Comment on What’s the difference between communism and socialism?
wampus@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
My take on it is that socialism is still fundamentally a capitalist approach to resource distribution, while Communism does away with most private property. Some people like to try and dress it up more with ideals, but that’s the basic difference in practice – it doesn’t make sense in this context, from my pov, to talk about the imaginary “ideal” of communism, rather than the realistic implementations of it that have occurred.
So, like under communism everything is basically state owned. People who’ve lived under communism will hear things like “state owned grocery stores” and think “Oh shit, I’ve lived this – you get food stamps/allocations of food assigned by the govt, and that’s what you’re allowed to ‘buy’/‘eat’. And the govt workers will get better stamps/allocations, cause it’ll be inevitably corrupt. This is bad!”. (I’ve heard this very sentiment from people who fled communist states, when topics like Mamdani’s govt run stores comes up). Applied communism isn’t some idyllic fairytale, it’s more “The state has declared the university system too elitist, so we’re forcing you all to do back breaking labour in the fields. Refusal means firing squad”.
Under a socialist approach, you get things like private stores, honoring things like food stamps that are provided to people in need, but most of the transactions are done without government involvement. The talk of setting up government run grocery stores, is viewed more as “We want to provide a baseline that can sell food at cost, but we still want private stores too, especially for more luxury/foreign goods and other options/competition in the market. Having a market option that is providing cheap generic products should have a stabilizing effect on food prices, and downward pressure on cost of living in general for folks”. To provide these services, socialist regimes typically have higher tax rates on private citizens – but those taxes are still fundamentally driven by a capitalist system of private property and individual choice/freedom.
frisbird@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
This is a lot of propagandistic bullshit. The USSR was the second-best fed country in the world according to the CIA. And they did it by lifting up the bottom and literally eliminating the nobility. Meanwhile the US was the first-best fed country in the world with a much worse poverty and homeless problem.
The USSR also didn’t force people out of university to do physical labor or face a firing squad. The USSR landed a dozen of remote probes on Venus before anything even remotely resembling that was possible in the West. They had incredible academics and research in all fields and that outpaced the West in tons of ways. They absolutely had academics and strong education for people.
The fact that you’re so wrong, and so obviously wrong, should not be a moment of anger and resistance but a moment to go read about things that contradict your current beliefs and an examination of not only how you came to believe those things but what it says about potentially other beliefs you have about communism and politics in general
wampus@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Yes yes, Mr .ML propagandist, tell me more about how the people who I work with, who grew up in Communist states, describe their experiences and reasons for fleeing those states are totally wrong, and that I should tow the .ML bootlicker line. Shitheels online are far more worthwhile a news source than actual people I know / interact with regularly, who lived in those countries! I can do my own online research, just like all those American dimwits who are shunning vaccines because facebook is true and doctors are fakenews!
Mmmm tastey communist boot! Comes in one size, only left shoe, because communism in practice is so wonderfully functional! And all stats produced by communist leader are true and trustworthy! All hail .ML!
angrystego@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Thank you, I’m from a former communist country, so I meet direct witnesses every day. What you’re talking about is real.
frisbird@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Yeah. You come across like a person who knows how to navigate the world effectively. Good luck to you!