one of my favorite takes on this subject is from This Soviet World by Anna Louise Strong:
Most Americans shrink from the word “dictatorship.” “I don’t want to be dictated to,” they say. Neither, in fact, does anyone. But why do they instinctively take the word in its passive meaning, and see themselves as the recipients of orders? Why do they never think that they might be the dictators? Is that such an impossible idea? Is it because they have been so long hammered by the subtly misleading propaganda about personal dictatorships, or is it because they have been so long accustomed to seek the right to life through a boss who hires them, that the word dictatorship arouses for them the utterly incredible picture of one man giving everybody orders?
No country is ruled by one man. This assumption is a favorite red herring to disguise the real rule. Power resides in ownership of the means of production—by private capitalists in Italy, Germany and also in America, by all workers jointly in the USSR. This is the real difference which today divides the world into two systems, in respect to the ultimate location of power. When a Marxist uses the word “dictatorship,” he is not alluding to personal rulers or to methods of voting; he is contrasting rule by property with rule by workers.
The heads of government in America are not the real rulers. I have talked with many of them from the President down. Some of them would really like to use power for the people. They feel baffled by their inability to do so; they blame other branches of government, legislatures, courts. But they haven’t analyzed the real reason. The difficulty is that they haven’t power to use. Neither the President nor Congress nor the common people, under any form of organization whatever, can legally dispose of the oil of Rockefeller or the gold in the vaults of Morgan. If they try, they will be checked by other branches of government, which was designed as a system of checks and balances precisely to prevent such “usurpation of power.” Private capitalists own the means of production and thus rule the lives of millions. Government, however chosen, is limited to the function of making regulations which will help capitalism run more easily by adjusting relations between property and protecting it against the “lawless” demands of non-owners. This constitutes what Marxists call the dictatorship of property. “The talk about pure democracy is but a bourgeois screen,” says Stalin, “to conceal the fact that equality between exploiters and exploited is impossible. . . . It was invented to hide the sores of capitalism . . . and lend it moral strength.”
Power over the means of production—that gives rule. Men who have it are dictators. This is the power the workers of the Soviet Union seized in the October Revolution. They abolished the previously sacred right of men to live by ownership of private property. They substituted the rule: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.” -
Just as capitalist states are “authoritarian” against working class interests, socialist states are “authoritarian” against capitalist interests.
The state is a tool for one class to oppress another. The goal of (most) communists therefore is to transition from capitalism — where the capitalist class is in power — to a stateless, classless communist society via socialism — where the working class is in power.
Public perception of which is more “authoritarian” therefore depends on which class is currently in power, and that is the capitalist class in the vast majority of the world right now since the USSR’s overthrow.
A five minute primer on Herman & Chomsky’s propaganda model:
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media MachineHere is an alternative Piped link(s):
Noam Chomsky - The 5 Filters of the Mass Media Machine
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
socialist states are “authoritarian” against capitalist interests
The problem with this claim is that the USSR was quite authoritarian towards everyone. The Gulags were a place merely of political repression. Political jokes that are part and parcel of American late night comedy shows would get people harsh labor sentences during certain periods. The claim that this had to happen to protect the working class seems thin.
read the resent news of Julian Assange or John Pilger there’d be a lot more if i could think to name them
You don’t know what you’re talking about
One regime’s political-dissident-by-speech is another’s dissident-by-drug-addiction. America’s “War on Drugs” was purely political disenfranchisement along racial lines, and it’s a major reason why the US continues to have higher incarceration rates than the USSR had in many of the years the Gulag system was operational.
By the way, prison rape jokes have long been a part of those late night comedy shows, to give you an idea of just how ingrained the American prison culture is.
Because they are. They are all very bad at social justice, probably because no matter the best intentions, humans are going to fuck it up. China isn’t even communist, it’s capitalist through and through. They have lousy worker protections, banks, housing markets, stock markets. The USSR was as expansionist and militaristic as any fascist regime, just like the current Russian one. Korea is essentially a tyrannical monarchy, no real communism to be found there. Why do you think the first ones to go up against the wall after a revolution are the true believers? Because they know it’s all gone wrong.
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bc crackers got lucky 500 years ago by finding an entire hemisphere of free money, thus any “free commerce” after this date necessarily advantages crackers, and “authoritarian” (AKA anti-freecommerce) measures are necessary to avoid a horde of crackers (and one Iranian cuck) owning the entire oil deposits of Iran
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bc crackers lie about everything including the 1st definition, and most people regardless of race only watch and listen to cracker media and learn cracker languages and spend their time in cracker echo-chambers, and also most people are just stoopid (way too stupid to be cognizant of this), so even when point #1 ceases to be true and commerce starts to benefit some Asian country who pulled themselves up against all titanic odds, you will still have billions of people agreeing with the worldwide cracker circlejerk
Damn you really hate white people
Let’s do a fun thought experiment, shall we?
Ctrl+c, [super]+t, vim swap.txt, i, ctrl+shift+v, [esc], :%s/crackers/ni*****/gPost the results and see if that still has 31 up and 15 down…
According to people like these, white people are the devil incarnate.
No, they’re Saltines.
Cracka.
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Well, us socialists have free health care and education. Most of us socialist states have female bodily autonomy. Were not big on banning books either. Most importantly we recognise a false dichotomy. Also we actually know what socialism is. Try visiting Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe. You’ll notice that they’re are not authoritarian at all. You might just be an American, but that’s not your fault.
Politically they have ended up authoritarian in many instances. However, capitalism has as much “authoritarianism”, just economically. Try whatever -ism you like, enough percentage of population is psychopathic and will climb to a position of power in some form or another. It’s in our collective nature.
Most large-scale attempts at communism were managed in a centralized way top-down by force. One strong leader, usually with a cult of personality. Glorification of the military. Devaluation of individual life and emphasis on sacrifice for the common good. Suppression of dissent by violence.
You can see the parallels with fascism. I’d even argue that what we know as communism and fascism mainly differ in their approach to the economy.
On the other hand, capitalism exists and thrives in chaos. It doesn’t exclude authoritarianism - actually it tends to produce it when capitalists capture the government. But some capitalist countries manage not to slide all the way and have been keeping up some kind of freedom for decades, so it kinda works.
Ah yes, the legendary capitalist freedom to go homeless and die of preventable diseases. And the awful authoritarian communism of providing full employment and eliminating poverty.
If you don’t think the USA is the most authoritarian country ever, your definition of authoritarianism is useless.
You know absolutely jack shit about how Lenin came to power, or what Stalin did to maintain it do you?
Communism sounds great on paper and if anyone ever works it out successfully irl I am in.
The problem is they always try to use power to achieve their goals and that corrupts a society from the beginning.
Grown organically it might work but for some reason people really hate communists
Lenin is great, and Stalin literally saved the world. The USSR was a great success. It was as authoritarian as any western “democracy”. Prove me wrong bozo.
How did they go about it though?
At the barrel of a gun.
The same way they kept it going.
Discuss what they achieved all you want, you can be a great man without being a good one.
Damn revolution bad? I guess we should just lie down and accept how things are then. Better the death of millions of people, billions very soon, from the system that exists; than thousands from a revolution. You are very wise.
Have all of the revolutions you want, just don’t force others to live by your choices.
If you have the support, then good.
If not, go start your own thing.
Buy some land and start a community, support each other and grow larger through shared experiences and work.
If you get enough, you can start your own town.
Yeah you kind of still have to play by other rules as far as taxes, but you could be self-sufficient and off the grid.
Residential windmills and solar panels have come a long way, recycling would be easier, and if you get the right machine, you can actually burn trash for power.
Move in more people like yourself and you can probably go big enough to take over a county by sheer weight of legitimacy.
That’s probably as big as you could go though, the Mormons have kind of got Utah, but they’ve been working on that since like the 1850’s I think, and they still only have influence, a rather large amount of influence, but not control
Yeah, the legendary communist free world, where you went to gulag, if you dared to think of your own. And the awful authoritarian capitalists of bringing up the average quality of life that much since ww2. /S
Sorry, but this view is very much too simple.
What country has the biggest prison population both by raw numbers and on a per capital basis?
By raw numbers obviously the US, followed by china with not too many less. Per capita El Salvador and Cuba are on the first two places. So what’s your point? Per Capita and in raw numbers there is a capitalist country and a country which calls itself socialist on place one and two.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
Better check your facts before next time.
Now include Guam and Puerto Rico, which are US territories.
? I really don’t know what you are hinting at. In raw numbers the US will still be number 1 followed by China and per capita adding in countries with a lower incarceration rate and less people than the USA won’t lift up the USA in the ranking.
I flubbed one stat that doesn’t really move the needle on the point I was trying to make. I was thinking of world powers and didn’t double check to make sure nations scorned by empire didn’t barely hedge the US out of the top 5 on per capital (though another of its territories made it).
America is a remarkably “authoritarian” country by all standards whether they be prisons, police spending, or military spending.
Perhaps, if NATOpedia’s raw data is to be trusted.
Incarceration rates and counts. From World Prison Brief
The World Prison Brief at PrisonStudies.org is an online database providing free access to information on prison systems around the world. It is now hosted by the Institute For Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), Birkbeck College, University of London.
It was previously hosted by the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS). It was a research centre at the University of Essex. It was launched at the House of Lords on 4 April 2011. Between 1997 and 2010 ICPS was based in King’s College London and was launched formally by Home Secretary Jack Straw in October 1997. In July 2010 the International Centre for Prison Studies incorporated and registered as a charity with the Charities Commission of England and Wales. From the outset the Centre was independent of governmental and intergovernmental agencies, although it would work closely with them.
So who really knows what the quality of the data is without further investigation. But it seems to have been originally created by the UK’s military-intelligence-industrial complex.
Let me guess, you’re an American who has never been outside of the USA, never read anything about other countries, and believes 'Murica is the greatest one forever and only one that matters (even in evil)
This. This post right here is why no one takes this place seriously.
That chart is pretty great, because it shows that only a tiny minority of US states have smaller incarceration rates than Russia.
Oh yeah, the whole blue state red state thing is just degrees of awful.
I’m not going to stick up for the U.S. carceral system, but it does not really speak unequivocally to the matter at hand now does it?
You can see the parallels with fascism.
Totalitarianism, AKA authoritarianism. Hannah Arendt came from wealth and so unsurprisingly was anticommunist. Her work was financially supported and promoted by the CIA. This is a bourgeois liberal, intentionally anticommunist construct that lumps fascism and communism in the same bucket.
Monthly Review, The CIA and the Cultural Cold War Revisited
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the “Democratic Left” and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
If fact almost all of the “Western left” (that wasn’t crushed by red scares) was captured by the imperial core’s propaganda machine: Imperialist Propaganda and the Ideology of the Western Left Intelligentsia: From Anticommunism and Identity Politics to Democratic Illusions and Fascism
Projection of the contradiction of capital, capitalists states only allow freedom to those that can pay and has the illusion of free choice only when it comes to consumption.
Wew lad but can you ever tell this is .ml.
So, thought experiment for you. What do you need to overthrow a government and oust a bunch of rich assholes from power? Well, you need power of your own, right? You need loyal comrades.
And say you actually manage it. Chances are it was tough. Some didn’t make it. But now you’re sitting on all this wealth and power. Are you just going to give it back? To who? What if someone abuses it?
You’re the one who did the work. You’re the one with a vision for the future. And now you have these loyal comrades and surely they deserve something for their sacrifices and hard work?
And so it goes.
Anyway, it’s less about Communism as a set of ideas and more about what power does to revolutionaries and how that mixes with the local culture.
Or the CIA made it all up because Mao and Stalin et al did nothing wrong. 🙄
I’ve never seen it put so well. But yeah, it’s super hard for anything nice to actually follow a revolution without outside support.
And there is always outside influence too. That outside influence might make even the best of socialist experiments fail because of embargoes and assassinations. Or maybe the outside influence wants the socialism to succeed, but maybe it has to be their brand of socialism, or else.
Or the CIA made it all up because Mao and Stalin et al did nothing wrong. 🙄
They made mistakes. But overall their countries were a gazillion times better from their influence.
It’s simple to label a government as “authoritarian” just because they have things called “laws” that prevent you from exploiting their people. Likewise, it’s convenient to repeatedly tell your citizens that distant, non-English-speaking countries are “authoritarian.” The truth is, for every Westerner who can afford to travel and verify these claims, a million others will just accept what the media tells them. They’ll even go on to reinforce these narratives, despite having no firsthand experience or direct connection to these places.
because capitalists have to lie about reality to preserve their ill gotten gains.
some people have to be forced into being a part of a social system.
IE, there are people who would rather let others die in the streets than have their taxes raised. some people are just terrible human beings who believe ‘i got mine, fuck everyone else’ which is antithetical to socialism, and requires a heavy hand via regulation.
Because authority carried out under the pretenses of private property is whitewashed in liberal states, who are the ones in your question doing the “considering”.
Because of who controls the presses in capitalist countries.
Yeah this question is always incomplete; considered by who?
Because communism doesn’t work for large, heterogenous groups, so increasing amounts of coercion are used to keep the system running.
And new forms of government such as socialism are generally more succeptible to corruption as people find the new loopholes; as a government gets more corrupt, those who corrupted it seek to consolidate their power.
I think socialism can be made workable, as we examine and correct the problems with previous attempts. I don’t think communism works well for human societies, as it requires people to act better than we know they do.
Because communism doesn’t work for large, heterogenous groups
I hear a lot of variations of this “socialism can’t work for a large heterogenous group” and its such a dumb lib brainworm. Its incredibly rascist for one (obviously too if you think about it for more than 1 second) and the population size argument is just nonsensical. The largest country in the world is communist and has a heterogenous population. The USSR had a large heterogenous population and that fact had nothing to do with the eventual dissolution, but did have much to do with its success
Leaving aside nonsensically calling the CCP socialist or the USSR a success, I’m curious about your racism argument.
I don’t see how acknowledging that racism exists and is a barrier to class unity is racist. I tend to think acknowledging that racism exists is the first step towards fighting racism. What’s your reasoning here?
I’ll note as well that that criticism was towards communism, not socialism which I think can work just fine for both large groups and diverse ones.
You don’t know enough about what you’re talking about to be worth arguing with. I was just pointing out the stupid rascist lib talking point cause it comes up all the time for anyone who’s actually interested in learning about things you have failed to investigate but want to run your mouth about
Edit: also considering it nonsensical to consider the PRC to be a socialist nation is also pretty rascist
I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have included arguments in my request for clarification, that was extremely poor form and you were right to have been dismissive.
But if I have some previously unexamined belief that’s rooted in racism, I do earnestly want to correct it. If you’ve got something to teach me that can help, I want to hear it and will thank you for telling me.
if I have some previously unexamined belief that’s rooted in racism, I do earnestly want to correct it.
I already pointed them out and you doubled down, but I’ll try to give a quick explanation.
The PRC is socialist and governed by a communist party. They have a series of 5 year plans that culminate in reaching full socialism by 2050.
The reason many westerners say they’re “communist in name only” is partially because of the reforms under Deng that allowed for capital development in order to build the productive forces that could be utilized to build functioning socislism under the nose of US imperial hegemony. Those reforms were controversial amoung communists at the time, but the government under Xi is making good on the intention of those reforms right now, and history has proven them to have been effective. The other part of the reason is Western chauvanism/rascism. “Non-whites cant do socialism right - they’re authoritarians.” This arguement is leveled at every actually existing socialist project by Western “leftists.”
So it isn’t “nonsensical” to consider the PRC to be what it considers itself to be, and has demonstrated itself to be. You just have to actually be informed about it
The original point about “can’t do socialism because of large, heterogenous population.” Besides being obvioulsy wrong because there’s examples of actually existing socialism that had or have large, heterogenous populations, i always point out that the statement is rascist. I do this because most people repeating it, haven’t even thought about how its rascist.
Its a brainworm people in the US use to explain why they can’t have the kind of social democracy they have in Scandinavian countries - at least that’s the context I’ve always heard it used. This is a “nonsensical” trueism. First, the Scandinavian countries they’re refering to are 1) not socialist to begin with, they’re social democracies. 2) they aren’t homogeneous, they also have ethnic minorities and have rascism.
That statement is not a meaningful acknowledgement of rascism, its an acquiescence to it. Its an appeal to rascism as an arguement why something just can’t happen in the US. It also ignores the actual reasons impeding social democracy, let alone socislism which is the entrenched position of capitalist hegemony, the power and depth of its propaganda apparatus, and the relatively privileged position of US workers vs those in the global south due to imperialist exploitation and extraction.
Thanks for taking the time to write all this out for me, especially the stuff about China’s capital projects. I will certainly be less blithe about trotting out the party line on that topic.
No problem, you’re welcome. I actually misread your last post and thought you were being sarcastic but thought I’d give that info anyway lol, sorry about misreading.
Yeah until i started learning about socialism and learning about actually existing socialism i had no clue about the nuances of China’s development either. There was a lot of skepticism about Deng’s reforms at the time and to the present, but the actions of the Party under Xi have begun the process of reigning the capitalist expansion in and redirecting those productive forces toward the goal of full socialism by 2050.
There’s an important distinction that AES states recognize - that they’re socialist projects even if they aren’t currently in a state of full socialism. Socialism is diffucult to create. Marx theorized that revolutions would take place where fully developed capitalism already existed for the workers to then take control over, and use thise productive forces to build socialism. But the Revolutions in Russia and China (and the subsequent revolutions in the global south) required some reevalution. Generally speaking, the revolutionary potential was weak in the highly developed capitialist countries and was strongest in the areas ravaged by Western imperialism. But following the successful revolutions measures were required to industrialize and build the forces and conditions necessay to create socialism. Western left anti-communists chauvinisticly tend to point to full socialism not existing already in AES as them “not doing it right” despite the fact that they are actually creating socialism, while the Western left has achieved basically nothing.
The USA has by far the largest prison population in absolute terms and per capita. You have no idea what you are saying.
I’d argue that no system truly works for larger groups.
more susceptible to corruption
I couldn’t disagree more. Any system is very susceptible to corruption. It’s all about accountability and transparency, which those in power will never make themselves do, because it is actively harming them by stripping them of opportunities to amass more power and influence.
And that is true in any system. Communist states became totalitarian dictatorships, while Capitalist nations also grow more corrupt because of greed and power lust, to the point where you see things like “the revolving door” in the USA, or the Tory party donors essentially paying for peerages in the UK. And of course, there’s also lobbying.
Corruption is everywhere and the common man gets screwed over regardless of the system or people in charge, because the good people are always too good to compete, fight, and play dirty against these politicians so the winners are always the evil ones.
Oh I completely agree.
Established systems, at least ones that last, tend to have checks on corruption or on consolidating power. These are not always effective, obviously, and corruption is always a danger. My critique was specifically how newer systems have new and unforseen avenues do these antisocial activities.
That’s not only an incredibly nihilistic way of seeing the world, but also it is exactly what the bourgeoise dictatorships want you to see: “everything is terrible but the dreaded others are worse, now shut up and work for my 10th yacht”
That’s not what I said. I said everywhere is terrible.
And to be honest, yes, other places have it worse. I used to live in arguably the worst nation in Eastern Europe and I like in the UK now. I sure as hell know which one gibes me more life opportunities, higher quality and diversity of jobs, better education and higher quality of life.
And that’s without even considering the places that are at war.
So yes, people in other places have it much much worse.
Now in terms of nihilism, I actually see myself as more of an absurdist, as ultimately I’ll carry on living in this meaningless universe in spite of its lack of meaning and I will achieve a level of success and satisfaction with my own achievements, (hell, I kinda already have) in spite of the aforementioned
bastardspoliticians.
complains about capitalism
Is this communism?
Love reading liberals play with their words. Like bud you don’t actually have to log on and start writing things about subjects you clearly aren’t well studied in. You can actually choose to just not do that lol
For some reason people who don’t read theory / materialist history really don’t understand how incredibly silly comments like Nemo’s come across to those who do.
It’s always striking to see “liberal” used as an epithet. It’s like trying to insult someone by calling them “well-read”.
Liberal means someone who’s either misinformed about their own interests, or someone who willingly aligns with capitalist interests.
Liberal isn’t some badge of honor. It’s the default ideology in every western nation.
Liberal isn’t some badge of honor. It’s the default ideology in every western nation.
Exactly. Being a liberal requires zero reading or effort on any westoids part. Its the recieved ideology
Do you call women femoids too?
Maybe I was too generous, and the reason attempts at communism and socialism tend to go authoritarian is because some holding those ideologies have unnecessary decided to align themselves against liberalism.
Yeah there’s no reconciliation between communist and liberal ideology. They propose fundamentally different frameworks for how the world operates. Liberals place emphasis on individual actions, intention, sentiment, or how changing people’s minds is the engine of history.
Communists with a material outlook propose the primacy of material distribution and class. Liberals don’t believe class exists, or that it doesn’t operate as a coherent political interest group.
If liberals are about intentions & sentiments then why do they keep telling me they’re about facts & logic?
Hey, thanks for your clear and cogent comment. It helped me understand why the antipathy exists and how my own biases were clouding my perspective. You clearly understand liberalism much better than I understand communism, but now at least I understand it a little better. Props.
Oh, thanks for replying in good faith. A lot of people gave you hostility because you did say something that seems a little misinformed. And people get ruffled by seeing that kinda thing so often. But good on you for taking the time to read stuff.
I’d really recommend reading this: The Principles of Communism by Engels.
It’s very clearly written, short, and explains what exactly communist ideology is and who it represents.
In very brief: Communists believe there are two classes, workers and business owners. This is always a hostile relationship that can’t be mended, since the two want different things. So we propose the working class should abolish the business owning class.
Liberals do not believe this relationship is hostile, or they don’t believe it exists. Or they believe it can be mended through the use of state intervention. That’s one of the primary differences here.
Ironically, a comparison only someone who’s never cracked a history book could think is apt.
In other words a liberal
I really appreciate you hand sending this extremely funny comment straight to my inbox, thanks. Normally I’d have to scroll through some straight up boring shit to find a nugget like this.
Liberalism is founded on facts and logic, therefore liberals have an inalienable right to expound on unfounded ideas.
NO INVESTIGATION, NO RIGHT TO SPEAK
Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!
And new forms of government such as socialism are generally more succeptible to corruption as people find the new loopholes; as a government gets more corrupt, those who corrupted it seek to consolidate their power.
This is capitalism tho.
This is every system, but new systems have new avenues for corruption and usually no established defense against it.
