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You want to bind my wrists with the shackles of universal healthcare you monster!
“Nothing” is definitely an interesting way to pronounce “many things”
So how is that different from what, for instance the Mongols or the Romans did?
Neither were a threat to the biosphere
What an odd thing to say. Is that the bar you think we need to clear?
It was an honest question. I’m looking for a good faith answer. What sets the British empire apart from those that came before or after it?
Not too familiar with the roman systems, but here’s a relevant text from a wikipedia article on capitalism:
The economic foundations of the feudal agricultural system began to shift substantially in 16th-century England as the manorial system had broken down and land began to become concentrated in the hands of fewer landlords with increasingly large estates. Instead of a serf-based system of labor, workers were increasingly employed as part of a broader and expanding money-based economy. The system put pressure on both landlords and tenants to increase the productivity of agriculture to make profit; the weakened coercive power of the aristocracy to extract peasant surpluses encouraged them to try better methods, and the tenants also had incentive to improve their methods in order to flourish in a competitive labor market. Terms of rent for land were becoming subject to economic market forces rather than to the previous stagnant system of custom and feudal obligation.
where do they explicitly teach that communism is bad?
that feels like - real bad.
They didn’t do that in your school? I tought that was standard practice.
we actually had an AFD member as our social studies teacher (AFD is one of the right-leaning parties in germany).
and… yea, he was fin guy. but most importantly: he was open to talking about stuff.
we had some genuine discussions about capitalism and communism and how things could work out. and… surprise surprise, we ended on the exact same values: capitalism is looking really shoddy rn, but if somehow everyone on earth would turn into a nice peep with altruistic values, high amounts of empathy and a drive ti genuinely make the world a better place and make people happy - capitalism may work well.
im very sorry fir saying that. iguess… Germany’s social democracy dumbed me down to believing there could be a good world under capitalism - aaaawhoppsie- (sorry)
Right leaning is putting it lightly.
The Nazis were also right leaning.
Wow.
AfD is the neo nazi party of Germany. Fixed that for you.
Edit: Fick die AfD!
I was explicitly taught as a child that communism was a self-destructive framework of ideas that threatens our future prosperity. For this reason we won’t be studying the ideology but instead study the harmful effects such as famines.
And that’s as far as I understood it for more than a decade.
It’s especially ironic considering the Dustbowl Years came about due to bad farming practices (thanks to capitalism).
Yeah capitalism has many famines of it’s own to account for
To them communism is what capitalism is to us
This assigns too much legitimacy to the position. The working class are not capitalists because we have no capital with which to commit legal theft through property law or pay thugs to enforce those laws with violence.
The working class under capitalism are beholden to systems they often do not understand, cannot exercise agency within, and are actively stymied from prospering under.
Capitalism dehumanizes even those who support it. Those who support it are conditioned to reflexively demonize alternative systems. To rise above this culturally ingrained propaganda and advocate for alternatives requires seeing capitalism for what it is.
Alternative systems are to them what the bogeyman is to children.
to us
To all of us including them.
Good job, Marc, now you almost get it! You’re just a bit confused.
I actually came here to defend Marc’s clever rhet.: one of these people paid a Nazi to a status symbol. One of is still using capitalist means to aggregate solidarity.
There is, in fact, a lot stopping people from forming communes all over the place
Namely, capitalism.
Is there? There are hundreds of giant worker co ops here in brazil, and I know multiple people who live in amarchist communities in the wooxds. Most of them don’t last very long, but they do try, and then stop on theirbown accord.
BTW, a giant worker co op named Aurora was responaible for slave like conditions in one of their many grape farms.
I can only really speak for the US it doesn’t seem to go over too well here, and uh, americans making a commune in south america doesn’t have a really good track record either lol
Pass the KoolAid
Worker unions bad, police unions enforcing corporate-aligned government rules good.
…and if you do, hoooooo boy. I hope you like a coup, because you are going to get a coup.… or sanctions… or a blockade… or all three.
And don’t get too big or the FBI or ATF is on their way
That’s just a shitty thing to say. As if the CIA doesn’t do this work, local business owners and sheriffs won’t form a militia, or any of dozens of other federal agencies don’t put in the work murdering people for trying to share.
Communism and socialism isn’t the silver bullet everyone makes it out to be, as in practice it has always led to totalitarian (or at least highly authoritarian) regimes, which is pretty disgusting.
Capitalism is gross too, but I don’t think a realistic and appropriate solution exists.
There’s anarchism which I most approve of, but I’ll probably be gray before any country ever seriously even considers moving in such a direction.
Is it an automated answer ? Because capitalism is leading to fascist right now. And 10k élite will live in Paradise when will be enslaved by robots. I dunno, but look like can’t be worst.
Do you think it is, or are you just trying to use that to smear me? Pass it through zerogpt or some ai detector instead of randomly going “AI”.
I never said capitalism is good.
Zero comprehension.
Communism has lead to fascism too. Doesn’t mean communism is any better, smartass.
No I think you are repeating year of propaganda. Sorry if you felt compared to ai. I redpiled by propaganda for years was like that too, I see things in grey now. I dunno for communism, but starting with some kind of cooperative looks a great start. And you grouped socialisme with communisme then used defaults of communisme to discredit both, I dunno if you noticed.
“Propaganda”.
I don’t interact with “pill” content.
you grouped socialisme with communisme then used defaults of communisme to discredit both, I dunno if you noticed.
Yes, because socialism is supposed to be the bridge to communism. Have you read communist theory?
So why reject a good idea, i mean part of socialisme, like UBI ( with AI there is pressure for this), healthcare (mostly done for civilized countries). Nope I didn’t read any of these, I mostly chat to people, some time got friction and revise my point of view. I usually research and discover thing by parts. I can’t take the time (in the way it is big effort to start this kind of activity), I got ADHD. So I concentrate my energy of concentration on work and familly. I got diagnosed few year ago so I am adapting. For politic let’s say I didn’t had tile, life is turbulent. So If you want to take time to explain, I am always curious of things.
Because I don’t see it as a good idea.
Socialism is meant to be a developmental stage to prepare the conditions to switch to communism. Communism leads to totalitarian regimes, which is amongst the worst outcomes in my view. These states are highly authoritarian and controlling, and it’s a direct attack on individual liberty, freedom of speech, and the ability to hold people in power responsible in general.
UBI and healthcare are cool, but neither socialism (nor communism) is doing that. AI won’t be used to achieve these ends. There’s two reasons for this:
- The AI boom seems to be declining. It likely won’t last 5 years. Every single company investing in AI has incurred losses, not profits. Then there’s the environmental and resource impacts of AI and data centers needed to run them. It’s not sustainable. Companies are recalling their previously fired human workforce.
https://isaiprofitable.com/ This website tracks the profitability of AI. It hasn’t changed much, it’s still losses. Nvidia is the only “winner” but this is misleading for many reasons. Mainly because 1) it’s at the top of this pyramid scheme and is essentially at the heart of the circular AI economy, 2) because Nvidia has (iirc) literally decided to modify the way it discloses profits w.r.t. AI so that it looks profitable.
- Even if AI was profitable (which it isn’t), it is an instrument of the ruling elite. It’s owned by large private institutions, not the common man. Private corporations never have the interests of the common man; they will simply be used as a facet of control via technofascism. In other words, AI won’t be used to generate UBI, it’ll only be used for surveillance and controlling the masses because it’s in the hands of the state and corporations.
More on UBI: we’ve had research experiments on UBI take place in Canada and in the EU and they’ve typically ended positively. None were continued. States and governments don’t want what’s best for their people. They want control and power over the masses.
That’s why I’m an anarchist.
You can have an anarchist cooperative, most anarchists don’t like how communism lends itself to strong man politics and cults of personality.
I don’t know anarchism well enough. I fear that anachisme lead to individualisme too, like capitalisme. Which will lead to an eroding sens of the others. Because we are a social specie, and we need communities. I think housing blocs should be centrally managed like copropriety in Europe, where every owner have a say and a vote. And everybody working in a country for a country should have a home no but.
Anarchism can absolutely extend such housing rights.
Anarchists are staunchly against capitalism. It’s built on community practice. The difference between anarchism and communism is that anarchists actively reject hierarchy.
Your suggestions of centralized control are concerning.
Eurocommunism (Western socialism) and Social Democracy (Nordic Socialism) have been very successful in Europe. FDR’s New Deal was also influenced by Socialism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocommunism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Perkins
The problem with debating about socialism online is that the terms socialism and communism are not well defined and have completely different meanings depending on who you ask. Marx didn’t invent the terms, and he would also probably disagree fiercely with all of the self-proclaimed socialists and communists in the different societies of the world.
Anarchism is good stuff, but personally I don’t think it’s possible to ensure liberty for billions of people in a society without a (fiercely democratic) state. I would like to see more syndicalism and democratically run companies and co-ops. The biggest sin of capitalism is the idea that generational wealth gives you voting rights over the largest organizations in society.
The EU is largely capitalist, it just has welfare policies and a welfare state that have been effective.
I’m against the conception of a state, because I’m against centralized control and hierarchy. They always lead to exploitation, oppression, and the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of few over the interests of the majority.
Syndicalism is something I’m in favour of too, though.
“Nothing stopping you” except the government. “Which government?” Most of them.
Stop trying to enslave me in a world where my neighbor gets to eat! I wanna live in a world where none of us get to eat, and we work all day to maintain our poverty!
In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici proposes that even before the 1500s as a process of primitive accumulation, proto capitalist used the witch purges in Europe to usher in the family structures required to begin capitalism, killing hundreds of thousands of women in the process.
Primitive Accumulation: The Collapse of Feudalism
Primitive Accumulation: The Great European Witch Hunts
These two hefty videos from Red Pen lay out Federici’s analysis updated with modern scholarship since Caliban’s publication to demonstrate this process in an extremely coherent way. It’s a masterpiece of historical dialectics education on Red Pen’s part and a phenomenal way to understand the deep historical roots of capitalism and the horrifying brutality of how women were violently domesticated as perhaps the most foundational piece of capitalism’s birth.
It’s been a while since reading Caliban and the Witch, but I recently bought a copy for a friend to read. So it’d be good to do a refresher if they end up wanting to talk about it in depth. I’ll have to give these a watch, thanks!
I love a good quote with source! Isn’t the actual figure highly disputed?
Yeah, it really depends on how you track it. Modern estimations place it from 40-60 thousand official executions. However that does not count lynchings, people who died in prison, or while being questioned or because of their torture afterwards.
“But if your ‘experiment’ works too well…”
The Invisible Doctrine does a good job of explaining how capitalism happened and where we are today. Fairly depressing but informative.
Gonna throw in “Debt: First 5000 Years” by Graeber if anyone wants even more historical perspective on how it came to be.
hey thanks for the suggestion. I also suggest the amazing book Kicking Away The Ladder by Ha Joon Chang.
“Nothing is stopping you” - actually not true, you need government permission and they will just say no.
Every single attempt at establishing a communist society was fought tooth and nail every step of the way by capitalists. By any means necessary.
Yep. Everything is designed to force individualism. You need to buy a house, illegal to live in a tent even if you own land which is comparably cheap.
So I can legally buy an acre of woodland for under £20k, possibly £10k at a push though they usually charge more per area for small patches, depends on location. I could also build several cabins or put up multiple tents, so far all legal.
The moment someone lives there, illegal. The government can now seize the property. They have done so in the past when people have tried.
The moment someone lives there, illegal. The government can now seize the property. They have done so in the past when people have tried.
Wat? please tell me you are exaggerating
No. You need permission from the (local) government to live anywhere. Houses come with this permission, but if you buy a field or woodland it does not. Fuck all chance of getting it outside of some very special edge cases.
Nothing stopping you. Well, except for the federal government and its military.
