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Pathetic how most commenters are arguing why communism is bad and not why capitalism is bad, when you live literally in late stage capitalism / fascism.
Every horrific thing happening under capitalism / fascism never seems to matter.
A good way to view fascism is as Capitalism donning its alter-ego to protect its image while it resorts to brutal means to protect itself. It’s Capitalism in different circumstances, not a unique economic system, which is why its riddled with contradictory mechanisms. Its always there as a tool for Capitalism to employ, it’s Capitalism in decay.
Capitalism is not fascism, communism is fascism.
Fascism is Capitalism in more dire circumstances. It arises when Capital needs to defend the existing order via brutal means, it dons a mask and pretends its something else, despite the underlying mechanisms being the same. Fascism is Capitalism in decay.
Communism is entirely different from Capitalism, including fascism.
Capitalism cannot exist in a fascist regime. And communism is fascism.
Capitalism has always existed in fascist regimes, fascism is Capitalism in decay. Communism is an entirely different structure. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Capitalism has never existed in fascist regimes.
Capitalism has always existed in fascist regimes. Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, all places where the interests of Private Capital controlled the state and formed the basis of the economy. The purpose of fascism, after all, is to brutally protect Capitalism’s existing property relations from the decay Capitalism brings.
You’re wrong.
Communism is communism. Fascism is fascism. Fascism is right wing leaning just like capitalism. Fascism is extreme right wing where capitalism is more center right. Capitalism and fascism go hand in hand.
Communism is on the complete other side of the spectrum.
Communism IS fascism! How ignorant are you all here?
Communism is communism. Fascism is fascism. Opposite ends of the political spectrum. Communism is left wing, fascism is right wing.
That’s a myth.
It’s a fine point you make, which communist countries (which aren’t a dictatorship in a trenchcoat) out there are doing particularly well?
The currently Socialist countries governed by Communist parties are the PRC, Cuba, DPRK, Vietnam, and Laos, and all are doing pretty well if we take into consideration harsh economic sanctions and embargoes or other unique characteristics inflicted upon them from the outside. Out of all of them, the PRC is doing particularly well and is the most developed, though Vietnam is rising very quickly, especially thanks to an excellent response to COVID that allowed manufacturing to shift towards it for production.
and all are doing pretty well
China, hmm, so Taiwan, Hong Kong, The Uyghurs control production so they are in charge? Doesn’t look like it. Civil unrest over lack of representation shouldn’t be a thing in a working communism right?
NK is a dictatorship and we all know it, it doesn’t matter what they call themselves. Also, from ANY journalism that has made it outside the boarders, I think it would be grossly unfair to call them even OK.
I might give you a couple of points for Cuba being throttled, but damn things aren’t good there.
I don’t have a lot of expertise in LAOS or Vietnam, things don’t look very rosey
Worldwide human-rights watches also don’t paint things well in Vietnam.
Even if you claim that’s all propaganda, places like Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom, and Europe don’t seem to have any where near the tumult over any of the countries you mentioned.
To be clear, I don’t think communism can’t work. But I also don’t think any of these countries really take communism seriously. Each of these should be overwhelmingly by the people for the people, but there seem to be serious issues about people and work.
The current state of capitalism is fucked too. You have to find places that aren’t being pillaged by the oligarchs no matter where you go, and that’s becoming harder and harder no matter your governmental structure.
Alright, there are a lot of claims you threw out with sources including “we all know it,” so I’ll break them down into their claims and address each.
- Taiwan
By far “maintaining the status quo” is the number 1 preference in Taiwan, neither preferring independence nor reunification. I am especially curious to see how this changes in the coming months due to the trade war, and the US backing off of Taiwan.
- Hong Kong
Hong Kong is semi-autonomous and has relative control over its own unique sphere of economic structure, though is favoring increased ties with the broader PRC as that’s better economically. They are happy to be free from British colonial rule.
- Xinjiang
Generally high approval rates for the CPC, which nationally has over 90% approval rates. There are also 25 Uyghurs in the 13th NPC, higher than Han Chinese by proportion of population.
In general, there isn’t civil unrest over a lack of representation. In 2019 there were western-backed protests in Hong Kong, but those have faded and barely made a slim majority in popular approval even at the peak approval rating. Now it is far lower. Instead, faith in the government is rising, coalescing with improving material conditions:
The DPRK isn’t a dictatorship. It isn’t even a one-party state, it has 3 that form a coalition government. It’s quite a comprehensive system, and works based on the concept of approval voting.
Overall, though, information that is accurate is scarce, due to its secluded nature. It is heavily throttled like Cuba is, by brutal sanctions and embargo, and unlike Cuba, 80% of their buildings were destroyed, and a quarter of their population massacred during the Korean War. More tons of bombs were dropped on Korea in general than the Pacific Front in World War II, to add context.
Vietnam is rising dramatically in recent years. Laos is struggling a bit more, but it is making rapid improvements.
Western Human Rights orgs are almost entirely state-funded and for the purpose of exerting soft power, they don’t actually represent much.
Your biggest error though, is comparing the metrics of developing countries on even ground with developed Imperialist countries that gain their wealth by carving it out of the Global South. Finland, Sweden, the UK, EU, and US in general are Imperialist, and rely on predatory loans that require privatization of key resources and industries for foreign plundering. Production is outsourced so that the lives of the average Swede are built on the backs of brutal conditions in the Global South, and this is facilitated by Financial Capital. I recommend reading these resources:
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Taiwan isn’t seeking independence, if you actually read the source indepencence is a minority position, just as unification is. They want to maintain their government, but in the economic sphere of the PRC.
Hong Kong indeed had a protest, that was western-backed, and that the majority largely did not support. They want inclusion with the PRC while maintaining some level of autonomy, which is what they have.
Polling within China backs what I said. The survey I linked even addresses your fears of “punishment” being a motivating factor:
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
I didn’t provide a link to “state-sponsored propaganda” regarding the DPRK, while your source was “we all know it,” ie you had nothing but blind assertion.
Then you go into conspiracy theory territory and call me state-sponsored, rather than actually engage with my sources and arguments. You don’t have any counters to my arguments or sources to refute mine, so you attack me personally. That’s not an effective form of getting your point across, and lets me highlight that you would rather spend effort attacking me than my arguments, undermining the authenticity of yours. Not to be a debate-bro, but you are helping me prove my points.
Don’t feed the troll. You see ml, you block them.
Oh I did, just wanted some of that salt.
Y’all have brainwashed me over the last decade. I’m thankful TBH.
I used to be a staunch ancap libertarian and now I’m a hardcore socialist bordering on communist.
I mean, Trump’s first term also had a lot to do with it. That was a shit show.
It’s crazy how much a grown ass man can change deeply held beliefs when forced to re-evaluate reality.
Join us commies! 😜
Its working great for China. My Baba stock fell 50% after the ceo criticized government regulation. But I’m told he was a greedy capitalist and it was for the greater good.
Every single fucking time: THIS IS THE FUTURE UNDER COMMUSOCIALMARXISM!
endless pictures of current capitalism conditions, usually centered around homeless people
Yeah, it sure is a good thing we have capitalism to make sure that every person is taken care of and nobody gets fed to the orphan grinding machine.
I knew this die-hard conservative MAGA guy, and we kept having this argument. He would constantly point out the homeless camps in California, blaming it on their “Socialist policies”. I kept pointing out that California has more billionaires than any other state, has the 5th largest economy in the world, and if that’s not the model of a successful Capitalist state, then what is? His answer was Texas. I felt like bashing my head against a brick wall.
That dude was nuts, but at one point I wore him down and got him to admit that CEOs are useless at best, and evil at worst. And I swear to God, he said “yeah, companies should just get rid of CEOs and be owned by the workers who vote on how to run the company.” My jaw hit the fucking floor. When I pulled up the Wikipedia page for Socialism, he completely reversed course. CEOs were suddenly very necessary and good again.
He was so close.
I would never let him live that admission down.
Every day I’d be reminding him about what cognitive dissonance is, and that he was all for a policy change until he learned that the belief he held and was ACTIVELY ADVOCATING FOR aligns with an ideology that someone who makes a lot more money than he does told him to hate.
I reminded him quite a bit, but I cut him off during the pandemic. He’s also an antivax moron (big shocker, I know), and while I can’t prove it, I firmly believe he passed his Covid to a friend of mine who had a compromised immune system, and she subsequently died.
The USSR was the prime example for what happens when communism fails. The USA is the prime example of what happens when capitalism fails. Many of their mistakes are mirror images of each other.
Almost like the real struggle is between powerful greedy cunts and the poor no matter what system is used to fight them… Though one thing is for certain: capitalism further empowers the rich while socialism/communism are supposed to fight against their further acquisitions.
Everyone defending capitalism really sound like serfs trying to protect their king just because, “he fought off the barbarians once!”.
It’s almost like picking one extreme or the other isn’t always the best idea
Or it’s almost like allowing greedy people to have all the power results in everyone else suffering. The “extremes” aren’t necessarily the problem, the failure to mitigate powers that want everything for themselves is the problem.
Personally, I think capitalism relies on self interest, competition, and rational and informed consumers. Self interest leads to anticompetitive practices, regulatory capture, and monopolies. Informed consumers cannot exist because there is too much information for everyone to know enough about everything. I can’t be an expert in the latest computer technology, modern medicine and medical practices, and most effective and efficient farming techniques and still have enough time to make a living… and I’d still be ignorant about sustainable fishing, transportation, and so on. There are entire industries out there that are supposed to help people makes informed decisions and so many of them have been corrupted themselves.
Socialism (at least most of its forms) focuses on democracy and quality of life. It can still be susceptible to concentrations of power in the hands of people who don’t value those things… so we’d need to create checks and balances against that. Honestly, I’d be fairly confident that even the US checks and balances (which are failing catastrophically right now) would work better if no individual or organization was allowed to exploit others so much that they could accumulate a billion+ dollars. With that, they could spend hundreds of millions on elections, bribe voters, and threaten politicians with million+ dollar opposition campaigns of they don’t submit… which sounds kind of familiar.
I don’t think we can call all of the Soviet Union a failure. There were many problems and struggles faced by it, but many of these problems are ones that other AES states have learned from as a lesson, while keeping some of what made it such a progressive movement for the working class to begin with. Free, high quality healthcare, education, and childcare, democratization of the economy and not just government, dramatic reductions in wealth inequality and improvements in production, all showed some of the major benefits of a centrally planned and worker-focused economy.
Of course, it did collapse. It had numerous issues, especially later on as liberal reforms worked against the centrally planned economy. Planning was by hand in an increasingly computerized world, the millitary expenses from the Cold War siphoned resources, the economy was more publicly owned than necessary (Marx believed you need to develop out of private property relations, ie the NEP should have been reintroduced after World War II when Heavy Industry had been developed enough to tackle it), and more.
Overall, we can’t simply dismiss it outright, it serves as a very valuable lesson on both good and bad, and anyone building Socialism needs to study it rigorously.
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The USSR came with many huge benefits, like doubling of life expectancy, free and high quality education, healthcare, and childcare, an expansion in women’s rights and democratization of the economy, and more. It also had numerous problems, but that doesn’t change that it was the first Socialist state, and Socialism is the way to go, eventually Communism.
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The Black Book of Communism was debunked long ago, from including Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of Communism” to literally making up numbers to get to 100 million dead to being outright disproven once the Soviet Archives were opened up.
Wow, you’re fucking insane.
And yet consensus from historians backs what I said, the Black Book of Communism was even backed off by some of its contributors. The opening of the Soviet Archives confirmed a lot of the numbers in The Black Book of Communism were made up, and new historical consensus has largely been formed off of the Soviet Archives.
It isn’t the boogyman you need to worry about, it’s the bougie man.
Kirby would never say that!
He would say poyo
There’s a whole social psychology regarding perception management. If you want this idea to catch and snag more people, then substitute “the working class” for communism.
This also sets home the correct idea that we are in a class war right now. Most rules that don’t favor working class are intended to funnel more money up instead of to the people making the work happen.
Pure versions of each have their flaws. Mixed-economics yields the highest quality of life according to the top ranking nations on the World Happiness Report. Nordic nations have the blueprint. We just need to adopt it.
if Nordic countries had to stand on their own, they would collapse, they can only get by because they’re the beneficiaries of a global system of worker exploitation.
There are a few problems here.
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All economies are “mixed,” ergo it isn’t a meaningful distinction. What is more useful is recognizing which aspect of the economy is the principle, ie which has the real dominant power, over large firms and key industries. Socialism is when the public sector is the principle aspect, Capitalism is when private ownership is the principle aspect. That’s why the PRC is Socialist, and the Nordic countries are Capitalist.
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Judging which system is correct purely by looking to which countries have the highest happiness scores is myopic. We could use the same logic to say that Jeff Bezos has the most comfortable life, so we should all copy him. The problem is that we can’t. The Nordics fund their safety nets through Imperialism, ie super-exploiting the Global South, and because Private Ownership has domination over the state, worker protections and safety nets have been gradually sliding.
This is why having a good knowledge of theory and taking everything within a large context, rather than with harsh boundaries, is important to draw correct conclusions.
I’ll never understand people who insist China is ‘State Capitalism’ but Nordic countries are ideal socialism, somehow.
I’ll give you a hint: it’s about race.
There are a few different reasons that give rise to these (false) conclusions, and different reasons manifest in different degrees. Ie, not everyone will have all of these reasons, but most have at least one.
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Chauvanism. Intentionally or not, there is often a superstructural element to western thought derived from being a beneficiary of Imperialism that discredits the achievements of non-Western Leftists. The fact that a western revolution has failed to materialize leads to some westerners being defensive and thus discrediting the achievements of the PRC.
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A lack of real analysis at what the PRC is economically structured as. It’s easy to not understand the makeup of the PRC’s economy if you don’t engage with it.
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A lack of reading Marxist theory, and thus not being able to properly analyze structures from a Dialectical Materialist perspective.
In my opinion, those are the main 3 reasons for such conclusions.
I imagine the next deflection is something like ‘but china has the second largest number of billionares’, but as soon as you sort that list by per-capita it suddenly tells a very different story.
Especially since that number is decreasing in recent years while GDP growth is still solidly positive.
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May I ask an honest question? Is your account run by 5 people? How do you find time to write thorough, well written responses to so many posts? We don’t always agree ideologically, but I really respect your methods.
Haha, it’s nothing like that. My job works more in spurts and waiting periods, so it largely depends on what’s going on in my work life. Plus, not every comment is bespoke, I usually draw from prior comments I’ve written if applicable and tweak if needed.
Thanks for the kind words!
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Workers rights in Denmark, an Imperialist country that is firmly under the control of Private Capital, are declining. Safety nets are eroding and unions are weakening, disparity is rising. The opposite is the case in the PRC, a rapidly developing country where Public Ownership is in control of the economy.
Markets themselves are not Capitalism, just like public ownership itself is not Socialist. The US is not Socialist just because it has a post-office, just like the PRC is not Capitalist just because it has some degree of private ownership. Rather, Marx believed you can’t just make private property illegal, but must develop out of it, as markets create large firms, and large firms work best with central planning:
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i. e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn’t to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital;[43] the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism. Analysis of China’s economic makeup affirms this method as true:
Further, China is democratic. It doesn’t have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%? The material conditions of Chinese citizens have dramatically improved, along with their faith in the government:
Further, China is not Imperialist. Rather than using financial Capital to provide large loans with clauses requiring countries to privatize industries for foreign capture, they focus on building up trade infrastructure and industrialization. This is because they need to create more customers, they don’t have an import-driven economy nor does private financial Capital control the state.
I recommend you check out this introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list I made, if you want to judge Marxists on their application of Marxism, then you should familiarize yourself with Marxism.
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Again, I’ll remind you that Denmark is an Imperialist country, and a petro-state. It is dominated by the Private Sector, and has a well-developed labor aristocracy that has somewhat successfully organized into recieving some of the spoils of Imperialism, though this is fading and eroding over time as the workers have no control over the government or market. Denmark is also already a developed country, and has been one for a long time. That’s how it engages with Imperialism in the first place, large corporations developed and needed to spread outwards to retain legitimacy, they export the worst aspects of production to the Global South while importing the spoils.
Here are some good resources others have compiled on the Nordic Model in general:
- What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn’t Sweden socialist?
- On the unraveling of the Nordic welfare states: increasing inequality and forced austerity.
- Scandinavia’s covert role in western imperialism
The PRC, on the other hand, is a developing country. Key metrics are rapidly rising, and a lot of this is due to programs like the Poverty Eradication Program that was successfully completed. I really like The Metamorphosis of Yunagudui to show just how massive that campaign was for the people it impacted.
Further, China does have unions, such as the All China Federation of Trade Unions, and the state regularly supports worker movements as well. That’s why it enjoys such high approval ratings, Unions are there to represent labor against Capital, and the government actually represents the people in the PRC while the state sides with corporations in Denmark. Unions are far more necessary in Denmark when greedy Capitalists run freely and can take whatever you have when you aren’t looking.
As for Imperialism, you’re assuming millitary intervention is Imperialism. Was it Imperialism when the US Union invaded and beat the Confederacy? Or when the Soviets defeated Nazi Germany? In the case of Tibet, Xinjiang, etc, approval rates for the CPC are quite high. A large part of that, for example, in Tibet, is because the majority of the population were slaves in a brutal caste system under the CIA-backed Dali Lama, and thus welcomed the PLA in open arms.
As for Taiwan, Both the CPC and Taiwan have stated that they are okay with the status quo, for now. With US backing lowering in Taiwan, we may see increased desire to integrate into the PRC to make up for their loss in revenue from the US.
The Belt and Road Initiative doesn’t work that way. Countries enter it in exchange for large infrastructural build up, in order for China to have new customers that aren’t the West, who as we observe are quite fickle to work with. As this article from The Atlantic puts it, The “Chinese Debt Trap” is a Myth.
Speech is restricted in China, that’s true. Corporations can’t say whatever they want and risk destabilizing the system, and Billionaires are regularly punished for speaking out. Individual workers aren’t really targeted much, both because they don’t pose a threat, and because speech is promoted among the working class. “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” is a common saying in China, ie let many viewpoints be thrust into the sphere of conversation. In Capitalist countries, speech is firmly controlled by Private interests, if China did not restrict the speech of Capitalists they would flood the sphere with whatever they wanted.
For democracy, I’ll copy and paste my sources, as you clearly read none of them:
Further, China is democratic. It doesn’t have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%?
And yes, I speak to people living in China, read articles from Chinese people, and speak to people who left China. The ones who left China were the most interesting, in that they defended China when overhearing a rant about China my right-wing coworker went on. This actually starteda shift towards me being more positive on China and encouraged me to learn more. I find articles like The Revival of Capital and the Left Turn of the Mental Laborer to be fascinating. China is clearly not a paradise, but it’s also one of the fastest improving countries in the world, and that’s thanks to being Socialist and run by Marxist-Leninists.
I know the person you’re replying to won’t care to read these materials, but it sure helps for others reading through the comments with where to start educating themselves. Thanks!
No problem! That’s generally my strategy, people looking to argue online aren’t going to change their minds, they see it as a “win/lose” situation. Instead, I focus on refutation of absurd claims and well-sourced information more for onlookers to engage with. I really like Nia Frome’s articles on Red Sails called Marketing Socialism and On Dialectics, Or How to Defeat Enemies. They really help shape how I engage with others online, decisive and sharp refutation is very useful for onlookers to see.
For more fun articles on why people believe what they do, I’m a big fan of Roderic Day’s “Brainwashing” and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.” Those help dramatically with seeing that, really, there’s little convincing others directly in online debate, but there is hope for others whose material conditions have opened them up to new ideas to see and engage with more information they are curious about.
Thank you for your work in this thread comrade, its going to help a lot of people.
I appreciate it! 🫡
I said it elsewhere, but I do think now is an excellent time for agitation and developing clear lines.
You calling the person above a tankie just shows how ignorant you are.
They took the time, with references and without name-calling (something you immediately jumped to), to refute your claim about the Chinese government.
Why can’t we have honest, intellectual discussions on the internet?
Your behavior reflects how most people think about socialists.
Okay, tankie.
Liberals will always retreat to lazy name calling when faced with any real arguments.
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We see how fake democracy is in the US when it helped dozens of coups and are arresting people for protesting against a genocide
Why don’t you just call me a pinko commie? It’s clearly what you mean
The Nordics fund their safety nets through Imperialism, ie super-exploiting the Global South
Finnish imperialism 💪🏼 Not sure what sort of imperialism Finland for example is doing that for example China isn’t. We are super-exploiting them in the same way, as in doing trade and having our companies operate in those countries.
Here are some good resources others have compiled on the Nordic Model in general:
- What about social democracy / democratic socialism / the Nordic model? Isn’t Sweden socialist?
- On the unraveling of the Nordic welfare states: increasing inequality and forced austerity.
- Scandinavia’s covert role in western imperialism
Essentially, Finland (and Imperialist countries in general) operate on a principle of unequal exchange. By leveraging mechanisms like IMF loans with clauses requiring privatization of resources and industry for foreign capture, to relying on overseas production to super-exploit for super-profits, to simply relying on high interest rates on foreign loans, Imperialist countries consume more of the Global South’s value than they provide the Global South.
China doesn’t operate in that way. China is a country focused on selling goods it produces, ergo it cares more to have customers. The BRI and BRICs exist purely to build up more customers, it’s neither charity nor Imperialism. Countries enter it in exchange for large infrastructural build up, in order for China to have new customers that aren’t the West, who as we observe are quite fickle to work with. As this article from The Atlantic puts it, The “Chinese Debt Trap” is a Myth.
China also has companies that operate the exact same way and buy resources from Global South. It has a much bigger impact too, sometimes dominating the local economy. I honestly don’t see any real difference between Finnish and Chinese trade, than some perceived or claimed difference in ideology behind it. And Finland isn’t much of a loan giver to other countries. Finland is a member of IMF but so is China and China actually does do loans to Global South. Not sure I would count membership in IMF and loaning money itself exploitative, but if you consider that as exploitation, then surely it counts for China more than Finland?
China needs rare Earth for its own production, which drives the reason it is involved in Africa to begin with. The difference is that China needs to sell its goods internationally, so it can’t just relentlessly exploit these countries. As a consequence, it frequently forgives loans, and moreover does not require clauses requiring privatization of nationalized resources to do so. China’s economic model requires some degree of multilateralism to continue to exist, it isn’t a consumption driven economy nor one dominated by private financialized Capital.
Finland’s economy is externally driven, it relies on brutal production in the Global South for much of its commodities, and does so with immense financialized Capital. China’s is internally driven and focused far more on manufacturing and selling.
We all need to do trade. The only difference you’ve outlined so far is that China’s economy isn’t at the same service economy point as more advanced economies, otherwise it’s the same. By that merit Finland became a imperialistic country exploiting Global South quite late, which I guess is nice.
Trade is necessary, yes. The difference becomes apparent when you look at the manner and character of exchange. Countries dominated by private, financialized Capital without exception rely on Imperialism to continue, but the PRC’s economy is driven by manufacturing and public ownership. It is unlikely that the PRC will make a hard pivot towards such a privately dominated financialized economy because it was run precisely to avoid such a situation to begin with, as its run by Marxists.
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Nordic nations is still exploitive capitalism.
And socialist countries had exploitative socialism. I think realistically it’s best to try and find a system with least exploitation balanced with best quality of life for the people.
Yes, socialism
Nordic nations have the blueprint.
They may be doing certain things right but do other totally wrong like forced conscription. Keep also in mind that they exploit third world countries like everyone else, their goods are made in china.
I’m not sure what other sensible alternative there is for Finland than conscription. You can’t get around the geographical issues so you have to have some sort of sensible and credible defence. That’s why it has a very wide approval, even when the moral issues of it are recognized. NATO seemed promising as a guarantor of safety, until it lost that credibility (and Finland got in a bit unwillingly, after some recent events). Voluntary military was what Sweden did and it didn’t work well for them.
Actually funnily enough people are surprisingly supportive of expanding the conscription to include women. And that’s on equality grounds, which to many who abhor the idea of forced conscription must seem pretty wild.
I’m not sure what other sensible alternative there is for Finland than conscription.
What’s the alternative to slavery? How do we get our food without a slave forced to farm 14h a day?
Actually funnily enough people are surprisingly supportive of expanding the conscription
So supportive that if they refuse to go they go to jail.
What’s the alternative to slavery? How do we get our food without a slave forced to farm 14h a day?
I didn’t mean it rhetorically, how would you ensure a credible defence for Finland? It’s the big issue.
So supportive that if they refuse to go they go to jail.
I’m talking about polls lol. And by voting the people are giving their concent to the system. That includes us who are forced to serve.
And most people who don’t want to do conscription go to civil service. Working in a library, school, such things. For women the whole thing is voluntary.
I didn’t mean it rhetorically, how would you ensure a credible defence for Finland? It’s the big issue.
Allowing people to defend themself as they want and not forcing them into an authoritarian army with jail as a repercussion would ensure a better defense if you ask me. Drafting people by force only benefit the government and rulers not people.
And most people who don’t want to do conscription go to civil service. Working in a library, school, such things. For women the whole thing is voluntary.
https://www.thelocal.se/20190404/sweden-hands-out-first-jail-terms-for-draft-evasion
Allowing people to defend themself as they want
I’m not sure what you mean with this, what form would it take, some sort of militia or what sort of thing?
https://www.thelocal.se/20190404/sweden-hands-out-first-jail-terms-for-draft-evasion
That’s for Sweden. I’m from Finland. It’s a different country. Here’s an article about the civilian service/alternative service I was talking about: https://akl-web.fi/en/civilian-service/civilian-service (the article is from an anti-militarist peace organization so the language probably reflects that, they might have other takes you probably enjoy)
If you refuse both military service/conscription and civilian service and you aren’t found unfit for service or something like that, you might serve in a prison though. That’s true for Sweden and Finland. We call them “totaalikieltäytyjä”, “total refuser” or something like that. Pretty rare though, I think 2022 it was 1 person and most just got given a sentence and an ankle bracelet and served the sentence that way.
I think 2022 it was 1 person and most just got given a sentence and an ankle bracelet and served the sentence that way.
This reminds me of the lone person refusing conscription in israel and the propaganda dismissing the actual number of people ending up in jail.
“I’m not sure what you mean with this, what form would it take, some sort of militia or what sort of thing?”
Putting an electronic bracelet on someone who refuse conscription it’s a big giveaway of government true intentions: they want to have control on people. Being under house arrests or in jail is a limit to the ability to defend yourself, not being drafted isn’t.
I would happily join the military in a country that actually cared for me. Thats something worth fighting for.
A country that cares for you wouldn’t force you to join the military and put you in jail if you refuse.
They wouldn’t have to force me, thats kinda the point.
Being forced to do it means that you must do it even if you don’t want to. You are forced to do it even if you are happily willing to do it, you have no (legal) decision on it.
The fact that this still got 14 downvotes. Wow…
Edit: Also these BrainInABox and Cowbee communist apologists are really begging for a block or even a ban. Absolutely despicable. Might they be bots or trolls of somekind? They seem to have an awful lot of time on their hands.
You are in a fucking communist space. It will be you getting the ban
Just a bit of background, given that you’re on a 12 day old account, Lemmy in general has a lot of Communists of various types, for a number of reasons:
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The lead developers are all Communists
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Lemmy is an anti-capitalist response to Reddit in design, it’s an attempt to cover for the failings of Reddit resulting from its profit-driven nature
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Choosing Lemmy over Reddit requires some degree of ideological conviction, as Reddit is far more popular to begin with.
As for myself, I’m not a troll. I am a Communist, specifically a Marxist-Leninist, I even made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. Further, this community in particular, c/LateStageCapitalism, is run by Communists and the express purpose is to critique Capitalism from the Left, I’m not breaking any rules by following the purpose of the Comm.
Hope that helps!
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The flaw is humans; we’ll corrupt any system.
I would say it’s the dominant western neoliberal culture that accepts corruption as an “Oh well what can you do” type thing. Not all cultures are so accepting of corruption. We need to start treating corruption as great of a sin as murder or pedophilia, perhaps more so.
But the orphan grinding machine has always been around! We can’t just tear it down, that’s insulting to all the people it ground up!
What’s crazy is my “liberal” family use this logic unironically.
You’re not wrong. Some systems are still better than others though.
We will also de-corrupt and fix any of them.
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Every political or economic system I know of could work quite well, if all the participants of that system would come with the required charactetistics.
Capitalism could work, if no one was a reckless greedy asshole.
Communism could work, if no one was a powerhungry reckless asshole.Democracy could work, if no one was a reckless powerhungry greedy asshole. Heck, even a dictatorship could work, if the dictator was benevolent.
All of those systems are doomed to be exploited because they don’t take humans as they are and try to make the best of them, but because they always require some ideal circumstances, which are hard to achieve and are in practise not sufficiently widespread.
There are modifications to all of those systems, to make them work better. For example, humanistic capitalism. But still, there is no perfect system yet.
It seems that the best we can do is to create a system with self-correcting mechanisms incorporated, such that all the good and the bad of humans are taken into consideration, nurturing the good and reducing the bad. Democracy comes close to that, as it allows, discusses, demands and implements change and makes this process accessible for everyone. Still, it has it’s own pitfalls and I am not sure whether a single democracy exists that actually works well.
Hierarchy must be limited to mitigate greedy assholes from gaining power. Capitalism is inherently hierarchical. Seems like some form of anarcho-socialism or democratic socialism would work best. And the democracy part should be built in a way that prevents one party or group from gaining too much power; using stuff like ranked-choice voting or proportional representation.
Kirby does have experience with Marx.
Ia ?
Communism isn’t the boogie man, but it does bring the extreme kinda poverty that cause millions of people to starve.
Communism is shit. Get educated.
Communism usually genocides millions and then fabricates famine.
And capitalism doesn’t? How much food are we wasting? How many people are dying of starvation right now?
Communism is when you get executed for having a different opinion than the great leader.
Thanks for being a great example of the meme
Communism is an economic concept not political. Technically it is possible to have a democratic communist country
Politics and Economics are interrelated, and you cannot genuinely separate them. That’s even why Marx studied Political Economy, not just Economics.
Further, Socialist states run by Communists are democratic, just in a very different manner. Here’s a diagram of how Soviet elections were handled, as an example:
According to social media, literally everything is politics.
I generally agree.
I never said that they aren’t interconnected, i just said that it is possible to have a communist democratic party. If the political system is broken then no matter good how an economic system is it will fail
All Communist parties practice Democratic Centralism, and all AES states run by Communists have some form of socialist democracy. I am not sure what you are trying to say by saying it’s “possible,” rather than simply being possible, it’s by far the established norm. When you say “democracy,” do you mean the specific, say, US form of democracy, or the ability for the citizenry to have legitimate control over policy?
Marx literally calls for a genocide in his manifesto. It might not be political in your view, but communism is inherently a genocide.
5·2 days agoPlease quote that part.
You can read the full manifesto here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf But let’s go through it step by step.
- Marx divides all people into classes and then declares that people in a specific class are better than people in other classes. This is covered in his first part called “Bourgeois and Proletarians”. Direct quote:
the proletariat is its special and essential product
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The second part establishes that there are even better representatives of “good people” called “Communists”. This whole section is dedicated to dehumanising everyone else and showing that Communists are the superior people to everyone else.
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He then openly calls for violence multiple times finishing with:
their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.
You can replace “Communists” with “Arians” and “Bourgeoisie” with “Jews” and you’ll get Hitler’s manifest. Same shit.
Even if this is true (it is not, 1 and 2 are just wrong), it does not show him calling for a genocide.
And your last line is incredibly stupid, “but what if he had written jews”, see just like Hitler. “But what if water was fire”, “but what if up was down”.
He didn’t. Bourgeoisie != Jew. If you replaced all instances of “Bourgeoisie” with “Jew” it would not make sense, as Marx is talking about classes, and their relation to the MOP not jews and arians or whatever.Wow, the delusion…
Are you American? You’re the third person that has had a very hard time reading, I have heard the american education system is really subpar.
No, he did not.
Yes, yes he did.
No, he did not. I’ve read it 5-6 times over the years, not once did he call for genocide. You can show what you think is a call for genocide, and I’ll explain why that’s not the case at all.
I posted a comment below. It’s clear as day. Anyone arguing is delusional.
Was the French Revolution a “genocide” against the Monarchy? Further, revolution doesn’t necessitate killing every member of the bourgeoisie. Further still, you are likening relations to Capital to immutable characteristics like ethnicity.
You’re deeply unserious.
Marx literally calls for a genocide in his manifesto.
Others have asked for sources. I know it’s not true. If Marx called for genocide, centrists would love him.
I posted a reply.
“He didn’t like existing systems of oppression. Therefore literally hitler.” is a shit reply.
Just like Nazis thought that Jews were oppressors. A shit reply is defending a genocidal maniac.
Imagine being such a bootlicker that you’re comparing the rich to the Jews in 1940s Germany.
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If the strong government is democratically elected and represent the will of the people nothing wrong with that
Power corrupts and corruption leads to authoritarianism. The thing happening in america right now is a perfect example.
That’s why any system needs actual checks and balances. Ones that fully come back to the people, not just make more corruptable systems like the US has.
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murica has installed a dictator. They’re not on the way. They’re there.
That’s generally not true. Private Capital Owners lose their political privledge, while the working class gains democratic control. No AES state is a utopian paradise, but they do represent increased democratization for the working class at the expense of the Capitalist class.
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Capitalist countries don’t “mostly turn out fine.” The ones in the EU, US, etc are Imperialist, and thus export their brutal suffering to the Global South and reap the spoils. Communist countries do not “end up mass murdering and doing terrible things afterwards” either, the Black Book of Communism was debunked long ago, from including Nazis killed during World War II as “victims of Communism” to literally making up numbers to get to 100 million dead to being outright disproven once the Soviet Archives were opened up.
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Define authoritarianism, please. All states exert the will of one class over others, thus all governments are “authoritarian.” What makes something unacceptably authoritarian in your eyes, and which level is acceptable?
I’m not disagreeing with you. Just noting the us isn’t immune to it either
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China has markets, but that doesn’t mean it has “Capitalist rules.” The economy of the PRC is driven by Marxist principles, the overwhelming majority of large firms and key industries are in the public sector, while the private is dominated by small firms, cooperatives, and sole proprietorships.
Further, China is democratic. It doesn’t have a western liberal democracy, but it does have a comprehensive Socialist democracy. You can read this article talking about why the Chinese democratic model is in place and why the people support it, or this article on how the Chinese model of democracy works in contrast to western democracy, or this short video on how it works, or this video on how elections work, or this article on the makeup of the NPC.
By what metrics is China not democratic? What mechanically would they have to change for you to accept the opinions of the Chinese citizenry on their own system? I recommend this introduction to SWCC, it goes in-detail about how elections and the democratic model work in China. what mechanically would China have to change in order for you to accept the system that the Chinese have implemented by and for themselves, and approve of at rates exceeding 90%?
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Saying “no” is not an argument, and I already explained why, but I’ll go more in-depth here.
The PRC’s economy is classically Marxist, as Marx didn’t think you could abolish private property by making it illegal, but by developing out of it. Socialism and Communism, for Marx, were about analyzing and harnessing the natural laws of economics moving towards centralization, so as to democratize it and produce in the interests of all. This wasn’t about decentralization, but centralization.
Markets themselves are not Capitalism, just like public ownership itself is not Socialist. The US is not Socialist just because it has a post-office, just like the PRC is not Capitalist just because it has some degree of private ownership. Rather, Marx believed you can’t just make private property illegal, but must develop out of it, as markets create large firms, and large firms work best with central planning:
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i. e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
I want you to look at the bolded word. Why did Marx say by degree? Did he think on day 1, businesses named A-C are nationalized, day 2 businesses D-E, etc etc? No. Marx believed that it is through nationalizing of the large firms that would be done immediately, and gradually as the small firms develop, they too can be folded into the public sector. The path to eliminated Private Property isn’t to make it illegal, but to develop out of it.
The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital;[43] the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
This is why, in the previous paragraph, Marx described public seizure in degrees, but raising the level of the productive forces as rapidly as possible.
China does have Billionaires, but these billionaires do not control key industries, nor vast megacorps. The number of billionaires is actually shrinking in the last few years. Instead, large firms and key industries are publicly owned, and small firms are privately owned. This is Marxism.
SOEs and publicly run companies absolutely eclipse the influence of Huawei (itself a worker-owned cooperative), Alibaba, and Tencent, and further those companies are under the dominion of the CPC as you already said.
Further, multi-party electoralism is not the only form of democracy. If a bunch of people vote to turn left vs a bunch voting to turn right, must these decisions be attached to different parties? This is a fundamental confusion of what democracy actually means, and the people of China overwhelmingly support their electoral system as shown in my previous sources (while Western democracies see far lower rates of approval).
Your only counter, that the only reason Chinese people support the CPC is that they “vanish” if they don’t support the CPC, goes directly against polling results I already linked:
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
The fact that satisfaction and approval most coincides with material improvements, and not fear, is further cemented by polling showing improvements over time:
If having well-sourced information and arguments that extend beyond “no” is considered “bullshit,” then I don’t know what to say. You even tack on a personal attack in the end, calling me “disgusting,” meaning it was more worth your effort to attack me than it was to attack my arguments.
Communism is when my uncle was killed for dissent. You want social democracy, not communism
The fact that this has 600+ upvotes is… major fucked up.
EDIT: the image is tagged “@proudSocialist”. Any “proud socialist” would know that socialism and communism are not the same… Wow…
EDIT 2: If this gets more downvotes than upvotes I will gladly leave Lemmy. Have at it. :)
: If this gets more downvotes than upvotes I will gladly leave Lemmy. Have at it. :)
Please do, you’ll be happier on reddit anyway
Bizarre assumption that I’d be going to Reddit, as if Reddit and Lemmy are the entire internet.
It seemed like it would suit you.
Every socialist/communist knows socialism is early stage communism.
We do not want social democracy, we want communism
All countries led by Communist parties have been Socialist, as Communism is a global system of a fully publicly owned economy. Socialism is when public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy, while Capitalism is when private ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. Communism is a post-Socialist, global system of full public ownership, ie all “Communist” countries have considered themselves Socialist and building towards Communism.
Romania has had social-democrats in charge for a long while now. I can assure you it is not “building towards communism”
Socialism may be a transitional phase into communism, yes. But social-democrats are not communists.
Social Democracy is not Socialism, Social Democracy has Private Ownership as the principle aspect of its economy. Further, Social Democrats are not Communists to begin with, even if they did have a Socialist economy, that doesn’t mean they will always try to move towards Communism.
Don’t bother mate. All these people commenting are American radicals. Lemmy has received a massive influx of them after Reddit increased its moderation standards. I wish there was a social media platform made just for Europeans so I wouldn’t have to listen to Americans constantly.
As a Romanian myself I could tell them about the horrendous living conditions my relatives had to go through during communism, but it won’t matter. They’ll still chant their nonsense like some drugged priests.
Communism is horrible. It didn’t work, it doesn’t work and it will never work.
Go on you losers. Downvote me all you want.
“My anecdote means more than your statistics and analysis.”
Yea… you might say you dislike Americans, but you’re thinking EXACTLY like the ignorant ones…
63% of Romanias believe they are worse off than under Communism. Unsurprising, given that the dissolution of the Socialist system resulted in extreme increases in poverty, homelessness, prostitution, drug abuse, and 7 million excess deaths.
Unsurprising, given that the dissolution of the Socialist system resulted in extreme increases in poverty, homelessness, prostitution, drug abuse, and 7 million excess deaths.
Exactly, all because communism paralyzed the economy for a half a century and fixing that mess required more than a decade of hardship.
But you keep deluding yourself with your nonsense. Why don’t you go to North Korea or Cuba if you like communism so much? I’ll buy you a plane ticket if you can’t afford it.
Had the Socialist economy not been dissolved, growth would have surpassed what it is today in the post-Soviet countries. I’m not going to pretend that the economy was perfect, or that Kruschev, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin’s reforms weren’t harmful for the economy or that the immense destruction and genocide inflicted by the Nazis on the Soviet people’s did no harm to the economy either, but Capitalism didn’t “fix” anything. It allowed foreign Capitalists to freely plunder and loot what was a working system with its own struggles.
Had the USSR implemented reforms to its economy such as those done in the PRC, maintaining Socialism but allowing a more open economy for engagement with the world economy, the best of all worlds may have been achieved. None of the immense pain or misery Capitalism brought, while coupled with the growth Gorbachev sought to achieve through liberalization efforts.
Well… certainly not none of the pain and misery of capitalism, as they’d still be engaged with the capitalist economies of elsewhere and still very subject to exploitation from richer countries. The peoples within the country would’ve almost certainly been on a slightly more even playing field, though. For better or worse… exploitation CAN stamp on most everyone.
Dictatorship killed your uncle not communism
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Communism does the same but brainwashes you into believing everyone gets their fair share and there’s no loss of wealth for ordinary working people.
Historically that’s not true.
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“Brainwashing” as a concept does not exist. People license themselves to accept whatever they think is useful to them. See “Brainwashing” and Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing.”
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Historically, living standards in Socialist countries governed by Communist parties most dramatically improved for the working class, and in a manner quantitatively different from Capitalist production. See the USSR, as an example:
Or see the PRC’s eradication of poverty and increase in income by generation, compared to the US:
Tbf the example countries are countries that started very poor, so had the opportunity to make more impressive gains from more moderate gains in quality of life than those of already advanced economies. More advanced economies haven’t usually turned to socialism though, so it’s hard to compare.
“Advanced” countries, such as the US, perpetuate their systems and have not had revolution because they benefit from Imperialism, and use a portion of the spoils of international plunder to bribe their domestic proletariat. As the PRC reaches the status of “developed country,” we should see how its metrics compare, though compared to Capitalist peers of similar development its generally far ahead.
so had the opportunity to make more impressive gains
They had the same opportunity under capitalism, and yet they didn’t
Found the Commie academic, guys!
Sure? I read theory but that’s not my job.
These relative measures seem like not entirely honest. Did the GDP of USSR ever reach or pass UK’s? Growth is important of course in the high level, but for the common people absolute wealth probably means more.
That’s a bit hard to directly measure as the USSR was focused on production, rather than maintaining a crumbling Empire like the UK was, so measuring GDP in both countries is difficult (state-driven economies also have difficulty with tracking GDP). We can look at increases in metrics and access to goods, though, which led to a doubling in life expectancy for Soviet citizens ans dramatic poverty reductions (outside of wartime).
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How can communism deal with the food per total human issue without people managing that based on their own effort and resources and self-determinstion? Has the centralized planning leads to starvation problem been resolved now? I am not being sarcastic and am open to persuasion. Our current system is a disaster but it’s not clear to me how communism can deal with problems of motivation, allocation, and resource management to avoid mass starvations.
How can communism deal with the food per total human issue without people managing that based on their own effort and resources and self-determinstion? Has the centralized planning leads to starvation problem been resolved now?
Starvation that happens under capitalism never seems to count or matter.
Pretty much every AES state that experienced famine did so early on, and/or during the fall of the Soviet Union. Food is stable in pretty much every AES country (though the DPRK has little agricultural land due to its geography). Central Planning isn’t an issue with food production, most famines in Socialist countries came from similar sources as famines prior to becoming Socialist, not because of Socialism, and thus eliminated famine by developing more and improving production.
I recommend looking more into how Socialist countries actually function, I think you have a very idealistic notion of Communism that is more detached from actual practice.
If the government says “we will always feed and cloth and house you” and the land can feed 100 million people, and people reproduce as much as possible, going from 10 million to 60 million to 110 million, at 110 million people there won’t be enough food. How does communism propose to stop the population from being imbalanced with nature? I say this as someone disgusted and appalled by the worsening homeless problem in the USA and the Christian response of putting spikes on the ground so people can’t sleep. Homlessness existing in this day and age is vile. I just don’t see how communism can work in balance with nature, but am open to persuasion. My skepticism may not be warranted, since Finland has mostly solved the homelessness problem, but that’s also in a Democratic Socialist capitalist system. I am also one of the typical Americans that is scared of larger governments and it leading to more central control and corruption, with a corresponding loss of freedom.
My desire to vote or be a part of a political party is really linked to being pro-gun, pro-women (and considering transwomen women), pro-business, pro-digital freedom and anti-homelessness. Capitalism in the USA has become a horrible mess, but mostly becaise religious idiots keep electing horrible politicians. But I’m starting to think more and more that religious idiots electing horrible politicians may be a part of the plan, may be by design. And when the supposed hard-core Christians are also so spiteful to the homeless, it really makes me open to persuasion.
I am not sure if the problem is solvable. Some people want to do drugs and be irresponsible. Some people want to be productive. But maybe this is the sort of Ayn Rand lie that ultimately justifies cruelty.
Many religious people see controlling population dynamics by government approving or denying procreation as dystopian. There are just so many religious idiots in America and cruel people. I like that in capitalism people can start businesses. However, if communism can cleanse the USA of religious assholes and stop homelessness without taking away guns, I’m open to hearing ideas about what communism can do. Still not a communist, but disgusted by society enough I’m open to hearing ideaa.
Really, this means i should run for office to try to change things and stop the evils of homelessness. But i am gay and therefore unelectable.
Communism isn’t just providing everything for everyone no matter what. Overpopulation is a problem any economic system will have to deal with, and that’s not something that has hard binary boundaries.
Speaking of the USA and it’s food consumption, we waste an incredible amount of food. We grow food based on it’s profitability not it’s effectiveness at feeding people or delivering nutrition. Varieties are prioritized by their ability to stay “fresh” longer (or engineered) so that we can literally outsource farming to nations we can exploit on the cheap without the food spoiling on its way back here, by boat because that’s cheapest.
There have been attempts at things like centralized planning that were remarkably resilient to disruption in South America. If I recall, they managed to build a network, like decades ago, that allowed organizations within an industry to share information about production and stock, which allowed them to accommodate natural disruptions. I don’t know for sure if that covered food specifically, if I’m being honest. Either way, we’ll never know how long it could have lasted because we intervened and “convinced” the locals to adopt capitalism.
I don’t think there is a rule that “planning” or cooperation in production leads to things like starvation. Of course, anything can be planned poorly and if everything relies on a single bad plan there is the possibility that everything could go terribly wrong. Or things can just go wrong without any planning or cooperation, or because its not important to the owners of the means of production that people are fed - many people are malnourished and starving as we speak… Unfortunately, humanity has had very little opportunity to try centralized or cooperative planning because it threatens capitalism and established powers. I think if we did it carefully and learned from our mistakes centralized or cooperative planning could absolutely work. I have very mixed feelings and limited knowledge about China, and I am hesitant to believe anything due to propaganda war waged by both the CCP and capitalists worldwide. However, it seems clear that they have been prioritizing food security for a while. How are their rates of starvation and malnutrition?
To be perfectly frank, my biggest concern about real socialism is that it is hard to make sustainable. This is not because of inherent flaws but because capitalist powers and oligarchs will sabotage it at every opportunity. It’s been happening throughout history and humans have only gotten better (and even more subtle, if necessary) at sabotaging things. Look into how difficult it has been to allow the government to help people with programs or improve agencies that exist for that purpose… especially since Reagan. Now observe how quickly the current US federal government is being dismantled because those agencies we’ve somehow managed to create get in the way of profit.
Hell, our current world economy is incredibly intertwined. Our current trade war with China makes it clear that even if a country mastered food distribution, anything imported could just be cut off or maliciously priced to sabotage that achievement. Unfortunately, even if we tried to be food secure without growing food elsewhere the US can’t grow everything, and definitely not in the proportions we would need. Some of it, like coffee and tropical fruit, has to be excluded from the economy or imported… which leaves us vulnerable to manipulation.
