If only there were some kind of way for it to not devolve into totalitarian dictatorship...
lucky u, there is; its called just doing the fucking thing like normal, cuz non of the historical examples did that so u know.
"devolve"
Big fan of Tsarist Russia, Feudal China, Colonial Japan, and Batista Cuba I take it.
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.
My concern with this line of argument is that it bundles consequences from a system of government up with the consequences of trade embargoes and other hostile actions from capitalist economies. That doesn't make the actions of the dictators in those countries justifiable in any way, but might have precipitated conditions that made them more likely.
How would communist nations have fared if the US had taken a 'live and let live' approach to them? The approach during the cold war was that they couldn't be allowed to succeed. That led to the sort of standards of living where dictatorship tends to thrive. Note this isn't unique to communist countries. Look at the Republican party in the US, now that Neoliberalism is failing.
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
Any ~~current~~ real-life examples of "communism good"?
It's been democratically instituted many times. And every time America marches in and "liberates" them.
It's difficult to provide good examples when they're all actively destroyed.
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.
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
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:
USSR provided free education to all citizens resulting in literacy rising from 33% to 99.9%:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0735675784900482 (sci-hub for access)
USSR defeated a smallpox epidemic in a matter of 19 days https://www.rbth.com/history/331857-how-ussr-defeated-black-smallpox
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?
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
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.
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.
Now I love boiling down the pitfalls of modern western society into large statements like "capitalism bad" and "communism good" as much as anyone, but having dealt with a bunch of people dismiss good change as "that's communism" has made me rethink how I talk about topics online and in person.
Now the accelerationist are gonna be mad about this for sure, but maybe you should start small, and discuss topics at a more local level. Then again the internet is world wide and everyone wants to talk about grand scale things.
Basically, I've stopped telling people outside of my direct circle that leftism cool, and instead talk about socialised medicine programs, pushing for support of worker owned productions and business, getting involved with coop housing. Lot easier when you don't have to bump up against the red scare.
But have you considered iphone vuvuzela
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.
It's worse when you say you're a Communist or say Communism is good, and people agree, but when you advocate for AES or advocate for standard Marxist theory the same people flip on you and call you brainwashed.
I haven’t gotten that far with people yet. I have only met people who say “no communism” but “socialism” or “Democratic socialism” or “social democracy”
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