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this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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OP how much of today's markets and politics are definited by Oligarchs and the rich? Can you really say that a plutocracy isn't it's own kind of dictatorship?
Even more so, many westerners have been fooled by culture to think this is natural, inevitable, and good.
In terms of per capita rates, the Irish Catholic Church was incarcerating more of Irelands population than Stalin did to Russia during his reign.
Just two companies; The British East India company and the Belgian Rubber plantations of the Congo killed more people than Stalin or Mao (especially if you factor out the deaths from Lysenkoism, which wasn't a part of communism).
So early Capitalism and Colonialism killed far more than Communist dictatorships have....
And finally there is this to say - Communism is an economic system designed to interrupt plutocratic rule. It's not a governmental system of elections and checls and balances....
...and if we are to be the most up to date with this: China and Vietnam have Socialist Oriented Market Economies. The one in Vietnam, has almost eliminated homelessness entirely. Is that a dictatorship compared to the woes of the west's housing crisises?
Early systems from both economic models - Capitalism/Colonialism and Communism - both had events of mass killings. Both have seen dictatorships... You only focus on these things in the Communist model, because of your background. Likewise, someone from China or North Korea might hear more about the famines, deaths and genocides of the Capitalist and Colonial corporations I've mentioned above.
P.S. Are Cancer deaths from chemicals Capitalists kept on the "safe" list indicative of a dictatorship by the wealthy? What about the deaths and famines from weather disturbances in the climate? If we're counting the famines under Communism, then why not these things to? It's because of a hidden Western ideology/indoctrination culture.
The road to autocracy is paved with people who meet every criticism of the system with, "But look at how bad this other system is!"
It's really not. It's mostly nepotism and reproducing the an untouchable ruling class that creates an autocracy. Put simply; when one system goes too far into autocracy, you should entertain the values of another system.
Condemning that is approving of the current autocrats. But perhaps you're a particular fan of Trump/Musk.
It really is.
And all along the way, people protecting the budding autocracy from criticism by diverting attention to the faults of some other system in some other place and/or time.
Um... sure. But that's neither what you were doing nor what I was criticizing, so it's not relevant.
So... condemning people trying to shift attention away from the current autocrats by bitching about some totally different aurocrats is protecting the current autocrats?
Are you even trying to make sense any more, or are you just desperately stringing together random claims?
Just desperately stringing together random claims. Got it.
Authoritarians everywhere: “You need my boot on your neck, because the other guy’s boot will be even worse!”
True, but when one system becomes sufficiently crushing, it's best to popularize an alternative so the guy in the boot has to focus on other things for a moment.
If the boot changes colour and doctrine, and becomes crushing again, I'll happily advocate for a free market system to distract him again...
Or perhaps some third system such as a mix of communitarianism, distributism, and Georgism. I'm not going to be particularly ideological in this.
...and the Truth is we're speeding towards a techno-feudalism (it's no longer Capitalism when places like Amazon dictate prices and promotions to both producers/sellers and consumers/buyers, that's not Capitalism anymore), so unless you like licking that particular boot, your noted point may not actually serve anything than a heavier foot.
I think it’s more helpful to identify that the issue is boots on our neck, not who is wearing them. What’s the point of fighting for a new government that’s hardly better than the last?
Even if there’s no clear alternative focused on human liberation today, it’s better to build consciousness so that one can be created than tug of war back and forth between tyrants with different colored flags.
How so? Lysenkoism was wholely a result of the political ideology (environment determines wholely a crops' yield), supressing scientific results (genetic differences exist).
No where in Communism does it say to fake one's scientific results in order to simulate higher crop yields. That's not part of the doctrine. That's why it became known as Lysenkoism, because it came down to one con man.
Had the same man been born into the position under a different system, a similar result could emerge. If he were a UN director for farming undee Capitalism a similar result could occur.
Was it an inevitable byproduct of Communist doctrine that would have occurred no matter who Stalin picked? No. Did it happen in Vietnam and Cuba because of the doctrines there? No. So whilst Stalin chose him because he was told he was a good working class lad, doesn't make Lysenko's deceptions part of communism. They're not written into it anywhere.
It happens all the time. Take Theranos as an example.
The famine and millions of death are a consequence of the communist doctrine of not having different ideas compete, and have market forces reward the better ideas. Instead they took Lysenko's ideas as true, implemented it nationwide, forbidding competing ideas, because it was politically agreeable. That is communist doctrine.
I'd argue it always takes ignoring reality, favouring faulty wishfull and selective thinking, to be communist.
No, you're measuring perceived deficits of "Communism" based on what you think about Stalinism (which is not the same thing). Technically Communism or "Scientific Socialism" would have used science to test various techniques of growing crops than selected the best (roughly what happened in Vietnamese Communism).
But Stalinism is called Stalinism because it's not exactly faithful to Communism as a philosophy.
But yes there are plenty example of profit driven systems of Capitalism creating starvation famines ect. Whether it be the East India Company, or the leveraged loans of the World Banks in Africa, or the effects of Climate change, when combined they have a far greater death toll than Communism.
...and you had/have genocides and gulag style systems of punishment in Capitalism as well, whether it's the workhouses of Ireland in the past century (with their mass graves of Children), Prison Labour in the US, or the blood mining and rare minerals in Africa.... Hell Capitalism has set machine guns on workers before in South Africa. Even America has things like the Battle of Blair Mountain and the Ludowlow worker massacre in its history (where mine security had a license to r*pe the wives of workers).
You're just not taught about these things. I can provide you references for any fact I give you here. Just ask.
So whilst you think I'm ignoring the ills of Communism (or it's Stalinist incarnation), which I'm not. I think you're being totally blind of the fact Capitalism has a far greater death toll, and other detriments to the world you're purposefully overlooking, or just ignorant of.
PFAs, Bisphenol A, micro plastics in fetuses, thalidomide, the military industrial complex, the wars of the banana Republics (placing them under corporate tyranny), Pinochet, the list is infinite because it's ongoing.
... and here there I'll make this point: Atleast Communism refines its practice and goals, it has progressively become less brutal as it refined its understanding of agriculture and to be VERY CLEAR that's where the greatest number of deaths associated it come from, not as an intended or desire outcome but by accident.
The same cannot be said for the stagnation and purposeful creation of sufferings under Capitalism, from the minor wage slaveries and wage theft, to union busting (CokeCola even going as far as to kill union organizers in Latin America), to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire (where as with many factory fires, workers were locked in so their pockets could be checked for stolen sewing equipment), to more major things like mining strikes, or the awareness Exxon had around climate change in the 1960s, or Phillip Morris had about causing addiction, cancer, and fatalities.
Sorry, but in reality Capitalism has caused more suffering, in a more substantial and intentional way, that's more connected to the Capitalist doctrine of profit making and wage minimization, than Communism ever has.
Even today America essentially has had its democracy usurped by Capitalist Oligarchs (Musk, Thiel, Andresseen).
You'd have to be absolutely blind to ignore all this history, all this connectedness to the doctrine, the purposes of profit and hence exploitation, and all that continues to this very day.
Without a doubt Capitalism is responsible for everything I've spoken about here, and it has within it no means, or even the suggestion of being a reformist system. Communism does and has made meaningful reforms and strides in the short periods it exists in. Which is why places like China, and Vietnam have made the strides they have, and why Americans visit Cuba for healthcare.
What I've said here, you cannot deny. Like I say, I can provide sources for all of it.
P.S Just to clarify China and Vietnam have Socialist Oriented Market Economies, Vietnam is probably the closest to a Marxist Socialism as its internal tension are mediated through giant Social Union movements that go far beyond just representing workers, there is a national union just for women, one for disabled people, one for students ect. They all have a voice/power capable of directing how the party forms policies and directs resources.
If it was an accident, the accident repeated several times. Even engineers got murdered for correctly saying you shouldn't overload trains (1).
But then again, it wasn't real communism, right. DDR, not real communism. Albania, not real communism. China, not real communism. Romania, not real communism. Etc. Etc.
That's because real capitalism hasn't been tried yet. All the capitalist systems still had subsidies, governments beyond enforcing property law, ...
No, because that was not real capitalism.
Wow, you mean Authoritarian Communism is still Authoritarian? Yeah no shit (and as you can read from earlier I've already mentioned many such things happening under conditions of Capitalism, directly from the doctrines practices of cost cutting and wage theft or brutalization, but fine, "I'll see your engineers there and raise you the British Bopal disaster" that killed and deformed generations of Indians in their home village and is still causing health effects today).
As you've dropped in I'm going to assume you saw me mention that Stalinism was not Communism in its ideal form, but was a Stalinist form.
Your point is thus not about Communism, but about Communism under Authoritarian leaders... And I have already shown that Capitalism is capable of mass killings and atrocities under all sorts of conditions as part of the philosophy (ingrained to it). Where as Stalin's actions here aren't specifically connected to Communist doctrine. I've already covered this point several times with the previous respondant.
That there is a written philosophy - that of Marxism, that of the Communes and the Commons, is why I can say these things. It has a primary set of writings. But we can say that about Capitalism too...
...because Marx was ALSO the person who first defined and wrote about CapitalISM, in his work DAS KAPITAL 1867.
You can look and find commentaries about other concepts in different languages and different sounding words that aren't Capitalism, such as Merchantilism, or in The Hollantse, or you can find the word Capital here and there and claim it relates, or instance around the time of Marx's first treatise on the subject, but none are systematic, focused on the right topic using the ism repeatedly and providing a widely agreed in definition of it.
Like all concepts it has these forerunners that are related but NOT it. So you have tried to be clever here without realizing that when we discuss Capitalism in the way I have - we are talking about Marx's original definition of it. Which was the phenomena of using an unearned accumulation of KAPITAL in order to purchase, own, and exploit workers for the purposes of profiting from exploiting their now alienated Labor.
Oh yes, as you can read above, it very much is. It is in its original description as found in the criticism by Karl Marx in Das Kapital, in 1867. A description so accurate that it's widely agreed with - even among the Capitalists. He was the first and primary text on what the doctrine of "real Capitalism" is. Capitalists hitherto didn't want what they were doing to be known so openly, and intimately and for good reason. Just as any abuser doesn't want what they're doing to be described. It comes naturally to them, and that is no excuse for it, doesn't make it more moral or acceptable. Only once it's pointed out accurately described does the argument start, only then can the behaviours meet reforms. Which is why in Marx's writings we also find advocacy for labor rights.
Sorry my friend, but what I've spoken about is indeed, Real Capitalism™ - down to the origin of the term.
P.S there's also Proudhon: the capitalist's employee was "subordinated, exploited: his permanent condition is one of obedience" - so not much better. People of the era were writing things as they saw them emerge. It's still the problem of the abuser as described above.
It isn't according to the earlier definition of capitalism. Real capitalism hasn't been tried yet. Show me an example of a real capitalist country? What's Marx's opinion on capitalism worth, as he hasn't ever experienced a real capitalist country?
No, the onus of evidence is on you to show me this "early definition of Capitalism" that predates Marx. Although it seems if you're claiming such, you simply didn't read my comment.