• pearable@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    11
    ·
    10 months ago

    Any society that is not communism is not free. If your continued existence is dependant on you working for a wage you are not free. Being “free” to sign a contract that removes your rights so you can work and thus eat is not freedom.

    A free society does not need to coerce you into doing things that are good for society. You do them because they are fun or fulfilling. In other words, the same reason people work on open source software.

      • pearable@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        Country is a little vague so I’ll supliment state in it’s place. I’d argue there are communist societies but no communist states. “communist states” may be an oxymoron.

        A useful way to think about self described communist states is that they are attempting to build communism. Whether or not their strategies are effective is up for rigorous debate of course.

        Communist societies on the other hand have existed since the dawn of humanity. I read an interesting book titled The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. They cover a variety of indigenous groups’ economies and social structures. Some could be described as communism, others were as exploitative or worse than our current society. The San tribes are a modern example of an egalitarian society or maybe more accurately a group of egalitarian societies. I’m also interested in the Zapatistas and what the folks in Northern Syria are doing but I doubt they constitue communism.

        Anyway I’m no authority on these things but I hope you found the perspective interesting. The audiobook for the Dawn of Everything is fastinating and a local library might have a copy if you want to check it out.

      • Eldritch@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        10 months ago

        There are no communist countries. Only Communist countries. Communism is an authoritarian state economic system that is nominally left leaning. Whereas communism is largely against states and state power, and very libertarian in the original sense.

        So the answer to your question is that technically all communist countries are free. You just don’t know the difference.

          • Eldritch@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            10 months ago

            No, the actual problem is that you aren’t learning. Nor are you trying to. I literally just explained to you that there is a difference between Communism and communism. And what that difference was. Your only response. Sadly to cling to the same propaganda canard.

            There are no communist countries. Therefore, technically all of them are free and technically all of them are not free. Because they don’t exist. Communist countries on the other hand are socially very unfree.

            I truly hope you are not a programmer despite posting from a programming themed instance. If on accident you are, my sympathies to whoever hires you. Because you show the inability to differentiate between a variable name and a variable type.

            • snaggen@programming.dev
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              10 months ago

              You have understood that there doesn’t exist any country that meets you utopian communist view, yet you have not stopped to think about why that is.

              • Eldritch@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                10 months ago

                No. Literally now you are projecting. I know the reason why. And I can state it clearly. And I’ve already stated it to you. The reason is that communists don’t want a state. Therefore, the idea of a state being communist is an oxymoron. Communists on the other hand, reject parts of communism wholesale. The USSR, PRC and DKPR call/called themselves Communist. Yet they all had more in common with dictatorial juntas and fascism than they did with communism.

                At this point, you are basically asserting that a string named int is nothing but an integer.

                • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  ·
                  10 months ago

                  Technical correction for historical accuracy: the USSR, PRC, etc. never called their countries Communist, but were led by Communist parties that, by their own words, were attempting to build Communism. Marxism-Leninism posits the strategy of building up the productive forces via a transitional Socialist stage before reaching Communism.

                  I’m not an ML myself, but it’s important to understand the distinction. That’s why the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not the Union of Communist Republics, because even by their own admission they were far away from Communism. This is completely separate from how effective or ineffective we may analyze them to have been at achieving this stated goal, that’s an entirely separate conversation that again, I’m not an ML and am not interested in arguing.

                  • Eldritch@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    3
                    ·
                    10 months ago

                    I agree with all that. That’s all fine for a nuanced discussion between those that understand it. This wasn’t that conversation.

                    I’m not ML either. Staunchly anti ML generally. Because of how much they malign and damage the concept for those of us that are evolutionary and not revolutionary. That and the generally deadly outcomes they bring about as well as the childish behavior. 30 years ago, I would not have understood the distinction between the name applied to them and the concept the name was derived from either. Let alone the marginally good intentions, their roads to social oppression were paved with.