I don’t think it’s capitalism anymore, it’s a mess. It’s an oligarchy going towards monopolies that will own the government. Skynet from terminator 2 is where I’m eventually seeing this go
It would be really nice if folks understood that authoritarianism will always ultimately oppress them, regardless of which ideology it serves.
And it would be doubly awesome if we could deconstruct those ideologies, take from each what works for the betterment of humanity, and build a way out of this ass backwards dystopia instead of shrieking “TankiE!” “FaCisT!!” “WoKE!” at each other.
But that might be a little too much to expect from a world full of hairless apes.
Politics is far too much like team sports for a lot of people.
People on Lemmy act like criticizing the misdeeds of the USSR is an attack on all of socialism’s principles.
I rarely see criticism of actual misdeeds, mostly vague “USSR bad” and shit either made up or taken wildly out of context, both of which serve no purpose but to attack all of socialism’s principles.
This is the equivalent of starting every conversation involving Israel with “Do you condemn Hamas??!”; even if Hamas is imperfect, condemning them in the context of resisting Israel is condemning actual existing resistance to genocide.
I rarely see criticism of actual misdeeds, mostly vague “USSR bad” and shit either made up or taken wildly out of context, both of which serve no purpose but to attack all of socialism’s principles.
Do you view criticisms of the USA as criticisms of democracy’s principles?
If not, then you’re being irrational in how you think about one or both of the countries.
This is the equivalent of starting every conversation involving Israel with “Do you condemn Hamas??!”; even if Hamas is imperfect, condemning them in the context of resisting Israel is condemning actual existing resistance to genocide.
Most reasonable socialists agree that the USSR perverted a socialist movement to benefit a new ruling class and oppress people. As such, the USSR was a significant blow to socialism in more ways than one. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to criticize something that was more Bad than Good, even if it had some Good.
Again wrapping around to the USA, I would wager you have no qualms with criticizing the USA even if it does some good.
Add private property seizure to the list. They’re using eminent domain to take homes to build for AI infrastructure.
Really, the thing that people fear is authoritarianism. And it can happen in any government so long as power is consolidated. If structures remain broad and flat with many checks and balances it prevents corruption more readily.
And, well, capitalism has a head start. The foundation is making more profit. Capital will reward those who are the most unempathetic and narcissistic as they are the most ready to exploit others. And through that exploitation, they earn profit, and work to deregulate and consolidate to continue generating profit.
Capitalism is working as intended. Authoritarianism is a happy bedfellow.
The goal with the red scare then and the anti socialism crusade now is to make people scared, so they crave authoritarianism.
I’ve seen some numbers floating around that about 30% of people support authoritarianism. Some people literally cannot live with ambiguity and fear it. So when there is fear, societal, financial, etc, they flock to those who provide them a simple answer, even if incorrect.
In America’s case, Trump correctly identified those problems while the opposition didn’t address them. And those people can’t live with ambiguity, it sets alarm bells off in their head (might be why they can’t deal with lgbtq individuals even though it doesn’t affect them at all.)
Lost your job? An immigrant took it
Lost your healthcare? An immigrant or a trans individual took it.
Inflation, tax breaks for the wealthy? Corrupt elites in washington
Tbh idk how people believed capitalism could be a good thing to begin with.
In nature, anything that grows indefinite is bound to corrupt. Even our cells. If there’s no controlled growth it turns into cancer.
Idk man. Idk.
Really, the thing that people fear is authoritarianism. And it can happen in any government so long as power is consolidated.
Power corrupts.
I like this take on it:
All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.
– Frank Herbert
Even socialism would still use eminent domain to take property, but itd likely be for something a bit better than that. Probably a highway, train, or building that is more for the public good (e.g airport, power plant, hospital)
Sometimes shit is just in the way and a government needs a way to be able to work around it.
I imagine the compensation would be more fair as well.
Not saying it wouldn’t, but that’s one of the “fears of communism.” I just heard some MAGA hack using it on CNN or FOX I think trying to attack the DSA and fear monger. But it’s happening right now, and has happened, under capitalism, for profit.
But yes, a socialist government wouldn’t have profit as its core tenant, but people. So, ideally, eminent domain would be a last resort and plans would be made to affect minimal individuals while making sure compensation is more than fair.
In this case with the data center, I’m sure the power lines could be routed around the housing areas. But it would be more costly. Why would a private utility company spend more money when there’s profit to be made?
Good ol neoliberal capitalism and its inherent contradictions. Deliver freedom, but there is freedom of capital and freedom of peoples. And neoliberalism has chosen freedom of capital over freedom of people.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
From what I understand, the narrative is that these things are inevitable. Natural emergent states of the world. No point fighting it, etc etc. Even the billionaires think as much, that’s why they invest in insulating themselves from it.
So it’s not that these things are avoidable/preventable, so much as wouldn’t you rather the GOOD guys be in charge of the fiefdoms?
Things are inevitable if you don’t change policy and culture.
They are just betting everyone is so overwhelmed they can’t see what is really happening. So far it is working.
Sure! Looking forward to finally see one of these good guys!
Anyone ever saw one??
Not enough drugs to facilitate such a strong hallucination.
I think the trick is that evil capitalism sells it to you as something you’d actually want. Or a lot of people want. Meanwhile evil communism kinda forces it onto people more directly.
Store all of your private data on some storage devices sitting anywhere in the world and let people manage it you do not know and can not be sure they’re not accessing it?
That’s the convenience of the cloud!Let some weirdos obsess over your social life, connections, and what you ate for breakfast to sell that data and show you stuff that manipulates you to do their bidding?
That’s the advantage of staying in touch with friends and family over social networks!Carry a device with you that tracks your whereabouts and monitors each and every interaction you have with it? That’s smartphones for you. But hey, at least you can find your way to the next McDonalds thanks to the navigation and map apps.
And this was “just” the technological aspect of things.
The technological aspect is perhaps the most important aspect though. It is what has allowed the wealthy far more money and power than ever thought imaginable.
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so no one understands socialism.
Ah great. One extremist complaining about an other extremist.
Authoritarianism is a consequence of extremisme which is a consequence of stupidity… left or right wing extremism are both bad and evil, but saying the whole American idiocracy disaster is caused by capitalism is dishonest
Capitalist extremism gets a free pass, for… reasons…
I dont think those things are acceptable regardless of the doctrine your country follows.
It’s also more of a dictatorship vs functioning democracy distinction than a capitalism vs socialism distinction
The soviet union had most of the things on the list, but that’s because it was a dictatorship, it was never run by the proletariat, it still had an elite and that elite was particularly nasty.
From what I gather, Cuba, while not perfect, is in a much better place in terms of human rights, and has to feed its people despite sanctions. And we have several nations still practicing capitalism that aren’t dictatorships.
Of course the US conservatives have done a lot to make people conflate socialism with authoritarianism and lukewarm liberals with socialists.
Cuba is still pretty crap I’m afraid. Like with the USSR, you’re not exactly fairly electing your foreman or your governor. Emma Goldman would call it state-capitalist.
The reason the old Marxist parties called themselves social-democrats, before they sold themselves out so bad that the name changed meaning, was because it was conceived that socialism would involve democracy in every facet of social life rather than just electing a parliament.
The Leninists and reformists have failed to bring about this dream, but it is a fair dream to strive towards. Class society and the state (including alleged democracies) restrain people’s control over their own lives and turn us into mere order-takers content with scraps. The struggle for more than mere scraps and the struggle for self-management and autonomy are in truth the same struggle, which is the struggle for that dream.
several nations still practicing capitalism that aren’t dictatorships
Most of them are ‘social democracies’ that are a mix of socialism and capitalism. It doesnt always have to be left vs right.
Most of them also slowly follow the US, e.g. Germany. In Germany we had like 3-4 decades after WWII, where i would say capitalism was bearable. Meaning realtively high median income, people could actually afford houses, some kind of wealth distribution (high taxes on high incomes, at least some kind of wealth tax, but on the other hand free, decent education and full subsidy students life, when you go to university and you or your parents can’t( afford to support you in this time).
Then neoliberalism hit in the 90s… And we really started to fuck every social thing in Germany to become “Exportweltmeister” in the early 2000s.
Same here in UK. Party stopped mid 00’s. Nordic countries seem pretty good at wealth distribution though. How Norway protected its oil wealth should be studied in schools.
We’re all following the same pattern, the wealth distribution got completely fucked during covid and it hasn’t slowed down ever since. We’re just 5-10 years after you, but I’m scared of the direction especially the UK have made and no proper parties seems to be willing to dismantle the elites yet.
Capitalism will always make wealth trickle upwards, unless you either tax wealth harder than yields or taxes death to oblivion. Personally I’m in favour of 100% inheritance tax after the first 400 thousand euroes, as that’s the most feasible way to transition into a liberal merit based society rather than a nepotistic society based upon how wealthy your parents are which is dominating everywhere today - Including my beloved Denmark.
that are a mix of socialism and capitalism
What boils down to wealth distribution and letting wealth concentrate, but with fancier words. You need a balance of the two.
I’m beginning to think we need a balance of both ideologies in general. Or else this left vs right bullshit is just going to get worse.
The point is that people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism, just because there were a bunch of countries claiming to be socialist in history, despite being incredibly undemocratic.
Socialism is the workers controlling society. So by definition (or at least my interpretation), none of those countries were/are socialist anyway.
people will pretend that socialism = authoritarianism
Americans perhaps - they tend to use the terms communism/socialism interchangeably and can’t seem to explain why they don’t like either. Those of us who’ve grown up with political variety know what socialism is.
I don’t think socialism and democracy have anything to do with each other (other than that if you give people democracy they will generally vote for socialism depending on how empathetic the group is).
You can have socialism with zero democracy and you can have socialism with tons of democracy.
socialism with zero democracy
I must ask, how? How can you meaningfully have socialism without democracy?
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn’t pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That’s not democracy.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
The USSR could theoretically have done so, if they stuck with their vanguard party idea and didn’t pervert it by using the power obtained to oppress people and otherwise commit human rights violations.
What your describing is a benevolent dictatorship. Having a party that’s not beholden to the workers isn’t socialism, in my view. The workers need to have control over society.
They ousted the Tsars and Mensheviks without elections. That’s not democracy.
Sure, but this isn’t a system of government.
Or an even more pure example in theory would be a hypothetical nation of 10 people, 3 of which are oligarchs. 3 people imprison the oligarchs and redistribute their wealth to the other 4, whether they want that or not.
This also isn’t socialism. Socialism isn’t just reappropriation of accumulated wealth, it’s the control of all parts of society by the workers, including the workplace. If you’ve got 3 people deciding everything for the other 7, that’s not socialism, in my view.
You’ll find a lot of MLs online (and one I met in person): oh but China listens to and considers what’s best for the workers and implements that!
- No they don’t (in the case of China)
- Being considered is not meaningful control and is revocable at any time by just not listening…
My conclusion, socialism without democracy doesn’t make sense and isn’t a thing.
Not if you read the closeted fascist warning signs on democracy.
Sorry, what? That made no sense.
Its closeted fascism portrayed as democracy
It’s almost like the problem is authoritarianism, not the economic system
Capitalism is authoritarian on at least the company scale (and more so at a society level, when you identify the coercive control that’s exerted because you can either toe the line or be homeless - as a oversimplification).
So, you are perhaps correct that the problem is with authoritianism, but it’s just that capitalism, as an economic system, is authoritian.
If you can’t vote on who manages your workplace, and have to comply else lose your job (and depending on the country, you house, your healthcare, etc) that’s authoritarian, just in a slightly different context.
Extremism is also the problem, because it allows economic systems to be taken to extremes, which become unbalanced and that then unbalances other systems, like the political systems, which when given the right push by a particular aspiring authoritarian can easily end up landing on authoritarianism.
The middle ground is usually the safest place to be. Socialism and capitalism are economic tools, they both have their place, for certain purpose. Extremists would tell you one is strictly, absolutely, and universally better than the other and imply that thus we should only ever use one system for everything (usually without strictly, absolutely, or universally defining what “better” actually means, because it’s usually a pretty self-serving form of “better”). That is an extremist position that many capitalists take, and most of western society spent the last oh, hundred years or so believing to various degrees.
Socialized medicine is perfectly sensible, for example, and that’s a hill I’m perfectly willing to die on (but because I have access to socialized medicine I probably won’t have to die, and I won’t be bankrupted either, hooray :P)
Socialism is not perfect, but neither is capitalism, neither is democracy, neither is pretty much anything. Perfection is a myth. There is no perfect tool, not in a workshop and not in a civilization. Some are more powerful than others. Some are more dangerous. Often the most powerful ones are the most dangerous. That doesn’t mean they are bad, but it does mean we must respect them and use them with care and attention, and only when appropriate. We don’t have perfect tools, and we probably never will but we can have a large and growing collection of tools we can use to manage our lives, our society, and our civilization. The more tools we know how to use safely the better. Only using one tool for everything is a stupid way of doing things, and it can be dangerous in its own way.
Our economic system has spawned a new type of player, the Sociopathic Oligarch, who has embraced authoritarianism to protect their fortunes.
This is non sequitur.
“Bad thing happens under system X, therefore system X is uniquely responsible/bad.”
No. We have an entire history to refer to where these things also happen under socialism, communism, feudalism, fascism, theocratic states, monarchies, juntas, etc. It’s also ballsy to try make the claim, because if there is significant relation between systemic ideologies and these symptoms, rather than a more anthropological one, then socialist or communist states are the historical leader with Stalin, Mao’s China, East Germany, NK’s juche, etc. But only a moron would neglect the actual causes, generally concentrated and unaccountable power(s). Socialism and capitalism are just optional toppings. It’s like saying “the pizza is burned because you chose anchovies and not pineapple”.
And that kind of this vs that leads into what’s really going on here, one of the internet’s favourite passtimes; tribalism. Pick a team, learn enough about the game to follow what’s going on, go to war with whatever rivals your new peers tell you too, scream nonsensical things from the armchair. So an identity-protective cognition ends up with a post lacking comparison and history, for a conclusion OP’s in-group is committed to. I e. such a post does nothing for outreach to non-socialist thinkers, even though OP thinks they’re provoking thoughts. Ironically, only someone inflicted by this wouldn’t be able to see it.
The OP is a counter argument to the non sequitur viewpoint. Right wingers love to say socialism is bad because it will bring these things. OP is saying, we have those anyway, so it’s not a good argument against socialism.
Yeah, because its all projection from capitalist about what they would do with power.
I’ve seen several times where somebody posts a picture saying “Look what socialism causes,” and the picture is like a tent city in modern America that was created under capitalism.
Makes sense when you think about it, wouldn’t you do the same if you were intending on ruling over a group of people like despots?
The fun thing is that none of those things have ever been a symptom of communism/socialism. The authoritarian states, that refer/referred to themselves by those names despite having nothing to do with them in reality, wished to maintain unitary control of the people and implemented those things and bled the people dry in spite of the egalitarian nature of their supposed communism/socialism. But those things absolutely are symptoms of capitalism, where unitary control and draining every dime you can from anyone you can is part of the system.
If you are honest it’s undeniable that half that list can be linked to every country ever attempting communism.
Problem is Americans don’t understand there is something in between their insane system and North Korea. Its called democratic socialism
I’m aware. But none of them have ever actually met the definition of communism. At minimum, all of them still had central unitary state powers. That is, by definition, not communism. The flaw with the theory of economic transition to communism is not necessarily the communism, but the transition. It requires a unitary party to seize the means of production, and then voluntarily distribute those means to the people and dissolve the central government structure. You’ll notice that that last step has never happened on a national scale in history.
I’m also not a communist, for what it’s worth.
But none of them have ever actually met the definition of communism.
I really dislike this kind of thinking. People citing that we’ve never had a communist country tend to think:
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Only true Communism counts as communism. (So no failures of any real nation can ever be attributed to it.)
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Any country with any degree of market economy counts as capitalist. (So the sins of any nation can be attributed to capitalism.)
They use an extremely tight definition for communism and an extremely loose definition for capitalism. I’m a leftist myself, but I can recognize the intellectual inconsistency.
By the same logic, I could argue that the Catholic Church never covered up sex abuses by priests:
True Catholicism has never existed, as there’s never been a time it’s been truly universal. (The word “Catholic” means “universal.”) Obviously we can only ever talk about the failures of Catholicism once we’ve actually achieved true Catholicism. Until literally every single living human being is a devout Catholic, any discussion of the merits of Catholicism is purely theoretical and shouldn’t serve to guide our decisions.
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For certain kinds of communism/socialism, authoritarianism does seem pretty much inevitable. It’s not inevitable for more distributed community-oriented forms. But for any socialist/communist government organized at the national level, authoritarianism seems inevitable to me.
In order to seize the means of production, you have to do just that - seize it. You have to send scores of armed men out with guns to physically take control over all the productive assets in a country. And those assets are then available for the state to use, for whatever reasons it wants. Sure, the people in power will promise to use those resources for the greater good, but who is going to stop them if they don’t?
If we’ve seen anything in the last 20 years in the US, it’s that power and wealth are interchangeable. Wealth is power. Power is wealth. It’s why I oppose the very existence of billionaires - no individual should have that much power. If that weren’t true, I wouldn’t care so much about them. I really don’t care if a billionaire builds an obnoxiously large yacht. I do care if they start throwing their money around and controlling national policy. And whenever a government seizes control of the entire economy, it now owns the entire wealth of a nation. And if you have all the assets, have complete authority to decide who works what job, have complete say on where people get to live? Well that government now has total power over everyone’s lives.
Any government that powerful immediately falls to authoritarianism. Why? Because there is one and only one locus of power in that country now. Ambitious people can’t start a business or seek power through some other level of government. All resources are controlled by the central state. If you want to have any influence at all over that society, you need to get in power of that central government. The government is all-powerful. The stakes are total. Power is completely centralized. You as a leader either control everything or nothing.
It’s rather impossible not to end up with authoritarianism when a form of government requires, as a first step, to gather all power and wealth under the control of a single authority.
Right, the problem isn’t necessarily the communism it’s the transition point where the means of production are seized to what is meant to be the central government dissolving itself after distributing the seized property and wealth to the people. That last part has never happened and would take a truly perfect idealistic central party to ever do so. It hasn’t and will not happen. This is why every “communist” county has resulted in an authoritarian unitary state under a dictator.
