I wonder if this meme still applies to those who have fled communist countries?
Its kind of ironic that Lemmy was created to take away centralized power, but the same people want to create a communistic society which will…centralize the power?
The Nords found it because they keep their capitalism restrained as it should be to serve the interests of the people in their societies instead of the reverse as it has become here.
The problem, of course, is the market crony hyper-capitalists that spawned mostly out of the US are using their power/capital to do what they did here everywhere else in it’s insatiable quest for growth/metastasis. The UK has already fallen to the faustian bargain of “YOU can live large, just sell out your fellow citizens.” Germany is getting on board, France’s people are fighting but losing. Unrestrained capitalism high on its own greed is absolutely cancerous and deadly.
Capitalism CAN when tightly, tightly straight jacketed, be used to incentivize labor as communism cannot, but it must be tempered by the heaviest of taxation for the commons. Being a doctor or a lawyer should yield better rewards than a janitor, but within fucking reason/sanity.
Should a Doctor be able to afford a bigger house and a nicer car than an average worker for their effort? Sure. Should they be able to afford 3 houses to the janitor’s studio apartment in a bad neighborhood? No, both provide essential services to society after all.
There needs to be a drain for out of control capital acquisition or that capital will eventually be used to propagate greed and capture the regulatory bodies meant to keep the sociopath that is capitalism sedated and restrained. No individual should possess enough capital to have more power over socetal structures than their single vote allows.
In exchange for not allowing greed to run absolutely rampant as it does here, they go to college based on merit, get healthcare when they need it, don’t end up homeless in hard times, don’t sweat job security, on and on…
At least until the global markets find enough greed driven traitors in those societies to “turn the bull loose” there too. Because once they get a foothold, that’s the ball game until collapse. Once that happens, they start using their for profit media machines to propagandize division within the citizenry, ensuring no meaningful counter movement, they use their power over government to indoctrinate children through education to call greed “rational self-interest,” deify profiteers as “job creators,” to feel hatred rather than empathy towards those that are struggling(herp derp those evil powerless homeless people are lowering my property values! If they can’t/won’t work, why won’t they just die?), etc. That’s why the US will need to collapse under the weight of its own corruption before things can even begin to improve. We’re too far captured.
Because there isn’t a global regulatory body to handle workplace relations. Norway, Sweden and Denmark cannot exactly tell developing countries how they should treat their workers; no more than the US could tell Swedish unions to shut up and submit to Tesla’s low pay demands.
We could have a global regulatory body… oh wait… most people around the world don’t want that because “'muh sovereignty.”
Oh wow, India and South Korea are still to this day under somehow subservient of Western imperialism, despite their own government implementing neoliberal policies after the Cold War! Somehow BJP, the ruling right wing party of India that deregulated the country, is a CIA stooge despite rebuffing sanctions on Russia. Gee, I wonder why? Thank you for your most enlightening, educated take! I am now so woke and class conscious like yourself!
Dude, this isn’t the 20th century. Your communist utopia did not work and will never work, old fart. Countries have their own agency. Have you met people in Asia and Africa and asked them if they will want communism? Just like you never asked any former gulag members, yes? Take your meds called… reality…old wanker.
You do realize that the US has control of South Korea’s military during time of war, correct? It’s an explicit part of their structure. South Korea quite literally does not have complete agency, despite what you’re saying.
Amazingly well put. Capitalism is necessary. Unrestrained capitalism is deadly. The unfortunate reality of capitalism is that even as it is in the process of burning everything to the ground, it looks for all the world like glorious success. And it is glorious success, if you don’t compare it to what could be in a system where it was properly restrained.
Capitalism is in no way necessary. It’s a poison, a cancer, a virus which at all given times threatens to destroy the fabric of society, all for the next quarter’s profit.
Capitalism isn’t necessary; a new economic system that takes some aspects of capitalism is necessary. If you have to strip capitalism of all of its core features to make it work, you’re no longer dealing with capitalism but rather a different economic model.
I agree. People who say, “nuhuh, capitalism works!” are 99% of the time thinking of the basic concept of markets or money. Which … Very specifically, are NOT capitalism.
They are used (and abused) by capitalists, but they are not inventions of capitalists.
So what’s the difference between capitalism and markets? I would have thought the freer the market the more capitalistic it was, not so much that there’s a separation of the two.
In their pure forms, I see capitalism and communism as extremes specifically with regards to human nature.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow, but capitalism gluts and force feeds our worst impulses exclusively, selfishness, unhealthy competition, jealousy, schadenfreude, sociopathy, self-delusion, narcissism, dehumanization, on and on, which is why I see it as the greater evil of the 2 in a vacuum.
A successful communist society would be very difficult to grow, but maybe that would be a good thing on a planet of finite resources that can take finite finite pollution. That’s why the answer lies somewhere in democratic socialism, imho.
That’s all academic though. The rigged market hyper-capitalists own this fucking place and have an iron grip on it. Plus communism would have kept the population low, as it should have been. It wouldn’t be able to accommodate the needs of our ridiculously massive human population as it is. That ship has sailed unless we want billions to starve to right it and live within sustainable means in this finite habitat.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow
Nothing about communism forces human impulses to be ignored, unless you mean the impulses we already suppress as sentient beings, such as fucking everything that moves or eating until we literally die.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
Equality of economic outcome regardless of effort goes against that, which is probably necessary on a planet of finite resources and the scale of our waste, but it does go against that large aspect of our nature.
For the record, I’m probably closer to you ideologically than you think. I think unfettered capitalism does more damage to humanity and the planet than communism ever could, but if you think communism lacks any drawbacks and is perfect, you are mistaken.
There is no such thing as perfection, especially any construct made by mankind. That’s coming from someone who is all for going Old School French on Wall Street and socializing entire economic sectors for the good of the citizenry.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
All of which can be achieved in a communist system, only instead of “look at my huge paycheck”, it’d be “look at all these skills I’ve acquired thanks to free public education and more free time”. People would stop mindlessly showing off innane manufactured waste and start actually acquire useful knowledge.
Sorry, but you’re highly wrong about your misconceptions of Communism. Communism in no way starves human impulses to succeed or grow any more than Capitalist success does. Communism eliminates the profit motive, yes, but that is historically a highly flawed motive in general.
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism are not fairy-tale Utopias where everyone magically gets a pony, people still work to produce goods and services. However, this production is democratized, in opposition to anti-democratic privatized systems.
While Communism is a centralisation of power, it is also decentralisating the decision of what the power does.
Ideally, Communism is like a democratic monopoly. However, in reality, communism has been abused to create a non-democratic monopoly. This is unfortunately very much like what capitalstic non-democratic monopolies do too - albeit more slowly.
Lemmy, like other fediverse projects, is not challenging the democratic or non-democratic part of it. It’s challenging the monopoly part.
If we spread out the functional part of systems, nobody will be able to create a monopoly of power, neither through communism, capitalism nor democracy. This is because the power is not centralised at all.
It’s not anarchy or chaos though, because each party is capable of embracing or rejecting any other parties, based on their own choice of government.
People who run fediverse servers can choose by votes or not which other parties to include or not.
Some servers are democratic, others are not. Some might be communist, others might be fascists, but they’re not a meaningful power without users, so it’ll inevitably be up to the users to decide.
Communism is, at first, Socialism. You’re confusing Communism with Monarchism, or Oligarchy, when in reality Communism and Socialism are primarily about democratization and decentralization.
Compare 2 factories.
Factory 1 is Capitalist. It is owned by a businessman, and he employs workers to use said factory to produce commodities for sale on the market. The largest forms of voice the Workers have is Unionization, or, failing that, working somewhere else, if available.
Factory 2 is Socialist. The Workers are the Owners, and as such elect a manager to represent them in worker councils.
Looking at the 2 structures, Socialism is more democratic, and more decentralized, in theory. We must take this theory and see why or why not historical examples have measured up to this, from a practical, Materialist perspective. Tools aren’t mystical, they don’t corrupt the minds of those who share ownership of them.
It’s easy to see why Lemmy, a platform based on decentralization and a rejection of the Profit Motive, has far more leftists.
The Soviet Union was anti-trade union, and pro-Soviet, ie worker councils. The Soviet Union had numerous problems, especially with beaurocracy, but fundamentally it was a Worker state, owned and run by the Soviets, and thus can be considered Socialist (regardless of my personal issues with it).
There are several attempts at replicating some form of Worker Democracy in Capitalist countries, but ultimately short of ownership none of this functionally makes a massive difference. Definitely a step in the right direction, but without worker ownership it is more to appease workers and uphold Capitalism, than actually giving workers control.
Don’t misunderstand this comment to say that codetermination is bad, it’s good, just not as good as it could be.
I think the germans working under codetermination have it a bit better than any soviet ever did under their workers’ unions. the missing ingredient being a democratic representative government in place of an authoritarian single party system.
The Germans working under codetermination also have it far better than Germans under the Kaiser. Comparing a 21st century first world developed nation with a 20th century developing country sure is a win, I guess?
Secondly, although the beurocracy was incredibly corrupt, the Soviet Democracy by which local Soviets reported to higher Soviets that reported to higher Soviets was fundamentally democratic, even if flawed.
I don’t really think you’ve said much of anything. The Soviet form of Democracy was indeed flawed, but it was still Democratic, and I think it’s obvious to anyone that living in a modern developed country would be better than living in a developing country from last century.
I’m comparing political systems, not nations. If we’re talking about the WW1 era, then I’d say the soviets still had it worse as they went through a war, invasion, then a civil war, and famine and consequent brutal dictatorship. But the germans made it out quite well off, given they basically started the war with their unequal treaties and rapid militarization. Despite this, the treaty of Versailles was relatively lenient compared to what happened Austria-hungry.
It was not democratic. It was a single party system in which the party selected a candidate, (after some research I learned this part is false), and the populace was forced to vote for said candidate under threat of imprisonment.
If the people wanted to oust a candidate they didn’t like, they’d have to coordinate with everyone in secret to cooperatively abstain from voting for the candidate so he would lose his job and the party would select a new candidate.
Political systems don’t determine quality of life nearly as much as development.
Your second point isn’t correct, anyone could be voted on. They couldn’t vote on the next level, only their representative could. I’m not sure where you get this new idea from.
If you’re talking about the Politburo, yes, and that’s part of my problem with it. But, at the local level, you voted on whoever you wanted, then your rep votes on who they want, and so forth. There were lots of shady deals that solidified power higher up, yes, but the process was Democratic in nature, even if highly flawed.
I think political systems affect development, although geography plays a big role in that as well. How a country uses its available resources is predominantly determined by its economic and political system.
They gave you a ballet with only a party member candidate on it which you’d simply drop in the ballet box in front of everyone, and if you wanted to vote for an independent, you had to go behind a curtain and write it in.
“However, in practice, before 1989, voters could vote against candidates preselected by the Communist Party only by spoiling their ballots, whereas votes for the party candidates could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot.”
Well yes and no. There are communist systems that centralize power (mostly to establish a system without it) but there are a lot of different ways to do it other than that. Anarcho Communism for example is the complete opposit which does not want to go the authoritarian way even short term. Because well that did not quite work out. Authoritarian states still are authoritarian states. And i myself dont like/want those ^^
Not in my opinion. I dont think forcing yourself upon others and establishing totalitarian states is a success.
If you mean working as becoming the main party then sure but i think working is establishing its principles.
And there are anarchistic projects that worked quite well im that sense. They never lastet but they did often change a lot.
For example the spanish civil war, the paris kommune. Those are the biggest ones. But anarchistic principles were always important. Many “primitive” cultures were egalitarian ones, which they did a lot to keep it that way.
If you get past the first paragraph, suddenly there’s really no praising and they talk about how bad health care is in Cuba and how many try to defect as they are forced into horrible conditions.
From that article:
“He said, “We were placed in slums with a high level of violence, under constant monitoring by the Bolivarian brigades [political police], who are supposed to offer protection but also report any suspicious activities and assure that we carry out our `revolutionary’ duty, indoctrinating our patients to vote for Chávez. If we refuse to do so we are sent back to Cuba.””
It also says that they’re suffering from medical supply shortage due to US trade embargoes; and this is from a US government (capitalist) health board sonof course it’s unflattering. Now google “cuban doctors Nobel Peace prize”.
I wouldn’t doubt if a percentage were. But is Cuba keeping itself isolated to where people have to defect despite no active war or combat? The US has probably closer to a million doctors from outside the US. The US relies on immigration to survive with slowing population growth and an aging population.
It’s very misleading to say that “Cuba is keeping itself isolated”. Each year the UN votes to end the embargo/isolation imposed on Cuba by the US, with the vast majority of countries voting in favour of ending the blockade each time.
In the latest vote, in November, only Israel and USA voted against ending the blockade. Ukraine abstained. 187 member states voted in favour of ending the blockade
The US sees anything that could shake their narrative of the world as a threat, even when that ‘threat’ is unfounded, and they massively abuse their economic and military power around the globe to keep others in line.
Some real death of the author type shit. I said only number 4 and I agree with your positions. I’m sure you know that questions aren’t statements.
I am disagreeing with them about Cuban doctors. I think the Cuban embargo is an atrocity and a disgrace and that the US (as an American) has many doctors from different nations so why does the small number of Cuban doctors matter.
Again, the only implication you listened that’s true is number 4 and that’s because it’s not an implication, I actually said that.
I wonder if this meme still applies to those who have fled communist countries?
Its kind of ironic that Lemmy was created to take away centralized power, but the same people want to create a communistic society which will…centralize the power?
It doesn’t matter whether communism is good or bad, capitalism is still terrible.
That’s a fair criticism, we do need to find a better way
The Nords found it because they keep their capitalism restrained as it should be to serve the interests of the people in their societies instead of the reverse as it has become here.
The problem, of course, is the market crony hyper-capitalists that spawned mostly out of the US are using their power/capital to do what they did here everywhere else in it’s insatiable quest for growth/metastasis. The UK has already fallen to the faustian bargain of “YOU can live large, just sell out your fellow citizens.” Germany is getting on board, France’s people are fighting but losing. Unrestrained capitalism high on its own greed is absolutely cancerous and deadly.
Capitalism CAN when tightly, tightly straight jacketed, be used to incentivize labor as communism cannot, but it must be tempered by the heaviest of taxation for the commons. Being a doctor or a lawyer should yield better rewards than a janitor, but within fucking reason/sanity.
Should a Doctor be able to afford a bigger house and a nicer car than an average worker for their effort? Sure. Should they be able to afford 3 houses to the janitor’s studio apartment in a bad neighborhood? No, both provide essential services to society after all.
There needs to be a drain for out of control capital acquisition or that capital will eventually be used to propagate greed and capture the regulatory bodies meant to keep the sociopath that is capitalism sedated and restrained. No individual should possess enough capital to have more power over socetal structures than their single vote allows.
In exchange for not allowing greed to run absolutely rampant as it does here, they go to college based on merit, get healthcare when they need it, don’t end up homeless in hard times, don’t sweat job security, on and on…
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/
At least until the global markets find enough greed driven traitors in those societies to “turn the bull loose” there too. Because once they get a foothold, that’s the ball game until collapse. Once that happens, they start using their for profit media machines to propagandize division within the citizenry, ensuring no meaningful counter movement, they use their power over government to indoctrinate children through education to call greed “rational self-interest,” deify profiteers as “job creators,” to feel hatred rather than empathy towards those that are struggling(herp derp those evil powerless homeless people are lowering my property values! If they can’t/won’t work, why won’t they just die?), etc. That’s why the US will need to collapse under the weight of its own corruption before things can even begin to improve. We’re too far captured.
The whole Nordic system is built on brutal exploitation of the global majority. They simply outsource the worst horrors of capitalism where their people don’t have to look at them. Here’s the reality of enlightened capitalism https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us
Because there isn’t a global regulatory body to handle workplace relations. Norway, Sweden and Denmark cannot exactly tell developing countries how they should treat their workers; no more than the US could tell Swedish unions to shut up and submit to Tesla’s low pay demands.
We could have a global regulatory body… oh wait… most people around the world don’t want that because “'muh sovereignty.”
The actual reason is that the west colonized these countries in the most brutal fashion, murdered millions of people who opposed western imperialism, then put in despotic regimes in place that serve western interests. You’re evidently utterly ignorant of how the world actually works. Here’s a book you should read that explains the reality of things https://ia800309.us.archive.org/26/items/fp_Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum/Killing_Hope-US_Military_and_CIA_Interventions_Since_WWII-William_Blum.pdf
Oh wow, India and South Korea are still to this day under somehow subservient of Western imperialism, despite their own government implementing neoliberal policies after the Cold War! Somehow BJP, the ruling right wing party of India that deregulated the country, is a CIA stooge despite rebuffing sanctions on Russia. Gee, I wonder why? Thank you for your most enlightening, educated take! I am now so woke and class conscious like yourself!
Dude, this isn’t the 20th century. Your communist utopia did not work and will never work, old fart. Countries have their own agency. Have you met people in Asia and Africa and asked them if they will want communism? Just like you never asked any former gulag members, yes? Take your meds called… reality…old wanker.
You do realize that the US has control of South Korea’s military during time of war, correct? It’s an explicit part of their structure. South Korea quite literally does not have complete agency, despite what you’re saying.
South Korea is literally occupied by the US right now. 🤡
Amazingly well put. Capitalism is necessary. Unrestrained capitalism is deadly. The unfortunate reality of capitalism is that even as it is in the process of burning everything to the ground, it looks for all the world like glorious success. And it is glorious success, if you don’t compare it to what could be in a system where it was properly restrained.
Capitalism is in no way necessary. It’s a poison, a cancer, a virus which at all given times threatens to destroy the fabric of society, all for the next quarter’s profit.
Capitalism isn’t necessary; a new economic system that takes some aspects of capitalism is necessary. If you have to strip capitalism of all of its core features to make it work, you’re no longer dealing with capitalism but rather a different economic model.
I agree. People who say, “nuhuh, capitalism works!” are 99% of the time thinking of the basic concept of markets or money. Which … Very specifically, are NOT capitalism.
They are used (and abused) by capitalists, but they are not inventions of capitalists.
Reason 1 that I’m happy to ditch reddit for Lemmy completely is watching these ideas explained by other people, every day.
Not having to explain the difference between capitalism and commerce feels 😩🔥
So what’s the difference between capitalism and markets? I would have thought the freer the market the more capitalistic it was, not so much that there’s a separation of the two.
Ownership of Capital. Capitalism has markets, but not all market systems are Capitalist.
Market Socialism, for example, has competing worker-owned entities like Co-operatives in a market system, with no Capitalists.
Capitalism is a relatively new phenomena in the grand scheme of things.
Thank you!
In their pure forms, I see capitalism and communism as extremes specifically with regards to human nature.
Communism starves our human impulses to succeed and grow, but capitalism gluts and force feeds our worst impulses exclusively, selfishness, unhealthy competition, jealousy, schadenfreude, sociopathy, self-delusion, narcissism, dehumanization, on and on, which is why I see it as the greater evil of the 2 in a vacuum.
A successful communist society would be very difficult to grow, but maybe that would be a good thing on a planet of finite resources that can take finite finite pollution. That’s why the answer lies somewhere in democratic socialism, imho.
That’s all academic though. The rigged market hyper-capitalists own this fucking place and have an iron grip on it. Plus communism would have kept the population low, as it should have been. It wouldn’t be able to accommodate the needs of our ridiculously massive human population as it is. That ship has sailed unless we want billions to starve to right it and live within sustainable means in this finite habitat.
Nothing about communism forces human impulses to be ignored, unless you mean the impulses we already suppress as sentient beings, such as fucking everything that moves or eating until we literally die.
We are socially competitive animals, just as you can observe in other evolutionarily programmed creatures. We compare ourselves to others, we want to impress mates, etc.
Equality of economic outcome regardless of effort goes against that, which is probably necessary on a planet of finite resources and the scale of our waste, but it does go against that large aspect of our nature.
For the record, I’m probably closer to you ideologically than you think. I think unfettered capitalism does more damage to humanity and the planet than communism ever could, but if you think communism lacks any drawbacks and is perfect, you are mistaken.
There is no such thing as perfection, especially any construct made by mankind. That’s coming from someone who is all for going Old School French on Wall Street and socializing entire economic sectors for the good of the citizenry.
All of which can be achieved in a communist system, only instead of “look at my huge paycheck”, it’d be “look at all these skills I’ve acquired thanks to free public education and more free time”. People would stop mindlessly showing off innane manufactured waste and start actually acquire useful knowledge.
Sorry, but you’re highly wrong about your misconceptions of Communism. Communism in no way starves human impulses to succeed or grow any more than Capitalist success does. Communism eliminates the profit motive, yes, but that is historically a highly flawed motive in general.
Socialism/Communism/Anarchism are not fairy-tale Utopias where everyone magically gets a pony, people still work to produce goods and services. However, this production is democratized, in opposition to anti-democratic privatized systems.
This made up thing you call communism sounds really terrible.
Have you ever actually read any communist theory that was not written by anti communists?
99.9% of the problems caused by capitalism happen because we allow the bribery of government officials and legislators.
Make that a death penalty felony and then we can start fixing problems. Elect me President and I will use an iron fist to do this.
I can’t tell if this is ironic sarcasm, it is right.
I got bad news for you but Republican shock therapy seems to be outpacing Democrat incrementalism by about a hundred to one.
What do you mean “we allow” bribery of government officials. Mate, we aren’t the one who make that decision, not under capitalism.
We don’t have the power to make that a death penalty felony.
Hence the iron fist.
Yeah, but how are you going to get that iron fist?
It’ll take some work given that most Democrats and even some leftists are pussies
Sounds like you may need some kind of vanguard
You can be some kind of dictator, but for the proletariat!
Exactly.
I think having a human have that much power is not a good idea. Therefore we should give that power to an AI.
https://youtu.be/KO6KHQPGju4?si=ac-Pgr8hQDMnMGXi
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/KO6KHQPGju4?si=ac-Pgr8hQDMnMGXi
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
No. That’s a wrong take.
While Communism is a centralisation of power, it is also decentralisating the decision of what the power does.
Ideally, Communism is like a democratic monopoly. However, in reality, communism has been abused to create a non-democratic monopoly. This is unfortunately very much like what capitalstic non-democratic monopolies do too - albeit more slowly.
Lemmy, like other fediverse projects, is not challenging the democratic or non-democratic part of it. It’s challenging the monopoly part.
If we spread out the functional part of systems, nobody will be able to create a monopoly of power, neither through communism, capitalism nor democracy. This is because the power is not centralised at all.
It’s not anarchy or chaos though, because each party is capable of embracing or rejecting any other parties, based on their own choice of government. People who run fediverse servers can choose by votes or not which other parties to include or not. Some servers are democratic, others are not. Some might be communist, others might be fascists, but they’re not a meaningful power without users, so it’ll inevitably be up to the users to decide.
Hey you may want to learn a thing or two about communism, because you seem very ignorant about it.
Communism is, at first, Socialism. You’re confusing Communism with Monarchism, or Oligarchy, when in reality Communism and Socialism are primarily about democratization and decentralization.
Compare 2 factories.
Factory 1 is Capitalist. It is owned by a businessman, and he employs workers to use said factory to produce commodities for sale on the market. The largest forms of voice the Workers have is Unionization, or, failing that, working somewhere else, if available.
Factory 2 is Socialist. The Workers are the Owners, and as such elect a manager to represent them in worker councils.
Looking at the 2 structures, Socialism is more democratic, and more decentralized, in theory. We must take this theory and see why or why not historical examples have measured up to this, from a practical, Materialist perspective. Tools aren’t mystical, they don’t corrupt the minds of those who share ownership of them.
It’s easy to see why Lemmy, a platform based on decentralization and a rejection of the Profit Motive, has far more leftists.
Workers as the owners?
Apparently, not so in the soviet union: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_unions_in_the_Soviet_Union
But there is a similar (but not identical) concept currently being implemented in Germany. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany
The Soviet Union was anti-trade union, and pro-Soviet, ie worker councils. The Soviet Union had numerous problems, especially with beaurocracy, but fundamentally it was a Worker state, owned and run by the Soviets, and thus can be considered Socialist (regardless of my personal issues with it).
There are several attempts at replicating some form of Worker Democracy in Capitalist countries, but ultimately short of ownership none of this functionally makes a massive difference. Definitely a step in the right direction, but without worker ownership it is more to appease workers and uphold Capitalism, than actually giving workers control.
Don’t misunderstand this comment to say that codetermination is bad, it’s good, just not as good as it could be.
I think the germans working under codetermination have it a bit better than any soviet ever did under their workers’ unions. the missing ingredient being a democratic representative government in place of an authoritarian single party system.
The Germans working under codetermination also have it far better than Germans under the Kaiser. Comparing a 21st century first world developed nation with a 20th century developing country sure is a win, I guess?
Secondly, although the beurocracy was incredibly corrupt, the Soviet Democracy by which local Soviets reported to higher Soviets that reported to higher Soviets was fundamentally democratic, even if flawed.
I don’t really think you’ve said much of anything. The Soviet form of Democracy was indeed flawed, but it was still Democratic, and I think it’s obvious to anyone that living in a modern developed country would be better than living in a developing country from last century.
I’m comparing political systems, not nations. If we’re talking about the WW1 era, then I’d say the soviets still had it worse as they went through a war, invasion, then a civil war, and famine and consequent brutal dictatorship. But the germans made it out quite well off, given they basically started the war with their unequal treaties and rapid militarization. Despite this, the treaty of Versailles was relatively lenient compared to what happened Austria-hungry.
It was not democratic. It was a single party system in which the party selected a candidate, (after some research I learned this part is false),
and the populace was forced to vote for said candidate under threat of imprisonment.If the people wanted to oust a candidate they didn’t like, they’d have to coordinate with everyone in secret to cooperatively abstain from voting for the candidate so he would lose his job and the party would select a new candidate.
Political systems don’t determine quality of life nearly as much as development.
Your second point isn’t correct, anyone could be voted on. They couldn’t vote on the next level, only their representative could. I’m not sure where you get this new idea from.
If you’re talking about the Politburo, yes, and that’s part of my problem with it. But, at the local level, you voted on whoever you wanted, then your rep votes on who they want, and so forth. There were lots of shady deals that solidified power higher up, yes, but the process was Democratic in nature, even if highly flawed.
I think political systems affect development, although geography plays a big role in that as well. How a country uses its available resources is predominantly determined by its economic and political system.
They gave you a ballet with only a party member candidate on it which you’d simply drop in the ballet box in front of everyone, and if you wanted to vote for an independent, you had to go behind a curtain and write it in.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_Soviet_Union
“However, in practice, before 1989, voters could vote against candidates preselected by the Communist Party only by spoiling their ballots, whereas votes for the party candidates could be cast simply by submitting a blank ballot.”
I wouldn’t call that democratic in nature.
No
After some more digging, I conscede that you’re right on this point. I misremember that. they were not forced to participate.
As opposed to capitalism, which evenly distributes power and everyone gets a fair shot.
Well yes and no. There are communist systems that centralize power (mostly to establish a system without it) but there are a lot of different ways to do it other than that. Anarcho Communism for example is the complete opposit which does not want to go the authoritarian way even short term. Because well that did not quite work out. Authoritarian states still are authoritarian states. And i myself dont like/want those ^^
Worked out better than any anarcho communist project ever did.
Not in my opinion. I dont think forcing yourself upon others and establishing totalitarian states is a success. If you mean working as becoming the main party then sure but i think working is establishing its principles. And there are anarchistic projects that worked quite well im that sense. They never lastet but they did often change a lot. For example the spanish civil war, the paris kommune. Those are the biggest ones. But anarchistic principles were always important. Many “primitive” cultures were egalitarian ones, which they did a lot to keep it that way.
Communism is not dictatorship Capitalism is not democracy
A lot of the people exiled from communist countries were the ones doing slavery and fucking over the working class max
I love how you can state basic facts, and a bunch of ex reddit libs swarm in to downvote.
I was thinking more so about the ~7,000 - 8,000 doctors since 2006 that defected from Cuba as soon as they were able to.
Are you referring to the loosely defined “kulaks” (wealthy peasants) that were exiled/killed when the Soviet Union was created?
Hmmm …last I heard, Cuban doctors were showing the world how it’s done.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1557950/
Did you read that link you posted? Lmao
If you get past the first paragraph, suddenly there’s really no praising and they talk about how bad health care is in Cuba and how many try to defect as they are forced into horrible conditions.
From that article:
“He said, “We were placed in slums with a high level of violence, under constant monitoring by the Bolivarian brigades [political police], who are supposed to offer protection but also report any suspicious activities and assure that we carry out our `revolutionary’ duty, indoctrinating our patients to vote for Chávez. If we refuse to do so we are sent back to Cuba.””
Bolivian police and Chavez arent Cuban doctors.
It also says that they’re suffering from medical supply shortage due to US trade embargoes; and this is from a US government (capitalist) health board sonof course it’s unflattering. Now google “cuban doctors Nobel Peace prize”.
I wouldn’t doubt if a percentage were. But is Cuba keeping itself isolated to where people have to defect despite no active war or combat? The US has probably closer to a million doctors from outside the US. The US relies on immigration to survive with slowing population growth and an aging population.
It’s very misleading to say that “Cuba is keeping itself isolated”. Each year the UN votes to end the embargo/isolation imposed on Cuba by the US, with the vast majority of countries voting in favour of ending the blockade each time.
In the latest vote, in November, only Israel and USA voted against ending the blockade. Ukraine abstained. 187 member states voted in favour of ending the blockade
Make no mistake, the US is what has kept Cuba unjustly isolated for the past decades. Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143112
The US sees anything that could shake their narrative of the world as a threat, even when that ‘threat’ is unfounded, and they massively abuse their economic and military power around the globe to keep others in line.
Are you saying I said what you quoted?
Because I am implying what you are saying by asking about the Cuban embargo being imposed on Cuba.
I’m not a native English speaker, so there may be some nuance I miss out on. But as far as I can tell, the implication of what you wrote was
I have good knowledge on point 1, limited knowledge on points 2&4, and somewhat decent info about point 2. I’m not disputing points 2,3&4.
Some real death of the author type shit. I said only number 4 and I agree with your positions. I’m sure you know that questions aren’t statements.
I am disagreeing with them about Cuban doctors. I think the Cuban embargo is an atrocity and a disgrace and that the US (as an American) has many doctors from different nations so why does the small number of Cuban doctors matter.
Again, the only implication you listened that’s true is number 4 and that’s because it’s not an implication, I actually said that.
How about anarcho-syndicalism?
But the absence of classes and states surely is the same as the dictatorship of the proletariat /s
I grew up in a communist country, and I absolutely feel this way. Next question.
Everyone who upvoted the person before you, downvoted you.
Perfectly balanced