out with guns to physically take control over all the productive assets in a country. And those assets are then available for the state to use, for whatever reasons it wants. Sure, the people in power will promise to use those resources for the greater good, but who is going to stop them if they don't?
If we've seen anything in the last 20 years in the US, it's that power and wealth are interchangeable. Wealth is power. Power is wealth. It's why I oppose the very existence of billionaires - no individual should have that much power. If that weren't true, I wouldn't care so much about them. I really don't care if a billionaire builds an obnoxiously large yacht. I do care if they start throwing their money around and controlling national policy. And whenever a government seizes control of the entire economy, it now owns the entire wealth of a nation. And if you have all the assets, have complete authority to decide who works what job, have complete say on where people get to live? Well that government now has total power over everyone's lives.
Any government that powerful immediately falls to authoritarianism. Why? Because there is one and only one locus of power in that country now. Ambitious people can't start a business or seek power through some other level of government. All resources are controlled by the central state. If you want to have any influence at all over that society, you need to get in power of that central government. The government is all-powerful. The stakes are total. Power is completely centralized. You as a leader either control everything or nothing.
It's rather impossible not to end up with authoritarianism when a form of government requires, as a first step, to gather all power and wealth under the control of a single authority.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Right, the problem isn't necessarily the communism it's the transition point where the means of production are seized to what is meant to be the central government dissolving itself after distributing the seized property and wealth to the people. That last part has never happened and would take a truly perfect idealistic central party to ever do so. It hasn't and will not happen. This is why every "communist" county has resulted in an authoritarian unitary state under a dictator.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
Here we go again. This is what happens when people don't understand the difference between an economic system and a system of government.
Capitalism and socialism are economic models. Democracy, authoritarianism, dictatorship, and communism are systems of government. They are not interchangeable, nor are they mutually exclusive.
You can have democratic capitalism, authoritarian capitalism, democratic socialism, and authoritarian socialism. History has provided examples of every combination.
Mass surveillance, censorship, political corruption, police abuse, and restrictions on protest are all functions of how a government exercises power. They are not inherent features of capitalism or socialism.
Posts like this don't demonstrate some profound insight into economics. They demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of basic political science. The fact that this kind of meme gets shared uncritically is a good indication of just how widespread that ignorance has become online.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
🙄 Communism isn't an economic model?
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
It is in fact not.
Definition
It is a system government. Although the concept of communism is extremely complex. Ideally, it would be a classless society based on shared and equal equity.
Socialism is part of it of course, but one can exist without the other.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 4d
Can't find this anywhere in the Manifesto
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
By Karl Marx?
I have literally provided you with a definition.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3d
Not one from the Manifesto.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
You're going to have to be more specific. Are you talking about The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels? There isn't just one "manifesto." There are numerous political manifestos written by communist parties and movements throughout history.
And even if you are referring to Marx's The Communist Manifesto, why would you expect it to explicitly define the word "communism"? Marx and Engels largely assumed their audience already understood the term. The pamphlet's purpose was to advocate for and describe the philosophy, goals, and program of the communist movement, not to serve as a dictionary.
There are countless other manifestos as well: manifestos from the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of Great Britain, the Communist Party of China, and many others. Beyond those, there are works like the Futurist Manifesto, the Fascist Manifesto, the SCUM Manifesto, and the Cluetrain Manifesto. Many of these discuss communism, socialism, or related political ideas.
So when you keep saying "the manifesto," which one are you actually talking about?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 3d
That's certainly the big one.
I would challenge you to find one that uses your listed dictionary definition.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
This is a pedantic comment; read "Marxist-Leninism" where you see "Communism" when a lot of people use the latter.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Marx and Lenin didn't establish or implement economic models?
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
I'm far from a scholar on economics, let alone socialism or communism, but my understanding of the broad strokes would be:
Lenin proposed that a vanguard party implement Marx-described socialism by force. That one-two combination is called "communism" by many.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Lenin proposed that a vanguard party lead the proletariat in reasserting their control of domestic infrastructure. The funny thing is that Lenin's biggest triumph wasn't as a violent revolutionary, but a peace activist. His coup against the Mensheviks was in opposition to their continued prosecution of The Great War. It was, in effect, a soldier's strike action.
So you have it totally ass backwards. First the Tsarists and then the Mensheviks implemented a policy of forced conscription and endless war. Then Lenin championed a radical response of mass desertion and refusal to fight. When the national leadership tried to force newly christened anti-war Communists back to the front lines - by threatening summary execution, corporal punishment, and indefinite detention in Tsarist gulags - they found themselves entirely outnumbers. And, as a result, their civil government collapsed on itself.
Afterwards, Lenin began issuing instructions on how to transform the Russian aristocratically managed economy into independently organized and managed worker's soviets. Then he attempted to organize a bureaucracy that could knit the soviets together into an international economic network without relying on the traditional methods of market mechanics.
That second part - the actual functional implementation of the Marxist economic model - is what makes him a Communist in practice and not just another Tsar or President.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
That's a whole lot of writing just to say, "I agree, but I want to argue with you."
Did he or did he not use violence to throw out the Tsarists and then the Mensheviks?
Was the party he (and his comrades) created a vanguard party or was it not?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
I'll never get people's allergy to reading.
He described it as such. That doesn't make it violent. Especially not within the historical context.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
100%
The reason why socialism gets stereotyped as authoritarian is that most hyper-capitalist societies are very resistant to becoming much more socialist in short order, so authoritarian factions emerge to make (violent) revolution, which begets an authoritarian system of government when those factions finish the revolution and are in a perfect position to fill the power vacuum.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 4d
propaganda.
Keep the government out of my Medicare!
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
No.
Not all misunderstandings are propaganda, but all propaganda intends to create misunderstandings.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 4d
You're not wrong exactly, but propaganda rsn't about lies it's about emphasis.
It would be like saying “people think Mexicans immigrants are violent criminals because they often come from poverty” instead of "people think Mexican iMmigrants are violent criminals because if there is one murder committed by a Mexican immigrant in a day of a thouand murders, Fox News will spend all day talking about that immigrant.” Sure, poverty might drive someone to crime, but the perception isn't caused by the crime, it's caused by warping reality to exclude context of all the other crimes--ie, propaganda.
Medicare is socialism. Social Security is socialism. Tri-care is socialism. Yet, when Americans hear “socialism” they think “Soviet totalatarianism”, not those things they rely on. That is the result of propaganda.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Then we agree but you wanted to frame it as us disagreeing in order to fight?
The stereotyping I referred to is the propaganda. But that propaganda would have zero fuel if it wasn't for the authoritarian regimes I referred to. Where the propaganda comes in is implying that it's the only way socialism can or has ever worked/happened at all.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 3d
I started with "You are not wrong exactly", meaning you were not wrong on any of your facts.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Historically, every self-described socialist state has been authoritarian to one degree or another. China is the closest modern exception, but much of its economic growth came after it embraced market reforms and allowed significant private enterprise, features associated with capitalism.
Also, healthcare has nothing to do with whether a country is socialist or capitalist. Universal or government-funded healthcare isn't inherently socialist. It's simply a public policy that can exist under democracies, monarchies, capitalist economies, mixed economies, and even authoritarian states. Conflating public healthcare with socialism is a basic category error.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
We have a blatant politically aligned trillionaire, capitalism has now become a power structure that will devour both, not by means of authority or force, just from the attrition of allowing a trillionaire to exist and by that very existence we will be consumed via interest alone. Everything is now resource control, and capitalism is the only lever of power because we’ve allowed one singular entity to have that level of capital influence and control.
Conceptually I agree, this is how these systems would be competently applied for stable political structures, but we’re not working with stable structures anymore and in practice that’s not how it’s been working. If we had politicians who actually understood political and economic systems and structures and gave the slightest shit about stability and longevity (this isn’t just America, this is a global statement) then these logics would apply, but nigh every politician is currently trying, feverishly, to hammer the square block through the round hole and they will die before they ever stop.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
This is a very typical style of response I get whenever I make statements concerning socialism and communism. The conversation immediately veers into a condemnation of capitalism without actually addressing the point that was being made.
The issue is that people constantly conflate different economic and political concepts. Criticizing problems within modern capitalism does not somehow prove that socialism or communism are the solution, nor does it address the historical record of governments that have implemented those systems. Additionally, the United States today is not a pure free-market capitalist system; it is a mixed economy with significant government involvement, and many would argue that increasing corporate influence has created elements of a corporatocracy. Critiquing that reality is a separate discussion from whether socialism or communism has historically produced the outcomes its proponents claim.
The Soviet Union under Stalin resulted in forced collectivization, political purges, labor camps, and millions of deaths. Mao's China implemented policies like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which led to widespread famine, persecution, and the deaths of tens of millions. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge attempted to create an agrarian communist society and carried out a genocide against its own population. North Korea developed into one of the most authoritarian states in modern history under a communist government. Venezuela's economic collapse occurred under a government that described itself as socialist, though the causes and degree of responsibility are debated. Cuba's communist government has maintained political repression and restricted political freedoms for decades.
None of this means capitalism is perfect or immune from corruption, inequality, or abuses of power. Every system requires competent institutions, accountability, and safeguards against the concentration of power. But pointing out flaws in capitalism does not erase the historical outcomes of socialist and communist governments.
The original point remains: healthcare and other public services are not inherently socialist. A government providing a service does not automatically change the underlying economic system. Socialism and capitalism primarily refer to ownership and control of economic resources, not simply whether a government funds or provides certain programs.
A capitalist democracy can have universal healthcare. A socialist state can be authoritarian. These are separate concepts, and confusing them prevents any meaningful discussion about economics or political systems.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3d
Ok, that’s all true on a level of academia, but practiced politics and policy aren’t academia. None of that changes that the main antagonist in our current political situation is authoritarian capitalism and people who don’t understand politics nor political or economic systems. You’re acting like the everyday person and commenter not understanding these things is the problem when the politicians and world leaders in charge not understanding these things is the problem.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
I'm not relying on academic jargon in my responses. I'm simply correcting statements that are objectively incorrect.
A very common trend on this platform is that people attribute everything good a government does to socialism and everything bad to capitalism. They use these terms colloquially, often repeating misconceptions they've picked up here or elsewhere, even when those claims are objectively wrong.
That's where I come in. I find myself correcting the same errors over and over again.
Then someone like you comes along and immediately starts throwing around terms like authoritarianism, dictatorship, capitalism, socialism, and communism, as though they settle the issue. But that has nothing to do with the point I'm making. I'm simply saying that universal healthcare is not inherently a feature of a socialist economy. Any government, regardless of its economic system, can establish a public healthcare program. Providing public services is one of the basic functions of government.
It seems like you're trying to have a very particular kind of conversation, one where both participants already agree about how terrible capitalism is or how much they dislike the United States, and the discussion becomes little more than mutual validation disguised as debate.
I'm doing something different. I'm telling you that you're wrong. Even when some of the individual facts you mention are true, you're using them sophistically to push a broader narrative. And when I say "you," I mean that in the royal sense, not necessarily you personally, although some of what you've written does fit that pattern.
I don't know if that's simply your comfort zone or what you're ultimately hope to achieve. The United States is objectively doing many things badly; that's not what we're debating. My goal isn't to defend capitalism. It's to inform people about what socialism actually is, rather than allowing the term to be used as a catch-all label for any government program or policy.
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 3d
You’re a pedant.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3d
Wakmrow@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 4d
Democratic capitalism lmao.
Anything can be true when you make shit up
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
O man.
You realize the most successful countries on Earth are Democratic capitalists right?
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
MFW the entire US and most of the western world is imaginary.
Wakmrow@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 4d
Here let me help you.
Capitalism is when the people with capital make decisions for society.
You don't get to vote on what happens.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
Here let me help you (by using the same bad faith tactics you're using against (y)our preferred economic model, not because I believe the following, but because it's a ridiculous statement but allows you to view the same argument from a different perspective).
Socialism is when the people in the vanguard party make decisions for society.
You don't get to decide what happens.
Faithless@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
Ah mr dunning Kruger
craftrabbit@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 4d
Hm maybe this tells us that authoritarian systems can emerge no matter the economic model?
danc4498@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
Peak capitalism.
Zacryon@feddit.org · 4 pts · 4d
I think the trick is that evil capitalism sells it to you as something you'd actually want. Or a lot of people want. Meanwhile evil communism kinda forces it onto people more directly.
Store all of your private data on some storage devices sitting anywhere in the world and let people manage it you do not know and can not be sure they're not accessing it?
That's the convenience of the cloud!
Let some weirdos obsess over your social life, connections, and what you ate for breakfast to sell that data and show you stuff that manipulates you to do their bidding?
That's the advantage of staying in touch with friends and family over social networks!
Carry a device with you that tracks your whereabouts and monitors each and every interaction you have with it? That's smartphones for you. But hey, at least you can find your way to the next McDonalds thanks to the navigation and map apps.
And this was "just" the technological aspect of things.
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
The technological aspect is perhaps the most important aspect though. It is what has allowed the wealthy far more money and power than ever thought imaginable.
Manticore@lemmy.nz · 4 pts · 3d
From what I understand, the narrative is that these things are inevitable. Natural emergent states of the world. No point fighting it, etc etc. Even the billionaires think as much, that's why they invest in insulating themselves from it.
So it's not that these things are avoidable/preventable, so much as wouldn't you rather the GOOD guys be in charge of the fiefdoms?
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 3d
Things are inevitable if you don't change policy and culture.
They are just betting everyone is so overwhelmed they can't see what is really happening. So far it is working.
matlag@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 3d
Sure! Looking forward to finally see one of these good guys!
Anyone ever saw one??
MonkeyMagic1968@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 3d
Not enough drugs to facilitate such a strong hallucination.
Radical_Socialist_t00t@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 4d
Scientific Socialism people, look it up its the only way forward
cavitationfetishist01@quokk.au · 2 pts · 4d
But we can't do socialism. The novels would get way longer, and we're already suffering a crisis of attention spans and literacy.
c999@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3d
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 4d
so no one understands socialism.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
In the US we’re not quite USSR/CCP-levels of these things yet (which are the countries anti-socialist people think of when they demonize socialism) (therefore the post is hyperbole/propaganda), but we’ve been making big leaps lately so I think this meme will be true soon. I think the much more coherent, accurate, and therefore effective facet of this is pointing out that it’s authoritarianism that does this, not socialism. We’ve had (very limited) socialism in the US for many years, and many prosperous and well-regarded-in-supposed-anti-socialist-people’s-eyes countries have more socialism than the US has.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
We never are. The Foreigners are always worse.
I've been reading this since the Reagan Administration. It's also Big Government. It's always Authoritarianism. The remedy is always some flavor of Deregulation or States Rights or (Capitalist) Anarchism or A Return to The Constitutional Principles.
Real Literal Reaganism
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
??? No.
I can't tell if you're asserting we're past this point or we'll never get to this point.
I can't tell if you're asserting I'm siding with Reagan or the post is siding with Reagan, but both are hilariously off-base.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Yeah. Evil Foreigners Are Always Worse. From the Coolidge Era to the modern day, the Exotic Asian and the Angry German and the Primitive African are always and forever doing something more scary and vile than the good hearted, well-bred, noble, chivalrious, handsome (white) American.
Any argument to the contrary is Whataboutism and can be automatically dismissed.
You're echoing his talking points, practically word for word.
Reagan issued long winded diatribes about the existential threat of authoritarian government and the fundamental virtues of individualism, liberalism, and laisse-faire capitalism.
He was surrounded by economists and pundits saying the same.
Always and forever, we were the City on the Hill. The Beacon of Liberty and Justice for All.
Even when we were bombing Grenada or funding nun rape in Nicaragua and the Philippines. Perhaps, especially then.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 4d
I do hope you're trolling, because it's really funny that you make a reference to Whataboutism fallacies and then immediately invoke a kind of Slippery Slope Strawman yourself.
No, saying despotic tyrannies are bad does not mean that one must embrace laisse-faire capitalist individualism, and it's weird that you felt the need to say otherwise.
"We must embrace the boot on our necks lest people do naughty individualist things with their liberties. Send me to the gulag next so that I may not sin."
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
You always know a guy who is fresh out of Reddit when they sound like an LLM listing off Logical Fallacies.
Exactly! And which countries are run by despotic tyrants? Always and forever the ones we don't like.
American Gulags First!
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
You're the one who brought them up first, buddy. You're the pot calling the kettle black here.
So there's no such thing as a despotic tyrant in your mind? Those words only exist to malign benevolent heads of state?
Pinning down what you're about is exhausting given you love to play insincere. Have some intestinal fortitude and stop retreating behind sarcasm.
That or I can just block you. That'd probably be best for both of us, given your bad faith tactics. I personally love to have conversations with people I disagree with in order to learn, but you're obviously not so inclined, so I don't really gain much if I allow you to continue to interact with me.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Of course not. It's a very effective pejorative. Really good at polarizing people into camps. Because, if you still say you like the guy, then you're enabling tyranny. And that justifies hating the defenders of the government just as much as hating the government itself. If you start off saying you agree, then its straight on to "Well then you must be glad we flattened that guy's house and killed as many of his friends and family as possible."
Once you tar someone with the label, you've justified their execution.
I'm just tired of hearing people regurgitate ultra-nationalist propaganda. The reflexive need to point to Bad Country and dogmatically recite the prayer "At least we're not in Bad Country". Then to justify any horror inflicted abroad, by mouthing the apologia "At least we killed the Bad People. Now we'll be greeted as liberators."
Literally nobody the US can kill that some fascist fucks on here can't massage their brains into justifying.
I know you are here to block me. Block, coward, you are only going to block a man.
Faithless@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 4d
Ah great. One extremist complaining about an other extremist.
Authoritarianism is a consequence of extremisme which is a consequence of stupidity.. left or right wing extremism are both bad and evil, but saying the whole American idiocracy disaster is caused by capitalism is dishonest
BabyVi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 4d
Capitalist extremism gets a free pass, for.. reasons..
Digit@lemmy.wtf · -1 pts · 4d
Reminds of
The promise of socialism, much easier, more robustly, if doing freedom first.
Though of course, push too hard to the sides, and you can tip over a slippery slope, on the right, it's the mechanism of wealth and power consolidation, with the rich able to accumulate wealth (and therefor power) faster, since "it takes money to make money", and on the left it's more a mere ideological slip up, to a totalitarianising fervency.
Big baron terrorises with scare stories of big brother. Big brother terrorises with scare stories of big baron. Both terrorising everybody towards totalitarianism and tyranny. We do better without these bigs that have us all jump at once. Big bank, big bully, big bot, big blight it matters not. Freedom first, where we can have meaningful discussion about our economic balance and how to organise things.
Digit@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 3d
Wow. 3 downvotes. ... I wonder why. Authoritarians passing by, not like being called out?