As expected this made libs here seething. Spectre haunts again lmao.
The Chinese communism revolution killed a shit lot of peoples. I hate capitalism but you have to be objective .also there were less comunism countries to begin with so yeah you can do what you want with statistics but its worth nothing more than a cry/Chad wojack
If we are to be 100% objective, the Chinese Revolution also saved millions. Life expectancy doubled, and hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty. We also know that the Black Book of Communism has long been debunked, it included made up numbers, Nazis killed during World War II as victims of Communism, and non-births as deaths.
aren’t those “killed by communists” lists tend to include the Nazis killed in ww2? kind of dishonest.
In countries led by capitalism, you have a higher probability of documentation. With the communist nothing may be written down… even the dead Wagner soldiers in front of you in the grave may not be documented and never pay as killed. Fuck off with your filthy propaganda… Visit the mass graves in Africa etc caused by Russia!
Russia is not communist, though?
Not officially. How many of Lenin’s statutes, for example, are still standing? Where is there an effort to distance oneself from the past? Oh wait… Putin wants the former status of the USSR with Russia… what else was there, oh yes, communism.
Really funny but when Russia then accuses other countries of “Nazis Nazis Nazis” this double standard of the Russians
The most disgusting thing is the attempt to distract. Away from the facts that communism is also responsible for millions of deaths, it is just not documented there but hushed up.
Does Putin want to abolish private property, too?
Cause homie: If being imperialist and proud of your problematic past makes you communist, then I guess all hail the people’s republic of the USA. /s
Germany needs statues of Hitler again and swastikas everywhere, like the imperial eagle, to then say “no, we have nothing more to do with that”
So mega stupid
Communism is when Lenin statues, got it. /s
If you leave the symbols from the communist era standing. The statutes were still just a single example. You don’t even understand how you’re breathing…
TIL Germany is a feudalist country with all those statues of knights and kings standing around. /s
there is literally nothing about current russia that could be described as communist
Honest question: where does the 1,6 billion figure come from?
Every death by Dutch capitalism (death from the slave trade, Colonialism/Colonial wars (Oceania, Africa, …), …)
plus
Every death by British empire’s capitalism (Irish genocide, Bengal famine, Slave trade, Colonialism/Colonial wars (India, Africa, North America, South east Asia, Oceania, Middle east, …) , Opium wars, Massacres against independence movements (India, …), …)
plus
Every death by French capitalism (Colonialism/colonial wars (North America, Caribbeans, Africa, South east Asia, …), Slave trade, Massacres against independence movements (Algeria, Haiti, …), …)
plus
Every death by Belgian capitalism (Colonialism/Colonial wars (Congo, …), Slave trade, Massacres against independence movements, …)
plus
Every death by United States’ capitalism (Colonialism/Colonial wars (Cuba, Hawaii, Philipines, North America, …), Massacres against independence movements (South east Asia, Oceania, Cuba, …), Slave trade, …)
plus
Every death by German capitalism (Nama and Herero genocide, Holocaust, Slave trade, …)
plus
Every death caused by preventable starvation, lack of access to water, healthcare.
List very much non-exhaustive.
If you add it all up you easily get over 1 Billion.
I’m getting a bit tired of seeing the communism/capitalism dichotomy. Guys let’s be pluralistic or at least see these two as a scale. There are a lot of solutions in between. Government failures exist just as much as market failures. Let’s focus on the actual root causes of our problems: externalities, rent seeking, private land ownership, too long patents, public good provision, overly complex legal system, information asymmetries in labor markets. We need unions, free health care, cheaper education, carbon taxes, land value taxes, simplified legal system that can’t be taken advantage of. Stop this capitalism vs communism bullshit. That’s not the cause of all this. Your real enemy is “rentier capitalism”.
I think you’re quite dramatically misinterpreting what the solutions put forward by Communists are, or at least Marxists. Marxists are not believers that there is some perfect form of society we can implement today that will also be perfect 100 years from now. Rather, the Marxist assertion is that different forms are best suited in different conditions and different levels of development.
China is a good example. The PRC is headed by a Communist party over a Socialist economy, one that has public ownership as the principle aspect, but nonetheless heavily relies on markets. This is because the CPC believes this to be the best form of society right now, and that as markets coalesce into fewer firms, they can be more efficiently publicly owned and planned. The long term belief is that eventually abolishing the value form will be possible and necessary, but we aren’t there yet.
I think that because you haven’t engaged with what Communists are actually trying to do, you’ve ended up inventing a strawman to argue against, even though you’d likely agree with us. Marxism is a scientific approach to economic development. There isn’t an “in-between” of Communism vs Capitalism, because we are either taking control over Capital, or it has control over us.
Public vs private ownership of companies is a case by case basis. Many “capitalist” countries have many publicly owned companies. We used to have even more before Thatcher and Reagan. Now we have moved into a more public private partnership idea, which is a compromise.
Monopolies are able to extract monopoly rents through market power. This is one of the problems of rentier capitalism. That is why we have antitrust laws. We also need a system that prevents political rents from lobbyism for example by making it illegal for politicians to have stocks or to take campaign money from donors. We also have land rents from private land ownership. Singapore has a public land lease model, but a land value tax would achieve the exact same outcome.
In economics you talk about natural monopolies which is when initial investment costs are too high for competitors to exist or when physics or other constraints prevent competition (think of a railway line between two cities). There are many ways to argue that these types of companies should be publicly owned within a capitalist framework.
So yes, there is an in-between. And it depends exactly how much business is left to the government and how much is left to companies. This balance is defined by politics.
The discrepancy between the stance of Marxists and yourself is in your analysis of “Capitalism” as the private sector and “Socialism” as the public sector. This form of compartmentalization does indeed imply that everything is a balance, but that isn’t the analysis of Marxists. When I describe public ownership above as the principle aspect of the PRC’s economy, I mean that the large firms and key industries are firmly and overwhelmingly in the public sector. The reason this is relevant is because this means the public has dominion over the entire economy, not private Capital. It isn’t a blend of Socialism and Capitalism, or a halfway point, it’s a Socialist economy.
When you outline your ideal society, having antitrust laws, strong regulations, etc, you leave out analysis of political power. Which class has control of the state? Which class controls media, and the large firms and key industries? Without such analysis, these antitrust laws and corporate lobbying laws will only be passed in a manner that serves Private Capital, including the public sector.
So, circling back around, there isn’t an in-between of Capitalism or Socialism/Communism. A country is either on the Capitalist road, or the Socialist road, ie it is either under the dominion of private Capital, or public ownership. The ratio of socialization of the economy will vary depending on economic development, but the direction it is moving and the power dynamics of the classes within society are relatively binary.
That’s why I say you haven’t actually engaged with Communists and their ideas, legitimately, and likely would agree with us.
If you move towards socialism when you vote left and move towards capitalism when you vote right, isn’t it possible to be halfway and be happy with being there?
Even the analysis of who has the political power. Democracy implies one person one vote, but the US has one dollar one vote. This is not democracy. It is capitalist yes, but it’s also possible to have capitalism with institutions that prevent money from getting too much political power both in terms of influencing politicians and media.
Btw, capitalists are not bound to get richer than workers. Over time, economic theory suggest that this remains in balance due to competition. You will find that the wealth to income ratio has risen over time. But wealth is not capital. Stiglitz argues quite convincingly that the only difference between wealth and capital is the capitalized value of economic rents. This is what I mean by rentier capitalism. Economic rents are the root of inequalities, stagnating growth, recurring recessions, unaffordable housing and urban sprawl. I recommend reading up on Georgism. You probably agree with it a lot more than you think ;)
You don’t move towards Capitalism if you vote right or move towards Socialism if you move left. You don’t change the entire base like that. Eventually, a build up of quantitative pressure will result in a qualitative change, but you won’t be halfway at any point.
It really isn’t possible to have Capitalism, a system where private ownership holds the large firms, key industries, and state power, while genuinely restricting it. Regulations in Capitalist countries serve to punish small firms and ensure large Capital succeeds, it solodifies their status.
“Economic theory” does not suggest workers and owners reach a balance. Economics and history prove that wealth and Capital concentrate in fewer and fewer hands, as large firms supercede the small ones. Further, financial Capital is Capital of a different sort, and is the means by which the US and EU Imperialize countries in the Global South. Stiglitz may make a decent argument rhetorically as you read, but his writings don’t hold up to history while Marx’s do.
I’m aware of Georgeism, it isn’t some grand secret trump card to pull. It’s just a more restricted form of Capitalism, it doesn’t address the base. Land Value Tax may be a neat idea, but it would only slow the progression of Capitalism to fewer and fewer firms. Further, Capitalists would just wind it back when it suits them, even if by some miracle you could get them established.
I’m on board that the complicated nature of our legal system is exploited by companies to increase barriers of entry. I don’t think this means that institutions can’t do the opposite too. I think laws should be made simpler, but it’s possible to do so in way that also realigns them with societal goals of minimizing market power.
I’m also on board with the idea that there are certain industries that should be state owned such as management of natural resources, roads, rails, heating, health care etc.
You say that economics and history proves that capital concentrates in fewer and fewer hands. If you dissect what kind of capital that is, it’s actually housing that explains 87% of the rise in wealth to income ratios. And land explains 80% of changes in house prices. So Georgism may not be as small of a part of the problem as you think. Land is not capital.
The complicated system we have is because of megacorporations lobbying to make it that way. We cannot push against that. Further, the vast rise of large industry and megacorps plays a larger role in society than housing, which is still important, but not the dominating aspect of the economy.
Georgism isn’t really a part of the problem, but it’s also not part of the solution.
