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Communism Cringe


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On 1/22/2020 at 5:32 PM, Neoman said:

It's interesting to me how the naysayers always pick the authoritarian regimes to decry leftism/communism. You never discuss the DemSoc policies of countries like Sweden or the success of socialist policies elsewhere. I always found it as an interesting form of cherry-picking, though admittedly in your defense the stalinist-leninist regime did use the label first.

Sweden isn't dem-soc. It's closer to social democracy, or the "Nordic model". Sweden still has corporations like Ericsson, Volvo, H&M, and Ikea, and is still very much a capitalist country. Red Vienna in the 1920s is a better example of democratic socialism; under the SPÖ, Vienna built a significant amount of public housing (the biggest being Karl-Marx-Hof, which is still standing today) and significantly expanded social welfare within the city. Wealth taxes were enacted to partially pay for these programs. It collapsed with the rise of the fascist Fatherland Front in 1934. There were Latin American leaders like Salvador Allende who were popular democratic socialists; unfortunately, most of them were overthrown or assassinated by CIA-backed militants.

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Defining what socialism and capitalism is rather than what the best policies actually are is a bad way to go about it because every nation's political situation and discourse is vastly different. Most self identified socialists in the United States would at least be content with most of the policies within the Nordic Model (ie, literally Bernie Sanders, a self identified socialist who stated Denmark should be a model for policy). Most far left parties in Europe on the other hand would see that as a weak compromise. 

I think anyway the most standard definition, based upon ownership the means of production, is rapidly becoming obsolete because real political and economic power doesn't necessarily correlate with that anymore. Personally, the books that influenced me the most was the Logic of Political survival, the author of which also wrote a very entertaining and accessible summary of in The Dictator's Handbook, which approaches the likely outcomes of political and social structures from the perspective of how the leader needs to behave in order to stay in power. 

Basically, the more power in centralized in a few hands, the worse things get for the average person, and the more the system requires vicious and corrupt behavior by those in top to even survive and stay in power. Whether that power is concentrated in the form of a CEO who stacked the system so he isn't really accountable to his employees or common shareholders in any way, or a Stalinist Dictatorship, unaccountable power is bad and should always be minimized if you want a just society.

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  • 3 weeks later...
3 hours ago, Mandystalin said:

You all realise that Socialism is not Communism? 

You're a tad late to the convo, pretty much all the communist extremists got themselves either banned or ragequit by now

Which is kinda telling in its own way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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On 2/18/2020 at 3:40 AM, Sir Scarfalot said:

You're a tad late to the convo, pretty much all the communist extremists got themselves either banned or ragequit by now

Which is kinda telling in its own way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We're doing quite fine, thank you. 

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On 2/18/2020 at 8:40 AM, Sir Scarfalot said:

You're a tad late to the convo, pretty much all the communist extremists got themselves either banned or ragequit by now

Which is kinda telling in its own way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, I was involved but then got distracted by all the good fun in the alliance section. Sadly that got dull again so I returned here

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I'm going to comment in the necro thread to say that communism and capitalism are both equally nasty on a long enough timeline.

The US is suffering from late-stage capitalism, where most of the wealth has already been extracted from the younger generations who have to take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt while first starting out in life, and corpro-fascist fiefdoms are being established. For instance; Google.
A good deal of Google employees cannot afford to live in the cities that host the corporate headquarters so they have taken to living in trailers inside of said employer's parking lot. There is a literal Google village full of employees who all basically function as modern day serfs. What is worse, this stage of capitalism seems to affect the bleeding out of corporate HR policy into the society at large. The 'polite society' we see is no longer an organic society at all, but the result of people who are afraid to say anything at all out of line with said HR policies while off the clock because most small business has been run out, or is at risk of being bought out by conglomerates. It is a pretty miserable period in history. Group-think is the norm and common sense is non-existent.

I've never lived under communist rule but know plenty of people who have. I have heard that it was scary, life was cheap, and the fabric of society is held in place by a facade. Everyone seems to know it is a facade, but everyone is too afraid to question or confront it.

Both are terrible but nobody has come up with a new idea. Kind of sad, too, because coming up with a solution would be revolutionary. The other stuff is a larpy cringe.

Edited by RichardK
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What seems to work best in practice is a blend. Enough Capitalism to keep money being made. Enough Socialism (to use it as a catch-all term) to put a few brakes on and stop the workers becoming serfs. Getting the balance correct is probably impossible in reality, but you can get close enough 

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I’d say a major issue with capitalism is its general reliance upon endless growth in order for it to be viable. It’s not sustainable and a new more sustainable option needs to be utilised going forward. Certainly not communism though. An utterly ghastly ideology indeed. The Nordic model is likely a better alternative.

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  • 3 months later...
On 6/25/2020 at 5:41 PM, CaptainPronin said:

Bro no you are wrong my own special brand of communism hasn't been tried yet. All other communists were not real communists.

I'm just gonna assume that you're parodying and laugh appropriately with you. The alternative of course is that you're actually being sincere, in which case laughing is still the appropriate response.

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  • 4 months later...
On 1/22/2020 at 7:32 PM, Kiril Kolus said:

It's interesting to me how the naysayers always pick the authoritarian regimes to decry leftism/communism. You never discuss the DemSoc policies of countries like Sweden or the success of socialist policies elsewhere. I always found it as an interesting form of cherry-picking, though admittedly in your defense the stalinist-leninist regime did use the label first.

Sweden is not a Socialist Country though. It is a social democracy, which is capitalist. The means of production are controlled by mostly private industry and partly by the state; they are not controlled by the worker. Nor has the commodity form been abolished. Neither does Sweden have "socialist policies", but rather social democratic policies. You could say Sweden was moving towards socialism under Olof Palme in the late 70s and early 80s, but that stopped with his assassination in 1986.

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Texan Left-Communist and anti-authoritarian

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