While it is true that there was inexpensive housing available in the USSR, and that rents were quite reasonable compared to anything that currently exists in the US, and people couldn't readily be evicted if they lacked the ability to pay, it's a flat-out lie to say that that was the "solution" to homelessness, or that it eliminated the problem. Rather, the USSR criminalized being homeless and not being engaged in socially-productive labor; people that were homeless ended up in prisons and were labelled as parasites. The problem that we have now is that the official records simply didn't record the problem, in much the same way that Stalin had histories and photos revised to eliminate people that had become enemies of the state.
Rather, the USSR criminalized being homeless and not being engaged in socially-productive labor; people that were homeless ended up in prisons and were labelled as parasites.
Swap USSR with USA and the statement remains true. Though Im sure the degree of severity was much greater in the USSR.
That's kind of true in some parts of the US, indirectly. Some places criminalize not being homeless but all the things that are the result of being homeless like sleeping outside or in public places. But there are a lot of places in the US that do provide for the homeless. New York City has a right to housing provision, for example.
Why a lot of people on Lemmy like communist so much? As a person who grow up in a country which is almost destroyed by the communist party in the past I don't know what to say just why?, capitalist or not it's depends on your own country's government, at least you still can talking shit about them without getting arrested and torture to death, have we not learn from the past or other communist country, why don't you live in North Korea or China and see how've you like it
I'm going to take your question as genuine and answer in equal.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Most leftists will agree with you, the USSR and other Eastern Europe countries that were communist did a lot of damage and most likely more harm. They committed atrocities. They were authoritarian. It was disgusting.
The leftists who still prop those countries up on their shoulders are what many call tankies. Today they sing praise about Russia, China, and North Korea, but your observation is correct, they won't ever move there. These are individuals who repeat propaganda and are, ultimately, just red fascists. When you actually dig into their ideals they parallel and sometimes mirror Nazis.
I believe leftism cannot have an authoritarian element to it. I think most social hierarchies need to be destroyed. I think the only way to have a socialist society is through democratic means. Democracy in the workplace and national level. I think most of us can agree workers need higher wages and there is a wealth gap that needs to be dismantled. I think most of us believe healthcare needs to be universal, food and shelter and water, education, information (internet), speech, and much more should be free and readily available. There is this element of freedom that needs to be achieved that isn't found the countries that are "communist".
I don't want to explicitly say those communist countries wasn't "real communism", but fascists, authoritarianism, always appropriate from progressive movement. There is no freedom, especially of workers, under a dictatorship. If workers are starving, dying, being outright black bagged and killed, i don't think that can be considered communist.
Hello, I'd like to speak for people I disagree with
As a leftist whose platform doesn't seem to include a word about abolishing capitalism, any time I am challenged by someone to the left of Bernie Sanders, I turn into a right wing crank telling people 'if you don't like it get out'
And today I'd like to tell you about horseshoe theory
Yes, anti-Tankies are verry simmlar to Tankies. However, I think the commenter is coping by being an anti-tankie. Both groups can becone and come back from crazy. People can also safely hold tankie and anti-tankie like beleafs but (like a lot of ideology) run the risk of becoming crazy.
"Tankie" nationallists fail to see the raising over time evil and fantisize the good and the ones who passionately hate Tankies (im guilty of it) fail to see the good slowly rotting away. Then we say the whole country never changed throuout its lifetime, one points to the beginnigng the other points to the end.
Places like the Soviate Union from my limited knolage seem to be a nation with slowly growing leadership alignment problems, slowly using things like nationalism and subverting democracy to flip who should be masters and who should be slaves.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Most leftists will agree with you, the USSR and other Eastern Europe countries that were communist did a lot of damage and most likely more harm. They committed atrocities. They were authoritarian. It was disgusting.
Most leftists are literally marxist leninists or some derivative of ML in socialist countries. I think you mean most white leftists in the imperial core when you say most leftists.
I think you might call me an FDR New Deal socialist. I'm in favor of things like social security and government public works projects.
It has been my experience as a lifelong American that "capitalism" is just feudalism, or a desperate attempt to return to feudalism. "Capitalists" aka the ruling class have all the "capital" aka enough resources to actually accomplish anything. When any normal citizen wants to start a business, they have to beg a capitalist for a loan of some type, possibly selling "stock" aka a loan that never pays to term, allowing the capitalists to leech off of your profits basically forever. Wages get lower, costs get higher, all to funnel as much wealth to a small upper class. The myth of the meritocracy, where he with the best ideas, the best inventions, the most innovation, the product most in demand is he one that succeeds...doesn't hold up in a world of patent trolling or felony contempt of business model we're currently in. Doesn't stop them from parroting it to keep the little people quiet though.
Meanwhile I'm not aware of a "communist" nation that ever actually was. I am unaware of a nation that has ever actually operated per "to each according to his ability, from each according to his need" workers owning the means of production etc. They've all turned out as dictatorships with command economies. I mean, show me a country where the workers' unions are actually the ones in power. No, you've got the likes of North Korea, Russia and China building empty skyscrapers, building entire cities that sit empty, demolishing brand new apartment complexes because the floors aren't safe to walk on. The government told us to build it, so we built it. I get punished if I don't, and I don't get rewarded for doing a good job. The man that wrote Tetris didn't earn a single kopek.
Okay, a "fdr new deal socialist" isnt a thing. FDR was a social democrat which isn't socialist. The new deal was a social democrat policy, not socialist.
Please consider reading "the abc's of socialism" it is a good introduction to socialist thought.
Are there any statistics on where the most (convinced) leftists currently live? Just wondering. Not talking about people who are forced to adhere to authoritarian systems to survive or further their career.
There are literally 100 million members of the CPC. If .1 percent of them earnestly believe in communist thought that is more than the total members of communist orgs in the US.
In the "capitalism did better than communism/socialism" debate i still feel a great lack of historical context. Eastern Europe has been largely destroyed by the Nazis. China has lived through brutal Japanese occupation and a genocide of 10 Million people. Korea has been subject to a war emplyoing terrible new weapons such as Napalm to bring great destruction.
Meanwhile the US homeland has been faring without any destruction, France surrendered quick enough to avoid most damage and the UK sucessfully fended off the Nazi attacks so the damage was limited.
Purely economically speaking the Western allies were off to a much better start than the Eastern countries. So i would argue that for the economical question, it remains impossible to claim capitalism to be superior to socialism. Otherwise authoritarianism is always to the detriment of the people.
Way more shit is done with prison labor in the US. I guarantee. We have 25% of the prison population of the world, and the USSR had a tendency to send a massive amount of their prisoners to Siberia, which would make it difficult to help build apartment blocks several thousand miles away.
What's with that whataboutism? I don't care about the US. Why do your type brings it up every time, like it makes USSR's wrongdoings more acceptable. It doesn't. It's rather a lesson to learn and not repeat in your country.
and the USSR had a tendency to send a massive amount of their prisoners to Siberia, which would make it difficult to help build apartment blocks several thousand miles away.
So? They built infrastructure there, yes, so it's enormous territory can be somehow crossable. And they also built infrastructure, housing and plants\factories all over it's territory. Gulag wasn't just a one small camp, it's the Main Office of Camp (Managenent), it had a lot of people to send elsewhere, based on what Kremlin wants.
В смысле руками пленных нацистов? Тут жаль только, что их потом домой выпустили.
Или руками советских преступников, которым платили и было гарантировано трудоустройство после окончания срока, а не полоскание на ветру, как в твоих любимых либеральных залупах, раб?)
Why is this shit always communist vs capitalist, like we've only got 2 answers avaliable. You fuckers never set foot in a communist country and worship this shit
Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens? Don't really think showing a picture of some buildings is enough to prove that they actually solved any issues. They may have solved those issues for some who were lucky enough to get an apartment, but don't be a hexbear and pretend they housed everyone.
And no, I don't want a response with a link about hurr duer capitalism bad, yeah I know, but I live in capitalism so I already know that.
I’m still confused and alarmed that the only alternative brought up is communism, not socialism. So far as I know, the core difference is transfer of power - one is peaceful, one is violent.
So in communism, your home might be six feet underground because “It is necessary to achieve the revolution, comrade.” Absolutely zero chance of a leader that wants the best for their people, apparently.
Real socialism leads to communism. I want to call what I am advocating for as cultural marxism, but unfortunately that term has antisemitic connotations, while also perfectly encapsulating the gradual shift in the publics perception of Marxist ideology I am advocating for with memes such as this. I am not advocating for a violent revolution, but I wont deny the fact that when the powers that be make a peaceful revolution impossible, a violent revolution is inevitable.
You’re also taking a snapshot of the most regulated industry in the US. Building high rises is illegal in huge swaths of urban areas. Before we say the free market isn’t providing an answer cab we actually try it? I’m talking removing exclusionary zoning, speeding up the permit process and reducing the power of local action committees, and reforming the broken heritage process that’s used by rich people to keep their areas from densifying.
Socialism is Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. There sre many, many forms, such as Anarcho-Syndicalism, Marxism-Leninism, Democratic Socialism, Market Socialism, Libertarian Socialism, Anarcho-Communism, Council Communism, Left Communism, and more.
Communism is a more specific form of Socialism, by which you have achieved a Stateless, Classless, moneyless society. Many Communist ideologies are transitional towards Communism, such as the USSR's Marxism-Leninism or China's Dengism and Maoism.
Whether by reform or Revolution, the form doesn't change.
It's simple... If you convince the communists that the capitalists are trying to destroy them, (and vice versa), they fight each other, distracting them from the real enemy: the 1% with enough money to directly influence the folk that make the rules that keep them in the 1% club. We're fighting culture wars so we won't fight class wars, my friend.
The 1% are the Capitalist and they are trying to defeat the Communists and surpress/continue to exploit the Prolitariat with every tool at their vast disposal. The folks in the comments defending Capitalism are all members of the Prolitariat brainwashed into thinking they are down on their luck Millionaires.
Look... It's all tribalism, in the end. We can argue semantics, but doing so it's exactly their point. It keeps us busy with pedantry, while they continue to enjoy their wealth from on high. I am not educated enough to debate the pros and cons of each group, but I am intelligent enough to smell an attempt to distract me from the point. To know there's some sleight of hand fuckery happening right in front of my face.
Yes you are intelligent, and so close to getting it, the cultural warfare bullshit is all a distraction to keep you from noticing the class warfare being waged against the working class by the 1% who continues to rob value from us to horde weath far beyond our comprehension. I cant recommend Marx's writings enough, there is so much slight of hand fuxkery going on and it SHOULD rightfully piss you off!
What ideology is it, again, that champions working class people to take their power back? It's certainly not right wing.
If you think the world is fucked because of the greed of the 1%, and you want those people to pay for their crimes through class war, you're communist.
What ideology is it, again, that champions working class people to take their power back?
That sounds like a free market to me. When people have the power to determine their own fate, and how they engage with others for economic coordination.
When everyone has the ability to choose how they engage, that’s called a free market. The economic system based on free markets is called capitalism.
Fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens?
Bruh, centuries of capitalist exploitation of its citizens and treating them like a disposable commodity would like to have a word on the whole 'citizens killed by their own country' topic.
How many thousands or millions of citizens die yearly because they can't afford to live in this fucked up system?
None? People don't starve to death in western countries. And where they do the issue is lack of infrastructure. A communist government couldn't conjure the resources needed to build that out of thin air either.
None? People don’t starve to death in western countries. And where they do the issue is lack of infrastructure.
"This thing doesn't happen, and when it does, it's not the fault of capitalism itself" is a monumentally stupid argument. Especially when talking about the homeless population, which absolutely does have people that starve.
A communist government couldn’t conjure the resources needed to build that out of thin air either.
And the capitalist economy chose not to build it because it wasn't profitable, or after it was built, it was too expensive to be used.
Where is your great communist country ?? Oh wait, it's not there. It doesn't exist and it never will.
Capitalism works. Not perfect but it works. Your idealized version of communism is great but so is my idealized version of capitalism where everyone has a shot at the American dream!
You're so dense. I'm not advocating or simping got capitalism here. That's what I'm trying to communicate, but you're too fucking dense to even see that when I lay it out.
Both are bad. Just because I say these turds who worship an imaginary and propagandized version of communism are dorks doesn't mean I'm arguing in favor of capitalism. For fucks sake learn to read
You are 100% correct in your assertion, my anti Mario sex toy friend, and I love your passion. I worry that the minute you call someone's intelligence into question, they'll take a defensive posture and stop thinking critically. Critical thinking is what we need more than anything else in this world right now. That's what's in short supply. It's why the news is constantly being flooded with new things, and why there are so few media outlets that don't have a slant. If I can get you outraged at team blue, or team red, or team US, or team THEM, your anger overrides your reason and you stop thinking about who benefits from the distraction provided by us arguing over whatever this new bullshit thing is we're arguing over. Hopefully that last statement makes sense.
Except there isn't. we tried that then the capitalists bought the weaker willed politicians and used them to undermine any regulation. Capitalism is a cancer and must be excised as such.
Right. Communism vs capitalism is just more centralization. There are plenty of decentralized options to balance things as too much centralization, no matter the political system leads to corruption.
This is not "one or the another" situation, communism is the next qualitative stage in development of society. It solves the primary contradiction that we experience in capitalism, that is socialized production being privatized by individuals, aka capitalists.
You can't just declare communism by signing a document, because it is a process of development in which small quantitative changes in production (socialism) lead to a qualitative change (communism), thus to achieve the communism stage you have to achieve a certain level of development.
This is why China is considered a communist country by marxists-leninist even though qualitatively it is a capitalist country. They are actively working to develop communism, this can be clearly seen throughout their rhetoric (i.e. "The Governance of China") and their material results.
The problem with China being that it's authoritarian, not that it's capitalist or communist. There's no choice other than the Communist Party, so when the party is wildly corrupt, you have no recourse at all short of revolution. And we all know what China does to counter-revolutionaries.
And that is a problem to whom? Every single state is authoritarian, the question is whose interests are they protecting.
China is clearly a dictatorship of the proletariat and they use authority to protect the interests of the proletariat. Yes, sometimes their policy is wrong and does harm but ultimately they work to improve their policies, governing is a learning experience after all.
It's a problem because people don't feel like stakeholders when they don't have a say and can't participate in their system of governance. This in turn means that they aren't incentivized to willingly participate and have to be forced or indoctrinated, both of which are violations of human rights.
One party where a basic platform is defined and differences are expressed vibrantly on top of that is better than two parties that brand themselves as different but only offer a couple of aesthetic differences and concessions to keep people mad at the opposing party and not the underlying structure
...You're really saying that one party where you have no functional choice is better than a multi-party system, just because you think that Republicans and Dems are too alike, while ignoriing the plethora of other parties that not only actually exist in the US, but hold office at local and state level?
fucking communist countries have killed how many millions of their own citizens
Most of these articles cite the Black Book of Communism, which goes to absurd lengths to inflate the death toll of Communism, for example counting all the millions of nazi and soviet soldiers killed on the eastern front as victims of communism, counting the entire death toll of the Vietnam war, and even counting declining birth rates as deaths due to communism.
Noam Chomsky used the same methodology to argue that, according to Black Book logic, capitalism in India alone, from 1947–1979, could be blamed for more deaths than communism worldwide from 1917–1979.
Yeah that's called late stage Communism, which we have never achieved as humanity. Late stage Capitalism is currently pushing more and more folks into dangerous housing situations like the bottom right quadrant of this meme. Capitalism and Utopia are oxymorons while Communism and Utopia are synonymous.
Not a tankie, but the USSR had mostly solved this problem, despite all its other issues. There did exist some homelessness, but nowhere near the extent of current USA.
Well, I'm from a post-USSR country and a substantial part of this was the criminalization of homelessness. Can't have homeless people, if you lock them up (be it in a prison or asylum).
Then again, just about anyone, who did not conform to the party's message got locked up.
Getting your place bugged at the slightest hint you might be up to something disagreeable and all that good stuff. The secret police could disappear and or beat you up without any real justification.
I hate late-stage capitalism as much as you, but coming from a country that's been through this, I am extremely reluctant to give the rotten and frankly repugnant USSR regime any credit.
Woohoo both systems suck. You can actually believe that just because one system is bad, what is considered the opposite is also bad. Marx was not some omniscient doctor manhattan. He had some ideas. Some were good critiques on capitalist culture. Others were fantasy that do not function in the real world.
Notice how the folks arguing in favor of Communism have sources and receipts, while the folks arguing against it have done nothing but regurgitated Capitalist propaganda. Also note folks who are opposed to Communism and Marx's philosophy are always forced to admit that it only works on paper, because his logic is irrefutable if you address it with a modicum of intellectual honesty...
You're claiming communism is so great and when presented with links you just go "WELL WHAT ABOUT ALL THIS HUH" and then completely ignore the above. It's ridiculous. Actual text book definition of what about ism. Seriously stop and think for yourself for two seconds without restarting to this tribal shit slinging mentality.
Yeah, capitalism is bad, we live in it, we can see that happening around us, but you're eating literal propaganda about communism and ignoring actual verifiable evidence. This isn't a capitalism vs communism debate, there are more than two fucking systems you smooth brain chud
