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this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Mildly Infuriating
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So "eat the rich" is just edgy humor or what?
Weird, because somehow, every time that every time communism has been tried, it involved massive genocide, though perhaps one could argue that the majority of it was the result of incompetency, because the majority of the victims starved to death as a result of disastrous agricultural policies.
The Holodomor in the Ukraine killed about 3.5-5 million people. The Great Leap Forward killed somewhere between 15-55 million. The Khmer Rouge killed about a million. And I'm not trying to make excuses for National Socialism here, but you have to admit that even when taking to low estimates, communism's death toll is far higher than that of the Nazis. OP is correct, they're all evil ideologies.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Fields https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
This argument is so frustrating, because it totally ignores the fact that the common thread, both for communist countries and capitalist countries, and both for intentional genocide and crises through incompetence, is the consolidation of power in a small set of individuals or group that prioritises their own self interest over the common good.
The big issue with "trying" communism is that it historically has only really occurred through violent revolution. The political instability in these situations gives a perfect opportunity for the seizing of power by exactly those kinds of people.
Never mind the fact that genocide is absolutely not limited to communist countries, and that genocide goes against the actual fundamental principles of a communist system, which is centred on equality.
Yes, the USSR committed genocide - so did Britain and America, and so are modern capitalist Russia and China right now.
There's loads of good reasons both for and against every economic system, communism included. But "communism=genocide lalalala" is just a cheap excuse to totally avoid considering the merits of a different economic system. Doing that denies yourself the opportunity to genuinely consider how a different economic approach, whether that's communism or just using concepts from the ideology, could improve the lives of citizens in a healthy democracy.
Gradualist Socialism was the political project for Social Democrats in post-war Europe. They had 30-odd years to achieve it in several countries. The issue becomes that once they started notching up victories, radicalism decreased, and that when they're not starving and oppressed people categorically will not vote to let someone collectivize their farms and expropriate their homes. It seems clear to me that in real-world conditions, a Socialist state can only come about through revolution, because the path in a democracy is far too long and leaves far too many angles of attack from a liberal opposition.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that violent revolution is exactly what Marx said was essential in order to bring about the communist utopia he envisioned. That's precisely why communism has such a bad rep among anyone but edgy teenagers and college students. Are you telling me Marx was wrong about this? If so, please elaborate.
Okay - I shall do so.
You are wrong.
If you're going to base your disdain for the entire concept on a single work by a single author, then it would help if you actually read the work itself, rather than deciding what it says based on, I can only assume, something someone you know said offhand that one time.
So as a starting point, here's the whole work. Why not do a quick search through for the word "violence" and see if he ever advocates for it (spoiler: he does not). https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/theoryfromthemargins/manifest.pdf
However, in his conclusion, he does say this of communists:
This is an interesting passage to interpret - the use of the word force in this passage is fairly vague, for example, overthrowing the status quo via legislation enforced by police would be considered "by force", regardless of whether the police use violence. This is because it is done not by allowing what Marx calls the bourgeoisie to decide to switch to communism, but by enforcing it through law.
Now, there's more to unpack here, so I'll break it into a couple of sections...
Revolution
Marx does use the word "revolution" a lot in his manifesto, however typically not in the meaning you're envisioning (ie an overthrowing of government) but instead the meaning a fundamental shift in distribution of power and wealth within a society.
Is violence ever acceptable?
As a thought experiment, imagine a country ruled by a purely evil autocrat. This theoretical autocrat abuses their power, harms innocent people on a whim and takes whatever they please from their citizens. There is no allowance for dissent, no democracy for the people to represent their interests.
Would it be acceptable for the people of this nation to use violence to remove this dictator from power? I think most people would probably say yes in this context.
So we have determined that in some scenarios, violence may be acceptable when it is the only possible way to overturn an oppressive system of government.
That's not to say that it's the only way any system can be changed, or that violence is acceptable when it can be avoided.
The consequences of violent revolution
While violent revolution will change the distribution of power, it also provides an chance for opportunists to abuse this power vacuum to consolidate it around themselves, under the guise of being part of that movement.
Good examples of this are, of course, Stalin in the USSR, and, as a non-communist example, Putin consolidating power in Russia during the USSR's collapse and its transition to oligarchic capitalism.
The geopolitics of 1840s Europe
Europe in the 1840s was not like it is today, especially in a political sense. The continent was made up almost entirely of absolutist monarchies, with no democratic systems to allow the voices of the citizens to be heard.
There was a wave of failed revolutions against the feudal systems under these monarchies across the continent, which, with few exceptions, were brutally crushed by the states with almost no change.
Understanding these circumstances, it is easier to understand why the idea of transitioning to an equal distribution of both political, and in communism's case, economic power through peaceful means would be considered not just difficult, but laughably impossible.
Many of the seeds of the modern democracies we enjoy today were planted during this period of turmoil, in part in response to Marx's manifesto.
Communism and revolution under modern democracy
Now we have the privilege of living under modern democracies across much of the world, we have an unprecedented opportunity to actually consider Marx's ideas for a different societal structure, and implement changes that would be for the benefit for all citizens through democratic systems.
But we need to actually have reasonable discussions about these ideas and their impact, and "communism=genocide" is not only wrong, but takes a hostile stance against the concept before even understanding what the ideas are.
Edit: wrong link
Straight from the manifesto, page 12:
Accuse me of picking and choosing the most salient passage, but I would say this doesn't leave too much room for interpretation about what the word "forcible" means. And no, you don't get to talk your way out by saying 'overthrowing the status quo via legislation enforced by police would be considered "by force", regardless of whether the police use violence.' Isn't ACAB a quintessentially leftist term? Or does it not apply when the police work for you instead of against you?
Also, just to give a counterexample to your "evil autocrat" problem: Gandhi managed to get rid of British colonial rule without ever advocating for or using violence. So no, the idea that violent oppression justifies a violent response is flawed. Violence always begets more violence, there is literally no exception. You can't murder your way to a fair and just society, it always ends in oppression.
That quote isn't saying "we should go start some violence for a bit of fun".
It's talking about the exact revolutions that were ongoing during that period (see the section on 1840s geopolitics), and noting that the ongoing revolutions give an opportunity for citizen centred political system - ie a democracy.
ACAB isn't some international stance the left takes. It's a reaction to the frequently racist, violent and corrupt policing specifically in the USA. And it certainly doesn't mean there should be no law enforcement whatsoever - you'd be extremely hard pressed to find anybody who would take that stance.
Counterexamples: the British suffragette movement (which was notably extraordinarily violent, despite its common modern image as a quiet, polite disagreement), the American civil war, the Swedish coup of 1809, the Ukrainian defensive resistance in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war.
Gandhi was a fantastic and principled man, and had an enormous impact. But, whether or not he liked it, violence was absolutely a part of the end of British colonial rule, and would have been even if every revolutionary was exclusively nonviolent, because the violence by the British was not conditional on violence by the Indians.
But all of this is separate to the key point - regardless of whether one considers it an effective method of revolution, violence isn't the aim of a communist system, and it's use is only considered acceptable in a scenario where that is not the current system, and when it would be the only possible method to overthrow that system.
Edit: as an aside, even Gandhi accepted that violence can be necessary:
I'm pretty sure "eat the rich" is not comparable to "kill 5 million Ukrainians."
And I'm also pretty sure 'rich person' is neither an ethnicity nor a nationality.
Rich is a social construct. Just like Ukrainian. There's no difference.
Well, that's the thing, that's actually almost exactly what happend. The Soviets basically labeled all the (relatively) wealthy farmers as class enemies and started deporting them en masse in order to seize their lands and turn them over to collectivized farming. The problem was that along with those farmers, they also got rid of the knowledge they had about how to work the land effectively, and as a result, the following harvests were increasingly poor, which is what caused the mass starvation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Holodomor#Deliberately_engineered_or_continuation_of_civil_war
The same thing happened during the Great Leap Forward in China.
Are you saying that because they went by income instead of by race, it technically wasn't genocide, just mass murder? I'm not sure that makes it any better. Also, don't forget that a lot of the poor people died as well, so it didn't even help those it was supposed to benefit.
Do you really think when people say "eat the rich" they mean "eat farmers?"
This is a ludicrous comparison. The top 1% of the world's population causes the vast majority of problems. That is what people are talking about when they say "eat the rich." Not millionaires, not even multimillionaires. Billionaires. People whose entire wealth was built on the exploitation of others.
Getting rid of them will definitely not "get rid of the knowledge" because the only knowledge they have is how to buy the right financial advisors.
Do you really think if Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk all died today that the world would be worse off?
No, I brought that up because that's what historically happened. And in light of that, continuing to use a phrase like that at least seems to be somewhat poor in taste. But that's besides the point.
I honestly don't know, but what makes you think the world would be better off if they were dead? Unless they had pledged all their money to charity (which I believe Gates has actually done), what would their deaths really change for you and I?
That might be true for people who inherited all of their wealth, but if that's what you're trying to say, you picked some piss poor examples, because all three of them weren't born anywhere near as wealthy as they are now and took some considerable risks in order to get there, and they all created literally tens, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process, most of them rather well paid (though we can certainly argue about Amazon).
Just to be perfectly clear, I'm by no means saying that things are okay the way they are, and that all we have to do is let rich people continue to do whatever they want. All I'm saying is that things aren't as simple as we want them to be and the easy solution is rarely the correct one.
They provide no value and pay almost no taxes. Without them hoarding their money, it would get circulated.
All billionaires are money hoarders. They have more money than they can possibly spend in a single lifetime. And if you think their charities are truly benevolent, you should look into them a little deeper.
Please, though, name a multibillionaire who is essential. Who the world will not be as good if they won't be around. Just one. One billionaire that provides value to more than shareholders.
This isn't about whether or not billionaires are essential, but whether getting rid of them would substantially change anything.
Assume, for instance, that we make owning (or earning) more than a billion dollars (per year) illegal by putting a 100% tax on every dollar afterwards. Then billionaires would simply move most of their assets abroad or find some other loophole that lets them avoid this, like setting up a bunch of smaller companies that each have $999 million. Unless the whole world follows suit, it won't change anything, and that's not going to happen because any country that's willing to give them a safe haven would make a killing by doing so.
Also, if this DID happen, what makes you think they'd continue to work trying to make more money and not just spend more time playing golf instead? Whatever revenue you'd expect in taxes would simply not occur because once there's no more incentive to earn more, there's no more incentive to produce. Ironically, it would probably lead to far more quasi-billionaires because other multi-millionaires would likely pick up the slack where the big guys throw the towel, but I don't see how regular people would benefit.
But perhaps you can explain what you have in mind?
Sounds like you're saying Billionaires don't contribute anything and their money would be better used in other ways by getting rid of them and redistributing it.
Agreed. Eat the rich.
Okay, honestly, would you eat a Bill Gates or Elon Musk? They don't look particularly tasty to me. Bezos maybe, he seems to be in good shape (although likely chock full of steroids), but the vast majority of them are frumpy old dudes or dudettes who probably taste like leather. I don't think that eating them would be particularly enjoyable.
"Eat the rich" doesn't mean it literally.
Yes, I know, but what do you expect me to say when you don't respond to any of my other arguments?