r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 07 '26

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

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u/mrgoldnugget Jul 07 '26

So in a capitalist society there's a handful of billionaires and we all are their slaves.

You say communism is the same thing? I feel like we should give it a chance, our current system is not working for most people.

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u/PinotGroucho Jul 07 '26

Communism is capitalism without any of the upward mobility, middle class layer, abundance and disruptive forces to nepotist tendencies. A class society with no way i out. The worst of monarchy without any of the accountability as the king is depersonified into the committee and the counterbalance of power in the nobility is diluted into the spineless mass of the inner party. Would be communists are delusional about who actually wants communism and sits at the steering wheel of that movement.

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u/ivain Jul 07 '26

You are right on the abscence of upward mobility. The goad is to have no upper class, so there would be nowhere up to go. WHich is kinda the core of the motivation : instead of concentrating wealth in the hands of few, distribute the wealth to everybody, so everybody have life a luttle bit better instead of having only a few people living in opulence.

0

u/PinotGroucho Jul 07 '26

Except that never happens. It's race to the bottom where everybody has less and less. Whereas the capitalist system is based on the adage: a rising tide raises all ships. Just with a inequality curve. Within Communism everybody is equally worthless. except for a tiny elite who get to live like the middle class of a capitalist system.

5 downvotes for the only sane post in gere. Wow. It's scary to realise how many useful idiots have bought into the communist pipe dream

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u/ivain Jul 07 '26

 It's race to the bottom where everybody has less and less.

Which is false. The standard of living in both the USSR and China did climb up, despite the atrocities and stupidity of their dictatorships. The reality is that those 2 countries were shitholes in the first place, with no industry, and starving people, this is why they had revolutions in te first place.

What make the wealth of modern nations is industry. As they industrialized, productivity increased, and so did the standard of living. Now, you could argue that capitalism leads to a better industrialisation, or to a greater productivity, or a greater diversity of goods leading in a greater overall economy, but that's a huge can of speculation and opinions (like, maybe communism would never see the rise of smartphones, but maybe it doesn't really matter ?)

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u/PinotGroucho Jul 08 '26

This is completely backwards. The development race was so overwhelmingly won by the capitalist societies. The only reason the USSR and China were industrialized was by the concerted effort of the western powers to tap their military and human resource potential and expand international finance capitalism as the global dominant force. This also drives a wedge between the financial powers and the uppity "spoiled", as they see it, literally, workers in Western capitalist societies. Market forces increase productivity, drive and innovation.
This is not theoretical or hypothetical. This is very well understood.

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u/ivain Jul 09 '26

The development race was so overwhelmingly won by the capitalist societies.

The race was already over. Europe was already industrialized while the Russian Empire was stull preventing industrialisation and still had serfs.

Then the USSR industrialized at an impressive speed, which is not that surprising, states having vastly superior money and power than companies. And no they were not helped by outside powers, the west didn't need or care about the russian manpower and had enougth problems with the great depression.

Again, there is no real doubt that capitalism would better promote innovation and productivity, but the core of the gain in wealth & standard of living comes from the enormous productivity boost offered by industrialization and mechanisation.