Cowbee [he/they]

Russia is a Capitalist country, quite similar to the US in that regard. The fact that few people own the most doesn’t mean it isn’t a Capitalist economy driven by private ownership.

I think it does. Capitalism at a higher stage is still Capitalism, even if some of the characteristics change.

The US is at a much higher and more developed form of Capitalism, also called “late-stage” Capitalism. This is a part of Capitalist development.

What do you think a system that has managed to achieve “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs” would look like? Are you just imagining a Utopia and thinking it wouldn’t work? Marxists agree, imagining a Utopia and trying to build it is a failure in analysis of reality, hence why Marxism rejected Utopian model building. Read Socialism: Utopian and Scientific if you want to see what Marxists actually believe.

The main thing you are arguing is that your preconceived notion of Communism that you appear to have extrapolated from a single phrase doesn’t account for imperfect behavior, but you aren’t arguing against what Communists actually want, just what you think they want.

Socialism (and Communism, ie the future post-Socialist global mode of production) are both democratic. Are you using “Democracy” as a stand-in term for Capitalism? What do you believe “Democracy” means? Moreover, why do you think Socialism is “easier to hack?”

Secondly, I genuinely don’t know what you mean by Communism requiring everyone to “act in good faith.” There’s laws and government in Communism, as well as democratic control and civil protections.

I think, more than anything, it would benefit you greatly to take a look at what Communists believe. Up in the parent comment I have a list of reading you can check out, if you’d like. I think you’ll find it difficult to understand and talk about Communism if you don’t first take a look at what Communists believe in the first place.

The Soviet system lasted nearly a full century, and worked very well for the vast majority of its existence. If someone wants to make the claim that collapse is inevitable just because the USSR was dissolved, they need to do the legwork to prove it as such. We can discuss what went right and what went wrong in the USSR, including how and why it dissolved, but without legwork assertions like “collapse was inevitable” can be ignored and not taken seriously as there’s nothing to take seriously.

As for scarcity of resources, that’s something that can actually be addressed, but I want to clear up the rest of that paragraph first. For 1, I never said the USSR was “optimal,” and no Marxist believes it to have been a perfect wonderland, just a much better system with its own flaws, albeit lesser flaws. For 2, social services aren’t a bad thing, especially not in a system that saw by far the most devastation from World War II. The fact is, addressing hunger was a priority for the Socialist system as full employment was one of the benefits and necessities for that form of economy, unlike Capitalism, so even if we assume everyone acted selfishly there was no need for a “reserve army of labor.”

Now to actually address scarcity of resources. The fundamental issue with the Soviet system and resource gathering was that it could not depend on international trade for anything. The Capitalist countries all made deliberate choices to provide unstable or unfavorable trade with the Socialists, so they had to develop all of their resources internally, even ones scarce in the regions controlled by the Socialists. Even then, GDP growth was some of the highest in the world while wealth disparity some of the lowest. Further, much of the economy was spent on millitary research and development in order to keep the US at bay.

As for your final paragraph, I don’t think we actually disagree here, though I imagine your “socially conscious democracy” is different from what you think the Marxist-Leninist states look like. Surviving Imperialism as the highest form of Capitalism requires, above all, an end to the US Empire as the world’s greatest Imperialist power, and an uplifiting of the Global South. We can’t move beyond Capitalism globally while the US Empire still functions the way it does, by “dollar recycling” off of all the other countries and owning 800 millitary bases globally to keep the Dollar standard going.

By and large, Socialism was an incredible improvement compared to the Tsarist system, though not some fairytale perfect wonderland, and Socialism was far better than current Capitalism is in the Russian Federation. 7 million excess deaths occured from the transition from Socialism to Capitalism, as the previous safety nets were dissolved or sold off at bargain prices to foreign Capitalists.

The Bolshevik revolution was positive, suffering was dramatically reduced with its implementation, not increased. With Socialism came a dramatic and sustained improvement in worker’s rights, equality of the sexes, a doubling of life expectancies, an end to famine, incredible scientific achievement in a country that began the century as an underdeveloped agrarian backwater, and a democratization of society in a way that far supercedes the former Tsarist system and the future Capitalist system in the Russian Federation.

I don’t know what you mean by “to this day,” to this day Russia is now Capitalist, it hasn’t been Socialist since the beginning of the 90’s. If you want a nuanced critique of the USSR, Blackshirts and Reds is a good option, it’s the second item in my reading list if you want a link.

Moreover, Russia transitioned to Socialism when Russia was a feudal backwater and the US was transitioning to the world superpower, it was always far behind in world power and yet did a better job of maximizing resource usage in favor of the Workers, despite the US’s Imperialism.

If you want to make sense of the current political moment, and why electoral politics under capitalism can never, and will never, serve anyone but the wealthy capitalists, look no further than the most influential political theorist of the 20th century: Vladimir Lenin. A thread.

I highly recommend reading this thread. If you want an intro Marxist-Leninist reading list, I made one you can check out here.

I don’t know who you are, moreover this now seems like a personal vendetta with me you want to air out. If you want to have an actual discussion with me and see if we can find common ground as fellow leftists I am more than willing to, but that’s hard to do if you call me a troll, Trump supporter, sealion, etc just for trying to engage in a conversation in the first place.

I never said you hate leftists, though. After you called me a Trump supporter unprovoked, I asked if you think all Leftists critical of the DNC and GOP count as Trump supporters in your eyes, as there’s no other conclusion I could have gathered from your unprovoked claim.

Isn’t that more your conclusion about me than anything else? You admitted elsewhere to trying to get banned so you can make this post and call out “hypocrisy.” Seems more people are siding with me on this one.

If you want to have an actual conversation, I’d be thrilled, but it looks like that wasn’t your aim in the first place.

Ignoring the attempt at psychoanalysis (which I disagree with your conclusions about me), I never claimed you weren’t a Leftist. I asked if Leftists being critical of the DNC and GOP alike were all Trump supporters in your eyes, right after you called me a Trump supporter for asking why you think the Dems will suddenly become meaningful opposition come the midterms when they aren’t already.

It really isn’t my fault when people come onto Lemmy.ml and start slandering users as Trump supporters and trolls and get themselves banned. I never reported you for it either. I would much rather get some form of agreement with you and come to a consensus, because debate is largely stupid. My intention when talking with other users depends on the context, but generally focuses on trying to educate on Marxism and Marxism-Leninism, or on discussing contemporary political issues (like the Dems being, in my opinion, woefully insufficient to oppose Trump, revolution is necessary).

I don’t get a dopamine hit when I “win” an argument, but instead do when people genuinely change their mind or thank me for helping with their understanding of Marxist or Marxist-Leninist theory, and for what it’s worth that’s more frequent than users getting upset at me for engaging with them.

I intentionally broke rule 2, because .ml users do it all the fucking time.

If I’m reading this correctly, it looks like you were fishing for a ban that could be seen as a double-standard so you could make a post here.

Moreover, you never labeled yourself an Anarchist, and I haven’t been hostile towards Anarchists, I myself used to be one and am sympathetic despite now being a Marxist-Leninist. Additionally, I never said you weren’t a Leftist, and your label of me as a Trump supporter happened entirely unprovoked.

For what?

I didn’t call you a liberal here, and moreover I only implied your hostility to Leftists critical of the DNC after you called me a Trump supporter. My initial comment just asked why you think the Dems would start meaningfully opposing Trump after the midterms when they aren’t already, which is a reasonable and non-inflammatory question.

First, if you don’t want to continue arguing about the original point, it’s not my intention to continue it, just explain myself. Your original comment was about being upset at the meme for potentially “discouraging people from voting Democrat.” If you don’t want to call that being pro-Dem, then that’s fine, I’ll adjust my phrasing, but my question in response to that (shown in the image above) is in no way trolling or sealioning.

I wasn’t saying you weren’t a Leftist, I asked if Leftists being critical of the DNC were all secretly republicans in your eyes, and I asked as such because you had just labeled me a Trump supporter unprovoked. Is that not a bit hypocritical, when you claim to be upset at me for implying you aren’t a Leftist?

All in all my point is that my initial comment was not mean in any way, and you responded with meanness. The rest of the exchange was me clearing my name. If you wanted to disengage, you should have done as other users have suggested and just said “disengage” or not responded.

Yep, this is correct. I couldn’t just leave the implication that I’m a Trump supporter uncontested, that was slander, they nullified the disengage rule by doing so. I’m fine with not continuing a conversation people don’t wish to continue, but not with people trying to use the disengage rule to hide behind personal insults towards me.

I don’t follow, where is the implication that I’m a troll? OP’s complaint was that me as an ML was left alone while they as an Anarchist were punished (though there was no indication that they were an Anarchist, just being pro-dem).

Oh hey, it’s me. In my opinion, if you want to disengage, you shouldn’t also lash out and expect to not get called out for that final lash. If I just left the accusation of me being a Trump supporter open just because you said you didn’t want to argue, then that can be seen as admission of being as accused, ergo I responded to that specifically rather than continue the conversation you disengaged from.

In the future, if you want to disengage, then either just say something like “disengage” or don’t respond. If you insult, you aren’t disengaging, but inviting further engagement despite your stated wishes to not engage. It’s like throwing a sucker punch then saying “no punchbacks.”