Ah yes, communism and democracy, directly comparable and not at all describing totally different things in different categories
It’s actually disheartening that all communist countries become authoritarian. Theoretically with flat power structure, they should all become democracies. Maybe they ARE not communists.
I mean, what we call “communist countries” were really founded with communism as an ideal and authoritarianism as the means to supposedly achieve that ideal. turns out the people they put in power to liberate them didn’t want to give up that power willingly. shocker.
Everything we’ve seen thus far is socialism with a siege mentality. Every socialist revolution in the world has been attacked by capitalism through espionage, sabotage, embargoes, sanctions leading to resistance groups, assassinations and coups. Michael Parenti explains it quite well.
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Good thing that under the words communism and democracy, there are pictures that give you the context. Which allows you to understand that the actual comparison is between Marxism-Leninism (which are the majority of communist states) and representative democratic constitutional republic (which are the majority of democracies).
Those two things don’t get along very well.
Okay, quick question: In your meme, would you say the picture description on the right is something advocating for democracy? (Although democracy in of itself has basically nothing to do with that wall imo)
I guess I agree that this wall has nothing to do with any form of democracy or communism. Just wanted to be edgy and post something against ML.
I honestly wonder where the hate for communism comes from. Yes, the stereotypical historical examples were disasters. But as others here have mentioned, the problems in these systems were not rooted in a communist economical system (which there also wasn’t really). And assuming educated people should be able to differentiate between these I can only suspect the capitalism-blue-pill.
And to illustrate further I’d like to quote my very wise and definetely NOT communist literature teacher: In heaven there’s communism. I think that dums it up nicely. If you sant to hate something, don’t hate the idea, it in itself is pure and you’re making a fool of yourself if you didn’t wish for it in a perfect world. Hate the realisations? Maybe, but also noone seriously tried yet…
But if one just hates on it for the sake of having an “enemy” in turn validating the system oneself is a part of, that’s just a lack of reflection and critical thinking. Capitalism does not work and we’d see it everywhere we look if we wanted to. We just can’t imagine any other system anymore and that is the trap our society has fallen into. Blind religious belief in a economical system (ridiculous by itself, I might add). Let’s atleast try alternatives or compromises before we finish burning down our planet.
Also: I love democracy, fix democracy first. Priority number one.
Thank you for coming to my tedtalk
Ill respond honestly even though I did make fun of tankies not realising this is a shitposting community.
The problem with capitalism is the same as with communism. Corruption, Cronyism, Nepotism, Greed and Dishonesty. People preaching for communism point at those things in capitalism and act like communism wont have the exact same bad actors trying to game the system.
No there hasnt been a modern attempt at communism because past versions were such SPECTACULAR failures (admittedly mostly for reasons that arent actually related to the system of governance) that the well is poisoned. If you cant convince people that masks prevent the spread of disease when its a scientifically verifiable fact you arent going to convince them that communism is viable when it has historically speaking always collapsed or morphed into totalitarian capitalism.
Modern socialist/communist projects that do not create states to be corrupted:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvwoHdNGq9wUbrwTZ2k8yXE5oABPBQ4NX
The first video is a list and the next few go into detail about individual projects. This is an ongoing series.
The reason you don’t hear about these like you heard about the USSR or the CCP is because they are doing good things and not turning on their own people, so they don’t make good capitalist propaganda, so instead they stay off the radar. That to me means they’re doing the right thing.
There are thousands of projects you don’t hear about because people that aren’t trying to replace the old boss with the new boss aren’t trying to get your attention. They’re doing the work to make an alternative system that doesn’t get crushed by reactionaries.
Projects and communities arent nation spanning governments. The larger the system the more rife for abuse.
I dont dispute that it COULD work, but I do think that its a bit disingenuous to act like people arent gonna people and its going to be a magical utopia. If we could stop greedy assholes capitalism wouldnt be as bad as it is.
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In heaven there’s communism
I like this quote, for a few reasons. Namely, Heaven is not real, and since “communism has never been tried” as “all states that did try stopped in the autocratic phase neglecting to dismantle themselves,” and that is almost certainly the outcome that would happen if anyone ever tried anywhere again, communism is effectively not real either. They’re both unachievable utopian concepts that offer simply “hope” more than anything concrete.
Furthermore if heaven was real, I’m not 100% sure it’s not an autocratic “benevolent dictatorship” ran by God and his Angel literal soldiers. It really does seem analogous to communism as practiced. Can you go against God in heaven or would you be cast down to hell with the other political dissidents in a heavenly holodomor?
I lived in socialism/communism (depending om who talks about it). After having experienced it, I’m definitely not wishing it back.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to link @Dessalines
Michael Parenti refutes this sentiment in Blackshirts and Reds, with citations.
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Heaven is anarchy: everyone does what they want, which is to be good and helpful to each other.
Heaven is a (benevolent?) dictatorship: everyone does what God wants, which happens to coincide with their desires.
Heaven is communism: everyone helps each other and has access to the same resources, although since a lack of scarcity is implied, this may not require helping each other out in material means.
Heaven probably isn’t capitalism: given a lack of scarcity, communal access to resources, and everyone having their own housing, organized trade of any kind seems kind of pointless.
Heaven probably isn’t a democracy: if everyone agrees on the major issues, why would you vote on them? That said, everyone in heaven chose to be there, so that’s the one vote you get.
Note the 3 underlying issues in each of those. Similarity of goals, which isn’t going to happen anytime soon; people putting the common good before themselves, which likely won’t happen until…; and a lack of scarcity, which won’t happen until certain currently-unlikely events occur.
ITT: Tankies not realising they are in a shitposting community.
It’s just a shitpost, bro, don’t think about it, let me just make a shitpost covering a political topic, I’m not making a statement just a shitpost, bro.
If it’s a shitpost why do you defend it so much?
I’m in this picture and I don’t like it
The idea that the USSR and East Germany were anywhere close to communism is a joke. There were so many offshoots of communism that were just autocracies where the state owned all property that its meaning is pointless now. It’s better to describe then as dictatorships.
As much as I agree with your communism comment the same can be said to our democracy. We are a representative democracy and choose people to choose for us.
Agreed. Most if not all democracies today are severely flawed. I’d also argue that the wall depicted here has more to do with these flaws than with democracy
‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
right after starving 20 million Indians kek
Only for the presidential election. All the rest are normal. We’re definitely a representative democracy. Whereas none of the communist countries are anywhere close to Marxist communism.
Communism is an economic system, democracy is a political system. There are examples of democratic socialism and of capitalist dictatorships. Also, the word here is in fact socialism and not communism.
Those words can mean those things, but communism is also used to describe a political system. After all, part of the definition of communism is statelessness which is entirely about the politics and not the economics (source).
Also, just as democracy might be used to describe a political system, it commonly taken to mean liberal democracy, and thus in most contemporary contexts implies an economic system of capitalism.
So I just think it depends on the context what people mean by these terms. Of course you can try to define communism only in economic terms, but since the term is so abused and “inflated” it’s hard to claim it has any singular or absolute meaning.
Depending on who you are talking to, communism has practically opposite meanings, for example, in public schools in the U.S. they teach that communism is when all economic activity is controlled by a centralized state, which is ironically the exact opposite of how Marx defined communism.
The same can be said of democracy.
I replied to a similar comment in here. From the context of images, you can understand that the comparison is between Marxism-Leninism and representative democratic constitutional republic. These systems represent the majority of real world implementations of communism and democracy.
The majority of people in this comment section understand this words in the way they like and argue against something that in my opinion has very little in common with the actual meme’s point (that sounds funny, “meme’s point” 😅).
“I imply therefore I comply”
Wait… so is it an implication or a complication?
poor country vs rich country
I feel like the poster didn’t mean to infer American capitalism is so great we need a wall to slow people down from entering while communism is so shitty they need a wall to prevent people from escaping.
It’s a strangely pro American capitalism meme for lemmy.
The tankies are asleep, post anti communist memes!
The community is on lemmy.world so the tankie instances are blocked
Are you sure about that? I don’t see it on the block list
You filtered lemmy.ml, not lemmy.world. Also: it blocks lemmygrad and hexbear not the other way around.
My link was to the list of instances that block Lemmy.ml, and Lemmy.world isn’t on it.
I wouldn’t call lemmy.ml a tankie instance, so that was our misunderstanding
It doesn’t look like Lemmy.world blocks lemmygrad.ml either. https://fba.ryona.agency/?domain=lemmygrad.ml
There’s also the walls around most Palestinian settlements, the wall that the Dominican Republic is building to stop Haitians from fleeing their country, the walls (fences with barbed wire) in Hungary…
Yeah. My country used to be a capitalist dictatorship in the 60s-80s and it very, very much kept people who disliked it from escaping it, and then tortured them for being “unpatriotic”. And as ICastFist mentioned, there are several other capitalist and even “democratic” countries out there that very much build walls to keep people from leaving, too.
I initially assumed this meme was criticizing capitalism due to pointing out how the rich plunder and oppress the poor (i.e. the US with Latin America, and Europe with Africa and the Middle East), then hoard the profits for themselves while propping up walls to prevent anyone from the places they exploited from getting to also share and experience their wealth and safety nets (i.e. America’s border wall with Mexico, and Europe sinking refugee boats while fanning fascism to pin economic issues on the migrants rather than the capitalists themselves), but reading the OP’s replies it seems the meme was actually made in defense of capitalism…?
Honestly, between this and the “you’d be morally obligated to vote for 99% Hitler” nonsense, neoliberals seem to be really, really bad at defending their own ideology, lol
I wish we had a world where people could cross borders as easily as money does
Hear me out, Exchange citzenchip program. You can come live here if someone from this country wants to go live there. Then you exchange citzenchips. The population would remain the same and people could live in places they feel better at.
Now I’m curious on how the correlation actually lies, because it seems like it’s actually correlated. When people can’t enter, money is usually restricted too and vice versa, just like Russia is now. Of course there is smuggling, but it’s for both money and people. Although maybe it shouldn’t be money but “trade” in general.
ML can choke on my dick. Fuck autocrats. Your vanguard party are just the next oppressors
In my opinion, oppression is coming whether we like it or not. The resource depletion and overconsumption of global capitalism is destroying our ecosystems. We can choose degrowth and a planned economy under socialism, or continued environmental damage under fascism. Our current way of living is unsustainable. We need to read up and understand the choices, or the decisions for our futures will be made for us.
What we need is a culture shift, not oppression. I refuse to believe mankind is not capable of improving their collective behavior except under threat of violence - In fact, I think such violence would be counterproductive if the goal is to live in harmony with planetary limits. Degrowth cannot be imposed. Society must want it. Stop being mindless consumers. We can’t make that happen by the barrel of a gun. Peace must be included
Climate change will not afford us the time to shift culturally. Soon, agricultural failures, floods, droughts and mass migration are going to tax resources. We need to study and understand these disparate systems to navigate the coming crises. We’re not going to do it, but I like to think positively.
As long as you realize oppression will only make it harder, not easier, to counter a crisis of human selfishness.
I’m not sure I’m communicating my opinion well. The oppression that is coming is unavoidable.
- A transition to socialism will destabilize the economy causing widespread suffering.
- A transition to fascism will persecute groups and depress the economy, causing suffering.
- Keeping the status quo will eventually force the economy to recede due to the destabilizing effects of climate change. Global suffering.
Suffering can be alleviated but not eliminated. I talk about oppression, which is domination of one group over another, with violence. This happens in fascism but historically also with (ML) communism. I’m saying that using the power of the state to FORCE people to change their ways, will be counterproductive. I’m on board with degrowth, but something positive must replace the consumerism.
The miscommunication is your misunderstanding of the word oppression in relation to ML. I’m talking about a specific problem with the ML “solution” to climate change. I don’t have all the answers, but I know ML only makes things worse for everyone.
I would rather live under a Marxist-Leninist government with a planned economy that gives us a chance to mitigate climate catastrophe. The current capitalist governments aren’t even bothered by climate change. You’ve invented a boogeyman in Marxist-Leninism so that you don’t have to confront the current crisis of capitalism. When the world crumbles with overconsumption from capitalism, will your last words be, “At least we didn’t try the disastrous Marxist-Leninism?”
It’s about harm reduction and the lesser- evil. 👿 Capitalism is the greater harm to the planet. Socialism/Anarchism/Marxist-Leninism involve planned economies that can help us transition to more sustainable energy systems. It’s pragmatism.
Communism is when Mexico.
Mexico didn’t build a wall. The Eastern Block did in the cold war. Think the Berlin Wall
Both the US and Mexico are capitalist democracies. The meme implies that Capitalists built a wall to keep Communists out.
It’s an awkward meme that doesn’t make much sense.
It doesn’t imply that. It says that (some) capitalist states build walls to keep refugees out (like the US and in a way the EU) while (some) communist states build walls to keep (potential) refugees in (like the GDR)
Agreed. And the (probably unintended) irony is that the Berlin Wall was ostensibly built in order to keep the capitalists out. Be careful what you wish for, especially when it’s a wall. They work both ways.
You don’t really believe the propaganda of the “Antifaschistischer Schutzwall”. The wall was always to keep GDR citizens in.
Nobody ever had the intention to keep capitalists out.Just highlighting the propaganda for those unfamiliar with it. Seemed à propos.
It never implied the wall was specifically for communists.
Mexico has lower democracy index, so the point still holds. People trying to move from less democratic country to more democratic one.
As refreshing as it is to hear ML keyboards cracking, this is not a meme, nor a shitpost and even being a meme, there is a community for that
I am a stauch Marxists and have to say even though this was instantly downvoted by me, I will defend it as being a meme.
I’ll take gross reductionisn for 500 Alex
Communist democracy:
All nation states suck!
#nobordersnonationsthe book was great, though.
(Nationstates by Max Barry)
I found a game with that name and books with other names
you mean the online game based on the book?
also, there are indeed lots of books with other names. Millions and millions of books with other names. You should visit a library sometime. Will blow your mind.
🤯 just went to a library and there really are many books. Not millions but I found out about other libraries and combined this might be true.
No, seriously, I meant other books by the author. And I didn’t find anything about the book online so I thought maybe you confused something but I obviously believe you when you say the book exists.
Not the best description I have seen. Any wall that can keep someone out can keep someone in. Just have to change the system inside. The big problem, however, is that nobody understands the term communism and applies it to lots of things which are not. A totalitarian state is not communism. And a Christian nationalist state is no longer a democracy.
The big problem, however, is that nobody understands the term communism and applies it to lots of things which are not
I think it’s because terms used in real life often don’t match their definition. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is not democratic or a republic. The National Socialist Party were not socialist. The Chinese Communist Party allows billionaires to privately own the means of production. Capitalist America regulates, subsidizes, and bails out corporations instead of allowing a free market.
The real world is more nuanced than the terms used to describe it. It doesn’t help that terms like capitalism, communism, democracy, etc, have gone the way of “literally”. It can mean “literally” or it can mean the exact opposite of “literally”; it depends on context.
