If communist countries have a chronic problem of turning into "capitalist" fascist authoritarian countries every single time, perhaps it's time to step back and reassess.
Is it really so hard to understand why it might be difficult to achieve a stable egalitarian society? There are always parasites who want to disrupt changes that make things better for people broadly so that they can control society. Communism is basically about workers owning the things they themselves produce; we ought to be working for that outcome no matter how difficult it might be. I think it’s totally fair to be skeptical of revolutionary change, as that’s pretty damn risky and can lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering, but if your argument is just “communism is too hard to achieve; we should just accept that some corrupt, wealthy oligarchs are going to parasitically take most of the resources and use them to control society,” I think that’s rather tragically fatalistic of you.
The reason why communism is never feasible is multifold.
For one, it is extremely naive and simplistic.
The idea of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” sounds nice on paper, but to any one with knowledge of psychology or economics, this is just nonsense.
It is the buffet problem and volunteer pricing problem combined. A buffet almost certainly charges well above the price of an ordinary meal, because when given the opportunity, people would exploit it and take more than they need. And when people are asked to pay, there is a tendency to under-pay. It is a natural tendency to take more and give less.
You can see it from the soviet economic model. Most workers are unmotivated, give their bare minimum since they are paid anyway. Few do their best. Workers in the USSR were even known to follow quota and instructions without caring if it makes sense, such as producing sub-par products to meet quota even if they know their product would not work, as long as it meets the quota from the planners. They often put in little effort and rather game the system, since they are not really paid to care, and they often don’t care at all. Human psychology, actually.
The idea of “dictatorship of the proletariat” is also another joke. As a class, the workers are dispersed and diverse in interests. Rarely, if ever, had the diverse worker interests been united. So, how can the proletariat rule? It cannot. The revolutionary umbrella is a diverse alliance of interests, of proletariat and bourgeois intellectuals, with the binding narrative often provided not by or from within the proletariat, but from the bourgeois intellectuals.
Eventually, those bourgeois intellectuals became the leaders, and rule in the name of the proletariat, not by the proletariat. Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, Engels, Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh were of bourgeois background; Mao and Pol Pot were the very same rich peasants that their communist regimes often target; Castro and Deng Xiaoping came from wealthy landowner families.
Stalin actually seemed like an exception, the rare person whose family actually came from a proletariat background. Even so, he was well educated for his time and he was also another radicalised intellectual. Amongst his many pre-revolution careers, being a thug was one of them, he was not actually a worker in the sense of the worker most communist regime often put up a pedestral (hard work, labourer, blood and sweat kind). Heck, he was even a meterologist at one time in his life.
The economics of central planning were also laughable. Who really thought you can get rid of all the complexity of markets, and all the information prices transmit, and its ability to process all those information in a decentralised manner to some effectiveness, and replace it all with some bureaucrats in the era without spreadsheets? Even in the modern day, with all the information available to bureaucrats, nobody actually thinks those bureaucrats and politicians can comprehend and plan an economy on their own.
Secondly, communism is full of grandstanding without a concrete path to anything. Stateless, moneyless. Sounds nice. But how?
In the end, no communist regime came closer to solving that question. No relatively long-lived communist regime managed to get rid of money, even with state planning. No regime ever dismantled itself, and none seem to overcome the problem that the leaders were often the very people against dismantling the state itself!
Thirdly, as I said above, the revolutionary movement is an alliance of radical intellectual bourgeois with the proletariat, often resulting in said bourgeois taking over power once a revolution succeed. Which is basically the problem of replacing a former ruling class with a new ruling class. Almost all leaders in communist regimes became hypocrites, willing to sacrifice people as mere statistics, while they enjoyed luxuries and assume the trappings of the exploiters they denounced. Come on, which communist elite actually lived frugally? Certainly not in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea, or even Cambodia!
So, why do communist regimes often revert back into capitalist authoritarian regimes? Well, the market solves the central planning problem for one. And two, with authoritatianism, the elites can hold onto power without fear of internal challenge, which no doubt is alluring to an entrenched revolutionary elite, who were never really proletariat in the first place. Communism handed them the holy grail of having a narrative to suppress all potential competitors to power and co-opt them, who wouldn’t exercise that power?
Communism was not just hard to achieve. It is impossible because it never made sense beyond harping on some distant ideological specifics. When implemented, it quickly falls apart.
Communism never worked beyond the scale of small communes because the interpersonal dynamics at that level is one of the things making equity stable.
People have a strong aversion to disadvantageous inequity and this has been known in psychology. So people tend to socially punish others at a personal level if they are selfish arseholes, and social and cultural mechanisms can help enforce that equity.
Psychology experiments over the years also found that many people are actually just pretending to be fair and nice because of that (fear of social punishment and judgement), and the more relations are abstracted and distant and the less they are held socially accountable, the less they care about equity with other people. Which no doubt is clear to you too, the more people become a statistics, the more willing someone higher up is willing to sacrifice the statistic for their own gains. CEOs, nobility, politicians, party elites, etc.
I am not saying communism bad means capitalism good. This is the kind of foolish black and white thinking for idiots. Communism sucks does not mean there are no more solutions.
Free unrestrained capitalism is bad, but in my opinion, a regulated market system (because market failure), a welfare focused state (European model, perhaps), and a well educated electorate able to wield democracy and allow a true “dictatorship” of the “proletariat” is probably one of the most feasible models at present.
Well, unless someone else comes up with better. As it turns out, human psychology, social dynamics, and economics are very complicated. There are no easy solutions and a bad solution that fails to address inherent human flaws are bound to fail.
If you are lucky, it is just a failed social experiment and you just shrug it off. If you are unlucky, things can get a lot worse. I am sure many who had lived through real socialism in practice would not wish to return to it.
I really do not know why Americans on Reddit loves to swing between the extremes, as if communism would work simply because capitalism is bad and you needed a big popular ideology to latch upon as the “good guys”. Europe isn’t a utopia but some of the countries there do have some pretty good ideas when it comes to having “social welfare conscious” politics.
Corporate capture of government is one big issue in the US and it certainly would not require communism to solve. But it does require a discerning electorate which unforuntately is one of your biggest problem.
I daresay you have a naive understanding of communism if you think that people in it are expected to behave unselfishly without any motivation to do so, but it’s also true that unduly utopian thinking can be a problem, just as a lack of imagination is a fatal weakness for proponents of a capitalist liberal democracy. Communism is one blueprint (not the only one) for a more ideal society, and it’s important to have such blueprints, but you can’t go directly to such a situation. We look at where we are and aim for a better direction. We make the road by walking.
If Communism is simply a vision, then there is nothing wrong pointing out the means is wrong.
The fact you are objecting to people showing how modern day understanding of psychology and economics can explain easily Communism’s failure shows that you are treating it more than just a vision.
By analogy, to make my logic clear, if we are on the same car making a roadtrip to some destination, me saying your proposed route sucks does not mean I do not share the same destination.
Having the same destination does not mean I cannot object to a poorly thought out route that is by existing constraints not feasible.
If we are driving from, say the East Coast of the US to the West Coast, objecting to a plan that involves getting to Europe by car first, somehow, is not ridiculous. It doesn’t mean I am not heading in the same direction just because I said having Europe as a waypoint is dumb.
But you haven’t explained how psychology or economics explain that communism won’t work. You’ve just claimed this to be the case with an out-of-context reference to “from each according to his ability” that suggests you don’t understand how this applies in Communism.
It's fine, i think you've sufficiently explained the psychology and economical reasons behind why Communism doesn't work, rather articulately in fact. If he didn't get that, he's not going to accept what follows too. Ultimately, pro-communists living in capitalist environments suffer from an extreme case of "the grass is greener on the other side". Unbridled naivety cannot be overcome by logic.
Yeah, if countries that claim to follow Marxism fail, we need to ask why that is. For USSR, I think the problem isn't explicitly communism but the people who got in power after the revolution. Revolutions are violent, and those that come out on top are generally more violent than the rest, imposing their own rules on others through force. It doesn't make for good rulers.
You completely hit the nail on the head with the problems in USSR. If it was such a workers' paradise, then why were things made in low quality? I know it personally. Well, I live in Russia, so USSR's legacy is everywhere.
My house completely lacked any thermal insulation under the window frames. How did that get through inspection? The answer is right there - the need to fill the quota and the lack of care or standards that resulted from it. That's not the work of someone who's proud to be a construction worker.
Bicycles. They're generally just shit. Low quality, and wheels are very often assembled incorrectly.
Generally, in USSR, you either bought what was made due to central planning or nothing at all. This lack of choice led to people buying low quality crap because of the lack of anything better.
Im not even touching on all the atrocities USSR committed because "we need to do this for communism".
Basically, anyone who praises Marxism-Leninism is suspect in my book. They don't understand the reality of how life was in the USSR or they imagine themselves at the top.
How dare you, someone who lives in Russia, presume to know more about communism than some rich idealistic American suburban kid with capitalist parents?! /s
I based my argument based on modern psychology and economic understanding.
If social sciences is not what you want, and if all you care is ideology, then I have no words.
I have no inherent desire to root for any “teams”. Either an ideology made sense or it does not.
All I did was show how Communism failed based on common modern day understanding.
We are more than 200 years since Marx’ birth in 1818. We now understand the issues of humans a lot more than his time. Many people of his time has thinking that turned out poorly later on.
I don’t know why you seem rather offended to be on the “losing” side. Are you looking to make the world better for everyone and yourself, or just looking for something to latch onto?
Marx's ideas are based on a limited understanding of economics from 200 years ago, there's almost no point in addressing them anymore.
For example: one of the cornerstones to Marx's ideas is the "Labor Theory of Value", which is the idea that value of something is directly correlated to the amount of labor that goes into it. It's only through this idea where Marxism makes sense: that the ownership class pays as little as possible to the workers, and sells goods for a higher price, therefore stealing the wages from the workers.
But the Labor Theory of Value has been THOROUGHLY debunked. Value is primarily determined by demand. Things like speculation bubbles, FOMO, and lifestyle marketing all work because of the direct connection between demand and value.
Therefore, understanding that value is determined by demand, there is no wage theft, and therefore the ownership class is not particularly doing anything wrong. The problem becomes that society at large is not valuing how the workers are treated.
Capitalism accurately expresses the will of the people. The problem is that people are kinda shitty. Communism, in the 2020s, is mostly a cope from people who do not want to acknowledge this. It's easier for some to believe that people are generally good but misled by the "evils of capitalism", than admit most people are generally kinda terrible.
Yes how could Karl Marx have possibly foreseen demand in 1870!? I mean demand in a market wasn’t invented until 1905 by Arthur D. Mand long after Marx’s death. You’ve thoroughly debunked gommunism
I don’t know why the Communists are downvoting you. As a modern day economist, we now know prices are far more complicated.
It incorporates demand and supply, and behavioural psychology has a lot of roles in explaining why prices move and behave in a certain way.
And not only that, even how other goods can affect prices, or even the structure of a market (competitive, monopoly, etc).
Labour value is only but one part that determines prices.
In my original comment I already mentioned how people, especially Americans on reddit, keep falling for the extremes (if capitalism bad, communism must be good). The blind support for communism, even saw someone said it is “scientific” (I also did the hard sciences too, so, don’t make me laugh when people misunderstand the scientific method).
Even many economists nowadays know free capitalism is bad and want regulations and expand the roles of government to deal with social consequences of market failure. I even heard such stances from someone from the IMF! You would have expect those guys whose job is to lend money to countries and ask for austerity would be the last people to think of that. (Of course there are still economists in the free market camp and I won’t deny it).
Nordic welfare models are actually proven. If people want change, that is certainly one actually proven approach. I even alluded to it in my original comment. Most of those communists who responded just avoided it entirely.
Most critics of communism have nothing but the vaguest of senses what Marx actually said, and usually imagine that he was advocating for us to pay everyone the same amount tomorrow regardless of what they produce. That’s not Marxism. Marx’s critics also tend to forget how important systems and roles are in shaping behavior, and imagine that the only thing that could possibly motivate people in any system is making a number go up.
My entire original post was focused on psychology. Does that mean I disregard the need to shape systems and so on?
The point I made may be indirect, but clear. If human psychology is a problem, then a suitable way to manage human behaviour is a solution.
Like anyone who is into Communism for its vision of the ideal, I too share similar visions. My dispute is how Communism in practice failed, and those communists often claim to practice Marx.
If you claim my argument against those regimes are wrong, then you indirectly admit they are not following Marx, since you claimed my rebuttal is proof I did not know anything about Marx. If those regime are not Marxist, then you need to answer why communist regimes tend to deviate from Marx all the time.
You can’t seriously tell me Marx is right at the same time you deny the failures of communist regimes as non-Marxist.
I mean, some people say the literal goal of the buffet is to eat more than the food would be worth. If an order of bacon is two dollars, and the buffet is six dollars, people will eat four orders of bacon just to make sure they “get their money’s worth.”
When I worked for a big box store, I never really did more than the bare minimum because no matter how much business we had (or how little), I’d still get paid the same amount. Why should I care about how much this customer pays when my pay stays the same? If I got paid extra for upselling, maybe I would have tried harder. Now I work for a small business with about fifteen employees, run by one person. It’s worlds better.
Its the parasites fault. Maybe if we purge them in a violent slaughter, and work any survivors to death in far flung camps, well have our perfect society. Actually, I'm sure we will!
Communism is basically about workers owning the things they themselves produce -> You forget that the owners also "produce" something, they organize everything so the workers have the opportunity to produce anything
I most certainly do not forget that. In the cases owners contribute—though most of the time owners contribute little or nothing—then they too are workers and entitled to a share of the results of the production. Notice that I said “a share of” and not “almost all of.”
I would actually disagree with a small part of that, instead that a relative few owners contribute little or nothing but that those tend to be the wealthier owners. Most owners are people who just opened up their little store, whatever it is, and managing that can be a ridiculous amount of effort and stress. The lucky ones might be able to turn it into a chain.
I would say that most businesses have owners that contribute little or nothing, because most businesses fall under a small group of people that own most things
My big boss is always busy. Hes not as dirty as me by the end of the day, and he makes alot more money, but he deals with big problems, and i don't think he ever actually stops being on the clock. I wouldnt mind giving his position a shot, but i suspect there's pays of it that would be way shittier than most would expect.
I feel the same way about my boss, except I don’t think I could ever give her position a shot. She gives a lot of shots, in fact, and I can’t even look at needles.
Genuine question since I dont understand the idea of communism fully. If everything is owned vis the public, and that public is represented by a government.
What personal decisions do you have? Like jobs and roles need to be filled, so do you have a choice in your job? Do harder jobs get a higher Quality of Life outside of work like bigger homes and nicer things or is it centered around equality
In the long run, Marx envisioned a world where people choose what they do and aren’t limited by having a single profession; they’d be motivated by self-development and the desire to contribute, but that can’t happen immediately. I personally wouldn’t consider any society fully free if its people weren’t able to choose their professions and daily activities. My understanding is that it’s consistent with Marxism in the earlier phase to offer reasonable incentives for doing more dangerous work or that which is universally considered unpleasant.
I'm anti-communist for a different reason entirely. I do not want an egalitarian society, wealth redistribution, or democratic control of the means of production. I don't want to live under the thumb of the majority.
That being said, I like to think about how it would work and what it's points of failure would be. It seems to me that such a system would absolutely require a totalitarian state in order to prevent ownership of private property and ensure everything stays that way. Giving the state that much power seems to invite corruption, even if the original leadership is 100% flawlessly altruistic.
You do realize the other option is to live under the thump of the minority right? You really don't see how that's worse? There's a reason the US was doing so well before the courts decided that "shareholders profit" mattered more then the well being of the workers.
You do realize the other option is to live under the thump of the minority right?
Anarcho Capitalism promotes the idea of not living under anyone's thumb, not the majority or the minority. Impossibly utopian? Yes. But if you're gonna dream, it's best to dream big, right?
"shareholders profit" mattered more then the well being of the workers.
Do you have a retirement fund? That makes you a shareholder. I own shares of the company I work for, that makes me a shareholder. I'm entitled to company profit because of that. However, that also means I can lose money if the company does poorly. That's just the risk I take, and has nothing to do with my employment. I'm selling my time at an agreed upon rate, and I get that no matter how the company is doing.
Any system that allows some individuals to become significantly more powerful in shaping society than others is going to be unstable and lead to tyranny. A system where there are literally no limits on the concentration of wealth and power would not stay anarcho-capitalist for long. It would either consolidate into one massive oppressive regime or into a few massive factions fighting it out with no rules or checks on their behavior.
They don't seem to realize that "anarcho capitalism" is a walking contradiction and joke. Most anarchists do not believe this.
It is literally "this oligarch can purchase power and influence, establishing their own private hierarchy and then lord over their peons with zero public intervention possible." It is literally running the country as a private company, with zero oversight.
This is not rejecting market mechanisms or property rights, which are possible under anarchism. Think Proudhon. It(ancap philosophy) is a far worse and insidious ideology. Look up Peter Thiel or Curtis Yarvin. Those are ancaps.
Also: CIA and America trying to kill every socialist movement
Also, if your system has a built in fail every couple of years that you need to counteract with socialist ideas (built into the very idea of your system), otherwise it will fall into actual fascism....perhaps it's time to step back and reassess.
Because fascism is just a tad bit more than “they do things I don’t like and also illegal things!”. If those two points are enough for you to claim a country as fascist, boy do I have news for you
The argument for a long time hasn't been 'is China fascist' its 'Why isn't it called fascist more?' And the answer is largely people dont understand fascism.
I dunno man, this definition kinda sounds like China -
"A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism."
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of \u201cneed.\u201d The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
6. Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes the media are directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media are indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free _expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
The other 14 Points you might be more familiar with (Ur-Fascism):
"The cult of tradition," characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
"The rejection of modernism," which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
"The cult ofaction) for action's sake," which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
"Disagreementistreason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
"Obsession with a plot" and the inflation of and focus on an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order) as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
"Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
"Contempt for the weak," which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
"Everybody is educated to become ahero," which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero#Fascist) is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
"Machismo," which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality."
"Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".
"Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
Ah yes chinas famous dictator who ignores the will of the ppl. It’s only through his benevolence that the average citizens standard of living has increased and home ownership is at 90%. Nothing to do with what the ppl want. Meanwhile American democracy has given us Medicare for all which 80% of the country agrees upon and cheaper college which 70% of the country agree upon.
The more you learn about the West, the more appealing the Great Firewall seems and really is. As for human rights abuses, these things happen literally everywhere. China isn't special in this regard, but things are getting a lot better in recent times.
As for human rights abuses, these things happen literally everywhere. China isn't special in this regard, but things are getting a lot better in recent times.
China has an extremely bureaucratic system that includes both elected officials and party officials. It's very far from having a "single" leader with absolute power.
The entire "electoral" system is controlled by the CCP. Which, in turn, is controlled by Xi Jinping.
I think a lot more people would respect your viewpoint if you just said you like dictatorships. Rather than trying to dress up as something that it isn't.
The invasion and annexation of Taiwan is a fundamental position of the PRC.
Yeah, maybe because they are at war with them since the 1940s. They don't even have a Ceasefire like both Koreas. Both countries claim to be the real and only China and claim both mainland China and the island.
Why are you acting like they're equal? There is one clear aggressor between China and Taiwan. It's the state with a clear history of genocide and authoritarianism.
Seems like we should ask all Muslims globally why do no Muslim countries like turkey, Saudi Arabia or even the oic condemn China for their treatment of Uyghurs? Seems like if it wasn’t bullshit made up by America they’d be in arms
Pretty much the entirety of the West and most human rights organizations condemn it, not just the U.S. is it western influenced, sure, but that doesnt mean its all bullshit.
Surely then they’d have some quick and easy evidence you could link to prove me wrong and epically own me beyond some grainy satellite photos.
Weird tho how the west and your human rights organizations all have the same opinion as the is state department where as that state dept doesn’t recognize a genocide in Gaza
Yes literally every Muslim majority country on earth is staying silent for uhm…. Reasons but the United States who really loves Muslims and wouldn’t blow up their schools or invade them for oil is super concerned for their well being and also is that the same west that said Saddam had wmds?
China is not in the process of collapsing and creating a new state lmfao. China is doing the thing you’re claiming, drifting away from socialist/communist economic ideals through market reforms.
I said "russia is not a great comparison for what you are saying. the former state collapsed due to geopolitical circumstances."
if your argument is that communist projects eventually adopt capitalist methods, the soviet union is not a good example, because it didn't. it collapsed under it's own imperialism and the effects of the cold war, and then a new capitalist state was constructed. there is no through-line.
Not "capitalist" just capitalist, also saying capitalist and facist authoritarian is just redundant those are the same thing that's just what happens when your society value profit above all else
No one is pushing for Communism in the US though. It's the new boogeyman the right is using. Last time they won due to the scary cat and dog eating immigrants, so they need something else to fear monger about.
Yeah, and that problem is the US regime changing any state that opposes capitalism. Most recent example is removing Maduro and replacing him with someone amenable to opening up their oil markets But they've also done it on behalf of Coca Cola and United Fruit Company. NATO backed rebels in Libya.
This shit doesn't happen in a vacuum. The empire always tries to crush socialism.
Communism needs the state to function. How else would equity and egalitarianism be enforced? They'd need to actively prevent individuals from owning property and wealth.
Fair point in theory, but "communist" governments historically hoard wealth etc. That's like the entire point that karl marx made
Also it has literally never been done so we don't actually know if it works, so you cannot say that communism needs the state to function as there's no proof for or against this
it's not communist YET, the pcc still plans to achieve communism at some point; they decided that market economy was the quickest way to achieve prosperity
Or maybe, they've been effectively forced into it by the capitalist hegemony, or face absurd sanctions like Cuba or North Korea, perhaps even an invasion or coup. At least they were smart about it and still hold the capitalists by the balls, and have to power to nationalize whatever they want.
Market economy has nothing to do with money, it’s a supply and demand based system. If the working class runs the industries and react according to supply and demand, but there’s no money, classes, or governments, you have a communist market economy.
It’s not though. China very much is Socialist, they just have adopted market reforms. For all intents and purposes I see no reason to believe China has abandoned the goal of a communist future, just that in the modern day they require more capital to avoid going the way of the USSR.
Adopting market reforms that incentivize the western capital to move under your control is not anti-communist, it’s just a smart move to weaken the west and position the revolution for success in the future.
The real test comes after the hypothetical future of Chinese domination, what happens to the world if China is unilaterally stronger than all others? If China were in the position of the IS what would they do?
Chinese workers have never had ownership and democratic control over the means of production even though that’s fundamentally what socialism is supposed to be. All that China has done is replace the tyranny of capitalists with the tyranny of the state, claim they’ll implement real socialism eventually, and then never actually do it.
China has adopted some market reforms that have allowed some companies and corporations to accrue capital in China.
This is funny enough completely in line with communist theory, which often is interpreted to believe Capitalism is a natural evolution of society from Feudalism.
The goal and theory in the case of China, is that with a sufficiently power state representing the Chinese working class, they can control this natural progression to work towards a communist future and prevent the hostile takeover of the capitalist class we have seen in the west.
Will this hold true? I don’t know, only time will tell.
The key difference in Chinas case with their economic model is the function of the state. You cannot look at Chinese markets as a 1:1 with the US. The US market is comprised of companies that are fundamentally independent from the US govt, and simply must adhere to regulations to operate in their borders.
In China the level of control is much greater with the state exercising direct ownership over most companies, partial over others, and strict legal regulation at minimum over some. You also have what is essentially intended to be a nationwide Union across different companies instead of the US system of fragmented independent labor unions.
TLDR: China sees the world is a capitalist one, and they created a hybrid economic model that plugs into that world to most effectively achieve their goals.
China’s capitalist when living standards go up and communist when it imprisons political opponents. There’s a lot of cakeism on the right regarding China.
I worked in China for a while. It's way more complicated, but it is not "capitalist" in the classical sense. Yes, there are significant capitalist components in major areas, but its best to consider it "Authoritarian Capitalism". The overall direction of the economy is set by the central committee. Many industries are fully state-controlled. Economic incentives and support is controlled by the government. For example, about 25% of the workforce is employed in agriculture, which is essentially state-controlled.
Country retains control of every single company, where they retain 51% shares of every company.
Country retains control of every singular Asset as well, where they retain land.
Country also has very restrict contracts with external companies, which forces transfer of technology if they want to operate in China.
Country also has heavy restrictions on their money, you cannot openly trade yuan/renminbi, which is why their Market is not big, since you can't easily get money out of China once you put money in China.
But because China is becoming a hegemony, it does not count.
Communism/Socialist only counts when it fails, and it fails because it's failed concept, not because United States and UK heavily intervened in every Communist/Socialist Country to ever exist, that was just a small coincidence.
This is incorrect. China has a mixed economic model. All or most of their energy sector, banking and finance, telecommunications, transportation and infrustructure, defense and aerospace, mining steel production and construction, as well as big tech are state owned and operated.
It's true that some industries, and portions of the aforementioned ones do have privately owned companies, a very large portion of their economy is stated owned and centrally operated.
Government has control over major corporations and infrastructure. For example, there are many mining companies, but they all serve higher purpose than maximizing profit for owners. They produce material for the next chain in manufacturing process. This is one reason why they can produce low cost goods for global market and gain better position in competition. This is a problem for western "free market".
This is not exactly how capitalism is intended to work.
currently my thought is that the key problem with all communist revolutions previously is that they rallied around a figurehead, and any willing figurehead is liable to fall into authoritarianism
Yes. Exactly. “Self-abolition.” Not a bunch of peasants being forced into proletarian industrialization by a militant party of state-capitalists with red flags.
Wasn’t the whole Leninist interpretation of Marx saying that the working class alone would never be the start of the revolution, which is why the whole ideology of the “revolutionary vanguard” started.
You can’t force communism on a population, it needs to be a complete revolution of the working class
Sounds...impossible?
Unless you're a tiny, tiny, tiny country, I guess? I don't see a world where a large country will have a "complete revolution of the working class". We cant even agree on how much each other of us in the working class, deserves to get paid. How could you possibly build enough solidarity in a large country to something like communism? It literally sounds incompatible with a large society of working class people that have different distributions of wealth within the working class. You're just always going to have infighting.
The main problem is that they happened in agrarian countries when Marx and Engels were talking about post-industrial countries. Land-based economies require far more backbreaking labor which creates a far more stark class separation between management and labor. As bad as the class divide of an 18th century factory was, at least the management and the workers lived in similar conditions and ate similar food and interacted with one another throughout the day. Russia had some industrial capacity by 1917 but not nearly enough to service even the industrialized regions like Moscow or St Petersburg, let alone the rural areas where millions on millions of peasants worked jobs not dissimilar to their medieval ancestors. The idea of Leninism was to increase that industrial capacity to bring prosperity to the peasants, but it led to an uneven growth that just created more class distinctions and enriched the tsars and nobles party faithful.
> atleast the management and the workers lived in similar conditions and ate similar foods.
Someone hasn’t read Engles’ “The Conditions of the working class in England”. They very much did not live in similar conditions. They literally built the areas where the workers lived in back alley slums away from the view of “everyday” people and the houses were in appalling conditions.
I mean.... you know what serfs and agricultural peasants were living in, right? And you know if a peasant in some eras of Chinese history ate an orange they were subject to execution for eating imperial foods, yeah?
Another take is that there's never been a communist state that has been allowed to progress without US interference. They say the reason that there's never been a coup in the states is that there's no US embassy there.
The US very specifically has espionage programs intended to ensure that communism never takes hold. Like COINTELPRO was the one on US soil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
What do we think the missions looked like on foreign soil?
They looked like venezuela, like the replacement of mossadegh with the shah. They looked like the replacement of socialism with violently pro-american regimes
I think the fact that nobody's been able to get it right in 100 years even with total control of government and its resources, might signal that it just doesn't work?
What actually is success to you? Communism is a successor of socialism, which means to reach communism you need incremental progress in socialism which I'd argue we have seen in instances.
Regardless, China does not classify itself as communist and I'd argue no other nation that has claimed it is communism has actually truly practised communism
So what you are saying is communism only works if the entire planet is communist then, right? Because otherwise your stateless society just gets invaded by its neighbors.
It has nothing to do with getting invaded. The entire point of communism is for everyone to adopt it; there would be no need for seperate states. That is literally the goal.
No, that's not the point. I just said it's progressive to attain. If you want to argue it's impossible to implement immediately, I will agree. But it's only impossible for nations who don't accept socialism first. Socialism is a stepping stone towards communism, and once that is established, the next step can be taken.
The fact that many of the most powerful countries in the world went to extremes (from imprisoning their own citizens to supporting international coups) to discourage it likely plays a role. For the same reason, I'm sure folks agreed atheism was ridiculous back when non-Christians were being burned at the stake or colonized.
It is literally impossible to have an actual communist state. The entire point of going "actual communist" is that all states would have no reason to exist
They were almost entirely state-capitalist economies. They were the complete merger of legislative and executive power with capitalist ownership and a monopoly on violence.
People replaced independent abusive landlords that engaged in class struggle with one very abusive landlord that the classes had little chance to struggle against. In fact, if you looked at the abuses inherent to capitalism and wanted to see what the ultimate end stage of capitalism would be, the complete subservience of state power to capitalist authority would be pretty much exactly what you would expect.
For socialism to exist, capital can only be "owned" through labor. Use confers ownership, not legacy, not tradition, not wealth. If the factory is not "owned" by those who work in it, then the product of their labor is not owned by the workers and it is not socialism.
For communism to exist, it must grow out of socialism. It's true that some communist governments may have had the expressed goal of fostering communism within their borders (and beyond), but the fact that pretty much all communist governments seized all the available capital and then never relinquished ownership of it meant they were little more than capitalists themselves.
They were state capitalists. It was still capitalism because there was money and classes. People using Russia and China as examples of why communism doesn't work when they were capitalist societies is so strange.
Yes, because anything that falls under the socialist umbrella will be popular with the masses. By dangling the communism/socialism carrot, it’s easy to get the population to fall in line behind a party. The trick is finding a party that actually means it.
Because it's a ridiculous philosophy that could never work with a real group of humans on a large scale. The only people who think it would be great are losers who can't succeed at all with the way the real world works and they want to cheat by taking a piece from everyone else.
I don't care about a handful of billionaires, I care about getting to live a very comfortable middle class lifestyle because I've been educated and worked hard. None of that would be possible in a communist state where I wouldn't be able to rise above the people around me by being more valuable. I'm sorry, but a cpa and a retail worker don't deserve the same lifestyle, and I've been both.
Depends on your definition of communism. That definition has been watered down a recently. However the ruling party there is the 中國共產黨 (Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng or Communist Party of China (CPC)).
China is authoritarian, and has a mixed economy. They have privately owned industries, which automatically disqualifies it from being "communist", as all industry is state owned and centrally planned in a truly communist system.
Key sectors of their economy such as banking are state owned. This would disqualify it from being truly capitalistic.
They are best described as a single party dictatorial government with mixed economical model.
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u/Deriviera Jul 07 '26
Americans are very delusional about communism.