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The Liberal in question:
Could you throw this back in the fryer? I think I see a few uncompressed pixels.
LaTeX spitting out an immaculate pdf with carefully calculated text distribution and vectorized fonts just to have it printed and scanned by the camera on a razr flip phone:
The New York Times will pick this up with a title “academic definitively disproves communism”.
Humans learn and change their behaviour based on the culture they are raised in. Capitalism enforces greed by threat of violence, starvation, and homelessness.
Idiots: “gReEd Is HuMaN nAtUrE”
References
[1] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Eher Verlag 1st edition, 1925
Idk, communism worked him pretty hard
He never got a chance to write a sequel. No idea why.
A critique of communism based on “human nature” is just a self-own by the West.
“Communism has yet to be achieved” “doesn’t work”
I’m not a communist, but this is weak af.
Rabbits are completely incapable of surviving!, see every time we drop a rabbit into an enclosed space filled with wolves, they get eaten, it just proves that only carnivores are able to survive.
Oh hang on we need to drop more herbavores into our carnivore cages because we have to keep propping up these carnivores.
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Socialist societies run by communist parties do exist, and as such we can look to their struggles and successes as representative of achieving socialism and communism.
I’m not a communist
I just think the reality of our social fabric reflects the need for a more socially-democratic approach for the time being. I’m a dummy though, and I’m always open to hearing other people’s thoughts on the subject if you’d like to share.
Assuming you mean preserving capitalism but increasing social safety nets, I disagree. The “nicer” social democracies all rely on imperialism to fund their safety nets, and are subject to the same dictatorial control capital has in capitalist systems. Moving beyond systems dominated by capital into ones where we collectively plan and direct production for the satisfaction of need is a historic necessity, and one economically compelled by the centralization and monopolization of capitalism over time.
Idk how far left you currently are, but reading State and Revolution by Lenin is what kind of opened my eyes to the whole “the state exists solely to protect capital and the rich”
It’s relatively short (though Lenin writes like he’s ADHD and angry lol) and you can find free translated versions in a bunch of different formats online because well it’s not like marxist-leninists are going to charge you lol
I’m not a communist btw, but the book is still interesting
I absolutely love Lenin’s writing, and how he always takes any chance he can to shit on Kautsky lmao
Not always, early on he respected Kautsky greatly, only when Kautsky sided with mensheviks he started to criticize him, and around 1915 when the attempts at reconciliation of socialdemocrats failed and Kautsky proven to be lead figure of the socialchauvinists Lenin goes full bag of bricks on him.
Yeah reading it without knowing basically any historical context or people is fun because you hear him mention names repeatedly and eventually you start going “yeah you tell him Lenin!” when you still have basically no idea who they are lol
Also just wanting to pack so much information into a single sentence to the point sentences are occasionally the size of paragraphs is very relatable.
Lenin’s great, both theoretically and from an entertainment perspective. His hate is pure!
Fair enough! For me I think it came down to a perspective shift on the design of liberal democracies. I would love it if the owning class was forward-thinking enough to allow social democracies to function well longitudinally. It seems that the dynamic is that workers fight for protections and social safety nets and then owners slowly gut those programs and push austerity. On a long enough time scale, social democracy decays.
I used to think we could essentially protest and activism our way out of this because I viewed liberal democracy as something which was fundamentally designed to serve the people and was corrupted to serve the owning class. Now I view liberal democracies as something which was designed to serve the owning class from the start. There was a big reason land ownership was originally required to vote in the United States. Lenin says in State and Revolution:
A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell … it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.
I think this naturally leads to questions about how to deal with the entrenchment of capitalists at a fundamental level and the answers lie in historical examples of societies which were able to do so. And all of this is made significantly more urgent by climate change.
To me the truly troubling thing about it is that I think social democracy works when people are educated, because educated people understand the role of trust, respect, and fear in the social contract. Unfortunately, we live in a world of half-educated, or frankly mis-educated people, that think magic thoughts about manifesting lottery wins and such. I think social democracy currently doesn’t work for the same reason communism wouldn’t which is that half of us are too stupefied to grasp the concepts. I’m not sure how to solve that, and alternatively (and somewhat tangentially) I despise people who lean into capitalism as a reaction to that fact. They’re a bunch of Erika Kirks to me.
People are actually very smart, and education works well. The problem is with systems run by capital is that they culturally reinforce bourgeois ideology and the state is ultimately run in their interests. Socialism on the other hand works for the people, and history has proven the people fully capable of grasping complex problems.
I think you’re right.
I think I’m a bit confused by the fact that when I was younger my conclusion was that everyone is smart, they just need access to information, but that wasn’t true. They need to be taught to process information first. What we have instead is everyone in their own little virtual reality where facts are estimated based on what feels best, because too few people understand the value and necessity of critical thinking and instead apply religious reasoning and whatnot.
It’s a bit deeper than that, though you’re close! What actually is going on is that people license themselves to believe that which benefits them is good, effective, etc. Education is critical, yes, but people’s receptiveness to new ideas depends on their material conditions.
Understood. Education is an absolutely vital aspect of worker liberation, which is why historical communist governments have prioritized mass literacy programs. It is unfortunate that in many cases it required a revolution and a change of ruling class for this education to be prioritized.
Good points, and to counter my own point: the source of a lot of the mis-education is capitalists attempting to maintain this lop-sided status quo… lol
It says “foolproof,” duh.
My bad!
We good.
Thank fuck!
Ngl, I was a bit worried for a moment, too.
I mean, I agree communism is an impossible dream. Socialism is much more obtainable
And by socialism you mean what? The Nordic model?
Communism is just the natural result of a socialist society working through and resolving its contradictions. Socialism is of course necessary before communism, socialism is the transition between capitalism and communism. There’s nothing about communism that’s impossible or a dream.
Pure capitalism hasn’t ever been tried either.
Please define pure capitalism
Letting the free hand of the market do its thing unfettered by government regulations.
The entire system is property and contact law that underpins capitalism is a government regulation. You talk like “the Free Hand” is an interventionist god, but it’s not actually real, and capitalism only exists because the government enforces it
free market means consumers are free to choose where to buy from, it absolutely requires government regulations.
That’s a fast trip to feudalism.
It’s like you took The Road to Serfdom as gospel at 17 and then turned your brain off ever since. Just a babe in the wood.
In my dreams there are no woods just businesses as far as the eye can see all selling you your greatest dreams.
Like Times Square but everywhere.
That’s a good bit
The problem is that you still think those are realizable dreams when they’re not. You may as well dream of owning a flying unicorn.
If the government wasn’t tying the hands of corporations through regulations and if there was enough consumer demand they definitely would be selling flying unicorns.
You’re already in fantasy land, so sure, why not. Also the flying unicorns fart rainbows.
Using government issued currency? Is it still capitalism then?
So you’re OK with corporations having the power over your life instead? Just allow them to pollute your drinking water or allow them to put whatever they want in your food? You want to try those things?
I wish people would just think this though a bit.
Do you think corporations want to kill their customers?
No they want them to be rich, happy and healthy so they keep coming back and spending more money.
The problem is for each company that thinks of long term, you have 10 companies that only thinks of short term.
No they want them to be rich, happy and healthy so they keep coming back and spending more money.
It’s like cigarette companies never existed. Babe in the wood.
You may not be a parody account but you may as well be.
Corporations want one thing, profits.
If you can make profit by enslaving people, cutting corners with health and safety standards, and polluting the environment, they will. If they don’t, they’ll get “out competed” by the companies that do and drive the “inefficient” companies out of business. Then we get monopolization which we can’t do anything about because that’s regulation.
they want them to be rich, happy and healthy so they keep coming back and spending more money.
See there’s the problem right there. They don’t need customers to be any of those things to suck every last cent out of them. Corporations would love nothing more than becoming a monopoly on human essentials like food, water, housing, etc… because people will go to great lengths to afford food whether they like it or not.
