They sold a lottery ticket to the population and made it look like 99% of you can win when the odds are rigged like a gambling machine. Everybody would defend a gambling machine as “fair and balanced” with enough indoctrination. “The American Dream” was when everybody could afford everything on minimum wage but capitalism is a short term oriented goal where for profit is the only actual mission. Tell me how many people can be sacrificed for it and I would say everybody as climate change has proven and a trillion dollar industry has shown. These climate change activists are stupid enough to think they can take down big corporations with wallets older than some of them. Never in a million years as long as capitalism exists. Imagine 112 years of sitting on their asses and not until 10-20 years ago they decided to use tweezers to put some pressure on them. Now that the whole world is about to be changed completely and irreversibly they want to stop it. It’s basically a cancerous economy that only festers at the top of the economy sucking everything around it until theirs nothing left but the cancer.
The American Dream” was when everybody could afford everything on minimum wage but capitalism
Everybody except blacks of course…
Gold age of America wasn’t golden for everybody.
And after civil rights the regime punished the whites for siding with the blacks. So now we are all field ******
Don’t even get me started. Black people or minorities and America is top 10 worst duet. Richard Nixon ruined every generation afterwards and all of this modern day shitshow started festering with a strong back. We go backwards enough and slavery was abolished but the hatred just grew stronger and had a great foundation.
Brainwashing.
Many don’t even do it intentionally, they just don’t grasp concepts like Historical and Dialectical Materialism, which requires reading lengthy books to fully grasp. They may be anti-Capitalist at heart, but without a solid understanding of theory they play into bourgeois hands.
Pretty sure they’d take everything you just wrote and say, “that sounds like critical race theory, which Jesus said was bad.”
Sure. The de-industrialization of America has been devastating for class awareness.
What de industrialization?
US is second largest industrial output and it has been rising.
Unless you mean jobs after NAFTA and code changes… Which is true but manufacturing employment is on the rise post covid reforms
The US shifted the vast majority of its production overseas, which is why it’s seen as a “service economy.”
US did offshore no doubt but it was not a vast majority. You can check the numbers, there was some decline in employment but US has high tech factories and industrial base is now growing quickly even with job growth since covid.
The reason it is largely a service economy is due to growth in service sector after industrialization. Once people got all their needs with goods met, they started buying service.
Think about all the food joints we have now for example. This is fairly recent thing. Sure food out always existed but not like this.
Also, people have god walkers, people buy insurance etc all this is kinda recent in big picture thing
I am aware of the process, the US produces the vast majority of its commodities oversees before “finishing” or “assembling” in the US. It’s Imperialism in action, where it hyper-exploits the Global South for super-profits.
Right but we started this here with claim that US de industrialized which I saying is not accurate and it is a common misconception thrown around.
It doesnt even require that much reading of such subjects. All it takes is to not be brainwashed by media and politicians.
Critical thought and self awareness is all it takes
I’m sorry, but I entirely disagree. Dialectical and Historical Materialism are incredibly far-removed from standard American discourse and takes quite a bit to understand, oversimplifying it is dangerous. If all it took to be a Marxist-Leninist was critical thought and self-awareness, the US would have had a proletarian revolution already.
Usually it’s my friend Cowbee here who tells people to read things, but here I will:
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
“Brainwashing” is a reactionary myth (that originally comes from orientalist stories of Chinese hypnosis that were used to explain-away defectors in the Korean war) that is used to position the believer in a position superior to the masses (“sheeple”), and which only knows how to treat the latter condescendingly as blind followers of this or that, which is not how you do mass organizing if you want to succeed.
Should be mandatory reading, thanks for posting it!
Ignorance, pride, “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” syndrome.
Brainwashed since birth. GI Joe had the American Express slogan in an episode (“never leave home without it.”). Alvin and the Chipmunks had a story about the Berlin Wall propagandizing communism. All the bad guys in Cobra have accents.
This shit is vile and it was on my morning cartoons.
I think the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” idea is overstated, most people I interact with have a somewhat negative outlook on the economy and their future wealth.
I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.
The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.
The PRC is absolutely a viable alternative, it’s a Socialist Market Economy that has been steadily transfering Private Property into Public Property as markets coalesce into monopolist syndicates, which are then capable of central planning.
They have the most wild form of capitalism there is. And they married it with a lot of corruption and zero political freedom. This is not an alternative. Please.
They have a Socialist Market Economy, and married it to a Dictatorship of the Proletariat following whole-process people’s democracy. One of the focuses of Xi’s presidency has been anti-corruption, along with steady socialization of the private sector. Read Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. You have an ultra-idealist vision of Capitalism that is anti-Marxist. Private property is socialized by degree, not decree!
Yes I have seen you in other comments. And we both know what is the actual state and level of freedom, poverty, and capitalism and corruption in China. Maybe organize a protest in China.
I know you like their system, but for some reason you fail to see issues with their system.
I fail to see the issues you imagine replicated in reality. Leave your mind palace.
Agreed. You can’t argue with how effective it’s been for the country as a whole, but I don’t think i’d rather live there as an individual.
I would not live there. I value freedom and privacy. (In a healthy European way)
What “healthy European” freedom looks like:
- West votes against democracy, human rights, cultural diversity at UN; promotes mercenaries, sanctions
- West opposes rest of world in UN votes for fairer economic system, equality, sustainable development
- China condemns ‘racist’ Western hypocrisy over Ukraine: You ignore victims in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine
- Pro-Palestine activists are under attack in Europe
- Censorship in Europe: Major Palestinian news channels banned on Telegram
- Two months after elections, Macron refuses to nominate progressive prime minister
- Facebook and Instagram Restrict the Use of the Red Triangle Emoji Over Hamas Association
- The 10 European countries that restrict religious attire for Muslim women
- EU court allows conditional headscarves bans at work
- Refugees who died off Italy 10 years ago remembered as new crisis flares
- Poland: Digital investigation proves Poland violated refugees’ rights
- Poland: Abortion Witch Hunt Targets Women, Doctors
What “healthy European” privacy looks like:
- The EU Funds Surveillance Around the World: Here’s What Must be Done About it
- AI mass surveillance at Paris Olympics – a legal scholar on the security boon and privacy nightmare
- Investigation of the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware
- 20 biggest GDPR fines so far [2024] (the fines in question are negligible, and only serve to line the pockets of the rich)
- Female health apps aren’t doing enough to protect sensitive data, study says
“I have an uncle who smoked whole life and is 98 years old” I am sure you know what you have been doing when you presented your “evidence”. Not cool.
I’ve re-read this several times and I still don’t have the slightest clue to what you’re referring to, lib. It’s clear-as-day that you’re just another “They hate us for our freedom” folks and don’t actually care about freedom or privacy for all.
I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.
As Marx said, “the ideas of ruling class are the ruling ideas”
The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.
Funnily enough you are proof of your previous statement above. The ruling class is presenting any, both better or worse alternatives to you in such form that you immediately dismiss them.
What gave you the idea that I’m dismissing them? I think you’re confused.
Good quote tho
What gave you the idea that I’m dismissing them?
You, you said “Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.”
This is blatantly false. And you don’t even know what the alternatives are or aren’t. Russia isn’t an systemic alternative, it’s the very same capitalist as in west, just 100 years late and too late to develop imperialism, it’s only a political alternative which forced them, after over 2 decades of trying to join the capitalist core, to finally oppose it. Islamofascism is such a fucking blatant Bush-era propaganda that i won’t even comment on that nonsense. Venezuela don’t even have socialism, again it’s not an alternative, it’s a capitalist economy which was forced into politically opposing capitalist core because of over century of brutal exploitation by that core.
All three examples your presented are the same narration (even more extreme in case of islam) than the billionaire owned western media oligopoly and their political arms like US DoS spreads. You don’t try to know more (some of examples are in this very thread, and the actual alternatives like China too), you dismiss them in the exact manner the capitalist core ruling class wants you.
My friend, you are still confused.
I was giving the framing that comes from the billionaire owned western media oligopoly position.
that isnt my position
So you do not believe those? Could you elaborate what you think is the alternative for billionaires and especially capitalism?
The simple fact is that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty historically than anything else.
Is capitalism a perfect system? Of course it isn’t. But it’s the best one we’ve got.
Not true. Here you go…
The simple fact is that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty historically than anything else.
This is patently false, the PRC holds that record and it was due to Socialism, not Capitalism.
TBH… It was due to free market reforms. Which in of itself is not capitalism though but normies can’t tell the difference.
They weren’t “free”-market reforms. A good, 21 minute read is the article Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. The PRC brought back markets because they tried to achieve Communism through fiat, without letting markets adequately coalesce into monopolist syndicates ripe for socialization. The Dengist Reforms brought stability to growth and prevented recession, but the bulk of the economy is publicly owned and centrally planned.
Lol. Firstly, China claims they’ve eradicated absolute poverty. Do you really believe that?
Secondly, China has opened its markets to the world and allowed a ton of private ownership and private companies to take on the global markets.
The only thing that isn’t capitalist about China is the word “Communist” in the ruling party.
Lol. Firstly, China claims they’ve eradicated absolute poverty. Do you really believe that?
Yes, why do you not?
Secondly, China has opened its markets to the world and allowed a ton of private ownership and private companies to take on the global markets.
Yes. Mao misjudged the level of productive forces and tried to establish Communism through fiat. Deng opened the markets to foreign Capital, where the CPC allows businesses to grow in a controlled and careful manner before “harvesting them” into the public sector once they grow sufficiently. The majority of the economy is publicly owned, operated, and planned.
The only thing that isn’t capitalist about China is the word “Communist” in the ruling party.
This is an absurd statement that could only be made by someone unfamiliar with Marxism. The presence of markets do not mean that the system isn’t Socialist. The economy is socialized by degree, not by decree! You can’t establish Communism through fiat, which is why the CPC has been absorbing more Private corporations into the Public sector over time, and exerting more control and planning on the Private sector.
Yes, why do you not?
This is a country where COVID originated and with a population of 1.4 billion, yet apparently only 5,272 people have died. They’re not great at telling the truth and are masters at propaganda.
This is an absurd statement that could only be made by someone unfamiliar with Marxism. The presence of markets do not mean that the system isn’t Socialist.
The profits from companies are retained by the companies. Isn’t the idea of socialism that the workers own the means of production and no companies profit? The Chinese economy is set up the exact opposite.
This is a country where COVID originated and with a population of 1.4 billion, yet apparently only 5,272 people have died. They’re not great at telling the truth and are masters at propaganda.
They took much stronger stances against COVID than the US. Not sure what numbers they actually have, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were low.
The profits from companies are retained by the companies. Isn’t the idea of socialism that the workers own the means of production and no companies profit? The Chinese economy is set up the exact opposite.
You have a fundamental misconception of what Socialism is. It isn’t an ideal to be forced on a society, but the result of markets coalescing and centralizing, to be planned. Additionally, the majority of the PRC’s economy is in the public sector. Private Property is abolished and absorbed by degree, not decree.
Read Socialism Developed China, Not Capitalism. I already recommended it, and you have not read it. Read it, it only takes 20 minutes.
Lack of successful alternatives? It’s easy to find flaws with capitalism but every other system has its share of problems too.
Socialism is the successful successor to Capitalism. Socialism isn’t an idea you implement, but a consequence of markets coalescing into monopolist syndicates that make themselves ripe for public ownership and planning.
This is the case only if you believe in Marx
Marx has the best content on the topic, shit is so good it triggers daddy owners to this lol
I kinda like Marx sooo…
I would say I like some dead guy… But his work is foundational for any self respecting adult imho
With out Understanding these concepts you are ain’t fucking operating
Also, elites study him closely and a lot of the regime behavior is actually designed to suppress workers based on his writings.
Ohh the irony.
What do you disagree with here? The idea that markets trend towards monopolist syndicates, naturally centralizing production? Or the idea that the Proletariat should sieze these syndicates and plan production democratically and centrally?
I’m not really disagreeing with you to be honest. I’m only saying that your views are the central idea of Marxism. Only Marxists believe in the conflict theory. I’m not a Marxist, but i do think socialism is the next most likely economic stage considering the current capitalist landscape. Whether it is the best path is what i don’t know.
I’m a Marxist-Leninist, correct, but the point of Marxism is that it doesn’t matter what individuals believe, Capitalism itself paves the way for Socialism just like Feudalism paved the way for Capitalism.
Hmm i don’t know about that. Saying that this one theory explains social change is kinda restrictive. There are other valid ideas that aren’t the conflict theory that might also result in social change. Think of idealist theories such as Hegel’s dialectical process which involves a thesis and antithesis. These theses eventually contradict each other to form a synthesis which eventually becomes its own thesis and vice versa.
I just like to keep an open mind about this stuff, as i don’t think social change boils down to just one theory.
I find this reply very strange because it’s the core point of Marxism that it’s dialectical but materialist. It has a lot of forebears, but Hegel is the most direct and obvious of them.
This new German philosophy culminated in the Hegelian system. In this system — and herein is its great merit — for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process — i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point of view, the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of man himself. It was now the task of the intellect to follow the gradual march of this process through all its devious ways, and to trace out the inner law running through all its apparently accidental phenomena.
That the Hegelian system did not solve the problem it propounded is here immaterial. Its epoch-making merit was that it propounded the problem. This problem is one that no single individual will ever be able to solve. Although Hegel was — with Saint-Simon — the most encyclopaedic mind of his time, yet he was limited, first, by the necessary limited extent of his own knowledge and, second, by the limited extent and depth of the knowledge and conceptions of his age. To these limits, a third must be added; Hegel was an idealist. To him, the thoughts within his brain were not the more or less abstract pictures of actual things and processes, but, conversely, things and their evolution were only the realized pictures of the “Idea”, existing somewhere from eternity before the world was. This way of thinking turned everything upside down, and completely reversed the actual connection of things in the world. Correctly and ingeniously as many groups of facts were grasped by Hegel, yet, for the reasons just given, there is much that is botched, artificial, labored, in a word, wrong in point of detail. The Hegelian system, in itself, was a colossal miscarriage — but it was also the last of its kind.
It was suffering, in fact, from an internal and incurable contradiction. Upon the one hand, its essential proposition was the conception that human history is a process of evolution, which, by its very nature, cannot find its intellectual final term in the discovery of any so-called absolute truth. But, on the other hand, it laid claim to being the very essence of this absolute truth. A system of natural and historical knowledge, embracing everything, and final for all time, is a contradiction to the fundamental law of dialectic reasoning.
– Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
i don’t think social change boils down to just one theory.
If we believe that the universe fundamentally makes sense, then it must stem from that that it can all be explained on the same terms. Furthermore, within a domain, the extent to which a theory is unable to explain some part of that domain is the extent to which it either fails or is in-utero just a component of a larger theory whose other parts can cover those other areas. Not only can social change boil down to one theory, if you believe we live in an interconnected, logical world, it must boil down to one theory. Obviously there are many competitors for that title, and none of them are yet developed enough to properly claim it, but it is a legitimate and even a necessary title.
Edit: Sorry for piling on about the dialectics part, I see Cowbee did go over it later. fwiw I think he didn’t represent materialism fairly, but part of why I included the Engels quote is because I think he does represent Hegelian idealism and its fundamental problem (How can this dialectic of humans – material beings – take place in the world of ideas?) fairly.
Idealism is wrong, though, so focusing on it is useless IMO.
People will find ways to accrue wealth and power even if you change the rules of the game. Sometimes people on this platform make it sound like socialism or communism can solve our problems. but it’s not that simple.
You’re right, Marxists don’t describe a Utopia but the natural progression of the Mode of Production.
Living in denial is easy to continue doing and widely encouraged, while being very hard to overcome.
Many people do not grasp the sheer size of the disparity between the truly wealthy and everyone else.
Or they take capitalism as good and freedom as an axiom.
Most people will take “freedom” as an axiom, but how “freedom” is defined varies a lot. In a society where the commons are pretty much fully enclosed and you are homeless, the petite-bourgeois may very well be free, but you really aren’t.
I believe your comments is just a paraphrase of: “They are being stupid”
In my opinion this is a very toxic way of thinking and does not try to understand the arguments “the other side” presents.
I don’t think it’s that bad-faith. I myself still find it positively mind-blowing to comprehend when the data is right in front of me.
Someone might equate wealth to hard work, but it hasn’t really hit them, the real literal difference between 1 million dollars, and 1 billion, and then the news is talking about “trillionaires.”
There’s just no way to earn a billion dollars, to yourself, through honest work and by not exploiting others. And I think a lot of folks really don’t realize this. They know that’s a lot, but they might change their mind and realize how outrageous it is, when you present them with something like:
“Joe, you could get 3 more promotions and work 80 hours a week for 13 lifetimes and still not earn that much. Do you really think this is just petty jealousy at play?”
They might just change their mind.
But a lot of folks grew up in a time or place where people who ran the company started at the bottom, and it really needs to hit them hard that this just isn’t reality anymore.
They really think billionaires are like them, the only difference is that someone else goes to Walmart for them
Billionaires are like everyone else. That’s the reason I don’t look up to any. They’re just as human as I am. No amount of money can ever make them anything else or anything more. They have access to an absurd degree, and they can afford far, FAR more, but they will never escape their base human nature. Almost anyone can be a billionaire. Some current billionaires prove that every moment they open their mouths.
Everyone poops.
It’s not because they think they can be billionaires, it’s because they’ve been taught (and in a minority of cases this is true) that they are better off going after the crumbs that billionaires leave them than trying some other system.
They feel they will make that money someday.
I assume they think they will be able to achieve the same status in the game that’s designed to literally oppress them and make them think they are cared by the billionaires.
It’s the American dream. What is the quote? We’re all embarrassed potential millionaires?
I’ll have you know I’m a millionaire with a cash flow problem.
Something like “Temporarily inconvenienced billionaires” I think?
That’s why the “hustling culture” is so important and prevalent in our society right now.
Everyone “knows” someone that made bank with either youtube, selling some pyramid-scheme product, bitcoins, some collectibles, craft beer, lottery… you name it.Social media (and before that was TV) is selling us the idea that there’s a shortcut to becoming rich, you just need to find it, hustle, and you will become one of the rich persons.
That’s also why there’s so much cult of wealth and billionaires.
That said, a large portion of Millennials and after them have a rather negative view of billionaires and are rather skeptical of becoming rich, or even becoming home owners.
The worst one is Real Estate agent. Oh god I hate them so much.
This has been studied, and the ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ idea is actually wrong.
The real reason is because some people (especially conservatives, because it’s a core part of conservative ideology) believe that in order for society to work, a hierarchy must be maintained wherein the ‘deserving’ are at the top, and everyone else is in their rightful place. Any threat to the natural hierarchy will undo the societal order and bring chaos and carnage.
This is why Obama becoming president was such an affront – because his presence outside his ‘rightful place’ was an existential threat to the natural order.
This belief has its roots way back when feudalism began to fail and the moneyed classes needed to find a new way to retain their power – both capitalism and conservatism were born at that time, with ideologies shifting from birthright to ‘earned’ status, which enshrined the haves and have-nots into literally sacred structures of meritocracy and social darwinism, and colonialists specifically fostered strict adherence to the social order. It became ingrained culturally that adhering to your station, whatever it is, is crucial for society to function. That there’s honour in being a cog in the machine, and that not accepting your lot in life is a danger to everyone.
That’s a nutshell view of a complicated topic, but these people don’t believe they’ll strike gold one day. They believe people who are rich deserve to be treated as kings, for the same reason monarchist peasants did.
Any pointers where I can read more about that?
One place to start is this article from the Stanford Encyclopaedia on Philosophy: Conservatism.
It’s a lengthy read, but enlightening.
One highlight from the summary:
Most commentators regard conservatism as a modern political philosophy, even though it exhibits the standpoint of paternalism or authority, rather than freedom. As John Gray writes, while liberalism is the dominant political theory of the modern age, conservatism, despite appealing to tradition, is also a response to the challenges of modernity. The roots of all three standpoints “may be traced back to the crises of seventeenth-century England, but [they] crystallised into definite traditions of thought and practice only [after] the French Revolution” (Gray 1995: 78)
I recommend reading the sources linked in that article, as well.
eta: It’s worth noting that societies worldwide often see a resurgence in conservatism in response to social change, crises, and civil rights movements, which are without fail a fear response to threats to the social hierarchy. We can see this in real time.
Because my country, Ukraine, was under communists and it was not good time with all genocides, holodomor, repressions, red terrors and other things. Because good life under communists had only people from nomenclature
Not sure why you’ve got downvoted, but that’s the reason why all Baltic states had such a reaction when the invasion started.
That said, I would say that most of those states are highly socialistic despite having pretty much allergy to anything red and while preferring a capitalist system that doesn’t mean they want or support billionaires.
It could be because they arent even describing communism. These problems are easily found right now.
The problem here is that people dont even know what communism is and they end up giving these kinds of answers. Makes you think thats probably why they made a new account
Theres no genuine convo of why communism is bad.
It’s more because it’s a bunch of random assertions, falsehoods, misunderstandings, half-truths, and more with no substance to tackle and respond to without starting a lengthy struggle session.
The USSR absolutely was guided by Communist ideology, and was Socialist, that’s true. It’s also true that it wasn’t perfect. A good article to read is Why do Marxists Fail to Bring the “Worker’s Paradise?” because many people don’t understand Marxism and interpret it through an idealist, anti-Marxist lens.
Centralization = corruption
Explain. You cannot achieve democratic control without centralization, because you can’t have inputs with no output.
Issue of centralization is regime and politics agnostic. More centralization just results in more corruption.
I am not sure how to run the society any other way but we know that current systems are corrupted by the ruling elites at our expense.
Legal system is unwilling to deal with it because the judiciary are just regime lapdogs used against working people when they get out of line.
Issue of centralization is regime and politics agnostic. More centralization just results in more corruption.
Again, please explain. This doesn’t logically follow.
I am not sure how to run the society any other way but we know that current systems are corrupted by the ruling elites at our expense.
Capitalism is, Socialism isn’t.
Legal system is unwilling to deal with it because the judiciary are just regime lapdogs used against working people when they get out of line.
In Capitalism, yes.
Have you read Marx?
So your describing surveillance capitalism
That’s how I see how Zuckerberg sends your grandfather to Siberia for lack of work and unwillingness to work, as it happened with my grandfather :) Don’t you think that you are exaggerating (so far) the level of problems in your country? All these problems of listening to you for the sake of selling goods are trifles compared to what any radical-communist-nazi who dares to power will do
Ok if we go off of that example, explain how exactly a so called communist country will exclusively force people to something against their will? What youre describing is closer to authoritarian government…
Nazis are not communist at all, they are facists. Youve been watching too much bullshit news from people who dont have a elementary clue of political science. This is why you cant even give a good clear answer as to why youre defending billionaires and surveillence capitalism.
Under censorship you’ll not create . . . good meals
Are you saying that the Soviets censored recipes?
Yes. Food in the shop had a bad quality with a permanent deficit. Big amount of good food in modern country is making by a small business
This could be a language barrier thing, but it sounds like you’re talking about a production issue, not a censorship issue.
okay, despite the cultural and resource diversity, what prevented then in the Soviet Union from making normal food en masse for people like sushi or even shawarma? Why was there only sausage and chebureks, buns, vodka, beer everywhere? Because there is an order to do so and there is a chain of manufacturers, there was no initiative from below, although the country was supposed to be for the people. Due to the size of the state apparatus for serving the population, any initiative was lost. In the end, everything was done only when the old grandfather wanted to show off in front of the West :) there is nothing made of high quality in the Soviet Union, except for missiles that were sold to other countries to shoot at people :) and everything that served the military industry.
I’m going to avoid touching the rest of that and say that a centralized production not making sushi or shawarma is not the same as censoring those things. You can still make them at home, it’s not like fish, rice, and seaweed were beyond the reach of the existing production. Again, it sounds like a production issue.
Okay :) but everything was in deficit :) and this is not a production problem :) this is a problem of sick heads in power and a complete lack of empathy for the country’s citizens :) in relations between people, the deficit created corruption, with which Ukraine still has big problems. A habit was created to solve all cases not according to the law. People could not travel abroad without a large number of certificates and the personal permission of the local head of the party. Soviet engineers, having good talents, proposed different concepts of cars that were very modern, but the local leadership said no to any initiative from below. It was easier for them to simply copy Western equipment, or buy Western equipment and pass it off as their own, as Russia is doing now under sanctions. Now, under capitalism, you can protest and at most they will give you something like a fine for hooliganism. Under the Soviet Union and the Communists, there were no protests, or if there were, people were sent to Siberia, and their families were dismissed from their positions, and they had a label in front of state bodies that their family was unreliable. And the journalists did not say anything about it under the pressure of censorship, not even a hint. People learned all the information about the protests only after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And something similar happens in any country that wants to build communism. People become communists in their eyes, often not for the sake of making the world better, but for the sake of getting back at a system in which they are marginalized and losers
and the main reason for the deficit was preparation for the war, not the desire to make people’s lives in the country better. Nothing prevented the Soviet Union with the Communists at its head from being an ally before the war with the Germans, attacking Poland together and attacking Finland, suppressing protests in Czechoslovakia and Hungary
I’m really struggling to follow some of this. Are you saying the Soviets didn’t need to fight Germany and didn’t need to take as much time as they could manage to prepare to do so?
Because my country, Ukraine, was under communists and it was not good time with all genocides, holodomor, repressions, red terrors and other things
Yes, but none of that is unique to communism, that’s just corrupt government. Anywhere that develops systemic inadequacies and a culture of impunity can instantly become such. That’s just something that is independent of the underlying system of economics. Like many capitalist systems like to point out that bourgeoisie who are after their own interest act as some check on the government who is usually in a power struggle for control. And that power struggle is what ensures no one side wins out.
But there’s nothing technically stopping the rich from becoming the actors of the government and when we as a society excuse profiteering in office, well then there’s no barrier from the rich just becoming the government. Which that’s just the French ancien régime that ultimately lead to the French Revolution.
So it’s NOT specific to just communism. It’s just that’s the most recent and easiest one to point out because of how blatant/brazen that system had become with it’s corruption. Even with all of the “nay-saying” that might happen with United States detractors with their usual hum of “Oh well they’re all corrupt!” Even with how passive some are with it, the corruption is nowhere near the level of being out in the open that was with the USSR. Politicians still weasel their way around because they know that there’s still some bottom level of ensuring checks on that corruption that exist. And we have those checks not because we are a capitalist society.
I think the idea that some economic system promotes some civic purity or prevents some form of government corruption is a bad linking of things that ought not be linked, because a pure capitalist society doesn’t magically inherit some barrier of corruption. That barrier has to be formed independent of the underlying economic system.
I’m not trying to detract from what happened under the USSR but that has way more to do with how power got consolidated post World War I and everything that lead to the toppling of the Russian Monarchy. The system of communism played a role in that consolidation of power, yes, but literally any tool could have been used if you have someone with the mindset of Vladimir Lenin who wanted to rapidly consolidate power during the Bolshevik revolution. I mean look at the current Myanmar Civil War and some of the ideas of General Min Aung Hlaing, no need for implementation of communist ideology there, he just wants to be in power, doesn’t believe that the current transfer of power is legitimate, and is willing to get a lot of people killed in proving that point.
I think given the current situation in the United States, the belief that you NEED communism to have totalitarianism is a dangerous linking of things that can actually happen independent of each other. You just need someone to wear down government legitimacy enough to start a civil war, that’s all you need. Everything else is just tools at your disposal to get that goal done.
So you have to understand the nuance here I’m trying level. I’m not saying it WASN’T COMMUNISM, what I’m saying is that it can be communism, but ultimately you just need someone who wants to consolidate power rapidly and exists in a society that will forgive abuses of power enough, sometimes that’s done by de-legitimizing the current system enough. That’s it, that’s all that’s required. Communism can play a role in that somewhere, but it doesn’t have to.
In Ireland we suffered under British Imperialism and capitalism for hundreds of years and we had our own famine and repressions.
Wow but under communists you will be killed by Irish person, not British :) and not for a reason that you are Irish, but for a reason that you are listening songs from another country or reading books, that was not accepted by censorship ;)
for a reason that you are listening songs from another country or reading books, that was not accepted by censorship
Man are you going to have a wild time reading the First Act of Supremacy of 1534 from the United Kingdom. Couple of follow up bangers from it like the Act of Supremacy in Ireland of 1560. All that happening distinctly before communism was even invented.
Typical communists still criticize me for my opinion, but give them power, they would shoot me on the spot without a trial, as in the times of the Red Terror :) in a typical communist country there can be no protests, which is confirmed by the case of China and Tiananmen Square
Buddy im not even communist, i am still for capitalism.
Your criticism is given to you because of how ridiculous you sound when you regurgitate the same old propaganda that you watch on social media.
Its so obvious that these thoughts were not formed by you
Echo chambers suck, I’m sorry. It’s assbackwards when people dismiss real, lived experiences that don’t align with what they optimistically imagine those experiences would be like.
If censorship in Soviet Ukraine is your reason for defending capitalism, don’t let it go over your head that such things happened and continue to happen in capitalist countries and colonies too.
Again, authoritarian, not communism.
You really to get yourself educated my friend
Fact that us often ignored in Anglo world… Or when it is brought up… This oppression is different 🤡
Some people think they are part of the club, rest don’t know better
