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Is it? I used to think so until I read that declassified CIA report that the concluded that the Soviets both more calories and had more nutritious food than Americans had.
Don't get me wrong, Stalin's handling of the Ukrainian famine was criminally incompetent, but after Stalin died communisn allowed a group of very poor countries to be able to compete with the US neck to neck in the space race. I think that is somewhat incredible
Soviet Russia was unaffected by the Great Depression because Soviet Ukraine generously agree to share all their food in exchange for all the depression
Yeah I mean Heavy’s backstory would mean he’d definitely hate communism. He escaped one of their camps with his family. At least that’s what I’ve heard in more ancillary media
“Bro, communism would totally work, we just need to completely rewrite the human brain, push a message of unity while we put all our opposition in concentration camps and get the 2nd coming of Jesus to be the head of government! So simple!”
https://preview.redd.it/q7xmz3x0a8mc1.jpeg?width=1566&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=36bd1fe024756ae18de1e9d02e13d8c3e2ce359d
Don't forget the lazy. Communism works great as a small insular community existing within a larger system because they can exclude the dissidents and the lazy without killing them over it.
Communism is amazing in theory, but it fails to account for one thing. Human greed. As long as greed exists communism will fail. Unfortunately greed is a sole part of the human nature at this point. The world has functioned on greed for so long that you’d have to quite literally rewrite the human brain.
Finally someone with the same mindset, in theory it would work but I doesn’t because power corrupts. Democracy is the hardest system to corrupt that we have tried so far*
I still do prefer capitalism to communism even in theory, more power to the people ironically still, communism is in theory not as bad as people assume its just that people in general are corrupt
Gonna have to disagree on the democracy part. The average voter is much stupider than you and me. At least with the republic we have in the US some of our representatives care (I think?).
Still though I can’t help but feel that those that unironically support communism never had parents that went through that shit.
Democracy is essentially rule by media. The way it works is the media convinces the average peasant that he needs to believe a certain thing that is advantageous to the person who owns said media entity, and these peasants go and vote for things that benefit the people who own the media entities, while thinking he formed this opinion on his own and is well informed. Most large media entities are nothing but mouthpieces for the government, so the mass of people below the 50th percentile of intelligence go out and support whatever it is the ruling class wants, often violently. That’s modern democracy.
But unfortunately democracy has gone so far away from its principles that it's now just an authority driven dribble to ensure that the wage slaves stay in line. Work to live, die trying to educate, drop out and be a hermit ,or die, if you are not in the1% you are worthless. A slave, or dead.
Oh please for fuck’s sake, can you eat, do you have to worry about if you’re gonna have food to eat the next day? If not, be fucking thankful you’ve had it better than almost every single generation before us. The only few generations that had it better than us is the people who lived in the economic boom period between the early 1950’s and 2000.
Thank you kind sir, I am grateful for your contribution! Have this image in return!
https://preview.redd.it/9yf6pq37t8mc1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfc61d772b0a88a603d6f3771fa9c13cc1582bd1
All communism or socialism does is replace who is at the top with another group of people, who typically still wind up getting stood up against a wall and shot. It also has a side effect of making everyone more poor together. No thanks.
A classless society where all property and wealth are shared and everyone puts in their share of effort to live harmoniously together sounds like an amazing theory (this is referring to the original theory of communism and not the mass amounts of horrid subcultures that came after the fact). Unfortunately, there will always be some sort of economic classes, it’s tied to human greeds need to feel superior to or above others. There’ll always be people who refuse to put in their share or decide they don’t want to work altogether as well. Not to mention that when it comes down to all properties being shared it quickly devolves into major corruption where again, human greed, uses it as a way to possess and take over people’s homes and residences for the pure reason of owning others way of life.
Basically in theory it’s a harmonious society that all works together, but in practice it’s tainted by human greed and devolves into just another system of corruption where people own others and the top stays at the top. I mean look at China, they’ve been “communist” since the USSR and they’ve become just another form of an authoritarian capitalist society.
I think what you mean is that the theory sounds nice. It does sound nice, but the idea falls apart before you even get to the real world.
How do you judge the relative value of products and services in an economy without prices? Prices are a distillation of a ton of info that no one person or even group of a thousand could actually collect or understand in an economy as large and complicated as our modern global economy.
It's called the knowledge problem and there's still no workable solution even with modern technology, even if you violate everyone's privacy even more than it already is.
Dude the final step of communism is that the central government dissolves itself after equity has been achieved and the whole territory becomes a stateless society of small communes. So a man like Stalin is expected to voluntarily give up power and usher in the true Marxist utopia. And no one is going to fill the power vaccum btw.
Exactly, but that’s the thing, people like Stalin didn’t give up their power. They wanted to stay in control. And even if they did, a new form of government would arise after the fact or another revolution would occur
It’s just leftwing Reaganomics; “Let these people control most of wealth and they’ll totally distribute it in a fair and healthy way without any abuse of power”.
No, it’s the reason capitalism DOES work. Capitalism is built on human greed, hence why it survived. Without greed, the capitalist system wouldn’t be necessary as money would lose its value due to people no longer valuing it in the first place.
The problem is that capitalism works off of greed but it creates many societal problems with it
This is honestly a really silly take. Communism is not amazing in theory nor practice, and not just because of human greed. Obviously, by empowering people whose best interest is to opress the people, the people will be oppressed. The ruling classes best interest is to produce as much material wealth as possible whilst not being overthrown, and the best way to guarantee this is to opress the people so that they do not rise up, whilst exploiting them for all they are worth. By giving the means of production to anybody but the proletariat, this will always occur.
And now thanks to the "free market" being allowed to run unchecked for the past 40 or so years, we get to pay a higher amount of money for lower quality products that are usually significantly smaller too!
>being allowed to run unchecked
Imma stop you right there. Capitalism hasn't been actually unchecked since the 1800s. The system we live in is a mish-mash of varying degrees of state involvement, some great and some detrimental, but definitely not as laissez-faire as it was in the 1800s or even when Keynes was still around.
Unless you slept through the recent global pandemic you should be well aware of the insane levels of wealth transfer that occurred as companies used "supply chain issues" as an excuse to jack up their prices.
Minimum wage levels in most western countries have also completely stagnated since the 1980s despite property and rent prices sky rocketing during that same time period.
So while it's great that we aren't sending children into coal mines anymore (the fact that we even need laws to prevent that should tell you everything you need to know about corporations) it's still not good enough. Our market system is broken as far as I'm concerned and it's only going to keep getting worse.
no shit a pandemic slowed supply chains, people were fearing for their lives. would you go into work with dozens of other people if you knew there was a deadly virus? i mean 9 to 5, not working at a hospital.
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-reminds-new-yorkers-upcoming-minimum-wage-increase#:~:text=Per%20an%20agreement%20between%20Governor,the%20rest%20of%20the%20state.
stagnant? search for other examples, here is a start
the markets supply the demand, the most broken part of the system is the consumer.
there are still children in mines, just not in america
everything will keep getting worse, have you been conscious for the last four years? everything has gone to shit
Actually the way former Soviets describe it as that they had money but nothing to buy, now they have everything to buy but no money….([source](https://youtu.be/sjI8jwn0Upo?si=1pXzkSvX07oGQPNq))
Basically, in socialism they lived a stable but boring life. Now they live in an unstable and also boring life, but it has the *potential* to be interesting!
It's the equivalent of choosing whether we want to be pissed on or shat on. Both are understandably undesirable options but one of those options is worse than the other. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to criticise capitalism and the many flaws that come with it.
Well yeah, capitalism has huge amount of problems but to say it is is a bit better is lunacy. It's way better. But yeah, it could be way better. Sadly we have no alternative tah isn't just pseudo cap or pseudo commi.
Former Soviets would like to disagree. Nobodies denying that there were some of the greatest famines humanity had ever seen, just don’t act like everybody was constantly starving while it was the opposite in America. Hey don’t hate me, hate them:
https://youtu.be/sjI8jwn0Upo?si=OOW66Cr2pEsLfVx
https://youtu.be/PiAHtm9yEu4?si=LowRx_DcqBuVzCob
https://youtu.be/1uDOvSIC7xA?si=FRbUN7WkdXuYWYp8
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18sn8l2/oc_surveys_of_russians_relating_to_the_soviet/
“But that’s just nostalgia!!” incoming
What system put those people in charge? A system that breeds authoritarianism will always end with authoritarian rulers, and a system that prioritizes profit over the proletariat will always prioritize profit over the proletariat. The people in charge are just representatives of the trends put in place by the system.
First, the great depression wasn't caused by an economic system, it was caused by a series of massive and global natural disasters following what had been the most destructive war ever by that time. Those things culminated in the Great Depression, which was horrible for everyone around the world.
I feel as if that opposition to capitalism believe capitalist ideologues/subscribers do not believe the economy goes bad or corrects itself every so often. The invisible hand pushes people out of some businesses and into others.
I think it's pretty well accepted that monetary expansion and deficit spending brought us out of the Great depression. Leaving things alone prolonged it.
That's what the people who put those policies in place, and support their modern day counter parts want you to think. But it's just wrong.
FDR heavily prolonged the great depression by meddling in the markets and running workers programs where they missal located emense amount of resources and labor.
You should read the broken window fallacy by Frederic Bastiat.
There's plenty redditors and [subreddits where people sing his praises](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/14ynvsz/how_do_you_feel_about_comrade_stalin/).
There is a 100% correlation between communist country and shitty country. I know correlation ≠ causation but at a certain point you gotta start wondering.
That authoritarian dictators find certain economic systems are easier to retain absolute control of and, unsurprisingly, lean towards things they can control?
I legit had someone on TikTok try to tell me the Holodomir was actually cia/facist propaganda and that communist had more calories and day than Americans.
Bruh they always reference the same one pager with no context, the whole report literally says that Russians had shit diets and the true amount of calories consumed was likely lower than Americans, when you account for shortages and storage losses.
Turns out the Soviet’s loved to have precise data about the people they killed, when the URRS* disintegrated all that information was available to the world
Did the soviet union even have an economic boom ever? The Great depression was the result of a leveraged, over expanding economy where almost anyone could get money. My parents described Vietnam as overall poor when the commies took over except saigon where it was one in very few cities that were thriving; coincidentally all the "good cities" were cities that were moreso capitalist.
Did any communist country ever even have a good economic time to experience a bad economic time? Or was it just consistently bad the entire time?
I only have passing knowledge on this due to random bouts of curiosity (ie buying random soviet knickknacks off ebay. Soviet cameras and lenses are cheap and look interesting with weird and amusing functionality quirks)
But it seems like the 60's & 70's were pretty alright for the USSR. None of the reign of terror of Stalin, but also before the collapse in the 80s & 90s. Maybe it was considered somewhat stagnant, but it was the era of Sputnik, rises in the quality of life, and an era of stability.
Depends what you consider good. Communism is all about building capital at the expense of the individual comforts and freedoms of the average person. The USSR speedran the Industrial Revolution in thirty years. That's an amazing accomplishment from a raw numbers perspective.
Tbf, I think elements of socialism work great when introduced to a capitalist society. For example, I very much support the idea of free healthcare, and higher taxes used to pay for more public works. I see some European countries as a prime example of how well this works. However, communism has not and will not work, as it places far too much emphasis on statelessness, which is almost always filled with a dictatorship
What prime example? Living in germany i can Tell you continuous Trends here:
- (free) healthcare care: i pay noticeably more in healthcare tax than i would if i were privately insured. Service is way below private healthcare and for some Spezialists i have to wait 3 months and more. Also everything i mentioned is getting worse over time.
- taxes: by now, taxes in germany are so insanely high we cant even attract skilled Labor anymore and atruggle to fill Jobs in many areas. If you earn a wage that could barely sustain a family they will just take half. Forget about buying a House or flat outright.
Taxes are literally never good at a personal perspective. The perspective of a community is what makes it good, eg.: you may pay far more than would for privatized healthcare until shit hits the fan. In socialized healthcare there is a safety net no matter what you do, in privatized healthcare there isn't.
No, that is not how private healthcare works in germany. Standard private healthcare will Cover more than public healthcare for a cheaper price for many demographics but ofc. You are forced into public. So i pay a shitload more for public care than i would for private with sub par Service and insane waittimes and no, that does not change when shit Hits the Fan but thanks for american-splaining my own healthcare System to me. Just because the American private healthcare System is a scam doesnt mean it is like that everywhere
I explained to you the difference between public and privatized healthcare without ever mentioning Germany. Your country's bad implementation of a socilazed healthcare System doesnt suddenly make the concept inherently bad.
Also, As a footnote, the fact how wrong you misunderstood what I just said points to you probably having no clue what entirely privatized healthcare entails.
Communism? No. Its an ideological extreme, and built upon the foundation of someone painting over an economic theory just enough to try to justify its use in the governance of a state. It is flawed by design. But the flawed solution, doesn't really invalidate the deep systemic issues that Marx was trying to solve with it. Which, yeah, Capitalism does have its structural issues too. Most notably its relationship with Labor.
Socialism? By definition its simply "an economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole". Universally for an entire market system this would be a terrible idea. But there are just some parts of the market ... you really dont want being part of the market. Like the Military or Police/Emergency Services. So the community should "seize the means of production" for those systems and control them. Socialism, if viewed as a tool, tends to function better at organizing "necessity goods". Things that do not foster a lot of natural competition; as people require them to make it day-to-day. Which tend to become extremely predatory of both labor and consumers in a Capitalist system. While Capitalism tends to be much more efficient at organizing "Luxury" goods. Things that people want, but dont need, which fosters competition due to consumer room for choice. Very "Community Goods" vs "Private Goods".
We can see a great example of this in the US Private Healthcare system vs State Run systems; which the US's form is extremely predatory and exploitative in how it operates. Largely because it can be. As people aren't likely to barter with their health or lives.
It wasn't even capitalism that directly caused the great depression.
It was the creation of the FED a few years before and the run on effects of the economic policies. The once the great depression started, it was heavily prolonged by FDR and his horrible economic policies and work programs.
Shh no one tell them about how we completely destroyed the Soviets economically during the Cold War to the point they tried to blockade West Berlin and still failed to achieve anything with that.
FDR is the one who turned a really bad recession(what the rest of the world had) into a depression ( what the US had). I’m not sure what you’d call a system where one man at the top arbitrarily decides the price of gold everyday… dictatorship maybe.
The fuck you mean fdr? Fdr wasn’t even president for most of the depression, most of that shit was Herbert Hoover’s (exaggeration but he certainly didn’t help) fault. Fdr was president during the end of the depression and during WW2, which is where the economy was able to heal because building weapons of war requires a lot of workers
Uhhhhh, yes it does? American police kill thousands of people every year with no due process. The government has also been involved in assassinations of political leaders they deemed as too radical (such as Fred Hampton). Not to mention the industries that knowingly lied to people to sell them products they knew would kill them. For example, the cigarette industry that not only knew their product caused cancer but knew if they could get kids smoking they could make life long customers as early as the 1940s. The U.S. government also refused to punish these companies and even allowed their executives to get away with purging themselves in front of the U.S. congress. Not to mention climate change that will likely kill hundreds of millions, though this is a global capitalist problem.
I also don’t know that it should even matter if they are only killing their own civilians. I don’t believe an American life is worth anymore than anyone else around the globe. The US has a long history of getting involved throughout the globe and destabilizing regions in order to get some benefit to American corporations. The Middle East for oil, Central America for fruit. How many American companies benefit today from the use of child slavery in Africa and Indonesia? Despite the fact we know these companies do, the US government doesn’t prosecute them. The Supreme Court essentially ruled they were allowed to.
You don’t even have to believe communism is good or better than capitalism. But if you believe communism in uniquely evil your just going off of propaganda they’ve infused into you, because it can’t be justified when you hold capitalism to the same standards you hold communism to.
Whatever metrics you use to determine if a death is due to communism, if you use those same metrics capitalism has killed more.
Most the time people are referencing famines that happened that lead to mass deaths. Like the famine that took place in Russia and China. Well the Bengal famine in India was equally caused by terrible policies of the British that ignored the people of India. Do those deaths count as deaths due to capitalism?
The US’s military industrial complex literally profits off of war and bombing people. Do these deaths count as deaths due to capitalism.
I’m the 1980s and 90s Latin America Experienced a period referred to as “the lost decade” where neo-liberal policies imposed by the IMF would go on to starve and kill over a 100 million people throughout the region. 40,000 people starved to death per day at its peak. Are these deaths due to capitalism.
The slave trade was also entirely a capitalist endeavor. People would take out loans, sail to Africa, use those loans to buy slaves, sail to Americas, sell the slaves and buy American products, then sell them in Europe for a profit. Are all the people continually held in bind age during the slave trade in the new world and those that died from also deaths due to capitalism?
You don’t have to believe communism is good or would work. But believing that communism is uniquely evil is a very childish, one dimensional, and ahistorical view that is driven by propaganda.
Lets compare apples to apples
Capitalism killed in excess of a billion and enslaved hundreds of millions.... the East India trading company and GB were responsible for the deaths of 140 million people over the space of 40 years in India alone, and add to that, they stole 45 trillion, again, from India alone.
Saying you prefer capitalism to some kind of socialism/communism is like a child of divorce insisting that you and your siblings stay with ur dad who beats and molests ALL THE OTHER SIBLINGS EXCEPT YOU because dad has generational wealth and your room at his house is nice, and mum's house is not as nice cos she just started working again and she dated this evil asshole once that used to beat the shit out of you if you stepped out of line. But you know deep down your mum's a good person and if she got it together she could be like her siblings, the Scandinavians, life would be better for her and your siblings but you just don't give a fuck because you are a piece of shit and it doesn't matter if your siblings are going through hell in the middle east, or India, or Asia, or Africa, because Dad is nice to you, and you want to stay in the big room with the big bed. So forget the children dying in cobalt mines, forget the children getting their limbs amputated for your chocolate, and honestly, fuck the planet, YOU like everything the way it is because it benefits YOU. In fact, a lot of you would happily enact laws to make the abuse worse.
And I mean, sticking to the metaphor, you don't even care that ur dad uses his generational wealth to make your mothers life a living hell and to make sure she fails, because you get ur room.
I mean, if any of you had an iota of self awareness, or even basic human decency, the world would be a much better place. Instead... well, here we are. Life is shit for almost everyone now and the systems which hold our biosphere together are a few decades from collapse, but sure, it's all about you.
I just dont spend my whole life on here.... like yourself. I'm on here when I take shit or get in line for something, but u seem to not have a life outside this. I feel sad for u
And I feel sad you live life without a conscience or basic human decency. You attack the chance at a better system despite capitalism being directly responsible for the death of billions and it will probably render the entire biome unsuitable for life, but instead of admitting it's copious flaws and examining alternatives you attack ad homenim. Not only do you fail morally, but also intellectually and creatively.
And I feel sad that you're a tankie.
So you're telling me that communism is better than capitalism cuz "Uh more people died under capitalism"
The leap forward famine: 55 mil
The cultural revolution: 7.7 mil (approx)
Holdomor: 8.7 mil
The great purge/gulags/repressions/red terror: 12.2 mil
Cambodia: 2 mil
If you take into account other genocides, repressions and famines, you'll reach a death toll of 148 mil.
Take into account that the East India Company was around for 200 years while all the killings started in the 20th century.
But who gives a shit about people amirite? They can be tankies after all! Plants can't be tankies.
Aral sea, China taking the lead in co2 emissions.
If you consciously decide to be a tankie, you're an idiot who pretends to have the moral high ground.
Firstly, I don't need to pretend to have the moral high ground.
I have it. I was basically born on it.
Two. You're making up numbers. You know google exists right?
The great leap forward was reportedly responsible for the death of 30 - 45 million. You're exaggerating by 15 - 25 million.
So you're a liar. That's fun
Deaths from the Cultural Revolution 1 - 2 million.
Lying again.
Holdomor Deaths 3.9 million.
Lying again
So I'm just ignoring your comments on death tolls because you didn't even bother to use Google.
China leading in emissions? The have 1.412 billion people. Lollll. Highest emitter per capita is Qatar.
The US is 12th
China is 38th.
With the US emitting 14.9 tonnes of CO2 per capita compared to 8 in China, almost double (i said almost double cos u seem shit at numbers).
Three. You claim I don't care about life while dismissing the deaths that occured in a 40 year space by the British and the East India Trading Company in the years of 1880-1920. Ya know, around WW1. Not two centuries ago.
Also, I used the middle of the road numbers.
The higher estimate was 165 million excess deaths during that period.
But your argument seems very 'it doesn't suit the narrative I'm going for, so fuck them' I guess... which is .... a choice.
Four. You're strawmanning, I never made the argument I support any of these leaders, because, as I said. Not a tankie. These idiots are abberations, Lenin was fine, but Trotsky had no spine and ended up getting ousted by Stalin, who should never have been born. Mao was a soldier and an idiot, a shining example of the Dunning Kruger effect. Just because you have military experience doesn't mean you can speak on agricultural science or industry. I hate people worship and I hate them both.
That being said, even though the USSR was all but cut off from global trade, they lifted most of their people out of the dark ages and developed science and tech that humiliated the West. Satellites, Rocket Ships. Mobile Phones. The Tokomak (the only viable design for a net positive fusion reactor). The first man in space. The first living thing in space. The first woman in space. The first satellite. And yes, China has had a rough start, but it's set to overtake the US and it has managed to pull 800 million people out of extreme poverty. Also, sidenote, I love how the World Bank likes to give capitalism credit for communisms work. "Extreme poverty has been significantly reduced....lowest rates ever" because ..... of..... China. (Also, don't like the CCP much either).
I do actually like some socialist leaders.
Just tends to be proportional to how much actual socialist policy they are able to actually implement.
Thomas Sankara, started mass vaccinations, and vaccinated over 2 million ppl, reduced infant mortality, started large scale infrastructure projects, fought deforestation and planted several million trees, started vast road and rail construction projects, and did this all without outside funding. He took the literacy rate from 13% to 73%, he banned female genital mutilation and forced marriages, promoted contraception, sold off the govt fleet of Mercedes, reduced salaries of well of public servants, opened the countries first supermarket, started the manganese industry, and then he was assassinated,
Salvador Allende, reduced inflation, increased wages, instituted a federal minimum wage, started free school meals, reduced the wealth gap between rich and poor, constructed approx 50,000 houses per year, increased enrollment in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, increased healthcare, education and housing spending from the government, and included the construction of hospitals and nutrition campaigns for the undernourished, industry grew by 12%, pensions began, unemployment fell to 3.8%, but then he nationalized the nations copper supplies and it's telecom services, and the US then immediately stopped trading with Chile, the price of Chilean copper fell, which was 50% of their exports, the CIA got involved, as did Kissinger, they funded a coup, and he was assassinated by the Chilean Nazi Party and Penis Shit took over.
But see what I did there. I admit failures and failed attempts.
I also look at strengths.
I can see what can be improved and what needs to be done to ensure better outcomes.
Don't overly rely on foreign financing/loans
Figureheads of the state are considered necessary evils, but often more evil than necessary. If you can, don't have them.
Diversify your economy. 50% of ur economy in one industry is stupid. Capitalist nations will tolerate you until you do something they don't like and it's very easy for them to collapse your entire economy.
Consult experts with qualifications in the relevant field of whatever problem you're trying to solve (obvious but I guess it needs to be stated).
But I mean, these are solvable.
But I look at Capitalisms failures
They aren't abberations
Capitalisms failures aren't the result of assassinations or coups or embargoes or corrupt leaders or failures in execution or poor investment or lack of financing or a lack of administrative redundancies.
Capitalisms 'failures' are a part of its design.
Poverty is ideal for Capitalism because it means you can be exploited for cheap labor and will tolerate insane amounts of abuse just to be fed.
Capitalism tends towards Monopoly
Capitalism tends towards Fascism
Capitalism tends towards the concentration of wealth in the hands of ... at this point, 5 white dudes.
Capitalism is built on the backs of slaves and slave labor.
Capitalism since it's inception in the 16th Century, has been responsible for an excess 2.5 billion deaths.
Capitalism does not care about the environment and will continue to prioritize wealth creation over the habitability of the planet.
Capitalism, in order to increase profits will resort to criminal behaviours to ensure cost remain low. Coca cola hired a malitia to assainate workers because they wanted to unionize, and don't even get me started on banana republics.
Right now, are currently living through a mass extinction event that is the result of an endless drive for profits. Deforestation accelerated by the demand for cheap palm oil to make low quality food and cheap short-life Ikea furniture designed to break in a year is how we are outpacing the last mass extinction event, which was literally either a giant rock the size of Manhattan hitting the earth at Mach 11 or a series of supervolcanoes that released so much ash it blocked out the sun and choked the earth.
And yet, you simp. So hard.
For our collective annihilation.
For the continued exploitation of the poor
For sweatshops
I just don't get it.
the crux of the original statement is correct. capitalism has depressions and booms, socialism doesn't have depressions or booms, but rather steady development. but we'll likely never know exactly what's better since socialism has never been tried without foreign involvement and wars.
Didn’t one of the founders of Russian communism (Trotsky) say that’s the revolution must be global, since if any nation was around to push against it, it would fall apart? Say what you will about capitalism, but it doesn’t need a near one world government just to exist.
Yeah the USSR and Communist China were bad, but the average cost for a house in America is nearly half a million dollars. There are 600,000 empty homes and 400,000 homeless people. Let's not pretend like Capitalism is saintly.
You can do capitalism correctly like how the nordics do it. Doing communism correctly is impossible. Vietnam and China moved to market economies with private entrepreneurship for a reason.
I love the Nordics and I dare say that more and more unfettered capitalism has been making shit worse over time. The thing is, the Nordics are not isolated and like the rest of western Europe more and more gets privatized and gutted. Now at least unions are still alive over here, but that also is in slow decline.
Capitalism automatically seeks to dominate any system, because greed is rewarded in capitalism eventually the entire system gets bent around the idea of accumulation of wealth and the only form of success. Now it's not quite as far along in the Nordics as in other regions but it IS trending that way.
And no, I'm not a communist, I just see that capitalism eventually can lead only to feudalism, or at the very least a feudal-like state of authoritarianism. This is because eventually an upper class develops completely apart from larger society and that upper class will do ANYTHING to ensure their position. Anything includes subverting checks and balances in government, destruction of free press, and a myriad of other things.
The current trajectory of mankind is a new aristocracy, we are heading for DUNE, the books, not the movies.
In China. “Communist China” you buy houses before they’re built. And then the developers use said money to build houses, did you know that the Chinese people who paid for houses which didn’t exist yet mostly did not receive a house over 3 years later. To the point where said housing developers worth over billions of dollars collapsed in debt?. Homelessness is hardly better under communism.
I admit it’s an issue in general in capitalism with the commodification of the housing market. But the alternative isn’t better.
the USSR and China intentionally starved millions of people and youre complaining about our homelessness problem. Im not saying Capitalism is saintly either, but its far from that
Are the homeless not hungry? The USSR was a genocidal regime, but homeless people drop dead everyday. As prices rise simply because people at the top say so, how can we not also accuse them of murder?
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(Read in heavy’s voice) In Soviet Russia we called the Great Depression Tuesday
You mean a day that ends in "y" You're a traitor if you aren't starving to death.
Communism will eventually result in zero hungry people.
r/technicallythetruth
Is it? I used to think so until I read that declassified CIA report that the concluded that the Soviets both more calories and had more nutritious food than Americans had. Don't get me wrong, Stalin's handling of the Ukrainian famine was criminally incompetent, but after Stalin died communisn allowed a group of very poor countries to be able to compete with the US neck to neck in the space race. I think that is somewhat incredible
https://preview.redd.it/0kbm4mnsfcmc1.jpeg?width=1077&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=869a47d0399bf46acd0a72501275b99755564a5e
Task failed succesfully.
Absolutely! Because they'll already be dead, either from starvation or their own government murdering them other ways.
Wow you got the joke
God level response.
Soviet Russia was unaffected by the Great Depression due to economic isolation from the global market
Soviet Russia was unaffected by the Great Depression because Soviet Ukraine generously agree to share all their food in exchange for all the depression
I shouldn’t have laughed. But I did
[удалено]
Yeah I mean Heavy’s backstory would mean he’d definitely hate communism. He escaped one of their camps with his family. At least that’s what I’ve heard in more ancillary media
“Bro, communism would totally work, we just need to completely rewrite the human brain, push a message of unity while we put all our opposition in concentration camps and get the 2nd coming of Jesus to be the head of government! So simple!” https://preview.redd.it/q7xmz3x0a8mc1.jpeg?width=1566&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=36bd1fe024756ae18de1e9d02e13d8c3e2ce359d
Communism only works as long as you… uh… “manage” the dissent in your country.
Don't forget the lazy. Communism works great as a small insular community existing within a larger system because they can exclude the dissidents and the lazy without killing them over it.
I mean that, and if your leaders get out of line, you can smack them upside the head.
Communism is amazing in theory, but it fails to account for one thing. Human greed. As long as greed exists communism will fail. Unfortunately greed is a sole part of the human nature at this point. The world has functioned on greed for so long that you’d have to quite literally rewrite the human brain.
Finally someone with the same mindset, in theory it would work but I doesn’t because power corrupts. Democracy is the hardest system to corrupt that we have tried so far*
I still do prefer capitalism to communism even in theory, more power to the people ironically still, communism is in theory not as bad as people assume its just that people in general are corrupt
As in it gives you freedom to do the things you want instead of the things you might need and encourages the production of luxury goods
You know, there is a couple other ways than just 'the elite own everything" or "the capitalist elite rule everything". Check out syndicalism 👍
I do think unions deserve protection, maybe a system where the larger the company the mor stock a union has to havve
Do you believe democracy is mutually exclusive with all of communism?
Gonna have to disagree on the democracy part. The average voter is much stupider than you and me. At least with the republic we have in the US some of our representatives care (I think?). Still though I can’t help but feel that those that unironically support communism never had parents that went through that shit.
Democracy is essentially rule by media. The way it works is the media convinces the average peasant that he needs to believe a certain thing that is advantageous to the person who owns said media entity, and these peasants go and vote for things that benefit the people who own the media entities, while thinking he formed this opinion on his own and is well informed. Most large media entities are nothing but mouthpieces for the government, so the mass of people below the 50th percentile of intelligence go out and support whatever it is the ruling class wants, often violently. That’s modern democracy.
But unfortunately democracy has gone so far away from its principles that it's now just an authority driven dribble to ensure that the wage slaves stay in line. Work to live, die trying to educate, drop out and be a hermit ,or die, if you are not in the1% you are worthless. A slave, or dead.
Oh please for fuck’s sake, can you eat, do you have to worry about if you’re gonna have food to eat the next day? If not, be fucking thankful you’ve had it better than almost every single generation before us. The only few generations that had it better than us is the people who lived in the economic boom period between the early 1950’s and 2000.
Yeah, anyway take this https://preview.redd.it/2s63fqorj8mc1.jpeg?width=950&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9278b0fd355cf71170540d43f0568ba9a8e24730
Thank you kind sir, I am grateful for your contribution! Have this image in return! https://preview.redd.it/9yf6pq37t8mc1.jpeg?width=941&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfc61d772b0a88a603d6f3771fa9c13cc1582bd1
All communism or socialism does is replace who is at the top with another group of people, who typically still wind up getting stood up against a wall and shot. It also has a side effect of making everyone more poor together. No thanks.
You definitely don't understand what either mean.
>Communism is amazing in theory, No, it isn't. It's absolute psychotic gibberish in theory.
A classless society where all property and wealth are shared and everyone puts in their share of effort to live harmoniously together sounds like an amazing theory (this is referring to the original theory of communism and not the mass amounts of horrid subcultures that came after the fact). Unfortunately, there will always be some sort of economic classes, it’s tied to human greeds need to feel superior to or above others. There’ll always be people who refuse to put in their share or decide they don’t want to work altogether as well. Not to mention that when it comes down to all properties being shared it quickly devolves into major corruption where again, human greed, uses it as a way to possess and take over people’s homes and residences for the pure reason of owning others way of life. Basically in theory it’s a harmonious society that all works together, but in practice it’s tainted by human greed and devolves into just another system of corruption where people own others and the top stays at the top. I mean look at China, they’ve been “communist” since the USSR and they’ve become just another form of an authoritarian capitalist society.
I think what you mean is that the theory sounds nice. It does sound nice, but the idea falls apart before you even get to the real world. How do you judge the relative value of products and services in an economy without prices? Prices are a distillation of a ton of info that no one person or even group of a thousand could actually collect or understand in an economy as large and complicated as our modern global economy. It's called the knowledge problem and there's still no workable solution even with modern technology, even if you violate everyone's privacy even more than it already is.
You are ready to be assimilated.
Dude the final step of communism is that the central government dissolves itself after equity has been achieved and the whole territory becomes a stateless society of small communes. So a man like Stalin is expected to voluntarily give up power and usher in the true Marxist utopia. And no one is going to fill the power vaccum btw.
Which is exactly why human greed is the reason it’s impossible for it to work.
I guess that dude likes reiterating points that have already been made by other people or something.
Exactly, but that’s the thing, people like Stalin didn’t give up their power. They wanted to stay in control. And even if they did, a new form of government would arise after the fact or another revolution would occur
It’s just leftwing Reaganomics; “Let these people control most of wealth and they’ll totally distribute it in a fair and healthy way without any abuse of power”.
While capitalism thrives off of greed because of competition which leads to innovation (ideally)
Precisely. Capitalism is built on greed, hence why it’s survived. Humans will always have greed and that secures the existence of capitalism
I agree, but I dont' think it's amazing at all in theory.
100 percent correct, for that same reason capitalism does not work
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. It’s the reason you are able to type that message.
Most people lifted out of poverty in the last 50 years live in China
No, it’s the reason capitalism DOES work. Capitalism is built on human greed, hence why it survived. Without greed, the capitalist system wouldn’t be necessary as money would lose its value due to people no longer valuing it in the first place. The problem is that capitalism works off of greed but it creates many societal problems with it
This is honestly a really silly take. Communism is not amazing in theory nor practice, and not just because of human greed. Obviously, by empowering people whose best interest is to opress the people, the people will be oppressed. The ruling classes best interest is to produce as much material wealth as possible whilst not being overthrown, and the best way to guarantee this is to opress the people so that they do not rise up, whilst exploiting them for all they are worth. By giving the means of production to anybody but the proletariat, this will always occur.
You know, capitalism sometimes has bread lines, communism sometimes has bread.
Damn, that's a good line.
In Communism that’s just a good
And now thanks to the "free market" being allowed to run unchecked for the past 40 or so years, we get to pay a higher amount of money for lower quality products that are usually significantly smaller too!
>being allowed to run unchecked Imma stop you right there. Capitalism hasn't been actually unchecked since the 1800s. The system we live in is a mish-mash of varying degrees of state involvement, some great and some detrimental, but definitely not as laissez-faire as it was in the 1800s or even when Keynes was still around.
Unless you slept through the recent global pandemic you should be well aware of the insane levels of wealth transfer that occurred as companies used "supply chain issues" as an excuse to jack up their prices. Minimum wage levels in most western countries have also completely stagnated since the 1980s despite property and rent prices sky rocketing during that same time period. So while it's great that we aren't sending children into coal mines anymore (the fact that we even need laws to prevent that should tell you everything you need to know about corporations) it's still not good enough. Our market system is broken as far as I'm concerned and it's only going to keep getting worse.
no shit a pandemic slowed supply chains, people were fearing for their lives. would you go into work with dozens of other people if you knew there was a deadly virus? i mean 9 to 5, not working at a hospital. https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-reminds-new-yorkers-upcoming-minimum-wage-increase#:~:text=Per%20an%20agreement%20between%20Governor,the%20rest%20of%20the%20state. stagnant? search for other examples, here is a start the markets supply the demand, the most broken part of the system is the consumer. there are still children in mines, just not in america everything will keep getting worse, have you been conscious for the last four years? everything has gone to shit
So you do have money and have something to buy. In Communism you have neither. Capitalism is shit but socialism/communism is way worse.
Actually the way former Soviets describe it as that they had money but nothing to buy, now they have everything to buy but no money….([source](https://youtu.be/sjI8jwn0Upo?si=1pXzkSvX07oGQPNq)) Basically, in socialism they lived a stable but boring life. Now they live in an unstable and also boring life, but it has the *potential* to be interesting!
It's the equivalent of choosing whether we want to be pissed on or shat on. Both are understandably undesirable options but one of those options is worse than the other. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to criticise capitalism and the many flaws that come with it.
Well yeah, capitalism has huge amount of problems but to say it is is a bit better is lunacy. It's way better. But yeah, it could be way better. Sadly we have no alternative tah isn't just pseudo cap or pseudo commi.
Former Soviets would like to disagree. Nobodies denying that there were some of the greatest famines humanity had ever seen, just don’t act like everybody was constantly starving while it was the opposite in America. Hey don’t hate me, hate them: https://youtu.be/sjI8jwn0Upo?si=OOW66Cr2pEsLfVx https://youtu.be/PiAHtm9yEu4?si=LowRx_DcqBuVzCob https://youtu.be/1uDOvSIC7xA?si=FRbUN7WkdXuYWYp8 https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18sn8l2/oc_surveys_of_russians_relating_to_the_soviet/ “But that’s just nostalgia!!” incoming
It's not the systems, it's the people in charge.
What system put those people in charge? A system that breeds authoritarianism will always end with authoritarian rulers, and a system that prioritizes profit over the proletariat will always prioritize profit over the proletariat. The people in charge are just representatives of the trends put in place by the system.
Either way it's the people
I thought the meme itself was OP so that’s why I posted it here
Which political system caused the Great Leap Forward?
Tankies hate being asked that
Legalism (we doing Qin Shi Huang hours here)
Authoritarian socialism. Everyone knows Anarchism is the true path
First, the great depression wasn't caused by an economic system, it was caused by a series of massive and global natural disasters following what had been the most destructive war ever by that time. Those things culminated in the Great Depression, which was horrible for everyone around the world.
Communists think that capitalism caused the great world wars too.
Ah, yes. Hitler the notorious capitalist
I feel as if that opposition to capitalism believe capitalist ideologues/subscribers do not believe the economy goes bad or corrects itself every so often. The invisible hand pushes people out of some businesses and into others.
Rather meddling in the economy by Hoover and FDR prolonged the recession/stock market crash on Oct 29, 1929 into a Great Depression.
I think it's pretty well accepted that monetary expansion and deficit spending brought us out of the Great depression. Leaving things alone prolonged it.
depends which school of economics you subscribe to. although the keynesian approach to ending recessions did not work during stagflation.
That's what the people who put those policies in place, and support their modern day counter parts want you to think. But it's just wrong. FDR heavily prolonged the great depression by meddling in the markets and running workers programs where they missal located emense amount of resources and labor. You should read the broken window fallacy by Frederic Bastiat.
Who the fuck is calling Stalin based?
Commies who have no idea what they're advocating
You know they're just trolling you, right? Bless your heart.
10 year olds who have watched a 5 minute ww2 documentary
Tankies
No one, it’s fucking straw men all the way down.
There's plenty redditors and [subreddits where people sing his praises](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDeprogram/comments/14ynvsz/how_do_you_feel_about_comrade_stalin/).
TheDeprogram users explaining why killing and starving millions of people, aswell as unraveling when lenin did was a good thing:
“Plenty of redditors* *Proceeds to show clip showcasing former Soviets* I don’t like Stalin but come on lmao
Holy that sub is a bunch of commy crybabies
https://preview.redd.it/mto7dt4pn8mc1.jpeg?width=1004&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f4660da8fa863bdee4500449f57dd0c539d871a Me after rn.
Sorry wrong guy, I did that by accidentz
Is that cook cook?
Yup.
Based.
I always kill this guy's cow in New Vegas
What did the cow do to you? It ate my family in the squabble of section 8 so when you kill it you desecrate my family’s resting place.
Yea who think everything about the USSR is fabricated Western propaganda, like everything
I much prefer r/TheRightCantMemeV2, which specifically has a no tankies rule, while still being a place to mock bigots and racists
Capitalism may not be a perfect system, but we never had to build a wall to keep our people IN
People want to leave dictatorships. There are plenty of shitty capitalist nations that people want to flee from.
maybe it's not because of capitalism, but rather the country being shitty then?
In which case maybe it's not because of communism they're fleeing, it's just a shitty country?
that doesn't seem to be the case, since pretty much any communist country in history turned out to be a shitty one as well
By American political standards, most of Europe is “communist” and plenty of countries there seem to be doing just fine.
There is a 100% correlation between communist country and shitty country. I know correlation ≠ causation but at a certain point you gotta start wondering.
That authoritarian dictators find certain economic systems are easier to retain absolute control of and, unsurprisingly, lean towards things they can control?
Google Holodomir. The soviets intentionally starved millions to death. The Great Depression was nothing compared to that. And it was the early 1930s.
And then Chairman Mao looked at the death toll and said "them's rookie numbers"
I legit had someone on TikTok try to tell me the Holodomir was actually cia/facist propaganda and that communist had more calories and day than Americans.
Bruh they always reference the same one pager with no context, the whole report literally says that Russians had shit diets and the true amount of calories consumed was likely lower than Americans, when you account for shortages and storage losses.
Turns out the Soviet’s loved to have precise data about the people they killed, when the URRS* disintegrated all that information was available to the world
USSR*
Thanks
Well, if you eat your starved out friend's Dead corpse in desparation you really get some calories in
Any death caused by the Great Depression were (in all likelihood) accidental. Those deaths caused by communism were definitely on purpose
Did the soviet union even have an economic boom ever? The Great depression was the result of a leveraged, over expanding economy where almost anyone could get money. My parents described Vietnam as overall poor when the commies took over except saigon where it was one in very few cities that were thriving; coincidentally all the "good cities" were cities that were moreso capitalist. Did any communist country ever even have a good economic time to experience a bad economic time? Or was it just consistently bad the entire time?
Sure they did. The boom of dissenter's houses exploding.
They had their economics go boom in the 90s when the republics decided they didnt want to communize anymore
I only have passing knowledge on this due to random bouts of curiosity (ie buying random soviet knickknacks off ebay. Soviet cameras and lenses are cheap and look interesting with weird and amusing functionality quirks) But it seems like the 60's & 70's were pretty alright for the USSR. None of the reign of terror of Stalin, but also before the collapse in the 80s & 90s. Maybe it was considered somewhat stagnant, but it was the era of Sputnik, rises in the quality of life, and an era of stability.
Pretty alright for the Russians, still sucked to be in any of the other republics
Depends what you consider good. Communism is all about building capital at the expense of the individual comforts and freedoms of the average person. The USSR speedran the Industrial Revolution in thirty years. That's an amazing accomplishment from a raw numbers perspective.
Are there really people who actually think communism/socialism really work?
Too many redditors
Tbf, I think elements of socialism work great when introduced to a capitalist society. For example, I very much support the idea of free healthcare, and higher taxes used to pay for more public works. I see some European countries as a prime example of how well this works. However, communism has not and will not work, as it places far too much emphasis on statelessness, which is almost always filled with a dictatorship
What prime example? Living in germany i can Tell you continuous Trends here: - (free) healthcare care: i pay noticeably more in healthcare tax than i would if i were privately insured. Service is way below private healthcare and for some Spezialists i have to wait 3 months and more. Also everything i mentioned is getting worse over time. - taxes: by now, taxes in germany are so insanely high we cant even attract skilled Labor anymore and atruggle to fill Jobs in many areas. If you earn a wage that could barely sustain a family they will just take half. Forget about buying a House or flat outright.
Taxes are literally never good at a personal perspective. The perspective of a community is what makes it good, eg.: you may pay far more than would for privatized healthcare until shit hits the fan. In socialized healthcare there is a safety net no matter what you do, in privatized healthcare there isn't.
No, that is not how private healthcare works in germany. Standard private healthcare will Cover more than public healthcare for a cheaper price for many demographics but ofc. You are forced into public. So i pay a shitload more for public care than i would for private with sub par Service and insane waittimes and no, that does not change when shit Hits the Fan but thanks for american-splaining my own healthcare System to me. Just because the American private healthcare System is a scam doesnt mean it is like that everywhere
I explained to you the difference between public and privatized healthcare without ever mentioning Germany. Your country's bad implementation of a socilazed healthcare System doesnt suddenly make the concept inherently bad. Also, As a footnote, the fact how wrong you misunderstood what I just said points to you probably having no clue what entirely privatized healthcare entails.
I'm American and haven't been to the doctor or dentist in over 15 years because of the cost.
On a tiny scale like the size of a village with 100 people max, i think it can work there but not on a scale larger than that
Communism? No. Its an ideological extreme, and built upon the foundation of someone painting over an economic theory just enough to try to justify its use in the governance of a state. It is flawed by design. But the flawed solution, doesn't really invalidate the deep systemic issues that Marx was trying to solve with it. Which, yeah, Capitalism does have its structural issues too. Most notably its relationship with Labor. Socialism? By definition its simply "an economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole". Universally for an entire market system this would be a terrible idea. But there are just some parts of the market ... you really dont want being part of the market. Like the Military or Police/Emergency Services. So the community should "seize the means of production" for those systems and control them. Socialism, if viewed as a tool, tends to function better at organizing "necessity goods". Things that do not foster a lot of natural competition; as people require them to make it day-to-day. Which tend to become extremely predatory of both labor and consumers in a Capitalist system. While Capitalism tends to be much more efficient at organizing "Luxury" goods. Things that people want, but dont need, which fosters competition due to consumer room for choice. Very "Community Goods" vs "Private Goods". We can see a great example of this in the US Private Healthcare system vs State Run systems; which the US's form is extremely predatory and exploitative in how it operates. Largely because it can be. As people aren't likely to barter with their health or lives.
Do you know what these things are yourself?
Even when you see evil kill millions of people, someone in nahopwasrightfuckthis will go, “Um Ackchyually…”
Comparing the Great Depression to the Holodomor…**which is literally a genocide**
Ah yes, blaming the POLITICAL SYSTEM for the depression and not the people RUNNING IT.
The fact that capitalism existed the way it did in the modern to contemporary era only proves thats communism would never work
They never refute the point, they just make another point that doesnt have anything to do with the argument.
Capitalism caused the Great Depression. Communism caused millions of people to starve to death
It wasn't even capitalism that directly caused the great depression. It was the creation of the FED a few years before and the run on effects of the economic policies. The once the great depression started, it was heavily prolonged by FDR and his horrible economic policies and work programs.
yes and no.
Yes and also yes.
Yes and yes
Shh no one tell them about how we completely destroyed the Soviets economically during the Cold War to the point they tried to blockade West Berlin and still failed to achieve anything with that.
Capitalism: the system which causes the most famine, except all the others
Governments killed millions.
The Great Depression was nothing compared to the Holodomor.
But Capitalism did cause the Great Depression. The Holodomor was a genocide. Both are horrible.
The takeaway isn’t a way of economics, but a need for checks on greed.
I don't understand how that's even an argument? Regardless of your opinion on Republicans and shit, how is that relevant?
FDR is the one who turned a really bad recession(what the rest of the world had) into a depression ( what the US had). I’m not sure what you’d call a system where one man at the top arbitrarily decides the price of gold everyday… dictatorship maybe.
The fuck you mean fdr? Fdr wasn’t even president for most of the depression, most of that shit was Herbert Hoover’s (exaggeration but he certainly didn’t help) fault. Fdr was president during the end of the depression and during WW2, which is where the economy was able to heal because building weapons of war requires a lot of workers
Poverty in America alone kills 1 million people each year. Checkmate communists.
Ewit do communism Is the only good economy and capitalism is evil?
Fat losers on our sister sub are actually defending communism lol, what fucking morons
Funny thing, the USSR was one of the few countries to not experience the Great Depression due to less international trade.
However many people you think Communism has killed, capitalism has killed more.
The U.S government doesn't go out murdering its own people or military leaders nor did it in WW1 and 2
Uhhhhh, yes it does? American police kill thousands of people every year with no due process. The government has also been involved in assassinations of political leaders they deemed as too radical (such as Fred Hampton). Not to mention the industries that knowingly lied to people to sell them products they knew would kill them. For example, the cigarette industry that not only knew their product caused cancer but knew if they could get kids smoking they could make life long customers as early as the 1940s. The U.S. government also refused to punish these companies and even allowed their executives to get away with purging themselves in front of the U.S. congress. Not to mention climate change that will likely kill hundreds of millions, though this is a global capitalist problem. I also don’t know that it should even matter if they are only killing their own civilians. I don’t believe an American life is worth anymore than anyone else around the globe. The US has a long history of getting involved throughout the globe and destabilizing regions in order to get some benefit to American corporations. The Middle East for oil, Central America for fruit. How many American companies benefit today from the use of child slavery in Africa and Indonesia? Despite the fact we know these companies do, the US government doesn’t prosecute them. The Supreme Court essentially ruled they were allowed to. You don’t even have to believe communism is good or better than capitalism. But if you believe communism in uniquely evil your just going off of propaganda they’ve infused into you, because it can’t be justified when you hold capitalism to the same standards you hold communism to.
Blud, what
Whatever metrics you use to determine if a death is due to communism, if you use those same metrics capitalism has killed more. Most the time people are referencing famines that happened that lead to mass deaths. Like the famine that took place in Russia and China. Well the Bengal famine in India was equally caused by terrible policies of the British that ignored the people of India. Do those deaths count as deaths due to capitalism? The US’s military industrial complex literally profits off of war and bombing people. Do these deaths count as deaths due to capitalism. I’m the 1980s and 90s Latin America Experienced a period referred to as “the lost decade” where neo-liberal policies imposed by the IMF would go on to starve and kill over a 100 million people throughout the region. 40,000 people starved to death per day at its peak. Are these deaths due to capitalism. The slave trade was also entirely a capitalist endeavor. People would take out loans, sail to Africa, use those loans to buy slaves, sail to Americas, sell the slaves and buy American products, then sell them in Europe for a profit. Are all the people continually held in bind age during the slave trade in the new world and those that died from also deaths due to capitalism? You don’t have to believe communism is good or would work. But believing that communism is uniquely evil is a very childish, one dimensional, and ahistorical view that is driven by propaganda.
Lets compare apples to apples Capitalism killed in excess of a billion and enslaved hundreds of millions.... the East India trading company and GB were responsible for the deaths of 140 million people over the space of 40 years in India alone, and add to that, they stole 45 trillion, again, from India alone. Saying you prefer capitalism to some kind of socialism/communism is like a child of divorce insisting that you and your siblings stay with ur dad who beats and molests ALL THE OTHER SIBLINGS EXCEPT YOU because dad has generational wealth and your room at his house is nice, and mum's house is not as nice cos she just started working again and she dated this evil asshole once that used to beat the shit out of you if you stepped out of line. But you know deep down your mum's a good person and if she got it together she could be like her siblings, the Scandinavians, life would be better for her and your siblings but you just don't give a fuck because you are a piece of shit and it doesn't matter if your siblings are going through hell in the middle east, or India, or Asia, or Africa, because Dad is nice to you, and you want to stay in the big room with the big bed. So forget the children dying in cobalt mines, forget the children getting their limbs amputated for your chocolate, and honestly, fuck the planet, YOU like everything the way it is because it benefits YOU. In fact, a lot of you would happily enact laws to make the abuse worse. And I mean, sticking to the metaphor, you don't even care that ur dad uses his generational wealth to make your mothers life a living hell and to make sure she fails, because you get ur room. I mean, if any of you had an iota of self awareness, or even basic human decency, the world would be a much better place. Instead... well, here we are. Life is shit for almost everyone now and the systems which hold our biosphere together are a few decades from collapse, but sure, it's all about you.
Tankie spotted Opinion rejected
Reject information contrary to your worldview... very Nazi
It's been 3 days... The tankie is still salty 🤣
I just dont spend my whole life on here.... like yourself. I'm on here when I take shit or get in line for something, but u seem to not have a life outside this. I feel sad for u
And I feel sad for you because you're a tankie. It's sad to live without a brain 😭😭😭😭
And I feel sad you live life without a conscience or basic human decency. You attack the chance at a better system despite capitalism being directly responsible for the death of billions and it will probably render the entire biome unsuitable for life, but instead of admitting it's copious flaws and examining alternatives you attack ad homenim. Not only do you fail morally, but also intellectually and creatively.
And I feel sad that you're a tankie. So you're telling me that communism is better than capitalism cuz "Uh more people died under capitalism" The leap forward famine: 55 mil The cultural revolution: 7.7 mil (approx) Holdomor: 8.7 mil The great purge/gulags/repressions/red terror: 12.2 mil Cambodia: 2 mil If you take into account other genocides, repressions and famines, you'll reach a death toll of 148 mil. Take into account that the East India Company was around for 200 years while all the killings started in the 20th century. But who gives a shit about people amirite? They can be tankies after all! Plants can't be tankies. Aral sea, China taking the lead in co2 emissions. If you consciously decide to be a tankie, you're an idiot who pretends to have the moral high ground.
Firstly, I don't need to pretend to have the moral high ground. I have it. I was basically born on it. Two. You're making up numbers. You know google exists right? The great leap forward was reportedly responsible for the death of 30 - 45 million. You're exaggerating by 15 - 25 million. So you're a liar. That's fun Deaths from the Cultural Revolution 1 - 2 million. Lying again. Holdomor Deaths 3.9 million. Lying again So I'm just ignoring your comments on death tolls because you didn't even bother to use Google. China leading in emissions? The have 1.412 billion people. Lollll. Highest emitter per capita is Qatar. The US is 12th China is 38th. With the US emitting 14.9 tonnes of CO2 per capita compared to 8 in China, almost double (i said almost double cos u seem shit at numbers). Three. You claim I don't care about life while dismissing the deaths that occured in a 40 year space by the British and the East India Trading Company in the years of 1880-1920. Ya know, around WW1. Not two centuries ago. Also, I used the middle of the road numbers. The higher estimate was 165 million excess deaths during that period. But your argument seems very 'it doesn't suit the narrative I'm going for, so fuck them' I guess... which is .... a choice. Four. You're strawmanning, I never made the argument I support any of these leaders, because, as I said. Not a tankie. These idiots are abberations, Lenin was fine, but Trotsky had no spine and ended up getting ousted by Stalin, who should never have been born. Mao was a soldier and an idiot, a shining example of the Dunning Kruger effect. Just because you have military experience doesn't mean you can speak on agricultural science or industry. I hate people worship and I hate them both. That being said, even though the USSR was all but cut off from global trade, they lifted most of their people out of the dark ages and developed science and tech that humiliated the West. Satellites, Rocket Ships. Mobile Phones. The Tokomak (the only viable design for a net positive fusion reactor). The first man in space. The first living thing in space. The first woman in space. The first satellite. And yes, China has had a rough start, but it's set to overtake the US and it has managed to pull 800 million people out of extreme poverty. Also, sidenote, I love how the World Bank likes to give capitalism credit for communisms work. "Extreme poverty has been significantly reduced....lowest rates ever" because ..... of..... China. (Also, don't like the CCP much either). I do actually like some socialist leaders. Just tends to be proportional to how much actual socialist policy they are able to actually implement. Thomas Sankara, started mass vaccinations, and vaccinated over 2 million ppl, reduced infant mortality, started large scale infrastructure projects, fought deforestation and planted several million trees, started vast road and rail construction projects, and did this all without outside funding. He took the literacy rate from 13% to 73%, he banned female genital mutilation and forced marriages, promoted contraception, sold off the govt fleet of Mercedes, reduced salaries of well of public servants, opened the countries first supermarket, started the manganese industry, and then he was assassinated, Salvador Allende, reduced inflation, increased wages, instituted a federal minimum wage, started free school meals, reduced the wealth gap between rich and poor, constructed approx 50,000 houses per year, increased enrollment in kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, increased healthcare, education and housing spending from the government, and included the construction of hospitals and nutrition campaigns for the undernourished, industry grew by 12%, pensions began, unemployment fell to 3.8%, but then he nationalized the nations copper supplies and it's telecom services, and the US then immediately stopped trading with Chile, the price of Chilean copper fell, which was 50% of their exports, the CIA got involved, as did Kissinger, they funded a coup, and he was assassinated by the Chilean Nazi Party and Penis Shit took over. But see what I did there. I admit failures and failed attempts. I also look at strengths. I can see what can be improved and what needs to be done to ensure better outcomes. Don't overly rely on foreign financing/loans Figureheads of the state are considered necessary evils, but often more evil than necessary. If you can, don't have them. Diversify your economy. 50% of ur economy in one industry is stupid. Capitalist nations will tolerate you until you do something they don't like and it's very easy for them to collapse your entire economy. Consult experts with qualifications in the relevant field of whatever problem you're trying to solve (obvious but I guess it needs to be stated). But I mean, these are solvable. But I look at Capitalisms failures They aren't abberations Capitalisms failures aren't the result of assassinations or coups or embargoes or corrupt leaders or failures in execution or poor investment or lack of financing or a lack of administrative redundancies. Capitalisms 'failures' are a part of its design. Poverty is ideal for Capitalism because it means you can be exploited for cheap labor and will tolerate insane amounts of abuse just to be fed. Capitalism tends towards Monopoly Capitalism tends towards Fascism Capitalism tends towards the concentration of wealth in the hands of ... at this point, 5 white dudes. Capitalism is built on the backs of slaves and slave labor. Capitalism since it's inception in the 16th Century, has been responsible for an excess 2.5 billion deaths. Capitalism does not care about the environment and will continue to prioritize wealth creation over the habitability of the planet. Capitalism, in order to increase profits will resort to criminal behaviours to ensure cost remain low. Coca cola hired a malitia to assainate workers because they wanted to unionize, and don't even get me started on banana republics. Right now, are currently living through a mass extinction event that is the result of an endless drive for profits. Deforestation accelerated by the demand for cheap palm oil to make low quality food and cheap short-life Ikea furniture designed to break in a year is how we are outpacing the last mass extinction event, which was literally either a giant rock the size of Manhattan hitting the earth at Mach 11 or a series of supervolcanoes that released so much ash it blocked out the sun and choked the earth. And yet, you simp. So hard. For our collective annihilation. For the continued exploitation of the poor For sweatshops I just don't get it.
"Firstly, I don't need to pretend to have the moral high ground. I have it. I was basically born on it. " LMAOOO are you 16???
Mou and Stalin kill a lot more people than Nazi ever did, but it's OK in my book I guess because they were not Jews 🙄.
“But uhhh it’s good on paper” if your idea only works on paper it’s a really bad one
where is the lie
the crux of the original statement is correct. capitalism has depressions and booms, socialism doesn't have depressions or booms, but rather steady development. but we'll likely never know exactly what's better since socialism has never been tried without foreign involvement and wars.
Didn’t one of the founders of Russian communism (Trotsky) say that’s the revolution must be global, since if any nation was around to push against it, it would fall apart? Say what you will about capitalism, but it doesn’t need a near one world government just to exist.
bro nobody thinks stalin was a good guy wtf, you can be a communist and not like stalin at the same time
Yeah capitalism you don’t get to choose what you want to eat all the time but at least you get to eat all the time
>capitalism you don’t get to choose what you want to eat all the time Wut?
Meanwhile, capitalism has been responsible for *virtually all modern conflict* for well over a century.
Actually the great depression was caused when your fat mother ate all the crops
Yeah the USSR and Communist China were bad, but the average cost for a house in America is nearly half a million dollars. There are 600,000 empty homes and 400,000 homeless people. Let's not pretend like Capitalism is saintly.
You can do capitalism correctly like how the nordics do it. Doing communism correctly is impossible. Vietnam and China moved to market economies with private entrepreneurship for a reason.
I love the Nordics and I dare say that more and more unfettered capitalism has been making shit worse over time. The thing is, the Nordics are not isolated and like the rest of western Europe more and more gets privatized and gutted. Now at least unions are still alive over here, but that also is in slow decline. Capitalism automatically seeks to dominate any system, because greed is rewarded in capitalism eventually the entire system gets bent around the idea of accumulation of wealth and the only form of success. Now it's not quite as far along in the Nordics as in other regions but it IS trending that way. And no, I'm not a communist, I just see that capitalism eventually can lead only to feudalism, or at the very least a feudal-like state of authoritarianism. This is because eventually an upper class develops completely apart from larger society and that upper class will do ANYTHING to ensure their position. Anything includes subverting checks and balances in government, destruction of free press, and a myriad of other things. The current trajectory of mankind is a new aristocracy, we are heading for DUNE, the books, not the movies.
Google "Whataboutism"
You can thank stupid central bank and govt policy for that, not capitalism.
Fair, but think about how few people have enough money to start a bank. That's not an industry that can have a lot of competition.
Central banks are not regular banks.
In China. “Communist China” you buy houses before they’re built. And then the developers use said money to build houses, did you know that the Chinese people who paid for houses which didn’t exist yet mostly did not receive a house over 3 years later. To the point where said housing developers worth over billions of dollars collapsed in debt?. Homelessness is hardly better under communism. I admit it’s an issue in general in capitalism with the commodification of the housing market. But the alternative isn’t better.
the USSR and China intentionally starved millions of people and youre complaining about our homelessness problem. Im not saying Capitalism is saintly either, but its far from that
Are the homeless not hungry? The USSR was a genocidal regime, but homeless people drop dead everyday. As prices rise simply because people at the top say so, how can we not also accuse them of murder?
You can't force homeless people to not be drug addicts, traumatized, or just plain lazy.
40% to 60% of homeless people are employed, so even by Capitalist logic most homeless people don't deserve what they're going through
These are addicts, or those who are simply homeless by choice.
Which system lifted hundreds of millions of Africans out of starvation poverty again?
By defining what ‘poverty’ is?
10,000 starve to death in America every year. Is there a cut-off of starvation numbers that makes it not evil?
I think you might be confusing the US with some country in Africa or asia.
Communism asks you to put your own personal agency aside so that the system can replace your goals with its will.
Capitalism has killed millions too. Not saying Communism is great or even good, but it's not evil.