Maybe if people with your ideology only make things that harm you it’s an opportunity to reflect.
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Nothing wrong with communists. I feel so radicalized by capitalism I’m almost there anyway.
It’s the Russian/China apologists that are annoying.
Russia is bad, Chia.na is bad, and the U.S. is bad. All those things can be true. But all the insufferable posts about how great China and Russia are, and all the bad things you have heard about them m are just Western propaganda…
If they were serious about their ideology, then why do they care so much about someone thinks about China or Russia.
If they didn’t brigade those issues so much, straight up ban people, just because they disagree, or hlrefuse to have any real discussion that doesn’t center on just shutting other people down, then maybe people outside their group might take them more seriously.
Anarcho communists welcome you. We hate all nation states equally. Unfortunately there aren’t enough of us to brigade anything.
For anyone who wishes to know more Now And After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism was written to explain anarcho-communism in plain, easily understood, language.
It begins by explaining the current capitalist system (now) and then goes on to explain anarchism (after).
It is available to read or download in multiple formats, for free, here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism#toc2
This isn’t terrible, but it’s important to be aware that the class analysis and definition of capitalism in this is nonsense. The capitalist class is not just “rich people” and the working class is not just “poor people.” Capitalism is not defined by…whatever this attempts to define it by. Capital is the power to prioritize the allocation of resources and labor.
Capitalism stands for the idea that the purpose of all value, surplus and base really, of production is to increase the capital of the holders of capital. That is it. It is the worship of allocative power solely for the sake of allocative power. And that’s why it inevitably degenerates into fascism–the worship of power solely for the sake of power.
All class dynamics must oriented themselves within the structure of that allocative power analysis. The capitalist class is not “rich” people, or at least not definitionally, and the working class is not poor people. The capitalist class are those who derive increase to their allocative power primarily from the direction of capital under the capitalist system. On the flip side, working class is anyone who increases their own allocative power primarily through the application of their own labor. The vague vibes based class analysis in this would effectively place servers (like, at a restaurant) as bourgeoisie capitalist-class/adjacent just like doctors, lawyers, programmers, and the like. I think it’s clear why that maybe feels like complete bullshit to most peeps.
Did you read a different book?..
He’s very much aware of what capitalism is and clearly doesn’t just believe it to be “rich people”. What nonsense.
But it is not only the worker and the farmer who are exploited and forced to give up the greater part of their product to the capitalists, to those who have monopolized the land, the railroads, the factories, the machinery, and all natural resources. The entire country, the whole world is made to pay tribute to the kings of finance and industry.
The small business man depends on the wholesaler; the wholesaler on the manufacturer; the manufacturer on the trust magnates of his industry; and all of them on the money lords and banks for their credit. The big bankers and financiers can put any man out of business by just withdrawing their credit from him. They do so whenever they want to squeeze any one out of business. The business man is entirely at their mercy. If he does not play the game as they want it, to suit their interests, then they simply drive him out of the game.
Thus the whole of mankind is dependent upon and enslaved by just a handful of men who have monopolized almost the entire wealth of the world, but who have themselves never created anything.
He literally says the bourgeoisie, namely doctors, lawyers, and the like, are, in their interests, aligned with the capitalist class if not altogether a part of it. And even the parts you quote are hard to parse as they are both focused on the outputs of production rather than the allocative power leading to production but also touch upon the problem of how our overly financialized economies obfuscate the allocative power issue. At the same time, when he says shit like “the business man is entirely at [the big bankers financiers] mercy” it makes me think we are not on the same page here, unless his definition of business man is not the investor class–absolutely capitalist class–business man I use.
It’s almost as if anarcho communism isn’t based upon Marxist definitions…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communist_ideologies#Anarchist_communism
there are dozens of us!
I feel like things would get awkward after the revolution.
here’s the neat part: anyone who unironically thinks china or russia are communist is a dumbass and can be ignored or is trolling.
China and russia being communist is an American right wing talking point.
No leftists consider the russian federation communist, and not even the cpc considers china communist. They claim to be attempting to realise communism by first developing socialism to the point that they can.
Whether you believe them or not aside, you’re sort of showing your ignorance. Even the scary tankies on hexbear and ml or whatever don’t think they’re communist. That’s why the term actually existing socialism (aes) is aes and not aec.
i made no indication i believed them or them to be communist. i was speaking of how trollish those who claim china/russia is communist are. they’re almost always “libertarians” or some form of boomer.
No leftists consider the russian federation communist, and not even the cpc considers china communist. They claim to be attempting to realise communism by first developing socialism to the point that they can.
Hexbear and .ml are really this weird, yeah. They don’t even pretend to be socialist yet they just insist it’s AES.
No leftists […] even the cpc considers china communist. They claim to be attempting to realise communism by first
tl;dr of my response: China ain’t Socialist, and shouldn’t be emulated in our struggle for socialist revolution worldwide.
Many leftists don’t consider China and the CPC to even be socialist, many socialists around the world see the CPC as a ruling class of another capitalist country, albeit with much higher rates of nationalised industries.
We think you can’t really call yourself socialist when the workers don’t have meaningful democratic control over society. And unless you’re being dishonest or are just misinformed, the workers most certainly don’t have control of society in China. Less so then here (Australia), even.
One only need to talk to people in China to realise this, most people I’ve spoken to in China, even though who support the government, describe a very hierarchical benevolent government.
One simply can’t look a lefty in the eye and say China is socialist, unless those “Chinese Characteristics” suffixed to “Socialism” simply stand for “without democracy”.
There is no meaningful method to agitate for political change (no, being in one of the other parties most certainly doesn’t count), there are no workers unions (strikes are heavily repressed and the only union that exists is controlled by the CPC, though despite that some groups of workers still sometimes bravely strike 💪) no freedom of political association, no democracy in the workplace.
It’s really hard to claim China is socialist, yet people outside of China still do, just because they’re holding the banner of socialism…
I don’t hate China, it’s a pretty nice place, with lovely people, and certainly a nicer place than the shithole of the US. I’ve been to China multiple times, and you wouldn’t catch me dead in the US.
But they just ain’t Socialist, and shouldn’t be emulated in our struggle for revolution worldwide.
I think that’s a bit reductive. While I am a sceptic that they’ll ever really succeed and think they’ve fucked themselves a bit with how much power Chinese tech companies have been allowed to amass, there are true believers among the party and the central committee. I mean they teach Marxism in school (sort of).
In general chinese people describe extremely high satisfaction with their government, and respond more positively to questions like “If I have an issue I can go to my local politician and resolve it”[1] than Westminster derived systems (which I would also not dignify with the word democracy) and it is worth asking why this holds while most so called democracies have hostile and parasitic governments.
If the will of the people is enacted then this is a sort of democracy, while if you vote and then the people you elect serve elites and ignore you this isn’t really democratic.
Structurally some things in China are working vastly better than elsewhere, and it’s worth trying to understand /why/ their government seems to work for the people so much more than other systems.
But I was merely relaying what they claim about themselves to point out even people fully committed to toeing their party line would not call them communist.
I once got at least 10 comments telling me how good russia and china are and how bad USA is and that i am a USA sucker, welp kinda my fault for making a comment in the wrong instance
Those people are called tankies
The only thing I’ve ever seen here labelled “extremist” and I’ve never really looked into it, is the claim that the Tiananmen Square Massacre was instigated by the CIA. Agian, I have never looked into it, but that’s the only thing I’ve ever seen ruffle people’s feathers.
I really think we all have a lot in common here, and maybe it’s just boredom, but we shouldn’t be at each other’s throats.
I’m a strong believer in facts (wow can’t believe I have to say that) but if someone compiled a large list of grievances with sources, that would be great. I always see lemmings labeld as “tankies” coming in with troves of links and sources, but never anyone else.
Anyone that comes in with proper sources is immediately banned and their comments removed, that’s why you never see them.
Im not communist but China is not that bad, people have a lot more freedom in China than in the US.
Is it really freedom if you can’t stand outside a school with a battle rifle?
I’ll have to take your word for it. The only side of China I get to see from way over here is when they hold innocent countrymen hostage to put pressure on a third party.
Not being facetious; I recognize that what I get to see is heavily biased.
That shit happens in the US daily with ICE so yeah it’s worse over here.
What does that have to do with China/Canada relations? How is ICE putting pressure on foreign governments? This is fucking weird thing to say.
They’re literally capturing innocent foreign citizens. Ask the Mexican government about all the grievances they filed asking for information on innocent Mexican citizens who died in ICE custody.
Unfortunately half of them are tankies larping as commies
The other half are posting, which is just as much a larp of political action. Effective organizing doesn’t happen on the internet.
Of course it does, posting when and where to meet for public protests can happen with image posts on local area comms. Like someone posted an image that held information for dates, times and locations so people could attend March for Palestine. Really it’s about sharing information which can be done with the good ol’ wheat paste and paper, but can reach a lot more people on the internet.
While thats true, I do think people really forget that the actual labor that improves your community is offline, not another sick meme to dunk on the liberals
Its easy for it to end up feeling like performance to fit in with the in-crowd more than actual desire to fix problems. The internet can be helpful but only as a tool in service of actually doing political labor. If its not work you’re probably not really accomplishing anything.
Most people don’t even know what to do in the first place!
Wouldn’t be surprised if new users actually complain about them, pretty much all the ‘communists’ here are obnoxious nationalist larpers
What even is Communist anymore? The US and China both seem to be converging to the same system of government.
It’s anarchist theory that yes, auth communism is just state capitalism instead of private capitalism. None of the “alienation” markers Marx associated with capitalism are done away with. They only pinky promise to do so one things are safe enough and the govt magically dissolves to hand the reigns to workers. Sure.
Communist kinda means nothing without a working class movement, which there aren’t any as of this moment. In both online spaces and irl though the identifier has become dominated by Marxist-Leninist types who get their entire worldview and “theory” through YouTube or social media hugboxes.
What this results in is, in short, complete misrepresentation of what communism and marxist theory actually are, extreme nationalist campism and straight delusion like claiming that China compared to other capitalists countries are fundamentally any different (most importantly in an economic sense, it’s also similar politically but that stems from the economic base, look up base and superstructure).
Commonalities I see. (Reflecting both how the US is now, and how I could see it evolving on its current path.):
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Mass surveillance with access to careers and positions of power dependent on living and thinking according to the party line. Wrongthink on social media results in real world consequence. (See political criticism in general in China, the reactions to the killing of Charlie Kirk in the US.)
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Mass tracking of citizens. Every movement of every citizen is tracked and recorded 24/7. Every action they take with a computer of any kind is recorded. Every corner of every city is monitoring 24/7 by camera networks and surveillance drones. All these records are constantly trawled by AI for patterns of dissent. The invasive surveillance state the Uyghurs are subject to is the future our leaders want for all of us.)
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Heavy police intervention in everyday life. (Checkpoints and showing your papers is the norm. Heavy integration between national and local law enforcement. Local law enforcement co-opted for political enforcement. Compare how China requires visiting foreigners to regularly check in at local police stations to the American ICE.)
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Economic system consisting of market economies with heavy state intervention in key national industries. (Both are taking outright ownership stakes in companies in certain key sectors.)
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Massive military spending for a military used to project power beyond national borders. (US more like Iraq or Iran wars. China more getting into wars you could call either revanchist or expansionist depending on how charitable you’re feeling. Think Taiwan or some of China’s land border disputes. Though admittedly the US is currently the far more interventionist of the two. But at the very least, both still maintain massive military-industrial complexes as major pieces of their national economies. China either has or will soon have the world’s largest navy. They currently want to use it to take Taiwan, but when you build a tool like that, an expeditionary Navy has all sorts of uses as a tool of national policy. Once you’re paying for the world’s largest Navy, the leadership of that Navy will constantly be pitching uses for it. No Navy admiral wants to see the size of the Navy cut. It will always be tempting to deal with a meddlesome trade dispute by dropping some bombs on people far away.)
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Leadership chosen by performative but ultimately rigged and pointless elections.
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One party political control. (Communist Party, Republican Party.)
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The top leader is surrounded by a cult of personality. (Not sure to what extent Xi has done this. My impression is a lot less than Mao, but a lot more than other recent Chinese leaders. The Trump personality cult is more obvious. But at the least, both countries now have a clear precedent of the top leaders using cults of personality to maintain power.)
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Nonexistent or co-opted labor unions
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Birth rates maintained through state coercion. (I am not aware of any punitive measures implemented by China to raise birth rates. In the US, this looks like banning abortion and birth control. I think China is currently taking the carrot rather than the stick approach, but China has a clear precedent of using overwhelming state power to forcibly control the birth rate. See the One Child Policy. If they could justify that to lower the birth rate, coercive methods to raise the birth rate are also likely. Maybe tie access to careers to having children.)
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Lead by a group of leaders seeking to cement permanent control through mass automation and artificial intelligence.
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Close personal connections between the corporate and government leadership class. Through the Chinese lens, it looks like party members owning the big companies. Through the American lens, it looks like billionaire presidents and cabinet secretaries. The Venn diagram of the corporate leadership class and the government leadership class is a circle.
The US and China really seem to be converging to the same form of government. I suppose as both countries are heavily influenced by a class of billionaires with more loyalty to each other than to their respective nations, this shouldn’t be a surprise. There’s a reason Trump cozies up to dictators. These people are all copying each other’s homework.
On paper, China will remain nominally Communist and the US nominally capitalist. But both are converging towards what is probably better called techno-fascism.
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You’ve slandered lemmy.ml! The party is dissapointed.
-9000 .ml credit
Testicular torsion. (obligatory: /s)
Except only piefed had credit so that’s meaningless even with the ‘/s’
everyone is doing it wrong except you.
Log off and start a 5th international but correct this time.
Everyone is doing it right except them.
Log off and revive the 4th international because it worked so well.
You… Don’t think nuclear war will bring pinko aliens down to rescue us?
When did I say that?
You don’t even know what communism is but just larp on lemmy full time about it, I can tell. Maybe append your comment with “China give me money” or whatever other AES nation of choice you’re doing unpaid PR work for next time
Communism is when the government does stuff
The more stuff the more communist
Wrong, the only communist country is Israel https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NMOjz7Z4DNQ
I only expose myself to information that was penned in self-published newspapers by Europeans between 1818 and 1991.
Youtube is considered an extreme infohazard
Obvious troll is obvious.
Damn communists! They ruined communism!
As much as the Scotch ruined Scotland. Fair.
I mean yeah, they absolutely did.
Communism is fantastic in theory, but in reality it doesn’t work, and it won’t ever work, because our species just doesn’t work like that.
People are, by and large, greedy, power hungry and prone to corruption, and this is why we can’t have nice things and are destroying the planet.
Good bit, very convincing character
I think this might be telling on yourself a little bit, because I’m not really greedy or power hungry or prone to corruption, and most of the people I associate with aren’t either
Yes, of course, because when I said ‘most people’ I clearly meant everyone.
And if you, and most of the people you know, are in positions of power and not shitty people, then you’re either a pleasant person with nice friends, or lying. Either way, good for you.
So now you are moving goal post by adding in power, once your argument disappear ?
Yes, people can be self interested, so we must reward that self interest and punish any selflessnes. That must be the only way to build a fair and just society.
Tell me you know nothing of human history without telling me you know nothing of human history.
Are you done? Great. Carry on.
Hear me out, here: We could tell the greedy fucks to fuck off, and we could make sure everyone nice is taken care of. By force, if necessary. (I mean, after we win elections lawfully with the will and mandate of the people and we enact legislation through proper procedure)
Hear me out, here: We could tell the greedy fucks to fuck off, and we could make sure everyone nice is taken care of. By force, if necessary. (I mean, after we win elections lawfully with the will and mandate of the people and we enact legislation through proper procedure)
Oh the irony.
It’s insane how you still believe communism produces leaders who are infallible and uncorruptable, ignoring all the historical mountains of evidence that your side is just as prone to corrupt authoritarian dictatorships as the fascists are.
You lot really are just itching to run your own
concentration campsgulags again, aren’t you?
Why waste time saying nothing? Please start using your brin
Via current capitalist systems, the only state sanctioned ways for me to Give Back to the community are based in religion or some branch of the military service.
Maybe I’m not looking hard enough. I could be wrong.
You gotta remember that no one except known communists are pitched lemmy on the basis that it’s developed by a communist. Everyone else gets that fact omitted.
And liberalism only survives in people that are fundamentally incurious about the conditions under which the goods and services they use are manufactured or arise.
That’s like, 95% of people, yeah.
Misanthropy is cringe. Humans are wonderful, lots of people remain curious and determined despite massive indoctrination efforts.
<3 humanity. We’ve got this.
Accepting a common flaw among humans is not me giving up on a better world, it’s just accepting that the better world must account for this flaw.
Claiming based on nothing but your own opinion that 19/20 people are fundamentally incurious about their material conditions is pretty fucking misanthropic.
To even make such a sweeping claim demonstrates a ludicrous resentment and a smug superiority.
wow, the flip from toxic positivity to just plain toxic happened fucking atomically.
despite all available evidence
Finally somebody says it. I was pitched Lemmy as a version of reddit that won’t enshittify because it isn’t run by Spez. There was no mention of communism whatsoever. I came expecting reddit as it had existed a few years prior to the API debacle. Now everyday I have to read a genocide denier accuse someone of supporting genocide because they voted against a fascist who supports genocide. Make it make sense.
And like, the communist thing isn’t a problem in itself, but there is some kind of brain rot going on in this particular online space. You know last week I stumbled into a thread full of people claiming that North Korea is some kind of utopia and all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary is propaganda? That’s not regular leftist discourse, that’s some kind of looney tunes shit.
Reddit was awful from the moment it was created because it was designed to commodity and control the commons.
You can always filter out the tankie comms and the users that come from tankie comms. Or you can move to an instance that’s defederated from them.
I’ve been considering it. Thing is, I’ve never been the type of person who wields the block button lightly and I don’t want to make a habit of it. They’re really testing my patience though.
Not to mention, the ”Capitalism Bad™” circlejerk gets tiring real quick. Like I know giving people the freedom to buy and sell goods and services with currency can result in negative externalities, but with government lobbying, foreign trade, and a large variety of different industries, the issue is far more complex and nuanced than most people seem to act like.
Another lib conflates markets and capitalism.
Could you please fucking read a single book about political and economic theories before forming any further opinions. Please?
You say that like being a lib is a bad thing.
Yes, right wing ideology is a bad thing.
I thought right wing ideology was conservative, like MAGA, and liberal was left wing.
MAGA is far right/alt right, liberalism is right. Stuff like Bernie and Mamdani would be centre.
Left is stuff like anarchism, communism, socialism, etc. Systems that aim to completely replace capitalism rather than reform or keep it.
It is an ineffective ideology that encourages performative, superficial acts of individual kindness while actively supporting a structure of monsterous evil.
It is more concerned with means than ends, endorses an utterly corrosive individualism, and ideological smugness that encourages ignorange.
It’s unfortunately definitely a counterproductive thing if it makes you believe stuff like “capitalism is when people use money.” People still used money in the USSR. Capitalism is about transnational social control, accomplished through use of surplus value accumulation & compound interest to acquire controlling ownership of international corporations (which can then use their international nature to dodge legal accountability from the countries they operate in, typically in a highly colonialist way).
Capitalism is not a bunch of farmers at a farmer’s market. It is an act of strategic class violence.
capitalism and commercialism is not the same thing
I never cared about those politics, it’s just all the drama that gets weird. No developer is required to disclose they’re a what-ist. You would hear a lot more about it from whiny Americans, if so.
Communists? On my equally shared, federated social media!? No way!
from each according to their memes folder, to each according to their degree of unemployedness
But I have no memes folder, Good Sir. Am I poor, rich in other things, or just a boomer?
People really don’t care about communists - it’s the authoritarian boot licker we have a problem with.
The Americans?
Some people seem to care quite a bit.
If communism is a failed system, why does the US keep going after communist places? Surely they’re not a threat right? 🤔
What does “the HS” mean here?
Should have been “US” but my phone had other plans.
…must be that dang communism again 🤣
Because there are no communist places. There are places where the ruling class plays pay lip service to the idea, but in reality they aren’t communist. And the US tends to just ignore real implementations of socialism round the world.
Allende, Lumumba, Sankara and Castro would disagree with you.
Allende was president for about 3 years and committed suicide in office. Either it was a Russian style suicide of convenience or he was unfit anyway. So one cannot say if he would have gracefully given up his power or not. But, historically the odds are not so good.
Lumumba was assassinated 3 years into his presidency. So enough people disagreed with him evidently.
And Castro refused to relinquish office until he died of old age. Much like a king wouldn’t you say?
Transgender Anti-War Communists, no less.
The only thing scarier is a Muslim Mayor.
Is it at least of the luxurious gay space kind?
Unfortunately we’re at the screaming at each other over precisely how to realise a stateless, monieless, classless society stage.
Although we do get to enjoy devouring the occasional lib that stumbles in.
Although we do get to enjoy devouring the occasional lib that stumbles in.
Mmmm… Lib vore…
We need to bring back feeling ashamed
Uh-oh. Somebody’s got a shaming kink…
Yeah, yeah, communists, whatever. Did you know that some people still pretend to be Finnish here?
Hey I’m just on the Finnish instance. No one doubts from where I am posting. Always seemed like a convenient bouncing around of signals.
torille.
Some of these comments are far too long.
“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”
Ninth-century Chinese Buddhist monk Linji Yixuan.
That’s the only Buddhist thing burgers know. Was it on the idiotbox or something?
The what? I read it in a book.
I somehow don’t believe you’re as old as you claim lmfao.
How old have I apparently claimed to be?
Well, they are written by communists what can you expect.
: Person posts something about communism.
: Buncha people in the comments inevitably say the same stale, dumb things about communism.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
B-B-B-But Chai-nyha
China? Russia? US? Where’s that 3 Spiderman pointing meme?
My girlfriend is different from all the other communists. She doesn’t count.
yeah but HASAN PIKER!!!
screams in terror
Lemmy has destiny stans now? 🤣
I remember on reddit seeing discussion about the mullvad vpn nonsense and someone replied that they were based, it’s not like the left would ever care about privacy.
And I was just like…brutha, wut? People are truly that dumb aren’t they?
The left is anything they do not like
