@cowbee sparked a liberal massacre here. I’ve never seen so many bans.
Haha, they do it to themselves.
what even happened? Did they all get scratched and spew racist and homophobic shit or something?
Someone who claimed China was better off as a semi-feudal semi-colony and had family there, someone bringing up the Black Book of Communism as a source on China Bad, someone who referenced the Wikipedia page title “People’s Democratic Dictatorship” to claim China has a sole dictator, etc.
Oh I see, the typical reactionary liberal.
Yep.
Haha no it’s mods modding to your benefit, mods did it.
removing reactionary racist shit is to the benefit of marginalized people, not to the benefit of white people
Do you think that if the mods did not ban people, that I would not still be more supported than not? Why do you think it’s to my personal benefit?
Not just to his benefit, but to the benefit of workers across the globe.
When reactionaries spit anticommunist propaganda, shutting them down is a service to womankind.
I would need to see their comments before celebrating because nah nah, naaaaaaaaaaaaaah, we’re not just going to celebrate mods mass-banning opinions they don’t like.
Unless it was actually hateful or filthy in some way. “Communism is good actually” does not count as hateful.
Just go look at the modlog
The Global North is irredeemable. The vassals are as smart as the suzerain which is not at all.
true
We know what works and what doesn’t work. We have decades of real data from all over the world.
Some aspects of communism work, others do not.
Some aspects of capitalism work, others do not.
Some aspects of fascism work, others do not.
Some aspects of socialism work, other do not.
… and so on
By “work” I mean increasing the standard of living and lifespan of citizens when compared to tribal living. The bar is pretty low, really. I think we should apply what works the best, regardless of the source, but nobody listens to me.
The USA definitely abused the term “communism” into the ground for almost a century; since the creation of the CIA communism has been our enemy number one, and we’ve spread a lot of misinformation purposefully and with full knowledge.
But, we do know some things for a fact, and should work off of that. For example, standard of living was much higher in Western than Eastern Germany. But… that doesn’t mean that Eastern Germany didn’t have any benefit to its people. Just less benefit. Why? That’s the rub.
Pardon my rambling incoherent thoughts on a comic.
ETA mods are mean, good Lord now I have to go through eight steps to find the good stuff that they deleted. Lame
ETA 2- Mods have translated “be civil” rule into “I do what I want” why bother to post rules just do what you want
Quit your crying over racist shit being removed
Comment from @Cowbee on the east/west germany differences below
Comparing west and east Germany, eastern Germans enjoyed more secure lives with better safety nets, and were strapped for luxuries because the Soviet Union sought reparations for World War II. The western side was not de-Nazified like the eastern side was, and was flooded with cash and NATO armaments from the US Empire to serve as a foothold against the socialist bloc.
Europeans too. But we’re basically Americans also, so.
The most rabbid anti communist I know is French
a more pathetic and spineless version of americans. Especially germans.
Well I mean, at the moment at least it seems that European protests against the current regimes are burning down city halls while the Americans are busy dancing with cop-approved parameters and building human sculptures that say “vote”. But then again, until either of these areas goes through a communist revolution I’ll call neither less pathetic or spineless population than the other.
the french really know how to protest. Their neighbours to the right not so much, though.
Albanians seem to be burning more than French atm. Given enough time capitalism will drive us all up a wall, into war and to concentration camps. It’s only natural.
We’re about as American as we are African like the South African colonial settlers who tried to appropriate the term African to refer to themselves but failed.
I’d say we as Europeans live in a culture that is Usianized to the extent of being unrecognizable from the original. Our leaders do what the Usians tell them to do, our institutions serve Usian interests, our militaries use Usian weapons. Our populations watch Usian movies and serials, read Usian books, follow Usian zeitgeists. We use Usian social media platforms, where Usian algorithms serve us Usian propaganda. We learn to speak American English in school, where they teach us the history of the world that is approved by Usians.
propagandized against communism? 100%
vassals of the US? same.
But “we’re basically Americans” is an insult I won’t take.oh no!
at least some still have a fighting spirit.
and tasteI gotta hand you guys that, it seems like there’s a limit to how much bullshit you’ll tolerate. We have yet to find that limit in the states.
Glad you acknowledge it.
Plenty here get real defensive for pointing that out.I guess we are slightly less indoctrinated into bootlicking the authoritarian state.
We don’t thank our regime troops for their service, our cops don’t get free stuff in shops, etc…
No comically large flags or killer jet fly overs at sports games either.
well yeah, it seems the usians prefer to dance and vote. i’d rather celebrate local cultures on their own terms, not under US hegemony.
Then we need to kick these bootlicker EU ‘leaders’ or nato cucks like Rutte out with the US invaders.
we’d also need a way to fight against homegrown fascism after that, but a good first step. tear down nato and the eu
My chud brother accused me of being indoctrinated before, and I’m like, my brother in
christactuality, we were raised by the same conservative parents, in the same conservative area, in many of the same conservative schools. I know what you believe backwards and forwards. You can’t tell the difference between my beliefs and Joe Biden’s. One of us thinks critically about our own beliefs and tries to understand other perspectives, and it sure as hell ain’t you.It’s just really funny on some level when they’re so set on reading the same talking points from their script and try to go off about privileged out-of-touch coastal elites who only believe things because they’re never exposed to outside ideas, with someone they literally grew up with.
They’re indoctrinated into calling us indoctrinated or saying we live in a bubble, and the irony is lost on them.
Shut up bubble boy!
- liberals, probably
I can forgive imperial core boomers for this level of “brainwashing,” but most of the rabidly anti-“tankie” Lemmitors aren’t that old.
imperial core boomers for this level of “brainwashing
But why? They were actually around when USSR was alive and kicking. Unlike the youngsters you mentioned, who grew up in the world of unchallenged propaganda
Propaganda during the cold war was challenged even less, and there weren’t alternative sources of information outside of corporate mass media.
challenged even less
Gonna have to disagree with this part. Remember the 90’s? Early 00’s?
shudders Yeah, I do. Propaganda was so all-encompassing that they bragged about doing the coup d’etat of the USSR
deleted by creator
There is very big difference between socialism and communism. Communism is an idea and pretty idea but in this world it don’t work because people are “not always good” and socialism is bad try to make communism.
Socialism is a transition between capitalism and communism where social ownership is the rising aspect of society and the working class runs the state. Communism is a fully collectivized global economy. Neither socialism or communism require everyone to be “good.”
Communism is I think fragile. When it works then not so much but it’s almost impossible to build that big and stable community.
China has a communist government and they seem to be doing fine, no?
China has a fascist government that cosplays as communist.
You clearly don’t understand what fascism means, nor are you familiar with how China operates at any level
In what way is China “fascist”?
No? China has a communist government over a socialist system. The working classes run the state, and social ownership is the principal aspect of its economy. Fascism would be a bourgeois-run state with private ownership supplemented by state control.
Oh, so the fascism one is the United States.
Better not tell conservatives. Jk, as if they’d think about this comment.
Only one of those two countries has concentration camps, and it aint china
Yes, the US is fascist.
Let me guess: you listened to a German christian fundamentalist, who has never set a foot on Xinjiang, hallucinate lies about Uygurs in concentration camps?
Removed by mod
oh wow, could’ve fooled me! which one is it then? or have you hallucinated some brand new baseless accusations?
Communism has not existed yet, so I see no reason for you to believe it to be almost impossible to build.
Republicans* in a nutshell.
And also other liberals.
Old Guard/corporate liberals, maybe.
Otherwise known as the big, historic players in the DNC.
“Liberal” is a pretty wide net that includes some people that fit your description and some people that do not.
Can you name one pro-communism liberal?
EDIT: I will respond with one of either “that’s not a liberal” or “they’re not in favor of communism”
What flavor of “communism?” I’ve been told various definitions.
For starters, are you the type to say communism and socialism are synonyms? If so, then I’d point to AOC/Bernie/etc. of the DSA.
Neither Bernie nor AOC are pro-communism.
Also communism is not socialism.
So you’re just going to side-step the question?
I guess I’ll continue to soap-box for those who are still reading and not hostile (none, by the looks of the votes) then:
I used to think “communism” was not the same as “socialism” until I was told by a communist (I think on lemmy.ml? Maybe it was Twitch?) that Karl Marx and other communist or socialist academics technically never made an academic distinction between the two.
My perception before that date was that “socialism” is kinda like a direction on a continuum (the opposite direction from “capitalism,” more or less, but more strictly speaking the opposite of “individualism” or “selfishness”), while “communism” was the destination, typically explained as an anarchist/stateless society resembling ancient societies who had literally no form of measuring trade discrepancies (e.g. currency), and would just give what extra goods they produced freely to those they believed needed it and vice versa, i.e. the Marxian mantra of “from those based on their ability, to those based on their need.”
That’s just paraphrasing off the cuff of my former understanding until I was told otherwise by someone who very much seemed to be much more educated on the topic, and you’re free to correct me/them at any point.
… or you could just dodge the discussion again.
I don’t know what “flavor” you’re looking for. Apparently you have some kind of set of related but different ideas that in your head form the notion of communism. And apparently this notion leads you to think that Bernie or AOC are in favor of communism. But neither of them is in favor of anything that even remotely resembles any commonly accepted definition of communism.
Marx made the distinction between “lower-stage” and “higher-stage” communism. Marxists since Marx have clarified this lower stage to be socialism, and that this stage itself has stages. Here’s a diagram by Cheng Enfu:
Communism in the Marxist conception and anarchism are in essense polar opposites, communism is a fully collectivized global system while anarchism is a fully communalized decentralized system. Through a scientifically planned economy with advanced productive forces, everyone’s needs are met in communism.
Communism is socialism without the socially liberal aspects… go ahead and vote for your strongdaddy because he’ll subsidize your house, but watch out when you try to complain that the river was polluted by the state electrical company.
Socialism is a transitional mode of production and distribution between capitalism and communism, characterized by the working class as dominant and social ownership as rising and dominant. Communism is a fully collectivized society devoid of classes. “Social liberalism” has nothing at all to do with distinguishing the two, in fact communism will be more socially progressive than socialism as social struggles continue into socialism.
The ‘transitional’ argument is basically ‘bigdaddy promises he’ll make a utopia if we grant him totalitarian control’
you’re right, should have pressed the big “communism now” button instead of dealing with complex processes, such as the development of the productive forces, silly commies
No? The transitional argument is that communism requires both highly developed productive forces, and collectivization of all of these highly developed productive forces. The socialist transitional period requires intense development of underdeveloped production, as well as building the necessary administration for planned economy, both of which take time.
The idea of “bigdaddy” is nonsense, and isn’t found in either Marxism-Leninism in theory or in practice. There has not been a ceding of control to socialist leadership, but instead an expansion of democratization to the working classes, historically. The idea that MLs want a big strongman to push a button and delete all administration is a farce of both socialist construction and what communism looks like, as communism retains administration.
Utopia is also not promised, Marxists rail against utopianism.
Please be serious here, throughout your comments here you’ve done nothing but demonstrate a lack of care for the subject matter and wax poetic about lottery-voting while ignoring the crux of the argument.
I simply argue that a single party with unilateral control creates a totalitarian dictatorial state. and totalitarian states lead to accelerated suffering.
I also argue this is true for two party systems. and proposes a system based on demographic representation with a safe guard to remove bad actors from political power. under my proposal, the state could choose to take control over the means of production if enough people chose. I welcome new forms of political ideas, not single minded adherence to party dogma.
and ‘waxing poetic’ would require me to be much less specific than I have been.
you are waxing poetic with these strange, shifting and amorphous ideas of “class”, and “transitional periods” while providing no concrete roadmap for how unilateral single party control of a state elevates the workers to control over the means of production.
in reality it simply shifts control over the means of production to cronyism. single-party rule creates a party-class and a working class, and the party-class is in no way beholden to the working class.
Nobody is arguing for a party to have unilateral and unaccountable power. You are deeply confusing how unitary socialist democracy works by alienating the party from the rest of the people, and drawing a hard line between democratic participation in society and the party itself.
Class is not shifting or amorphous. Class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production.
-
Capitalists own the means of production individually.
-
Workers sell their labor power.
In socialism, workers jointly own the means of production.
You are confusing the type of labor with class itself, which makes it amorphous.
Transition is also not shifting or amorphous. Between capitalism, where there is privatized means of production, and communism, where all production is planned and socially owned, is a period where the means of production need to be advanced enough to accommodate social planning, and administration needs to be advanced enough to facilitate it.
You keep separating the party from the people by erasing their shared relations to ownership of the means of production. The party is of, by, and for the working class, and is accountable to the rest of the working class.
“advanced enough to accommodate social planning, and administration needs to be advanced enough to facilitate it.” -what qualifies as advanced enough? that is amorphous. “You keep separating the party from the people by erasing their shared relations to ownership of the means of production. The party is of, by, and for the working class, and is accountable to the rest of the working class.” -no the party is separating the party from the people by removing any means of peaceful transition of power except through mandatory, open poll, party controlled elections of exclusively party members and through strict control of party membership.
Regarding how advanced production needs to be for social planning, it must not be an impedement for production. Essentially, by the point that decentralized production has transitioned to monopoly, markets have played their role. That’s why in a socialist country like China, the commanding heights are socially owned, while for developing industries these are privately owned to a large degree. At the monopoly level, privatization impedes progress.
As for your bit on political parties, you’re continuing to argue against a caricature you invented in your head. Nobody has stated that elections must be controlled or exclusively of party membership. You have to argue against a strawman, because your point collapses when confronted with reality.
Please be serious.
-
Straw man, ad-hom, red herring.
We got em all here folks, get your fallacies!
We promise there will be absolutely no substance in our comments, just fallacies! Come one come all down to Fallacy Warehouse!!
We count on your ignorance to spread our fallacies without recognition, and get an extra special 25% off if you haven’t read a book this year!!
Come on down!!
This
The transitional argument is that communism requires both highly developed productive forces, and collectivization of all of these highly developed productive forces. The socialist transitional period requires intense development of underdeveloped production, as well as building the necessary administration for planned economy, both of which take time.
The idea of “bigdaddy” is nonsense, and isn’t found in either Marxism-Leninism in theory or in practice. There has not been a ceding of control to socialist leadership, but instead an expansion of democratization to the working classes, historically. The idea that MLs want a big strongman to push a button and delete all administration is a farce of both socialist construction and what communism looks like, as communism retains administration.
They already do that under capitalism dumbass
And no, socialism isn’t just “libbed up commuism”. In both cases the workers own the state. Everything else is a fucking larp
Depends on what you mean by communism, if you mean single party rule with a near totalitarian dictator at the helm then that is bad, but if you mean socialist policies that put workers well being at the forefront of government policy then that is good.
Basically, marx good, lenin badNo part of Leninism, in theory or practice, supports the idea of a single, near-totalitarian dictator. The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” originates in the era of Marx, and refers not to any individual dictator, but the working class itself as the rulers, makers, and dictators of society. The heads of state in socialist countries have all been selected with democratic processes, be they approval votes, votes based on elected delegates, etc. The heads of state have not had absolute power either, but instead often have less power than, say, the US head of state.
The necessity of a single party is because socialism is, in effect, a unitary system meant to represent a single class, the working class. Democratic centralism does not mean the absence of democracy, but the absence of organized factionalism and opposition within the socialist system. The necessity of a single system was already present with Marx, the advance of the vanguard path to socialism by Lenin was made based on Marxist understandings of class and the state.
If you believe Lenin is bad, then thinking Marx was good is hypocritical. Your issues with Lenin are based on a combination of sanitizing the views of Marx and accepting bourgeois misdirection about existing socialism as fact. If you truly believe Lenin was bad, then Marxism itself should also be seen as bad.
Ok, then marx bad too, single party rule is a horrible idea that consolidates power in a new class if elites.
Your’e just trading capitalist robber barrons for party leaders, it’s the same thing, different name.
Rule of law should derive from mandate from he masses, not a small group of party officials or powerful politically aspiring billionaires.
Single party rule is bad, two party rule is bad, the people should be represented by an amalgam of many varying policy views and have the ability to quickly remove politicians who fail to represent the people effectively.
That’s not how class works, or the state. Class is not merely a level of power, but a social relationship, to ownership of the means of production and distribution. In any given class society, this distributes society into two broad classes, with various subcategories. The state is a result of this class struggle, and represents the ruling class of society, based on which class owns the commanding heights of the economy.
In socialism, the commanding heights are socially owned. Administrators do not have unique relations of ownership, but instead occupy socially necessary roles for the continuation of advancing production and distribution. In such a unified system, competing political parties do not at all prevent corruption, they enable it and accelerate it. The idea that decentralized competition in the political sphere is made to support a collectivized system is a bourgeois worldview of politics that sees the mechanisms of capitalism as eternal, rather than specific.
Contrasting with capitalism, the competition in the political sphere is the competition of the ruling class, which does not seek collectivization but instead a bigger individual slice of the pie. Where socialist administrators seek further collectivization and unification, capitalist administrators represent this or that wing of the capitalist class, which all fights in unity to preserve private property, and against each other for a bigger slice of the pie.
Socialist political parties are organizations of the most advanced of the working class politically. The most active, the most trained, the most developed. This does not make them a distinct class, this is a bourgeois view of class. Instead, it makes them occupy the social role of “proletarian intellectual” to borrow from Gramsci, which isn’t a statement on intelligence at scale, but the social role they play in determining and shaping the thought of the entire proletariat as a class.
How do you envision socialism, with multiple political parties, not devolving into factionalism and breaking-up of society in a manner that allows the bourgeoisie to resurge?
giving one group of people a different level of power to influence policy than another creates a class, to pretend like there wasn’t nepotism or quid pro quo in the soviet union is to ignore the reality of human behavior and history.
as we see with systems with one political ideology, including the american capitalist system, a positive feedback loop commonly occurs that accelerates suffering, see the great famine in China, and the american healthcare system today. these systems appear because the ruling class ingrains itself into power and controls cultural ideas through propaganda. for example, the american anti-communist/anti-socialist propaganda that this meme references. communism and socialism are not the boogey-men that the capitalist politicians and billionaires want the american people to think they are. if we had a substantial communist party and socialist party in congress, this propaganda would be seen as ridiculous by most americans, because they would see that good that these political ideas do because they would have examples of it on the daily.
I would propose a lottery: firstly, a mandatory, standardized civics course for all citizens that teaches varying political theories and views and their historical contexts.
all voting age citizens who have passed their civics curriculum would be eligible to hold office in the city/county/district/state they live in. a percentage (for sake of argument let’s say 1% of the constituency) of individuals would be selected, once selected they would present their policy platform. a ranked choice vote is held, the selected individuals are ranked by the voting age citizens and one is elected to office (run-offs would be held like any ranked choice election) the officer would serve a term of (for sake of argument let’s say one year), at the end of which a vote-to-keep is held where their constituency would have one checkbox per office again, a checked box is a vote-to-keep their officer in their seat. if they do not receive a number of votes (lets say for purpose of argument 50%) they are removed and can never hold office again and a new lottery is held to select a new officer from the pool of eligible individuals.
a vote-of-no-confidence would also be available to the people to remove officers at anytime that a petition for such passes (for sake of argument lets say the petition requires 25% of the constituency) (for sake of argument let’s say 50% passes)
to account for competency, officers who have retained their office would be granted another ballet in the hat so-to-speak to increase their odds of attaining higher office and increasing overall competency in the electorate.
benefits: this would create a more accurate representative government as the lottery effectively selects a sample of the electorate to hold office, meaning class divisions and personal backgrounds within the population are equally represented in the halls of government. this puts the people directly in the hands of power, the lottery nearly removes any form of nepotism as people are selected at random, not based on who they know or how much money they have. (nepotism within the halls of government would still happen as officers work together in quid pro quo dealings but officers who fail to improve the lives of their constituency would be easily removed thanks to the vote-of-no-confidence) and as the system of democracy is based on coalitions and compromises, this is expected behavior.
this system nearly removes party politics from everyday people’s lives. no more months long political campaigns with misinformation, no more special interested packing races with money. this would greatly increase the prevalence of new political ideas as more people from more varying backgrounds would have access to power, as increasing the amount of legislation designed to directly improve the lives of the largest demographics in the country.
what if someone doesn’t want to do the job? they can elect to avoid the lottery for any reason, we are selecting from a pool of nearly the entire population of the country, we have plenty of willing participants. this is also why a vote-of-no-confidence can work, plenty of competition for the job.
the vote-to-keep, or dead-man election as I like to call it creates a system where an officer can only maintain power by voter enthusiasm, you as a voter have to feel empowered to go and vote for your representative, a corrupt politician who is doing nothing for his constituents would not last long under a dead-man election system.
the shear size of the electable, the vote-of-no-confidence, and the simplicity of the vote-to-keep creates real political consequences for officers who do a bad job, unlike the single party or two party system, officers in my system will never hold office again if they are removed from power. this would not eliminate corruption, but it would greatly deter it and any corruption that exists would not last long.
why the lottery? to more accurately reflect the demography of the electorate and to select individuals who might otherwise never hold office to put more political ideas and lived experiences in the halls of government particularly those of backgrounds we rarely see in government today. and to create an expectation that governing power is all of our responsibility and it has real consequences for our daily lives.
Right off the bat, you are already ignoring what I said. I never said nepotism and corrpution did not exist in the USSR. I said that power is not class, class is a social relation to ownership of the means of production. Managerial workers are not their own class, just like plumbers are not their own class. You are confusing a type of labor for a relation to ownership, and thus conflate the two into class.
Your next example is again, confusing the nature of the state. Socialism and communism cannot be brought about by a socialist party winning electorally and replacing the state bit by bit into a socialist one via policy. There is no generic “state,” there are capitalist states, socialist states, etc, and one state is broken and a new one takes its place through revolution alone.
As for replacing socialist democracy and scientific, planned organization with random lottery, this is a recipe for disaster. A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs, that can prove themselves through practice to their constituents. This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class.
You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based, democratic selection process with one that results in chaos and an easy-to-manipulate state that the bourgeoisie can overturn incredibly easily. This chaos is the foundation by which the bourgeoisie can bring about their own persistence.
In any case, you are getting into the weeds about a specific form of electoral democracy, while entirely ignoring the nature of class and the state. By your own definitions, you would be creating what you believe to be a ruling class. This is why it’s important to actually understand the theory and history you are trying to critique, because all you have done thus far is wax poetic about lottery-based elections while vulgarizing class and the nature of the state.
your’e the one saying ‘power is not class’ I disagree, I say dividing people by the power they have inherently creates classes, which is why I suggest a lottery to divide that power equally among the demographic makeup of a nation. how are plumbers not a class if they control the means that create and maintain the plumbing industry? its all still a class. I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc. the
government should be made up of people. I reject the idea that certain groups of people among us are more fit to govern, particularly when that system removes demographics of largely under-represented groups and replaces it with more affluent individuals.
revolutions are a last resort, the people deserve a means to change their government without violence.
there is no generic state? only socialist and capitalist? have you heard of mixed economies?
“A truly democratic society is one where the working class as a whole is organized and capable of electing the best among themselves to higher organs,”
- who decides who is the best among you? the party leaders already in power according to single party rule. that is why I propose a ranked choice vote of those individuals selected from the lottery based on their policy proposals.
“You are explicitly rejecting a competency-based”
- no, I am explicitly rejecting the idea that the party in power is selecting the most competent. rather they are picking their friends and family or who ever can pay more in money or quid pro quo.
my electoral process removes money and nepotism from the equation by selecting individuals first from the general population, then allowing them to come up with policy proposals then allowing their constituents to elect them in a ranked choice vote. no campaigns means no campaign finance, no special interested counter funding candidates, no political parties platforming their insiders.
persons selected from the lottery will post their policy proposals on the same election website as every other candidate, debates will be organized by the election office and all candidates would be present.
" This can be organized via a single political party, that being the organization of the most politically developed of the working class."
- who decides who is the most politically developed of the working class? the party, thus nepotism, not a mandate of the masses
The reason I am telling you that classes are not simply any way we can categorize people but instead have specific relations to ownership of the means of production and distribution is because I am explicitly agreeing with Marx that the history of class society is the history of successive societies of 2 broad classes in conflict, defined by their relationship to ownership of the means of production and distribution.
Plumbers are not a class. Managers are not a class. Both are workers, and share the same relation to ownership of the means of production. Power is not the enemy, the system that divides us based on ownership is.
The rest of your comment is a ridiculous strawman of a party that is unaccountable and that dominates all. Nowhere in socialist history has this happened in practice or in theory. The working class as a whole decides who should be in the party and government. The party is a subset of the working class, with the same social relations to the means of production and distribution. You are arguing against a caricature.
As for revolution, it’s the only way to change a state historically.
As for “mixed economies,” all economies are “mixed” today. What separates them is their principal aspect, and the class in control of the state.
I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc.
How do elections work in Vietnam?
What you describe of people from every profession being involved in government is essentially how the Vietnam Fatherland Front works. It’s composed of 44 member organizations, primarily unions, a broad cross section of society that anyone can easily be a part of, and they conduct oversight over Vietnam’s elections. The actual administration of the government is done by elected officials, who do not have to be members of the Communist Party, or the Fatherland Front. It’s similar to what you proposed, except more democratic, since the cross section of society that makes up the Fatherland Front only oversees the elections, while policy is decided through the elections themselves. Even if you claim that the Fatherland Front secretly manipulates the outcomes, the system you’re proposing seems to be one where something like the Fatherland Front would rule outright. The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.
Maybe you could think about it like that: capitalists are the class that, in order to exist, is forced to continuously take capital and invest it to make profit or they are outcompeted by other capitalists. It’s not that they are all evil or “corrupted by power”, they are not just incentiveized, but forced to act in destructive ways: steal surplus value from workers, increase exploitation above what people can take, chase profits on an exponentially expanding mass of capital in a finite world destroying the planet, cause a crisis about every seven years, cannibalize their own state and infrastructure that they rely on for short term profit, etc.
They inevitably run into these contradictions due to living on a finite planet and having to put individual interests above all else while the modern economies distribution of work and global value chains absolutely require working together.
What you are worried about is real too in a way, but it’s not a class. In a socialist state, a managerial part of the working class is not forced by competition to continuously pursue personal gain, but some of them still might become corrupt and do so anyway. At that point, they have betrayed the working class and they might even do so in favor of real capitalists domestic or abroad who haven’t yet completely disappeared as a class. It’s a possible problem, but other than the class conflict between workers and capital, it’s not inevitably the dominating principle of society.
Rather than worrying about a hypothetical future betrayal of fellow workers in thriving and prospering China, we should focus on how many western workers have already often betrayed the rest of the global working class and continue to do so by supporting terrible imperialist wars, mostly in turn for cheap goods at Walmart.
I would respond here, but anything meaningful would be removed.
It’s almost as though you don’t have anything worthwhile to say.
Why comment at all, then?
What is this .world?
My argument would totally destroy yours but you’d just refuse to engage so I won’t bother
It’s not your average user’s fault for not knowing, but some moderators definitely over-reach with removing and banning.
Last week I caught a ban for being a “troll” from the Memes community here for saying that liberals generally like Khrushchevkas (AKA Soviet Bloc apartments) and cite them as one of the things the USSR did right.
You don’t see the bans and removals because the people and their posts are gone.
I’m willing to believe that there’s a grain of truth in this at face value, but from what I’ve seen, most communities will ban people for inflammatory disagreement. A lot of people here approach such discussions from other instances in bad faith (even I did above), but those outside of the instance are generally the ones more likely to be banned for it. These discussions will start somewhat heated, eventually degrade when one or both parties get frustrated, bans are issued, and then people will recall this discussion later as being ‘banned for having a different opinion’. I’m sure it happens but it’s not as common as people claim imo.
I’m glad you’ve had a much more pleasant experience with this instance than I have, but even the mountain of downvotes and people shitting on me for speaking my truth should paint a pretty clear picture about how non-.ml people are treated on .ml.
Feel free to thoroughly dig through my moderation history to see that I’ve never been anywhere near inflammatory in the incidents I’m talking about.
Unless you’re taking the stance of “I’ve seen otherwise in other instances, so I’m not going to believe you or check to see if you’re telling the truth,” of course.
“I have a totally compelling and reality-based argument that you definitely haven’t heard two thousand times before, but it goes to a different school.”
Nothing you could be hinting at would actually be meaningful anyways or something not debunked a million times. Go ahead. holodomor, purges, North Korea, CCP / Uyghur / Social Credit / Tiananmen Square, Pol Pot, … Which is it? Cmon it’s okay!
It’s okay to be honest and admit you have nothing meaningful to contribute. No need to be condescending.
Funny, I only ever see bad faith trolls, who call anyone who disagrees with them bots, get removed. That and crazy racists or obvious misinformation. As opposed to .world where I see well-sourced posts get removed for “incivility”.
Now I am a moderate and I know there’s two sides to every coin and not everything is black and white, so I guess the truth lies somewhere in the middle, so only some racists get caught on .ml and only some well-researched comments get removed from .world.
Maybe you could link to your argument. If it’s so interesting I would like to read it.
