• orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
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    19 days ago

    The problem is that folks see these things implemented in the past and say “let’s just do that.” Why can’t we take the good parts and think beyond the rest? These are systems that just won’t work with current population growth and resources. We can always do far and away better than capitalism, but I’ve talked to a handful of working class people that lived under communism for years and they have nothing good to say about it. Not a single positive thing. It’s easy to dream about these things and wax poetic when you don’t experience them firsthand.

    Any time a path opens to seize power, humans fill that void regardless of what they believe in. Now suddenly we’ve traded authoritarian 1 for authoritarian 2. It makes no sense to me and I read both Lenin and Marx.

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      19 days ago

      It’s not even an issue of population. Communism requires material conditions you simply cannot create by killing the opposition, no matter how much you desire to preserve “the revolution.”

      Capitalism is but one manifestation of material and labor scarcity. Until those things are eliminated you will experience the exact same ills in one form or another. Until those things are eliminated the only option available is harm reduction. Revolutionary communism fails specifically because it fails to recognize itself as a particularly shitty form of harm reduction, insisting the entire concept is bourgeoise propaganda. This is what contemporary leftist theorists have come understand, and what obnoxious internet edgelords refuse to acknowledge, because it requires admitting that Stalin and Mao didn’t get it right.

      Ironically this is literally the foundation of Dengism and modern China, which MLs say they like, until you reduce it to first principles, at which point it once again becomes bourgeoise propaganda.

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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        19 days ago

        Until those things are eliminated you will experience the exact same ills in one form or another.

        Under capitalism, stores throw perfectly good food in a padlocked bin while people starve. Investors speculate on empty properties while people die of exposure. Capitalism creates scarcity so that it can sell people the solution.

        It’s 2024, our technologies for agriculture, medicine, engineering, and education are amazing. In terms of the basic necessities of life, we are already a post scarcity civilisation. What we’re lacking is a post scarcity economy to match it.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      19 days ago

      We can always do far and away better than capitalism

      i think the real ticket, for global economics, especially ones that are going to be sustainable is going to be some sort of pseudo capitalist society. Especially one with a free market. Free market decentralization is a hard target to beat.

      There’s room for a lot of interesting study here, i’m not sure any exists, and i’ve yet to see any unfortunately, it’s mostly just people dickwagging around trying to do the le socialism thing, which is funny, i guess.

    • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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      19 days ago

      I’ve talked to a handful of working class people that lived under communism for years and they have nothing good to say about it. Not a single positive thing. It’s easy to dream about these things and wax poetic when you don’t experience them firsthand.

      You should talk to some Australians instead. Australia’s communist nations have been stripped of their land, so most australians alive today don’t have much direct experience with communism, but the modern descendants of Australian communists all have good things to say about the way it was done 300 years ago what with the stateless, classless, moneyless gift economy.

    • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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      19 days ago

      My former officemate grew up in Russia in the 80s, he hated a shitload about growing up in the Soviet Union. He raved consistently about two things: the education system and gender equality.

      His mother was a mathematician and computer programmer, and he didn’t have issues with school there until after he’d been here (the US) as an exchange student and had some… Cultural differences with his teachers.

      “People who smile a lot in Russia are considered to be unintelligent”