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this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Communism
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It's actually based on the opposite. Marx discussed this in depth and Lenin clarified and expanded on it in State and Revolution, which is honestly a must read and is really quite brief and a lot of fun to read.
The state arises from class antagonisms. The state is a means with which one class oppresses the others. The withering away of the state can only be achieved by reducing and ultimately eliminating classes and thus the class antagonisms which gave rise to the state in the first place.
What a nascent socialist state must do therefore, is establish the working class as the dominant class, and work to eliminate class antagonisms through, among other things, the elimination of private property and the class it creates. Preventing reactionaries from having a platform is one of the tools a state can and must use to help achieve this goal, just as the violent silencing of the working class in capitalist regimes is a tool used to maintain the hegemony of the capitalist class.
That all sounds good and I believed it myself until I talked to workers who actually lived in socialism/communism. I asked people from Poland and Vietnam about it and they all agreed on hating their lives in a non capitalist country and hyped american capitalism. I was shocked and surprised but that is what they told me. Of course asking a few people is not representative at all but it for sure changed my view to hear it from people who actually experienced it.
I talked to a native Chinese woman who said that China is not a communist country.
… while her family worked for a state owned corporation, retired at 55, has amazing medical insurance, and is receiving a pension three times their salary.
She also claimed that there’s a lot of competition for jobs in state owned companies because they pay a lot more, have more stable employment, and better benefits than privately owned companies.
… while saying that China is successful because they transitioned to a free market economy with minimal gov intervention.
Like… yes, it’s important to get others opinions. But… also understand that the people you ask… may not have the full picture.
Of course they might not, that is only natural
Most people who actually lived in Eastern Europe during the socialist years still say life was better back then, even considering the capitalist road "market reforms" of the 80s.
Current socialist nations show overwhelming popular support for the way their countries are run, even as per polls by western institutions.
I have also heard about the horrors of socialism from plenty of eastern Europeans. Most weren't born until the nineties, the decade of capitalist looting of their countries after the socialist states were illegally overthrown. Others were just children when the wall fell.
Of course some hype US capitalism, the US has spent and continues to spend unbelievable sums propagandizing people on the idea that consumerist capitalism is the holy grail. Unlimited quantities of consumer goods was for example the only thing US vassal West Germany could show to the revolutionary East and say "hey look life is better here," so that's what they did. Then the west annexed the east and the easterners found out pretty quick it was all just lies.
I don't know if you're aware, but there are plenty of people living in capitalist countries who hate their jobs. And what's more, there are plenty of people who can't even get any jobs and are forced to live in horrific conditions.
I don´t doubt that at all, I live in a capitalist country myself and have hated all my jobs with very few exceptions. However, it came as a surprise to me that when I congratulated a Vietnamese dude on Vietnamese independence day, to hear from him that he would have preferred the US to win the war because he thought then his life would have been better. That kind of experience is what I was trying to express.
I mean there is a selection bias at play here. People who left Vietnam to US were the ones who were already biased against communism to start with. You'd have to go and talk to people who actually live and work in Vietnam today to get an idea of what a typical person in Vietnam thinks. If you look at the happiness index report for 2023, Vietnam has climbed 12 places, so clearly life satisfaction continues to improve for majority of the people.
Meanwhile, the situation in US is the diametric opposite https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/guides/employee-happiness-h1-2023
Good point in general, however the particular dude had moved to Europe and not that long before I talked to him, which was about five years ago, so I would guess he spent most of his life in Vietnam but you are probably right in assuming that he wasn't a communist.
Like I said, you'll find people who are unhappy in every society. We don't have utopias in the real world. I think the focus needs to be on whether a society is working for majority of people, and whether the progress appears to be moving in a positive direction. That's really the best we can hope for.
Reasonable take, I just wish social evolution was faster.
Indeed, we could be living in a far better world than we do now given the level of science and technology we've achieved. Unfortunately, our societies are saddled with a lot of baggage that people keep clinging on to holding back development that would benefit us all.