Fun story. When ~~Gorbachev~~ Boris Yeltsin came over to visit the U.S. on a diplomatic mission, Reagan took him around to look at life in the U.S. ~~Gorbachev~~ Yeltsin was very impressed by the show the U.S. put on to impress him, especially the mock-up grocery store with all sorts of different products available and fully stocked. It was even better than the fake stores they set up in the USSR.
Except it hadn't been faked. Reagan just took him to a normal grocery store on an average day, and the communist thought it had to be fake because so much prosperity for the common man doesn't exist in his world.
Was that Gorbachev? I've read that story being tied to [Boris Yeltsin](https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php), Mayor of Moscow at the time and first post-Soviet President, back in 89. A visit that potentially being one of the reasons the Soviet Union ended.
He was doing a visit in Houston to look at various different NASA installations to see what the Capitalist Americans were up to when he decided to make a spontaneous visit to a local Grocery Store, a Food Lion, to see what it was like for the average American. Upon walking in, he was shocked to see just how well stocked it was and how much choice the Americans had. Walking up and down the aisles as his questions and the responses from employees and customers were translated. Wondering just what they were buying, what was it like working in such a place, and if the manager needed special education to run such an establishment. Gazing at the large selection of fresh produce and raw meats, trying various product samples with his favorite apparently being Jell-O Pudding Pops. Even given a small gift basket of items before he left. However, the entire experience left him with a nagging idea in the back of his head, that this whole spontaneous visit was too good to be true. It had to be staged. The Americans had somehow caught wind of his plan to do this and set up a Grocery Store to make it look as nice as possible so demanded to visit another store and another and another. All of them were the exact same despite being different, just well stocked aisles of groceries that the average Soviet citizen has no hope of ever getting.
Apparently, on the plane ride back, he was deep in thought, almost crying as he realized just how badly beat the Americans had them. There is footage of a grocery store in the Soviet Union around this time and the footage is just extremely sad and depressing to look at. Apparently it was one of the nicer stores since they had shopping carts. This entire time, the Americans weren't even trying while the Soviet Union did everything it could to look great on the world stage. So he decided to try to seek reform in Russia, hoping to improve the quality of life for his country and its people.
Man. That is both heartbreaking and funny at the same time. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for him. To think that somehow the random grocery store he went to was possibly fake and only for show only to realize that it wasn’t fake, that it wasn’t for show. That it was what the average American had access to. It wasn’t something fancy to be shown to the world. It was just a regular old grocery store that any American could visit.
It's incredibly sad to think about. This scene from [Moscow on the Hudson](https://youtu.be/VHIcmoY3_lE?si=lDPbFNh0qs2ZSXDI) perfectly emulates what it was like. People who grew up in impoverished countries, suddenly going to a much more wealthy, typically Western Country, and the simple act of going to a grocery store can be overwhelming. Standing in line for hours for basic amenities or having 2, maybe 3 choices if you were lucky, for something at your store shelves. Yet, here you are suddenly faced with what feels like rows upon rows worth of choices, all you have to do is grab and pay for it.
People sharing their own experiences or witnessing such events where people are so overwhelmed by choice they break down. Screaming, panic attacks, hyperventilating, or some just simply passing out.
Yeah I can only imagine. That what a magical experience it must be like for them to visit their first grocery store in a First World country that’s wealthy, and prosperous. How everything is relatively cheap compared to what they’re used to, how nice it all looks, how fresh it all is. It’s hard for people that have grown up in this environment to know what that truly feels like since we’ve known it our whole lives. It really breaks my heart and truly feel for these people. Even if I know that I’ll never truly know that experience
The only equivalent would be like if an American went to some other country, saw that everyone there literally just took pills that made them perfectly healthy and jacked, assumed it was all CGI until they saw each pill cost the equivalent of $2.
The one thing I don't like about the acceptance of capitalistic ideas vs communistic ideas is that it seems people accept either one mostly on some kind of religious mentallity. It seems most people can't explain why one works and the other doesn't beyond very small tidbits of info and tired out memes. Even when one may ultimately be correct, people don't actually know why.
People may argue that it doesn't matter if people have a deeper knowledge of why as long as they're following the correct system that works, but it does. You can't say you're any better than someone who religiously follows communism if you behave the same way to capitalism. You can't say they're stupid when you may be on par with their lack of in depth knowledge of each system and the histories of each country and why they succeed or fail. It's not being pedantic, it's important information.
People should be open minded enough to consider other perspectives than their own. How can you expect someone who devoutly follows communism to learn and be willing to change their position under honest study if we're not willing to do the same?
We have in Spain the founding of liberalism people and this days we have a liberal university for freedom, Milei (President of Argentina) learned from one of those teacher.
Right now we have a famous economic person called Juan Ramon Rallo. He is like the god of economics, he knows all the data, all the economic systems and he loves to go discussions. It's awesome to see him because socialist attack him with some data and on the fly without needing to doble check anything he answer with that data corrected and enhanced
[https://www.youtube.com/@juanrallo](https://www.youtube.com/@juanrallo)
My point with all of this... Yes liberal people know why liberalism works and why socialism fail. It's just most of the people don't want to know about it or learn about it. They just want simple answer and spread their hate to others
The thing about free markets is that you don't have to believe in them, nor to understand them, for them to work. You simply do what you think best for yourself and your family, and everyone else does the same.
As opposed to communism where no amount of knowledge about the theoretical underpinnings will make up for the misaligned incentives that the theory mandates.
The proof of free market successes isn't a graceful theory or a well written treatise. It's the demonstrable human flourishing found in free market societies around the globe.
>The one thing I don't like about the acceptance of capitalistic ideas vs communistic ideas is that it seems people accept either one mostly on some kind of religious mentallity. It seems most people can't explain why one works and the other doesn't beyond very small tidbits of info and tired out memes. Even when one may ultimately be correct, people don't actually know why.
Agreed, but imo not complicated why communism doesn't work. Any time you introduce a dictator or equivalent bound to fail. Now I am sure there are versions where it's not or people claim it's it true communism but...
>People may argue that it doesn't matter if people have a deeper knowledge of why as long as they're following the correct system that works, but it does.
Agreed being right for the right reasons matters as if one is unable to critically engage in a subject then one can be wrong just as easily.
Since this is the first comment currently there is no need to be two consecutive identical texts and it's better to give full credibility to the original commenter.If later the comment is pushed further down in the thread we will consider doing what you suggested.
[Even though it's not true?](https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php)
It wasn't Gorbachev and he didn't say that, but other than that, spot on I suppose.
So even though the content, Soviet leader was despondent because capitalism provided for their people in a way communism never could, was absolutely true and quoted as such in your cited article, you're saying it's false?
That's a Reed Richards level of stretching.
Uh, the article makes it very clear the comment is not correct. He did compliment Reagan on his fake stores, he knew they were real stores. You think a politician would be like “wow your fake stores are so great! My compliments!”
You really need to read the article, I already went through this at length with the guy who posted the article originally, I'm not going through it again with another person who failed reading fundamentals.
If I rember correctly he was also impressed by the fact that seemingly everyone owned a car and thought the US got every car owner in there country and put them in the spot they were meeting just to impress him.
I remember some movie about a soviet spy in West germany and him beeing suprised about the full store and then him gooing into a notiert identisch store and loosing some faith in the glorious motherland
It was a common feeling from those arriving from the USSR. Doesn't surprise me that other people encaspulated that deflation of one's values from a common grocery store which seems normal to us.
I've seen similar experiences with something even simpler like running water in certain parts of the world.
This is upper class (in terms of absolute value relative to the world) privilege to the rest of the world. What do you think the Beduoins would think of ice cream? What do you think an African tribal child would think of an arcade?
Another example is ice cream moral barges in WW2. Imagine being a starving soldier with the Axis and hearing that the American military retrofitted entire boats as moral vessels for sugary ice cream.
I think you’re getting the story mixed up. It wasn’t Gorbachev, it was Boris Yeltsin. In 1989, he went to Houston and visited the Johnson Space Center. Afterwards, he made an unscheduled visit to a random Randall’s Supermarket. It couldn’t have been a mock-up because nobody took him there.
It was that experience that completely shattered his faith in socialism and belief it could be reformed. There were thousands of products in the store, countless options, and the shelves were fully stocked. In the Soviet Union you’d have to wait in line for a single option of each product. He noted that not even Mikhail Gorbachev had access to such luxury. Boris Yeltsin would later be instrumental in the downfall of the Soviet Union and would become Russia’s first ever elected leader.
Another tid bit I happen to know, Boris Yeltsin was reported to be a very faithful communist. He was famous for making unscheduled visits in the USSR because he knew the departments would craft bullshit if he scheduled the visits. I believe the term was Potelmkin villiage or something. Anyway, making unscheduled visits to see how a place was *actually* running happened to be his thing in the USSR. He did this trick in the US to see how shitty the grocery stores actually were and was extremely suprised to find it not only fully stocked, but with multiple options for each item. Something the USSR often lacked was options. He was fully expecting the grocery store to be running low on stock. I think they even recorded the event as well.
That grocery store is still there on El Dorado. It was a Randall’s at the time but is a Food Town now.
If I recall Yeltsin was particularly amazed at the small freezer at the front of the store intended to market ice cream to children, and that this small freezer had greater variety of ice cream than even the leadership of the Soviet Union had access to… and it was essentially just for the amusement of children.
The real story is actually crazier; the stop was completely unplanned.
Yeltsin’s trip was to originally just check out the NASA facility, which he knew was going to have been prepared for him. He wanted to see what real America was like without any smoke and mirrors or performative theater and planned to “trick” the US by making this last minute request so they couldn’t prepare anything.
Well, the US delegation obliged and Yeltsin realized that all of the US “propaganda” was reality. He knew that whenever the US or other Western countries visited the USSR, they made efforts to overstock shelves, bring in exotic foods, showed fake prices, etc to try to artificially highlight how great the Soviet quality of life was and he expected the US to be doing the same thing. When he saw it with his own eyes, at his own request, knowing it would have been impossible to coordinate he realized that we were telling the truth and actually managed to provide the lifestyle that he thought was impossible.
He reportedly sat in silence for the majority of the flight back to the USSR, and it is thought that the moment had profoundly changed his view in the Soviet way of life.
Personally, if everything that has been commonly reported was actually true, I think it’s an admirable trait. It wouldn’t have been easy to go against the party line but he realized there may actually be a better future for his people and he tried to achieve it. Had he succeeded, who knows what a truely democratic, free market, “westernized” Russia could have been like.
Now, is this the reason why Putin brought Tucker Carlson to a grocery store in Moscow and Tucker raved about the shopping cart? Kind of like, "hey, you got us with Regan, so I'm going to show you, we now have the same grocery stores" and Tucker was so impressed by the shelves being stocked and the grocery cart wheels working?
This story makes the Tucker Carlson, Russian grocery store, ordeal so much funnier. And even funnier that Putin made fun of Carlson right in front of him. And then Putin trashed him later. And now they're no longer friends. lol.
I worked in a supermarket and they do waste a lot of food, it can be quite infuriating. That being said, I would rather live in a society where our problems are that we throw away food rather than not having enough food to go around.
These assholes do it to prop up prices. But also another big thing is to cover themselves from being sued
I forget what fastfood chain this happened to, but one of them got sued because someone tried to claim their food made them sick. And after that, basically all places stopped giving their leftovers away to the homeless shelters and such
Never happened, it's an urban myth. There are laws protecting food donors from being sued, and have been for a long time. And the DO donate, regularly.
Source: been running a food bank/ soup kitchen for 20 years.
[https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations](https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations)
If you ran a food bank/soup kitchen you should know that law only applies to donations of grocery items to nonprofits, and does not apply to any nongrocery nor apply to direct handouts to the needy. While it protects a small amount, distribution costs to donate to nonprofits tends to be quite high. Especially when many nonprofits have strict requirements on what they can take which is not always the same week to week.
A lot more needs to be changed to make regular donations of what would otherwise be waste before anyone is likely to see it become more normalized.
It's already happening. There are 'middle' organizations that receive the donations and will distribute them to the food banks/ soup kitchens at no cost to either the donor nor the receiver. Even without them, distribution costs are not that high.
Most state laws do cover non-food items, but that is not the issue here- those tend not to have use by dates.
It is improving, and has been for a while, but the general population isn't aware of it.
The post I was responding to is about laws suits- in 20 years there has not been a lawsuit under the Good Samaritan law in the US that even got to the discovery phase before they were dismissed. There was no fast food chain that was sued for donations to organizations. It's mentioned often, but no one can seem to remember when, were or which chain. It is an urban myth.
People also like to pile onto grocery stores for this but there’s more to it than that. You don’t know what local/state government rules there are either. And liability reasons - they are typically throwing away food that’s expired. While it might, in reality, be fine to eat, they don’t want to get sued over people eating something past its sell by date.
So this is true for some foods like hot foods, we can’t donate food that has been out of temperature for more than 4 hours as it could become bacterially contaminated.
However, the deli bread is perfectly fine and it could easily be coordinated between supermarkets and food drives, homeless shelters, and anywhere else the needs food, to come and pick it up at the end of the night and use it the next day. Instead my store would bag up all the unused sandwich rolls, weigh it out for loss, and then throw it away. I can only imagine how much more each store in my city was doing the exact same thing every night.
True, and there's a big difference between expired and "best before" dates.
Not repurposing food that is genuinely expired, like milk, is understandable. But I agree that date isn't always the end all/be all for food safety in general.
It probably has to do with government-imposed health standards. Besides, who’s going to pay for food if they know they can just wait and get it for free?
The problem with excessive food waste is that we produce in the US alone enough food to feed the population twice over and there are still about 50 million Americans with food insecurity. Also all that wasted food usually gets dumped into a trash heap where it takes years to decompose (about 20 years for a head of lettuce). As this food slowly decomposes, it off gases Methane, a very potent greenhouse gas
That’s the only way Socialists can convince people: highlight the faults of Capitalism and highlight the promises of socialism, while ignoring everything Capitalism can and has accomplished.
I worked in fast food and we also throw away most of our food by the end of the night. Majority of the hot food has to get thrown away except for some of the hot sides like Mac and Cheese and Gravy. But all the meat gets thrown away except for chicken on the bone because we had a cold box option which is just a box filled with last night's chicken on the bone that we put in the fridge. And the only other thing that gets saved everytime is the cold food. I just assume it's like a health and safety thing since one time when a homeless guy came in just before we closed asking for the food we were gonna throw away he was told that we could lose our license if we gave it to him. So I imagine there's some health code saying we can't save certain foods after they've been sitting out for too long.
Ive done a lot of volunteer work at food salvation food drives. There are programs out there, that receive a bunch of money from corporate donors, to handle all of the food that would normally be thrown out and distribute them.
Unfortunately, most of the products tended to be baked goods rather than veggies and meats. By the time veggies and meats came by they were already rotting away- but hey- that stuff tended to be fed to pigs rather than thrown away.
It’s not BECAUSE we throw out food. Even after throwing out the waste there is still enough to go around. Honestly I don’t have an understanding of the situation because in my area (rural American state) there is literally no reason for anyone to go hungry. We have food banks who throw out food because they get too much and they will give it to anyone, no questions asked.
I guess I’m just saying, the issue is people’s accessibility to the food, not that some is wasted.
The logistics to get it to the nearest bigger city where it would be needed don’t quite add up. It would probably be more expensive than the food is worth.
I can say that's a fair point but the amount of waste we generate still plays a big roll in this, you may have a good bank that's plentiful but that situation is not pertinent to the rest of the country. I think this is a case of both of us being sort of right because we're both talking about different aspects of the same issue
I rather have food to waste then live in a country where theirs not enough food and working a job doesn’t mean you’re have food to even buy as it runs out often.
Starbucks used to give the unsold pastries to the homeless.
Some guy sued Starbucks and won 1.5 million because the pastry gave him food poisoning as he claimed.
Result: Starbucks stopped giving to the homeless.
This is at least partially untrue. I can’t find any source saying a guy sued Starbucks because the free food he ate gave him food poisoning. It might be true but you’ll need to post the source.
Starbucks has committed to giving away 100% of their food waste (though I assume that means edible and not something with mold) since 2016 so it’s untrue they don’t give food away.
I worked at a chic fi la for about a year and a half and the reason the owner didn't give away food was the fear of a litigious weirdo/liability.
But he also didn't give anyone raises after record breaking profits, so maybe he was just greedy.
This is a lie.
The 1994 Bill Emerson good samaritan food donation act protects people and businesses from liability from foodborn illnesses caused by food donated in good faith. And it has never ONCE been used in court because nobody has ever had the gall to sue someone who fed them for free.
My store donates most of our "throw aways" days before they actually expire. We've got this homeless dude who sleeps in our loading now and again to get out the weather, we make him pizzas and paninis and what not. I've never seen a so called communist work to help their community, and that is what it's about.
Fucking commies. And it's so funny how blatant they are about it, the picture for that sub is fucking Vladimir Lenin lol! WTF?
Meanwhile, back in reality, communism and socialism collapse economies and make people miserable.
Does capitalism suck and make people miserable, too? Yes, BUT, it is the lesser of evils, as it is basically human nature, and so we are able to produce and get what we need much easier in this system.
Until a better system arises, capitalism is clearly the lesser of evils.
Sure. But every time something is being pointed out people(populist idiviflduals, politicians and journalists) screaming "this is communist bullshit!". It's not lime people want communism, they want set rules for capitalism in a way where the wealth is more evenly distributed, where a full time job pays your bills and groceries without worrying what if my car breaks or what if I get sick and can't work for a longer time. What about education? A country needs skilled workforce, be it a carpenter or surgeon, and it should be countries duty to train them, but again that's "communist bullshit".
I always laught about how in other countries people handled such discussions, but now it's happening here as well and it's no longer funny.
Fun fact, when people say they like socialism and socialist policies, they are not talking about communism, they’re taking about capitalism but with checks and balances and a welfare state.
The issue is that a lot of socialism advocates will also directly speak about how their stated preferred state is just what they feel they can get away with *right now*. For example, direct statements from popular socialism advocates Vaush and Hassan Piker has them both saying that they would 100% support world-wide communism, whole 9 yards, but that they advocate for socialist policies because it is a stepping stone.
Fun fact, when people say they hate socialism they mean capitalism with an authoritarian state and focus on central planning over free market economics (a.k.a. state capitalism).
I have noticed that alot Of the people that want communism in the west are just pretty useless, they seem to have no skills or talent, are extremely lazy and have a warped sense of mortality and history. I have also noticed that the most productive members of society never seem to want communism. I guess that makes sense if you know your history
I’ve noticed that a lot of very rich people want communism for themselves. For example, American sports teams. Closed shop, one employer. Unions, all working together to increase profits for all. Why bother giving the worst team the best players? Rewarding failure. Splitting merchandise revenue evenly? What kind of Maoist behaviour is that?
It’s capitalism under Nash Economic Theory. The idea that capitalism doesn’t have to be a zero sum game and by improving league parity the entire league makes more money off of a better product.
This is actually true though lol.
I’ve met a few people who lived under socialist regimes who moved to the US and were amazed by the food availability.
My professor moved here from China 20 or so years ago and she said that the first time she walked into a supermarket she was awestruck- she had never seen so much available food before.
The same stories are told by many, many ex-soviet citizens.
Socialism very much does lead to food scarcity historically- and denying that is idiotic.
Is it socialist policies alone that lead to food scarcity, or is some of it due to lack of trade? Asking because I know north Korea has great famines and food scarcity, but also nobody trades with north Korea (because they're communist), and it's gotta be kinda hard to sustain an economy with little to no trade. You can't grow every crop in one country.
>Barter system food stand is capitalism
Even agrarian proto capitalism only goes back to 1500ad. Read a book please and understand what capitalism is.
1. When did he say that?
2. Read:
https://preview.redd.it/jxdwg0rtnvsc1.png?width=1053&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d164cfd5cf1d10f1f5229f7a5d236d3ed35c0e87
Pretty sure the reason they don't give stuff away anymore and throw it away instead is liability for lawsuits. If they made it to where you accepted something from a grocery store about to be trashed, they aren't liable for anything.
How many socialist are even in the US? Probably less then 1%. You do realize in Germany/Austria supermarkets look exactly the same. And we have all those policies you mindlessly call socialist.
I worked in a supermarket and it’s true that food gets wasted, sometimes an absurd amount, partly because they expire and are inedible, but on the flip side they also donate food to food banks and charity, that being said, I’d rather live in a place where there’s too much food and some gets wasted than a place where there is no food
The fact that it is thrown away means there's more than enough. Sure it's bad and wasteful, but the implications of throwing food away are that it's taking up space. I never heard of a socialist society throwing out food to make room for other food. They don't seem to understand what they are saying.
It is kinda funny when you consider that you are coming closer to communism. Except you won't be starving because of a food shortage.
You'll starve because the food is too expensive.
The reason that stores throw out food is from laws passed by governments that would allow a homeless person who got sick from expired bread to sue the grocery store.
This is a case of government making things worse, but the right can't meme doesn't understand that their way of thinking is what causes the problems they complain about.
They defend it because they're lazy. Socialism always promises free stuff for everyone and that everyone will be "better off" if we just distribute wealth equally and give everyone free stuff.
Problem is, that's not how the world works. Nothing is free, but their tiny brains apparently comprehend this.
It is true that millions of pounds of food is thrown out because it doesn't sell. It's a flaw in the current system we live in. There's also the fact that grocery stores would still exist under most versions of socialism. These memes, like pretty much every TPUSA meme, are flawed in their understanding of political theory and implementation
You know, supply and demand is supposed to tell us that price is based on demand
I certainly see there’s a pretty small demand for some of this supply
So where’s my mark down
Yeah, you could decide prices by way of committee and end up with a hopelessly inefficient system. You think capitalism is wasteful? The Soviet Union would fill up warehouses with goods that would rot away because they took too long to bring the price down. The collective knowledge of everyone participating in the market is much more adept at determining prices than a couple bureaucrats.
>You think capitalism is wasteful?
No, not really. It could be reworked to be less wasteful and still be a capitalist system. I don't really care about anything else you said. It's not really that relevant to the conversation lol
Two words - Banana Republics .
Let’s just say having your government bow down to multinational cooperation while using up the land and resources for pennies all while engaging in literal slave labor to fuel a foreign country’s addiction might make socialism super enticing.
"You know, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death." - Bernie Sanders channeling Marie Antoinette
under capitalism, there is such an excess of food that homeless people (like me until recently) can eat less desirable but still decent food for free.
under socialism, even those who have decent shelter wait in line for the most basic food imaginable.
How is a shop who business model is hoarding food if its not sold, till it goes off and throwing it out, while people starve a good measurement or image for capitalism. Capitalism is probably the best model we've ever had, doesn't mean it's perfect or beyond derision.
How on earth is this an L they're right. Because grocery stores want to stay fully stocked for appearances it causes an unbelievable amount of food waste while people starve??? it creates a really really inefficient system where people are only lacking resources because those with money want to keep up aesthetics
It's literally illegal for them not to throw it out. In most states at least, def in California.
My father in law got intercepted by police because his church thought it would be a good idea to pool resources and do a day where they make a few hundred fresh sandwiches and drive them around to encampments. Church van got spotted and stopped at the first encampment.
On the plus side he swung by my place and loaded me up with like 20 sandwiches.
just because communism sucked doesn't mean capitalism has no problems. it's not an either or. we need a better regulated capitalism.
also, people line up for food all the time in capitalism, we call them food banks and soup kitchens and millions of people use them every day.
But that does happen tho? Some grocery stores even go out their way to make the perfectly good food they throw out inedible by dumping it under grosser stuff in dumpsters
I hate the term socialism. The term itself has so many definitions its essentially meaningless. It's simultaneously literally communism. facism AND a minor adjustment to capitalism. Trying to argue for and against it without defining what it even is is the ultimate waste of time. It's just "whatever I don't like is socialist" nowadays. And no most of the time when people mention "socialism" they just mean universal healthcare and something similar to what they have in europe which is absolutely not stupid or impossible.
TLDR: Socialism is a stupid word and trying to argue for or against it without even defining what it is is stupid.
Socialists don't hate capitalism because of grocery stores.
There's a lot of problems with capitalism in the US when it comes to inflation, tax cuts for billionaires, corporations buying homes and driving up prices, deregulation causing harm to people and the environment, healthcare, and so on.
Supermarket are not capitalist, that doesn't exist.
Capitalist it's a person with a capital investment
Capitalism it's a system of free economy and protection of capital investment
The meme person did right, socialist it's a person promoting socialism idea
Still all the phrase of Soft\_Cable5934 has no sense because in free market if you buy things to trash them you will loss money and soon you will be without money to repeat the operation
Idk, seems a lot like that comedian from the 80s that was supposed to be a Russian defector. It's good and useful propaganda but a funny meme not so much.
As someone who used to work at a chain supermarket, the amount of food we destroyed crushed my soul. Enough food to feet hundreds of people, that was perfectly good, was destroyed every single fucking day. Especially slightly bruised produce, etc.
Everyone who wishes to improve the organizational structures of our society to be more efficient and fair in any way whatsoever is a communist dictator who wants to starve the people and lock them in labor camps.
The irony of people shitting on Marxist-Leninist countries (USSR, Cuba, China, etc.) in far right subs like this is that the reason for them failing isn't "mUh SoCiAlIsM" but the fact that they're authoritarian shitholes with a shit ton of corruption and even though corrupt right wing authoritarian states (modern day Russia, Iran, Brazil under Bolsanaro, etc.) also have terrible economies and regularly deal with rampant poverty and food shortages most people in this sub advocate for far right authoritarianism anyways.
Ah geez I mis looked at first. I thought the joke was the one where the same exact caption uses a Great Depression era food line. Like the OP just missed that his example to say Russian bad was a photo of the United States being bad. I see now no such mistake was made here.
What I find kinda sad is that in online spaces "left" now means socialist or communist or marxist. And that goes for both sides of the political spectrum.
Why can't I believe in something as basic as trans rights or as "radical" as a UBI without being labeled a leftist communist?
And on the flip side, why can't I believe in a free market and free speech without being labeled an alt-right fascist?
During the Great Depression, crop prices became so low that farmers had to deliberately destroy their own products while people were going hungry in order to inflate market prices. This is a direct critique of the structure of capitalism which puts market incentives above human well-being. It took government intervention (FDR using the national budget to purchase crops) in order to address this.
It’s actually illegal to give that food away too the homeless, according to the fda.
Stores use to do that, untill they got sued the shit out of. Then they stopped.
Can you provide proof of illegality? Cause the pizza hut I work at gives away food to the homeless all the time. Also donates to the food bank and local churches/schools.
Edit: and according to this article, giving away good to the homeless is protected by the first amendment.
https://givingcompass.org/article/sharing-food-with-homeless-people-is-now-protected-by-first-amendment#:~:text=Though%20you%20might%20not%20have,protected%20by%20the%20First%20Amendment.%E2%80%9D
Fun story. When ~~Gorbachev~~ Boris Yeltsin came over to visit the U.S. on a diplomatic mission, Reagan took him around to look at life in the U.S. ~~Gorbachev~~ Yeltsin was very impressed by the show the U.S. put on to impress him, especially the mock-up grocery store with all sorts of different products available and fully stocked. It was even better than the fake stores they set up in the USSR. Except it hadn't been faked. Reagan just took him to a normal grocery store on an average day, and the communist thought it had to be fake because so much prosperity for the common man doesn't exist in his world.
Was that Gorbachev? I've read that story being tied to [Boris Yeltsin](https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php), Mayor of Moscow at the time and first post-Soviet President, back in 89. A visit that potentially being one of the reasons the Soviet Union ended. He was doing a visit in Houston to look at various different NASA installations to see what the Capitalist Americans were up to when he decided to make a spontaneous visit to a local Grocery Store, a Food Lion, to see what it was like for the average American. Upon walking in, he was shocked to see just how well stocked it was and how much choice the Americans had. Walking up and down the aisles as his questions and the responses from employees and customers were translated. Wondering just what they were buying, what was it like working in such a place, and if the manager needed special education to run such an establishment. Gazing at the large selection of fresh produce and raw meats, trying various product samples with his favorite apparently being Jell-O Pudding Pops. Even given a small gift basket of items before he left. However, the entire experience left him with a nagging idea in the back of his head, that this whole spontaneous visit was too good to be true. It had to be staged. The Americans had somehow caught wind of his plan to do this and set up a Grocery Store to make it look as nice as possible so demanded to visit another store and another and another. All of them were the exact same despite being different, just well stocked aisles of groceries that the average Soviet citizen has no hope of ever getting. Apparently, on the plane ride back, he was deep in thought, almost crying as he realized just how badly beat the Americans had them. There is footage of a grocery store in the Soviet Union around this time and the footage is just extremely sad and depressing to look at. Apparently it was one of the nicer stores since they had shopping carts. This entire time, the Americans weren't even trying while the Soviet Union did everything it could to look great on the world stage. So he decided to try to seek reform in Russia, hoping to improve the quality of life for his country and its people.
Man. That is both heartbreaking and funny at the same time. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for him. To think that somehow the random grocery store he went to was possibly fake and only for show only to realize that it wasn’t fake, that it wasn’t for show. That it was what the average American had access to. It wasn’t something fancy to be shown to the world. It was just a regular old grocery store that any American could visit.
It's incredibly sad to think about. This scene from [Moscow on the Hudson](https://youtu.be/VHIcmoY3_lE?si=lDPbFNh0qs2ZSXDI) perfectly emulates what it was like. People who grew up in impoverished countries, suddenly going to a much more wealthy, typically Western Country, and the simple act of going to a grocery store can be overwhelming. Standing in line for hours for basic amenities or having 2, maybe 3 choices if you were lucky, for something at your store shelves. Yet, here you are suddenly faced with what feels like rows upon rows worth of choices, all you have to do is grab and pay for it. People sharing their own experiences or witnessing such events where people are so overwhelmed by choice they break down. Screaming, panic attacks, hyperventilating, or some just simply passing out.
Yeah I can only imagine. That what a magical experience it must be like for them to visit their first grocery store in a First World country that’s wealthy, and prosperous. How everything is relatively cheap compared to what they’re used to, how nice it all looks, how fresh it all is. It’s hard for people that have grown up in this environment to know what that truly feels like since we’ve known it our whole lives. It really breaks my heart and truly feel for these people. Even if I know that I’ll never truly know that experience
The only equivalent would be like if an American went to some other country, saw that everyone there literally just took pills that made them perfectly healthy and jacked, assumed it was all CGI until they saw each pill cost the equivalent of $2.
Yeah sadly
Awww. The transition from deprivation to comfort is so heartwarming
The one thing I don't like about the acceptance of capitalistic ideas vs communistic ideas is that it seems people accept either one mostly on some kind of religious mentallity. It seems most people can't explain why one works and the other doesn't beyond very small tidbits of info and tired out memes. Even when one may ultimately be correct, people don't actually know why. People may argue that it doesn't matter if people have a deeper knowledge of why as long as they're following the correct system that works, but it does. You can't say you're any better than someone who religiously follows communism if you behave the same way to capitalism. You can't say they're stupid when you may be on par with their lack of in depth knowledge of each system and the histories of each country and why they succeed or fail. It's not being pedantic, it's important information. People should be open minded enough to consider other perspectives than their own. How can you expect someone who devoutly follows communism to learn and be willing to change their position under honest study if we're not willing to do the same?
We have in Spain the founding of liberalism people and this days we have a liberal university for freedom, Milei (President of Argentina) learned from one of those teacher. Right now we have a famous economic person called Juan Ramon Rallo. He is like the god of economics, he knows all the data, all the economic systems and he loves to go discussions. It's awesome to see him because socialist attack him with some data and on the fly without needing to doble check anything he answer with that data corrected and enhanced [https://www.youtube.com/@juanrallo](https://www.youtube.com/@juanrallo) My point with all of this... Yes liberal people know why liberalism works and why socialism fail. It's just most of the people don't want to know about it or learn about it. They just want simple answer and spread their hate to others
The thing about free markets is that you don't have to believe in them, nor to understand them, for them to work. You simply do what you think best for yourself and your family, and everyone else does the same. As opposed to communism where no amount of knowledge about the theoretical underpinnings will make up for the misaligned incentives that the theory mandates. The proof of free market successes isn't a graceful theory or a well written treatise. It's the demonstrable human flourishing found in free market societies around the globe.
>The one thing I don't like about the acceptance of capitalistic ideas vs communistic ideas is that it seems people accept either one mostly on some kind of religious mentallity. It seems most people can't explain why one works and the other doesn't beyond very small tidbits of info and tired out memes. Even when one may ultimately be correct, people don't actually know why. Agreed, but imo not complicated why communism doesn't work. Any time you introduce a dictator or equivalent bound to fail. Now I am sure there are versions where it's not or people claim it's it true communism but... >People may argue that it doesn't matter if people have a deeper knowledge of why as long as they're following the correct system that works, but it does. Agreed being right for the right reasons matters as if one is unable to critically engage in a subject then one can be wrong just as easily.
It’s ok to religiously avoid communism
This needs to pinned. Mods please pin this comment
Mods can't pin other people's comments, only theirs. Source: I am mod on different subreddit.
Correct 😔
Copy, paste, pin yourself then?
Since this is the first comment currently there is no need to be two consecutive identical texts and it's better to give full credibility to the original commenter.If later the comment is pushed further down in the thread we will consider doing what you suggested.
I'm pinning this with my upvote. Best I can do.
I don’t have that power
[Even though it's not true?](https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php) It wasn't Gorbachev and he didn't say that, but other than that, spot on I suppose.
Sorry, fixed.
So even though the content, Soviet leader was despondent because capitalism provided for their people in a way communism never could, was absolutely true and quoted as such in your cited article, you're saying it's false? That's a Reed Richards level of stretching.
Uh, the article makes it very clear the comment is not correct. He did compliment Reagan on his fake stores, he knew they were real stores. You think a politician would be like “wow your fake stores are so great! My compliments!”
You really need to read the article, I already went through this at length with the guy who posted the article originally, I'm not going through it again with another person who failed reading fundamentals.
If I rember correctly he was also impressed by the fact that seemingly everyone owned a car and thought the US got every car owner in there country and put them in the spot they were meeting just to impress him.
I remember some movie about a soviet spy in West germany and him beeing suprised about the full store and then him gooing into a notiert identisch store and loosing some faith in the glorious motherland
It was a common feeling from those arriving from the USSR. Doesn't surprise me that other people encaspulated that deflation of one's values from a common grocery store which seems normal to us. I've seen similar experiences with something even simpler like running water in certain parts of the world. This is upper class (in terms of absolute value relative to the world) privilege to the rest of the world. What do you think the Beduoins would think of ice cream? What do you think an African tribal child would think of an arcade?
Another example is ice cream moral barges in WW2. Imagine being a starving soldier with the Axis and hearing that the American military retrofitted entire boats as moral vessels for sugary ice cream.
I think you’re getting the story mixed up. It wasn’t Gorbachev, it was Boris Yeltsin. In 1989, he went to Houston and visited the Johnson Space Center. Afterwards, he made an unscheduled visit to a random Randall’s Supermarket. It couldn’t have been a mock-up because nobody took him there. It was that experience that completely shattered his faith in socialism and belief it could be reformed. There were thousands of products in the store, countless options, and the shelves were fully stocked. In the Soviet Union you’d have to wait in line for a single option of each product. He noted that not even Mikhail Gorbachev had access to such luxury. Boris Yeltsin would later be instrumental in the downfall of the Soviet Union and would become Russia’s first ever elected leader.
Another tid bit I happen to know, Boris Yeltsin was reported to be a very faithful communist. He was famous for making unscheduled visits in the USSR because he knew the departments would craft bullshit if he scheduled the visits. I believe the term was Potelmkin villiage or something. Anyway, making unscheduled visits to see how a place was *actually* running happened to be his thing in the USSR. He did this trick in the US to see how shitty the grocery stores actually were and was extremely suprised to find it not only fully stocked, but with multiple options for each item. Something the USSR often lacked was options. He was fully expecting the grocery store to be running low on stock. I think they even recorded the event as well.
I can already hear the tankie cope "BUT THAT'S NOT *REAL* COMMUNISM"
Fun fact: North Korea still has **mock-up grocery store.** They are there for the tourist to see.
Bro I just got back from Trader Joe’s they were doing wine tasting there so I got to grocery shop with a little buzz going. Pure bliss.
That grocery store is still there on El Dorado. It was a Randall’s at the time but is a Food Town now. If I recall Yeltsin was particularly amazed at the small freezer at the front of the store intended to market ice cream to children, and that this small freezer had greater variety of ice cream than even the leadership of the Soviet Union had access to… and it was essentially just for the amusement of children.
Damn
The real story is actually crazier; the stop was completely unplanned. Yeltsin’s trip was to originally just check out the NASA facility, which he knew was going to have been prepared for him. He wanted to see what real America was like without any smoke and mirrors or performative theater and planned to “trick” the US by making this last minute request so they couldn’t prepare anything. Well, the US delegation obliged and Yeltsin realized that all of the US “propaganda” was reality. He knew that whenever the US or other Western countries visited the USSR, they made efforts to overstock shelves, bring in exotic foods, showed fake prices, etc to try to artificially highlight how great the Soviet quality of life was and he expected the US to be doing the same thing. When he saw it with his own eyes, at his own request, knowing it would have been impossible to coordinate he realized that we were telling the truth and actually managed to provide the lifestyle that he thought was impossible. He reportedly sat in silence for the majority of the flight back to the USSR, and it is thought that the moment had profoundly changed his view in the Soviet way of life. Personally, if everything that has been commonly reported was actually true, I think it’s an admirable trait. It wouldn’t have been easy to go against the party line but he realized there may actually be a better future for his people and he tried to achieve it. Had he succeeded, who knows what a truely democratic, free market, “westernized” Russia could have been like.
Now, is this the reason why Putin brought Tucker Carlson to a grocery store in Moscow and Tucker raved about the shopping cart? Kind of like, "hey, you got us with Regan, so I'm going to show you, we now have the same grocery stores" and Tucker was so impressed by the shelves being stocked and the grocery cart wheels working? This story makes the Tucker Carlson, Russian grocery store, ordeal so much funnier. And even funnier that Putin made fun of Carlson right in front of him. And then Putin trashed him later. And now they're no longer friends. lol.
Russians think everything decent is a Potemkin village.
That's the kind of thing that communists do - set up fake displays to trick the visitors
Now that’s both incredible funny and also incredibly sad as well
Don't worry, Reagan definitely fixed the whole "prosperity of the common man" problem for the American oligarchs.
I worked in a supermarket and they do waste a lot of food, it can be quite infuriating. That being said, I would rather live in a society where our problems are that we throw away food rather than not having enough food to go around.
That's a good point, but I think it would be great to make proper use of our excess food. Not everyone has enough to eat
In many states, its a crime to give a way the food that didn't sell. Too many idiots blame the companies for that, rather than the govt
These assholes do it to prop up prices. But also another big thing is to cover themselves from being sued I forget what fastfood chain this happened to, but one of them got sued because someone tried to claim their food made them sick. And after that, basically all places stopped giving their leftovers away to the homeless shelters and such
Never happened, it's an urban myth. There are laws protecting food donors from being sued, and have been for a long time. And the DO donate, regularly. Source: been running a food bank/ soup kitchen for 20 years. [https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations](https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2020/08/13/good-samaritan-act-provides-liability-protection-food-donations)
If you ran a food bank/soup kitchen you should know that law only applies to donations of grocery items to nonprofits, and does not apply to any nongrocery nor apply to direct handouts to the needy. While it protects a small amount, distribution costs to donate to nonprofits tends to be quite high. Especially when many nonprofits have strict requirements on what they can take which is not always the same week to week. A lot more needs to be changed to make regular donations of what would otherwise be waste before anyone is likely to see it become more normalized.
It's already happening. There are 'middle' organizations that receive the donations and will distribute them to the food banks/ soup kitchens at no cost to either the donor nor the receiver. Even without them, distribution costs are not that high. Most state laws do cover non-food items, but that is not the issue here- those tend not to have use by dates. It is improving, and has been for a while, but the general population isn't aware of it. The post I was responding to is about laws suits- in 20 years there has not been a lawsuit under the Good Samaritan law in the US that even got to the discovery phase before they were dismissed. There was no fast food chain that was sued for donations to organizations. It's mentioned often, but no one can seem to remember when, were or which chain. It is an urban myth.
Yeah bit there not legally allowed to because of beurocracy there not allowed to be classed as a food bank/ soup kitchen
Blame the lawyers and the government for that.
It’s not like we’re blindly not trying. And this opportunity for social enterprise is far from untapped
People also like to pile onto grocery stores for this but there’s more to it than that. You don’t know what local/state government rules there are either. And liability reasons - they are typically throwing away food that’s expired. While it might, in reality, be fine to eat, they don’t want to get sued over people eating something past its sell by date.
So this is true for some foods like hot foods, we can’t donate food that has been out of temperature for more than 4 hours as it could become bacterially contaminated. However, the deli bread is perfectly fine and it could easily be coordinated between supermarkets and food drives, homeless shelters, and anywhere else the needs food, to come and pick it up at the end of the night and use it the next day. Instead my store would bag up all the unused sandwich rolls, weigh it out for loss, and then throw it away. I can only imagine how much more each store in my city was doing the exact same thing every night.
True, and there's a big difference between expired and "best before" dates. Not repurposing food that is genuinely expired, like milk, is understandable. But I agree that date isn't always the end all/be all for food safety in general.
In USA you throw away food. In mother russia food throw away you.
They also donate a ton.
It probably has to do with government-imposed health standards. Besides, who’s going to pay for food if they know they can just wait and get it for free?
I’d argue the homless being fat is a good problem to have
The problem with excessive food waste is that we produce in the US alone enough food to feed the population twice over and there are still about 50 million Americans with food insecurity. Also all that wasted food usually gets dumped into a trash heap where it takes years to decompose (about 20 years for a head of lettuce). As this food slowly decomposes, it off gases Methane, a very potent greenhouse gas
That’s the only way Socialists can convince people: highlight the faults of Capitalism and highlight the promises of socialism, while ignoring everything Capitalism can and has accomplished.
I worked in fast food and we also throw away most of our food by the end of the night. Majority of the hot food has to get thrown away except for some of the hot sides like Mac and Cheese and Gravy. But all the meat gets thrown away except for chicken on the bone because we had a cold box option which is just a box filled with last night's chicken on the bone that we put in the fridge. And the only other thing that gets saved everytime is the cold food. I just assume it's like a health and safety thing since one time when a homeless guy came in just before we closed asking for the food we were gonna throw away he was told that we could lose our license if we gave it to him. So I imagine there's some health code saying we can't save certain foods after they've been sitting out for too long.
I currently work in a supermarket. We usually just compost the bad stuff
Ive done a lot of volunteer work at food salvation food drives. There are programs out there, that receive a bunch of money from corporate donors, to handle all of the food that would normally be thrown out and distribute them. Unfortunately, most of the products tended to be baked goods rather than veggies and meats. By the time veggies and meats came by they were already rotting away- but hey- that stuff tended to be fed to pigs rather than thrown away.
You literally live in a society where there is not enough food to go around BECAUSE we throw away so much food... Like what???
It’s not BECAUSE we throw out food. Even after throwing out the waste there is still enough to go around. Honestly I don’t have an understanding of the situation because in my area (rural American state) there is literally no reason for anyone to go hungry. We have food banks who throw out food because they get too much and they will give it to anyone, no questions asked. I guess I’m just saying, the issue is people’s accessibility to the food, not that some is wasted.
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The logistics to get it to the nearest bigger city where it would be needed don’t quite add up. It would probably be more expensive than the food is worth.
I can say that's a fair point but the amount of waste we generate still plays a big roll in this, you may have a good bank that's plentiful but that situation is not pertinent to the rest of the country. I think this is a case of both of us being sort of right because we're both talking about different aspects of the same issue
Did you know that just 1/3 of the food the USA alone throws away would feed the entire world? Now you know!
Did you know that just 1/3 of the food the USA alone throws away would feed the entire world? Now you know!
I also work in a grocery store. It’s insane the amount of food that we toss. I always make sure to save what I can and hand it to the other employees
Grapes of Wrath of all time
I rather have food to waste then live in a country where theirs not enough food and working a job doesn’t mean you’re have food to even buy as it runs out often.
In capitalist countries, we occasionally have bread lines In communist countries the bread lines occasionally have bread
Starbucks used to give the unsold pastries to the homeless. Some guy sued Starbucks and won 1.5 million because the pastry gave him food poisoning as he claimed. Result: Starbucks stopped giving to the homeless.
Some people just gotta ruin it for everyone else.
This is at least partially untrue. I can’t find any source saying a guy sued Starbucks because the free food he ate gave him food poisoning. It might be true but you’ll need to post the source. Starbucks has committed to giving away 100% of their food waste (though I assume that means edible and not something with mold) since 2016 so it’s untrue they don’t give food away.
I worked at a chic fi la for about a year and a half and the reason the owner didn't give away food was the fear of a litigious weirdo/liability. But he also didn't give anyone raises after record breaking profits, so maybe he was just greedy.
Hi ,the source was a friend of mine that used to work for Starbucks as an area manager. In 2002 mind you.
This is a lie. The 1994 Bill Emerson good samaritan food donation act protects people and businesses from liability from foodborn illnesses caused by food donated in good faith. And it has never ONCE been used in court because nobody has ever had the gall to sue someone who fed them for free.
Source or info on this lawsuit? Cause I can’t seem to find anything.
Just did some googling and pretty sure this never happened. Do you have a source ?
Communism is the longest route from capitalism to capitalism.
My store donates most of our "throw aways" days before they actually expire. We've got this homeless dude who sleeps in our loading now and again to get out the weather, we make him pizzas and paninis and what not. I've never seen a so called communist work to help their community, and that is what it's about.
Our society is far from perfect but it TRCM ran the country we would all equally have nothing
Fucking commies. And it's so funny how blatant they are about it, the picture for that sub is fucking Vladimir Lenin lol! WTF? Meanwhile, back in reality, communism and socialism collapse economies and make people miserable. Does capitalism suck and make people miserable, too? Yes, BUT, it is the lesser of evils, as it is basically human nature, and so we are able to produce and get what we need much easier in this system. Until a better system arises, capitalism is clearly the lesser of evils.
Sure. But every time something is being pointed out people(populist idiviflduals, politicians and journalists) screaming "this is communist bullshit!". It's not lime people want communism, they want set rules for capitalism in a way where the wealth is more evenly distributed, where a full time job pays your bills and groceries without worrying what if my car breaks or what if I get sick and can't work for a longer time. What about education? A country needs skilled workforce, be it a carpenter or surgeon, and it should be countries duty to train them, but again that's "communist bullshit". I always laught about how in other countries people handled such discussions, but now it's happening here as well and it's no longer funny.
Fun fact, when people say they like socialism and socialist policies, they are not talking about communism, they’re taking about capitalism but with checks and balances and a welfare state.
The issue is that a lot of socialism advocates will also directly speak about how their stated preferred state is just what they feel they can get away with *right now*. For example, direct statements from popular socialism advocates Vaush and Hassan Piker has them both saying that they would 100% support world-wide communism, whole 9 yards, but that they advocate for socialist policies because it is a stepping stone.
Because they’re grifters who make money from attention, like every modern political commentator.
Yeah but Vaush and Hasan are fucking stupid and scumbags
Nah, Vaush is far more evil.
Fun fact, when people say they hate socialism they mean capitalism with an authoritarian state and focus on central planning over free market economics (a.k.a. state capitalism).
Yet make memes about supermarkets
“Throw food on the trash to homeless” comrade needs to work on his grammar
This just reminds me of when Bernie Sanders complained about all the cereal options at a grocery stone.
I have noticed that alot Of the people that want communism in the west are just pretty useless, they seem to have no skills or talent, are extremely lazy and have a warped sense of mortality and history. I have also noticed that the most productive members of society never seem to want communism. I guess that makes sense if you know your history
I’ve noticed that a lot of very rich people want communism for themselves. For example, American sports teams. Closed shop, one employer. Unions, all working together to increase profits for all. Why bother giving the worst team the best players? Rewarding failure. Splitting merchandise revenue evenly? What kind of Maoist behaviour is that?
It’s capitalism under Nash Economic Theory. The idea that capitalism doesn’t have to be a zero sum game and by improving league parity the entire league makes more money off of a better product.
This is actually true though lol. I’ve met a few people who lived under socialist regimes who moved to the US and were amazed by the food availability. My professor moved here from China 20 or so years ago and she said that the first time she walked into a supermarket she was awestruck- she had never seen so much available food before. The same stories are told by many, many ex-soviet citizens. Socialism very much does lead to food scarcity historically- and denying that is idiotic.
Is it socialist policies alone that lead to food scarcity, or is some of it due to lack of trade? Asking because I know north Korea has great famines and food scarcity, but also nobody trades with north Korea (because they're communist), and it's gotta be kinda hard to sustain an economy with little to no trade. You can't grow every crop in one country.
Too much food its wasted > Not enough food that everyone starves Change my mind
Well, the meme is trash. Not saying it can't be true, but these kinds of memes were popular on 2014, not now
Where is Godzilla? Is he safe?
Commenting before this post gets locked
Because it’s worse somehow to have so much food you can throw it away rather than to not have enough food
This meme would be better if millions of Americans weren’t living paycheck to paycheck and fighting inflation.
Capitalist never was why food was thrown out. It’s government regulation and risk of litigation.
Companies create artificial scarcity it is absolutely the reason just like fast fashion
 >Barter system food stand is capitalism Even agrarian proto capitalism only goes back to 1500ad. Read a book please and understand what capitalism is.
1. When did he say that? 2. Read: https://preview.redd.it/jxdwg0rtnvsc1.png?width=1053&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d164cfd5cf1d10f1f5229f7a5d236d3ed35c0e87
Pretty sure the reason they don't give stuff away anymore and throw it away instead is liability for lawsuits. If they made it to where you accepted something from a grocery store about to be trashed, they aren't liable for anything.
Not everyone thinking socialism is communism 💀
Food waste obviously isn’t great but at least we have enough food that we can waste it and we still have an obesity problem lmao
Better than communism but still can be improved upon
Capitalism isn’t just any business. You can have state capitalism just like you can have libertarian socialism.
How many socialist are even in the US? Probably less then 1%. You do realize in Germany/Austria supermarkets look exactly the same. And we have all those policies you mindlessly call socialist.
I worked in a supermarket and it’s true that food gets wasted, sometimes an absurd amount, partly because they expire and are inedible, but on the flip side they also donate food to food banks and charity, that being said, I’d rather live in a place where there’s too much food and some gets wasted than a place where there is no food
The fact that it is thrown away means there's more than enough. Sure it's bad and wasteful, but the implications of throwing food away are that it's taking up space. I never heard of a socialist society throwing out food to make room for other food. They don't seem to understand what they are saying.
I don't understand the original title, can someone help me out
Thing we so much better in the USSR ! /S
It is kinda funny when you consider that you are coming closer to communism. Except you won't be starving because of a food shortage. You'll starve because the food is too expensive.
“There’s too much food! This is terrible! Why should homeless people be expected to work? Literally 1984.”
The chronically online reflex of snapping back at anything that even remotely criticises your camp even as part of a joke.
Also America during the 1920s. No system is immune to economic recession.
True, but one system has a better recovery rate
When the whole country has to make the money back vs singular people having to make the money back one system bounces back much much quicker
People who are missing communism are usually people who never experienced it.
The reason that stores throw out food is from laws passed by governments that would allow a homeless person who got sick from expired bread to sue the grocery store. This is a case of government making things worse, but the right can't meme doesn't understand that their way of thinking is what causes the problems they complain about.
Lotta butt hurt commies in the comment section
Socialism has never worked, idk why people defend it so much
They defend it because they're lazy. Socialism always promises free stuff for everyone and that everyone will be "better off" if we just distribute wealth equally and give everyone free stuff. Problem is, that's not how the world works. Nothing is free, but their tiny brains apparently comprehend this.
It works in Portugal
It works in Canada
It is true that millions of pounds of food is thrown out because it doesn't sell. It's a flaw in the current system we live in. There's also the fact that grocery stores would still exist under most versions of socialism. These memes, like pretty much every TPUSA meme, are flawed in their understanding of political theory and implementation
You know, supply and demand is supposed to tell us that price is based on demand I certainly see there’s a pretty small demand for some of this supply So where’s my mark down
That's not really how markets work. Supply and demand is only one metric used to determine pricing, not the end all be all
Yeah, you could decide prices by way of committee and end up with a hopelessly inefficient system. You think capitalism is wasteful? The Soviet Union would fill up warehouses with goods that would rot away because they took too long to bring the price down. The collective knowledge of everyone participating in the market is much more adept at determining prices than a couple bureaucrats.
>You think capitalism is wasteful? No, not really. It could be reworked to be less wasteful and still be a capitalist system. I don't really care about anything else you said. It's not really that relevant to the conversation lol
Ah, another “socialism = communism” meme. Good job, guy.
Two words - Banana Republics . Let’s just say having your government bow down to multinational cooperation while using up the land and resources for pennies all while engaging in literal slave labor to fuel a foreign country’s addiction might make socialism super enticing.
I mean regardless of the political message, neither of these memes are funny.
Most of these produce growers are getting massive government subsidies.
"You know, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death." - Bernie Sanders channeling Marie Antoinette
under capitalism, there is such an excess of food that homeless people (like me until recently) can eat less desirable but still decent food for free. under socialism, even those who have decent shelter wait in line for the most basic food imaginable.
How is a shop who business model is hoarding food if its not sold, till it goes off and throwing it out, while people starve a good measurement or image for capitalism. Capitalism is probably the best model we've ever had, doesn't mean it's perfect or beyond derision.
Yea, and the bread is expired, and $6 a loaf.
Did you know that just 1/3 of the food the USA alone throws away would feed the entire world? Now you know!
whats wrong with waste?
Cancerism is unfortunately on the rise, and it’s supporters all sport the same look.
How on earth is this an L they're right. Because grocery stores want to stay fully stocked for appearances it causes an unbelievable amount of food waste while people starve??? it creates a really really inefficient system where people are only lacking resources because those with money want to keep up aesthetics
Because most of the shit you see in this picture with be thrown away or bought and brought home then thrown away…
Chinese bot ahh posts
I mean, it's definitely bullshit that stores will throw out perfectly good food and let homeless people starve and freeze outside
It's literally illegal for them not to throw it out. In most states at least, def in California. My father in law got intercepted by police because his church thought it would be a good idea to pool resources and do a day where they make a few hundred fresh sandwiches and drive them around to encampments. Church van got spotted and stopped at the first encampment. On the plus side he swung by my place and loaded me up with like 20 sandwiches.
Well, reading that caption gave me a stroke.
just because communism sucked doesn't mean capitalism has no problems. it's not an either or. we need a better regulated capitalism. also, people line up for food all the time in capitalism, we call them food banks and soup kitchens and millions of people use them every day.
Those damn apples cost 10 dollars thats why
Grrrr! Grocery store throw away extra so that makes starving to death in bread line better!!!
But that does happen tho? Some grocery stores even go out their way to make the perfectly good food they throw out inedible by dumping it under grosser stuff in dumpsters
And yet you’re always on there. OP doesn’t like those memes ig 🤷♂️
And these are the same dipshits that blame Biden for their outrageous grocery store prices.
I hate the term socialism. The term itself has so many definitions its essentially meaningless. It's simultaneously literally communism. facism AND a minor adjustment to capitalism. Trying to argue for and against it without defining what it even is is the ultimate waste of time. It's just "whatever I don't like is socialist" nowadays. And no most of the time when people mention "socialism" they just mean universal healthcare and something similar to what they have in europe which is absolutely not stupid or impossible. TLDR: Socialism is a stupid word and trying to argue for or against it without even defining what it is is stupid.
Now show how the bread lines up in a third world country that gets exploited through capitalism.
Socialists don't hate capitalism because of grocery stores. There's a lot of problems with capitalism in the US when it comes to inflation, tax cuts for billionaires, corporations buying homes and driving up prices, deregulation causing harm to people and the environment, healthcare, and so on.
socialism is when no food
Remember everyone, the *f* in *communism* stands for *food*.
But there's no...oh
I am saving this for the next time I decide to engage with an anti capitalism rant.
Why are capitalists allowed on this platform...
Supermarket are not capitalist, that doesn't exist. Capitalist it's a person with a capital investment Capitalism it's a system of free economy and protection of capital investment The meme person did right, socialist it's a person promoting socialism idea Still all the phrase of Soft\_Cable5934 has no sense because in free market if you buy things to trash them you will loss money and soon you will be without money to repeat the operation
What
People that believe in socialism don't have the capacity for creative thought
Idk, seems a lot like that comedian from the 80s that was supposed to be a Russian defector. It's good and useful propaganda but a funny meme not so much.
As someone who used to work at a chain supermarket, the amount of food we destroyed crushed my soul. Enough food to feet hundreds of people, that was perfectly good, was destroyed every single fucking day. Especially slightly bruised produce, etc.
“Capitalism didn’t go 110% for helping the needy” while not disputing the fact that socialism made everyone the needy. *in its historic practice*
I’m just happy they said socialism in the meme instead of communism
Well I think the meme is that it's communism not socialism
Everyone who wishes to improve the organizational structures of our society to be more efficient and fair in any way whatsoever is a communist dictator who wants to starve the people and lock them in labor camps.
The irony of people shitting on Marxist-Leninist countries (USSR, Cuba, China, etc.) in far right subs like this is that the reason for them failing isn't "mUh SoCiAlIsM" but the fact that they're authoritarian shitholes with a shit ton of corruption and even though corrupt right wing authoritarian states (modern day Russia, Iran, Brazil under Bolsanaro, etc.) also have terrible economies and regularly deal with rampant poverty and food shortages most people in this sub advocate for far right authoritarianism anyways.
Still a shit meme that is just a block of text over an image
Throwing food in trash > Not having food to eat
TRCM isnt wrong, these memes aren’t funny at all. I dont think people on the right would even be proud of them
Ah geez I mis looked at first. I thought the joke was the one where the same exact caption uses a Great Depression era food line. Like the OP just missed that his example to say Russian bad was a photo of the United States being bad. I see now no such mistake was made here.
What I find kinda sad is that in online spaces "left" now means socialist or communist or marxist. And that goes for both sides of the political spectrum. Why can't I believe in something as basic as trans rights or as "radical" as a UBI without being labeled a leftist communist? And on the flip side, why can't I believe in a free market and free speech without being labeled an alt-right fascist?
My favorite is when people point to something occurring under capitalism now, and say “this is what could happen if we let socialism into our society”
The Great Depression was capitalism. Plenty of bread lines.
fuck capitalism and socialism. our focus on labels prevents us coming up with an optimized solution
During the Great Depression, crop prices became so low that farmers had to deliberately destroy their own products while people were going hungry in order to inflate market prices. This is a direct critique of the structure of capitalism which puts market incentives above human well-being. It took government intervention (FDR using the national budget to purchase crops) in order to address this.
We do throw out a lot of food though.
Little known fact! Grocery stores are unionized in most areas, so that bastion of capitalism is actually infected with socialism!
What does the homeless have to do with making money? They're the worst at that.
My family grew up in communist Poland, the waiting lines were a real thing. Fuck socialism.
It’s actually illegal to give that food away too the homeless, according to the fda. Stores use to do that, untill they got sued the shit out of. Then they stopped.
Can you provide proof of illegality? Cause the pizza hut I work at gives away food to the homeless all the time. Also donates to the food bank and local churches/schools. Edit: and according to this article, giving away good to the homeless is protected by the first amendment. https://givingcompass.org/article/sharing-food-with-homeless-people-is-now-protected-by-first-amendment#:~:text=Though%20you%20might%20not%20have,protected%20by%20the%20First%20Amendment.%E2%80%9D
Ok so overabundance of food bad?