Viewed from hexbear this thread has 27 comments lol
If only there were some kind of way for it to not devolve into totalitarian dictatorship…
If only there were some kind of way for liberals to learn the actual histories of AES states…
Rather than placing absolute power of The State in one person’s hands, start with an elected council of members whose number is not divisible by 2. Transition to a Stateless co-op arrangement. Congratulations you just implemented Communism the way it is intended to be implemented, and no dictator could screw it up.
…and how do you enforce it? No one is going to want to give up the land that they worked for and purchased themselves, or that they developed. Give up your rights or we imprison or kill you?
And who controls this enforcing agency? The single party government? Because you can’t have multiple parties…how do you prevent the government from taking advantage of their position? Like, I don’t think communism is this magical fix-all that you think it is.
Australia had communism for 60,000 years and never developed a dictatorship.
Would you like to provide a link, or any sort of proof to back up this outlandish claim?
Calling it communism may be a bit of a reach, but collectivist social organizing in a variety of ways was and still is a very common element of indigenous cultures around the world.
This link focuses on family and child rearing, but it’s a good window into how Australian aboriginals express collectivist principles.
Where has that happened?
Soviet Union under Stalin comes to mind. North Korea.
That wasn’t totalitarian nor a dictatorship. Soviet Democracy continued to be practiced, and Stalin’s authority wasn’t absolute or all-encompassing.
Where does a state go from a non-totalitarian, non-dictatorship to a Totalitarian Dictatorship?
From the very article you linked:
There, Lenin argued that the soviets and the principle of democratic centralism within the Bolshevik party still assured democracy. However, faced with support for Kronstadt within Bolshevik ranks, Lenin also issued a “temporary” ban on factions in the Russian Communist Party. This ban remained until the revolutions of 1989 and, according to some critics, made the democratic procedures within the party an empty formality, and helped Stalin to consolidate much more authority under the party. Soviets were transformed into the bureaucratic structure that existed for the rest of the history of the Soviet Union and were completely under the control of party officials and the politburo.
Very democratic indeed lol. Can’t wait how they ensure democracy in North Korea next.
I linked the absolute most liberal friendly source for you. Banning factionalism didn’t mean they banned democracy. Banning of factionalism was done when there were literal fascists and Capitalists trying to infiltrate the party and reinstate Tsarism for their profits. You were allowed to have different ifeas, voice them, and vote on them.
It’s very kind of you to have chosen that as a source but it seems to have been an unfortunate pick.
Banning of factionalism was done when there were literal fascists and Capitalists trying to infiltrate the party and reinstate Tsarism for their profits.
It just happens that that was claimed to happen always, so you know, ban was only liften in 1989 as the article mentions lol. Funny how that happens.
You were allowed to have different ifeas, voice them, and vote on them.
Not even mentioning the lack of press freedom but Stalin famously purged a shitload of people on the basis of their political opinions. And voting in a strictly controlled single-party state, it does have the sound of a empty formality as the article had it.
It just happens that that was claimed to happen always, so you know, ban was only liften in 1989 as the article mentions lol. Funny how that happens.
Looks like it was true! Millions of people died when the USSR was illegally dissolved afterwards, and the majority of living former-soviets say they prefered the Soviet System.
Not even mentioning the lack of press freedom but Stalin famously purged a shitload of people on the basis of their political opinions. And voting in a strictly controlled single-party state, it does have the sound of a empty formality as the article had it.
Liberalism and fascism were banned. Additionally, it is not at all an empty formality, unless you think every human being in a political party shares the exact same opinions, which is laughably false.
lucky u, there is; its called just doing the fucking thing like normal, cuz non of the historical examples did that so u know.
Communism inevitably will always lead to dictatorship and totalitarianism.
In order to become a communist state, you have to: 1.) Get a bit army or group of people to enforce the upcoming rules. 2.) Force people to get rid of private ownership or threaten them to give it up. This will piss a lot of people off. 3.) Get rid of them if they don’t. This will piss a lot of people off. 4.) Realize that you’ve pissed a lot of people off, and that your the only power in the land, you definitely don’t want to give this up. 5.) Enact a single party system…oh, fuck…
Communism doesn’t work on a large-scale, and it’s not sustainable. By it’s very nature it’s extremely prone to abuse, and fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system. Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.
fundamentally impossible to install any sort of checks and balances on a single party-system. Look how bad it is with a two-party system in the US.
Buddy, checks and balances are one of the many reasons why our democracy doesn’t work. I already covered this elsewhere in this very post.
The failure of democratic checks and balances does not preclude the failure of communist checks and balances as well.
Democratic Socialism is where I’d like the US to head. But we have to start consistently winning majorities so that we can fix the disproportionate representation that’s hurting progress and making electing the progressives needed for change difficult.
u can believe the cia on that or u can actually fucking learn how these systems work or worked and what people who lived and live in them think of them, imma put it very plainly the percent of Americans who think amerikkka is a democracy is a LOT lower than Chinese people who think China is a democracy. And that holds true for most capitalist countries and most socialist countries past and present.
Related meme:
Thankfully we have other ways of coming to an understanding about China. Particularly the media, especially international media.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_papers
Luckily most countries don’t believe the lies the US is trying to spread about China.
Funny, the same thing happened when I realized that I’m Trans. It’s almost as if capitalist ran media is incentivised to lie and decive in ways that cause permanent damage.
If that explained it, all capitalist run media would be lying. But they are clearly not all lying.
It’s more about who’s running it what their goals are. Communist media is widely known for being filled with propaganda and lies, after all.
If that explained it, all capitalist run media would be lying. But they are clearly not all lying.
It’s more about who’s running it what their goals are. Communist media is widely known for being filled with propaganda and lies, after all.
Capitalist propaganda is so good you don’t even realize it’s almost all lies.
I’ve had quite a few people say I’ve been brainwashed by Chinese or soviet propaganda, a thing I do not encounter often, and then slowly explain the most bog standard white Australian nationalist narrative to me. I wish I was better at confrontational social situations
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What no theory does to a MFer. This is Idealism at its peak.
Tell me, why are Humans the problem?
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Communism is not about a Dictator doing good for people.
Read theory and study up on AES states.
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I read every word of it. Your comment was built on false assumptions and idealist thinking, rather than materialist.
You claimed that “Communism cannot work because people partake in it,” ie you laid out idealist thinking, rather than materialist. You then went on to claim that “dictators take advantage of it and ruin it,” which is again false. You don’t understand how AES states are structured, nor how they improved metrics.
As an example, here is the USSR’s democratic model:
As another example, here is wealth disparity in the USSR:
And as a final example, here is the rate of change in GDP per Capita of the USSR:
You don’t have any points, just vibes.
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Weird because China is succeeding quite well.
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Probably more fascist than communist these days. My actual favourite theory though is that there are way more important things happening under the hood of nations, and whether they’re called communist or democratic or whatever is just a veneer.
James A. Robinson’s book Why Nations Fail for instance provides an interesting alternative way to look at this, that goes beneath the surface.
The guitarist in the fourth panel… is that Rock Against Communism? I’ve never actually seen bands, especially good ones, go “Yeah, fuck Communism! Gold for the gold god!” A lot of the best concerts were like those at Woodstock, or they’d be underground punk shows, or large arenas where the singer is sick and tired of record companies. If the fourth panel were really happening, it’d probably be Bumfuck-Nowhere, U.S.A.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: Artificially upvoted😂 There is a spectre haunting Lemmy — the spectre of communist bots & trolls 👻
Lol I saw the comment that was removed. The comment couldn’t have been more neutral saying people who ignore the problems in the most Communist historical societies reduce the perceived integrity of it’s proponents.
This mod is the exact antithesis of this meme. Pure censorship.
The removed comment was “as a black man”
shut up
Modlog has this comment: My grandparents would like a word, since they barely escaped communist rule, while their siblings/other family members didn’t. They could tell you first hand what it was like. So go ahead and call me brainwashed.
Do people just not believe Eastern Europeans etc exist lol
Am I the only person in the world with reading comprehension? Can you even find a single fucking claim in that? “I knew a guy once who said it was bad so now the conversation is over”
This is the level of evidence that’s sufficient for people brainwashed by 100 years of propaganda.
Doesn’t even specify where. Did they escape Cuba? Is the reason they had to ‘escape’ because their former slaves wanted to kill them? Who knows! Doesn’t matter!
I don’t think anyone took it as some be-all and end-all argument. It’s just an anecdote and reason why the person believes what they do. Removing it as “reason: Typical anti-communist propaganda” as it shown on modlog seem silly.
It’s just an anecdote
It’s not a fucking anecdote. Look up what an anecdote is.
Who? What? Where? When? Why?
Not a single one of those questions answered.
Removing it as “reason: Typical anti-communist propaganda” as it shown on modlog seem silly.
100% justified.
It’s not a fucking anecdote. Look up what an anecdote is.
I’m sorry, I’m not a native English speaker. I just meant that they just mentioned their grandparent’s/family’s experience and how it helped form the view he has now. I don’t get how that makes you so unhappy.
Not a single one of those questions answered.
Well if the comment hadn’t been deleted you might’ve had a change to ask them lol
they just mentioned their grandparent’s/family’s experience
No they didn’t.
Classic “improved democracy”
It is bad tho lol
Why?
Pol pot has entered the chat
The US-backed fascist that denounced Marxism and was defeated by Communists? Why?
Communist vietnam fought a war against feudalist cambodia under pol pot.
literally not a communist and rejected by almost communist.
It always ends up as a dictatorship, because communism puts too much trust and responsibility on the one in power. So much so that, no one history was able to resist being a dictator.
There have been plenty of Capitalist dictatorships to stop Communism. The deal with dictatorial states has less to do with their internal economic policies, and more to do with world superpowers intervening to advance their own interests. You can see this with the Eastern Bloc having strong ties to the U.S.S.R. instead of having their Communist ideas being brought up within their own state, and the Deng being Soviet-influenced. Yugoslavia is a very good example of a Communist state done right, as is Vietnam; the former was deemed false Communism by the U.S.S.R., and the latter was left alone. There’s also Cuba, which again, is not under the U.S.S.R. You can also see Capitalist satellite states being given arms support by the United States, which really makes it far less about the nation’s own choice to be Capitalist or Communist, and more about their status within the Cold War.
I do agree that Communist economies aren’t perfect, but it’s not as simple as G.I. Joe.
TL;DR No economic system exists in a vacuum; nations act and are acted upon each other like cogs in a giant machine.
What on Earth are you talking about? Can you give an example? Not a single AES state has been managed by a single person, especially not one who had to “resist temptation.”
How do you believe AES states function politically?
What about Stalin who purged rivals and sent out hit men with ice picks to take out his critics? Or Xi Jinping who’s been made President for life or whatever recently? Or Fidel Castro who basically led the country from the revolution until he was too old to run it? The DPRK which looks like a monarchy in all but name? No one says dictators run whole countries literally by themselves but they do dictatorial things to make sure people only loyal to them can have power, their word is law without going through other checks or balances by the people, like some popularly elected body or something.
I will admit though that after Stalin, the USSR changed out rulers pretty regularly so that doesn’t seem like a dictatorship to me. Same with Cuba now after Castro. Now people just say it because those countries allow only one party I guess.
As a theory, sure. I just have yet to see it expressed in any functional way that didn’t devolve into a shit show. See: Russia, etc.,
I think it’s telling that so many wish for a return to communism but still defend Putin’s atrocities. :|
Russia devolved into capitalism. Funding a military is incredibly expensive and necessary when a communist country wants to exist in a world with the United States. This creates a militant economy that must be centrally governed to coordinate this military might. True democratic socialism is impossible as long as the United States exists as an imperialist force.
True democratic socialism is impossible as long as the United States exists as an imperialist force.
1, That’s silly, there’s tons of democratic socialist countries that are doing just fine - today! Bolivia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand - think the US fucks with their way of governing?
2, the USSR was never a type of democratic socialism. Period. They literally called it ‘soviet democracy’ distinctly, and it meant something WILDLY different that the kinds of democratic socialism we see in the above listed countries.
Your premise is faulty, built upon an imagined soviet union that did not practice the tenants you’re endorsing.
None of those are socialist countries. They’re all capitalist
I guess you can stick your head into the ground and pretend democratic socialism isn’t a thing.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/top-15-democratic-socialist-countries-181857008.html
it’s stupid, but stupidity is always an option.
Of course, if you just toss these countries’ accomplishments away, you’re really just undermining the entire premise, because without these successes the record of ‘socialism’ gets a whole fucking lot worse.
lol
You’re citing a capitalist finance website to prove your point about socialism. You seem to be confused between social democracy and democratic socialism. I understand because they seem so similar that they must be basically the same thing, right? Nope.
The Nordic model is a form of social democracy. They take many of the benefits that socialism provides and builds them into a capitalist economy. Democratic socialism is an actual form of a worker owned an operated economy.
If you’re ever in doubt, ask the question, “who owns the means of production?” If the answer is huge megacorporations and wealthy billionaires, then it’s a capitalist economy. If the answer is the working class, it’s socialist.
if you just toss these countries’ accomplishments away, you’re really just undermining the entire premise, because without these successes the record of ‘socialism’ gets a whole fucking lot worse.
Ok, then.
1, That’s silly, there’s tons of democratic socialist countries that are doing just fine - today! Bolivia, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand - think the US fucks with their way of governing?
All of these countries are free market economies, though. If you classify a country that has public programs as socialist, then USA is a socialist country.
Also, just as a detail, Switzerland is probably one of the most capitalistic countries in the world. They have nearly a flat tax rate, very small amounts of corporate / capital gains taxation and a health care system that is nearly privatized. And it’s all working pretty damned well for them.
True democratic socialism is impossible as long as the United States exists as an imperialist force.
Not sure how to explain, but I don’t think so.
The US has destroyed every socialist country in history that didn’t have a strong enough military to fight them off
What do you mean by "devolve into a shitshow?
See every communist nation in history
So large increases in literacy rates, life expectancy, home ownership, education access, healthcare access, and democratization of society is “devolving into a shitshow?”
Do you think Russians were better off under the thumb of the Tsar? Do you think Cubans were happier as slaves in Batista’s US-backed slave-state? What point are you genuinely trying to make?
LMAO
Both are bad one (captlism) is slight ok but communism just pure garbage
Any
currentreal-life examples of “communism good”?deleted by creator
Cuba. Cuba has the most educated population in North America, more doctors per capita then almost any other nation. The only reason they’re struggling is because America’s embargo. They want stuff too.
Mostly this, although Vietnam is doing quite well, especially considering their circumstances.
Cuba is also really interesting…not thriving, to be sure, but you have to end the US blockade before you blame them for their own hardships. And in spite of everything, they have democracy like we’ve never seen in the west.
Edit: also what beejboytyson said about Cuba.
The US dropped more napalm, and bombs, and agent orange on vietnam (a comparatively small country) than it did during all of WW2. Lots of its people are still suffering from this atrocity.
Sadly true. And most people aren’t aware that they did pretty much the same thing to Laos, who they weren’t even at war with. They just carpet bombed the whole country, “just in case.”
Fuck the USA. They’re literally the evil empire from star wars.
It’s so funny that george lucas was like: “the rebels are the vietnamese communists, and the empire is the USA (its soldiers the storm troopers)” and somehow a lot of modern star wars fans are extremely pro-US, and never connect the dots.
IMO the biggest critique of star wars, its that lucas didn’t focus at all on the lives of the stormtruppen, and force its audience in the imperial core to look in the mirror, at their values, their chauvinist culture, their pro-war ideology and news media.
Still gotta keep blaming the rebels for all the world’s problems.
Yeah but all forms of government are constantly attacked. You’re like a multicellular organism crying foul because bacteria and other pathogens are trying to invade it.
One of the reasons capitalism wins is it produces enough wealth to win wars. Consistently. The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty also wins wars.
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Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism causes wars.
WWI was an inter-imperialist war. WWII was two wars: on the Western front it was an inter-imperialist war and on the Eastern front it was largely a war to crush socialism. Most of the wars since then have been imperialist wars of aggression against imperialized states, many of them by the United States, the global imperialist hegemon that has over 750 overseas military bases.
The same wealth that leads to ever-lower levels of poverty
Where have you been during the last 40 years of neoliberalism and neocolonialism?
And explain this: United Nations, 2019: Helping 800 Million People Escape Poverty Was Greatest Such Effort in History, Says Secretary-General, on Seventieth Anniversary of China’s Founding
Ah yes my favorite authoritative source on the mathematics of democracy: a YouTube video.
Fuck off
Veritasium is legit, they cite their sources and explain concepts exceptionally well.
However, I don’t think the conclusion of the video is “Democracy is mathematically impossible”, but rather “perfect representation in a democracy” is mathematically impossible (but can still be much much better than FPTP).
The video basically goes through all the top voting systems and explains their pros and cons and the history of the mathematicians who invented the systems.
but rather “perfect representation in a democracy” is mathematically impossible (but can still be much much better than FPTP).
It’s not even that. The more accurate title would be “Ranked voting types cannot mathematically meet all of the requirements of democracy this one guy made”
The whole video I wanted to yell out “so switch to approval voting”.
The title of that video is wildly misleading click bait. We should just switch to approval voting and be done with it.
You could’ve just typed “No”.
All the other things you’ve typed is nonsense anyways.
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My country was on the path of the democratically instituted socialism thing. Well, it tried but the United States instigated, funded and armed a military coup and the military dictatorship that followed.
Guess it’s better to have torture camps than gobbunism
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Ah, yes, the United States famously only interferes in fascist countries and not for benefit of plutocrats.
Also, which demsoc countries are you talking about where the means of production are controlled by the working class?
What is “Democratic Socialism” in your eyes?
Here you go, and before you say China is not really communist. That’s true that China is in a socialist stage of development led by the Communist party. However, it’s very clear that it is developing very differently from capitalist countries.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
From 2010 to 2019 (the most recent period for which uninterrupted data is available), the income of the poorest 20% in China increased even as a share of total income. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.DST.FRST.20?end=2019&locations=CN&start=2008
By the end of 2020, extreme poverty, defined as living on under a threshold of around $2 per day, had been eliminated in China. According to the World Bank, the Chinese government had spent $700 billion on poverty alleviation since 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-xi-jinping.html
Then there are the massive poverty alleviation programs in China that have no comparison in the US https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
If we take just one country, China, out of the global poverty equation, then even under the $1.90 poverty standard we find that the extreme poverty headcount is the exact same as it was in 1981.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/07/5-myths-about-global-poverty
China also massively invests in infrastructure. They used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/05/china-used-more-concrete-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-used-in-the-entire-20th-century-infographic/
China also built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/high-speed/ten-years-27000km-china-celebrates-a-decade-of-high-speed/
Such massive infrastructure projects directly improve the standard of living for the people of the country.
Social mobility happens to be really high as well https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html
Furthermore, people in China see their country working in their interest and hence view it as being far more democratic than people do living under the dictatorship of capital
- https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva images/Democracy Perception Index 2023.pdf
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
Meanwhile, if you want a historical example then look no further than USSR.
Russia went from a backwards agrarian society where people travelled by horse and carriage to being the first in space in the span of 40 years. Russia showed incredible growth after the revolution that surpassed the rest of the world:
- https://wid.world/document/soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016/
- https://wid.world/document/appendix-soviets-oligarchs-inequality-property-russia-1905-2016-wid-world-working-paper-201710/
USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%:
- http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/PubEdUSSR.htm
- http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/anglosov.htm
- http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0000/000013/001300eo.pdf
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likbez
USSR doubled life expectancy in just 20 years. A newborn child in 1926-27 had a life expectancy of 44.4 years, up from 32.3 years thirty years before. In 1958-59 the life expectancy for newborns went up to 68.6 years. the Semashko system of the USSR increased lifespan by 50% in 20 years. By the 1960’s, lifespans in the USSR were comparable to those in the USA:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union
- https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB5054/index1.html
Quality of nutrition improved after the Soviet revolution, and the last time USSR had a famine was in 1940s. CIA data suggests they ate just as much as Americans after WW2 peroid while having better nutrition:
- https://www.scribd.com/document/430076844/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5-pdf
- https://artir.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/compar1.png?w=640
USSR moved from 58.5-hour work weeks to 41.6 hour work weeks (-0.36 h/yr) between 1913 and 1960:
USSR averaged 22 days of paid leave in 1986 while USA averaged 7.6 in 1996:
- https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf
- https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
In 1987, people in the USSR could retire with pension at 55 (female) and 60 (male) while receiving 50% of their wages at a at minimum. Meanwhile, in USA the average retirement age was 62-67 and the average (not median) retiree household in the USA could expect $48k/yr which comes out to 65% of the 74k average (not median) household income in 2016:
- https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/1994/94B09_66_englp2.pdf
- https://www.cbsnews.com/news/could-you-get-by-on-the-average-americans-retirement-income/
GDP took off after socialism was established and then collapsed with the reintroduction of capitalism:
The Soviet Union had the highest physician/patient ratio in the world. USSR had 42 doctors per 10,000 population compared to 24 in Denmark and Sweden, and 19 in US:
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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0735675784900482 (sci-hub for access)
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USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpox
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The Social Consequences of Soviet Immunization Policies https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1997-812-03g-Hoch.pdf
So, how do people who lived under communism feel now that they got a taste of capitalism?
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Adult mortality increased enormously in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union when the Soviet system collapsed 30 years ago. https://archive.ph/9Z12u
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Former Soviet Countries See More Harm From Breakup https://news.gallup.com/poll/166538/former-soviet-countries-harm-breakup.aspx
The Free market paradise goes East chapters in Blackshirts and Reds details some more results of the transition to capitalism.
*crickets*, as usual.
It’s hard for me to look at % increases or “X out of poverty” or “This person makes 1+ what they did before!”. I get fed the same stuff about how great America is doing because of our “numbers”. Without being there it’s hard to grasp if what you’re saying is anything better, worse, or just par for the course of a developing nation with such a high output with manufacturing.
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
Seeing this statement and reading the link, they have absolutely nothing to do with each other and you make it seem like it’s a “quote” from the article (I’m guessing it’s from the 93 page research paper I’m reading through). They would’ve just been better off publishing whatever data they talked about researchers definitely having, the whole thing read like an Elon Musk press conference…
“To sustain poverty reduction gains, China will focus more on achieving endogenous development in areas that have been lifted out of poverty and introduce vigorous measures to support rural revitalization. Our goal is to achieve common prosperity and high-quality development including through the rural revitalization strategy with a focus in five key areas: industry development, human capital, culture, ecological environment and local governance.”
It’s interesting and kinda disconcerting reading through the policies and how no real figures are presented for what the policy should be, such as the “common prosperity” they hope to achieve be 2030 (link page 15)
China has set a new goal of achieving significant progress toward common prosperity by 2035.1 While no particular income target or poverty threshold is attached to this goal, it can help keep the policy focus on the vulnerable population over the coming decade.
It makes me wonder if setting an elusive “goal” of a policy is better to get members on board and then slap them with the real numbers after they have already signed on and can’t openly complain about (bad for corrupt sectors of government though). There’s also just not enough information as stated in the paper to actually understand what is going on,
Finally, this review of China’s poverty reduction experience leaves a number of questions open for further research…
- the interplay between poverty reduction and growth deserves further analysis to understand the extent that poverty reduction measures may, in turn, help less-developed areas grow faster
- a deeper analysis of China’s use of policy experimentation at the local level combined with high-powered performance incentives may contribute to our understanding of models of decentralization and public service delivery
- an evaluation of China’s targeted poverty alleviation experience in recent years would benefit from further analysis of individual policy interventions and their interactions to better understand not just the effectiveness but also the efficiency and sustainability of the program.
- An analysis of the costs and benefits of policy intervention would also be warranted in a broader sense, helping to systematically account (suan da zhang in the Chinese term) for factors such as the impact of infrastructure investments on poverty reduction or the merits of the hukou system and man- aged urbanization policies. In all these areas, active exchanges between researchers within and outside of China, and between academics and policy makers, should be encouraged, and the data needed for high-quality empirical work should be made more widely available. These actions will help ensure that China’s poverty reduction achievements get the attention and understanding that they deserve.
Just now seeing and trying to wrap my head around the Hukou system. I’m not here arguing good/bad communism, I just like the information and think that many forms of government can work out with protections in place (regulations, corruption detection, etc). I just wanted to point out your article mention and link didn’t really fit together with how you presented it. I did enjoy the reading and will continue today, but I take it all with a grain of salt. I don’t really 100% trust any source these days, which in this technological era should really be the default for everyone. Definitely let it sink in and contemplate the realities of others, but you only have your own reality to work within for any type of effective action.
Dawg, it is a direct quote from the Forbes article. Read it again I guess?
you put a lot of work into that word salad
oh wow, ok. Thought you posted links for actual discussion and would’ve been interested in someone reading through wanting to talk about it lol. This just a copy/paste warrior kinda thing you’re doing? Weird way to try to insult back after everything you posted, thanks for letting me know not to continue the conversation!
It’s pretty clear you’re not interested in any actual discussion given that you just dismiss everything by saying you don’t trust anything. You never explain the reason for this distrust or provide any sources that contradict anything said there. I’m pretty sure that no matter how much evidence you’re provided with, you’ll just keep moving goal posts and repeating how you don’t trust the sources. It’s not very original.
From your first source
Figure 1 shows that China had very low inequality levels in the late 1970s, but it is now approaching the US, where income concentration remains the highest among the countries shown
sure, and that’s happening while the standard of living for the poor people continues to rise dramatically with each and every year
Do you live in china?
sadly no
May I ask why not? And if I’m not being too intrusive I’d be interested to know which country you do live in (I’m in the us)
Also really weird I never got a notification from your reply
I live in Canada, my family moved here back when I was still in school. I’d like to move to China one day, but it’s unlikely that I’d be able to do that in the foreseeable future. My parents are old and I’m not just going to abandon them to move half way across the world. That’s the main thing holding me back. In general, it’s not easy to just uproot your whole life and move to a different country to start anew. For example, I find even the language to be a challenge, I’ve been learning Mandarin for the past two years and I’m still not fluent in it. Getting a job in my field without knowing a language would be unlikely.
Large-scale, actual communism with no authoritarianism? Not that I’m aware of. It’s hard to implement true communism effectively on a large scale because most people have to care enough about others to willingly contribute for it to work.
Which is why it’s a utopian movement. They do their best to enslave your thoughts and control your actions, and when that fails (and it always does) they slaughter anyone and everyone that won’t play along.
No person is perfect, so when you demand perfection, you’re going to have to get rid of anyone but those who are perfect at playing perfect.
It must be so liberating to just be able to spew bullshit unconnected to anything in the material world and have zero shame about it
This is exactly how brainwashed liberals are.
“bRaInWaShEd” bleats the moron who gets his opinions from some alt-right glorified blog
Seriously, please answer those of us asking what you’re talking about. I am asking in good faith, what blog? The people you are talking to are as far from alt-right as it is possible to get and probably advocate for the elimination of alt-right ideology in a much more definitive way than you do (assuming you are a liberal).
Which is why it’s a utopian movement.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Marxism-Leninism is fundamentally opposed to utopianism, and idealism in general.
- Friedrich Engels: Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
- V.I. Lenin: “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder
- Mao Tse-tung: Oppose Book Worship
- Georges Politzer: Fundamental Principles of Philosophy » Utopian Socialism
Regardless of what Marx and Lenin declared about their stance with regard to utopianism, communism is utopian in the sense that it doesn’t exist, and can only exist in a world that is fundamentally different than this one.
Obesity isn’t a problem in North Korea. They’ve met their BMI goals.
Socialist governance seems to require concentrating an extraordinary amount of power in elite government decision makers; this tends to produce a new ruling class, the widespread deprivation of political rights for everyone else, and crippling poverty.
Give me a good, real world example of a working communist country. The difference between propaganda and education are facts. That, or removed by mod me.
USSR, Cuba, PRC, etc. Many such instances.
