This is not "one or the another" situation, communism is the next qualitative stage in development of society. It solves the primary contradiction that we experience in capitalism, that is socialized production being privatized by individuals, aka capitalists.

You can't just declare communism by signing a document, because it is a process of development in which small quantitative changes in production (socialism) lead to a qualitative change (communism), thus to achieve the communism stage you have to achieve a certain level of development.

This is why China is considered a communist country by marxists-leninist even though qualitatively it is a capitalist country. They are actively working to develop communism, this can be clearly seen throughout their rhetoric (i.e. "The Governance of China") and their material results.

Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens?

Bruh, centuries of capitalist exploitation of its citizens and treating them like a disposable commodity would like to have a word on the whole 'citizens killed by their own country' topic.

How many thousands or millions of citizens die yearly because they can't afford to live in this fucked up system?

I love the top one, because it's the same way they deal with pigeons. They see poor people as just another pest.

Personally I've never seen the spikes or anything that horrific in Canada. But fuck do those stupid bench "armrests" ever piss me off

The important parts are paint and maintenance.

Give a commie block a fresh coat of paint every decade or so and they can look good (though I just don't like flat roofs. But that's personal taste.)

But while a somewhat run down european style house can still have some charme for longer (guess I'm biased here) a run down commie block in gray and with cracks in the facade will quickly start to look depressing.

And as they are often chosen for cost reasons inside capitalistic environments, they are often neglected.

So, the problem is not commie blocks, but how they are maintained. And as often we tend to search for the extreme examples if we (dis)like something.

I'm going to take your question as genuine and answer in equal.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Most leftists will agree with you, the USSR and other Eastern Europe countries that were communist did a lot of damage and most likely more harm. They committed atrocities. They were authoritarian. It was disgusting.

The leftists who still prop those countries up on their shoulders are what many call tankies. Today they sing praise about Russia, China, and North Korea, but your observation is correct, they won't ever move there. These are individuals who repeat propaganda and are, ultimately, just red fascists. When you actually dig into their ideals they parallel and sometimes mirror Nazis.

I believe leftism cannot have an authoritarian element to it. I think most social hierarchies need to be destroyed. I think the only way to have a socialist society is through democratic means. Democracy in the workplace and national level. I think most of us can agree workers need higher wages and there is a wealth gap that needs to be dismantled. I think most of us believe healthcare needs to be universal, food and shelter and water, education, information (internet), speech, and much more should be free and readily available. There is this element of freedom that needs to be achieved that isn't found the countries that are "communist".

I don't want to explicitly say those communist countries wasn't "real communism", but fascists, authoritarianism, always appropriate from progressive movement. There is no freedom, especially of workers, under a dictatorship. If workers are starving, dying, being outright black bagged and killed, i don't think that can be considered communist.

It's an unfortunately nuanced subject, where people don't agree on the underlying definitions of words. For instance, I think you're confusing "capitalism" with "democracy". You can have authoritarian undemocratic capitalist countries, where you can't talk shit about your government.

For me personally, I think communism has too many issues to actually try, but I like some of its theoretical tennants when compared to that of capitalism. Those goals are something to strive for. The spirit of communism is helping eachother and rewarding work, and the spirit of capitalism is sacrificing others for personal gain

Because they are reacting to living under the oppressive structures of late capitalism. Having been raised in a capitalist world, they naturally overemphasize economic systems and their alternatives and make assumptions about government.

So when they communism theyusually mean communism + some equitable government or just they mean socialist democracy.

Funnily enough, you live pretty well in China these days if you're a good little capitalist.

Though to be fair, DPRK is the way it is at least in part thanks to the Americans obliterating their cities and farm land. But we can ignore history to make a "I used to be in a communist country and it's bad, trust me bro" statement.

And I agree, I prefer to live in a system where prisoners aren't primarily minorities or political prisoners. And where the prison system isn't the most populated in the world, and rife with for-profit forced labour.

I would also be curious to hear which definition of "capitalism" and "Communism" you are using. That is, if you are open to dialogue.

But I want to defend my -ism

Those houses were built by state-backed actors to support growing urbanization and create a housing surplus for that urbanization to give the workers more power since they no longer have to deal with aggressively rent-seeking private landlords.

Wait, isn't that communism?

Shit still looks better than a tent under a bridge you know.

Not sure what the difference is. They are both pictures of high density buildings.

It sure is a lifestyle choice. The choice is the tent or a cardboard box, fucking insensitive assholes.