I’m prepared to get raked over the coals because this is a hot topic on the fedi, but Communism
It sounds great on paper. It’s never worked though, either because domestic power corrupts, or foreign influence destabilizes it for their own ends.
In fairness, the same can be said about the free market and democracy. No matter what system you live under, rich assholes will throw you and your grandma into the grinder to make an extra dollar that they won’t even spend.
I don’t think that means we shouldn’t try to do better. The common thread behind corruption everywhere is that it’s driven by rich assholes, so maybe that’s the place to start excising the disease from.
Sorry, I’m gonna be that guy; this is one of those thought terminating cliches that people love to repeat, but it doesn’t actually hold up to scrutiny.
Everything you just described is a problem with literally any political system, as you yourself acknowledged. You literally shot down your own argument, in the same breath as you made it, and then left the falsehood hanging out there anyway. Why? If you’ve already determined that your case against communism, specifically, is actually just a case against all forms of corruption in any political system, so why would you even post this?
And to dig further into the underlying premise, the idea that Communism “can’t work because people can’t be trusted” is genuinely ludicrous. Let’s set aside the arguments about political corruption, because you already disposed of those yourself, and consider the other framing this is usually given; that any form of commons will be abused. That people are lazy, or selfish, and so sharing is impossible. This sounds intuitively correct, but it simply isn’t true.
First off, communism actually requires less trust in people, not more. Communism says “Let’s share resources equitably. Let’s make sure people actually have what they need so that no one person can take too much.” It’s capitalism that says “Let’s give everyone the freedom to take as much as they can and then blindly trust that somehow a few individuals won’t climb their way to the top and horde everything for themselves.” The whole “People are greedy” argument is an argument against capitalism, and it’s the exact problem that communism solves.
Then there’s the “People are lazy and no one will work” argument. We’ve actually tested this. Multiple countries have run trials of UBI, and in every single case, employment actually went up. When you pay people to do anything they want, including not working, it turns out people actually want to work. People like feeling useful. People like having things to do, and contributing to stuff, and feeling like they’re making a mark. The claim that everyone is inherently lazy is thoroughly debunked bullshit peddled by right wing news networks, with no basis in reality.
There’s this adage, “The tragedy of the commons”; “commons” referred to land and other resources that were held in common good. Most typically, a “commons” would be a piece of land in a village where everyone could graze their animals. These eventually went away, and the saying supposes that it did so because of a fundamental human failing; a thing shared by everyone became everyone’s responsibility, and so it became no one’s responsibility. Everyone left the care of the commons to someone else, and so the commons died uncared for.
This adage is complete bullshit. Commons existed for hundreds of years without issue. They went away when we started allowing wealthy capitalists to buy and enclose those common lands and start charging rent for them, or building on them. The people who shared the commons did so without issue for generations. It was allowing a greedy few to do whatever they wanted that killed them.
You’re right, we should try to do better. So maybe be the change, and stop repeating right-wing propaganda. They’ve got enough people on their payroll spreading these lies for them, you don’t need to do it for free.
I actually support socialism, I think it’s the only way we’re going to get see an equitable society. I would have assumed putting it in a thread about things that are “nice to have” showed that support, but I guess that wasn’t clear.
I do talk about how foreign influence causes things to collapse. I’m not sure about the statistics, but I would think in most cases communism has failed because of intervention from capitalist society. This is a condemnation of capitalism, not communism.
The people who can’t be trusted are the “rich assholes.” The vast majority of us are not rich assholes, so I really don’t see how your rant about the tragedy of the commons applies. We both agree that the tragedy of the commons is a fallacy.
If you tear down the people who generally agree with you, you’ll have a much more difficult time building that better tomorrow.
You say you support socialism, but then you define it as something we “can’t have.” That’s still perpetuating a falsehood no matter how you frame it. And throwing in a true statement about foreign influence doesn’t negate the lies you’re repeating.
If I say “Israel is evil because Jews are all money-grubbing subhumans, and also they’re committing genocide in Palestine”, the truth of the second statement doesn’t negate the blatant anti-Semitic falsehood of the first. It’s just wrapping up a lie in a truth.
I’m not accusing you of actually being some kind of secret alt-right troll here, but I am calling out the fact that you’re unwittingly doing their work for them with this kind of rhetoric.
This isn’t tearing you down. It’s challenging you to be better. If all you can see in that is an attack, that’s your own insecurities talking, not me.
Socialism has always worked. Power is not a supernatural corrupting force, nor is socialism especially weak to corruption as compared to capitalism. Socialism has been a tremendous advancement everywhere it has been established, even in the face of foreign siege. The idea that all systems are the same in effect is an abstraction that is entirely unrelated to the material reality of socialism as compared to capitalism.
I’m prepared to get raked over the coals because this is a hot topic on the fedi, but Communism
It sounds great on paper. It’s never worked though, either because domestic power corrupts, or foreign influence destabilizes it for their own ends.
In fairness, the same can be said about the free market and democracy. No matter what system you live under, rich assholes will throw you and your grandma into the grinder to make an extra dollar that they won’t even spend.
I don’t think that means we shouldn’t try to do better. The common thread behind corruption everywhere is that it’s driven by rich assholes, so maybe that’s the place to start excising the disease from.
Sorry, I’m gonna be that guy; this is one of those thought terminating cliches that people love to repeat, but it doesn’t actually hold up to scrutiny.
Everything you just described is a problem with literally any political system, as you yourself acknowledged. You literally shot down your own argument, in the same breath as you made it, and then left the falsehood hanging out there anyway. Why? If you’ve already determined that your case against communism, specifically, is actually just a case against all forms of corruption in any political system, so why would you even post this?
And to dig further into the underlying premise, the idea that Communism “can’t work because people can’t be trusted” is genuinely ludicrous. Let’s set aside the arguments about political corruption, because you already disposed of those yourself, and consider the other framing this is usually given; that any form of commons will be abused. That people are lazy, or selfish, and so sharing is impossible. This sounds intuitively correct, but it simply isn’t true.
First off, communism actually requires less trust in people, not more. Communism says “Let’s share resources equitably. Let’s make sure people actually have what they need so that no one person can take too much.” It’s capitalism that says “Let’s give everyone the freedom to take as much as they can and then blindly trust that somehow a few individuals won’t climb their way to the top and horde everything for themselves.” The whole “People are greedy” argument is an argument against capitalism, and it’s the exact problem that communism solves.
Then there’s the “People are lazy and no one will work” argument. We’ve actually tested this. Multiple countries have run trials of UBI, and in every single case, employment actually went up. When you pay people to do anything they want, including not working, it turns out people actually want to work. People like feeling useful. People like having things to do, and contributing to stuff, and feeling like they’re making a mark. The claim that everyone is inherently lazy is thoroughly debunked bullshit peddled by right wing news networks, with no basis in reality.
There’s this adage, “The tragedy of the commons”; “commons” referred to land and other resources that were held in common good. Most typically, a “commons” would be a piece of land in a village where everyone could graze their animals. These eventually went away, and the saying supposes that it did so because of a fundamental human failing; a thing shared by everyone became everyone’s responsibility, and so it became no one’s responsibility. Everyone left the care of the commons to someone else, and so the commons died uncared for.
This adage is complete bullshit. Commons existed for hundreds of years without issue. They went away when we started allowing wealthy capitalists to buy and enclose those common lands and start charging rent for them, or building on them. The people who shared the commons did so without issue for generations. It was allowing a greedy few to do whatever they wanted that killed them.
You’re right, we should try to do better. So maybe be the change, and stop repeating right-wing propaganda. They’ve got enough people on their payroll spreading these lies for them, you don’t need to do it for free.
I actually support socialism, I think it’s the only way we’re going to get see an equitable society. I would have assumed putting it in a thread about things that are “nice to have” showed that support, but I guess that wasn’t clear.
I do talk about how foreign influence causes things to collapse. I’m not sure about the statistics, but I would think in most cases communism has failed because of intervention from capitalist society. This is a condemnation of capitalism, not communism.
The people who can’t be trusted are the “rich assholes.” The vast majority of us are not rich assholes, so I really don’t see how your rant about the tragedy of the commons applies. We both agree that the tragedy of the commons is a fallacy.
If you tear down the people who generally agree with you, you’ll have a much more difficult time building that better tomorrow.
You say you support socialism, but then you define it as something we “can’t have.” That’s still perpetuating a falsehood no matter how you frame it. And throwing in a true statement about foreign influence doesn’t negate the lies you’re repeating.
If I say “Israel is evil because Jews are all money-grubbing subhumans, and also they’re committing genocide in Palestine”, the truth of the second statement doesn’t negate the blatant anti-Semitic falsehood of the first. It’s just wrapping up a lie in a truth.
I’m not accusing you of actually being some kind of secret alt-right troll here, but I am calling out the fact that you’re unwittingly doing their work for them with this kind of rhetoric.
This isn’t tearing you down. It’s challenging you to be better. If all you can see in that is an attack, that’s your own insecurities talking, not me.
Socialism has always worked. Power is not a supernatural corrupting force, nor is socialism especially weak to corruption as compared to capitalism. Socialism has been a tremendous advancement everywhere it has been established, even in the face of foreign siege. The idea that all systems are the same in effect is an abstraction that is entirely unrelated to the material reality of socialism as compared to capitalism.