Much credit to this post.

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    14 days ago

    How’s that radical rise of the proletariat going for those in Venezuela? How did it go for the Soviets after Lenin? How’d that whole great leap forward go for the farmers in Maoist China?

    Venezuela is doing alright, not great but it isn’t really a Socialist state. The USSR had great success in many areas, like a doubling in life expectancy, free healthcare, free education, huge increases in home ownership, and more. The PRC struggled during the Great Leap Forward, Mao was only about 70% good, Deng course-corrected back to Marxism-Leninism.

    Or perhaps you are of the “These are not true Marxist regimes. There’s never been a true Marixst state” camp. Gee, I wonder fucking why? Perhaps because it doesn’t work. Marxism is unsustainable at scale.

    No, AES states exist and Marxism works. Cuba, the PRC, Vietnam, Laos, DPRK, etc. are all guided by Marxism-Leninism. Socialism guides the largest economy on the planet, if it couldn’t scale then it wouldn’t have.

    You want a commune, go for it. A town of co-op of farms, by all means. Perhaps even a small city state, just beware, if you introduce a power vacuum, some smooth talking snake oil salesman is going to try to fill it.

    I am not advocating for Communes, I don’t know where you got the idea that I was.

    • wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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      14 days ago

      I think you are conflating most of your examples with Dictatorships and Capitalist-Socialist hybrid regimes.

      I would also hardly consider Cuba or Laos as frontiers of innovation. Just curious, do you feel that innovation is an important aspect of civilization? If so, do you think socialism and innovation can thrive without the sacrifice of one to the other?

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        14 days ago

        Can you explain?

        Edit for your edit:

        I would also hardly consider Cuba or Laos as frontiers of innovation. Just curious, do you feel that innovation is an important aspect of civilization? If so, do you think socialism and innovation can thrive without the sacrifice of one to the other?

        Cuba and Laos are doing well, Cuba especially is great in the healthcare sector for innovation. Yes, Socialism and innovation thrive together. Markets are good at preparing the ground for public ownership and planning through the formation of monopolist syndicates, but that’s really yhe biggest aspect, innovation is often held back by the profit motive.

    • ma343@beehaw.org
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      14 days ago

      This is my problem with the PSL, you can’t call yourself a party for liberation and then support the DPRK regime, an absolute hereditary dictatorship. It’s great to point out the flaws in the US ruling parties, but campism is just ignoring the very real flaws of anyone who happens to oppose the US internationally because they’re on your “team”. In reality, there’s no team except the working class, and these supposedly leftist governments are usually not treating the working class well either.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        14 days ago

        The DPRK isn’t a hereditary dictatorship, that’s not accurate. No, it isn’t a utopian paradise either, it’s somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

        but campism is just ignoring the very real flaws of anyone who happens to oppose the US internationally because they’re on your “team”.

        Have you read Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism before? Are you familiar with the term “critical support?”

    • rothaine@beehaw.org
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      14 days ago

      The USSR had great success in many areas

      The PRC struggled during the Great Leap Forward

      You seem to be papering over the part where a shit ton of their own people died, so I don’t think this really works as a pitch. You’d need to find a way to ensure that mass death wouldn’t happen again, and then succinctly express it.

      Mao was only about 70% good

      Anyone who does mass executions is a fucking monster. Probably better to leave this out of the pitch.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        14 days ago

        I can discuss in-depth with you if you’d like, but Blackshirts and Reds is the perfect book for you. AES is by no means a fantasy wonderland, but it is a dramatic improvement on existing conditions. The Kuomintang and the Tsars were more brutal than the Communists, and that brutality lasted for centuries.