Apparently worked better than the alternative . . .
Saying communism isn’t the answer since it will get abused, when your alternative is capitalism, is like saying dating someone in recovery is a bad idea, and that’s why you only look for abusive people who are currently drunk.
Just like how capitalism works so well for the U.S. and Canada and many other countries?
Don’t you see what’s happening around you? I live in Hochelaga, a borough of Montreal, Canada. There are people sleeping in tents in all the parks around my home. There are literal encampments with several people living together. They’re freezing to death in the winter and dying of heatstroke in the summer. They’re starving. They’re sick. They can’t afford rent after getting kicked out of their apartments because some rich property baron bought their apartment bloc to flip it. Housing has become a commodity for investment instead of a human right. Same with food. Food banks can’t keep up with the surging demand. People are unable to feed themselves because of food inflation. Grocery stores are stocked to the brim, but people are starving because they can’t afford it. Our public healthcare system is being gutted and replaced with private clinics and private care that are out of reach for the vast majority of people. And in the U.S. it’s even worse! People have to live with preventable health problems, wounds, diseases and die because health care is unaffordable. Even education is out of reach in the U.S. because of how ridiculously expensive it is. How well is it going for us in a capitalist world? Not good at all.
And you’re saying it didn’t work well for the Soviet Union and China? The Soviet Union initiated the space race. They’ve kept pace with the rest of the world in terms of technology and innovation. They were one of the most educated people on earth. Everyone was housed and fed and schooled and received the medical care they needed. And China? I’d say it’s working pretty fucking well for the world’s current superpower. They’re leading the world in economy, technology, productivity, progress, and believe it or not, even environmentally. No other nation has planted as much trees as they did or made as much progress in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as China did. They’re putting every other countries to shame.
Folks, please don’t polarize because some rando on social media tells you to. We live in an increasingly polarizing world. I’m with you on taxing the rich and holding them accountable and distributing incomes more fairly again but PLEASE know you can be centrist AND make the change you want to see. Following identity politics in the far right or far left part of the spectrum isn’t the answer but mobilizing peope from the entire spectrum to stand up and build a resistance TOGETHER is. Don’t cut out that many people from your movements because then you’re only fewer. You lack persuasion in numbers, and for these things we need masses. Maybe I may remember you of the “let them eat cake” lady. Different times of course but you get my point
Capitalism works a lot better than communism. At least countries that are vaguely capitalist still exist and can realistically be described as capitalist today. Countries that claim to be communist are authoritarian, or authoritarian plus capitalist.
Your math doesn’t add up. Capitalism kills 18 million a year. Even with the bad math of The Black Book Of Communism (so bad even one of its own authors says it’s bullshit), that means capitalism beat communism in deaths in under 6 years.
All capitalist countries have elements of socialism, a mix is probably the best scenario, and indeed to have private benefit corporations and co ops to fulfill needs the private sector is unwilling and unable to provide the needs for equitably.
The idealogues of the right talk a lot of shit, but capitalism doesn’t work without controls, the free market destroys itself, and leads to consolidation, to one company, becoming sort of communist as the opposite ends come back together in a circle between free market and controlled economy. Somalia should be a free market paradise according to the dogma of the billionaires funding libertarianism and the republican party’s think tanks.
Capital is too greedy to do what’s in it’s own interests and will destroy itself like yeast in a wort producing alcohol that will kill that yeast above a certain percentage.
The idealogues of the right talk a lot of shit, but capitalism doesn’t work without controls
If you read the writings of people like Adam Smith, they expected the government to have a lot of control. Their idea of capitalism involved a lot of government supervision. The core idea of capitalism that everyone would benefit because of competition. Competition leads to winners, but if the winners get too big then they can squeeze out their competitors. That’s why capitalism only works if there’s a government to step in and keep the “winner” from getting too big so it can dominate.
When a lot of people say they hate capitalism, what they really hate is the winner-take-all part, which isn’t supposed to happen if the government is doing its job. 10 companies all trying to win your business by offering the best product for your needs at the best price they can manage is great. One company that operates at a choke point in your world and squeezes as much money out of you as possible sucks.
You could argue that communism is also supposed to work if the government does its job and ensures that everybody’s needs are met and that everybody is equal. IMO the difference is that capitalism at least sort-of works in practice, not just in theory. Yes, there’s a lot of corruption, regulatory capture, etc. in a capitalist system, which isn’t supposed to happen. But, you still can get upstart businesses displacing old and dominant companies that fail to innovate. Meanwhile, supposedly “communist” governments very quickly collapse into authoritarian systems with an elite class that siphons off the wealth of everyone else. It’s a great system in theory, but in practice it just doesn’t seem compatible with actual fallible, corruptible people. Maybe capitalism is more successful because it accepts that people are flawed and greedy and tries to channel that in ways that benefit the public. Communism seems to believe that people don’t have those flaws. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be part of the communist approach that allows people to channel their competitive and greedy impulses. So, instead, they just corrupt the system and establish themselves as a ruling class.
Well I’m glad capitalism works well for you. But it doesn’t work well for the 99% of the population in capitalist countries where they can’t make ends meet while capitalists hold all the money in the world.
Under capitalism, people are sleeping in tents in parks and on the side of the road, freezing to death or dying of heat strokes. People are lining up to food banks which can’t even supply everyone because of how much demand has increased, while grocery stores are stocked to the brim, but the food is unaffordable. People suffer health issues and die of preventable causes because healthcare is becoming less accessible or is just too expensive. Even education is unaccessible in a few places because of the costs. And for what? So a few corporations can make even more profit than they already are?
At least under communism, everyone has a roof over their head. Everyone has food on their table. Everyone has healthcare. Everyone has a job or at least a purpose in society. And communist countries seem to progress much faster than capitalist countries as well. The Soviet Union initiated the space race. They’ve always kept the pace with the rest of the world in technology and innovation. And if you look at China now, they’re essentially the world leader at this point.
You wanna talk about authoritarianism? Look in the U.S. The moment you start to criticize anything, you either get a visit from the cops, or if you protest you get beat up by an army of police officers. U.S. democracy is a sham. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had people like the Clintons, the Bush or Trump as presidents. These people are put there by the billionaire elites, then they manipulate the population into electing them through the media that they own.
For the record, I’m not saying China is any better in that regard. Freedom of expression is not exactly their thing. There’s a lot of things to look up to with China, but human rights and freedom of expression are not any of them. But, the U.S. aren’t any better.
Communism has a bad rap because U.S. imperialism never allowed it to flourish and reach it’s potential anywhere. It’s been stigmatized and portrayed in such a way that it made people scared of it.
I’m confident that if we allowed communism to enter our democracies it would be for the best. Because, for once, the government would start taking care of its people and its workers instead of the corporate leeches.
You’re being dishonest and obtuse on purpose here.
Even Cuba has better access to education and health-care and shelter than in it US. Every other challenges they’re facing is because of the US and their sanctions.
With how the U.S. has been apply economic sanctions against Cuba since the 60’s it’s pretty obvious. Anybody who’s been doing trade with the U.S. has been forbidden to doing any trade with Cuba. Their only economic partners have been Russia, China and Venezuela.
More recently, Venezuela was the only supplier of oil to Cuba, and now the U.S. attacked Venezuela and gained control of their oil, and stopped al shipping to Cuba. Because of this, Cuba can’t even produce electricity because their power stations ran on oil.
keep in mind, that communism, based on marx’s vision, was supposed to bring democracy to the workplace, on top of democracy in politics, the “worker’s dictatorship” was supposed to be a temporary thing, before the system reaches actual communism
That’s so far because either a elite group gets in power and turns it into feudalism again
If it always collapses into feudalism / authoritarianism, it’s not a workable system.
We didn’t throw away democracy just because the french revolution failed at first.
The French and the Americans had historical working versions of democracy to consider, like the Athenian system. Communism just fails over and over again every time it’s tried.
The famous athenian system where slaves were tortured for testimony because their testimony wasn’t admitted without torture because they would ‘otherwise lie?’
The famous athenian system where the military quite literally marched 10 miles in one direction, then 10 miles in the other direction the next day because control of the army was transferred from day to day between different generals?
The famous athenian system where a philosopher was sentenced to death because he was teaching the youth to think differently?*
Sounds like democracy fails over and over again every time it’s tried. For every example you could make of communism always failing, somehow, you can make the same of examples with democracy or capitalism. Make better arguments, for the love of water.
spoiler
Well, slightly more complicated than ‘thinking differently.’
Well, the Americans did incorporate the slavery part of the Athenian system. But, they weren’t complete idiots and they picked and chose parts of it that they thought would make sense in the modern world. Really, the American system was closer to 90% British, with a bit of Athenian democracy mixed in. But, they had a previous system to go by where people were allowed to vote and senators were not born into their position, but elected.
A permanent utopia free from geopolitical influence has yet to be established under any system of government, therefore no system of government has ever worked.
Why is “permanent utopia” the criterion? I don’t know of any political system that claims there will be a “permanent utopia”, except maybe dreams of what communism might one day be like.
Well, permanent because if it gets destroyed it you can’t call it successful, and utopia because you need an ideal to measure success against even if its not realistically achievable.
Carrier pigeons aren’t trained to establish a safe society for humanity. So if they get destroyed they haven’t failed at their primary objective. Governments, though…
Vietnam joined the WTO and exploits it’s workers for Wall Street corporations outsourcing from even china to save an extra buck. How is that communist, whoring for wall street?
Don’t tax the rich. Take more extreme measures.
Join your local communist party and join the revolution to overthrow these fucks and seize their fortune by force.
This is u ironically why the rich should support a wealth tax.
“If we tax billionaires they’ll leave!” in a box? lol
Hopefully. A wooden box. The kind that gets buried 6 feet under.
Yeah because Communism worked so well for Russia, China, North Korea, etc. Communism is NEVER the answer, since it will ALWAYS get abused.
If I burn your house down, is that evidence your house “didn’t work” and should never have been built in the first place?
Apparently worked better than the alternative . . .
Saying communism isn’t the answer since it will get abused, when your alternative is capitalism, is like saying dating someone in recovery is a bad idea, and that’s why you only look for abusive people who are currently drunk.
So much apples in 1997?
Just like how capitalism works so well for the U.S. and Canada and many other countries?
Don’t you see what’s happening around you? I live in Hochelaga, a borough of Montreal, Canada. There are people sleeping in tents in all the parks around my home. There are literal encampments with several people living together. They’re freezing to death in the winter and dying of heatstroke in the summer. They’re starving. They’re sick. They can’t afford rent after getting kicked out of their apartments because some rich property baron bought their apartment bloc to flip it. Housing has become a commodity for investment instead of a human right. Same with food. Food banks can’t keep up with the surging demand. People are unable to feed themselves because of food inflation. Grocery stores are stocked to the brim, but people are starving because they can’t afford it. Our public healthcare system is being gutted and replaced with private clinics and private care that are out of reach for the vast majority of people. And in the U.S. it’s even worse! People have to live with preventable health problems, wounds, diseases and die because health care is unaffordable. Even education is out of reach in the U.S. because of how ridiculously expensive it is. How well is it going for us in a capitalist world? Not good at all.
And you’re saying it didn’t work well for the Soviet Union and China? The Soviet Union initiated the space race. They’ve kept pace with the rest of the world in terms of technology and innovation. They were one of the most educated people on earth. Everyone was housed and fed and schooled and received the medical care they needed. And China? I’d say it’s working pretty fucking well for the world’s current superpower. They’re leading the world in economy, technology, productivity, progress, and believe it or not, even environmentally. No other nation has planted as much trees as they did or made as much progress in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as China did. They’re putting every other countries to shame.
And forget North Korea. That’s not communism.
Those aren’t the only two systems. Even if they were, it’s much easier to force changes onto capitalist governments than communist ones.
The only other one I would tolerate would be anarchism.
Folks, please don’t polarize because some rando on social media tells you to. We live in an increasingly polarizing world. I’m with you on taxing the rich and holding them accountable and distributing incomes more fairly again but PLEASE know you can be centrist AND make the change you want to see. Following identity politics in the far right or far left part of the spectrum isn’t the answer but mobilizing peope from the entire spectrum to stand up and build a resistance TOGETHER is. Don’t cut out that many people from your movements because then you’re only fewer. You lack persuasion in numbers, and for these things we need masses. Maybe I may remember you of the “let them eat cake” lady. Different times of course but you get my point
Centrism is the enabler of fascism.
Ok, but how about something instead of communism, because that never works.
Capitalism doesn’t work. And sadly capitalism never allowed communism to work. Because the greed of the few outweighed the needs of he many.
Capitalism works a lot better than communism. At least countries that are vaguely capitalist still exist and can realistically be described as capitalist today. Countries that claim to be communist are authoritarian, or authoritarian plus capitalist.
How many died under feudalism? How many did Pol Pot kill?
Every system is going to have issues. So far, every other system has resulted in much more death and misery than capitalism.
Your math doesn’t add up. Capitalism kills 18 million a year. Even with the bad math of The Black Book Of Communism (so bad even one of its own authors says it’s bullshit), that means capitalism beat communism in deaths in under 6 years.
Capitalism doesn’t “kill 18 million per year”.
See above
All capitalist countries have elements of socialism, a mix is probably the best scenario, and indeed to have private benefit corporations and co ops to fulfill needs the private sector is unwilling and unable to provide the needs for equitably.
The idealogues of the right talk a lot of shit, but capitalism doesn’t work without controls, the free market destroys itself, and leads to consolidation, to one company, becoming sort of communist as the opposite ends come back together in a circle between free market and controlled economy. Somalia should be a free market paradise according to the dogma of the billionaires funding libertarianism and the republican party’s think tanks.
Capital is too greedy to do what’s in it’s own interests and will destroy itself like yeast in a wort producing alcohol that will kill that yeast above a certain percentage.
If you read the writings of people like Adam Smith, they expected the government to have a lot of control. Their idea of capitalism involved a lot of government supervision. The core idea of capitalism that everyone would benefit because of competition. Competition leads to winners, but if the winners get too big then they can squeeze out their competitors. That’s why capitalism only works if there’s a government to step in and keep the “winner” from getting too big so it can dominate.
When a lot of people say they hate capitalism, what they really hate is the winner-take-all part, which isn’t supposed to happen if the government is doing its job. 10 companies all trying to win your business by offering the best product for your needs at the best price they can manage is great. One company that operates at a choke point in your world and squeezes as much money out of you as possible sucks.
You could argue that communism is also supposed to work if the government does its job and ensures that everybody’s needs are met and that everybody is equal. IMO the difference is that capitalism at least sort-of works in practice, not just in theory. Yes, there’s a lot of corruption, regulatory capture, etc. in a capitalist system, which isn’t supposed to happen. But, you still can get upstart businesses displacing old and dominant companies that fail to innovate. Meanwhile, supposedly “communist” governments very quickly collapse into authoritarian systems with an elite class that siphons off the wealth of everyone else. It’s a great system in theory, but in practice it just doesn’t seem compatible with actual fallible, corruptible people. Maybe capitalism is more successful because it accepts that people are flawed and greedy and tries to channel that in ways that benefit the public. Communism seems to believe that people don’t have those flaws. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be part of the communist approach that allows people to channel their competitive and greedy impulses. So, instead, they just corrupt the system and establish themselves as a ruling class.
Well I’m glad capitalism works well for you. But it doesn’t work well for the 99% of the population in capitalist countries where they can’t make ends meet while capitalists hold all the money in the world.
Under capitalism, people are sleeping in tents in parks and on the side of the road, freezing to death or dying of heat strokes. People are lining up to food banks which can’t even supply everyone because of how much demand has increased, while grocery stores are stocked to the brim, but the food is unaffordable. People suffer health issues and die of preventable causes because healthcare is becoming less accessible or is just too expensive. Even education is unaccessible in a few places because of the costs. And for what? So a few corporations can make even more profit than they already are?
At least under communism, everyone has a roof over their head. Everyone has food on their table. Everyone has healthcare. Everyone has a job or at least a purpose in society. And communist countries seem to progress much faster than capitalist countries as well. The Soviet Union initiated the space race. They’ve always kept the pace with the rest of the world in technology and innovation. And if you look at China now, they’re essentially the world leader at this point.
You wanna talk about authoritarianism? Look in the U.S. The moment you start to criticize anything, you either get a visit from the cops, or if you protest you get beat up by an army of police officers. U.S. democracy is a sham. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had people like the Clintons, the Bush or Trump as presidents. These people are put there by the billionaire elites, then they manipulate the population into electing them through the media that they own.
For the record, I’m not saying China is any better in that regard. Freedom of expression is not exactly their thing. There’s a lot of things to look up to with China, but human rights and freedom of expression are not any of them. But, the U.S. aren’t any better.
Communism has a bad rap because U.S. imperialism never allowed it to flourish and reach it’s potential anywhere. It’s been stigmatized and portrayed in such a way that it made people scared of it.
I’m confident that if we allowed communism to enter our democracies it would be for the best. Because, for once, the government would start taking care of its people and its workers instead of the corporate leeches.
Because it worked so well for…?
Because that happened in…?
You’re being dishonest and obtuse on purpose here.
Even Cuba has better access to education and health-care and shelter than in it US. Every other challenges they’re facing is because of the US and their sanctions.
Every other challenge? Are you sure? Seems mighty convenient.
With how the U.S. has been apply economic sanctions against Cuba since the 60’s it’s pretty obvious. Anybody who’s been doing trade with the U.S. has been forbidden to doing any trade with Cuba. Their only economic partners have been Russia, China and Venezuela.
More recently, Venezuela was the only supplier of oil to Cuba, and now the U.S. attacked Venezuela and gained control of their oil, and stopped al shipping to Cuba. Because of this, Cuba can’t even produce electricity because their power stations ran on oil.
Ever heard of US imperialism? And how it affects the world negatively?
Who told you that it never works? … Checks notes … the capitalists did.
No, it’s my own eyes. You don’t need the capitalists to interpret it for you when you can just look for yourself and see that communism never works.
keep in mind, that communism, based on marx’s vision, was supposed to bring democracy to the workplace, on top of democracy in politics, the “worker’s dictatorship” was supposed to be a temporary thing, before the system reaches actual communism
I think we can now say that Marx didn’t know how people actually behaved in real life.
Yet never was and could never be.
What communist country did you live in again?
Who said I lived in a communist country?
So what are you seeing with your own eyes?
The results of supposed “communists” taking over a country.
Which country?
That’s so far because either a elite group gets in power and turns it into feudalism again, or the us intervenes because communism shall not work.
We didn’t throw away democracy just because the french revolution failed at first.
If it always collapses into feudalism / authoritarianism, it’s not a workable system.
The French and the Americans had historical working versions of democracy to consider, like the Athenian system. Communism just fails over and over again every time it’s tried.
The famous athenian system where slaves were tortured for testimony because their testimony wasn’t admitted without torture because they would ‘otherwise lie?’
The famous athenian system where the military quite literally marched 10 miles in one direction, then 10 miles in the other direction the next day because control of the army was transferred from day to day between different generals?
The famous athenian system where a philosopher was sentenced to death because he was teaching the youth to think differently?*
Sounds like democracy fails over and over again every time it’s tried. For every example you could make of communism always failing, somehow, you can make the same of examples with democracy or capitalism. Make better arguments, for the love of water.
spoiler
Well, slightly more complicated than ‘thinking differently.’
Well, the Americans did incorporate the slavery part of the Athenian system. But, they weren’t complete idiots and they picked and chose parts of it that they thought would make sense in the modern world. Really, the American system was closer to 90% British, with a bit of Athenian democracy mixed in. But, they had a previous system to go by where people were allowed to vote and senators were not born into their position, but elected.
A permanent utopia free from geopolitical influence has yet to be established under any system of government, therefore no system of government has ever worked.
Why is “permanent utopia” the criterion? I don’t know of any political system that claims there will be a “permanent utopia”, except maybe dreams of what communism might one day be like.
Well, permanent because if it gets destroyed it you can’t call it successful, and utopia because you need an ideal to measure success against even if its not realistically achievable.
Were carrier pigeons not successful? Just because something is discontinued, doesn’t mean it was not successful for its time when it was deployed?
Carrier pigeons aren’t trained to establish a safe society for humanity. So if they get destroyed they haven’t failed at their primary objective. Governments, though…
Looking at Vietnam… Seems to work great when the imperialists fall to crush you.
Vietnam joined the WTO and exploits it’s workers for Wall Street corporations outsourcing from even china to save an extra buck. How is that communist, whoring for wall street?
In what ways is Vietnam a communist country?