Marxism II

[Eurasies]

alas this pesky thing called capitalism keeps knocking poor communism down and won't even let it have a chance. I guess if we existed in a world where capitalism didnt exist maybe communism could stand a chance, but regarding its inability to process value properly and the reliance on absolute forfeiture of economic and civil rights to the state to function I doubt it would fair any better.

I get both of you guys are anti-communists but your stark lack of knowledge on the ideology or theory behind it really, really badly hurts your case. I'm not even a Marxist either and I still recognize that.

Do you think that if we were ignorant we would be discussing this?

At least in my case I have read books by Marx and other left-wing thinkers, based on that and DATA, socialism is the worst garbage of all

[Washington Resistance Army]

Name one that tried and failed without external pressure.

USSR, Venezuela in Chávez government, Argentina, Currently Cuba

The USSR was engaged in a Cold War which inherently involves non-stop external pressure on the parts of the involved powers. The US actively trained and supported individuals who then attempted to overthrow the Chavez regime and directly contributed to the instability of the region overall through things like Operation Condor. Socialism is still prevalent and popular in Argentina and the current administration pursues socialist policies so idk what you're on about there. Cuba has and continues to do relatively fine despite extreme external pressure from the US. So, swing and a miss on all counts.

I get both of you guys are anti-communists but your stark lack of knowledge on the ideology or theory behind it really, really badly hurts your case. I'm not even a Marxist either and I still recognize that.

Do you think that if we were ignorant we would be discussing this?

Yes. That's the case for the vast majority of anti-communists. I don't think you've really ever understood the theory or ideology because you're arguing against it entirely incorrectly.

[Eurasies]

Typical of socialists, whenever you win a discussion with overwhelming arguments they start saying neoliberal, fascist, Nazi, ignorant, bourgeois, oppressor and all those things they say

[Washington Resistance Army]

Typical of socialists, whenever you win a discussion with overwhelming arguments they start saying neoliberal, fascist, Nazi, ignorant, bourgeois, oppressor and all those things they say

Man I'm not even a socialist or a communist lol. I'm just a humble third positionist pointing out the glaring flaws in your critiques.

[Eurasies]

USSR, Venezuela in Chávez government, Argentina, Currently Cuba

The USSR was engaged in a Cold War which inherently involves non-stop external pressure on the parts of the involved powers. The US actively trained and supported individuals who then attempted to overthrow the Chavez regime and directly contributed to the instability of the region overall through things like Operation Condor. Socialism is still prevalent and popular in Argentina and the current administration pursues socialist policies so idk what you're on about there. Cuba has and continues to do relatively fine despite extreme external pressure from the US. So, swing and a miss on all counts.

Do you think that if we were ignorant we would be discussing this?

Yes. That's the case for the vast majority of anti-communists. I don't think you've really ever understood the theory or ideology because you're arguing against it entirely incorrectly.

The Chávez government began to show failures long before the United States began contributing to coups, look at the data

Have you seen how Argentina is today? It seems not, one of the countries with the most covid in the region, thousands of unemployed if not millions, multinationals in bankruptcy, the highest corruption in the history of that country, luckily a new trend liberator arrived in Argentina

The United States stopped putting external pressure on Cuba for a long time, and did Cuba improve?

Maybe I have misunderstood some things from Marxist theory, but I am not totally ignorant

[Eurasies]

USSR, Venezuela in Chávez government, Argentina, Currently Cuba

The USSR was engaged in a Cold War which inherently involves non-stop external pressure on the parts of the involved powers. The US actively trained and supported individuals who then attempted to overthrow the Chavez regime and directly contributed to the instability of the region overall through things like Operation Condor. Socialism is still prevalent and popular in Argentina and the current administration pursues socialist policies so idk what you're on about there. Cuba has and continues to do relatively fine despite extreme external pressure from the US. So, swing and a miss on all counts.

Do you think that if we were ignorant we would be discussing this?

Yes. That's the case for the vast majority of anti-communists. I don't think you've really ever understood the theory or ideology because you're arguing against it entirely incorrectly.

The Chávez government began to show failures long before the United States began contributing to coups, look at the data

Have you seen how Argentina is today? It seems not, one of the countries with the most covid in the region, thousands of unemployed if not millions, multinationals in bankruptcy, the highest corruption in the history of that country, luckily a new trend liberator arrived in Argentina

The United States stopped putting external pressure on Cuba for a long time, and did Cuba improve?

Maybe I have misunderstood some things from Marxist theory, but I am not totally ignorant

[Nevertopia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

What an entirely useless response that didn't actually respond to anything.

its the historical records of why communism fails every time its been tried. You know when the government starts calling farmers the bourgeois then you know something is wrong. But I guess I wouldn't know that because I dont know what communism did to the USSR or something.

[Eurasies]

Typical of socialists, whenever you win a discussion with overwhelming arguments they start saying neoliberal, fascist, Nazi, ignorant, bourgeois, oppressor and all those things they say

Man I'm not even a socialist or a communist lol. I'm just a humble third positionist pointing out the glaring flaws in your critiques.

I was not referring to you

[Nevertopia]

The USSR was engaged in a Cold War which inherently involves non-stop external pressure on the parts of the involved powers. The US actively trained and supported individuals who then attempted to overthrow the Chavez regime and directly contributed to the instability of the region overall through things like Operation Condor. Socialism is still prevalent and popular in Argentina and the current administration pursues socialist policies so idk what you're on about there. Cuba has and continues to do relatively fine despite extreme external pressure from the US. So, swing and a miss on all counts.



Yes. That's the case for the vast majority of anti-communists. I don't think you've really ever understood the theory or ideology because you're arguing against it entirely incorrectly.

The Chávez government began to show failures long before the United States began contributing to coups, look at the data

Have you seen how Argentina is today? It seems not, one of the countries with the most covid in the region, thousands of unemployed if not millions, multinationals in bankruptcy, the highest corruption in the history of that country, luckily a new trend liberator arrived in Argentina

The United States stopped putting external pressure on Cuba for a long time, and did Cuba improve?

Maybe I have misunderstood some things from Marxist theory, but I am not totally ignorant

I like how his excuse to why communism fails is due to external pressure, yet capitalism was also subjected to external pressures and succeeded. I wonder what that could mean?

Oh well, at least hes admitting that communism did fail.

[The Novakian Empire]

I find it strange that everyone goes to Venezuela as a seemingly good choice to criticise socialism with.

I mean, it's not like it wasn't a corrupt authoritarian narco-state ruled by some of the most incompetent people you could have chosen, plunging itself headfirst into mountains of debt and turning venezuela's democracy (admittedly, not the most robust you could speak of) into a total farce with blatantly-rigged elections.

Oh, and that's not even mentioning how they tied their entire nation's economic future to the oil industry, and then promptly fucked around and got themselves hit by an oil embargo.

[Washington Resistance Army]

What an entirely useless response that didn't actually respond to anything.

its the historical records of why communism fails every time its been tried. You know when the government starts calling farmers the bourgeois then you know something is wrong. But I guess I wouldn't know that because I dont know what communism did to the USSR or something.

Communism didn't do anything to the USSR because one of the core tenets of Marxism-Leninism is that first a socialist state must be built and true socialism achieved before a final transition can be made into stateless communism.

Again, this is super basic ideology 101, and you not knowing it only damages your claims of anti-communism.

[Nevertopia]

its the historical records of why communism fails every time its been tried. You know when the government starts calling farmers the bourgeois then you know something is wrong. But I guess I wouldn't know that because I dont know what communism did to the USSR or something.

Communism didn't do anything to the USSR because one of the core tenets of Marxism-Leninism is that first a socialist state must be built and true socialism achieved before a final transition can be made into stateless communism.

Again, this is super basic ideology 101, and you not knowing it only damages your claims of anti-communism.

in typical commie fashion you brush off any communist failure as not "true" communism. Yet never quite ask why communist regimes ultimately end up with so much corruption. OH wait, its because thats what happens whenever you try "true" communism, it devolves into a totalitarian regime. Maybe look into the history of your "basic ideology" and why it fails every time to "external pressures" like reality.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Communism didn't do anything to the USSR because one of the core tenets of Marxism-Leninism is that first a socialist state must be built and true socialism achieved before a final transition can be made into stateless communism.

Again, this is super basic ideology 101, and you not knowing it only damages your claims of anti-communism.

in typical commie fashion you brush off any communist failure as not "true" communism. Yet never quite ask why communist regimes ultimately end up with so much corruption. OH wait, its because thats what happens whenever you try "true" communism, it devolves into a totalitarian regime. Maybe look into the history of your "basic ideology" and why it fails every time to "external pressures" like reality.

Maybe you missed the part where I explicitly said I'm not a communist nor a Marxist lol, it's not my fault your anti-communism is rooted more in ignorance than actual understanding of the very real failings of Marxist thought.

[Nevertopia]

in typical commie fashion you brush off any communist failure as not "true" communism. Yet never quite ask why communist regimes ultimately end up with so much corruption. OH wait, its because thats what happens whenever you try "true" communism, it devolves into a totalitarian regime. Maybe look into the history of your "basic ideology" and why it fails every time to "external pressures" like reality.

Maybe you missed the part where I explicitly said I'm not a communist nor a Marxist lol, it's not my fault your anti-communism is rooted more in ignorance than actual understanding of the very real failings of Marxist thought.

except Im right.

[Cordel One]

That's easy to say when multiple capitalist countries gang up on every country that dares call itself leftist. Also, some data on your end would be nice.

Can you please write an actual argument instead of mindlessly posting the same 3 links?

It is not so difficult to look for data that shows that capitalism is better, even so, here are some

Corruption Perceptions Index
Countries with greater economic freedom
List of countries by nominal GDP
Countries with extreme poverty conditions
Human development Index

Do I keep humiliating socialism?

I can post links that point toward my being right too, in this case an essay with a ton of other links. It's extremely bad debating though, so if you could put some effort into your arguments that would be great.

[Nevertopia]

It is not so difficult to look for data that shows that capitalism is better, even so, here are some

Corruption Perceptions Index
Countries with greater economic freedom
List of countries by nominal GDP
Countries with extreme poverty conditions
Human development Index

Do I keep humiliating socialism?

I can post links that point toward my being right too, in this case an essay with a ton of other links. It's extremely bad debating though, so if you could put some effort into your arguments that would be great.

It sounds like you dont like people backing up their arguments with evidence.

[Duvniask]

Fixed it.

Communism has failed every time its been tried. Communists would argue thats because those communistic attempts weren't true communism, I ask you then why hasn't anyone tried true communism? Well the answer is simple, because it doesn't work.

Communism isn't something you "try". It's not like going out to dip your toes in hot water, only to find that it is uncomfortable. It is not a blueprint that is applied by a cabal of revolutionaries who take power and essentially try to will it into existence. Harping on about it having "failed every time it has been tried" in such childish fashion is no different from criticizing Leonardo da Vinci for being unable to build a working helicopter; the circumstances allowing him to do so did not exist. Similarly, the circumstances allowing the working class to come into power and establish a lasting dictatorship of the proletariat were absent. The simple reason is that the communist movement becomes manifest in the strength of the working class, in its organization and ability to make demands for itself as a class. The movement lives and dies with the power and cohesion of the working class. And in Soviet Russia it died from predictable reasons.

The place wherein communist revolution first "succeeded" was in a peasant-dominated society (Russia) that largely depended on labor-repressive agriculture, more thoroughly described by Barrington Moore Jr. in his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (1966). It yielded predictable results, because as soon as the working class came to power, they were sucked into circumstances beyond their control, having to carry out primitive capitalist accumulation in place of the (relatively) weak city capitalists whom they had expropriated. The state, ostensibly a worker's one, ended up playing the role of capitalist. All the bloody industrialization and terror and violence imposed on the peasantry was a result of that same fact. It was, to put it simply, a quicker and more ruthless version of what had occurred previously in the Western world, as small-scale agricultural units made way for large-scale concentrated ones, and the cities flooded with the now-landless people from the countryside, reading to work in the new industries. It is much easier to make sense of, well, the senseless violence in Russia or China when you consider their initially low level of development.

Well, according to the leftists with whom I have argued several times, true communism cannot be applied because it is impossible (utopian)

Its too vulnerable to corruption, the premise is you give up all your personal economic freedoms for more social mobility but then whatever institute that handles that transfer of power ends up picking who can be rich. And they tend to pick themselves.

Spoken like someone who never took the time to try and uncover the kernel of "freedom" as a concept. What you mean by "economic freedom" is just bourgeois "freedom", a cover for the reign of capital.

Do you want to talk about Venezuela with someone from Venezuela?

Why communism failed.
Why it fails every time.
Why it will always fail.

Your sources are complete garbage. Little more than blog posts written by ignoramuses who don't know what they're talking about. They are also factually incorrect in several places.

Let's take two examples from the first article that purports to list the "10 Possible Reasons" communism failed.

1. Creativity was not a priority in the communist society

By default, a communist country, such as the Soviet Union, valued utilitarianism above everything else. This meant that every action performed within the state had to have a palpable ending. Artistical endeavors such as poetry, sculpture, and painting, were not considered a good means of making a living.

Moreover, even the artistical drive was measured and controlled by a censorship committee, whose job was to determine if the work of an artist can actually serve the country or not. The arts usually entail a free way of thinking, something that did not go well with the Party.

The only creations published after passing the censorship committee were those that hailed the accomplishments of the Communist Party or those that encouraged others to believe in ideological utopias such as the class struggle or the supremacy of communism over capitalism.

Artists and thinkers alike who did not conform to the Party’s view were often persecuted and even faced charges of high treason.

This is a factually wrong and exaggerated view of art in the Soviet Union. While it is true that artists were subject to censorship and repression, this was at its most severe during the Stalin years. If creativity wasn't respected beyond whatever praised the Soviet leadership and society, then we would never have seen works like Roadside Picnic or Solaris, which certainly don't just paint a fine and dandy picture of the future (and present).

Also what the heck does she mean that "artistical endeavors such as poetry, sculpture, and painting, were not considered a good means of making a living"? It's not considered a good means of making a living in our society either, because it's not viewed as being "productive" or "useful" like a "real job" is considered to be.

2. Collectivization

Collectivization is another way of saying that private farming was not allowed. The force collectivization law was a doctrine enforced through Soviet Russia between 1928 and 1940, which coincided with Stalin’s rise to power.

With the industry taking off, the country needed food to support the ever-increasing mass of factory workers. At the beginning of 1930, more than 90 percent of the farms were conscripted in the collectivization program, which meant that all the items produced on a farm will be equally distributed among the population.

In other words, collectivization was another way of denying the right to private property, a doctrine which was adopted in the hope of optimizing the food production industry.

Naturally, the doctrine has been refuted by many farm owners who criticized the party views. Unfortunately, Stalin and the communist regime eliminated all those who opposed forced collectivization.

Similar actions were taken by other communist leaders, who wanted to demonstrate the Party was the bearer of truth.

First off the bat, this says literally nothing about why this feature of the Stalinist system contributed to its failure. The only thing to be gleaned from this is that "no private property = bad". It is also wrong. Even during the Stalinist collectivization, peasants were allowed to keep private household plots (RU: Личное подсобное хозяйство; lichnyye podsobnyye khozyaystva), and they could sell the produce from these plots on farmer's markets to make money for themselves.

---

I don't care to go through its other points, because it's similarly garbled up nonsense. The 2nd article is not worth my time, because it's a semantic dumpster fire, written horribly ignorant people who think that Marx' 10-point political program in the Manifesto has anything to do with communist society, instead of rightfully viewing it as an immediate program for the movement in the short term.

The third article covers the calculation problem, which is also mentioned in the first article, but I decided to address it independently. The economic calculation problem is, in the first place, based on a strawman by Mises and continued by F.A. Hayek. The economic calculation problem has also long been rendered moot by the advent of computer technology capable of fast tracking the kinds of information that would be needed to plan an economy. It has become incredibly easy to compute, in parallel, the necessary inputs from which production can be planned. Planning as a large scale process already takes place at the level of the firm measuring up its own inventories and coordinating the efforts of its various branches and subsidiaries to meet determined targets of growth and profit. Planning under communism, not bound by the anarchy of the market and by the enslaving subordination of all to capital, is far from impossible; it is the logical operation of a society that produces for the purpose of meeting human needs directly.

[Nevertopia]

Communism has failed every time its been tried. Communists would argue thats because those communistic attempts weren't true communism, I ask you then why hasn't anyone tried true communism? Well the answer is simple, because it doesn't work.

Communism isn't something you "try". It's not like going out to dip your toes in hot water, only to find that it is uncomfortable. It is not a blueprint that is applied by a cabal of revolutionaries who take power and essentially try to will it into existence. Harping on about it having "failed every time it has been tried" in such childish fashion is no different from criticizing Leonardo da Vinci for being unable to build a working helicopter; the circumstances allowing him to do so did not exist. Similarly, the circumstances allowing the working class to come into power and establish a lasting dictatorship of the proletariat were absent. The simple reason is that the communist movement becomes manifest in the strength of the working class, in its organization and ability to make demands for itself as a class. The movement lives and dies with the power and cohesion of the working class. And in Soviet Russia it died from predictable reasons.

The place wherein communist revolution first "succeeded" was in a peasant-dominated society (Russia) that largely depended on labor-repressive agriculture, more thoroughly described by Barrington Moore Jr. in his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (1966). It yielded predictable results, because as soon as the working class came to power, they were sucked into circumstances beyond their control, having to carry out primitive capitalist accumulation in place of the (relatively) weak city capitalists whom they had expropriated. The state, ostensibly a worker's one, ended up playing the role of capitalist. All the bloody industrialization and terror and violence imposed on the peasantry was a result of that same fact. It was, to put it simply, a quicker and more ruthless version of what had occurred previously in the Western world, as small-scale agricultural units made way for large-scale concentrated ones, and the cities flooded with the now-landless people from the countryside, reading to work in the new industries. It is much easier to make sense of, well, the senseless violence in Russia or China when you consider their initially low level of development.

Its too vulnerable to corruption, the premise is you give up all your personal economic freedoms for more social mobility but then whatever institute that handles that transfer of power ends up picking who can be rich. And they tend to pick themselves.

Spoken like someone who never took the time to try and uncover the kernel of "freedom" as a concept. What you mean by "economic freedom" is just bourgeois "freedom", a cover for the reign of capital.

Why communism failed.
Why it fails every time.
Why it will always fail.

Your sources are complete garbage. Little more than blog posts written by ignoramuses who don't know what they're talking about. They are also factually incorrect in several places.

Let's take two examples from the first article that purports to list the "10 Possible Reasons" communism failed.

1. Creativity was not a priority in the communist society

By default, a communist country, such as the Soviet Union, valued utilitarianism above everything else. This meant that every action performed within the state had to have a palpable ending. Artistical endeavors such as poetry, sculpture, and painting, were not considered a good means of making a living.

Moreover, even the artistical drive was measured and controlled by a censorship committee, whose job was to determine if the work of an artist can actually serve the country or not. The arts usually entail a free way of thinking, something that did not go well with the Party.

The only creations published after passing the censorship committee were those that hailed the accomplishments of the Communist Party or those that encouraged others to believe in ideological utopias such as the class struggle or the supremacy of communism over capitalism.

Artists and thinkers alike who did not conform to the Party’s view were often persecuted and even faced charges of high treason.

This is a factually wrong and exaggerated view of art in the Soviet Union. While it is true that artists were subject to censorship and repression, this was at its most severe during the Stalin years. If creativity wasn't respected beyond whatever praised the Soviet leadership and society, then we would never have seen works like Roadside Picnic or Solaris, which certainly don't just paint a fine and dandy picture of the future (and present).

Also what the heck does she mean that "artistical endeavors such as poetry, sculpture, and painting, were not considered a good means of making a living"? It's not considered a good means of making a living in our society either, because it's not viewed as being "productive" or "useful" like a "real job" is considered to be.

2. Collectivization

Collectivization is another way of saying that private farming was not allowed. The force collectivization law was a doctrine enforced through Soviet Russia between 1928 and 1940, which coincided with Stalin’s rise to power.

With the industry taking off, the country needed food to support the ever-increasing mass of factory workers. At the beginning of 1930, more than 90 percent of the farms were conscripted in the collectivization program, which meant that all the items produced on a farm will be equally distributed among the population.

In other words, collectivization was another way of denying the right to private property, a doctrine which was adopted in the hope of optimizing the food production industry.

Naturally, the doctrine has been refuted by many farm owners who criticized the party views. Unfortunately, Stalin and the communist regime eliminated all those who opposed forced collectivization.

Similar actions were taken by other communist leaders, who wanted to demonstrate the Party was the bearer of truth.

First off the bat, this says literally nothing about why this feature of the Stalinist system contributed to its failure. The only thing to be gleaned from this is that "no private property = bad". It is also wrong. Even during the Stalinist collectivization, peasants were allowed to keep private household plots (RU: Личное подсобное хозяйство; lichnyye podsobnyye khozyaystva), and they could sell the produce from these plots on farmer's markets to make money for themselves.

---

I don't care to go through its other points, because it's similarly garbled up nonsense. The 2nd article is not worth my time, because it's a semantic dumpster fire, written horribly ignorant people who think that Marx' 10-point political program in the Manifesto has anything to do with communist society, instead of rightfully viewing it as an immediate program for the movement in the short term.

The third article covers the calculation problem, which is also mentioned in the first article, but I decided to address it independently. The economic calculation problem is, in the first place, based on a strawman by Mises and continued by F.A. Hayek. The economic calculation problem has also long been rendered moot by the advent of computer technology capable of fast tracking the kinds of information that would be needed to plan an economy. It has become incredibly easy to compute, in parallel, the necessary inputs from which production can be planned. Planning as a large scale process already takes place at the level of the firm measuring up its own inventories and coordinating the efforts of its various branches and subsidiaries to meet determined targets of growth and profit. Planning under communism, not bound by the anarchy of the market and by the enslaving subordination of all to capital, is far from impossible; it is the logical operation of a society that produces for the purpose of meeting human needs directly.

thats a really long way to say communism is slavery with extra steps.

[Duvniask]

That's easy to say when multiple capitalist countries gang up on every country that dares call itself leftist. Also, some data on your end would be nice.

Can you please write an actual argument instead of mindlessly posting the same 3 links?

It is not so difficult to look for data that shows that capitalism is better, even so, here are some

Corruption Perceptions Index
Countries with greater economic freedom
List of countries by nominal GDP
Countries with extreme poverty conditions
Human development Index

Do I keep humiliating socialism?

Capitalism is capable of developing society? Who would have thought. It's almost like Marx doesn't spend the first pages of the Manifesto talking about this.

[Duvniask]

thats a really long way to say communism is slavery with extra steps.

I can only rightfully view this shit post as bait. You clearly aren't worth expending brain cells on.

[Cordel One]

I can post links that point toward my being right too, in this case an essay with a ton of other links. It's extremely bad debating though, so if you could put some effort into your arguments that would be great.

It sounds like you dont like people backing up their arguments with evidence.

I'm fine with that, I just prefer it when there's an argument to go along with the evidence.

[Sanghyeok]

USSR, Venezuela in Chávez government, Argentina, Currently Cuba

All of those had more than enough external pressure. Sanctions, cold wars, embargos, active military coup attempts?

[Sanghyeok]

I can post links that point toward my being right too, in this case an essay with a ton of other links. It's extremely bad debating though, so if you could put some effort into your arguments that would be great.

This is something I wish I knew earlier.

[Cordel One]

I can post links that point toward my being right too, in this case an essay with a ton of other links. It's extremely bad debating though, so if you could put some effort into your arguments that would be great.

This is something I wish I knew earlier.

The argument I linked? It's an absolute gold mine.

[Sanghyeok]

This is something I wish I knew earlier.

The argument I linked? It's an absolute gold mine.

It's very useful for those claiming "National Socialists were socialists", "100 million" and other overused "facts".