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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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My problem with communist views is they're unproven and have only lead to authoritarian governments when put into play.
Capitalism has regularly gone off the rails ... but not to the degree communism has. Capitalism has been defending democracy for the last few centuries, not communism.
These are the nations that identify as communist:
These countries were previously communist and (of that has that) have pretty much only improved since transitioning to democracy with capitalist economic systems:
That's not to say that capitalism doesn't have its problems, people here aren't angry with it over nothing. However, if you really look at the problems it's had, they all come down to voter manipulation and/or apathy "things are going good, why do I need to worry about politics?".
We didn't just wake up with weakened labor unions, weakened voter rights, weakened infrastructure, etc; we got their because of generations of apathy and frankly electing the wrong people. People that cut taxes, asked "are you better off today than you were four years ago?" (short term gain), allowed our unions to be broken up, allowed jobs to be exported over seas to communist China (which is now one of the greatest international threats), bought the cheapest products (from mom and dad at the store to the executives running major corporations) without asking why they're cheap, etc.
The "common people" cast the votes that ultimately lead to corporations being people. The "middle class" cost votes that ultimately lead to the middle class shrinking.
I think it's naive that communism somehow automatically makes those problems go away/means we'll never end up with similar problems. Especially when communist countries are consistently doing worse/falling into authoritarian rule.
We need to expand our social programs, reign in our billionaires, and reign in our corporations and we'd be a lot better off. Capitalism works so long as you don't let anyone or anything get "too big to fail." Capitalism doesn't have to be capitalism without limits. The reigns of power will always be challenged no matter what system we find ourselves under, only an educated vigilant population can stop that.
Capitalism "going off the rails" completely understates it. The history of the last 500 years is soaked in the blood of the capitalism. Voter apathy has nothing to do with it. Enthusiastic voters gave us genocide of indigenous peoples of North America, the nuclear bombing of Japan, and currently a 75 year genocide of Palestinians. Not to mention things that voters do not have even the semblance of a choice, such as CIA activities in the 20th century which led to bloody coups in Indonesia, Chile, and Iran, just to name 3.
You need to incorporate class analysis or else nothing makes sense. Why do American voters get shitty choices that reduce their power to the advantage of the wealthy oligarch class? Why are there oligarchs if capitalism doesn't tend to monopoly? Does voting actually do anything? Why does the electoral college still exist? Why did Americans support the Iraq War? What role did the media serve?
Communism doesn't automatically make anything go away. The point is that the ruling class of capitalists are an obstacle to making things go away. I'm not sure what is your criteria for authoritarian rule. Capitalist countries are authoritarian too, it's basically a meaningless signifier coming out of cold war propaganda that said communism = dictatorship and capitalism = muh freedom. The democratic processes in China and Cuba of example are lightyears ahead of what you can find in the US or European parliamentary so-called democracies.
That's a pretty hot take to blame all the conflict that's happened in the last 500 years on capitalism. I think it's likely a significant oversimplification at best. For instance, you can argue many things caused (just) WW2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II
That's provably wrong. The voter turn out as a percentage of population is abysmal historically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections#/media/File:USA_Presidential_Elections_Turnout_by_Share_of_Population.png
I also find some of your examples, e.g., the Native Americans similarly a red herring. The plight of the Native American peoples is far more complicated than "blame capitalism."
Voters control who is elected. Those that are elected control whether or not the CIA exists. The CIA would disappear tomorrow if only folks that believed the CIA shouldn't exist were in congress.
No you don't, it makes plenty of sense without "class analysis."
Because of the people who vote a fraction of them bother with primaries and because it's hard to find good people to run for office that want to do the job (for a myriad of reasons)?
It's not an objective thing that "there are oligarchs."
Yes, voting matters. See policies under Trump vs policies under Biden. See Net Neutrality. See Climate Change Policy. See EPA Policy.
It's frankly anti-intellectual to claim that "voting doesn't do anything" or even imply as much.
Because people vote for representatives that don't want to get rid of it?
Because people vote for representatives that supported it? Because the general population was not adequately educated and engaged in politics to understand the facts of the situation and was mislead?
What role didn't the media serve? What role should it have served?
You're asking leading questions to argue your point similar to a flat-earth or giant-ism conspiracy theorist. Like, these questions do have answers and those answers go far beyond people's economic classes and dive into a number of cultural, period, regional, and global factors. There isn't one answer, and the one answer certainly isn't "because the rich people made us do it."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism
Literally, the criteria for authoritarian rule.
No, they are not. Some may be, but the vast majority of western capitalistic societies are nowhere near authoritarian rule. The US is creeping towards it and (as elections do matter) may creep closer this year; time will tell.
That is provably false. Look at the governance models of the countries above. They were not "communism = dictatorship" they were "communism and authoritarianism." For some reason people can't explain away, those two things go hand and hand.
My personal take is that when you take away ownership, ownership doesn't disappear, it just means the state is the owner. So you go from "the rich people and the government officials own the means of production" to "the government officials (that are the rich people) own the means of production" (which is exactly what happened in China).
That's straight up bull shit. A mono-party rule is not under any circumstance democratic.
Can you explain one thing about how the Chinese or Cuban elections work without looking it up?
Would it change any of your opinion if I did?
But yes, I can (for China), I can explain the important part ... which is that the CCP required to rubber stamp any nomination to run for office. There is no democracy when your rule can not be meaningfully challenged.
This is furthered by the infringement of rights that is the great firewall.
EDIT: For anyone who actually is reading this and wants a source instead of "he (I) said, the other person said" here's some information fairly well compiled: https://decodingchina.eu/democracy/