How i feel on Lemmy

Lol someone once told me "nazis are socialists its in the name"

True communism in a country is impossible.

You can have socialism, or anarchy, which we've seen before, but communism cannot function in one country alone, unless said country is completely and absolutely self reliant.

A major part of communism is internationalism, which is why socialist countries had the Comintern. (Communist International). Besides a political/social system, communism has a strong basis as an economic system. You can't apply communist economic system principles to the capitalist market.

To my knowledge, no existing country is self reliant to the point that they can completely cut off trade with the rest of the world. USSR didn't do it, China didn't do it and they were the two biggest countries at the time.

That, of course is all a very surface level ELI5, and if you want to ask something more specific or in depth, feel free to.

Well, it is feasible. You just need to give people replicators and free living space, and they will eventually learn to use their skills to enrich the world we live in. And boldly go where no one has gone before.

True communism is pretty much impossible, same as true capitalism.

There have been some short-lived small-scale experiments like the "United Order", but nothing that actually survived more than a few months with more than a few thousand people.

Realistically, it would look something like how the Anarchists organized society in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War, or how Rojava is organizing today with communal federations. Anarchism sidesteps the inevitable authoritarian regime that various Marxist theories have by not installing a 'temporary' vanguard state that quickly becomes autocratic and dictatorial, they just jump straight to decentralizing power immediately by giving it to the people.

With capitalism we just outsource the death to 3rd world countries.

Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.

Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).

Implying capitalism does not regularly do mass killings.

This time without hierarchy wherever possible. And we'll keep most of the capitalistic economy as is, just redistribute the wealth so that everybody is safe and happy. Cut the bullshit jobs, make produced goods more durable and sustainable, so that the last at least ten times as long, cut more jobs in producing, distribute the remaining work to all the people, everybody who wants to get a little extra can do this by working, most will. I certainly would still work even if i did not have to, even if there is no monetary benefit. Doing a job that is nice and that you like is fun, because you're doing your part.

Hey, I can think what happened in Eastern Europe was just authoritarian dictatorships, backed by Muscovite colonialism & branded as communism just the same as what happened in parts of South America was just authoritarian dictatorship, backed by American imperialism & branded as laissez-faire capitalism.

Also I can think communism has never actually been tried, and that it’s functionally impossible (therefore people should stop advocating for it).

Can't critizise something that has never been tried! Also we already got a comment critizising capitalism as a counter argument :D

Yeah, we did that with the Paris Commune. How many dead bodies dropped because they were unable to use authority to defend their actions?

I mean they violated some if tge main principles outlined by Marx, like the other states, who almost all followed the lenin-stalin-model, so yeah. Prove me wrong.

They are though. China, Vietnam and Cuba are all pretty drastically different and they are all communist countries.

Give me an example of a capitalist society. Waiting.

If you want to argue against that, fine by me. I have nothing against an honest duscussion. But this comment is neither funny nor smart.

Nah, that's just wrong. You can compare yourself in other ways than how much fake money you earn. Fun thing is: truly communistic society would mean easier work for most people.

And communism does work in small scale enviroments. Families, cooperatives, tribes. Sometimes neighborhoods.

This whole "Sounds great but won't work" rhethoric is just what the ones that would loose their power in communsim want you to think. If you dig into it you will see, that there were and are a lot of efforts to discredit the idea.

That's funny because I do easy work for a great paycheck yet we have a harder time hiring than in my previous job which didn't pay as well and was harder.

While I agree with you, this doesn’t mean that Eastern Europe was communist.

Or if you’re not a Nazi you’re a communist, then I’m a communist I guess.

This doesn't mention Stalin or Mao.

I think a lot of people give Mao a bad wrap.

For what it's worth, Stalin is a monster, and the state of China right now is repugnant.

Mao didn't intentionally lead tens of millions of people to starve in the same way Stalin did. Mao was trying to revolutionise agriculture (The Great Leap Forward) but didn't understand the ecological and logistic principles required.

I'm convinced his intentions were good, he just wasn't educated enough to implement something like this.

Almost like we need a large state apparatus..

If they're using "communism" to control the people, then they're not really using communism

I guess the main issue is with the government having absolute control over the economy. I would not want the most prominent politicians in my country having control of the economy. No matter how much I dislike capitalism.
Just put the people who work for a company in charge of the company. Have them elect who calls the shots. Also have them directly benefit from the company doing well. I guess that is like end-stage unions or smth. All power to the workers. Should be doable within capitalism, maybe, probably.

Communism is an economic fairy tale, not policy.
It would be nice if it were possible but with the current state of the world, it is not.

Social democracy is a reasonable compromise.

Social policy is socialism. Socialism is a different thing.

You can’t have a communist economic policy without being authoritarian. It’s human nature - once money is removed as a motivator, society breaks down unless you motivate people some other way (not being sent to the gulag).

Don't forget the times dictators try to enforce communism onto nature. Mao's Great Leap Forward killed tens of millions.

Mao and Stalin (though to a noticably lesser extent) actually had insightful things to say though. Mao's essays on epistemology are genuinely really fantastic. And that can be true alongside all of the show trials and sparrow murder which was genuinely really fucking bad.

Pol Pot meanwhile admitted to never having really ever read Marx, and his faction of the Communist Party of Cambodia was more concerned about Khmer ultranationalism and anti-Vietmamese sentiment that had been brewing over the course of French colonialism, then with anything to do with building socialism.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that we ought to take a nuanced, grounded view of historic socialisms that accounts for their success and failures, and doesn't fall into either mindless exoneration of awful shit, nor reflexively screeching "TANKIE TANKIE!!!" Every time anything vaguely socialist oriented comes up in discussion.

Ahh so guilty by association McCarthy?

The core tenant of every form of Communism, regardless of if said party or organisation follows it, is as follows: that the means of production should belong to the workers who work them. If the means of production are not in the hands of the workers, then they are not communist. If they are in the hands of a CEO or a corporation, you have private capitalism or market capitalis like the US. If you put them in the hands of a state, they are in the state, you get state capitalism ala China or the USSR.

The power structure of the state protects an upper class, be it billionaires or "the party". If you abolish the state, but not capitalism, capitalism will rebuild the state (which is why Anarcho capitalism fails every time) and vice versa (which is what happens with Marxist Leninism).

For a Communist or communalist society to work it needs to be Anarchist or classically Libertarian (aka like Bakunin or Kropotkin proposed, not "money first"). It needs to have a horizontal and democratic decision making process that is decentralised, federated, and involves all the members of the community or communities effected. If there is to be a state, it should be to facilitate the colaboration of communities in a bottom up manner. These are the features of almost every single effective or successful Anarchist or Socialist movements from Rojava or the Zapatistas, as well as non-political movements like the Open Source Movement, railway preservatiion movement, and even the early RNLI.

The power structure thant would forbid a free market would be the collective weight of everyone else rather than a state that, sooner or later, becomes the jackboot of capital.

If we're following Marx's historical materialism (that society has transitions has a society, roughly being feudalism -> capitalism -> socialism -> communism), I think the next best step is a transition from capitalism to socialism is union ownership. Personally, I think worker co-ops and general syndicalism with a competing in a market for the worker owned businesses would be a great in between step that would not involve a crushingly oppressive state. The goal should be to keep it decentralized so one power structure being consumed by corruption doesn't sink the fleet

Achieving communism thru the state (called vanguard parties) isn't all that well liked by many types of socialists and communists, especially those of us in the west. A lot of us prefer to take inspiration from mid-1900s labor groups who, while not achieving socialism that we want, created infinitely better working conditions and power dynamics for working class people. Most of the people who ran those organizations were socialists/communists in and of themselves, and they often times relied more upon collective direct action than just electoralism.

Uhm… who exactly is doing that last part, other than bad-faith actors?

You can’t just imagine some utopia where nobody has to work, and everything is free, and call that communism.

Those are the anarchists (usually, definitions get fuzzy)

Most communists recognize the need for a transition state, we call that Socialism.

This isn't a utopia we're pitching, it's hard work, and there will always be controversy, and people will have to work, we will just work less, and we will strive toward working even less over time.

And that power will sooner or later be abused

There's LOTS of evidence that, right now, under capitalism, that abuse is veeeeery bad. We can learn the lessons of previous socialist attempts, but capitalism? That's shown to be corrupt and beyond repair.

As well, right now, under capitalism, your politicians are bought and paid for by capitalists. Power is already being abused beyond control. Under a socialist system, it would be illegal to donate to politicians. Political campaigns would run within a short, standardized window of time, with equal funding, and commercials would be illegal, it would just be a platform of ideas and opinions. The people would vote for the person who best represents them, normal people.

This exist in Cuba, right now. It's SO much harder to take power from a system that actually represents regular citizens, instead of a system that is bought and paid for by the highest bidder.

Careful now buddy, the internet is no place for common sense acknowledgement of reality.

But is it Communism's Final Form? I think Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism is the best form.

you shouldn’t have to work to exist, you shouldn’t have to be useful to anyone else to be part of a community

While I largely agree with your points (or at least some of the core of them) I think you’d have to flesh this out. For anything alive to exist, work needs to be done. And for anyone to be in a community people must mutually agree on membership. The “freeloader” problem isn’t a problem of ability where individuals “not useful” (and that gives me chills as much as it probably does you) to society can’t work, though it’s often framed that way to varying extents from both sides. I feel that it’s a problem where a large enough segment of the population would not be productive at what they could be doing simply because they don’t have to.

Our brains are literally wired to seek out more for less energy.

Again, I agree with most of your points, but these two could probably use a bit more explanation (at least to me)

You shouldn't have to work to exist. You shouldn't have to be useful to anyone else to be a part of a community

I guess I'm not well versed enough on communist principles but how does this work even on the simplest level? Work has to be done for a person to have shelter, food, etc and that is pretty much unavoidable for now.

How can people both be not obligated to provide anything to the community, while the community is obligated to provide things for them? Is it just assumed that enough people will still want to work to keep the system sustainable?

Communism and socialism are completely different things. At least learn what they are before spouting nonsense about them

You have the right not to be denied food or shelter.. Are you saying everyone should receive free food and shelter? How will that work? I understand small scale communes can mostly work under that idea, but a country with millions of people? Scarcity is the basis of economic theory for a reason.

Capitalism always leads to monopolies

No, no it does not. Competition for nearly everything exists, sure there might not be enough but saying "always leads to monopolies" is a lie. Anyway communism usually has monopolies too, just monopolies operated by the government

will always be in conflict with workers.

By workers I presume you mean employees. Yes, greedy people will try to abuse their workers but as the person you're replying to said "unchecked capatilism is also bad", we have minimum wage for a reason, and then there is also competition and if you have a valuable skill they can't afford to exploit you

Who checks communism and makes it unchecked? Oh that's right, the government - the people running the communism

Just because you don't understand what words mean doesn't mean they're "empty slogans".

But sending people to gulags is not the only way to ensure ideological consistency.

Lol centrism is just Neoliberalism that's pretending not to be right wing.

That's pretty much the opposite of what I said. Bangladeshi children sewing your clothes under horrible conditions while H&M and it's shareholders make billions isn't (for the most part) your personal moral failing, but a systemic issue within and due to capitalism.

Very very far from what they just said, but hey, you wanna reference a meme, who am I to stop you

If lemmygrad is what op is commenting on, they left it out of the image and caption.

eye blinking gif

Ironically, they also ban communists

Well in North Korea you do not have a right to vote, work where they tell you to, and you are subject to imprisonment without a warrant or any probable cause. And make sure to not get pregnant in your prison camp since the guards have no qualms tying you to a tree and cutting it out of you.

But sure, be a refugee in North Korea. Sounds fun. /s

lost my right to vote, can only work in fast food now, am subject to search and seizure with out warrant.

This pretty much sums up what happens when you get born in north Korea (except the jobs are worse than fast food)

That never happened in a lot of ex soviet countries. Not saying that type of communism was good but there were enough positives under that system where normal people benefited in some ways and that is why a lot of older people remember those days fondly even if they were just normal unconnected wokers.

Yup. There's basically never been a true communist state. Theyve all been dictatorships that attempt to establish communism. Which is a long drawn out process. The dictatorship gets entreched and never really gives up power.

The ruling class/wealthy if a country will never willingly agree to communism. They have too much to lose. So it always happens by revolution, which will always have a strong military leader to succeed. Human nature makes this always play out in a similar fashion regardless of that leaders initial intent.

The political climate in china is a lot more complicated than we in the west generally understand. I've been trying to wrap my head around a lot of the pro-china stuff I see in online left spaces. I don't feel prepared to make any for or against points in regard to China, but when you start asking more precise questions about Chinese government and society it becomes easier to see the bigger picture. Economically, they're very odd, but a lot closer to a socialist economy than the US or Europe is. My biggest criticisms are social issues, the Uyghur concentration camps, LGBT rights, the COVID lockdowns, etc. But to simply call them fascist is incorrect

From my eastern block friends they are very confused how the USA could have allowed homelessness, they remember the bread lines so it's not all great memories, but they do talk about how everyone at least had a home, a job and some standard of living - where it seems the standard of living is higher in Western countries.

It's truly bizarre to me how when eastern Europeans like us talk about our countries, our opinions don't matter because some poll contradicts us. You know far better than I do what was and is going on in Hungary, but talking about Romania like the streets were paved in gold during the communist period is utterly bizarre. Many families spent their life savings on getting smuggled out of the country via Serbia, the government covered up pogroms against the Roma, many Hungarian minority towns were intentionally disadvantaged, and Jews, while initially huge supporters of the Romanian communist movement (for obvious reasons), were later systematically purged from any position of power and the government eventually came up with a deal with Israel to get Israel to pay thousands of dollar per Jew allowed to leave.

None of these sound like the hallmarks of an equitable, safe and stable society.

It is clear just exactly who ruled the party during communism when you look at PSD's policy. Being in favour of a privatised energy sector is not very socialist at all. To me this just shows how little value they put on socialist values and paradigms back then too.

No socialist project can work long term when built with a small number of people at the top, determining everything. Power needs to be as spread out as possible.