[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]

They are not all in one place, and their death certificate doesn't say "politics" on it. They are in cemeteries all over the country and died of many different immediate causes.

[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.