Capitalism is the root of evil : memes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

uhh, anarchism clears lol

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Sad to say, but humans are the root of evil. Atrocities have been done in the name of all sorts of things, but it's always humans carrying it out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

So maybe we should switch to systems that represent everyone equally, with equal and fair democratic representation, so that when evil inevitably arises it can be squashed.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Someone once said 'A person is often smart, but the people are stupid'

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[+] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (24 children)

It’s not really about defending the bad stuff. It’s about trying to get some more nuance on perhaps the most propagandized topic of the 20th century.

There are all sorts of interesting discussions to have about the various failings of these countries amongst other leftists who have the relevant context as a starting point for a reasonable discussion.

But when talking to libs/conservatives, they’re coming into the conversation with an already extremely warped, un-nuanced perspective. “These are all evil dictatorships that were also super incompetent and that shows why communism is bad.”

Some of the stuff they base this on is either exaggerated or just straight up wrong. Some of it is completely valid criticism, but without the context to understand the issue or provide a useful critique.

How do you have any meaningful conversation about these countries without acknowledging things like:

All of these countries were previously agrarian, un-democratic societies.
Most of them were formerly exploited colonies who had to fight fairly brutal wars for their independence.
Even after leaving, the imperialists kept messing with them through economic and diplomatic isolation and espionage including supporting right wing coups.

We don’t have the counterfactual where we see what these countries would have turned out like without these challenges, but it’s an incomplete analysis to not at least consider the ways which they impacted both their economic success and their political developments. Maybe you could argue there were better ways to respond to all of this, but hindsight is 20-20.

No actual leftists want to have to argue “authoritarianism was good actually.” But it’s hard for the conversation not to appear that way when we’re arguing with people who’ve been conditioned to think they’re somehow as bad or worse than Nazis and ending the thought there.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Great comment! You hit the nail on the head, proper conversation requires a factual starting point, and just conceding to conservatives and other anticommunists off the bat just so they are less hostile to you just hands them free rhetorical wins on that very basis.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I'm not dancing around anything, if you want to discuss, then please, do so.

The DPRK is far from a paradise, but at the same time, much of its issues are externally driven.

Xi is not president for life. Term limits are removed, but he can also be removed. He's overwhelmingly popular among the party and people.

For your last point, I recommend you read Marketing Socialism. I defend what is misrepresented or demonized unjustly, because these are problems every Socialist project recieves, to varying degrees.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Authoritarianism and imperialism, concentration of power are the root cause, money is just a symbol of power, under stalinist russia this nefarious corrupting power had another symbol, shape but this society was just as helpless toward this tendency of power, you can see the end point of passive demobilisation and assassination of the few how dare oppose it today in Russia.

I think there needs to be constant pressure of deterritoroalisation, of putting decision and responsibility in the hands of the people, always at the smallest scale that it can be realistically pushed down.

And that's not the individual if that's not an individual matter. The level at which decisionnal responsibility is dependant on the context of tgat decision rather than agglomerated bodies of decision when power naturallies tries to concentrate.

It should always be easy for lower echelons of power and locality to repatriate a delegated aspect of their life.

(Then I stuffed this line of thinking into chatgpt to take it further)

https://chatgpt.com/share/6803f4ba-eebc-8005-919f-3b896dce2e0f

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

I don't think you've actually backed up your thesis, just asserted it. There's no evidence to the notion that "power corrupts," there's evidence that systems like Capitalism reward corruption.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

I think the concept of positive/negative externalities could serve as a north star in deciding the all important question of the appropriate scalevat which a discussion is taken.

While I think we shoild try to empower and give autonomy to the local they always are within a larger community of externalities. The local should also no to inform and defer to a higher scale when their decision is "larger then them".

The local is not thought as isolated or unaccountable, but it is given preference as a scale. We want the local to choose how to live in harmony with the whole and their neighbours.

All this is well but it would be really easy to fall back into the grooves of individualist isolationnist and collectivist absolutist.

I don't think the ideal exist at the middle of these extremes but rather toward tge lower scale without bottoming out

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

"Far from paradise" seems pretty generous for what i perceive as a dystopian nightmare state. they are cut off from outside information. there is retribution on families if ppl try to leave. also, you can't leave. this is insanity. outside forces don't make them behave that way.

Xi: whether that popularity is real or not is a question, though, when he can push for the suppression of dissent or critique in the social sphere. one CAN'T challenge him. that doesn't seem legitimately representative.

i'm looking over your reading list. we can add that to the list. but there's a reason i block hexbear and lemmygrad but not .ml. tankies fucking suck and i Socialism will never be taken seriously as long as it's important to ppl to defend fucking Stalin.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

See, the problem is that you're generally wrong, factually, which is why you have such knee-jerk reactions to people saying that maybe AES states aren't hellholes, actually. As an example, it's mostly western sanctions that limit freedom of movement from DPRK residents, and the myths about collective family punishment are largely unsubstantiated. Repeating Red Scare myths uncritically is a huge problem.

People can challenge Xi, what they cannot do is use large private media apparatus to push anti-government propaganda.

Regarding your last point, you're generally wrong. Socialism is increasing in popularity globally, including Marxism-Leninism. Funny enough, Nia Frome, the author of "Marketing Socialism," has another quick article called "Tankies" that would be perfect for you to read, IMO.

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[+] [email protected] -10 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

I don’t get why every Reddit alternative needs to be filled with these weird political ideas. Communism, Fascism and every other form of extremism only leads to misery.

I’m sure capitalism is flawed, but you can make it work better. Any of the Nordic countries works as a great example. And no they aren’t perfect but nothing ever will be.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

For your first question, Lemmy is developed by Communists, and is an answer to the Capitalist failings of Reddit. Simple as that.

For the Capitalism bit, you're waving away the fact thay the Nordic countries are Imperialist. They shift all of the suffering and worst exploitation to the Global South. At the same time, worker's rights and safety nets are being eroded, because Capital controls the state, not the people.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Please explain the way in which the Nordic countries are imperialist and exploitative and which country you personally look for moral guidance? And if there is none what makes you think we are capable of building a system that wouldn’t be exploitative by your grandiose unrealistic standards? Workers rights and safety nets are far beyond any other country in the world and in fact they’ve essentially never been better. The only change is that populists like you have given up on building and improving the system which in fact does require everyone to commit to improving society together, not just whining in a basement about some socialist utopia that is never going to happen.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Communism is no more extreme than capitalism. They just stand in opposition of one another. The red scare is back I guess.

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