Comment on You have nothing to lose but your brains

• Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Communism is just utopia. It’s the fantasy of a German man from a bygone era of how he thought a perfect society should look like. It’s not a realistic or practical ideology, and never was. This is why every single attempt at achieving it in history results in failure and it’s the reason why that’s always going to be the case.

  You can’t run an economy based fictional utopias or treating some German philosopher’s subpar ideas as gospel. The economy, like with anything else in society, has to be run pragmatically. It needs to be studied like any other academic subject, and the research should be used to organize and refine what’s been proven to work and what doesn’t. Likewise, people who are experts on the subject should be the ones drafting guidelines that drive the economy, and the advice they give should be based on their society’s current problems. If it’s makes sense for their country’s economy to have socialized healthcare then they should do that, if it makes sense for their country to privatize their country’s musical instrument industry then they should do that. This idea that we have to box ourselves and our economies into some ideological box never made sense to me.

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  • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    You didn’t answer my question and you ignored my point.

    Communism can mean many things, and many things that call themselves communism have very little to nothing to do with what Marx wrote about. As an aside, Marx was not just a grumpy philosopher, he was also an economist who laid the foundation for thinking of the economy in terms of power, ownership and democracy. The Marxian school of economics is still influential today.

    Your ramblings about “communism has always failed” leads me to believe that you are talking about Marxism-Leninism, which I also believe is outdated and dominated by dogmatic thinking, but I digress. Let’s increase our scope to socialism as a whole. Now let me rephrase: Existing socialism has worked many times, but has always been stomped out by brutal capitalist imperialism. A brief look at the history of central and south america, and all other colonially exploited areas should show you that the system that has produced the most suffering, destroyed the most democracies, is capitalism. Let me rephrase: Capitalism has never worked.

    So again, what kind of economic system do you advocate for?

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    • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Communism can mean many things, and many things that call themselves communism have very little to nothing to do with what Marx wrote about.

      I’m talking about the original communist ideology as derived by Marx himself. I’m not talking about people like Stalin or Xi Jinping here who could be argued as not communist even though they described themselves as much.

      As an aside, Marx was not just a grumpy philosopher, he was also an economist who laid the foundation for thinking of the economy in terms of power, ownership and democracy. The Marxian school of economics is still influential today.

      Influential doesn’t mean it’s correct or has any actual value. His analysis was flawed and his proposed solutions were even worse. His work can only make sense if you accept his assumptions as axioms. A lot of people did, but when they tried to carry out what he prescribed things didn’t go as planned because, well, his assumptions were flawed. Not every philosopher deserves respect just because it’s influential. Mussolini also invented a very influential ideology that’s unfortunately still popular today, but that doesn’t mean he and his ideology are above criticism or worthy or respect just because.

      Your ramblings about “communism has always failed” leads me to believe that you are talking about Marxism-Leninism, which I also believe is outdated and dominated by dogmatic thinking, but I digress.

      If you’re going to reduce my criticism to “ramblings” then you’re already in engaging in bad faith. You can’t seem to accept the core idea itself is flawed. It doesn’t matter what flavor it comes in, the result will inevitably be the same.

      Now let me rephrase: Existing socialism has worked many times, but has always been stomped out by brutal capitalist imperialism.

      Why are you moving the goal posts? Communism is a specific ideology, socialism is just a general economic model. These are not the same thing. With that being said pure socialism in any form hasn’t worked either. What examples do you have to prove this? Just start listing them. I’m positive that list won’t be based on actual results but on speculation and assumptions.

      Also, this idea that the reason why socialism has never worked is because of US or Western intervention is pure cope. Not only does this ignore all the instances where socialism collapsed in on itself, but also ignores the fact the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent China, also tried to brutally stomp out capitalism all around the world. They toppled democratically elected government, they installed puppet dictators, they committed genocides, they invaded countries, they employed propaganda campaigns, they’ve done it all. Marxists always conveniently forget the other half of the cold war. Regardless, capitalism survived the onslaught, socialism didn’t. This is because socialism is simply a more fragile system that can’t withstand disruption.

      A brief look at the history of central and south america, and all other colonially exploited areas should show you that the system that has produced the most suffering, destroyed the most democracies, is capitalism. Let me rephrase: Capitalism has never worked.

      That’s such an odd, vague, and cherrypicked statement that proves nothing but makes a bunch of declarations. Why focus on South America and not the world at large? Capitalism has done wonders for China, India, Poland, Romania, Spain, Ireland, the Baltic countries, Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Botswana, and the list goes on and on. Actually even in South America, countries like Chile and Uruguay have had their best economic stretches under capitalism while countries like Venezuela declined substantially under socialism. It’s silly to try and reduce an entire continent to a single misguided soundbite.

      Capitalism is a very flawed system, but it is pure objective fact that it works, maybe a little too well. The criticism of capitalism were never that it didn’t work, but that it has no breaks, it keeps going until things break. In terms of pure functionality, capitalism has been proven to take any economy and turn into something that’s much more efficient, wealthy, and overflowing with surplus of goods. Capitalism can increase the industrial capacity of any country that let’s it do it’s thing. Pretending that capitalism never worked is simply just a false statement.

      So again, what kind of economic system do you advocate for?

      I gave you my answer, you just refuse to accept it.

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      • PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Pure objective fact lmao cmon. Okay I hear you though, I wasn’t sure what you meant by communism but I think I get what you mean now. I’m only something of a Marxist and I don’t really consider myself a communist in that sense If you’re interested in a discussion let’s try to find some common ground. What aspects of capitalism do you like? Markets and decentralized production? I like those too, although I think they should be used as means to an end, not worshipped as the end itself.

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