And now infographics are memes… Shitposts has more memes than this community.
No, you see, you have to upvote it because communism is great
On a scale of Ayn Rand to Karl Marx, how good is communism?
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🤢
I’m about to leave Lemmy too because the main thing that shows up is /c/memes and half the time the posts aren’t memes and when they are they’re just reposts from 10 years ago.
Why not just block the meme channel?
Infographics have always been memes. They’re inherently meant to be memetic in nature. What they intend to do is literally what the word “meme” means.
By that loose definition political parties are memes.
I can see it.
Yer mum is a meme.
I can see how they’d sound like the same thing to a person who is functionally illiterate.
This isn’t really a meme
How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?
What about products that designed to create ongoing streams of revenue, like a patent on an invention or a piece of art you can collect royalties from every time it is displayed? The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
Under communism, how does the stock market work? I’m not a big fan of it, but it’s pretty hard to imagine getting rid of it now that the global economy is pretty much dependent on it.
Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. Of those five, none have achieved actual communism, and several have inarguably embraced capitalism to a great extent. All of them have essentially authoritarian governments. Which is unsurprising, since a dictatorship of the proletariat is central to the Marxist vision of how to create a communist society, and involves the creation of a single-party transitional government that forcibly suppresses all its critics and rivals.
I’m not big into capitalism and I think we should implement plenty of socialist reforms, but I will never understand why some people on the Left—or anyone for that matter—think communism is what we should be striving for.
“Today, five countries exist that can be said to be communist: China, Russia”
Tell me you have no idea what you are talking about without directly telling me you have no idea what you are talking about. In what way can today’s Russia “be said to be communist”, and how does its current, very explicitly anti-communist government, contribute to the point you are making?
I once read somewhere that presently no country in the world runs government in the form of 100% true communism including China and Russia. They are just some sort of mixed communism and other types.
You can replace Russia with North Korea if it suits you, I forgot to include that one. Yes, the USSR was communist, while modern day Russia much less so. Doesn’t change my point and doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.
There 0 communism in Russia today what are you talking about
Stock market? The thing where you buy tiny fractional ownership of of a company, too small to influence it, then try to sell that legal construct for a little more to someone else later? Why would you need that at all?
As I said, not a fan of it, but the global economy is pretty entrenched in it. Can’t just get rid of it cold turkey style.
The USSR famously took ownership of Tetris away from its creator.
He developed the game on company time. If he’d lived in a capitalist country, the government wouldn’t have taken control of Tetris, but the company would have. Every software company contract I’ve ever heard of has a clause that says the company owns any code you produce while working there.
I’ve worked at a handful of companies and am currently employed at one that do not do this.
Yes, but you choose to work for a company. Don’t pretend that’s the same as the government of the country you happen to be born in taking ownership of your creations. In a capitalist country, had Alexey Pajitnov chosen to develop the game himself, he would have made much more from it. If he had done that in the USSR, he’d still have his creation and all its monetary proceeds taken away from him.
Those websites are highly capitalistic and never brought any innovation, all technologies related to the internet were researched by public money.
Look into patent trolls. Patents are bad, publicly funded research is always better, but it doesn’t prevent people from spending money to do research, but it doesn’t entitle them for the profits.
I’m not advocating FOR communism, I’m just trying to dispel myths.
Socialism is soluble with capitalism.
No you can’t own a platform like youtube or facebook, but you could make content on it, intellectul propriety is not a thing as you don’t have to produce art just to get a monetary return, but just because you enjoy doing so, there’s no need of a stock market in an ideal communist world because everyone gets what they need based on what they can provide, but if it’s just a country i guess it’s the government who takes care of it.
Regarding those 5 countries i’m not sure of every one of them, but talking about China as you said it’s not a communist country but it is not a dictatorship of the proletarian either, as it’s not the proletarian class nor their democratically elected representatives who govern the country.
In the end i’ll add that greed is not more “human nature” that wishing to kill someone annoying.
We didn’t own Reddit’s platform, but we made content and engagement for that community anyway.
That worked out awesome. Let’s scale it up to an entire society.
I really can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic. I think so, but Poe’s Law
Yeah, fair. I mean, I’m engaging in the community here, rather than there, so I thought the context clarified my sarcasm.
Give me an example of a communist country that has not resulted in the creation of an authoritarian government.
Capitalism is an authoritarian, both liberal and conservative wants capitalism, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. You don’t have choices.
You’re not wrong, but also give me an example of ANY country that doesn’t resort to authoritarianism when the government is threatened by a plurality of citizens.
There are plenty of governments out there that aren’t authoritarian. What do you mean when you say “the government is threatened by a plurality of citizens?” What is the nature of the threat in question? A democratically-elected government that puts down an armed rebellion from part of its populace doesn’t magically become authoritarian simply because it used forced to maintain its existence in response to a domestic threat.
I mean that there is a realistic existential threat placed on the system of government, by a large part of the population. By plurality, I mean that the largest segment of a population (even if it’s not a majority).
You’re telling me that govt’s that put down a large rebellion don’t then start introducing authoritan laws like monitoring communication, restricting free speech, and targeting non-violent sympathizers?
…any democracy? Different governments get voted out of power constantly. A lot of countries elections are almost 50/50
Democracy itself gets voted out, without any resistance?
If it makes money (or some equivalent) then you can’t own it. Parents aren’t necessarily, if you’re supported so that you can invent for the betterment of society or for fun.
Dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to be a temporary phase, but it is a fundamental weak point in the transition to communism that I think cannot be overcome, because once people get that power, they won’t be able to give it up (or they’ll be removed by people who don’t want to give it up).
So I consider communism sort of an unattainable ideal that we should strive towards rather than actually considering implementing irl.
Marx believed in the natural progression of economic systems, from feudalism to mercantilism, mercantilism to capitalism, and capitalism to… well, something else anyway. Socialism, communism, fascism, and really any of the other isms that came about in the late 19th and 20ths centuries were meant as post-capitalist systems. Marx of course was a proponent of socialism or communism, but it’s not a foregone conclusion that one of those will be the preeminent system after capitalism.
Anyway, my point is that the USSR et. al. were too early to the game. Capitalism hasn’t yet run its course naturally.
I agree with everything you said, although important to note that “natural progression” may not be smooth progression. How much suffering needs to pass before a violent uprising is natural instead of forced? I expect it’s hard to tell when you’re in the thick of it.
This. Someone who knows how to use their brain.
There is no Paradise. There is no solution. Reality will always be messy and every solution will always end up creating its own problems. True for capitalism, socialism, or any other social order.
Which is not to say we should not always attempt to improve the world.
No you wouldn’t be able to own Facebook or Youtube as its private not personal property.
Patents could either not exist or be owned collectively depending on the flavour of your ideology.
There would not be a stock market as that would be private ownership even though most stocks on stock exhanges do nothing even if you own all of them.
think communism is what we should be striving for.
Simple - it’s the ideal. Will we ever get there? Possibly not. Is it even desirable? Debatable. But it’s always better to know where to go and not know how to get there than having the option of going anywhere and not knowing where to go.
Simple - it’s the ideal.
Not in my view. I don’t want the State owning all sources of wealth and material goods. The problem with capitalism is that too much of that stuff gets funneled into too few hands. Communism is the same problem, just different people. No thanks.
I don’t want the State
Sounds like your problem is with something else because, by definition, communism is stateless
I don’t want the State
Sounds like your problem is with something else because, by definition, communism is stateless
How’s about a website that generates money, like Facebook or YouTube? Can you own that?
no, because those are not good for society
Who decides what’s good? I learned lots of stuff on YouTube and Facebook helped me stay in touch with people I would have never been able to connect with again otherwise.
What if I want to make my own farm?
You could have a personal garden, but to have a farm you’d have to obtain a lot of land. Then you’d have to make the land productive with either large and resource hungry machinery i.e. capital or you’d have to obtain and exploit the labor of farm workers to work by hand.
What if i agree with some of my friends that we will join our yards to make one big field and work it together? We could also ask others for help and pay them for their work, the amount of money we both agree with.
You and your community collectively owning and operating a farm is literally a communal farm.
but if some of my friends dont want to work it they can just sell me the land. And if we produce more food than we need we can sell it so we can buy other things we don’t produce. I dont understand why its wrong to own a farm.
Personal property is for personal use. That’s it.
Once you start to accumulate surplus property then its very obviously not personal anymore. A person that doesn’t want a garden won’t have one to sell you, because they wouldn’t have one in the first place.
Don’t think in terms of “right” and “wrong”. Think materially.
what if their father left them the garden and they want to sell it to me? what if they want to move somewhere else and they decide to sell me their property?
Inheritance is antithetical to meritocracy is the basis for generational wealth and capitalist dynasties.
Everything must go, use it lose it.
A person who could actually assemble a farm through small land acquisitions through the power of friendship probably deserves it tbh
Who decides what constitutes surplus?
The democratically elected central committee, or some other process whereby everyone decides together what our fair share is.
Keeps the means of production out of the hands of the wealthy.
who even makes farms at that point?
The government, literally the only option left when you take away the rich and poor.
I don’t think most communists would have a problem with people trading crops that they grow themselves. The problem comes in when someone hires employees to grow more crops for them, starts collecting profits, and grows the farm even bigger. All under the expectation that they own everything that their employees worked for. Cause that’s literally capitalism on a small scale.
Of course it needs to be possible for multiple people to come together and start growing crops, but only as long as no single person can take over the entire operation. Leaders would be elected, and be given a somewhat higher salary to reflect the additional responsibility.
That requires owning land yourself, which strictly speaking isn’t a thing in communism.
tough titties
Get some LEGOs
you going to manage a 10 acre farm by yourself and eat everything?
you can grow a few vegetables in a garden, but as long as people help you do it, it’s not really personal property
10 acres is very very small and is not even a full time job for a person. Are you assuming this is all done without machines? like small hobby farms are all Amish or something? (actually even the Amish farm way more then 10 acres per person, they are not lazy)
(EDITING TO ADD THIS IS WRONG AND I MESSED UP THE CALCULATIONS. IT SHOULD BE 40 TIMES OR SO MORE)
Also just because this bugs me in a strange way.
10 acres of land growing wheat produces about 600lbs of harvested wheat a year. That is about 900,000 calories a year. Even of you ate nothing but wheat gruel you would just manage enough food for one person (about 900,000 calories assuming 2500 a day).
I think like a lot of people you have no idea the scale of farming required to feed the world. Is this why Holodomors happen?
I think 600lbs for 10 acres is very low. That would be 1 bushel per acre. I think 30 bushels per acre is pretty low for current wheat growing areas. Just realized I could look it up and it’s in the middle 40s per acre. So 24000 lbs for 10 acres.
That is an insanely low yield. You should be able to feed at least 1 person per acre with wheat. Other crops like corn and potatoes can have yields that are 2-4x larger from the perspective of calories vs. land use.
You are right I messed up the calculations, I still stand by 10 acres being a small farm.
Yes. But don’t worry, one of them just assured me that communist countries “never make the same mistakes as their predecessors,” so if we starve it’ll be slightly different than the holodomor or killing all the sparrows, so we got that going for us.
Also the holodomor was totally an accident and not malicious or abject stupidity, just a goof-em-up!
I don’t know whats worse, weaponized stupidity or weaponized hunger. Well I guess both end in death of untold many.
See the problem here is you think farming means wheat. Did you know vegetable plants exist?
No cars though. Fuck cars.
I’ll never understand how owning guns is normalized.
Note, the idea doesn’t support the idea of carry permits. Personally, dont have an issue with a hunting rifle or shotgun kept in a safe at home, but carry and especially cc permits are absolutely insane. You do not need a firearm that can be hidden for either home defence or hunting.
Ok, thanks for telling me that it’s impossible for a violent criminal to ever threaten me in my house. Handguns are good for home defense because they are short range, and quick to aim, not because they are easy to hide.(That too, but to a lesser extent)
That’s what the shotgun is for.
Have you ever seen a shotgun? It’s kind of hard to maneuver inside a house. They’re pretty long.
Colt didn’t call it the great equalizer for nothing. Imagine being a 90 lb woman facing rape or death by a 200 lb man. Don’t think for a second anything but a gun will allow her to save herself.
How do new means of production come to be? Like, if a community really wanted a unicycle repair shop, how would that get started? How would it be decided that we use resources for that shop instead of, say, a pogo stick repair shop? Would that be up to a local government (or some other governing body)? Honest question.
My country used to have communism. Niche shops like this barely ever started as small businesses and instead usually started out as specialized departments of large all-encompassing state corporations. Instead of there being a company that specialized in making furniture, the furniture would be made by the logging company. The company that ran a chemical plant would directly sell shampoos, paints, toothpaste, fertillizer, etc. It cut out middle men but the products were usually crap quality because it couldn’t focus on each product individually. This stifled progress. My dad wanted to learn programming (this was the late 80s) but because the government was too oldschool to open a computer science degree programme, the only way to get near a computer was to go to a university that specialized in mining and take a programme in mining machine automation.
On the flipside, it’s not illegal anywhere in capitalismland™ for the workers to own the means of production. It’s called a cooperative. Get a bunch of your comrades together, sign a few legal documents, pool your money for a downpayment, get a loan. Badabing, badaboom, “communist” unicycle repair shop.
(The bank might however disagree with you that a unicycle repair shop is a viable business venture in most cities, but hey in my book that still beats a Central Planning Bureau telling you “Nyet, no-one needs unicycles, however we need you at the mines, glory to Arstotzka!”).
Agreed. Actually a capitalism with cooperatives is the flavor of capitalism that I support.
I believe you should look up market socialism if that interests you.
It works until a guy with too much money decides it must stops. That’s the problem with capitalism: it basically recreates feudalism.
The biggest question is who gets the power. A dictatorial state or an oligarchy of capitalists is the same.
Liberalism won against USSR because they restrained themselves just long enough for USSR to collapse.
On the flipside, it’s not illegal anywhere in capitalismland™
It’s also not illegal in capitalismland™ to use economic chicanery to outcompete and either destroy or swallow any productive organization that doesn’t sacrifice everything to the profit principle - which might explain why there is no need for it to make co-ops illegal.
Bad management is not the the specialty of communism. In fact, this is a governance problem: is it lead by an idiot and how can people change the lead to solve this problem. Capitalism has this problem currently with governments and companies directions totally unable to do anything about climate change and wealth inequalities.
People always mistaken dictature or oligarchy with communism unfortunately.
Well if the comminity really wanted a unicycle repair shop everyone chips in to build the shop, and gets the equipment or the state directly decides you need a unicycle repair shop.
Although you and a few of your buddies could decide to make a unicycle repair co-operative. You don’t have enough money so. You go to the credit union to get extra starting funds, you then use these funds to contract out the building of the shop as you are unicycle repairers by trade. You then get all the equipment and run it as a co-operative.
There are many ways to run a co-operative and in the begining you and your friends are probably going to split the profits directly using your equal shares to recieve divedends. If it takes off and you start needing to hire people, you may start having salary bands instead so everyone will always make X amount of money working with you depending on their position, but will also make a variable amount from dividends depending on the unicycle repair excess profits and might also have a say in how things are run.
This is a more general left-wing idea which can happen in many left-wing, socialist, and communist societies, rather than just communist.
@ChatGPT@lemmings.world please explain to these communists why their idealistic model of society is likely to fail and generally results in a power structure which suppresses information about its failures to mitigate its inevitable collapse.
Did ChatGPT just tell us to kindly fuck off and lighten up?
Also I am not a communist.
Like, if a community really wanted a unicycle repair shop, how would that get started?
Pretty much the same way a community would start a co-op right now.
Would that be up to a local government (or some other governing body)?
Public participation, of course. The community would form councils, where people would collectively decide whether this is a good idea or not. That literally what the word soviet means - councils of people making decisions (which is why the Bolsheviks hijacked them and turned the word into a cruel joke).
Well if the state provides funds based on need, we don’t need unicycles or pogo sticks at all so we just wouldn’t have them.
The state is not qualified to decide whether someone needs a pogo stick - neither are billionaire parasites.
How do new means of production come to be?
the state funds them based on needs.
Communism meant that there were equal people and some more equal than others. If you have convinced the right people they got funds to do things. But it is highly burocratic and slow unless instructions come from above. Communism also meant that everyone capable of working must work so they made up many-many bullshit jobs where people just spend time.
Ahhh you just talking with extremists from another pov, dw.
Don’t get why you’re downvoted. Probably all the people who’ve never actually lived in communist states.
Very true of the criticisms of the USSR, to be sure. What you have to remember is that the USSR had a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party system implementing the so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat” in order to, at some point in the future, achieve “true” communism. The USSR was intended more as a transition phase than a permanent form of government & economy. For many reasons, it did not work out.
For many reasons, it did not work out.
For many reasons that anarchists had perfectly predicted long before the Russian revolution, of course.
Communism meant that there were equal people and some more equal than others
No, it doesn’t. If that’s what you think, it means Animal Farm went straight over your head.
This was never the case… And never even remotely worked out.
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lol wtf is wrong with you
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Can you have your own garden for food?
Yes. What this is saying is large industries that are meant to feed people or provide commodities cannot belong to just one person. We are seeing the effects of monopolization right now in our time.
So basically nothing will change in it for you! Don’t worry, you lose nothing.
(but your chains)
And your fucking tooth brush /s
There’s no need for tooth brushes cause we all share the same tooth
How is this different from socialism?
Workers owning the means of production is socialism yes.
Socialism is the stage previous to communism when there’s a State in which the proletariat is in power, the purpose of the State is to use its repressive forces by one class over the other to oppress them and keep them in place, capitalism (also called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie) has the bourgeois as its ruling class and oppresses the proletariat, socialism (also called the dictatorship of the proletariat) utilizes the State to oppress the bourgeoisie until global socialism is achieved, on that point on class society is abolished and the State is dissolved. This late stage is what we call communism.
It’s not, never once has communism worked, not has socialism ever worked. They all end up being dictatorships and the same capitalist problems for the others. Only difference is there is barely any social climb in a dictatorship except at the beginning.
Claiming socialism had “barely any social climb except at the beginning” unlike capitalism is not something that you can do while maintaining any shred of honesty. The reality is objectively the complete opposite. While there are plenty of valid criticisms of the USSR, access to education was not segregated by wealth, top universities were open to all who knew their shit, and throughout its entire history party leaders tended to come from humble backgrounds.
Now, compare the above with the USA.
Access to education is not segregated by wealth either. Coming from a blue collar family I’m able to go to a very prestigious and expensive university because I’m smart and recieved plenty of academic scholarships and support I sought out. If you can’t get the majority of your college paid for through scholarships you are doing something wrong. Plenty of great, and rich Americans come from humble backgrounds, this point is is applicable to any society. From a cursory search, the only party member that actually had the grass roots humble beginning was Gorbachev, all the others had significant connections from others in the party that propelled them into power.
Hey I am all for socialism, most functioning nations have some high level of socialism in play. The issue here is a full blown case of black and white ism.
Nationalized healthcare, Nationalized oil and gas, Nationalized education, Nationalized utilities, Nationalized violence. All in place in most civilized places. Someone owning a farm is not the issue, its someone owning the place that buys the grain and controls the price.
cries in Deleuze
Y’all should move to Cuba
Food is rationned, meaning everybody has food, and healthcare is great.
Yes, yes plenty of food and healthcare is so professional, it’s like paradise on earth.
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Where did you get this definition? Look up communism in any standard dictionary or encyclopedia and you will see that it entails the removal of private property.
Edit: ugh, y’all got me arguing about communism again. I need to go outside.
Private property is the capital, the actual means of production. Personal property is your stuff.
That’s only true within the sphere of Marxist ideology and is not a widely-held distinction made by the rest of society. i.e., actual current law wherein:
Private property refers to the ownership of property by private parties - essentially anyone or anything other than the government. Private property may consist of real estate, buildings, objects, intellectual property (copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secrets). The transfer of a private property commonly takes place by the owner’s consent or through a sale or as a gift.
Outside of Marxist ideology, and in actual practice, individuals are one class of private entity, making personal property a type of private property. The average person can not be expected to fully understand the nuances of how Marxism alters these definitions, nor accept them in practicality.
The post is about communism. I’m not sure why you would ask about where the definition came from if you already know how communists view property.
Lol telling people to go look up the definitions without yourself knowing the definition is giving Facebook.
Fine.
Google, define communism:
a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
Britannica:
communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.
a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state
Merriam-Webster:
a: a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
b: a theory advocating elimination of private property
Oxford English Dictionary:
A theory that advocates the abolition of private ownership, all property being vested in the community…
Remember that it is unnecessary to cite sources when dealing with common knowledge.
The person you replied to is also incorrectly representing his side, but basically you need to also understand what ‘private property’ is refering to.
The vast majority of communists define it as it’s represented in the original meme since they approach communism as an economic strategy and not a social one. Private property as defined by captialist governments only refers to the things listed above like farm, office building, ie. anything that generates capital.
All other communists who don’t agree on this definition of private property are also disagreeing with Marx himself as this is his set standard.
Notice a theme of “private property”? Notice how this meme proved a great differentiation between private property and personal property?
Have you bothered to see if maybe there is a difference between the two, when engaging in discussions with communists or communist supporters?
I’m actually attempting to exit this conversation at the moment. I initially commented when I was having a bad day and would rather that I hadn’t.
