this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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Na, humans are just really good at making other living beings suffer, no matter the system. Communism is certainly not a pleasant system to imagine, however it is not inherently worse or better than others that we know.
What, genuinely, is unpleasant to imagine about a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society? I've only ever heard people say that Communism sounds great in theory but for some reason or another can't work in practice, or support for both. I've never once heard that Communism itself is unpleasant in theory.
Yeah in theory it sounds pretty darn great
Not just great, but eventually necessary. Capitalism can't outlast automation, increasingly automated production will eventually result in mass job loss and stagnation unless directed by society as a whole. It's important to ensure this transition goes well and we learn from transitions of the past to not repeat their mistakes.
Basically we're looking at the choice between Star Trek and Mad Max.
Pretty much, though Star Trek may look wildly different. There are many "good" outcomes, but none of them will be a continuation of Capitalism.
So which is capitalism? The world of Star Trek contains technology that has brought humanity (and other species) to a state of extreme abundance. They generate food from energy and they have almost infinite energy. The situation is so much better than the real world that probably any system would work just fine. One of the biggest reasons why we need to have economic systems is scarcity.
I thought it was obvious I meant Mad Max as the current future.
Looking at current and previous implementations of communism, it's not at all clear. They resemble Mad Max more than Star Trek.
That's what they thought of factorization as well, but it outlasted it just fine. Same thing will happen with more advanced forms of automation, but there will be growing pains certainly.
Capitalism is undeniably declining, though. Production is through the roof, but wages have stagnated with respect to that. Factorization in the sense of industrialization was never seen to go against Capitalism, rather, with the rise of factories came the rise in Capitalism.
Unless I'm misunderstanding your point, of course.
Additionally, the fact that one prediction was wrong does not necessitate that all predictions are wrong.
The amount of people living in extreme poverty was 94% in 1820. In 1981, it was 44.3%. In 2015, 9.6%. This effect is entirely due to Capitalism. Perhaps wages in the West have stagnated because people in other countries deserve those better wages more? Just a hunch, no data to back that one up, except these statistics.
This incredible success in saving people from horrible conditions might not continue, but the recent history has been pretty great.
Development did, not Capitalism. The countries that developed the most in the 1900s were the ones rejecting Capitalism in favor of some form of Socialism.
Do you think that people get richer when a group of people decide they have no rights of ownership and one person owns everything, or do you acknowledge that democracy and decentralization are good?
False dichotomy. Those are obviously not the actual two options.
They are.
To argue for Capitalism over Socialism, you must reject the idea of democratizing control of productuon in favor of dictatorial control. You can whitewash it into "meritocracy," and pretend that ownership is a mystical concept that chooses those with the highest competency, but ultimately Capitalism is a rejection of Worker Control, and thus an affirmation of control in the hands of the few.
Similarly, to believe that this dictatorial control is worth it, you typically must also believe that growth is either non-existant if the Workers direct it, or pales in comparison to when Capitalists control production.
Therefore, you are rejecting the concepts of decentralization and democratization of production in favor of the "good men" theory, putting all your chips on Capitalists either being good people or being replaced by better Capitalists without input from the Workers.
Did I deliberately highlight the flaws of your thinking without putting the kid gloves on? Yes, and I won't apologize for it, as the claims are logically a necessity to hold your beliefs.
There are socialist laws that govern and assist the poor everywhere in the world, so I would attribute the claim that "fewer people living in poverty" to socialism rather than capitalism; aside from that, those figures entirely depend on how poverty is defined.
That attempts to implement it invariably lead to shit, apparently.
Do you know what most of the Communist countries that "invariably went to shit" had in common? One of the most powerful, red fearing countries in the world fucking with them relentlessly, despite the "fact" that "they would have failed if left to their own devices"
Yeah, that's not a valid argument. Red fearing countries shouldn't have been a problem if the ideology actually had been a good one. Communists were trying to spread the ideology just as much as others were trying to stop it.
The whole idea just sucks donkey balls and you're having a weird nostalgia moment by proxy if you want to rewind the world back to it.
So when you see a group of kids building a sand castle together on the beach it's ok to just walk over and kick it over right?
That analogue is so off the mark that I don't what you're trying to say. Are you implying that communist countries were building their societies with absolute peace and non-communists started all the trouble?
Not in every case but you're the one painting with a broad brush not me.
Not everywhere, Yugoslavia is a good example of things being implemented the right way. There is always room for improvement of course, things were far from perfect... and perfect is just such a strong word, the idea is not to be perfect, to always improve it.
Didn't that thing end pretty badly?
Yes, there was a war, but there were a lot of factors that contributed to that, including the US medling in internal affairs. In general, up until the death of Tito, everything was pretty much OK. The turmoils began after his death.
That's a bad example, because at that point Yugoslavia couldn't have existed without Tito – he was an extremely authoritarian figure that cracked down on any sort of controversial thought hard. Having an intelligent dictator as the unifying force isn't a particularly good strategy, and Yugoslavia was bound to fail without an authority forcing it to stay together. There were many human rights violations done to keep the peace and equality in the nation.
Yugoslavia also wasn't exactly as "communist" as other communist countries, they allowed private ownership of property and business and relied a lot on surrounding capitalist countries to have a decent standard of living and economy.
You obviously never lived in Yugoslavia. I have. It was nothing like that. Western media presented him like every other dictator there is out there, which couldn't be further from the truth. Benevolent dictator, yes, that one he might have been, but an iron fisted one that went after everyone that so much as whispered something he didn't like? No, that's just not true.
That might be true to an extent. Slovenia and Croatia didn't like the federation, especially Sloveina... and yes, they were kinda forced into the federation after WWII. I would agree that Slovenia might have been better off if she was allowed to leave the federation. She should never have been a part of the federation anyway.
Croatia had a different problem. They wanted to be in the federation, but wanted to lead it. Tito had to balance. He was Croatian, so he had to put the capital in Serbia and pick most of the leading figures from the Serbs.
You have to understand, these regions were always riddled with nationalst wars. This was a chance for everyone to live peacefully, compromises had to be made. And we did live peacefully... up to a point.
Yes, Yugoslavia was socialist, and that was also up to an extent (as mentioned, private ownership and other things).
Though, the idea was to be completely autonomous. The relying on capitalist countries part was supposed to be a temporary solution. And things were heading in the right direction (more or less... not saying things couldn't have been done better), but tides shifted when Tito died and everything started falling appart. I could elaborate in more detail if you'd like, but I feel like it's enough for this comment.
That's not the theory, though. The initial claim was that it's unpleasant to think about. Regardless of your claim that it "invariably leads to shit," that doesn't answer the initial question.
If the claim should truly have been that existing attempts at Communism are unpleasant to think about, rather than "Communism itself is unpleasant to think about," then it's just an issue with wording.
I think it's fair that what happens in real world affects how one thinks about a political theory.
So then it's a wording issue, though it's more accurate to say that revolution itself invariably turns to shit.
You don't live in theory so it doesn't matter if communism isn't unpleasant in theory.
Theory is a plan for reality. If you can prove that tools have a mystical property that causes people to turn evil if they share them, be my guest. You can't actually tie that absurd claim to reality though, so you won't.
Personally, I love the idea of decentralization, collaboration, and democratization, which is why I love FOSS and am on Lemmy rather than Reddit.