the initial argument only applies to Utopian Socialism anyway – fighting for your personal interest is exactly the point of communism, destroying all the enemies of the working class
Depends on the definition. Kropotkin, who self identified as anarcho communist, wrote a scientific book literally called Mutual Aid
That’s my point. It’s all about doing self-interested things like mutual aid. Mutual defense is in my self-interest. A dairy co-operative is in the farmers’ interest. Zebras move in herds because it is in their mutual self-interest.
The initial comment is saying communism is about self-sacrifice, against human nature. Kropotkin (I’ve read the book three times btw) convincing makes the case that it’s the opposite of self-sacrifice: about pursuing our natural mutual interest according to our evolutionary imperatives. Kropotkin would say that ruthless competition is against our evolutionary nature and imperatives because it disadvantages survival.
You’re misinterpreting Scientific vs Utopian Socialism. Kropotkin was a Utopian, not a Marxist. Marxists use Scientific Socialism to refer to the creation of Socialist Society as an evolution upon Capitalist society, whereas Utopianism refers to people “spontaneously” adopting a system after being convinced of it, ie waiting on someone to magically think of a perfect society and directly building it, instead of looking at Socialism as another stage in human development.
I suggest reading Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Am I? I never called him a Marxist because he clearly wasn’t. He was an anarcho communist (before bolsheviks burned the term communism).
Still he didn’t claim that it will happen spontaneously. Your dichotomy is wrong. He may not have been a Scientific Socialist in the Marxist Tradition, still his theory was scientific and revolutionary. Historical Materialism isn’t the only path to think scientifically about history and socialism. It’s actually pretty unscientific to think so.
Am I? I never called him a Marxist because he clearly wasn’t. He was an anarcho communist (before bolsheviks burned the term communism).
Yes, you are. The above commenter explicitly mentioned Utopianism vs Scientific Socialism, indicating the intent on following Marxist analysis. Secondly, I don’t know what you mean by the bolsheviks “burning Communism” when they established the first Socialist State.
Still he didn’t claim that it will happen spontaneously. Your dichotomy is wrong. He may not have been a Scientific Socialist in the Marxist Tradition, still his theory was scientific and revolutionary. Historical Materialism isn’t the only path to think scientifically about history and socialism. It’s actually pretty unscientific to think so.
Again, you’re using “Scientific” to refer to literal science, not the term as it relates to Socialism. His theory was Utopian, rejecting history as it develops and instead embracing the concept of there being some perfect society that can be adopted directly. This is Utopianism.
I don’t know what you mean by the bolsheviks “burning Communism”
I said “burning the term communism” as in you can’t use it anymore without thinking of bolshevism. The meme and the comment above mine said communism, not Marxism.
Otherwise you have proven my point that you have no understanding what so ever in his theory. He writes expansively about history and about the revolution and transition. Just because he doesn’t belong to your tradition, you lump him together with people he had little in common with.
Again, you’re using “Scientific” to refer to literal science, not the term as it relates to Socialism.
I never said I wasn’t. I even elaborated on that I reject Marxist Historical Materialism. What even is your point here?
His theory was Utopian, rejecting history as it develops and instead embracing the concept of there being some perfect society that can be adopted directly. This is Utopianism.
Well, did he? He didn’t write about history in Mutual Aid? And Conquest of Bread is not about a literal conquest but about adopting it directly? Do you even think before you write?
I said “burning the term communism” as in you can’t use it anymore without thinking of bolshevism. The meme and the comment above mine said communism, not Marxism.
Generally, “Communism” is attached to Communists, the vast majority of whom have been Marxists of various stripes, the most relevent among them being Marxist-Leninists. Communism wasn’t stolen from the Anarchists, Communism was attached firmly to the groups with major historical relevance.
Additionally, “burning” implies betrayal and scorn.
Finally, OP is a Marxist, not an Anarchist, and the comment you replied to specifically mentioned critique of Utopianism, indicating Marxist analysis and critique.
Otherwise you have proven my point that you have no understanding what so ever in his theory. He writes expansively about history and about the revolution and transition. Just because he doesn’t belong to your tradition, you lump him together with people he had little in common with.
That’s all well and good. Writing about transition, revolution, and history is nice. However, ultimately, he was an Anarchist. He rejects the Marxist theory of Socialism as it emerges from Capitalism throughout historical development, and took the idea that Communism can be established outright. This is a rejection of Scientific Socialism, and an embracement of Utopian Socialism, I remind you as this meme and the original commenter both were speaking along Marxist lines.
I never said I wasn’t. I even elaborated on that I reject Marxist Historical Materialism. What even is your point here?
My point is that you inserted your rejection when it wasn’t relevant as though it was.
Well, did he? He didn’t write about history in Mutual Aid? And Conquest of Bread is not about a literal conquest but about adopting it directly? Do you even think before you write?
He of course wrote about history, and the necessity of Revolution, but rejected Historical Materialism and Scientific Socialism, instead taking a Utopian view. He believed you could jump straight to Communism through a brief transitional period.
You’re being needlessly antagonistic and rude, by the way.
I love how the commenter above me already agreed with me but you still feel the need to defend them for no reason.
They used the term Utopian Socialism, not implying that they were Marxist. There are more than two ways. Kropotkin for example was neither. All you’re saying is “he wasn’t Marxist so he was Utopian” which is wrong as I and the commenter above me already agreed on.
You can even be Marxist and still reject Historical Materialism as John the Duncan does even tho he sadly never dedicated a video on that, just hints it here and there.
It’s not “destroying all the enemies of the working class” but “destroying classes so we end up being working class”. The idea (as I understand it) is that working class is the one that creates things while bourgeois class is only a parasite. So everyone should be creating something and not sucking the blood of others.
Close. Neither case is fully correct
Communisn is the doctrine of the conditions of the abolition of the Proletariat
-Engels, The Principles of Communism
The bourgeoisie doesn’t create value, the proletariat does, correct, but dogmatic class warfare is anti-Marxist. Class warfare must service the overthrow of the Bourgeoisie via smashing the Bourgeois state, and replacing it with a Proletarian state that withers away as it untangles class contradictions. You cannot create Communism by killing all of the bourgeoisie, but by wresting their power as Socialism emerges from Capitalism.
Maybe I didn’t explain myself correctly. For the bourgeoisie class to disappear it’s not needed to kill anyone. Only take off the power they have and make them work as proletarians.
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huh?
The real communism
When you feed the poor, you’re called a Saint
When you ask why the poor have no food, you’re called a communist.
I work a couple food service jobs and the waste brings a tear to my eye. And that’s just what makes it to the restaurant. Oh this tomato doesn’t look perfect? Throw it away.
Perfect tomato’s for sale: $10 each.
Then the pile of perfect tomatos rot as hungry eyes look upon it from outside the store. (They aren’t allowed inside, the vagrants might steal!) Rotten like the hearts of those who gatekeep necessities for profit and power.
That just Is word for word the peak of "grapes of wrath "
“The oranges needed to be dumped in kerosene and burned. It is cheaper than dumping them in the river and making sure the poor don’t take them… why? All for the sake of profit”
People are neither inherently selfish or inherently generous. People are survivors regardless of what is necessary to do so. A human will give the shirt off his back to his neighbor but will spite a customer service worker because they’re in a bad mood or feel slighted. Your tribe is your most important social aspect
But it is that selfishness that communism can’t control for and that capitalism only dampens the effect of. You need a system that counteracts those selfish tendencies in order to reach lasting stability.
In what way does capitalism “dampen” selfishness?
It reserves selfishness for a handful of weirdos, and allows every worker to be selfless.
it rewards it in my view. it conditions us to be selfish
In that it makes it open. In capitalism, ot is assumed that everyone is a selfish actor. Under communism, everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, and when they aren’t, you can’t call them out, because they would accuse you of ‘undermining the unity’. And because they tend to be in positions of power, you will end up in the Gulag.
Under communism, everyone is supposed to work together for the greater good, and when they aren’t, you can’t call them out, because they would accuse you of ‘undermining the unity’.
Where on Earth did you get this idea?
What have you read or where did you get your understanding from?
‘A system that counteracts those selfish tendencies’ you mean a system in which:
- housing is not controlled by companies with no moral incentive to keep them liveable and affordable?
- people don’t learn from a young age that their value is directly connected to their willingness to fuck people over for money?
- there is no monetary incentive to create artificial deficits in essential goods like housing and food?
- the whole economy is not based on ‘cheap labour’ and the illegal extraction of minerals from other countries?
I agree with this. Communist like systems where there is central control of resources encourages corruption as people vie to get closer to the central control of the resources. Capitalism is just more honest about the fact that many people - not all of them - are fundamentally self-interested and entices them into cooperation with others by offering the carrot of individual rewards. Those are probably the same people that would try to exploit the system if it were more centrally controlled.
Communist like systems where there is central control of resources encourages corruption as people vie to get closer to the central control of the resources
Communists advocate for immediate recall elections, and units forming syndicates that send delegates. Communism is designed against corruption.
Capitalism is just more honest about the fact that many people - not all of them - are fundamentally self-interested and entices them into cooperation with others by offering the carrot of individual rewards
Capitalism isn’t honest nor deceitful, it’s just a Mode of Production. Capitalism doesn’t have a face or a will.
Those are probably the same people that would try to exploit the system if it were more centrally controlled.
What’s considered natural depends on the Material Conditions, ie the Mode of Production. Capitalism reinforces greed by rewarding it systematically, Communism and Socialism do not.
I know I would be attacked by entire fediverse, but I want to say that charity also has egoism as backing cause. People help other people because it makes them feel good. And people expect themselves to be noticed or praised or rewarded, even if they tell themselves and everyone else that they don’t.
Also don’t presume that I am a capitalist, before you decide to attack me.
I mean, you’re not wrong, but your point is also kinda meaningless. Of course, you only ever do things because there’s something in it for you, even if that something is just feeling good about yourself. If there was truly nothing in it for you, then why would you do it?
But that misses the point of the “people are inherently selfish” vs “people are inherently generous” discussion, because it’s not actually about whether people do things only for themselves at the most literal level, instead it’s about whether people inherently get something out of doing things for others without external motivation. So your point works the same on both sides of the argument.
Of course, you only ever do things because there’s something in it for you,
No, sometimes you do things because you care about other people and want to help them. That you also probably feel better about yourself than you would if you did shitty things all day doesn’t mean that feeling is the only and single motivation.
Well, but what does “caring” mean? It means that their well-being affects your emotions. At its very core, you wanting to help people you care about comes from wanting to create positive emotions in yourself or avoiding negative ones (possibly in the future, it doesn’t have to be an immediate effect). If those emotions weren’t there, you wouldn’t actually care and thus not do it.
Edit to clarify: I’m not being cynical or pessimistic here, or implying that this means that everyone is egotistical because of this. The point I was trying to make is that defining egotism vs. Altruism is a little bit more complex than just looking at whether there’s something in it for the acting person. We actually need to look at what’s in it for the acting person.
Well, but what does “caring” mean? It means that their well-being affects your emotions.
That would be an extremely reductive definition that doesn’t really tell us much about how caring for others is actually experienced and how it manifests in the world. How would this for example explain sacrificing yourself to save another person, if the very core of caring is to create positive emotions in yourself? Dying is a pretty negative thing to experience and there will be no more positive emotions for you after that. I guess this idea that caring is in its essence transactional feels profound to people because we’re so ingrained with capitalist ideology… but it’s a lot more complex and multifaceted than that.
That would be an extremely reductive definition that doesn’t really tell us much about how caring for others is actually experienced and how it manifests in the world.
Exactly, that’s my point.
How would this for example explain sacrificing yourself to save another person, if the very core of caring is to create positive emotions in yourself?
In this case it would be about reducing negative emotions, choosing the lesser of two evils. Losing a loved one and/or having to live with the knowledge that you could have saved them but chose not to can inflict massive emotional pain, potentially for the rest of your life. Dying yourself instead might seem outright attractive in comparison.
this idea that caring is in its essence transactional
That’s not actually how I’m seeing it, and I also don’t think it’s a super profound insight or something. It’s just a super technical way of viewing the topic of motivation, and while it’s an interesting thought experiment, it’s mostly useless.
I might help people because it makes me feel good, sure. But I might also do it because those are my values, long since established, and I try to live by said values. So it’s about what following a self-imposed expectation, not about getting something. For some people, some of the time.
Similarly, the argument that “being selfless is selfish” is not useful and provably false. Just go ask people, and they’ll tell you why they did things and how they felt. Then you have to argue that many of them are either lying or mistaken, which doesn’t seem like a winnable argument.
In your ecample, doing something that aligns with your values still gives you something in return, for example a sense of accomplishment or pride. That was the point
the argument that “being selfless is selfish” is not useful
Yes, that’s my entire point.
and provably false
Depends on how you define “selfish”. Again, that’s exactly what I’m trying to demonstrate here. Reducing the definition of selfish to mean “getting something out of it” makes it meaningless because every decision is made in the hopes of getting something out of it in some way, even if it’s obscure. To make it useful, you need to look at what someone is getting out of it in order to get to a useful definition.
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Kind of. I agree partly. My mother used to knit winter clothes, for free, for some institutions and she wasn’t the one delivering them. They never knew who she was, and she didn’t bother.
Your mother was kind and intelligent enough to get satisfaction from the knowledge that she made someone’s winter a bit more bearable. We should all strive to be like your mother.
We hear that argument a lot, and though some people’s charity may be motivated purely by egoism I don’t think it applies to the majority at all. The argument assumes that if doing something makes you feel good, then that feeling must be the sole motivation for that action, which is dubious. And if we follow this logic to its natural conclusion, every action that does not make you feel bad is egoistic, and the concept becomes completely meaningless. Saving a child from falling down a cliff? Egoistic! Intervening when someone is treated unfairly? Egoistic! Giving up your chair for an elderly person on a crowded bus? Egoistic!
Let’s take this last (admittedly small, everyday, non-dramatic) example. Sure, you could give up your seat purely because you want to look like a good person to others (although it’s doubtful anyone would even notice). It’s also possible to experience this feeling called empathy, to see an elderly person struggling to keep their balance while standing up and to want to alleviate that particular suffering. Everyone else is sitting down looking at their phones, so there’s no community pressure to speak of. No one would call you out if you just pretended not to notice. And the discomfort from standing up on a really crowded bus on a bumpy road could easily outweigh that little buzz you get from doing good.
I’ll go even further; it’s even possible, in a scenario like this, to not even think about how it’s going to make you feel or your self-image or whatever. You just want to help someone else because it’s in your power to do so. If this isn’t an example of not being egoistic, what would be? What would be the opposite of egoism? To act completely dispassionately?
And what about someone sacrificing their own life to save another? Striving to do good in the world does feel better, yes, but empathy is also a burden. Still, there are genuinely good people out there, that do good deeds and do not take any credit for it, even do it anonymously. And I can tell you from experience, not all of them walk around on clouds feeling like saints. Some of them even experience crippling guilt because they feel they do not do enough. How is that egoism?
People help other people because it makes them feel good. And people expect themselves to be noticed or praised or rewarded, even if they tell themselves and everyone else that they don’t.
People want their labor to be recognized. But you don’t need to wield an Elon Musk level of deranged dictatorial financial clout in order to experience self-actualization for your efforts.
Pride in your work also comes with a degree of autonomy and creative freedom. A draconian profit driven privatized capitalist restaurant or clinic or school isn’t going to care whether the staff feed or heal or educate anymore. All they care about is driving up profits. By contrast, a (good) chef cares that people like the food. They care about evolving their craft. They care about the experience they are producing, even when that may mean the dish doesn’t make someone else money.
There’s a balance to be struck between enterprises with scarce resources and people with a desire to feel accomplished in their craft.
But you can strike that balance with good administrative leadership. The reward for a day’s work can be a beautiful place to live and a happy neighborhood, rather than a single incredibly rich guy hosting an award show for his pet favorites and using these token elites as an excuse to make the rest of his staff live in poverty.
that’s a very grim way of looking at goodness. Of course doing things you believe are making a positive change makes you feel good, of course helping your community makes you feel good, and it does feel nice to be recognised and known as a good person.
It’s a strange ambient idea in our society, that to be truly good you must suffer, and never find joy in the good things you do. Not to turn conspiratorial, but to me it sounds like a cope from actually selfish people who look at people who do nice things and think to themselves “they’re only doing it to be popular and feel good about themselves, why else would anyone do anything”
Egoism isn’t a positive or negative word. It is a word that describes human behaviour, and anyone who declares it to be positive or negative would be wrong. Egoism is something that makes you happy, or gives you a feeling of gain or happiness.
This isn’t the standard definition of egoism, but I like to think about it this way.
I agree with you. If I have anything to give when I see someone in need, I give it to them. Not because I have some grand sense of purpose or anything. I do it because it makes me feel warm inside, it puts me in a better mood for the whole day knowing that someone else’s life is now a little easier because of me. Does that change the fact that I’ve made someone’s life a little easier?
I remember looking at charity jobs when I was graduating with my humanities degree before I got into tech. Revealingly, the alumi I was speaking to who worked in the sector said something like, “At it’s core you need to remember that working for a charity is essentially a sales job.”
Made me nope tf out of there lol.
“People help other people because it makes them feel good”. I’d say the meaning is “people help others in need so they can feel good”. Is there a problem with this? If someone in need of help receive that help, they will feel alleviated, while people giving help will feel good. I don’t know, it sounds great to me. Even if the helping ones wouldn’t feel a thing, like robots, it would be still great, in my book, because someone in need is being attended.
Now, if the helping ones feel bad for helping, and the others feel good, then I can see an issue. The only problem I could see is to be angry because there are people in need to start with.
Yeah, and eating hot dogs also goes against human nature. That shit didn’t exist in 3,500 BCE.
are you really saying emulsified rat lips, chicken trimmings, porkins, and beef slurry didn’t exist in 3500 BCE?
Not in such a convenient package!
People used to use almost all parts of animals. Being able to be super picky is more modern extravagance and it’s good the parts are still used. Unnecessary waste otherwise
The very existence of society and the fact that we aren’t blindly killing eachother for resources proves that civilization is not based on humanities animalistic instincts. Therefore the claim that humans cannot overcome their own base instincts (as claimed by many Liberals) would imply that we are no morally or intellectually superior to animals.
Even animals are not based on such “animalistic instinct”, most of animals cooperate on some level.
Indeed, all intelligent creatures are capable of acting beyond what is strictly needed for survival.
Cooperation is needed for survival in many cases, or at least improve the odds.
Exactly lol, look at ants their society is thousands times more organized than our and they don’t even have brains. To be fair they only focus on basic needs like food and reproduction we do a lot more things
You can see it all play out in a microcosm on reality shows like Survivor. People cooperate and compete. They cooperate TO compete. They cooperate when it benefits them the most, and betray each other when they think they’re most likely to get away with it. Some people are more trustworthy than others. Some are extremely likely to betray, but then they struggle to benefit from cooperation.
Groups of people engaged in a kind of eusocial super cooperation are very rare and tend to be fairly small. They also tend to act the most like a clique; being highly discriminatory against the outgroup.
My take on this is that the greatness in humanity comes from being a bunch of egoistic assholes capable of doing the right thing and help each other.
A selfless person doing something selfless is normal. A egoist doing something egoistic is normal. An egoist doing something altruistic is what raises us from pure instinct to humanity.
Considering Ayn Rand’s novels as literature was a mistake.
“One of the USSRs biggest mistakes was giving Ayn Rand an education”
“And when all those self made champions went away and created a new society, free of the old one, one of them asked ‘does anyone of us know how to cook?’. And then they screamed in fear”.
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Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.
The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.
I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.
Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.
Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)
It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.
We will feed you if you believe in our religion and work our fields, your true reward for your good works and piety will wait for you in heaven.
It’s like your pension plan in the sky.
Charity can also be used as a tax avoidance scheme and weaponized for political purposes; this is why the rich love it, through charity they are able to help themselves even further
We’re always going to end up with people who can manipulate a crowd being in charge. We’re stupid like that.
This is what I always find amusing about the Communist argument.
Like, the elected politicians and bureaucracy can’t be trusted enough to regulate industry under capitalism so we’ll centralize things and then trust them to regulate industry under Communism?
Edit: whoof, should’ve thought about human nature when I dared to criticize communism. Almost lime there is another lesson somehwere there.
so, it’s the goddamn weekend. How does everyone have so much free time this late on a Saturday? I’ll do my best to get back to y’all on a dirty capitalist’s time slot.
To be fair, I don’t have to trust elected politicians to distrust unelected CEOs and other upper management more
But it’s not like companies or business entities won’t have folks in charge of them under communism… Someone has to run the whatevers…
But it’s also not like the person who runs the whatevers has to be beholden to shareholders and profits. They could instead be incentivized to prioritize the collective well being of the workers.
And for that matter, politicians and the bureaucracy also live in a system that incentivizes (to the tune of millions in bribes) them to prioritize the interests of businesses owners, and thusly shareholders and profits, at the cost of the common good. Which is a major reason they can’t be trusted.
Or, as has happened in capitalism, people will find ways to bend the system to benefit themselves. Except this time without boards so much as bribable officials and whatnot.
And now we find ourselves at the beginning of the meme.
Also, I find “people are greedy” to be an uncompelling reason to support a system that incentivizes greed and exploitation. If people bending a system to benefit themselves is a problem, then the system should be designed to be resistant to this, in a way that incentivizes promoting the common good. Or at the very least shouldn’t encourage these problems.
Capitalism encourages these problems.
Capitalism is explicitly designed for people to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Capital begets more capital in a positive feedback loop that results in massively powerful billionaires.
If you elect representatives, those representatives are checked somewhat by the threat of being voted out. Capitalism has no such check. Sure, ostensibly people can choose not to buy a product, but unregulated capitalism selects for monopolies.
Capitalism is explicitly designed
Capitalism was never designed, it emerged from Feudalism. Capitalism was never an idea, but a result of technological advancement, just as Socialism will be from Capitalism.
Just a minor correction, the rest of your comment is broadly correct.
Ideally, supervision over most non critical sectors would fall to randomly drafted, single term committees of the people, think jury duty except better compensated and obviously with bureaucratic resources available to enable these committees to fulfil their role adequately.
Now this isn’t suited for everything, but in either system any true oversight is done by the people, not the state.
Half of America wants to vote for trump and you want to trust in random people? That seems like a wild leap of faith.
It’s more like 30% and that’s with Americans being some of the most wildly mis-educated people out there. I’m sick of seeing sortition shit, but sicker still of misanthropy.
Okay, would you rather the Germans who voted AFD? Or the rise of the French National Party? Or Fidesz in Hungary? Or PPV in Denmark?
Around 30% tops but more importantly what do those trump supporters want? The exact same things you do, they just believe different causes for the problems we all see and thus have wildly different solutions.
Shit, you’d better tell that to my aunt who told me how my lifestyle hurts her.
You already trust these people today. They run/own many large corporations today which dramatically affect our lives in multitude of ways. Except today we can’t get remove them from these positions of power under the current system.
It’s thanks to this in part that your aunt keeps indulging her imaginary pain when she thinks about your lifestyle.
Like, the elected politicians and bureaucracy can’t be trusted enough to regulate industry under capitalism so we’ll centralize things and then trust them to regulate industry under Communism?
If that’s your understanding of Communism, then you need to read The State and Revolution. Quite a lot of Communist theory is concerned with eliminating the concept of beauracracy.
In theory, democracy produces satisfactory outcomes…
Democracy does produce satisfactory outcomes, what changes reality is the structure of said democracy. Very few systems are direct democracies, and direct democracies themselves are flawed even in theory.
You should read the text.
Of course bourgeois democracy doesn’t produce satisfactory outcomes for the working class. It doesn’t represent the will of the working class, but rather that of the capitalist class.
When have attempts to reduce bureaucracy not yielded even more bureaucracy ? This isn’t a state V corporation issue either, bureaucracy thrives in both these places.
AES states.
Sahel states ?
Actually Existing Socialist States.
Such as ?
I feel like you’re ignoring a lot of background, but let’s run with your argument. Let’s assume that we have to have some elected politicians and some appointed or elected bureaucrats, and either we should try to have a capitalist system or a communist system of some kind.
Let’s try to keep things as equal as possible, knowing that we really can’t, but just for the sake of argument. Which system is more likely to be corrupted? Remember, the express goal of capitalism is to throw wealth at the capitalists. If the regular person gets screwed, that’s not corruption, that’s a feature of the system… Oh, wait a second, I guess we already have an answer to our hypothetical, don’t we.
But you did raise a good point. Any government, if it’s to function somewhat reasonably, needs to be one that has a lot of transparency, oversight, and accountability. If you don’t have those, it doesn’t matter how you start off because it’s going to end badly. So I agree with you, we shouldn’t be trusting politicians.
Like, the elected politicians and bureaucracy can’t be trusted enough to regulate industry under capitalism so we’ll centralize things and then trust them to regulate industry under Communism?
Literally read State and Revolution by Lenin which talks about how people assume the state has a neutral character, but actually it has a class character reflecting who it is designed to serve.
Communism Killed 100 Zillion People
Now the massive population of China and Venezuela and Vietnam and Cuba and California are going to take over the world
No, they aren’t doing Real Communism. That’s just Authoritarian State Capitalism.
Yes, we have to fight them. That’s why we need the western governments to spend trillions of dollars on private military services.
We have to kill all 100 Zillion of them. Because they’ve been infected with the Mind Virus of Communism.
I honestly can’t tell if this is sarcastic or not. There are too many people out there that sound just like this.
It’s sarcasm.
The zillion part definitely made me lean towards sarcasm, but I guess I can never be too sure with all the brainrot and bots out there. The Red Scare still lingers.
The Red Scare never died, and the Cold War never ended.
The Cold War ended in 1994, when the Russian government collapsed. We had a 15-20 year window in which Kennedy-esque American moderates thought they could dominate the industrial world through high finance while using a few “Rogue States” as punching bags.
And then 2008 happened, revealing that this was not working. And then we got Trump’s ahem national socialism ahem of interstate deals making minus immigration. And the only thing NATO states seem to agree on is everyone building even biggest militaries with which to duke it out across North Africa and Eastern Europe.
Now we’re flirting with Cold War 2, except it’s looking a lot hotter than the last one. Feels more like the prelude to WW1, tbh.
I’d describe it as a lull in the same general conflict. The primary contradiction remained. I do think there will be war, tragically.
There was a solid minute during the War on Terror when DC, Moscow, and Beijing were in full kumbahyah mode.
Turning the resource rich Middle East into a free fire zone had a broad popular appeal among industrial powers.
It’s either this fairy tale, or its flip side, the myth that ‘private vices’ somehow add up to ‘public virtues’.
We are also born unable to care for ourselves. Or speak. Or…
Kids don’t want to work these days
I’m sure it’s the kids fault
Rents late you lazy toddler!
“The good of the people” is a noble enough goal. Unfortunately, the people in charge of these movements are people who deliberately seek power, and for the most part, those people are vain greedy, brutal, a-holes.
people in charge of these movements are people who deliberately seek power
“Don’t trust anyone who tells you what to do”
“Okay, I’m not going to trust you.”
“No, you idiot! That’s not what I meant!”
So, anyway, let’s talk about why the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War got absolutely rolled by the well organized and disciplined Fascists. Then maybe pop over to Russia, China, Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam, and consider why Marxism have had a better record on self defense.
the Anarchists of the Spanish Civil War got absolutely
rolledbetrayed by the well organized and disciplinedFascistsCommunistsFTFY
Please ignore the history of Anarchists fighting the Communists, it simply must have been the dirty Marxists betraying the noble Anarchists.
Are you referring to instances in which Anarchist groups in the Spanish Civil War took actions to hurt Communist groups? I won’t claim it didn’t happen, but I don’t know of examples.
I’m referring to the general distrust of Anarchists by the Communists. They fought against the Anarchists of Russia during the Russian Civil War, yet still supplied the Spanish Anarchists with weapons and vehicles. The general fact that Anarchists struggle with organization and Communists generally don’t to nearly the same degree compounded this.
By what manner do you say the Communists betrayed the Anarchists?
USSR-aligned groups, where they had power in Spain, in many instances used that power to imprison, smear, and seize weapons from, and attack non-USSR-aligned groups. You can look up José Cazorla’s anti-subversion measures in Madrid, or PSUC’s attacks on POUM during the Barcelona May Days.
Yes, and the anti-USSR groups used their power to imprison, smear, seize weapons from, and attack USSR-aligned groups.
It wasn’t a “betrayal,” it was a conflict in how the war should be fought. The Anarchists tried to stick to decentralization even within the context of war, and lost. Had the Anarchists adopted a more Marxist line, they may have succeeded.
Hate to be betrayed by not having enough tanks sent to me. Maybe if the Spanish anarchists had all the military equipment they wanted, they would have won, but the war-torn Russians couldn’t afford to waste equipment on the shittily organized anarchists, so now I’m going to whinge about it for a century as though that makes them equivalent to (or worse than) the fascists who actually killed them!
The Spanish Civil War wasn’t anarchists vs fascists. There was a popular front that included anarchists, socialists, communists, liberals. The USSR-associated groups made a grab for power over the anarchist factions, which can’t have helped the war effort.
There was logistical involvement from the USSR itself, which is what I thought you were referring to. I have nothing to say one way or another about internal factionalism, besides that the whole basis of your riff is still equivocating with or in fact making the Communists out to be worse than the Francoists, which I find to be in poor taste. You come off even worse than those dweebs who fellate the Makhnovist.
Do you have nothing to say to Cowbee?
My only goal was to push back on the notion that the Spanish Civil War was lost due to anarchist disorganization. I’m not sure what response the other commenter warrants, it’s just a quip.
- Don’t listen to anyone in authority
- Don’t collaborate anyone in authority
- Don’t submit to anyone in authority
…
The people in authority betrayed us.
For the most part? That’s an empirical claim. Any evidence? My gut disagrees with you, but my gut also has no evidence.
It’s not an empirical claim if you have literal examples of how badly “communism” (self-serving oligarchy) has failed.
I’ll start with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. And I hope I don’t even need to point out what Mao did to China.
Can you make any analysis? Vaguely gesturing doesn’t mean anything.
Stop simping for billionaires. It’s embarrassing to watch.
I’m a Communist, of course I don’t simp for billionaires.
People = problem
Capitalist countries have more free food available than communist countries do.
“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Free? When was the last time you got free food? Free in the fully subsidized by the government kind of way. Unless you live on food stamps (in which case you’re usually fucked in pretty much every other way) I can’t think of another way how you’d get free food. I guess technically dumpster diving but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until it’s made illegal (if it’s not already illegal).
And if the food not free then more available food doesn’t matter if the people can’t afford it. We produce enough food to feed everyone and we still have people without food security.
You don’t really believe that, do you?
Communist logix
we need to abolish private property so everybody has equal power.
we class of people to maintain public ownership
After all, how can we enforce public ownership without a more powerful class of enforcers?
we need to abolish private property so everybody has equal power.
Abolishing private property isn’t about equalizing power, necessarily. It’s to end Capitalist production, which is necessarily exploitative and results in Monopoly Capitalism, aka Imperialism. Abolishing Private Property allows us to produce based on needs, not profits for a few individuals.
we class of people to maintain public ownership
Communists advocate for the abolition of classes.
After all, how can we enforce public ownership without a more powerful class of enforcers?
That’s a pretty terrible misreading of Communist structures. Communists advocate for abolition of the State, via creating a government as an “administration of things,” similar to how the Post Office functions, but for all of production. The goal of protecting the revolution is done by the Proletariat, the most advanced among them making up the Vanguard. There isn’t a separate “class.”
I gotta say, communists are great at branding lol
You say it’s the goal of the proletariat to protect the revolution, but why would they? Each proletariat would benefit from the revolution’s failure- they could live better lives as the bourgeois. You talk about the proletariat like they are some monolithic entity, with a single mind and goal. You talk big about helping the individual, but cannot see beyond their class. The proletariat is a person, with needs, desires and opinions. What father would hold the abstract ideals of the “revolution” over the life of his sick daughter? Any father I know would do anything for the safety of his children, even hoard life-saving medicine from others.
You say it’s the goal of the proletariat to protect the revolution, but why would they? Each proletariat would benefit from the revolution’s failure- they could live better lives as the bourgeois
This is absurd. That’s like saying the French Revolution should’ve been sabotaged because the Proletariat would have fared better as nobility.
You talk about the proletariat like they are some monolithic entity, with a single mind and goal.
No, I do not. I speak of the Proletariat as a class, which shares class interests and class dynamics, ie they are all workers who create the value exploited from them.
The proletariat is a person, with needs, desires and opinions. What father would hold the abstract ideals of the “revolution” over the life of his sick daughter?
What is this wild tangent? Why do you think a father would side against his and his daughters interests and continue to live in sqaulor? Do you think revolution is an aesthetic choice, and not a practical conclusion?
Any father I know would do anything for the safety of his children, even hoard life-saving medicine from others.
Revolution is when no medicine for sick daughters
Ok. I’m getting tired. You bested me this round. Have a nice day.
What does it mean to have a misreading in this context (last point)? You are just reiterating what they said but reassuring us that the most “advanced” among them are not going to turn into a ruling class because…?
Any form of political power is poison. You don’t get to a state-less, egalitarian society by going in the exact opposite direction, by enforcing a ruling class and an hierarchy like any else.
And you can see this practically not in any massacre, genocide, famine or war communist countries have inflicted, these are up for discussion. The actual evidence that this is not the right path is in the lack of accountability of the governing Party under communism, the lack of freedom of speech inside that party and the decision making body, the absolute discipline required to be in it or you get kicked out for having a different opinion for any topic, the gradual increase in authoritarianism by it and the Party’s gradual alienation from the people. These all are fundamental structural problems that stem from the fact that you set out to solve a problem by endorsing it and practising it.
People are never going to free themselves from hierarchy and the state if they don’t learn to live without it in practise, take decisions for themselves, develop the skills, knowledge and tactics to abolish it etc. You are/become what you practise in your life, not what you preach.
What does it mean to have a misreading in this context (last point)? You are just reiterating what they said but reassuring us that the most “advanced” among them are not going to turn into a ruling class because…?
What is a class? If you can meaningfully explain what a class is, then you will understand the answer. Here’s an example: is the Post Office manager a separate class from the drivers? No.
Any form of political power is poison. You don’t get to a state-less, egalitarian society by going in the exact opposite direction, by enforcing a ruling class and an hierarchy like any else.
What is a State, and what do Communists mean when they say Communism will be State-less? What is a ruling class? If I say a post-office driver is a Capitalist, this is wrong. Correct analysis of class dynamics, where they draw their power, and their social relation with others, determines Class. Engels specifically describes the withering of the state as a transformation from a tool by which one class oppresses another into an administration of things.
And you can see this practically not in any massacre, genocide, famine or war communist countries have inflicted, these are up for discussion. The actual evidence that this is not the right path is in the lack of accountability of the governing Party under communism, the lack of freedom of speech inside that party and the decision making body, the absolute discipline required to be in it or you get kicked out for having a different opinion for any topic, the gradual increase in authoritarianism by it and the Party’s gradual alienation from the people. These all are fundamental structural problems that stem from the fact that you set out to solve a problem by endorsing it and practising it.
These are frankly false statements. There is accountability, there is freedom of discussion. Being a fascist or liberal will indeed get you kicked out, as it should. Communists don’t believe the problem is with the State, but with Capitalism, and as such use the State against the bourgeoisie to end Capitalism.
People are never going to free themselves from hierarchy and the state if they don’t learn to live without it in practise, take decisions for themselves, develop the skills, knowledge and tactics to abolish it etc. You are/become what you practise in your life, not what you preach.
Communists don’t believe “hierarchy” is a problem. That’s an anarchist concern.
All in all, I highly encourage you to read both Blackshirts and Reds, as well as The State and Revolution. The former will help recontextualize Communism and Communist states, correcting popular myths and taking a realistic, critical look at AES. The latter will elaborate on the Communist theory of the State, which is fundamentally different from the Anarchist theory of the State. Both are generally easy reads.
I don’t get why you purposefully obfuscate what ruling class I am referring to. What kind of example are managers and drivers when I am clearly talking about the people comprising the decision making body or Communist party under communism? I think that’s simple enough and also the fact that any communist government that survived long enough gradually became more and more authoritarian, more detached from the people - never in the other direction. The evidence is there and we both know it. The burden of proof that this isn’t the case is on you, not me…
You simply dismissed my claims without any evidence on that. Although you seem to like to meticulously answer every sentence separately, you dismiss the core of the argument. I understand most communism movements start off with noble and admirable intentions and I’m not ignoring this, but the fundamental issue here is that in the longterm, by design, in order to preserve state power, for whatever reason, you’d be heading to the opposite direction of a stateless society.
I’ve read enough Lenin to understand this from his descriptions of the ideal Party. I don’t need reading recommendations, thank you. I am not saying anything profound here, this is like mainstream critique of marxism.
I don’t get why you purposefully obfuscate what ruling class I am referring to. What kind of example are managers and drivers when I am clearly talking about the people comprising the decision making body or Communist party under communism? I think that’s simple enough and also the fact that any communist government that survived long enough gradually became more and more authoritarian, more detached from the people - never in the other direction. The evidence is there and we both know it. The burden of proof that this isn’t the case is on you, not me…
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The Communist Party was not a class, hence why I asked you to prove it to be.
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You claim it’s a “fact” that Communist countries “get more authoritarian,” and left that hanging and unsupported.
In both cases, the burden of proof is on you.
You simply dismissed my claims without any evidence on that. Although you seem to like to meticulously answer every sentence separately, you dismiss the core of the argument. I understand most communism movements start off with noble and admirable intentions and I’m not ignoring this, but the fundamental issue here is that in the longterm, by design, in order to preserve state power, for whatever reason, you’d be heading to the opposite direction of a stateless society.
I dismissed blanket claims with no reasoning or evidence. There was no logic, just blanket statements. Additionally, you seem to be under the impression that Communist countries have ever been at a point where they could abolish the state entirely, which in the age of Imperialism that’s impossible due to foreign interference. There’s good reason why Anarchism has never lasted at scale.
I’ve read enough Lenin to understand this from his descriptions of the ideal Party. I don’t need reading recommendations, thank you. I am not saying anything profound here, this is like mainstream critique of marxism.
You’ve demonstrated a lack of understanding of both the history of Communist states and the general Communist theory of the State. Just because you are making common anarchist critiques of Marxism doesn’t make them correct, hence why I have tried to highlight the differences between the goals of anarchism and Communism, the nuances in the Communist theory of the State you appear to be unaware of, and provided additional sources in case you want to learn more for yourself.
If you want to keep engaging, I ask that you at least back up some of your points with either evidence or logic, and take into account that Communists aren’t Anarchists and thus have different goals and methods, otherwise I think we are just going to keep talking past each other.
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Having been the one who brought it up, (and since I got here first) I guess I will super duper reluctantly be the enforcer. I super don’t want to y’all guys! But this is for the good of the collective!
