Doesn’t matter to Republicans though – foreign (Xi, Bibi, Putin)

Please, for the love of God, just say “authoritarians” or something. It’s bad enough how much the two party system dominates American politics, culture, and ideology, but trying to impose those stupid categories all around the globe is just childish.

China 2? Xi is already writing books about how to govern China 5.

We do generally need to do a better job of recognizing when someone is genuinely curious and acting in good faith, and of responding in kind.

Every worker, a dictator of the board.

That wasn’t even the worst thing in that thread imo

“China is authoritarian because they don’t speak English.”

“Economically Pol Pot” is hilarious. Like, imagine something like, “I’m economically Pol Pot but socially John Maynard Keynes.”

You just need to embrace Fourierism-Liebknechtism-Pikerism, like Wales has.

I made it through the entire 240 questions but it didn’t take long to figure out which ones are always going to be neutral (who I support between regional and national administration depends entirely on who’s in control of them) and which ones will always be “strongly agree/disagree” (yes, immigrants and queer people do have rights, no, I don’t want to go to war for the sake of whatever “the national interest” is supposed to mean).

I’m more progressive that 100% of ideologies and apparently the closest country to me ideologically is checks notes Wales??

Definitely too commie for them. But the question isn’t whether lib theory exists, but whether they actually read it.

The vast majority of liberals get their ideas passively, from cultural hegemony. They don’t read books on politics because they think they already have all the answers, that it’s all simple and obvious. Just support “freedom” and oppose “authoritarianism,” and there’s no need to actually deconstruct and examine those concepts, because it’s “obvious” what they mean.

It’s like, hell, I’ve even read shit by Giovanni Gentile, who laid out the ideological foundations of fascism, in the hope of finding a coherent formation of that ideology for the sake of knowing the enemy. But I did so knowing that actual fascists would never read that nerd shit. What they actually engage with are conspiracy theories, rage bait, incoherent rants, shit like that. It’s the same way, we can seek out liberal theory to try to grasp some insight of the latent assumptions liberals are operating under, but it’s only so useful when they themselves don’t read it, when they aren’t even consciously aware of those assumptions.

If you try to ask them something that exposes a hole in their ideology, they’ll just ignore it, refuse to answer, or change the subject. They never step back and actually think about what they believe. It’s not something they’re interested in. Instead, they’re immersed in the soup of current events, just reacting to the current thing, and their opinions are formed around a combination of ideas absorbed from cultural hegemony, and what the news tells them to think about them.

Then why didn’t life expectancy increase under the ROC?

Yes, any country can reap large benefits from industrialization and modern medicine, regardless of the economic system. But communists were the only major faction in China pushing for those things. Communists always push for those things when they aren’t present, while for capitalists the record is much more spotty.

What the fuck does that have to do with my source? I didn’t cite the Black Book of Communism.

Because your source was caught making up claims in it?

The thing is: has Communism ever produced a good example in any country or historical period?

Depends on what you consider “good.” You can define good so strictly that no country has ever qualified. You can also define it based on the standards of historically wealthy countries with high standards of living built off of slavery and colonialism. If you do either of those, the answer is probably no.

Otherwise, if you look at socialist systems in comparison to 1) what they had before, and 2) what other options were realistically open to them, the answer is yes.

• China had a life expectancy in the 30’s that remained there through the Qing, the warlord period, and the nationalists. As soon as the communists came to power and redistributed the land to the people, life expectancy skyrocketed, doubling within a generation. In spite of those improvements, in 1980 over 90% of the population was still living in extreme poverty, which has now been entirely eradicated.

• Vietnam was ruled by a brutal colonial oppressor and fought against a corrupt far-right puppet regime, the communists won and established autonomy, raised standards of living and developed the country, and put down Pol Pot, stopping the Cambodian genocide.

• Russia under the tsar was drafting hordes of people to be thrown into the pointless meat grinder of WWI, rather than focusing on domestic development and industrialization. Even when there were reforms, the “moderates” were still insistent on staying in the war and reclaiming lost territory. Once Lenin came to power, he took the L to get out of the war and refocused on domestic development and industrialization. Standards of living rose, and the USSR rapidly transformed from a feudal backwater into a global superpower, even with bearing the brunt of the costs of WWII (which they were only able to do because of that development).

• Cuba had a corrupt gangster state that was a puppet of the US. Once the communists took over, they conducted a very successful literacy campaign and trained so many doctors that they’ve not only provided medical care to their own people, but also sent them abroad to help with humanitarian crises. They have, however, suffered a lot because of the US blockade (which has been condemned by the UN 165-7). In the past, they could have relied on the USSR for assistance, but without it many countries have had to stand on their own against US imperialism, without another option to turn to.

Accusing communists of not reading books is very funny. We’re like the only ones that read books.

The last time I pressed a lib on recommending theory, they just said, “a text book” lmao.

[Fascism has an extremely hard time rising under authoritarianism]

Maybe any non-authoritarian control does ALWAYS result in fascism.

You’re misunderstanding the terminology. Liberalism, as it’s being used here, is synonymous with capitalism. It’s not the opposite of authoritarianism.

In the historical examples of Germany and Italy, fascism came about out of a capitalist system and supported and was supported by the capitalist class. The economic policies of fascism involved nationalizing businesses belonging to the out groups, but was primarily focused on privatization, including the aforementioned businesses, in order to redistribute them to the in group. The reason that the capitalists supported fascists was because the systems they were in had become unstable and unsustainable, and they knew that their interests would be threatened if socialists came to power, but not if fascists did.

That’s not to say that every capitalist system always leads to fascism, but rather that every fascist state has come out of capitalism. Of course, people have different definitions for fascism, and the degree that that’s true depends on how you define it. A narrow definition that treats a capitalist class as a defining characteristic of fascism would make it true by definition.

I propose a system that puts a percentage of plumbers into the halls of government equal to their percentage in the population. same with scientists, and psychologists, and doctors, and electricians, and mechanics, and fry cooks, and teachers, and cashiers, etc.

How do elections work in Vietnam?

What you describe of people from every profession being involved in government is essentially how the Vietnam Fatherland Front works. It’s composed of 44 member organizations, primarily unions, a broad cross section of society that anyone can easily be a part of, and they conduct oversight over Vietnam’s elections. The actual administration of the government is done by elected officials, who do not have to be members of the Communist Party, or the Fatherland Front. It’s similar to what you proposed, except more democratic, since the cross section of society that makes up the Fatherland Front only oversees the elections, while policy is decided through the elections themselves. Even if you claim that the Fatherland Front secretly manipulates the outcomes, the system you’re proposing seems to be one where something like the Fatherland Front would rule outright. The only thing missing is the element of randomness, which only makes the people making decisions less accountable and leaves the possibility of someone who’s views don’t represent what the people want getting into power.

False equivalencies to cover for settler state manifest destiny bullshit.

And your comparison to the Haida is a false equivalency to cover for pro-slavery lost cause bullshit.

Which of them is actually a false equivalency could only be determined by establishing the relevant conditions that make one equivalent and not the other. Which you refuse to do, because you don’t have a coherent position beyond vibes.

“China is authoritarian because they speak Chinese instead of English,” you can’t make this shit up.

Those poor, defenseless Confederates, ruthlessly forced to abandon their culture by an oppressive settler-state.

Still doesn’t pass.

You want to make that argument, then you need to make the case of why it’s acceptable to liberate slaves in one case but not others. If you can set actual conditions, then we can have an actual discussion of whether those conditions were met or not in the case of Tibet. Otherwise, I don’t see how I can possibly abandon my position on Tibet without also abandoning my position on the Confederacy, which I obviously will never do.

You can define your terms however you like. Whatever you want to call the Chinese system, it lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty in a generation, which is an incredible accomplishment. As the World Bank link says, that accounts for three quarters of all poverty allieviation in the world, in the same time frame. You can criticize other stuff it does but you can’t deny it’s accomplishments, outside of dogma and conspiracy theories.

Your claim was:

Even if so, it’s pointless if the average worker can’t see the effect

I’m showing you evidence that 800 million people did see the effect.

Socialism is when people own means of production, not when govt does stuff.

It doesn’t matter if the cat is white or black, so long as it catches mice.