Turns out authoritarianism bad. Maybe we should stop building hierarchies
Welcome back, tribalism! Surely it’ll be fine this time!
Tribalism is hierarchy. Which then becomes authority. Which isn’t anarchism.
Authoritarianism, authoritarianism, authoritarianism…
“Communism”™
Yeah, I’m like - where was it actually tried without capture or interference from outside (like complete global markets cut off by the US in Cuba)
where was it actually tried
It’s never been ‘tried’. Communism is end result of long term socialism. By definition any other path ‘there’, in fact leads to a different destination.
We need an “im14andthisisdeep” community so that I can crosspost this there.
No good ists, no good isms. Maybe the problem is in systems and not in us.
Some animals are more equal.
It is. Which is why the 4th panel is Anarchism.
Feels like a bit of a self own, lol.
Youu’re unintentionally right. When someone else doesn’t own you or everyone else. Then you are actually free. So yeah, owning yourself and your own destiny.
Owned
v. owned, 0wned, pwned, 0wn3d, pwn3d, own3d.
v. tr.
To be made a fool of; To make a fool of; To confound or prove wrong; embarrasing someone: Being embarrased.
I owned you in counter-strike. You were owned at the party yesterday.Yes you don’t understand it. We understand that. Though by your own definition you regularly own yourself too.
Checks out, an Anarchist™ would certainly be an advocate of self harm and self oppression. After all, the billionaires seem all for the idea, and they must be the smartest people on earth. /s
Go actually look up what anarchists believe and are for. If you want to make assumptions about them.
I don’t think we have any large differences in ideal outcomes, just how to get there and to maintain it.
Well, considering communism has lifted 800M people out of abject poverty in under a century, while both feudalism and liberalism produced and reproduces that abject poverty, even in the face of industrialization and massive productivity increases, I would say that the problem is class society and the contemporary liberal’s inability to understand history.
And how many did those specific communist regimes like Mao kill?
The ends don’t justify the means when mass murder is involved.
They killed far far fewer than the Americans, English, French, Dutch, Spanish, Belgian, Germans, Portuguese, etc.
The ends don’t justify the means when mass murder is involved.
The fact that we are in a thread that is crying about the retreat of Western “democracy” says otherwise(got my threads mixed up)In this case the status quo was created and is maintained by mass murder, and attempts to change it are met with mass murder. At a certain point, if you want to fix things, you have to be prepared for the defenders of the status quo to come at you with violence.
Strange how the economies start schmoving after the adoption of a market economy. What a coincidence!
Yeah, that’s also not what happened. The move to incorporate markets was done after substantial poverty alleviation. Markets were created specifically to address exactly what markets are good at: allocation of resources in complex fast moving supply chains. Private ownership of land is still impossible, over 50% of the economy is still directly managed by the state planning systems, every major corporation has the state planning system as a stakeholder at all times, violation of the public trust is still punishable by total liquidation up to and including the death penalty. Markets are useful. Again, no one argues that they aren’t. Again, Marx detailed precisely how and why markets are useful. It’s not a surprise, it’s not a shock, and it’s not a violation of communist theory, it’s a validation of it. China is continuously in a process of active development of a society that is not ruled by capital but is instead ruled by the needs of the masses while still solving incredibly complex coordination/resource allocation problems. In the West, markets cause homelessness and food insecurity because markets are the most important thing (to the point where the imperial hegemon will literally invade your country and everyone else will support them for your crime of not using markets). Under communism, markets are less important than housing abundance and universal access to nutrition.
Economic liberalism has raised nearly that many from abject poverty over time as well. The only thing different is the speed run by cribbing other people’s notes. The problem is once hierarchies become set. Abject poverty returns and becomes inevitable.
The only thing different is the speed run by cribbing other people’s notes.
Fucking hilarious. You can just look at homelessness, cost of living, rent, nutrition - by all measures the difference is organizing society to maximize the benefit to the masses.
The problem is once hierarchies become set. Abject poverty returns and becomes inevitable.
China is the longest running communist-led experiment and I know you anarchists have no problem identifying that China has a strong hierarchy and yet poverty alleviation is still happening at a mass scale. So, your “theory” doesn’t fit the evidence
You are comparing late-stage capitalist Nations to ones that are just starting. It’s an apples to oranges comparison. How has allowing for Millionaires and billionaires maximized the benefit to the masses? Talk about fucking hilarious. The rhetoric is good but China’s Praxis is going to fail just like everyone else who’s tried it. It’s already slowing and calcifying. Younger Generations becoming restless and unaccepting of their governments failures. Just like in the west. It’s not magic.
You are comparing late-stage capitalist Nations to ones that are just starting.
The Bolshevik revolution occurred before the Western “green revolution” in agriculture, and they started from serfdom, and still the Soviets were able to achieve poverty alleviation in 30 years that took liberal democracies almost 150 years achieve. And the outcomes after that were still incredible, with rents costing less than 10% of income and homelessness eradicated, things the West has never achieved.
China started in 1949 having been subjugated by multiple European powers and Japan for over a century, with the Western drug dealers getting over a third of Chinese people hooked on opium. They were literally the poorest country on the planet in 1949 and again, within 50 years had achieved more poverty alleviation than the entire Western world combined had achieved in 200. And they did it without taking over an entire continent and committing a genocide that killed 90% of the original inhabitants.
How has allowing for Millionaires and billionaires maximized the benefit to the masses?
The same way capitalism in the West benefited from allowing millionaires and billionaires - efficient allocation of resources in a complex economy. That’s what capitalism is good at. No one argues against that. Even Marx acknowledged why capitalism emerged and the effectiveness of the system.
The difference is that under a liberal ideology of “fuck you, I got mine” we developed robber barons while labor unions were beaten to death by private and state police and coal miners were bombed from airplanes, whereas under a communist party the profit accrued to the millionaires and billionaires went hand-in-hand with massive poverty alleviation. I mean, it’s quite explicit, well documented, analyzed, and all of Communist theory from the beginning can make sense of it. That you think the existence of private wealth pockets must inherently mean that the people get no benefit is you projecting the history of liberalism onto systems that aren’t as depraved as liberalism.
The rhetoric is good but China’s Praxis is going to fail just like everyone else who’s tried it.
So you admit that it hasn’t failed yet, and that far from being purely rhetoric, it’s actually worked.
It’s already slowing and calcifying.
Economic growth is not an independent nation-state thing. It’s a global economy thing. And China’s growth is 2x - 4x higher than the most powerful economies in the West. You’re basically saying that just because it’s winter, the falling temperatures disprove global warming. China’s growth is still second in the world, with India’s growth leading.
Just like in the west. It’s not magic.
The only magic here is just how effective Western propaganda is at making you disbelieve all th evidence in front of you. It’s not magic that communism outperforms capitalism. It’s not magic that communism focuses on the quality of the life of the masses. It’s not magic that liberalism has failed. Liberalism believes in magic like “if we enshrine moral values into our government, we will thrive and prosper”. Anarchism believes in magic like “hierarchies are evil and produce abject poverty and eliminating hierarchies is both possible and will result in thriving and prosperity”
