Do you consider drastically improving upon previous conditions to be a miserable failure? Ignoring that Communism has never existed, and only specific forms of Marxism-Leninism have existed, and ignoring that MLism is only a fraction of all of Communist ideology, even MLism drastically improved upon previous conditions.
I’m not even close to a tankie, but I’m genuinely curious what you mean by what you’ve said.
Sure, and capitalism has never existed either, only specific forms of libertarian-constitutionalism 🤷♂️
Now, if you can see how silly what I just typed is, you should be able to see how silly it is to claim communism has never been tried. You say yourself that Marxist-Leninism is a communist ideology, so if it’s being attempted, then it’s valid to say a form of communism is being attempted.
Do you consider drastically improving upon previous conditions to be a miserable failure?
All of the citation needed. Don’t make the mistake of including the goals of outcome as part of the definition, that’s just cheating. Op obviously rejects the idea that it makes things better, you can’t just assume it a priori.
Socialism has existed, that’s what the USSR was. It was an ML Socialist state, but it failed to become a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society. In other words, it failed to reach Communism. Communism has been attempted, but never reached. It never reached the Communist stage, so Communism itself hasn’t been tried, only the ML form of Socialism.
The Soviet Union doubled life expectancy from the mid 30s to the mid 70s, had constant GDP growth until it liberalized and collapsed, guaranteed free Healthcare and education, and had mass housing initiatives. It had far lower wealth inequality than before or after its existence. This is all freely available information.
Am I a USSR Stan? Fuck no, the Politburo was a corrupt mess and Stalin was a thug. However, you’ve completely misconstrued my argument.
Okay I see what you mean. You agree attempted, but never achieved, I see that now. I’m sorry for misconstruing your argument, but I still take issue with your assertion that things got drastically better. That’s a big red flag to me and tends to be a sign that someone is having a big misunderstanding.
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The Soviet Union doubled life expectancy from the mid 30s to the mid 70s
While true, it is essentially a lie by omission to leave out other key details. For one thing, if you think about it, what kind of conditions would one have to be in initially to make doubling the life expectancy even possible?
The Russians were in horribly dire straits. Life expectancy fell from 37 to 32 from 1930-1935. The chief cause was forced collectivization of farming by Stalin. Privately owned farms were confiscated by the state, and were horribly mismanaged which resulted in famine. Socialist policy directly caused that famine.
Life expectancy started going up again in 1935 after they relaxed grain procurement quotas, decentralized, and opened up private plots. This is the scaling back of socialist policy, and the implementation of capitalist policy. Capitalism policy is to thank for stopping the famine.
had constant GDP growth until it liberalized and collapsed
The US has had exponential growth, rather than linear, along with many of its allies. Russia also supplies a large percentage of the world’s oil, you’d have to make fucking up an art to make your GDP go down with a supply like that.
guaranteed free Healthcare and education,
Both were an improvement considering I don’t think much was their for either before, so I’ll give ya that.
and had mass housing initiatives
These came in response to a housing crisis caused by inadequate supply of houses when the USSR nationalized it under the Central Board of Architecture. The housing initiatives did help, but the housing problem was never solved, and it was a problem created by them.
It had far lower wealth inequality than before or after its existence
Because he killed the rich people, and no one had anything. Equality is not an intrinsically good quality, especially when it means everybody is equally impoverished.
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I guess this is why I find the observation that communism has never existed pretty naive. Socialism, in its most honest representation, is really the state ownership of the means of production. The way Stalin held ownership in common, was to collectivize it under the state that all citizens are part of. If we are trying to achieve a stateless society, then holding ownership in common is an antithetical goal. Every step the USSR took away from common ownership was a step towards private ownership, and therefor a step towards capitalism.
FOSS isn’t a political ideology itself, no. That’s like saying Mutual Aid or Worker Democracy aren’t political ideologies. Technically correct, but that wasn’t the point, all of those are leftist structures.
Communism is a political ideology, and I don’t think it can be globally considered fringe. Perhaps in the US, but not globally.
Oh great, the Communists have found this community. Time to make a new one.
Why are you surprised that there’s huge overlap between FOSS and Leftist beliefs? They go hand in hand.
Yeah but communists are a whole other level. They consider liberals to be nazis lol
That’s not really true, in my experience. They see Nazis as Nazis, and Liberals as misguided and naive.
As is the case with most groups, there are loud douchebags with extremist views (relative to the group) that give a bad impression.
Right, whereas we see them as deeply stupid and naive.
Even though all real world implementations of communism have failed miserably, liberals must be the naive ones.
Do you consider drastically improving upon previous conditions to be a miserable failure? Ignoring that Communism has never existed, and only specific forms of Marxism-Leninism have existed, and ignoring that MLism is only a fraction of all of Communist ideology, even MLism drastically improved upon previous conditions.
I’m not even close to a tankie, but I’m genuinely curious what you mean by what you’ve said.
Sure, and capitalism has never existed either, only specific forms of libertarian-constitutionalism 🤷♂️
Now, if you can see how silly what I just typed is, you should be able to see how silly it is to claim communism has never been tried. You say yourself that Marxist-Leninism is a communist ideology, so if it’s being attempted, then it’s valid to say a form of communism is being attempted.
All of the citation needed. Don’t make the mistake of including the goals of outcome as part of the definition, that’s just cheating. Op obviously rejects the idea that it makes things better, you can’t just assume it a priori.
Socialism has existed, that’s what the USSR was. It was an ML Socialist state, but it failed to become a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society. In other words, it failed to reach Communism. Communism has been attempted, but never reached. It never reached the Communist stage, so Communism itself hasn’t been tried, only the ML form of Socialism.
The Soviet Union doubled life expectancy from the mid 30s to the mid 70s, had constant GDP growth until it liberalized and collapsed, guaranteed free Healthcare and education, and had mass housing initiatives. It had far lower wealth inequality than before or after its existence. This is all freely available information.
Am I a USSR Stan? Fuck no, the Politburo was a corrupt mess and Stalin was a thug. However, you’ve completely misconstrued my argument.
Okay I see what you mean. You agree attempted, but never achieved, I see that now. I’m sorry for misconstruing your argument, but I still take issue with your assertion that things got drastically better. That’s a big red flag to me and tends to be a sign that someone is having a big misunderstanding.
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While true, it is essentially a lie by omission to leave out other key details. For one thing, if you think about it, what kind of conditions would one have to be in initially to make doubling the life expectancy even possible?
The Russians were in horribly dire straits. Life expectancy fell from 37 to 32 from 1930-1935. The chief cause was forced collectivization of farming by Stalin. Privately owned farms were confiscated by the state, and were horribly mismanaged which resulted in famine. Socialist policy directly caused that famine.
Life expectancy started going up again in 1935 after they relaxed grain procurement quotas, decentralized, and opened up private plots. This is the scaling back of socialist policy, and the implementation of capitalist policy. Capitalism policy is to thank for stopping the famine.
The US has had exponential growth, rather than linear, along with many of its allies. Russia also supplies a large percentage of the world’s oil, you’d have to make fucking up an art to make your GDP go down with a supply like that.
Both were an improvement considering I don’t think much was their for either before, so I’ll give ya that.
These came in response to a housing crisis caused by inadequate supply of houses when the USSR nationalized it under the Central Board of Architecture. The housing initiatives did help, but the housing problem was never solved, and it was a problem created by them.
Because he killed the rich people, and no one had anything. Equality is not an intrinsically good quality, especially when it means everybody is equally impoverished.
.
I guess this is why I find the observation that communism has never existed pretty naive. Socialism, in its most honest representation, is really the state ownership of the means of production. The way Stalin held ownership in common, was to collectivize it under the state that all citizens are part of. If we are trying to achieve a stateless society, then holding ownership in common is an antithetical goal. Every step the USSR took away from common ownership was a step towards private ownership, and therefor a step towards capitalism.
They in fact do not. One can be conservative and support FOSS. Saying that is a over generalization
Leftism is about collective ownership of the means of production, whereas Capitalism is concerned with individual ownership.
Supporting FOSS over Capitalism is a leftist take.
I don’t think you understand what FOSS is. Its not a political ideology. Honestly neither is communism as it is a fringe belief.
FOSS isn’t a political ideology itself, no. That’s like saying Mutual Aid or Worker Democracy aren’t political ideologies. Technically correct, but that wasn’t the point, all of those are leftist structures.
Communism is a political ideology, and I don’t think it can be globally considered fringe. Perhaps in the US, but not globally.
Well anyways I don’t think it should be allowed in this community. This isn’t a communist community.
Everything is political, where do you draw the line? Where it doesn’t align with your views?
tell me you’re a conservative without saying it lmao
Honestly we should just refrain from making political commentary. We all now that extreme conservatives are just as bad.
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So USA is not capitalism? Because it is country with most anti-individual and anti-ownership practices.
It’s one of the most Capitalist countries on the planet, and is filled with individual Capital Owners that employ Proletarians.
Then explain patent trolls and general “you will own nothing and pay for it”.
Capitalism.
Why downvote? I and comrade Starlight approve.
The more communities - the more communists.
Good luck