[Atlas667]

Do you really understand class war? Your suggestion is having the state legislate this away as if the state isn't fully compromised by the capitalist class?

This is the main lesson of the 20th century that liberals refuse to accept; that the state is controlled by capitalist class interests. Capitalist democracy is a curated racket.

And even if we were to force legislation exactly as described above it can't and hasn't lasted long due to the incentives ($billions) to undo it. They will go as far as to kill people for this, and they have.

Legislation does NOT fundamentally change existing power relations. They have this shit in their pockets and you're just saying that we should have them take it out of their pockets.

The western allergy towards Marxism is one of the most detrimental cultural positions the working class has EVER faced.

[snapdragonzoro]

Every state that has implemented marxist ideals has had their economy made up almost entirely of the state, that level of state oversight over the economy is just an extreme version of our current model of highly bureaucratic, bloated states where the owners/controllers over the means of production are syncronized with the state and its interests.

It was an ideology that at its height ruled a third of the world including some of the most populous and resource rich territories on earth yet still fell within decades.

The increased income inequality within much of the developed world has happened at the same time as ever increasing state influence over the economy.

[pocksuppet]

My understanding of Marx was that he mostly just wrote books describing how capitalism works. Then guys like Lenin came afterwards and killed lots of people. What are Marxist ideals?

[pitaj]

History shows that the "fundamental change to power relations" is just a shift from moneyed interests to political/bureaucratic interests. Which is worse because while moneyed interests have power money can buy, political/bureaucratic interests have the power of state coercion.

"They will go as far as to kill people for this" is rich coming from someone preaching Marxism, for which millions have been murdered.

[lovich]

How is the government worse than the corporation or billionaire for coercion?

Libertarians always try to convince us that the corporate boot tastes so much better than the governmental one, but they both taste like leather to me and I at least have a say, however small, on the government.

[tormeh]

Not in any communist society I've ever heard of.

[goatlover]

How do Indians feel about rule under the British East India Company from the 17th-19th centuries?

[lovich]

[flagged]

[chungusamongus]

This is a ridiculous oversimplification of complex historical processes. The biggest change to power relations by far were the bourgeois revolutions, which ostensibly shifted "political/bureaucratic" interests to "moneyed interests," which is quite literally the opposite of what you're saying. At any rate, the dichotomy is completely misleading since "moneyed" interests and "political/bureaucratic" interests are not at all mutually exclusive; in reality, they are virtually synonymous within the capitalist system. Also the notion that "moneyed" interests do not possess the power of state coercion must be some kind of perverse joke. Do you not even have a cursory knowledge of history? There are so many instances of money equating to state coercion that it's mind boggling anyone would say this with a straight face. Do you not know what a pinkerton is? Are you not paying attention to what the current president is doing both domestically and overseas? The idea that any advocate of capitalism would get on their high horse and moralize about Marxism is pathetic.

[swed420]

> The western allergy towards Marxism is one of the most detrimental cultural positions the working class has EVER faced.

And it's no surprise they took these positions, considering the FBI originally deemed the likes of "It's a Wonderful Life" as communist propaganda and claimed it "made bankers look bad."

https://www.newswise.com/articles/ruining-your-holidaywhy-th...

> "What's interesting in the FBI critique is that the Baileys were also bankers," said Noakes. " and what is really going on is a struggle between the big-city banker (Potter) and the small banker (the Baileys). Capra was clearly on the side of small capitalism and the FBI was on the side of big capitalism. The FBI misinterpreted this classic struggle as communist propaganda. I would argue that 'It's a Wonderfil Life' is a poignant movie about the transition in the U.S. between small and big capitalism, with Jimmy Stewart personifying the last hope for a small town. It's a lot like the battle between Home Depot and the mom and pop hardware store."

[hootz]

In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism. This is it, we will forever live in a social-democracy state. I wonder who promotes this idea.

[AlexandrB]

> In the west, the prevalent idea is that socialism/communism lost and that there is nothing beyond capitalism.

It didn't just "lose", it killed millions of its own people in the process. Having been born in a communist state, I'd rather clean toilets in American than do anything else in the USSR.

Edit: It's basically impossible to communicate the day-to-day misery and deprivation of late stage Communism without sounding like a crazy person. My parents were both university-educated professionals but we lived in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with occasional hot running water and only newspaper for wiping after the bathroom. This was considered a rather affluent existence.

To find something similar in today's America you'd have to go to the worst, most impoverished parts of town and even then...

[singleshot_]

In the most impoverished part of my town (just kidding, in every part of my town) people live in the culverts that fill up with water when it rains. I am not sure what they do when it rains.

[goatlover]

Fair criticism of the USSR, but some the United State's success comes from taking a large chunk of land from the native populations and then using it's resources and geography to build an economy and military capable of enforcing it's policies in the Americas and eventually around the world. Some of which was sanctioning communist countries and fighting an expensive cold war against the USSR.

[harimau777]

What about all the places where that didn't happen? E.g. the Nordic countries where social democracy has been extremely successful.

[AlexandrB]

I think it helps to draw some distinctions here. Nordic countries have strong social welfare systems, but private property and free enterprise are still a thing. This is not at all the same as communism where everything is ultimately state owned and operated.

China is an interesting example too because it's basically capitalist with strong government oversight. So you can go hog wild on exploiting labor and amassing wealth as long as you don't oppose the overall goals of the government. We'll see how long they can keep it running - the problem with most authoritarian systems is that they're only as good as their current leadership, and when that changes things tend to fall apart.

[NickC25]

>So you can go hog wild on exploiting labor and amassing wealth as long as you don't oppose the overall goals of the government

Or get TOO big. You can get a few billion here and there, but don't think that you're bigger than the government. And don't act like it, either.

[6AA4FD]

I think basically capitalist oversimplifies a bit, both because private business holds no monopoly on exploitation of labor in any society, and because many of their large businesses are wholly owned by the state with the CEO appointed by the party. Here is an interesting interview on the subject with a relevant timestamp. https://youtu.be/e297mEZ479E?si=ASV_u9ZoN36wI4M5

The nuance that capitalist businesses do not hold an exclusive interest now or historical pioneering of labor exploitation is valuable to keep in mind because no matter how far the project of labor power spreads, all we workers must keep in mind that we have a primary and vested in empowering the most diminished of our society.

[hootz]

But why is it successful? Where did their money come from? How sustainable is it? The core issues from capitalism still exist there, but they have more money with a smaller population.

[rexpop]

Ok, but you're not exactly a research sociologist, are you? It's not like you've made a study of poverty in America—let alone poverty on the imperial periphery, like El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras where we've been undermining democracy and labor rights in order to keep outsourced wages low. Now there are the places you can see real poverty that makes your Soviet austerity seem downright cosy.

So it's just not fair, your comparisons. You're not looking at the whole picture.

[cestith]

Was it communism that killed people in the Soviet times, or was it authoritarianism? You can have authoritarians no matter your economic structure. They have killed people around the world in the name of communism, capitalism, fascism, race, culture, religion, colonialism, and just general jingoistic control for millennia.

[AnimalMuppet]

Ask it the other way around. Can you have (Marxist/Leninist) communism without authoritarianism? The answer certainly seems to be no. And since the Marxist/Leninist flavor is what almost everyone thinks of when they say "communism", then one could say that, absent any qualifiers like "voluntary" or "non-Marxist", communism is authoritarian, and did in fact kill all those people.

[cestith]

Was it Leninism that was so deadly in the USSR or Stalinism? Stalin was a much different leader with much different politics and philosophies than Lenin and Trotsky. Don’t confuse the Communist party with communism, just like many Libertarians in the US are not actually libertarian these days.

[Atlas667]

The reason cleaning toilets in america is not that bad is because of socialist and communist labor organizing.

Go to Ecuador to clean toilets and you'll see what capitalism does to workers.

[hootz]

We are currently killing millions of our own people. Communism is not stuck in time with the USSR.

[AlexandrB]

> We are currently killing millions of our own people.

What do you mean?

[salawat]

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention to the skyrocketing prices of fuel, food, and healthcare... Or did you just think all those people just above the poverty line disappear when the livable income floor gets hydraulically jacked up?

[AnimalMuppet]

I'm aware. What I don't see are the millions of dead bodies that hootz says are currently being produced.

[pocksuppet]

I think they mean, the USA (or capitalism in general) is currently killing millions of our own people.

We know how many people communism killed, but has anyone done the same math on capitalism? Maybe they're both very bad, and we have to find a third way.

[Atlas667]

Comment OP here. The third way is just capitalism with extra "were different" rhetoric.

Remember capitalism isnt a vibe its the private control of production for profit.

All "third way" people are just capitalists with extra checks and balances for freedom.

What they dont say or realize is that these extra checks and balances can be done away with by the very incentives of the people they think wont.

Power isnt a vibe, its the control of production made policy.

[OKRainbowKid]

And it seems like the winners capitalism brought about don't actually care all that much about both "social" and "democratic" aspects of "social democracy", if they stand in the way of ever increasing wealth and power.