hexbear.net comically loses its domain name
cross-posted from: https://hilariouschaos.com/post/1077711
Edit: https://chapo.chat/ for the live action drama, sort by new posts.
Edit edit: https://chapo.chat/post/4468531
Welp
In any case, Tankies hate socialism, they see it as nothing but trying to “make capitalism work with regulation” and they strive for abolishment of capitalism entirely.
I think you are confusing “socialism” with “capitalism with social safety nets.”
Socialism is the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, and private ownership of the means of production is what capitalism is. All versions of socialism are anti-capitalist, including communism.
You don’t even have a Wikipedia-level understanding of capitalism, socialism, or communism. Have you even read the first few paragraphs of the Wiki entries for the concepts you pretend to be knowledgeable of?
A) if you had read my comment closely, you would have seen I said "What they SEE it as. Not what it is
B) Socialism does not require the abolishment of capitalism and most working examples of it, such as in EU countries, works alongside capitalism. This is the version most people think when they reference socialism and that's what's relevant to the discussion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can take various forms, including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. As one of the main ideologies on the political spectrum, socialism is the standard left-wing ideology in most countries. Types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, and the structure of management in organizations.
Socialist systems divide into non-market and market forms. A non-market socialist system seeks to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies, irrationalities, unpredictability, and crises that socialists traditionally associate with capital accumulation and the profit system. Market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and sometimes the profit motive. As a political force, socialist parties and ideas exercise varying degrees of power and influence, heading national governments in several countries. Socialist politics have been internationalist and nationalist; organised through political parties and opposed to party politics; at times overlapping with trade unions and other times independent and critical of them, and present in industrialised and developing nations. Social democracy originated within the socialist movement, supporting economic and social interventions to promote social justice. While retaining socialism as a long-term goal, in the post-war period social democracy embraced a mixed economy based on Keynesianism within a predominantly developed capitalist market economy and liberal democratic polity that expands state intervention to include income redistribution, regulation, and a welfare state.
The very first sentence of the Wiki entry invalidates your argument that EU countries are socialist. They’re not even working toward socialism, because they’re not working toward abolishing private ownership of the means of production. In fact they’ve all been moving in the opposite direction ever since Margaret Thatcher. They’ve been privatizing things that had been public.
I get what you're saying about the technical definition, but when most people talk about 'socialism' today, they're thinking of the European model of strong social programs and regulated capitalism - aka social democracy. That's the common usage I was working with. Could I have been more precise with terminology? Sure.
But that doesn't change my main point about tankies, they reject even that moderate approach in favor of turning the dial to 11 and pushing authoritarian systems like China's at the sacrifice of human rights and freedoms (and overlooking/denying them when said regimes do it), which is exactly what I was criticizing.
The Western capitalist states just did a twenty year long “war on terror” based on lies, causing the deaths of millions, and are complicit in supporting a 15 month long genocide of Palestinians, and you’re super-concerned about China’s human rights abuses as reported by those same Western states, which are virulently anti-communist and known to push BS anti-communist narratives for the last century?
Neither Washington nor Beijing, but actually Washington.
The difference is nobody's denying (well I'm sure the right-wing nut jobs are anyways) it.
And also now you've just devolved into the classic tankie "whataboutism" as if what the West does at all excuses what China/Russia are doing.
The censorship and suppression of freedoms in China are well documented.