• AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      You’re not going to overthrow fascism, white supremacy or capitalism with random acts of adventurism. If you’re not more organized than your enemy they will crush you.

  • oyzmo@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Socialism allows for both public and private ownership, individual freedoms, and democratic decision-making, while still aiming for social equality. Communism, in contrast, tends to involve total state control and often limits personal freedoms.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Both Capitalism and Socialism have room for public and private ownership, the difference is which sector controls the state, large firms, and key industries. The Nordic Countries are dominated by Private Capital, ie it is Capitalist, while the PRC is dominated by Public Ownership, ie it is Socialist.

      Communism limits the personal freedoms of the bourgeoisie. All Communism is, is a more developed and global form of Socialism, where the small firms that once were private have all grown into the public sector or collapsed.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Tell me you’ve never read anything about communism that wasn’t written by anti-communists without telling me you’ve never read anything about communism that wasn’t written by anti-communists.

  • Letsdothisagain@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Workers of the world unite!

    Edit: not that I’m into that sort of thing… I’ve taken history classes, I’ve read about, I’ve watched documentaries, I understand that communism is not to be desired or

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Communism is to be desired, though it’s understandable that you’d be opposed if your major exposure is through western education and western documentaries.

          • Letsdothisagain@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Look you dirty Marxist, I’ve looked at your bio. Pushing for the extremes you push is crazy. Why don’t you dial it back from 11. Why push past socialism. That’s the way to go if anything.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              Communism is just a later stage of Socialism, ie Socialism of a more developed character, similar to how the Capitalism of today is a more developed version of what it was in the 1800s. All Communists are advocates of Socialism, because Socialism is a necessary prerequisite. There’s nothing “crazy” about that at all.

              Further, “dirty Marxist?” Is this the 1950s? Yes, I am a Marxist, there are a lot of us on Lemmy, including the developers. I don’t hide being a Marxist-Leninist, I put it on my bio because I want to make it available information for those who want to know.

  • Mark12870@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    It is terrible to see so many comments here celebrating communism. Communists were ruining our country (Czechia) for over 40 years and led it to economical collapse. When we tried to reform the regime in 1968, the Russians invaded to stop it. Communism doesn’t really work, and it has already been proven.

    Also, I have to say the country worked in a bizzare way. The government robbed everyone of their property, so in return, people were stealing from public supplies.

    So please try to study something first about communism in Eastern Europe before you start to celebrare this regime.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      While the Soviet Economy did begin to stagnate towards the end of the Soviet Union’s lifespan, it did not collapse due to economic failure. The economic collapse happened right after the USSR was dissolved, leading to spikes in poverty, food insecurity, a loss in healthcare, and an estimated 7 million excess deaths. The reasons the USSR collapsed were more nuanced than simply saying the Soviet Model “didn’t work,” because fundamentally it did, and it worked quite well for most of its existence. Stephen Gowens’ essay Do Publicly Owned, Planned Economies Work? goes into detail on what legitimately worked quite well, and where it started to falter and eventually was dissolved from the top-down.

      The reasons included the following problems:

      1. Liberal reforms that gave the Bourgeoisie power over key industries (such reforms were actually a major desire of the 1968 Dubcek platform, in even greater quantity, hence why it was shut down by neighboring Warsaw Pact countries)

      2. A firm dedication to planning by hand even as the economy grew more complex and computers too slow to be adapted to the planning mechanisms

      3. A huge portion of resources were spent on maintaining millitary parity with the US in order to dissuade US invasion

      4. 80% of the combat done in World War II was on the Eastern Front, and 20 million Soviets lost their lives, with no real economic support from the West in rebuilding despite taking the largest cost of war

      5. An enclosed, heavily sanctioned economy relied on internal resource gathering, closed off from the world market

      Countries like the PRC have taken to heart what happened in the USSR. As an example, the PRC shifted to a more classically Marxist economy, focusing on public ownership of only the large firms and key industries, and relying on markets to develop out of private ownership. This keeps them in touch with the global economy without giving the bourgeoisie control of key industries, and thus the bourgeoisie has no power over the economy or the state.

      Moreover, as a consequence of collapse, polling from Pew Researcg suggests 77% of Czechs believe they are worse off economically than under Socialism. This is generally true in various degrees across the other post-Soviet states, had the USSR not been dissolved, it would have likely continued to improve conditions at a faster rate than modern Capitalism, and the misery it has brought.

  • thedruid@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Because at then end ,power over the people is given to the state. When you give the state the means of production and that state falls under the sway of humans with power, you get corruption and death.

    Once a place has enough people, anonymity happens. We stop knowing our neighbors and leaders. We don’t see the corruption they can now hide. Communism gives an easier way to leverage that corruption and power more easily

    Socialism, more specifically forms of democratic socialism ( and with today’s tech it can be one vite one person), is far more scalable and stable

    We need a new constitution with more power given to the people and LESS to the state

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Communism gives no more anonymity or room for corruption than Capitalism or Socialism. Further, Communism is Socialism developed to a higher stage. Socialism itself is an economy where public ownership is the principle aspect, ie has control over large firms, key industries, and the state. All Socialism is democratic, so I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, I don’t see why you say it’s more scaleable when Communism is a global and fully publicly owned version of Socialism, ie Socialism developed to its natural higher stages. Even further, the government is made up of the people, assuming proper measures are in place, you can’t give more power to private interests and keep it democratic.

      • thedruid@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I’m sorry history has proven you wrong. You’re glossing over so many issues in this statement, I really don’t know where to begin

        I sincerely hope you have a great day. I’m not disengaging because of anything you said, I just don’t have the energy. Please. Have a great day

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          History has proven me correct, from the data I’ve looked over and the books I’ve read. If you specify, then we can go over what I think is relevant to the conversation, rather than me just regurgitating facts and book recommendations. I am oversimplifying, but it was a response to an oversimplification to begin with, specificity helps direct conversations.

          Hope you gave a good one too, but for future reference, disengaging right after saying “you’re entirely wrong” isn’t really disengaging, I still have to respond to what I think is a directed attack. You don’t have to respond if you don’t want to, but disengaging while doing so is ceding the last word, so to speak.

          • thedruid@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Stop. I don’t have patience for bloviation and self aggrandizing I sincerely wished you a good day. I do not care at all what you think of my disengagement. That farewell was your hint that I don’t have patience for this fantasy that has been tried , failed and regurgitated.

            Please honor my wishes and simply go Have a good day. If you have to get the last word, so be it. I won’t be responding

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              Insulting me then telling me to have a good day is childish behavior. If you don’t want to have a conversation, don’t try to exit it by trying to suggest whatever I have to say is devoid of value.

              Communist parties have successfully built Socialism throughout the world, and this continues to this day. The PRC is now the largest economy on the planet when adjusting for Purchasing Power Parity, and has seen the greatest alleviation of poverty in human history. The USSR may have dissolved, but during its existence it brought a doubling of life expectancy, tripling of literacy rates to 99.9%, dramatically lowered wealth inequality while rapidly growing the economy, provided free healthcare, education, and childcare, and dramatically improved women’s rights.

              No Socialist state has been a mythical wonderland, all have faced great struggles both internal and external, but we know it works because we can track metrics and gauge trajectories. Facts and history do not align with your assertions.

  • atmorous@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’d say 1 person owning most of the money made at the company is the problem

    To solve it everyone just needs to form or join a private unionized cooperative that doesn’t go on stock market for sustainable growth and so everyone at the company is making a lot of money too

    Then collectively you all grow the pot that is available for all of you. Better to all be making 1,000,000 each and then grow it together to become 10,000,000-100,000,000+ for each of you

    That is the root issue. Not enough of that

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      This doesn’t solve the systemic pressures within Capitalism, nor does it describe how to get from A to B. Your idea still depends on your one firm outcompeting other firms, which is difficult in saturated markets.

      I recommend you look into Marxist theory, I have some recommendations I can make.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          I’d say it would be a good step to take if I thought it was legitimately possible in the current system. If it succeded, it would be good, but such a strategy has never worked before and there’s no evidence that it will.

      • F_OFF_Reddit@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        yeah all of the mates I have from Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary… they really lived through it and tell me is shit so I’m just going to go ahead and believe those who have lived under it rather than a random dude on the internet who’s just a lumpen

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          The vast majority of post-Soviet citizens believe they are worse off now than under Socialism, which makes sense because the reintroduction of Capitalism resulted in skyrocketing rates of poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, homelessness, and an estimated 7 million excess deaths around the world.

          Don’t know why you’re calling me a lumpen, tbh.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              Ah, the good 'ol “facts and data don’t matter, actually, because I said so” special. The fact that Socialism was better than Capitalism is today isn’t just in some studies, but repeated over and over again. It’s thoroughly well-documented.

              Further, you have no real proof of anything. Why on Earth would the sharp increase in poverty, prostitution, drug abuse, crime, wealth inequality, homelessness, and starvation occur because of the previously stable system? The dissolution of the USSR was driven instead by numerous complex factors:

              1. Liberal reforms that gave the Bourgeoisie power over key industries

              2. A firm dedication to planning by hand even as the economy grew more complex and computers too slow to be adapted to the planning mechanisms

              3. A huge portion of resources were spent on maintaining millitary parity with the US in order to dissuade US invasion

              4. 80% of the combat done in World War II was on the Eastern Front, and 20 million Soviets lost their lives, with no real economic support from the West in rebuilding despite taking the largest cost of war

              5. An enclosed, heavily sanctioned economy relied on internal resource gathering, closed off from the world market

              Countries like the PRC have taken to heart what happened in the USSR. As an example, the PRC shifted to a more classically Marxist economy, focusing on public ownership of only the large firms and key industries, and relying on markets to develop out of private ownership. This keeps them in touch with the global economy without giving the bourgeoisie control of key industries, and thus the bourgeoisie has no power over the economy or the state.

              Further yet, your casual queerphobia, assertion that I am both somehow lumpen and bourgeois, the incorrect claim that I’m a college student, and more baseless insults really just adds to the fact that you have no counter to the hard data, so you resort to personal attacks.

              The fact is, under Socialism, necessities were taken care of, and luxuries were shorter in supply. Luxuries increased for those who could afford them after Capitalism came, while many of those who couldn’t enjoyed their new “freedom” starving to death. You insult them.

              Unsurprisingly, you defend the fascist Bukele here. Entirely unsurprising, the anticommunism from you suddenly clicks when we see what makes you cheer.

  • CalipherJones@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Sad to say, but humans are the root of evil. Atrocities have been done in the name of all sorts of things, but it’s always humans carrying it out.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      That’s the plan! Though I want to aid in turning my own country Communist, as that would benefit the most people globally, or at least take down the US Empire.

      Ableism aint cool either.

      • atmorous@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Read my comment on this post. Think Capitalism mixed with Socialism would be good alternative for everyone

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          I responded to it, but I want to respond to this as well. There’s really no such thing as “mixing” Capitalism with Socialism. Private and Public property can be mixed, but what determines Capitalism or Socialism is if the former is the principle aspect of the economy, or the latter. By principle, I mean which controls the state, large firms, and key industries.

  • Mangoholic@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Capitalism is a system and just that, it has no moral, therefore cannot be evil. The red hand without the ussr symbol would make this image more unified.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Yeah, there’s nothing worse than a bunch of billionaire shitheads, using the media they control to keep the lower classes fighting with each other while they . . . the rich . . . run off with all the farking money. Oh wait, that’s what’s going on Russia, too.

    There are no “good guys” here. Just billionaire assholes exploiting everybody.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      The Russian Federation ceased being Socialist in the early 90s, the Hammer and Sickle is a symbol of Marxism. Not sure what your point is.

      • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        The point is that it’s a class war. It always has been. It’s not about “socialism vs capitalism” or “liberals vs conservatives” or The Romulans vs The Federation. It’s about billionaires vs everybody else. It’s about the cluefull vs the clueless.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Class War is a fundamental part of the Socialist canon, though, while Capitalism affirms that it is unnecessary.

          Further, a bit nitpicky, but I don’t like framing it as “cluefull vs clueless.” People’s ideas are a product of their material conditions, we shouldn’t downtalk those who don’t know more.

          • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            The people who told you what socialism or capitalism is, LIED to you. “The good of the people” is a noble-sounding goal. But the reality is that the people who deliberately seek power are . . . for the most part . . . vain, greedy, brutal assholes.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              I don’t think Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc were lying to me when discussing what they wanted to implement and how Socialism and Capitalism function. I don’t think reading speeches and writings of Deng Xiapoing, Xi Jinping, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Joseph Stalin, Kim Il Sung, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, or other leaders of AES states were lying about their intended goals or economic policies either.

              I genuinely don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Are you rejecting analysis of Political Economy, in favor of vibes-based social movements? Genuinely.

              • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                Karl Marx said a lot of things about socialism and collectivism a hundred years ago, but he’s not in charge anymore. The rich oligarchs who replaced him are saying this. You keep saying “but they SAID they were SOCIALISTS” and all I see is Sponge Bob’s eyes, filling up with tears because he just can’t believe that some rich assholes are lying to him.

                We have people in this country who claim to be “christians” who literally elected the anti-christ. Trump embodies ALL the seven deadly sins, but those folks are just fine with it. So let’s quit pretending that belief systems can’t be exploited.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  5 months ago

                  Karl Marx was never “in charge.” He developed a framework for analyzing Political Economy in a manner useful for the Proletariat to identify the manner in which we are exploited, and how we may go about defeating the Bourgeoisie. There are no rich oligarchs replacing Marx.

                  Belief systems certainly can be exploited, but that isn’t the point you are making here. Your point is that we should disregard analysis of Political Economy in favor of vibes-based action. If you don’t do the effort of studying Political Economy, any conclusions you come to will be based on shaky foundations, rather than throwing theory aside, we need to weild it to guide correct practice.

                  Funny enough, Mao described your error over half a century ago, in On Practice:

                  The second point is that knowledge needs to be deepened, that the perceptual stage of knowledge needs to be developed to the rational stage – this is the dialectics of the theory of knowledge.[5] To think that knowledge can stop at the lower, perceptual stage and that perceptual knowledge alone is reliable while rational knowledge is not, would be to repeat the historical error of “empiricism”. This theory errs in failing to understand that, although the data of perception reflect certain realities in the objective world (I am not speaking here of idealist empiricism which confines experience to so-called introspection), they are merely one-sided and superficial, reflecting things incompletely and not reflecting their essence. Fully to reflect a thing in its totality, to reflect its essence, to reflect its inherent laws, it is necessary through the exercise of thought to reconstruct the rich data of sense perception, discarding the dross and selecting the essential, eliminating the false and retaining the true, proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside, in order to form a system of concepts and theories – it is necessary to make a leap from perceptual to rational knowledge. Such reconstructed knowledge is not more empty or more unreliable; on the contrary, whatever has been scientifically reconstructed in the process of cognition, on the basis of practice, reflects objective reality, as Lenin said, more deeply, more truly, more fully. As against this, vulgar “practical men” respect experience but despise theory, and therefore cannot have a comprehensive view of an entire objective process, lack clear direction and long-range perspective, and are complacent over occasional successes and glimpses of the truth. If such persons direct a revolution, they will lead it up a blind alley.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Cool agitprop posters like what OP posted rarely give you a particularly nuanced perspective due to their limited space. The intended effect is to spark conversation, not to beam Marxism into the heads of anyone who sees it.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      If we accepted the arguments that humans are selfish, then it’s an argument for communism and not against it. We should be creating social systems that encourage socially positive behavior and inhibit socially destructive behavior. Capitalism is like taking a drunk to a happy hour at the bar. The fact that people keep repeating this trope shows complete and utter lack of critical thinking on their part.

  • Catpain Typo@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Capitalism breeds fascism. As long as we have capitalism we will fight fascism. Communism is not the answer though nor is any extreme ideology. Social direct democracy or even sociocracy would be better systems.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Social Democracy retains Private Ownership as the principle aspect of its economy, ergo its still Capitalist. Fascism isn’t distinct from Capitalism, but Capitalism in certain circumstances, ie when it needs to put on a mask and brutally protect itself from its own decay, before taking off the mask and pretending it’s something else, ie it keeps Capitalism’s record “clean.”

      Further, being radical does not equal being wrong. Distance from the status quo does not mean it is not correct, we need to judge legitimately the merits of Socialism/Communism and not just say they are too radical.

      • Catpain Typo@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Not necessarily. A true sociocracy would value corporations on a system of social good. Not, as now, a measure of how much spare money it has after trade and costs. It should also be very possible to run corporations as co-operatives which spread ownership among the workers.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          Unless the Proletariat has control of the state, and thus can implement a “corporation behavior credit score” like in the PRC that isn’t in control of private interests, you will see corporations just lobby and get what they want that way. Socialism remains necessary, which is the first step to Communism.

          Secondly, cooperative ownership is nice, but it doesn’t stop the natural centralizing of markets or prove more efficient than public ownership and planning at higher levels of development.

          Really, it sounds like you would like the PRC’s model of economy. Companies like Huawei are worker-owned, the Proletariat has control over the state and thus profit isn’t the central guiding factor of the economy, and there are checks in place to punish corporations that go against benchmarks and metrics for “good” vs “bad” behavior.

          This is the “extreme ideology” you said doesn’t work.