Why do we champion socialism/communism anyway?

[Torrocca]

And, also, the claim that Marxism-Leninism is Socialism is, at best, dubious as hell given that Socialism (literally right up until the Bolshevik regime in Russia, in fact) was and is defined as "the social ownership of the means of production", and not the state control of basically everything like the Bolsheviks played things off as.

Not actually going to argue with you about this, apart from sounding like a parrot with mentioning that Primitive Communism was a thing.

Genuinely curious, but how would a Communist Society under your ideals handle someone who wants to emulate Capitalism? As i understand it the only way to maintain the system is to use force, social control isn't enough. Hence the need for a "Vanguard Party" or having the government control basically everything.

Ideally, someone would have the freedom to start up their own private business (likely via turning any personal possessions that can be used as the means of production into privately-owned means of production rather than via using already-established MoP that are communally owned and shared, since it's unlikely the rest of the commune would agree with such a thing, all things considered), but it's dubious at best that anyone would voluntarily choose to become a wage worker for such a person when, theoretically, their needs are already being met under Communism.

[Czechostan]

Which communist war killed 80 million people lmao

The Great Leap Forwards killed 30 Million, Holodomor killed 7.5 Million, Pol Pot killed around 2 Million.

Hitler's genocides killed about 11 Million.

Neither is up there at 80 Million, but to neglect the amount of people destroyed by socialist/communist policies/genocides is naive.

tbf, we should differentiate between killing due to administrative incompetence and systematic killing. Systematic killing is arguably in the nature of both communist and fascist regimes, but while communists target the upper classes, fascists target entire ethnicities/segments of the population like disabled and LGBT folk.

[Pannerstone]

The Great Leap Forwards killed 30 Million, Holodomor killed 7.5 Million, Pol Pot killed around 2 Million.

Hitler's genocides killed about 11 Million.

Neither is up there at 80 Million, but to neglect the amount of people destroyed by socialist/communist policies/genocides is naive.

tbf, we should differentiate between killing due to administrative incompetence and systematic killing. Systematic killing is arguably in the nature of both communist and fascist regimes, but while communists target the upper classes, fascists target entire ethnicities/segments of the population like disabled and LGBT folk.

What a fucking cop out

And it was far more than rich people targted lol jesus christ

[Alien Overlord]

The Great Leap Forwards killed 30 Million, Holodomor killed 7.5 Million, Pol Pot killed around 2 Million.

Hitler's genocides killed about 11 Million.

Neither is up there at 80 Million, but to neglect the amount of people destroyed by socialist/communist policies/genocides is naive.

The Holocaust killed 17 million people, and the war of extermination that the Nazis fought for across Eastern Europe, from Poland all the way up to Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, left at least another 33 million dead. This doesn't even begin to count the millions others killed elsewhere or left suffering under numerous other atrocities in the few years the regime spent warring against most of the world.

Let's not downplay the shittiness of one horrible person or another.

I was going to argue that statistic but turns out i'm wrong with 11 Million. It's rather 18 Million according to The American Holocaust Museum. However that includes the deaths of both Polish and Soviet civilians and POW's. It certainly wasn't as high as 33 Million.

[Torrocca]

The Holocaust killed 17 million people, and the war of extermination that the Nazis fought for across Eastern Europe, from Poland all the way up to Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, left at least another 33 million dead. This doesn't even begin to count the millions others killed elsewhere or left suffering under numerous other atrocities in the few years the regime spent warring against most of the world.

Let's not downplay the shittiness of one horrible person or another.

I was going to argue that statistic but turns out i'm wrong with 11 Million. It's rather 18 Million according to The American Holocaust Museum. However that includes the deaths of both Polish and Soviet civilians and POW's. It certainly wasn't as high as 33 Million.

Yeah, the Holocaust was around that number, and then the invasion of Eastern Europe itself was about 33 million or so, at least for the USSR and Poland and not counting victims of the Holocaust, as far as I remember. 34 million or so adding Yugoslavia into that; not sure how higher it goes with other countries, but still, the point is that those millions of people all died directly because of the Nazis' genocidal policies.

[Czechostan]

tbf, we should differentiate between killing due to administrative incompetence and systematic killing. Systematic killing is arguably in the nature of both communist and fascist regimes, but while communists target the upper classes, fascists target entire ethnicities/segments of the population like disabled and LGBT folk.

What a fucking cop out

And it was far more than rich people targted lol jesus christ

It's an important distinction to be made if someone was killed because their ruler was malevolent or because their ruler was an idiot.

I said in the "nature" of the systems. Fascist ideologies by nature are opposed to unwanted minorities; communist ideologies by nature are opposed to rich folk. It's on them if they choose to kill dissenters or bespectacled individuals.

[Pannerstone]

What a fucking cop out

And it was far more than rich people targted lol jesus christ

It's an important distinction to be made if someone was killed because their ruler was malevolent or because their ruler was an idiot.

I said in the "nature" of the systems. Fascist ideologies by nature are opposed to unwanted minorities; communist ideologies by nature are opposed to rich folk. It's on them if they choose to kill dissenters or bespectacled individuals.

Where in the Fascist Doctrine by Benito Mussolini is it stated that minorities are to be killed.

[Miami Shores]

Not actually going to argue with you about this, apart from sounding like a parrot with mentioning that Primitive Communism was a thing.

Genuinely curious, but how would a Communist Society under your ideals handle someone who wants to emulate Capitalism? As i understand it the only way to maintain the system is to use force, social control isn't enough. Hence the need for a "Vanguard Party" or having the government control basically everything.

Ideally, someone would have the freedom to start up their own private business (likely via turning any personal possessions that can be used as the means of production into privately-owned means of production rather than via using already-established MoP that are communally owned and shared, since it's unlikely the rest of the commune would agree with such a thing, all things considered), but it's dubious at best that anyone would voluntarily choose to become a wage worker for such a person when, theoretically, their needs are already being met under Communism.

"Ideally, someone would have the freedom to start up their own private business (likely via turning any personal possessions that can be used as the means of production into privately-owned means of production rather than via using already-established MoP that are communally owned and shared,"

The problem is many would want to set up their own private businesses, and probably cant because they would not be allowed too, back to the first base problem, as the ideology calls for all the means of production to be owned by the people, which in all nations that have tried some form of communist socialism or whatever one calls it, are actually owned by the state in the name of the people.

[Alta Californians]

It's an important distinction to be made if someone was killed because their ruler was malevolent or because their ruler was an idiot.

I said in the "nature" of the systems. Fascist ideologies by nature are opposed to unwanted minorities; communist ideologies by nature are opposed to rich folk. It's on them if they choose to kill dissenters or bespectacled individuals.

Where in the Fascist Doctrine by Benito Mussolini is it stated that minorities are to be killed.

He probably meant National Socialism

[Genivaria]

And, also, the claim that Marxism-Leninism is Socialism is, at best, dubious as hell given that Socialism (literally right up until the Bolshevik regime in Russia, in fact) was and is defined as "the social ownership of the means of production", and not the state control of basically everything like the Bolsheviks played things off as.

Not actually going to argue with you about this, apart from sounding like a parrot with mentioning that Primitive Communism was a thing.

Genuinely curious, but how would a Communist Society under your ideals handle someone who wants to emulate Capitalism? As i understand it the only way to maintain the system is to use force, social control isn't enough. Hence the need for a "Vanguard Party" or having the government control basically everything.

Vanguardists are the greatest traitors of the revolution.
Stalin should've been shot.

[Genivaria]

It's an important distinction to be made if someone was killed because their ruler was malevolent or because their ruler was an idiot.

I said in the "nature" of the systems. Fascist ideologies by nature are opposed to unwanted minorities; communist ideologies by nature are opposed to rich folk. It's on them if they choose to kill dissenters or bespectacled individuals.

Where in the Fascist Doctrine by Benito Mussolini is it stated that minorities are to be killed.

Also Fascist Italy committed ethnic cleansing as well so this is a strange argument.

[Alta Californians]

It's an important distinction to be made if someone was killed because their ruler was malevolent or because their ruler was an idiot.

I said in the "nature" of the systems. Fascist ideologies by nature are opposed to unwanted minorities; communist ideologies by nature are opposed to rich folk. It's on them if they choose to kill dissenters or bespectacled individuals.

Where in the Fascist Doctrine by Benito Mussolini is it stated that minorities are to be killed.

but Italy did do "Cleansings"
of albanians and greeks, although not nearly on the scale of the Germans.

[Genivaria]

Where in the Fascist Doctrine by Benito Mussolini is it stated that minorities are to be killed.

but Italy did do "Cleansings"
of albanians and greeks, although not nearly on the scale of the Germans.

As well as Slavs and Jews.
As did Imperial Japan did a genocide.
Holy crap did Imperial Japan did a whopper of a genocide against China.

[US-SSR]

Socialism = workers' control of the means of production. Show me one nation where workers control the means of production that "hasn't worked." We advocate for socialism because wherever capitalism has been tried it hasn't worked.

[Greater Miami Shores and La Habana Cuba]

Socialism = workers' control of the means of production. Show me one nation where workers control the means of production that "hasn't worked."

Cuba

For the record I am Miami Shores and Greater Miami Shores.

[US-SSR]

Socialism = workers' control of the means of production. Show me one nation where workers control the means of production that "hasn't worked."

Cuba

For the record I am Miami Shores and Greater Miami Shores.

Which workers control their means of production in Cuba? I thought everything was under control of the state there.

[Greater Miami Shores and La Habana Cuba]

Cuba

For the record I am Miami Shores and Greater Miami Shores.

Which workers control their means of production in Cuba? I thought everything was under control of the state there.

lol, According to the new Democratic Cuban constitution the People owns the means of production, the Communist Party of Cuba guides the nation and the people, but good point it doesn't exist and has never existed and cant exist, because all nations need a government, and all so called communist socialist nations like Cuba, own the means of production in the name of the people and the Eternal Revolutions, lol.

[Ifreann]

"I was never a Marxist, but I think it sounds more convincing if I say I was"

meh, to be fair, more of a Maoist-Stalinist

You don't need to lie to us, friend.

---

me to, most communists I know/met in real life are edgey white teenagers who wear Russian fur hats are white and are in community college.

dyed hair is a bonus

So you haven't met any communists then? Cool.

I will never understand conservatives' loathing for hair dye either

Self expression is a sign of madness. Don't listen to anyone who doesn't conform.

[Cappuccina]

Its inevitable and will lead to a much better society in general

The only thing that's inevitable is humanity's extinction.

[Kowani]

Its inevitable and will lead to a much better society in general

The only thing that's inevitable is humanity's extinction.

Death and taxes.

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

The only thing that's inevitable is humanity's extinction.

Death and taxes.

Except in ancapistani societies, taxes do not exist there... in theory at least.

[Kowani]

Death and taxes.

Except in ancapistani societies, taxes do not exist there... in theory at least.

They very much do, the only thing changed is the name.

[Liriena]

Death and taxes.

Except in ancapistani societies, taxes do not exist there... in theory at least.

They're not taxes. They're just McVouchers you must pay under threat of being sent to the McLabor Camps.

[East Gondwana]

Mao and Stalin were Marxist-Leninists, an authoritarian form of socialism notorious for "anti-revisionism", vanguardism, and "socialism in one country", so yes, they did kill in the name of the ML form of socialism. That's one of the reasons why I despise MLs, particularly stalinists, hoxhaists, maoists, and polpotists.

And, also, the claim that Marxism-Leninism is Socialism is, at best, dubious as hell given that Socialism (literally right up until the Bolshevik regime in Russia, in fact) was and is defined as "the social ownership of the means of production", and not the state control of basically everything like the Bolsheviks played things off as.

I have to agree with this. Bolshevik-style socialism (ML, Trotskyism, Stalinism, Maoism et al.) was in a unique position as the first socialist system to actually control a government and as a result it heavily influenced the world's perception of what communism and socialism are and should be. And with both authoritarian communists and capitalists trying to destroy them, libertarian socialists have never really had a proper opportunity to "have a go".

[Duvniask]

Like I've brought up before, you've never done anything to justify this nonsense reasoning. As far as I know, everytime you encounter it you just engage in a knee-jerk reaction and bring up a certain set of buzzwords with zero elaboration.

I do not have to because the posts of a many adherents to this belief-system are evidence enough in itself. I do not give it the benefit of the doubt, I do not intend to validate their beliefs, I don't go there Into the gutter.

But ill tell you this, and I've realized that all the more as of recently, we come from a very different places and perspective when it comes to those matters. Like I said, I conclude that marxism to be an inherently flawed and reductionist world-explainatory belief-system that works by altering the users perception of the world through application of its own logic, theory and pattern onto the user. Its basically an overwrite. Its how totalitarian ideologies work, and part of the reason why it became in the end totalitarian.

I can understand however the appeal for it, because it offers this false determinist logic that one can use like go down a rabbit hole, and will keep delievering sufficient validations.

The fact that a hundred fifty years after the ideology was created it has failed to be implemented anywhere once kinda speaks as to its uselessness in the real world tbh

As said the communism memeplex has a strong tradition, dedicated followers, is often field for romanticized projections... yeah it keeps going strong.

"I do not have to"

In which case you have zero interest in actually having a debate of any kind. You accuse us of being unthinking, yet your gimmick is to just automatically accuse opponents of having a mind virus and leave it at that. You have zero reason to engage with me, yet you do so anyway, like a Twitter Conservative parading how much they've "owned the commies" by just replying "look at Venezuela" to every post. It's pathetic.