Capitalism isn't about competition or the free market or any of that. It's about the idea that there is an ownership class that is entitled to control the flow of wealth because they had some meetings, moved some money around, and now own some buildings they didn't build full of machines they didn't make or move, that produce things they didn't design, test, inspect, or assemble. But they get to decide who gets the benefit of that economic activity (it's them, while those who actually make all that happen get peanuts).
A communist economy can reduce redundancies to increase efficiency, but that doesn't mean it can only offer one option for any good or service. Art, variety, and uniqueness can still exist in communist economies, they just wouldn't be gated by ability to afford things but instead by ability to produce things. Star Trek is a communist economy because the replicators can make whatever anyone wants. We don't have the technology for that level of communism and, IMO communism doesn't work very well unless you're in a post-scarcity world, until then I believe it's good to incentivise and reward workers. But even with scarcity, a communist system could make you choose between having a really nice computer vs a really nice bike, and offer less nice options to those that choose the nice other thing.
How someone can downvote two subjective statements of opinion (hates capitalism, sees a point in a book) is beyond me. There's nothing to downvote here. It's an opinion, not a statement of fact that is incorrect.
That's an easy question to answer. People often downvote comments that waste their time. Opinions that have no basis, or that are based on bad definitions or falsehoods, those tend to get downvoted. Because there's nothing to learn and nothing to discuss.
You mean Orwell's classic anti-capitalist novel wherein a worker's rebellion against tyrannical bosses is betrayed by capitalist pigs who re-create the farm's original conditions for their own profit?
You should read his "Homage to Catalonia", Orwell fought against capitalists in Spain's civil war and wrote a book about his experiences there.
allegories are much better at explaining theories, you guys always say that it was never actually implemented. And I'm not gonna read something from a man who occupied my country in 1921
Allegories can help explain theories, but they are never sufficient to understand it. Animal Farm is an allegory of a strawman, it barely touches reality. And it’s no wonder you are that embedded in propaganda, it’s normal.
I thought the same many years ago, until I saw how it went for every single country that implemented communism and then I didnt like it so much. You all seriously think is a coincidence?
You gotta look the context and learn about geopolitics. If Communism is so bad why the USA need to keep interfering with Cuba?
Lets compare Cuba with other Caribbean islands, how they perform against those? Remember they are blocked by the strongest country in the world.
Cuba developed its own covid vaccine, cuba sends doctors to africa in order to help people there, when Italia was in a health crisis Cuba sent thousands of doctors.
Cuba has the most advanced and inclusive family laws in the world.
Edit: btw Awesome album and Lemmy was an Anarchist.
First than anything, great taste in music my dude. Ok, fair point, these countries have it hard because of economic sanctions, but that doesn't explain why they all devolve into a tyrannical, corrupt and repressive systems where people are forced to stay and a great majority seems to want to leave. People just don't have free will and freedom of speech in these places. Is not a coincidence, its by design, communism is intentionally "the dictatorship of the working class".
And don't get me wrong, I dislike very much the unregulated capitalistic system of the USA too, yet a lot of people in the world seem to want to live there instead of any communist country. If I those were my only options, I would hate it, but I would choose the same.
When you leave reddit, a corporatised and astroturfed bot farm you're gonna get less liberal and right wing stuff that only existed to make money or exert political influence.
If you're really upset by it you can filter lemmy.ml which is gonna be the main source of left wing posting.
Also lemmy.dbzer0.com since its admin rightfully hates liberals. And lemmy.world admins have already blocked !piracy lol
I'd rather OP just goes back to reddit though honestly. There are already a surprising amount of capitalist bootlickers on Lemmy for an open source platform
I think it’s because my rent is a third of my income and im not allowed to function without not only feeding the parasites but making them morbidly obese.
Sadly I was born in the world in which they had a massive head start and already own a lot of apartments making it more difficult for me to own one. Ever played monopoly? Thats what it’s actually about.
It's not really a choice. If you don't want to be on the streets then you have two options: buy or rent. (There is a third: squatting, but that has its own downsides.) Presumably riodoro1 can't buy (or has chosen not to for some other reason) and doesn't want to be homeless or a squatter.
Communism is by definition a society without a state, so nobody has ever lived in a communist state and I doubt there has ever been a communist society in recorded history.
That is at a 'state' level, there are still smaller level communist places to live. Like where the word 'Commune' comes from and what communism was derived from and attempted to expand into. There are communes all over the world. US included. There is a famous one in London, lots of large ones in Spain. They are communities that exist in their own bubble of micro economics within their larger communities of normal living. You should look it up. They are interesting and normally very appealing.
Comminism isn't anarchic, Anarcho-Communism is. While it's true that Communism has never been reached, it isn't because government remained. The State in Marxian terms refers to the mechanisms by which one class oppresses the other, once class is abolished there need not be a state.
Communism was always meant to be a world republic.
It's a microcosm of Reddit, in a lot of bad ways IMO.
Reddit is clearly declining due to enshittification, so more ideological types leave. Radical liberals, Marxists, Anarchists, and so forth leave for other places.
Leftists and people who have more niche interests like programming, Linux, FOSS, Piracy, Star Trek, LGBTQIA+, or other such unique interests go to more specific instances, while people seeking a replacement for Reddit go to the largest generalist instance.
The consequences of 1 and 2 are that Lemmy.world is filled with ideological liberals, but typically not leftists, FOSS enthusiasts, Piracy nerds, Star Trek, or other unique interests. All that's left is the ideological generalist crowd, which is an echo chamber more defined by what it isn't than by what it is.
I'm saying it because places like Lemmygrad and Hexbear are outright Communist and they will take it as an insult if you call them socialist.
I'm not talking about the shades of different economic preferences, I'm talking about the extreme cases. In the extreme cases, there are multiple outright Communist communities on Lemmy.
Communism is Socialist, there aren't any Communists that would take offense to being called Socialist. There are Socialists that take offense to being called Communist, because for them, Socialism is the goal itself.
There are Socialists that take offense to being called Communist, because for them, Socialism is the goal itself
Very rare. Those who do dislike being called communists probably aren't very serious about socialism at all, and probably only want the "social capitalism" of Scandanavian countries.
Yep. And on the flip side, if I call a communist a socialist, it may be true technically, but I'm connotating that they want social capitalism instead of full communism.
And while theory written 100 years ago may have those terms be near equivalent, the meanings of those words have drifted a little since then.
I was kidding around, and part of the joke is how pointless the definition is:
communism: that the assets held by a body are indivisible across the individuals of that body when the assets in question are required to engage in production.
Thereby any definition of "body", "asset" and "production" can be used to define specific types and scopes of a communist ideology.
propaganda: a piece or collection of communications that has the primary purpose to persuade.
communist propaganda: a communication to persuade the reader to share the means of production across a collective.
I've always seen communism as a subclass of socialism, where socialism is the goal of classless, stateless society in which the public owns the means of production and distribute based on needs. Whereas communism is a way of attaining this goal, characterized by its materialistic focus and being revolutionary.
I know this differs from a lot of other uses for the terminology, but is there really a single definition of socialism that rules over the others (or communism for that matter, and does it even matter since they describe different important things)?
You literally have it backwards. Communism in the context of a definition of society is the classless state. Socialism is the transitory stage (also known as a dictatorship of the proletariat).
Reminder that this is specifically when talking about state/society. If you are mentioning ideology then a communist person or a socialist might have significant diversion of views/goals. Yes, it can be confusing.
As one of the many types of socialism, communism became the dominant political tendency, along with social democracy, within the international socialist movement by the early 1920s.[34]
Excerpt from ProleWiki:
Its modern usage is almost always traced back to Karl Marx's usage of the term where he introduced the concept of scientific socialism alongside Friedrich Engels. The theory of scientific socialism described communism not as an idealistic, perfect society but rather as a stage of development taking place after a long, political process of class struggle. Marx, however, used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably and he drew no distinction between the two. Lenin was the first person to give distinct meanings to the terms socialism and communism. The socialism/communism of Marx was now known simply as communism, and Marx's "transitional phase" was to be known as socialism.
I knew about this. I just do not really think anyone claiming superiority based on "define socialism and communism" as someone to be taken seriously, given that terminology is dependant on context and definitions on a base level are arbitrary if taking an axiomatic approach to theory.
Lemmy was crested by and is maintained by Marxist-Leninists.
Lemmy's structure and rejection of the Profit Motive is in line with Communist ideals, and attracts Communists and other leftists over Reddit, which is Capitalist.
FOSS in general is supported by Communists and Anarchists.
Point 3 is true for almost any group you can think of. Communists, anarchists, Baptists, disestablishmentarians, etc., for any large group of people of course some of them will advocate for FOSS.
FOSS is strongly supported by communists, but there's also strong support for it from right-libertarians (when I was younger I remember the stereotype being that Linux users believed taxation was theft)
(I agree that the way FOSS operates is anarcho-communist in nature; I just think people with fringe politics are more likely to support FOSS in general)
Yeah, I do. My wife lives in China as we speak, in fact. Why would I not want to live in one of the safest countries on earth with the highest level of automation, easily accessible and cheap housing and food, mandated workers democracy, and high speed rail to and from nearly everywhere of note?
Have you ever been to China? It’s better than the US in many, many ways. I make 4x the minimum wage in my state and can’t afford a one bedroom apartment. My wife makes min wage in her province and can afford her own place. I can’t afford to get medical care even with nice insurance because it’s a scam, my wife got daily IV treatments at a high quality clinic for three weeks for under $300 without insurance. She works today (International Workers Day) and is receiving triple overtime pay for it. I could literally go on for hours.
Let’s not be condescending and ageist. I was well into my ‘40’s when I even entertained learning about socialism or communism. We all have to start sometime.
No. Most communists don't think everything is or should be shared. One basic distinction is personal property vs. private property. If you do a web search and spend 10-15 minutes reading, you can learn how various groups think this ought to work.
(Even if you dislike communism, it's still worth learning what you're talking about.)
And as people have mentioned here, it can take until you're in your 40s for some to finally escape all the anticommunist propaganda they've been fed their whole lives in capitalist states.
Your endocrine system hasn't even let go of the controls in your brain yet. Don't let a guy who is so prone to substance abuse make important decisions. Once the night shift takes over a lot of your "airtight and very clever" philosophies will seem simple, trite and one dimensional.
One day you'll be in the shower getting ready to start your day. Nothing particularly significant will have occurred to you the day before, but the "perspective shift" happens and all of a sudden, you won't know why you ever felt the way you used to. Scary as shit, comes out of the blue, and definitely doesn't happen to us all. But it's a cool achievement to unlock and lets you respec for a conceptualization bonus.
If that does happen, I hope you remember this thread and have replay. See if you are still the same you as you were.